David Johannesson

What first drew you to the web industry?

I'd been doing video and graphic design for a few years before I started learning web development. I had always been intrigued by the profession, but I thought since I didn't know any programming languages I could never make it in the field.

One day I found myself bored at my old IT job, when an acquaintance of mine showed me his brand new web magazine. It looked fantastic and I couldn't believe he’d created it. He explained he was using this thing called WordPress and a theme he had bought. After that, for the next few months all I did was test out different WordPress themes to figure out how they worked and how I could modify them.

What were you doing when you first joined Treehouse? Did you have any previous coding experience?

When I joined Treehouse I was beginning to look for work in the web development industry, and after being constantly rejected I needed more confidence in my coding and design abilities. I wish I could say that Treehouse was the first coding education platform I tried out - I had given up on 2 or 3 sites before I found out about Treehouse via Reddit. (Shout-out to /r/web_design!) At Treehouse I immediately felt at home.

When I joined Treehouse I was beginning to look for work in the web development industry and after being constantly rejected I needed more confidence in my coding and design abilities.

You were recently hired as a front-end designer and developer. Tell us a little about your new job role, and the experience of starting out a career in the industry.

Woohoo! I am super stoked to be starting my career in the industry. Having a title of front end designer for a multinational company is both terrifying and exciting at the same time. I get to work mainly with Photoshop and CSS which, luckily, are two of my favorite things in the world.

How has Treehouse helped get you to where you are today?

I signed up for Treehouse mainly because I needed to brush up on my JavaScript, I also knew I needed at least a good understanding of jQuery to get a job in the industry. I quickly found out that Treehouse was the website I had been looking for all along. All the teachers were awesome and the user experience was fantastic. Andrew Chalkley and Jim Hoskins made learning JavaScript a blast, and Guil Hernandez ended up teaching me invaluable things about CSS that I didn't know!

Is there any advice you’d like to share with other Treehouse students who are just starting out?

Yes! Don't be intimidated by all the things you have to know to be successful, because no-one is expecting you to know it all. The right thing to do is to learn what you enjoy and have fun in the process!