Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#131

Post by peterburkimsher » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

lostgame wrote: post #113

My 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…

My lack of degree has been relevant, stopping me from getting a visa to work for an IoT company in New Zealand. I actually have an accelerated Masters (first-class honours MEng after 4 academic years instead of BEng + reapply and study 12 months for MEng).

The case officer for my visa application still decided to deny my Work-to-Residence visa, because BEng is on his list, and MEng is not on his list.

The degree didn't matter for the company or the interview, but immigration care a lot about paperwork like this. I guess you started in Canada and didn't try moving overseas.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#132

Post by LorenPechtel » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:33 PM UTC

mav3rick wrote: post #119

lostgame wrote: post #113

My 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.

I'm in between--I went to the university but no degree because allergies chased me off campus. As I'm older the only thing on this list that was covered was basic data structures. Complexity of algorithms was barely touched, not in any way related to data structures.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#133

Post by LorenPechtel » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #31

I've worked with a bunch of people who don't have degrees. At the more junior level, you can tell the difference, because while they tend to be really smart and can pick things up quickly, they have funny holes in their knowledge -- CS theory that you'd only pick up from a CS textbook, stuff like Big O notation or A* search (ok maybe that one is a bit more common now, but in the early 00s you didn't really learn that…

And you can't read a book in teaching yourself?

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#134

Post by rootusrootus » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

fiatjaf wrote: post #11

If you're going to hire a developer for their first job, don't think twice. Developers without degrees are better than developers with degress in 100% of the cases. If they don't have a degree that means they've learned something without being forced to, they love the subject and are genuinely interested.

Negative on that. I started coding as a tween and spent so much time (frequently through the night) coding that I compromised my chances of escaping high school with a diploma. After a couple years of figuring out how to adult, I went and got my CS degree. Because I loved coding and computers, of course, it was the obvious choice.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#135

Post by lostgame » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

mav3rick wrote: post #119

lostgame wrote: post #113

My 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.

To counter - I have met all too many folks some with a CS degree that don’t understand these concepts, either.

I hear about them every day because I sit next to the HR manager, and hear the horror stories of the blank faces when basic concepts were asked. The phrase ‘how did they even make it through a CS program?’ is common.

Fortunately, I have a ton of experience with threading and data structures, I wouldn’t personally make such generalizations - I knew this would be among the first responses I got from someone with a degree.

No, our lack of degree doesn’t imply we lack fundamental concepts - any more than a degree assures you do - and, I don’t know about you, but most of the full-time employers I’ve had would happily pay for a coding boot camp for me on a topic of my choice. shrugs

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#136

Post by honkycat » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

How do you know someone doesn't have a CS degree? They'll tell you.

You're right: Nobody cares you don't have a degree. It's not impressive, it is just normal. What I have a problem with is the huge chip on people's shoulders about "not having a degree" and insisting on dissing anyone who chose to go a different route.

I have a CS degree, I went to school on a scholarship, did not have these massive loans and "wasted years" everyone keeps harping on about. I volunteered my time, I was on the programming team, I did internships, I got amazing insights and advice from my professors. I went to school at night and worked during the day.

I consider my CS degree the best decision I ever made. I found the training and education I received extremely valuable. However, not all degrees are created equal. I went to a really great school. Probably would have had a different experience if I went to whatever crappy state school was nearby.

I also don't think it is necessary to have a degree to be a great programmer. What I DO think is necessary is study and honing your craft. Experience for software development is worth much less than people give it credit for.

Hacking sucks. Just hacking at stuff for years on end leads to you being an expert beginner. Do you have 10 years of experience? Or have you done the same thing for 10 years. This applies to everything: You can get twice as far in half the time if you don't have to figure everything out for yourself, and listen to and learn from experts.

What I look for in a developer: READS BOOKS. ( Audio books count )

That's the only thing. I'm sorry, if you are not reading and studying to keep up, you are getting left behind. There are so many brilliant people writing amazing books on a huge array of subjects. If I could get every one of my developers to read ONE book in on software design[0] a year, I would die happy and the entire industry would be 10 years ahead.

They don't even have to be technical books. I just want to see intellectual curiosity and a commitment to self improvement.

- 0: In the vein of Clean Architecture, The Pragmatic Programmer, The Mythical Man Month, Designing Data-Intensive Applications, The Google SRE book, etc.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#137

Post by lostgame » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #120

lostgame wrote: post #113

My 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.

Artists are used to maintaining side projects. That’s possibly part of the thing?

I swear, the side project thing is everything. Even with a degree, you should have a side project to differentiate yourself from the two dozen other people applying with a degree.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#138

Post by pb7 » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

fiatjaf wrote: post #11

If you're going to hire a developer for their first job, don't think twice. Developers without degrees are better than developers with degress in 100% of the cases. If they don't have a degree that means they've learned something without being forced to, they love the subject and are genuinely interested.

Formal education would have taught you better critical thinking than this.

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#139

Post by LorenPechtel » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

benbristow wrote: post #80

jedberg wrote: post #31

I've worked with a bunch of people who don't have degrees. At the more junior level, you can tell the difference, because while they tend to be really smart and can pick things up quickly, they have funny holes in their knowledge -- CS theory that you'd only pick up from a CS textbook, stuff like Big O notation or A* search (ok maybe that one is a bit more common now, but in the early 00s you didn't really learn that…

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.

This is something you need to know! What approach you use most definitely needs to keep in mind it's runtime. O(n^2) must be looked at with a skeptical eye and you better be sure there's no better answer when going higher. (I've hit O(n^8) in production code in a data verification routine and O(2^n) in a side project--the latter had to be scrapped in favor of an O(n^2) that wasn't guaranteed to find the best answer.)

Re: Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees

#140

Post by cromulent » Wed, Sep 18, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

When you have 100+ applicants for a job, you have to apply a filter. Requiring a degree is an easy one to apply that your boss will support. Whether you get the best candidate or limit your hiring pool is immaterial.

A guy I met years ago at a very large company had another filter - he used to split the pile of resumes in two, and throw half in the bin. He then said "I want the guy I hire to be lucky".