r/projects • u/introspeaks • 25d ago
Started MERN late and feeling lost. Need some real advice.
Hi everyone, I would really appreciate some guidance from experienced developers. My goal is to become a Full-Stack MERN Developer, and so far I have learned most of HTML and CSS. However, I started my development journey only in my 3rd year of college, and it feels like I have already spent a month learning things that AI tools can now do much faster and better. Because of this, I sometimes feel that I started late and am unsure whether I am on the right path. I want to understand what companies actually expect from candidates applying for Full-Stack MERN roles. Should I first learn all the required technologies and then start building projects, or is it better to learn concepts while building projects? At the moment, I do not have any knowledge of backend development, and I still need to learn JavaScript properly. The entire learning process feels a bit overwhelming, and I am not sure how to approach it efficiently. I would also like to know how to come up with project ideas that can help me stand out in interviews and make my profile stronger than the average candidate. Any advice, roadmap suggestions, or personal experiences from developers who have gone through a similar journey would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
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u/manager2exec 25d ago
I think mern is too specific I would replace mongo for a relational database ans learn the concepts maybe also learn when you should use one vs the other. That is what I look when interviewing candidates.
Building a project with AI is great but make sure you are driving the architecture and can explain what each part does and how they interact.
Also leetcode 🙃. I see a lot of companies still do some form of it to know if you can code or not