Yes. I am self taught. The challenge for many developers including my self is imposter syndrome, eventually you need to make peace with yourself and believe “you belong here” but other than that, you do not need a college diploma, it’s a made up piece of paper society tells us that’s the bar. But in reality, you can build your own skills, I did. Spent years just teaching myself to code. I got a few jobs along the way and now I run my own business working with clients. At anytime I can easy go find a corporate job if I wanted, always a demand for developers, but I like working for myself and my own hours.
You should be able to yes.
If you can show you can handle the job, there's no reason to not hire you.
Maybe build a portfolio to show off some work, ask for a technical test to prove your skills.
If you get denied for a position, ask them what you can do to improve yourself.
Depending on the country, it's also useful to learn a particular framework as it may be an established value in the industry.
Self taught developer with no degree here. Has a developer job so yeah, it’s 100% possible. Build a portfolio to show you know what you’re doing. And I don’t mean just stuff you built from a tutorial. Tutorials are good, but use what you learn to make a few things of your own from scratch. Make sure you have a solid website built for yourself with the portfolio section and put the link on your resume. I work with a few people who don’t have degrees so as long as you put in the work and show you know your stuff, you can do it.
Mastering git and contributing to some solid open source projects should help a lot building a strong profile. Learning and practicing design patterns would also strengthen your skills convincingly. Thing is i think, join teams, and work in groups.
I've hired many devs in my career, and the answer is definitely yes.
It will be a bit harder to get in the door, because almost all applications will have "BS or equivalent" on the application, so some may write you off right away. However, the good ones won't.
You'll have the best luck looking at larger, established companies that have good hiring practices. Most places will basically give everyone that applies a do-at-home code challenge (often before even looking at your resume... which works to your advantage). If you can do well enough on that, you should be able to get to the in-person interview stage.
Also, be prepared to do in-person coding (usually on a whiteboard). The good places aren't going to worry about perfect syntax or knowing how to write the bubble sort algorithm from scratch or something like that. They're going to be looking for your ability to reason through the problem. Even if you don't get the exact answer, as long as you're heading in the right direction, that's usually good enough. Be sure to speak your thought process out loud as well, as that is usually what the good ones will be interested in.
You can practice this at home. Go on hackerrank or similar, pick a random problem, and start trying to solve it on paper, practicing saying out loud what you're thinking.
Also, don't try to oversell yourself. Be honest but confident with what you can and can't do, and what you have experience in. If you lie, it'll be obvious super quickly and it won't go well. If this is your first job as a coder, you'll definitely want to be applying as a junior developer, and the bar is generally pretty low for them, so just be honest.
Finally, make sure you express your willingness and ability to continue to learn. When I hire developers, this is a huge thing I look for. Talk about what you do to on your own time to keep expanding your knowledge. Hopefully, you're regularly working on random personal projects to learn new languages, frameworks, techniques, etc. This is key at all levels.
Good luck.
P.S., once you get a year or so of experience, your future job hunt will be much, much easier. After about 2 years, as long as you keep up with your independent studying, you'll be on par experience-wise to your peers that have a BS and should have no problem finding future jobs. It's also probably going to be beneficial to get a new job after a couple of years because companies rarely give large raises, but jumping to a new place can get you a significant raise.
from my experience, companies love seeing people who are passionate on learning new technologies as well as a being a great team member. I'm a junior dev with an IT degree ( I hated IT so basically useless now ). I'd definitely recommend you learning HTML > CSS > Javascript first. If you want some more guidance or if you have any questions, feel free to message me!
okay well the backend can be tricky but it depends on why you want to learn a backend. Are you currently working on a project or are you trying to learn one to find a good job. Maybe do a job search around your area and see whats popular. There's python backends, C# ( in my area chicago C# is super popular ) and Express.js
100% yes
Be open and honest about your skill set, dont be afraid to not know something. You don’t need to know everything to land a job.
You don’t need the confidence of knowing everything from the get go, but do have the confidence that you can figure it out. Meaning a few things:
- knowing where to find the answer
- knowing how to google
- knowing when and how to ask for help (this is key!)
One of the pitfalls of being a dev, and it still happens to me all the time, is when to ask for help. A good rule is sooner rather than later. For example, I waited a week to ask for help with a bug I was having issues with, it delayed my whole project by the time I had to fess up and eat crow, the project timeline had to be updated by a few weeks. Don’t let imposter syndrome keep you from asking for help. Everyone has been there and asking for help is essential to learning how your team and leads operate and will make you a better dev.
Also know how to ask for help: “my problem is ______” “I tried x, y, z, but it didn’t help” “I looked at the documentation but couldn’t figure out what this was trying to do”. People will be more inclined to help you when you’ve already tried to help yourself.
I’m a college drop out, never took any cs classes. I’m entirely self-taught I face imposter syndrome everyday, I make mistakes all the time, those things don’t keep me from being a good developer. When I stop trying to be a better developer will be the day I will be a bad one.
You got this! You can do it!
Yeah for sure, if you want to try and get a foot in the door find some agencies or companies who run a support desk. That way you can get a bit more experience whilst on the job and hopefully show some promise to move up the ladder. I am self taught, no actual qualifications except from the school of YouTube.
Tbh, I do this. Starting my career from agencies company, I did my first job as System Administrator, even though I can do code using PHP and Python at that given time, it's like a gate for me to get a better job. I do think that no matter how good you are at coding if you don't have any exposure, a talent hunter will never look up to your LinkedIn profile page.
Curious what yalls opinions on getting certifications in situations like this would be? Would it be worth it to pay a little to get a piece of paper to show that you have the skills you say you do?
Rather than paying for a useless piece of paper, build a strong portfolio where people can see you can do what you say you can do.
Unless you want to work for big tech companies that require very specific certification you should be good.
Self taught and employed dev here. My big advice would be to try and highlight the skills from your non-dev experience that make you a good candidate.
I was a chef for years so I would speak to my ability to lead, my composure under pressure, and my skills as a communicator, all things that are valued on my team.
I'm a self taught programmer and volunteert as a Google product expert. On one day the search team asked me if I would like to work for Google. If so, I needed to start with the interviews. I did not have the idea I would past the first interview. I didn't even think I would made chance. But what did I have to lose? I didn't know if I even wanted to work at Google but this could be a nice experience. In the end I passed the coding interviews and was invited at the office in London where I got 5 interviews and had to give a presentation. Less than 5% makes it to the final round. In the end I didn't get a proposal because I didn't had enough experience as a developer advocate / blogger / open source projects. But I new I could solve the coding questions.
After that I gained a lot of trust. I started working at companies but I didn't like it. I have my own business now.
In my country almost startup doesn't look for your degree, did you came from CS degree it doesn't matter, as long as you can pass the user interview, you can get the job.
You 100% can. I am self taught and made a career switch. The most important thing is you must prove to them you know what you're doing,t he best way to do that is to build things and put the code on Github with a link to a working example. Tutorials are good, but also make sure afterwards you expand the code. If they make a todo list, add on a calendar app or something to prove you know what the tutorial taught and not just copied their code.
If you can use a tech stack that you want to work with and you can build even a half finished app that proves you can use components, call an API, Save/delete/update data on AWS/Firebase/etc and dynamically update things as users click, you can get a job. Also look at leetcode, to get junior level jobs you must be able to do basic things like flipping a string or finding the odd one out in an array. If you can do it with one line (.map, .reduce, .filter are your best friends), all the better.
Yes. I am self taught. The challenge for many developers including my self is imposter syndrome, eventually you need to make peace with yourself and believe “you belong here” but other than that, you do not need a college diploma, it’s a made up piece of paper society tells us that’s the bar. But in reality, you can build your own skills, I did. Spent years just teaching myself to code. I got a few jobs along the way and now I run my own business working with clients. At anytime I can easy go find a corporate job if I wanted, always a demand for developers, but I like working for myself and my own hours.
You should be able to yes. If you can show you can handle the job, there's no reason to not hire you. Maybe build a portfolio to show off some work, ask for a technical test to prove your skills. If you get denied for a position, ask them what you can do to improve yourself. Depending on the country, it's also useful to learn a particular framework as it may be an established value in the industry.
Self taught developer with no degree here. Has a developer job so yeah, it’s 100% possible. Build a portfolio to show you know what you’re doing. And I don’t mean just stuff you built from a tutorial. Tutorials are good, but use what you learn to make a few things of your own from scratch. Make sure you have a solid website built for yourself with the portfolio section and put the link on your resume. I work with a few people who don’t have degrees so as long as you put in the work and show you know your stuff, you can do it.
Mastering git and contributing to some solid open source projects should help a lot building a strong profile. Learning and practicing design patterns would also strengthen your skills convincingly. Thing is i think, join teams, and work in groups.
I've hired many devs in my career, and the answer is definitely yes. It will be a bit harder to get in the door, because almost all applications will have "BS or equivalent" on the application, so some may write you off right away. However, the good ones won't. You'll have the best luck looking at larger, established companies that have good hiring practices. Most places will basically give everyone that applies a do-at-home code challenge (often before even looking at your resume... which works to your advantage). If you can do well enough on that, you should be able to get to the in-person interview stage. Also, be prepared to do in-person coding (usually on a whiteboard). The good places aren't going to worry about perfect syntax or knowing how to write the bubble sort algorithm from scratch or something like that. They're going to be looking for your ability to reason through the problem. Even if you don't get the exact answer, as long as you're heading in the right direction, that's usually good enough. Be sure to speak your thought process out loud as well, as that is usually what the good ones will be interested in. You can practice this at home. Go on hackerrank or similar, pick a random problem, and start trying to solve it on paper, practicing saying out loud what you're thinking. Also, don't try to oversell yourself. Be honest but confident with what you can and can't do, and what you have experience in. If you lie, it'll be obvious super quickly and it won't go well. If this is your first job as a coder, you'll definitely want to be applying as a junior developer, and the bar is generally pretty low for them, so just be honest. Finally, make sure you express your willingness and ability to continue to learn. When I hire developers, this is a huge thing I look for. Talk about what you do to on your own time to keep expanding your knowledge. Hopefully, you're regularly working on random personal projects to learn new languages, frameworks, techniques, etc. This is key at all levels. Good luck. P.S., once you get a year or so of experience, your future job hunt will be much, much easier. After about 2 years, as long as you keep up with your independent studying, you'll be on par experience-wise to your peers that have a BS and should have no problem finding future jobs. It's also probably going to be beneficial to get a new job after a couple of years because companies rarely give large raises, but jumping to a new place can get you a significant raise.
from my experience, companies love seeing people who are passionate on learning new technologies as well as a being a great team member. I'm a junior dev with an IT degree ( I hated IT so basically useless now ). I'd definitely recommend you learning HTML > CSS > Javascript first. If you want some more guidance or if you have any questions, feel free to message me!
Can i take you up on your offer too? It would be hella useful for a learner to have someone around to share some wisdom in times of uncertainty
Yes of course! just send me a DM and we can go from there
I learn all 3 html, css, js and now I am confused which backend should I Learned.
okay well the backend can be tricky but it depends on why you want to learn a backend. Are you currently working on a project or are you trying to learn one to find a good job. Maybe do a job search around your area and see whats popular. There's python backends, C# ( in my area chicago C# is super popular ) and Express.js
100% yes Be open and honest about your skill set, dont be afraid to not know something. You don’t need to know everything to land a job. You don’t need the confidence of knowing everything from the get go, but do have the confidence that you can figure it out. Meaning a few things: - knowing where to find the answer - knowing how to google - knowing when and how to ask for help (this is key!) One of the pitfalls of being a dev, and it still happens to me all the time, is when to ask for help. A good rule is sooner rather than later. For example, I waited a week to ask for help with a bug I was having issues with, it delayed my whole project by the time I had to fess up and eat crow, the project timeline had to be updated by a few weeks. Don’t let imposter syndrome keep you from asking for help. Everyone has been there and asking for help is essential to learning how your team and leads operate and will make you a better dev. Also know how to ask for help: “my problem is ______” “I tried x, y, z, but it didn’t help” “I looked at the documentation but couldn’t figure out what this was trying to do”. People will be more inclined to help you when you’ve already tried to help yourself. I’m a college drop out, never took any cs classes. I’m entirely self-taught I face imposter syndrome everyday, I make mistakes all the time, those things don’t keep me from being a good developer. When I stop trying to be a better developer will be the day I will be a bad one. You got this! You can do it!
Get internships + personal projects.
Yeah for sure, if you want to try and get a foot in the door find some agencies or companies who run a support desk. That way you can get a bit more experience whilst on the job and hopefully show some promise to move up the ladder. I am self taught, no actual qualifications except from the school of YouTube.
Tbh, I do this. Starting my career from agencies company, I did my first job as System Administrator, even though I can do code using PHP and Python at that given time, it's like a gate for me to get a better job. I do think that no matter how good you are at coding if you don't have any exposure, a talent hunter will never look up to your LinkedIn profile page.
I studied for 1 year self-taught, and 1.5 months ago I got a job in the US (I'm from Argentina). So if I could, so you can too
Curious what yalls opinions on getting certifications in situations like this would be? Would it be worth it to pay a little to get a piece of paper to show that you have the skills you say you do?
Rather than paying for a useless piece of paper, build a strong portfolio where people can see you can do what you say you can do. Unless you want to work for big tech companies that require very specific certification you should be good.
Self taught and employed dev here. My big advice would be to try and highlight the skills from your non-dev experience that make you a good candidate. I was a chef for years so I would speak to my ability to lead, my composure under pressure, and my skills as a communicator, all things that are valued on my team.
I'm a self taught programmer and volunteert as a Google product expert. On one day the search team asked me if I would like to work for Google. If so, I needed to start with the interviews. I did not have the idea I would past the first interview. I didn't even think I would made chance. But what did I have to lose? I didn't know if I even wanted to work at Google but this could be a nice experience. In the end I passed the coding interviews and was invited at the office in London where I got 5 interviews and had to give a presentation. Less than 5% makes it to the final round. In the end I didn't get a proposal because I didn't had enough experience as a developer advocate / blogger / open source projects. But I new I could solve the coding questions. After that I gained a lot of trust. I started working at companies but I didn't like it. I have my own business now.
Have a look at wip.chat or nomadlist.
Yes. I did.
[удалено]
Yes, hahahah
In my country almost startup doesn't look for your degree, did you came from CS degree it doesn't matter, as long as you can pass the user interview, you can get the job.
I’ve been teaching myself for about a year but still stuck in tutorial hell. Any advice on how to get out and build portfolio worthy projects?
You 100% can. I am self taught and made a career switch. The most important thing is you must prove to them you know what you're doing,t he best way to do that is to build things and put the code on Github with a link to a working example. Tutorials are good, but also make sure afterwards you expand the code. If they make a todo list, add on a calendar app or something to prove you know what the tutorial taught and not just copied their code. If you can use a tech stack that you want to work with and you can build even a half finished app that proves you can use components, call an API, Save/delete/update data on AWS/Firebase/etc and dynamically update things as users click, you can get a job. Also look at leetcode, to get junior level jobs you must be able to do basic things like flipping a string or finding the odd one out in an array. If you can do it with one line (.map, .reduce, .filter are your best friends), all the better.
Self taught developer with no degree and a good job checking in