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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

#151

Post by mywittyname »

tombert wrote: post #141
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". S…

> 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

This is one of the notable difference between my pre- and post-degree careers: a degree opened the door to jobs with stable Megacorps. I still get the opportunity to work on cool, cutting-edge stuff, while also having a good salary & health insurance with reliable raises, decent vacation, and a lot of intangibles (nice equipment).

Plus, if you enjoy programming, CS is an incredibly fun degree (when you take the right courses).

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

#153

Post by rmilejczz »

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.

When as the last time understanding how threading works helped you in your day to day job? I ask earnestly as a professional self taught developer who doesn’t know how threading works and has never needed to

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

#154

Post by jkwok15 »

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…

Hiring manager here and I completely agree with this. In my experience there is almost zero difference between a junior engineer with a CS degree and a junior engineer who is self-taught or had a non-traditional CS education.

In actuality the things you learn in a 4 year CS program that you wouldn't get elsewhere (algorithm performance, theory, etc.) don't apply to all professional engineering jobs (especially at the junior level). Triplebyte has some great data on how bootcamp grads fair against CS grads (https://triplebyte.com/blog/bootcamps-vs-college) and my takeaway from this (and from personal experience) is that at the junior level it almost makes no practical difference.

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

#155

Post by scarejunba »

dragonwriter wrote: post #150
scarejunba wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, it's just one of the hacks that everyone's on board with. Like how we allow cash-tipped employees to not report tips, we allow this because (while politically unpalatable to change the law) it's better for the country this way.

After all, it's the law that fails to recognize that 7 years of experience in different environments may trump having a degree. Policy makers recognize this and allow the situation to exist because they know that you're not going to get residence for the 7-year-no-degree dude, you're going to get it for the 5-year-Masters-from-CMU fellow and it's better to have that guy in than out.

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

#156

Post by commandlinefan »

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?

Well yes, but that's true of any degree - heck, that's true of nearly any education. There are a handful of exceptions like medical school that give you access to cadavers that you otherwise wouldn’t have or a robotics lab that has million dollar equipment that you can play around with, but in general you can (theoretically) learn anything by just reading books/practicing. College focuses you on things you might otherwise not come across and, in theory at least, sets a level expectation: anybody with a CS degree ought to understand elementary calculus, for example. If a CS education is “useless” then so is nearly all education.

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

#157

Post by amdavidson »

I understand the desire for a site like this from a job seeker's perspective (no CS degree here either), but what is the incentive for the employer?

Are these no-CS job hunters not on every other site? As a job poster just put "No degree required" and your inbox should be flooded.

I don't see "no degree" as a skill that needs to be sought by paying $99 to post a job.

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

#158

Post by mywittyname »

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.

...and math.

It's easy to learn those topics independently with self-study. But learning linear algebra or stats on your own is much more difficult. People might claim that this isn't useful for most programmers, but it is absolutely is for a growing subset of them.

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

#159

Post by fucking_tragedy »

amdavidson wrote: post #157

I understand the desire for a site like this from a job seeker's perspective (no CS degree here either), but what is the incentive for the employer? Are these no-CS job hunters not on every other site? As a job poster just put "No degree required" and your inbox should be flooded. I don't see "no degree" as a skill that needs to be sought by paying $99 to post a job.

It's the same value-add as any other niche job board.

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

#160

Post by lostgame »

rmilejczz wrote: post #153
mav3rick wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When as the last time understanding how threading works helped you in your day to day job? I ask earnestly as a professional self taught developer who doesn’t know how threading works and has never needed to

I’m guessing you don’t do a lot of work in games or media. o.o

Geez, how about even a network call that doesn’t interrupt a UI thread?

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