Ask and You’ll Likely Receive

This first blog only exists because of a morsel of wisdom Antonio Zamora, an established frontend developer, gave me in an email yesterday:

Do projects and make them available online as you build a portfolio.

Now, sure, I’ve heard similar advice from many sources on the internet, but it’s hard to absorb it when you’re not sure, or too tired to look into, whether the source had the expertise to back them up, or even if the source is an actual human and not ChatGPT. But when it comes from an actual expert, who was caring enough to respond to my cold email, it gives those words much more power.

There are plenty of disadvantages to being a young person in this job market, but one advantage we don’t recognize enough is our power to ask for help, and not help from a search engine or LLM, but from actual people. This will definitely be scary, maybe even terrifying, and the help won’t be as instant, or as plentiful as the internet, but you’d be surprised how much professionals would be willing to help a young person that had the courage to ask.

Not to mention, any advice and help you get will be personalized and come from an expert who wants YOU TO SUCCEED in some capacity—otherwise, they wouldn’t have written back. That in it of itself can be more empowering than any advice on the internet.

Of course, asking for help is one thing, and applying it is another, but I feel it doesn’t apply here. Since our expectations as young people whenever you reach out is pure silence, the amount of dopamine you get when a professional does reply? That compels us to follow through. This blog is tangible proof of that. Sure, we only exchanged an email, but there’s absolutely an "I don't want to let you down” feeling once I saw that notification that Zamora actually replied.

The other key advice Zamora gave me was to keep building consistently, so I’ll be sure to get my programming reps in for the coming future. But for now, I hope this is a solid start. Thank you Zamora for replying, and to everyone else reading this. I hope you’re looking forward to my future projects. You won’t be let down!