After two years of teaching myself, freelancing, and blogging while raising my family, I felt ready to apply for a full-time role.
There were months where I wondered if I was cut out for this, weeks where the kids were sick and I barely opened my laptop, and more than a few projects I dropped halfway through once I realized I'd gone about them the wrong way. But every misstep taught me something, and my portfolio started to look like the work of someone who knew what they were doing. When I finally started applying, I was selective about it. I sent four applications total: one straight to a company whose product I used and admired, and three through a job board via a recruitment agency. I put real time into each one: tailoring the cover letter, making sure the portfolio was clean and loaded quickly, and double-checking that the code I linked to was something I was proud of. Two of those four came back with interview invitations. The first one moved fast, and within a couple of weeks I had an offer: a fully remote frontend developer role based in the UK, paying £30,000 a year. I accepted without much hesitation. The interview felt manageable because I'd been preparing for two years. I'd talked about my work at meetups and ↓