This interesting session was all about career progression for web professionals. The panel included web standards evangelist / author Molly Holzschlag and AOL senior design Cindy Li and mainly covering what coders do after they stop coding (all panelists came from a coding background, apart from Cindy who has been more design focused).

Moderator: Maxine Sherrin , Web Directions
Maxine Sherrin Web Directions
Scott Gledhill Web Tech & Strategy, News Digital Media
Molly Holzschlag Pres, Molly.com Inc
Cheryl Lead Founder, Molt:n Digital
Cindy Li AOL/Design Rabbit

After some quick introductions, the session kicked off with moderator Maxine Sherrin asking the panel when they knew they needed to progress.

Scott Gledhill, who’s skills sound very familiar to ours, seemed to be having the same issues we have when it comes to front end development - we can launch a fantastic, standards compliant site, but over time that site can be destroyed via maintenance (i.e. CMS and copy impacts. Due to this he became a standards advocate for his company, so that he could influence “the bigger picture”.

Cheryl Lead wanted to become a decision maker as she felt she was the bottom of the timeline food chain as a coder, while Cindy’s change (she is a designer who is becoming a coder) was due to her desire for more challenges.

The session then moved onto the options the panelists considered when they decided to take a different path in their career.

Scott’s role was created for him after his manager recognised the value of his skills, while Cheryl tried to get into both management and hardcore programming at an early age without much luck. Cindy simple wanted to dabble in a different area, while Molly raised a good point that everybody should be honest where their skills lay before making rash decisions.

A job ad advertising a junior position, but with the need for every technical web skill conceivable was then projected. After a few laughs from the audience, the panel was then asked if they whether they had come across the ad before and what their thoughts were.

The panelists agreed that its only really a wishlist and that no employer would expect a candidate to fill all the requirements. It also happens mainly due to lack for respect and/or understanding in the industry. Molly raised that a lot of people don’t realise that web design / development is a professional vocation, mainly because anyone can have a website (whether that website is good is another matter!).

The next item for discussion was formal qualifications, whether they are needed and what the panels qualifications are.

Opinions where mixed with Molly saying that degrees have never got her a job, while Cindy believed that those with a design degree benefit from the harsh evaluation as it improves analytical skills and prepares designers for the real world. Cheryl also raised that she missed out on a job atebay because she didn’t have a degree, while Scott said that his Digital Media degree was disappointing since he knew more than his tutors!

Everyone then agreed that the biggest challenge when they changed their job was softer skills related - communication, managing people, organising and delegating. This was particularly interesting since its the main challenge we have faced as we have moved on with our careers.

The next question was “how long does it take for coding skills expire?“.

Molly raised that she doesn’t code much any more and wondered how long it would take for her stop being a good educator (this is quite interesting considering what Scott mentioned about his degree).

Scott’s code suffered straight away by his own admission (his team’s developers are coding things in JavaScript that he needs to learn), but does still try and keep his knowledge up by contributing to community forums.

Cheryl’s coding abilities have basically expired as she hasn’t coded a site after the standards revolution a few years back, but raised that after you stop coding full time its ok just to understand the high level concepts

The final question asked was around the mistakes the panelists had made. The panelists where in agreement that the work / life balance is the most important thing as you can easy burnout when changing career paths due to increased workloads.

Overall there’s no clear career paths when it comes to the web, but it was interesting to hear that the panelists had very similar experiences to what we have had.