Feeling Underprepared for First Professional Dev Opportunity
Title: Preparing for
Background
I currently work as a full-stack web developer in a small startup. Two people source projects, and we complete them on a monthly pay basis. However, there are several issues with the setup (long story), so I’m looking to switch.
I’m a 2nd-year university student, and there are very limited local opportunities in my city—especially for PHP/Laravel development. Because of that, I’m aiming for freelance or remote work.
Current Situation
I recently contacted a friend of my father. He reviewed my skillset and portfolio and responded positively. He mentioned that he will arrange a meeting with his cousin, where they’ll assess me through some questions before deciding whether to offer work or projects.
Concerns
This will be my first experience in a professional environment, and I’m completely self-taught. I’ve been working with Laravel for over a year, mostly on backend-heavy tasks.
The problem is:
- Most of my advanced work is part of internal startup projects, so I can’t publicly showcase it.
- I do have some side projects, but many of them are incomplete.
- My frontend/UI skills are relatively weak.
- The visual side of most of my projects is AI-assisted and tends to look generic.
- I’ve recently started learning React and can integrate it with Laravel, but I still rely on AI for UI.
I do not use AI for backend logic—only for repetitive tasks.
Main Concern
I’m feeling anxious about the meeting. I don’t know what kind of questions they’ll ask, and I’m worried I might come across as inexperienced, despite having built fully functional systems like authentication flows and dashboards.
I’m also unsure how they’ll perceive my frontend/UI limitations.
What I Need Help With
- What topics should I prepare before the meeting?
- What kind of questions should I expect?
- How should I present my experience, given that much of my work isn’t publicly visible?
- How much will weak UI skills matter in this context?
TL;DR
Self-taught Laravel developer (1+ year experience) preparing for first professional opportunity. Strong in backend but weak in frontend/UI. Most work is private and not publicly showcaseable. Feeling anxious about evaluation meeting—looking for guidance on what to prepare and expect.
(Post body formatted with AI)