Why Become A Drupal Developer?
Drupal is a powerful CMS which helps in creating beautiful websites filled with powerful features. It’s one of the most popular, robust and secured platforms out there and, in our humble opinion, flexible for both business and consumer facing sites. In face, more and more enterprise level organizations prefer to run a website on Drupal as security is their main criteria.
With all this, you’d think that a Drupal developer was in high demand. And you’d be 100% right. Right now, if you’re a good Drupal developer, you can find a job within days… if not hours (we’ve seen it happen).
Thus, if you’re thinking about joining the open source ranks of the Drupal world, now is a wonderful time to do so. To help, we’ve compiled a list explaining why it’s a great time to become a Drupal developer.
First Things First: Prerequisites To Becoming A Drupal Developer
Drupal isn’t the easiest CMS on the market. Some level of coding is required to develop a site that performs seamlessly. PHP, CSS and Javascripts are essential tools to know in order to develop a website using Drupal 7. With the launch of Drupal 8, some understanding of object-oriented programming and core PHP will be needed. Also, SQL knowledge, to some extent, will help you work with the website’s database to fetch necessary data.
Take away: You’ll need to know a little bit about a lot of programming languages.
You Get To Choose Your Own Niche
Drupal has an easy setup process, just download the core and you’re all set to go. There are various sophisticated modules which can be downloaded along with the core to create an effective website. Every aspect of Drupal development is well explained and thorough documentation is readily available. Because of this, you get to decide where you want to become a knowledge expert. You can choose to be a “well rounded coder” with knowledge in a lot of modules or you can dive deep and really figure out the ins-outs of a few fun modules. Another example: You could just focus on being a UI Drupal developer, where you only focus on the design of the website. Understanding Drupal and its capabilities is essential to utilize its entire potential, but focusing on your talents is just as important.
There Is A Fantastic Drupal Community
Come for the coding, stay for the community! The Drupal community adores people’s willingness to migrate to the Drupal platform. They are always ready to help newbies and get them on-board to make them feel at home. Drupal.org is loaded with content that helps new Drupal developers build websites out of scratch. Various events and meet-ups are organized by the community to spread their knowledge. The love and support people have for Drupal is abundant and not really found in any other open source CMS. This makes people not only fall in love with the CMS, but also with the community. Another bonus about the community: They’re always there to help. Just head to the Drupal Community Forum and look at the conversations for proof. There’s also a chat forum called IRC which is dedicated to give expert help to Drupal developers with a problem. Planet Drupal is another place loaded with content that helps you derive excellent resources not only on the development aspects, but also on marketing, infrastructure, advocacy, etc.
Did We Mention Jobs? There Are A Lot Of Jobs
In Drupal, the community not only teaches you the trade, but lets you earn through it. The jobs forums are filled with requirements for various Drupal posts. There is a massive demand for Drupal developers as the number of job requirements exceeds the number of qualified developers. With the Drupal 8 releasing pretty soon, the demand is only going to rise. And these jobs pay – In the US, Drupal developers average pay is $84,000/year. Also, check out the demand curve for Drupal developer jobs.
Some Of The Best Conventions Ever: DrupalCons
DrupalCons are frequently conducted in various parts of the world. It’s one place for Drupal developers to come together and improve on their skills. At the cons, you can learn from the experts from around the world and get the chance to meet like minded developers. Networking and learning are the two key elements that makes DrupalCon a huge success. Junior Drupal developers gain a lot of knowledge, all while having a lot of fun. They also run various contests, which gives you a chance to win huge grants!
Take home messages: Drupal developers are in demand, they get paid well, there’s a great community and pretty much everyone you meet in the community is fantastic. We’re sold! Need some Drupal development? We’re here to help! Contact us today.