Short version - build something that you want to build. Something that makes your live easier, or helps people you know. Platform and language aren't as importa

Short version - build something that you want to build. Something that makes your live easier, or helps people you know. Platform and language aren't as important as taking a project to completion. If you have any aptitude for this business at all, you ought to be able to pick up any language and API in a couple of weeks work, once you know your stuff. What's hard is having the discipline to get through the sloggy parts - fixing tricky bugs, adding features to your thing until it's actually useful. That's why it's best to start on building something that you can personally use. You'll have the motivation to finish that's hard to keep when you're learning something you have no use for. If your current career involves doing anything on a computer that can be repetitive, start by automating that. Build a website or an app that does something you need. Keep working - keep adding features to whatever you build, as long as it makes sense. If I'm doing the interview, I'd much rather hear about how you solved a real-world problem with your skills than how you spent X years learning Ruby or Java or Objective-C.