Getting Started with Magento Development

Magento is renowned amongst many eCommerce specialists as one of the best ecommerce platforms out there if you plan on building a large and busy online store. While other options such as the Shopify website builder or a WooCommerce+WordPress combo can get the job done for smaller businesses, the Magento CMS is definitely more of an enterprise level solution and, as such, obviously merits enterprise level invoicing from eCommerce web developers. With that in mind, it is not too hard to see why becoming a Magento web developer is so appealing!

Of course, if you plan on catering to the higher end of eCommerce businesses and charging the higher end price then you can’t expect it to be as simple as a drag and drop wix ecommerce solution and, as such, should be prepared to put the work in to get where you need to be, so here are some tips to get started in Magento Development…

Start with the basics

I know this seems obvious but I am sure many of you readers are as guilty as me when it comes to wanting to sprint right out of the gate towards all the shiny looking bits and mess around with them. But this can lead to a lot of breaking things, frustration and wasted time.

Make sure to build up your knowledge of the Magento CMS from the ground up. This will give you the basic information you need to build upon to become a master Magento web developer.

As with all new skills you are learning, you must walk before you can run (even if you are super confident with other platforms!).

Immerse yourself in information

Get amongst the community and absorb as much as you can! This includes catching up with and signing up to blogs, joining forums and groups on Facebook, keeping up to date with subreddits and engaging wherever possible. Work out where the best wisdom is and divide your attention accordingly.

Engagement counts for a lot, whether it be in blog comments or forums, by getting involved in the community you will learn a lot more and maybe even acquire bits of work as people notice you.

Get yourself qualified!

Whether you are looking to get hired at a Magento development company or are wanting to go it on your own, freelance style, then it can only help to have something solid to back up your skillset assertions to potential paycheque writers.

The first thing I would look at doing is a course or two on the ever awesome Udemy to get you up to speed. Then I would look here at all the official Adobe certificates and pick one or more that matches you and get them under your belt, on your CV and on any work related profiles you have online to increase your credibility.

Double check all your work

This should be standard no matter what you are doing and that goes for Magento development too. Look back at your work regularly and try to minimise code to decrease how complex it is, make it easier to understand and run faster while making sure you haven’t made any silly mistakes.

It is much better to double, triple check your work, test test test and then deploy than to find out you broke the checkout on a live site after many visitors have abandoned their carts in frustration!

Track what you do and run backups

Keeping meticulous work logs will help you track what you have done, what you need to do and troubleshoot any problems you may have by looking back and seeing what the source of the problem may be, helping you find a solution.

Likewise, having automated backups running regularly will help you massively when you break something really bad and need to return to a save point to try again. Backups are so critical that it is one of the very first things you should set up before crafting any eCommerce sites.

Comment your code!

This should be standard procedure for anyone who messes with code, but I know some people can slip, while a few never get into the swing of it. Commenting in your code will help you comprehend it in the future, even if you are 100% confident right now that you won’t need them. Nothing worse than getting cocky about some code only to come back to it, not understand what it is and have to start reverse engineering!

Get involved in events

Obviously in person events are few and far between these days but there are still online events going on where expert Magento developers share their wisdom with you on live talks. There are normally special networking systems set up so you can interact with other developers, share tips of the trade and receive some nuggets of wisdom yourself.