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Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

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Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#31

Post by peterwwillis »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #24
redmattred wrote: post #2

QA is probably your quickest path towards a job IMO. If you're willing to do manual testing but has some capability to do automated testing you can bring some real value.

Can anyone that agrees about QA be more specific - like practical courses, companies that would be likely to be hiring, ...

I can't recommend anything specifically... practically any book that describes black box testing will tell you everything you need to know. You learn 99% of it on the job. The only prerequisites are basically word processing and internet skills.

Anyone who charges money for a product or service, produces a physical or software product, or supports different use cases will have some kind of QA. Often medium-to-large web companies have QA departments to make sure design changes don't blow up the site for different users. Different industries do QA differently (for example, medical device QA or anyone supporting ISO 900X is more rigidly structured and policy-driven than web dev QA).

Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#32

Post by FloNeu »

http://www.theodinproject.com/ I am a web-developer since 15 years and i found this excellent! Also gave it to a friend who wanted to see if working in this field would work for him and he loved it. I find it really gives you great insights in the broad knowleadge required. all the best, florian

Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#33

Post by qeorge »

Android is a great place to jump in. There's a lot of work for mobile developers and Java is a very marketable skill even outside Android.

The tooling (Android Studio) is also relatively accessible, and you don't need to know 4 different languages to finish a project (only Java, as compared to web programming where you'll need a working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JS as well).

You can also ship something to real people relatively quickly, and without a gatekeeper. Shipping an app of any kind, even a free Android app, will force issues like QA, version control, and customer support which are skills outside of just coding that developers should have.

Finally, Android development has a vibrant community that's learning together, and the landscape is rapidly changing. Your friends could jump in now, and wouldn't be starting from too far behind.

Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#34

Post by benaston »

shaohua wrote: post #8

Learn JavaScript. Go attending the 3month JavaScript bootcamp with http://www.hackreactor.com . You have 99% of chance of landing a $100k+ job afterwards

You think you can go from almost zero to being good enough at JS for a 100k job in 12 weeks?

Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#35

Post by edelweiss22 »

I know you're a proficient developer (to say the least) so maybe a clear perspective is a benefit: programming for a living is damn hard :) especially if you're almost starting from scratch suggesting node.js as a career path could be a sort of nightmare for a newcomer.

I'd suggest your friends to get their hands dirty with a popular open source project and getting involved in a software company doing technical support. E.g. apply at one of the many WordPress plugin/theme development companies (or any other popular open source consumer platform out there)

I suggest this in particular because such PHP projects are usually well manageable on the technical side once you get the grip. This does not involve programming at the start, but could very well be a "first step" into the IT world, and as paid by the hour could also be a side project.

Then, as time goes on, if the passion kicks in they can learn all the inside out of the things they're doing support for, and start from there towards working on development itself, or going solo and try building their own software project on the side.

As a dev for various software projects I saw some other support staff members grow their knowledge over time and in the end contribute to the project as developers themselves, also as a consequence growing their income.

Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#37

Post by amsheehan »

My friend and colleague Alex3917 was a YC non-technical co-founder (not sure which class) then decided he wanted to learn how to code. He's now really good at it and you should read this blog post on how he did it:

http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/11/2012-my-yea...

Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#38

Post by aruggirello »

jfmercer wrote: post #21

My advice: buy a subscription to teamtreehouse.com. Take ALL of the courses on HTML, CSS, Javascript, and PHP and/or Rails. They should then take what they've learned and build one or more projects, preferably hosted in a public GitHub repo, that act as a portfolio for potential employers. If they prove that they've actually built a real project(s) that actually does something , they'll be on a good track to find a j…

> If they prove that they've actually built a real project(s) that actually does something, they'll be on a good track to find a job.

A very good project might even get you hired - to work on (or "around") it and be paid.

Re: Ask HN: From zero to IT career, what is the fastest path?

#40

Post by sarhus »

I’d say a safe bet is Javascript, there are plenty of online resources, good courses online and whatnots. Although it’s true that self learning is possible, I guess the _fastest_ way would be to join few coding meet-ups (there are many here in London and they are free) and learn together with other people.

They should keep a blog/github with their progress too. They basically need to prove they can “do”, having a CV saying “Javascript: 3 month online course” won’t work.

Are they prepared to move away from Barcelona or Vienna? Cities like London and Berlin are great place to look for a job in IT.

best of luck

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