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

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

#141

Post by tombert »

zzzeek wrote: post #36

I don't have a degree (though I do have a few years of college in the CS /engineering fields) and I'm pretty sure every programming job I've ever had required a "degree", if you were to look at their posted job requirements. If it's known that you can do the work (which is the kicker of course), I've never seen an employer hiring people to write code actually care about the degree. Even in academic environments I've…

> Now, you should definitely get a CS degree or similar if you want to be a programmer. I would have done a lot better having one even though I got by without it. Also, my career path was ridiculous and is entirely non-replicable.

I agree completely. As a dropout, I've had people bother me asking how they should go about a career in tech, and I will tell them unambigously "for the love of god, please go to school".

Self-studying enough to be competitive with classically-trained people is really hard, and while I've done ok, it's not something I'd recommend for most humans. I like to think I'm fairly competent now, but even after doing this stuff for nearly a decade, I will still occasionally turn up blind spots of fairly-critical information that I never learned about because it was never immediately interesting to me.

Being self-taught is fun, but without credentials you end up having to work at companies that are willing to take chances, and as a result of that these companies have a propensity towards going bankrupt, or being run by scumbags who will run away with all the investor money (true story). I'm not even 100% sure what advice I could give people trying to imitate my career..."Hey kids, repeatedly fail upwards until you accidentally end up working for a company that happens to get acquired by Walmart which will somehow legitimize your experience".

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

#142

Post by ericmcer »

I have done some interviews for front-end positions and it is interesting watching non-degree candidates crumble on certain really easy questions. Even something simple, like a while loop can trip up some of the newer devs who try to figure out which of the canned JS array library functions I am asking for.

Not that you often need a while loop, it's just interesting that modern web development has shifted to be so functional that you could be a professional programmer who does not fully grasp a while loop.

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

#143

Post by pskiba »

LorenPechtel wrote: post #133
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?

Many self taught developers will focus on less theoretical skills related to programming and focus on what's practical.

They may read a textbook to teach themselves but it'll be different than the textbooks they make you read for a CS degree.

This typically is a benefit, many fresh CS grades I've seen are not as comfortable developing in their first job as a lot of self taught developers.

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

#144

Post by mxuribe »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #33
mnm1 wrote: post #5

This 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…

It certainly is possible that the HR folks at the places you've applied just are not reading correctly the skills and experience that you have conveyed. I think i heard some people refer to this as an "HR Fail". While it hurts you (by not getting you that job), it hurts the company far more, because they lost out on talented individual.

The alternative could be that they're discriminating you because of your age. Just for the sake of argument, you noted "twenty years experience"...if i assume that you started working on your 20th birthday, that means you are theoretically 40 years old...ripe for being the victim of age discrimination (or at least the beginning of it). And, if true then this sucks royally!

I've recently been looking to jump to another gig. I have a degree and almost 20 years of experience. (I'm 45 years old this year, by the way.) In my summary I would always begin with something along the lines of "Technical professional with over 18 years of diversified experience...etc." And, while that has worked ok in the last several years, lately, I get barely any replies. Jobs that in the past i would have easily gotten, are no longer even replying to me. Then, a friend noticed my opening line, and suggested i drop the number of years, and remove 1 or 2 of my early jobs...In essence make it seem like I'm younger...Wow, what a difference. While i still have not gotten any bites (my job search is still early), i now have many more replies...Which confirms that employers don't want to hire "older people".

I feel for you. My suggestion: make yourself appear a bit younger on paper, to at least get your foot in the door and interview. Best of luck with your job search!!!!!

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

#145

Post by udayrddy »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #29
fiatjaf wrote: post #16

$99 to post a job? I want a developer, but I won't pay that price ever unless I need dozens of developers and I'm posting on a big site with big audience.

Similar niche job boards charge many multiples of $99 to list an open position.

I agree, but how would you drive me as a recruiter to post the job here. "Hey, want some non CS degree developers" ?!

Honestly, not criticizing. Want to understand what if I was the founder of this.

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

#146

Post by lostgame »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #131
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…

Immigration is a completely different issue that I can't comment on. I was born in Canada.

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

#147

Post by sokoloff »

mnm1 wrote: post #49
codesushi42 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. I have worked at both startups and FAANGs. There are developers with CS degrees who are clearly worse than those without. But I could always tell who did not have a CS degree, based on poor understanding of things like running time analysis, good systems design, more complex algorithms etc. The best developers always had at least a CS undergrad. Though there are clearly diminishing returns with going above tha…

Many people with CS degrees don't understand those topics and many people without a CS degree do. So I don't buy this.

I've found it much more common for a non-CS degree holder to start down a path that boils down to "first, I'll solve the halting problem and then I'll apply that to the problem I'm actually facing" or similar foundational errors. (I say this as someone who has had a 26 year career in software without holding a CS degree.)

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

#148

Post by quickthrower2 »

ericmcer wrote: post #142

I have done some interviews for front-end positions and it is interesting watching non-degree candidates crumble on certain really easy questions. Even something simple, like a while loop can trip up some of the newer devs who try to figure out which of the canned JS array library functions I am asking for. Not that you often need a while loop, it's just interesting that modern web development has shifted to be so fu…

I am not sure how this is correlated with not having a degree. In my degree they didn't teach me while loops specifically. I taught myself them before the degree because I programmed as a hobby. I'm sure bootcamps would teach `while`.

I also don't see what this has to do with FP. I bet there are few people who understand map/reduce functions and don't get for/while loops, unless they are literally just memorizing tutorials without understanding them.

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

#149

Post by courtewing »

cromulent wrote: post #140

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".

For every one position we hire for we’ll see 100s of applicants, and we might have 5-10 good choices to hire. Filters are a critical part of managing a candidate pipeline, and for better or worse a degree is widely used as a filter for those companies that don’t lack a pool of qualified candidates, which also tend to be pretty attractive companies to work for.

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

#150

Post by dragonwriter »

scarejunba wrote: post #97
dragonwriter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All our job postings say "CS degree required". But if you have experience and a good resume it absolutely doesn't matter. So, you lie about your actual requirements (how hard is it to add the classic “or equivalent experience” qualification?) and expect potential applicants to intuit your hidden meaning?

If you don't do that stuff it becomes harder when you want to apply for permanent residence for the guys you want.

Ah, so it's lying to applicants, but that's just incidental, the real target is lying to government to support immigration fraud. That makes sense.

Ethics are another question, but the rationale is clear.

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