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Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

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Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#11

Post by NathanKP »

thethinker1032 wrote: post #5
clarky07 wrote: post #3

You could work on things for yourself. As a 16 yr old presumably living with your parents there's no risk. I'd suggest starting with a small mobile iPhone or Android app. Make a little bit of side money while building a portfolio you can use to your advantage later.

How would you go about finding a concept to build a app around? You don't want to end up building a so-called "sitcom" app which no one uses.

Don't worry about success of your idea if your primary focus is gaining experience. If you get some success as a side effect then that is a nice bonus, but the more important thing is that you gain experience and practice which makes you a success later on when you are working on getting a real job.

Personally when I was your age I was creating websites. I made a book search engine, and a geoip enhanced amazon affiliate ad system for easily adding affiliate ads to blogs and websites. Both achieved some minor success, although they eventually got banned by Amazon (the book search engine because I was scraping Amazon content, and the ad system because it got adopted by a lot of spammy content farmers because it was a highly effective way to monetize Google traffic, so Amazon blocked my API access).

So the ultimate success of my ideas was minimal, but the experience I gained from those two projects got me a great job at a startup that has led me down a very successful career path so far.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#12

Post by jc4p »

cweagans wrote: post #9

Just build something - it really doesn't matter what. You have a good window of time where you have very little requirements in terms of paying rent, bills, etc., so take advantage of that and just write as much code as you possibly can.

Bingo. This is exactly what I did. Build a lot of of things, it doesn't have to be unique, it doesn't have to have a business plan, it just needs to be something.

Build tools to help automate simple things you do every day. Build tools just for yourself. That way in a couple years you'll already come to the field with a huge portfolio, and who knows one of your random projects might actually end up getting popular and making you something.

I started making personal projects at 15, worked under my mom's name for freelancing sites while Just build something.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#13

Post by cmrx64 »

When I was 14 I got my first job at a local company. They let me "intern", with good pay. When I was 16-17 I did remote work for a company I found through stackoverflow careers. It did take a while to find one that would take me with my lack of experience, but it happened.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#16

Post by quangv »

I actually started programming around 16. I built my own social network.

I actually used it as reference for my first programming job at 18-19.

Just build something you're passionate about. At the time I wanted to be like Steve Jobs/Bill Gates.

Who are your heroes? Any website / apps you want to make? Any games you want to make?

I suggest you learn a language like Swift or JavaScript and build a webapp, iphone app or iphone game.

Since you are young, maybe you can program something you and your friends want?

Good Luck!

Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#17

Post by clarky07 »

thethinker1032 wrote: post #5
clarky07 wrote: post #3

You could work on things for yourself. As a 16 yr old presumably living with your parents there's no risk. I'd suggest starting with a small mobile iPhone or Android app. Make a little bit of side money while building a portfolio you can use to your advantage later.

How would you go about finding a concept to build a app around? You don't want to end up building a so-called "sitcom" app which no one uses.

Make something you're interested in using yourself. It doesn't matter if the app already exists. Read reviews, see what people do and don't like about it and try to make a better version.

Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#18

Post by bozoUser »

At 16 if you are contributing to open source you are well ahead of lots of programmers with jobs so kudos to you. If I were you I would use this to my advantage by having the git repos etc on my resume + LinkedIn and then start searching for volunteer orgs. for programming gigs and get noticed there and take good references and then apply for full time jobs. Good Luck!

Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#19

Post by anon3_ »

jc4p wrote: post #12
cweagans wrote: post #9

Just build something - it really doesn't matter what. You have a good window of time where you have very little requirements in terms of paying rent, bills, etc., so take advantage of that and just write as much code as you possibly can.

Bingo. This is exactly what I did. Build a lot of of things, it doesn't have to be unique, it doesn't have to have a business plan, it just needs to be something. Build tools to help automate simple things you do every day. Build tools just for yourself. That way in a couple years you'll already come to the field with a huge portfolio, and who knows one of your random projects might actually end up getting popular an…

When you did that, was it a website? A service?

Simply having an open source project in itself brings in no cash. Can either of you (or someone else) go into detail on your experience? Links are OK! The OP (and myself) would love inspiration :)

Re: Ask HN: How does a 16 year old go about getting work on software?

#20

Post by anon3_ »

clarky07 wrote: post #3

You could work on things for yourself. As a 16 yr old presumably living with your parents there's no risk. I'd suggest starting with a small mobile iPhone or Android app. Make a little bit of side money while building a portfolio you can use to your advantage later.

Regarding iPhone and Android apps? How do you monetize that? No offense, but these markets are highly saturated.

Even if you truly had the merits - how could you possibly be seen across the noise?

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