Journeying into the vast world of web development is not for the faint of heart. Not many people know the thousands of moving parts that fuse together to make a modern website, let alone what it takes to keep one performing optimally over a long period. Yet, this knowledge is something I decided to tackle back in 2021, when I was looking for a career switch up after working as a journalistic writer and screen printing assistant in west Michigan.
After meeting Jacob, founder of Hyperion Web, by chance in a local café back in the summer of 2021 and expressing a desire to take my basic knowledge of web development to the next level, he excitedly offered to share some hard-earned knowledge of the trade with me. It turns out, Jacob’s embodiment of a modern “web developer” far surpasses traditional notions of the term.
From building his own components libraries and sourcing the best new hosting, content publishing, and cloud computing platforms, to providing customers with continued SEO support after a project is complete, Jacob has developed a small business with a large skill set that takes custom web development to a deeper level.
Training with Jacob, I’ve branched from my timid understanding of HTML and CSS into a sufficient website builder, eventually even building my own from scratch using HTML, CSS, the static site generator Eleventy, and an independent personal server and content publisher. I have also been familiarized with the intense work of building up an SEO presence and maintaining it, using tools like Moz, Google Analytics, and Google Search Console.
Using these tools and witnessing how often they are updated and changing has shown me how fast the world of web development actually moves. It took a significant amount of effort to nurture an idea for a website into a functioning site that isn’t propped up by a clunky, typical CMS, but instead by a nimble structure that harnesses the best of the newer technologies offered to web developers and content creators. Especially considering that my experience before partnering with Jacob included a couple HTML/CSS classes in college, it is truly satisfying to see how much I’ve actually explored in the web development sphere since.
In the near future, I will be able to utilize these new skills to navigate through the issues and needs of websites I help oversee or manage, as well as their SEO needs. And in the more distant future, as I return to school for a master’s degree in Information and Archival Science, I will be able to utilize my new skills and knowledge to make the materials that I archive accessible to their users online.
I also have a significantly better conceptual understanding (and vocabulary) of how the information-to-user pipeline actually works, which is a powerful tool for the average internet user in an age where we are swamped by information, not knowing quite how the results of our Google searches are delivered to us. In all, I am now able to re-enter the workforce and academia primed with a significantly richer knowledge of what websites can do for users, businesses, and everyday learners, and better yet, how to work with and create them.