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How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

billmei.net

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Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#41

Post by komali2 »

jhmj98foeiedkj wrote: post #25
komali2 wrote: post #6

Damn, that guy busted his butt. I got a creative writing degree from a decent but relatively unheard of Texas state school, spent a month studying Javascript, got into a bootcamp, worked for the bootcamp as TA for 3 months, then got a ~120k/yr job in the bay area within a month of leaving the bootcamp. I had 3 projects on my resume and absolutely nothing technical to show for the time period prior to the bootcamp, ot…

"spent a month studying Javascript" + 3 months seems surprisingly short; a very large return on investment. I'm CS undergrad(almost half-way), but by job requirements none of my skills are even close to being employable. I guess I should start Js If you don't mind sharing, What topics/frameworks did you learn in that time and if not the same, what frameworks/skillets are mostly used day-to-day?

There's about 1,000 Web-dev specific jobs posted to Linkedin, daily, in the SF Bay Area, so yes if you're interested in getting a job fast I recommend it. But if you're a CS undergrad I'd target some of the more niche stuff that you can leverage your degree to get, like Machine Learning, Machine Vision, AI type stuff that are inaccessible to me until I get projects under my belt. If you're halfway, in two years you'll be up against even more bootcamp grads than I was - not something that would be much fun.

We focused on:

Javascript

Node

Express, and building a server/routing

HTML

CSS

Angular

React

Backbone

MVC client-side

Security and XSS basics

Auth basics (I wish they had focused on this more)

Basic algorithms and data structures (your binary search trees and whatnot)

Interview Prep

SCRUM stuff (couple group projects)

Git

Deployment (mostly heroku)

To condense it down, I'd say you should be able to, upon graduation: Build from scratch a functioning web application, with a backend that you wrote, that is accessible via the internet one way or the other. You should definitely have some projects published by the time you graduate, because you'll be going up against bootcamp grads with 2-3, or more, demonstrable projects. A big sell the bootcamps go on is that their grads are actually more "job-ready" than someone fresh out of a CS program, the perception being the CS person will have a spotty knowledge of actual hands on programming and deployment. Obviously your program results may vary, but just be aware that's the perception bootcamps and their grads are exfiltrating into the tech community, so it'd be a very bad idea to fall on that radar.

EDIT: I'm remembering now that a lot of CS applicants to my bootcamp would have projects on github, but would need to be pulled down and compiled to actually work (python projects and whatnot). If you end up with a lot of these from your classes, see if you can use that language's server systems to set up a simple API, with a very basic front-end, that allows interaction via the internet. Being able to, in a job fair, literally pull a project up on my phone and show it to a company rep was a very powerful tool.

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#42

Post by ryandrake »

komali2 wrote: post #34
popdoit wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I politely say "fuck you" for getting a 120k job after completing a bootcamp. Starting salary of 120k/yr for someone with a 3-month vocational program and an unrelated undergrad degree? That is literally insane.

Hah, you may, it does seem pretty crazy, doesn't it? I would say that the reason it seems crazy isn't rational , however. If I was forced to break down the reasons that this worked, I would condense it to three: 1. I focused entirely upon a single skill that is highly desired right now (Javascript / Web Development in JS/HTML/CSS/JS Frameworks). I didn't "waste" any time learning other programming languages, systems…

> being very good at turning a "no" into a "oh, ok, let's talk more."

Honestly wish there was a 3 month bootcamp for this.

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#43

Post by foota »

steven777400 wrote: post #2

The author's comment on access to a mediocre/unknown university instructor for a high fee vs free access to a very good set of lectures (Khan) is one of the doubts that led me to quit my job as a college instructor. I had kind of the existential "what are we doing here?" question -- why are students coming here and paying us money when better instruction is available for free online? Combined with a couple of educati…

As someone who's in school now, I feel one of the advantages of being in a physical class is that lectures are interactive. There are also the motivational advantages mentioned other places. There also also advantages to being surrounded by people that are also learning new things, you can study together, help each other, and encourage each other.

To be frank, it's also probably in part a social thing.

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#44

Post by halfnibble »

This exact process is something I seriously considered doing, but then I couldn't convince myself to spend that much time and effort trying to work for someone else. So, I work for myself on behalf of some very grateful clients. And that has turned out to be my dream job. (This became entirely too obvious when I found the espresso machine in my kitchen to be better than those in the most desirable Seattle-area startups).

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#45

Post by YZF »

komali2 wrote: post #10
YZF wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between having an instructor and learning things from a book or video lectures. An instructor can correct your mistakes and give you feedback. A book or a video can't do that. Some people presumably don't have a right kind of discipline to study on their own. This is why remote study programs can be a lot more difficult to complete vs. on-site programs. EDIT: There's a known effect, discussed…

How do you feel about structured, graded MOOCs like Harvard's CS50x? I'm also curious about how you feel things like /r/learnprogramming, stackoverflow, and stackoverflow IRC can act as surrogates for teachers.

I can't comment on this specific MOOC but I've done MOOCs where there were a lot of quizzes, active forums, extra-curricular activities, and involvement from the course staff (E.g. Dan Ariely's on Coursera). Those are certainly better than just reading a book or watching a video. I think there was still a very high dropout rate. Having any sort of online community certainly helps as well.

I've learnt to play the guitar online. I did a couple of music related MOOCs. I use YouTube resources like JustinGuitar and Lick'n'Riff. But I still felt like I needed a real teacher and went and got one. Even though this teacher is probably not at the same level of some of the YouTube "gods" :) I still got a lot out of that.

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#46

Post by ryandrake »

acchow wrote: post #35
pacaro wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My path, with an allegedly irrelevant degree (History and Philosophy of Science) was 1) tinker with computers as a kid 2) go to university and study something I wanted to learn about, randomly learning C in passing (from a friend and a stolen copy of turbo c) because I was interested 3) get a job at a small local ISV, qualified by having a degree in anything and knowing how to write simple code 4) spend 4 years as an…

My early steps were pretty similar as well, tho I kind of "hacked" my way into the industry by getting an internship 1) Tinker with computers as a kid 2) Go to University to study something I wanted to learn (Biochemistry) - took CS101 to learn some programming 3) Go to grad school for something else unrelated (economics) 4) Work in something unrelated 5) Learn programming in spare time. 6) Quit job. Learn programmin…

Just curious, how close are you and pacaro to 40? Congratulations on your success but you guys might find the smooth sailing become much less smooth the older you get.

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#47

Post by ryandrake »

I'm surprised the author mentioned taking linear algebra in high school. My high school math was bottom-of-the-barrel shitty (we barely touched on calculus, and the teacher didn't even know what an integral was). I don't know a single person whose high school math curriculum contained more than one calculus class, let alone linear algebra.

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#48

Post by acchow »

ryandrake wrote: post #46
acchow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My early steps were pretty similar as well, tho I kind of "hacked" my way into the industry by getting an internship 1) Tinker with computers as a kid 2) Go to University to study something I wanted to learn (Biochemistry) - took CS101 to learn some programming 3) Go to grad school for something else unrelated (economics) 4) Work in something unrelated 5) Learn programming in spare time. 6) Quit job. Learn programmin…

Just curious, how close are you and pacaro to 40? Congratulations on your success but you guys might find the smooth sailing become much less smooth the older you get.

I was in my mid 20's when I quit my job to learn programming.

Do you mean if I tried to enter the industry in my 40's it would have been much harder? Or now that I'm in the industry, the smooth sailing will eventually get rougher as I approach my 40s? If the latter, I don't really believe it...

Re: How I got my dream job in the tech industry without a CS degree

#50

Post by greenhouse_gas »

komali2 wrote: post #10
YZF wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between having an instructor and learning things from a book or video lectures. An instructor can correct your mistakes and give you feedback. A book or a video can't do that. Some people presumably don't have a right kind of discipline to study on their own. This is why remote study programs can be a lot more difficult to complete vs. on-site programs. EDIT: There's a known effect, discussed…

How do you feel about structured, graded MOOCs like Harvard's CS50x? I'm also curious about how you feel things like /r/learnprogramming, stackoverflow, and stackoverflow IRC can act as surrogates for teachers.

Honestly, at this point I found reddit a much nicer place to go then stackoverflow for technical questions.

SO users demand that your question be "correct". Note, I didn't mean that it should be clear what your problem is, it's just that if you ask a "noob question", for an explanation, or if five people think it can't be done, you'll get down voted and closed in a second.

It's sad because other (smaller) SE sites are quite nice.

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