I'm 24 and left a developer job three years ago for personal reasons. Since then, I've largely neglected my programming skills and now feel rusty. I have college and university education, but most of it was either very theoretical or not especially useful in practice. I'm hoping to return to a programming career, probably using JavaScript or TypeScript.
The problem is that whenever I look at job postings, I start trying to study every topic I think might come up in an interview. I read documentation and books for a few days, get exhausted, lose motivation, and quit. Then the cycle repeats. I'm also worried that I'll fail if I actually get an interview.
I understand JavaScript and TypeScript reasonably well, but there seems to be a big gap between textbook examples and real-world software. How should I structure my return to programming, regain confidence, and prepare for jobs without getting stuck endlessly reviewing theory?
4 Answers
Stop trying to prepare for every possible interview question and start building something end to end. Pick a small app or tool you genuinely find interesting, then make it work, deploy it, and improve it over time. You’ll naturally need to consult documentation, debug problems, make design decisions, and deal with the parts that textbooks usually skip. A finished project also gives you something concrete to discuss in interviews and helps you find out whether you still enjoy the work.
If you want experience that feels closer to a real job, try collaborating with someone, contributing to an established open-source project, or building something for actual users. Working with requirements, version control, deployment, feedback, maintenance, and changing priorities will teach you much more than reading alone. Even a small project is valuable if you can explain what you built, what went wrong, and how you improved it.
It’s worth being honest about why you keep giving up. The issue may be a poor study plan, burnout, anxiety, or a lack of interest in programming rather than a missing technical topic. You don’t need to know everything before applying, and a three-year gap is not automatically a dealbreaker, but you do need a sustainable habit. Start with short, consistent sessions and apply for roles once you have refreshed the basics and can demonstrate recent work. Tools such as AI can explain unfamiliar documentation or review your code, but you should still write and understand the solution yourself.
A useful routine is to combine practical work with a small amount of focused study. Spend most of your time on one project, and reserve perhaps an hour a day for JavaScript or TypeScript fundamentals, testing, debugging, data structures, and the tools that your project actually uses. Tutorials teach syntax, but projects teach engineering. You could also solve a few coding problems regularly for interview practice, without making them your entire preparation strategy.
For fundamentals and algorithm practice, it’s especially important not to outsource the thinking. Use assistance to clarify a concept or point you toward documentation, then solve the problem yourself and explain why your solution works.