Another interesting job board would be for people who are trying to switch fields. For example, how do you transition into web-dev with 5 years of experience in embedded (or vice-versa)? I find it funny that in the era of standard tests for interviews (i.e. Leetcode style), employers still ask for relevant experience in their tech stack, too. Somehow the industry helped them have their cake and eat it too.
Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
111–120 of 336 posts
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did Big O Notation in college and I still can't remember which notation is faster/slower. After college/university you begin to forget a lot of the specific textbook stuff and begin to replace it with the put-food-on-your-table practical stuff.
Absolutely. But Big O still comes up in practical stuff depending on what you're doing. You can usually get by without it, but sometimes when you need to process a few 100 terabytes of log files, having a basic grasp on Big O comes in handy for reducing your processing time from days to hours by picking the right algorithm.
I think the point the parent was trying to make is that the concept is way more important than the specific notation. Someone that doesn't know Big O could still tell you why one algorithm would be better, it just might be slightly less succinct:
"The execution time of algorithm A scales up with the number of items, while algoritm B's is constant."
vs
"The execution time of algorithm A is O(n), while algorithm B's is O(1)."
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#113My lack of degree has never been relevant in my 12-year-long coding career, I have never had issues getting jobs I want and often seen them choose me over someone with a degree.
Side projects, my obvious passion for coding, and eventually, of course, my experience got me where I’m at, making a triple-digit salary as a senior iOS developer at a major bank here in Canada.
I’m so very glad I avoided the horrors of student loans that half the people my age I know are going through.
I was able to see ‘higher education’ as the debt trap it was like I can see the sky is blue on a clear day.
At the age of 18, it was: 1) make $50k a year doing something I’ve been doing for ten years every day, know how to do well and love, or 2) go $50k in debt every year for four years paying to struggle through the school system - I hardly passed high school, the way school works just does not click with me or many others.
If you are a coder without a degree, even if it says a degree is required - just apply. This is how I got to work as an iPhone developer at LEGO, Winners, Universal Music, et cetera, until the list of these names became so notable they’d essentially be dumb to not at least look my resume over.
The other most solid piece of advice I can give - just keep doing side projects. If you’re going for your first job, an impressive side project is actually a way better way to get their attention than the dozens of people who will apply with degrees. It’s different, it will always be different, because you made it your way.
A degree isn’t anything unique, and is not actually any serious indication of actual programming talent. A degree in CS basically gives your potential employer the promise that you at least understand the fundamentals of computer science enough to slog it through school. Whoop-de-do. You meet the basic requirements and can even be considered.
Coded a custom instant messenger client while you were in your teens? Played around with ROM hacking, assembly language? Created a Mario fan game? Show them this.
You, your passion and your side projects are. I know this from the utmost experience - because those examples I just gave, I did all of, from the ages of 9-16, which got me doing web sites for real estate agents at 16, which got me working in software at Chase banks at 18. I’ve never looked back and watched my salary and experience grow year by year. :)
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then why the heck would you say that on your job postings, or not pitch that it be changed to whomever runs HR? As a hiring manager you probably dream of finding more people like your best performers, yet this makes it harder. I agree there is value in a theoretical foundation and would also encourage people to pursue it. However it seems like a separate point from the reality of the market today. Even historically,…
On the other side, the vast majority of applicants are completely unqualified. Do I want to increase that problem? Not at all. To be fair, I may have lost people with lower confidence in their abilities and a greater fear of failure. That doesn't sound like a great loss. I'd rather encourage people to have confidence and get over their fear than lower the requirements. It's not as if these aren't important requiremen…
It sounds like the best way to land a job is to talk directly to you and show you what (a candidate) is capable of, filters and applications be damned!
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#115Is this actually a problem still? I haven’t hopped around as much as most SWEs I suppose, but I’ve never faced an issue not having a degree in any of my previous hiring processes. I work at a large bank and we don’t screen candidates for degrees.
I’m a college dropout and have about 8 years of experience as a developer. I’ve been interviewing a lot lately at mostly startups (7 onsites in the last month). Every single place except for one asked me about college or why I dropped out. One place asked me incredibly difficult whiteboard problems which appeared to be to filter out people without CS degrees (very specific algorithms to implement which I’ve never hea…
I don’t mean to be rude, but there’s no non-obvious “algorithm” for reversing a linked list in-place. If you can keep the details straight, you’re done. If a candidate had trouble with this problem, that would tell me that either 1) they have difficulty working at a fine level of detail, or 2) they aren’t comfortable with pointers. Either possibility is problematic for jobs that require attention to low-level detail or manipulating pointers or references.
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#116This only matters for one's first job, if that. Afterwards it's irrelevant. Regardless of what the job description says, it's never mattered in my experience working at well over a dozen companies in the last twelve years or so.
At a lot of places, yes. However, try getting even a "no thank you" form letter in response to a job post at a desirable company without a degree. First step in the hiring funnel: no 4-year degree --> /dev/nul. I live nearby Netflix, Space X, Hulu, JPL, etc with twenty years experience in what they do and have never even spoken to a single person at any of them despite applying for years. I'm good at what I do, now I…
Complete opposite of my experience. I have no degree either. Interviews with 2 of the 4 you've listed, google as well. Only 2 years of experience.
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#117My lack of degree has never been relevant in my 12-year-long coding career, I have never had issues getting jobs I want and often seen them choose me over someone with a degree. Side projects, my obvious passion for coding, and eventually, of course, my experience got me where I’m at, making a triple-digit salary as a senior iOS developer at a major bank here in Canada. I’m so very glad I avoided the horrors of stude…
> iOS developer at a major bank here in Canada.
Is it the one that forced me to upgrade their app to a version that didn’t support scheduled payments anymore?
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#118This shouldn't be a thing. It really doesn't matter nowadays. You can send your resume and nobody will care.
I've been on both sides. Sometimes you definitely care. If I have a small pile of resumes for a fairly specific job, I'll give each of them a lot of consideration and nobody will get tossed just because they have no degree. But if you hand me a stack of 300 resumes of [presumably] largely qualified individuals, I'm going to pick some reasons to make the stack more manageable. Some people definitely use degree status for that purpose.
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#119My lack of degree has never been relevant in my 12-year-long coding career, I have never had issues getting jobs I want and often seen them choose me over someone with a degree. Side projects, my obvious passion for coding, and eventually, of course, my experience got me where I’m at, making a triple-digit salary as a senior iOS developer at a major bank here in Canada. I’m so very glad I avoided the horrors of stude…
A lot of self taught programmers have gaps in knowledge especially when it comes to synchronization, how threading works, basic data structure and operation complexity on them. Whenever it's required they say "it's not required for web development". Of course I don't say this for all but many of them have this problem. Bootcamps don't help.
Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees
#120My lack of degree has never been relevant in my 12-year-long coding career, I have never had issues getting jobs I want and often seen them choose me over someone with a degree. Side projects, my obvious passion for coding, and eventually, of course, my experience got me where I’m at, making a triple-digit salary as a senior iOS developer at a major bank here in Canada. I’m so very glad I avoided the horrors of stude…
I somehow did both. I spent a fortune on art school to be a painter, only to change course in my late 20's and teach myself how to code. So I don't have a (tech) degree to my name, but with all the associated debt. lol.
However, I have luckily had the same experience as you. It's never held me back.