Help a fledgling professional programmer makes some important career decisions.

I've been programming in some capacity since I was 8 years old (AT&T GW-Basic babeeeee) and am now 20 years old. I code primarily in C#/.NET (Can't do Mono, don't care for it.), C/C++, Assembly, Python, and I'm presently learning Lisp. (Yay Repl.) In particular I have seem to have a knack for reverse engineering, debugging, and code optimization.

Here's the deal, I went to uni for a single quarter, but had to drop out because I couldn't get any loans.

My Father's income disqualifies me for federal assistance and loans of any kind, and he refuses to cosign a private loan, so I don't seem to be able to get any money for school. Furthermore, my mother doesn't have the credit to cosign a loan (recent bankruptcy), and my father refuses to help me at all in going to school.

I did for about four months work as a programmer, for a systems migrations company. I was hired primarily because of my debugging knowledge, although it never came into play. I ended up creating an arcane mainframe data file parser in C#. However, I separated from the company and started my own business (not in the field of programming though, because me and the fellow I started it with couldn't find any contracts :( ) and went off on my own. The reason I left is because I was exempt salaried and I was being forced to work 70+ hours a week, refused access (without cause, there was no NDA on the data) to example data files for me to work with (I was working in the blind. This is unbelievably hard.) and various other reasons.

Oh right, and I was getting paid $1600 a month. Not the worst I've ever been paid, but considering the workload and stress, yikes.

Kind of regret leaving now, but it was all I could do to maintain my sanity.

Worked for myself, in various capacities since April 07, recently had to get a regular job because the company basically went down the tube for a number of reasons. (One of which involved being screwed over by UPS and PayPal at the same time.)

Honest-to-god, all I want to do is work as a programmer for a living, but I couldn't get anyone to hire me despite my knowledge/experience because of my lack of a degree. I've talked to a financial officer from a local community college and it doesn't seem immediately viable that I'll be able to go back to school.

Are there any worthwhile programming certifications that would be respected and known, and allow me to get back in the field? I'm basically paid $9 an hour to post on ebay at my current job, and I feel like I'm being wasted.

Is there some alternative that would allow me to go back to school? I'd personally love to just go to school full-time and focus on my studies. (Vigorous auto-didact.)

For that matter, anyone want to hire me? :D

Thanks to anyone who can offer any advice!

I'd get the heck out of there, first of all, and second, dedicate some time to open source work, which is a great way of 1) proving your abilities, and 2) meeting people.

It's doable: I got my first programming job in my early 20ies, with no college. Good luck!

In terms of open source, I think you get more bang for your buck in terms of fame and fortune by working on your own projects, if they're relatively successful, than by playing a small role in someone else's. Sad but true.

In terms of Ohio... I've never been there, and I have a strong bias against flat places (my home office here in Innsbruck is higher than the entire state of Ohio!), so I'd head to somewhere like California, Oregon, Washington, or maybe Colorado, as that's a bit closer to where you are.

It's a tough situation; I was in a similar circumstance including parents salaries disqualifying me for financial aid (my father passed away a month before I started college, but the lookback period for financial aid is 3 years of income. Unfortunately he made 3/4 of our family's income and after his death we couldn't easily afford college).

The reality is this: without a degree, and no experience people have to take you on your word that you know what you're doing, and they're loathe to do so. You're going to have to probably deal with low pay until you get enough experience to be able to convince someone you know enough to pay you the salary they'd pay a grad. It may not be a great situation but I did it as well. My first 'real' job was $8 an hour "tech support" for a mom & pop ISP that involved 10% phone support, 40% systems administration and 50% programming. I got overworked and beat on, but eventually I got enough experience to jump to a 'real' programming job (who also underpaid me and overworked me, but a year there gave me 2+ solid years of demonstrable experience and I was able to call the shots a bit more).

Continue your work on Ubuntu and other open source projects. Not only will it continue to build experience, and get your name on projects which you can hold up to a prospective employer, you will get to know other developers who might be in a position to help you find something better.

The pay and the hours will suck at first, but it improves. You can't be aiming at an $85k target with no experience though without coming out disheartened. Focus on the experience first, and THEN the money. It follows quickly in hand if you do it right.

Since nobody mentioned it, New York tends to have a pretty decent market with a fairly broad skillset. You're always best off of course moving to a city for a job you already have, rather than moving to a city and then finding a job. You might find yourself in a messy situation if you just move blindly. There are still a good bit of companies that will pay moving expenses - at the LEAST, if you're clear in a cover letter that you're looking to move to a market with a more established IT industry, and you'll pay moving on your own it won't disqualify you just because of location.

Good luck!

One idea - get your IT resume together, see if anyone you know from your tech days is hiring, and fire it off. Don't let a lack of college stop you.

Another idea - do a bit of networking in the city (meetup.com groups etc) if you want to stay there. If not, probably soft-relocate and couchsurf in San Francisco or Palo Alto, then network there.

With your background, you'll get hired in no time.