I was about 6 months into my support role when I came across a website called Code Academy. I was originally looking to learn a programming language like Ruby and Python but ended up on their course for HTML. It's funny I remember a year or so earlier I had taken an elective in college that involved learning how to build a website with html but at the time I had no interest.
I had gone through the entire course for HTML and then went on to learn CSS. After a month or so I decided I wanted to try and build something but needed a project idea. I would look up tutorials on Google or watch videos on Youtube but found my self getting bored after awhile and I had the urge to build something of my own.
I decided for fun I was going to build a website for the support department. We had a shared drive with folders with various guides and resources and contact info but it all seemed scattered. This was not the original lay out of the site but this is one of my first website designs that I created. With the help from Google searches and forms I was able to create a fully functioning web page with HTML, CSS and JavaScript .
Another 6 months into my role and I was offered a position with our Quality Assurance department. It's not my ideal position but it's a step in the right direction. I am working a lot closer to the developers now. While in my new role I continued to learn and practice with website design and getting more into Javascript. Word got out to the manager of my abilities and they asked me to re-build a site that the team uses for our test links. This is my second official project.
It may not look like all of the professional websites today but I am proud of this one. It has a full functioning side navigation built with CSS and a search bar that calls to a local database created with Json. I also added some drop down menus that function with Javascript.
I am still learning every day and as days, weeks and months go by I know I am getting better and better. Recently I built a website that I may eventually use for free lance work.
You can check it out here http://codepen.io/FrontN_Dev/full/wdEgbW/
If you're a developer on any level, learning, or wanting to learn or already are please share.