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Every other failure to achieve some goal is simultaenously an opportunity to learn. Being able to step back and look upon one's conceived failure with perspective and draw out positive experiences from it is an essensial life skill.
Just in case I started having fun in computer-related stuff more than 15 years ago and finished my first paid freelance project around the same time. Unfortunately I didn't get any education for the similar reasons and until this day haven't been to a single job interview.
And my interests changed dramatically over decade and half and I jumped from some terrible arbitrage / SEO (back in 2006) to cybersecurity, then to making attempts to run my own business and then back freelance programming. Also went through PHP -> C++ -> Java with tons of other skills in between. Without ever doing proper full time or offline team work it's extremely hard to estimate my skills against what people have on market.
At the same time I never ever felt lack in options or possibilities to earn money. For me as freelancer it's was always just me against my lazyness. My last amazing one-year-long single man project that paid me well and let me dip my toes into world of Java. Now after half a year of downtime I started to look into Kotlin as well as Ethereum-based projects and Web3 which have a lot of opportunities.
I never stuggled financially for a long periods of time, but not having stable source of income is obviously feels like a problem at my age. While I have a wish to try having "proper job" sometimes it's still as scary for me as it's for you. And yeah I'm planning to find and try some interesting full-time job in team at some point this or next year.
...
So the advice is: you never really failed until you decide to give up and do nothing. There is abundance of opportunities to learn, earn money and work on interesting projects. Not all of them require you to have tons of full-time job experience and able to pass complicated interviews.
And if you really need this job. I know plenty of people who find their first job as frontend developers after learning basics just for a 3-4 months. They just hated their previous jobs and put a lot of effort in this short periods of time. It's not like being fancy ML expert or software engineer at FAANG, but it's a job and it will pay your bills.
You’re not failing, boy. You are growing up and this is how life look like. If you read a lot of books/biographies, you will realize how some very successful people have had setbacks. Ignore these negative depressing whispers, and learn, read more. Most of us were in that spot before, do yourself a favor, and take some time to watch this talk "Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams", Randy Pausch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo&vl=en
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Your mistake was thinking you could go into, say, a CS degree and have nothing to learn. I made this exact mistake at 17/18 and even had a very similar line of thinking as OP, but my decision was not to go to school at all. I ended up in the industry a few years later, but have had a mostly crippled career. It was unfortunately drilled in my head around the time that people were handing out six figure salaries to a…
Being self taught doesn't have to cripple your career. I'm self taught and doing reasonably well, and there's another guy I worked with a few years ago who's also self taught and studied music in college who's now an engineer at Facebook making I don't know how many zillions of dollars. Looking at LinkedIn just now, I discovered that another self taught engineer I know, who doesn't even have a high school diploma, is…
> In a sense, we're all fortunate that we lucked into a career in an industry that de-emphasizes credentials in favor of knowledge, ability, and track record.
Agreed, though I think there are costs to this as well, but most people probably will never worry about them.
And no, pet projects don't count. I don't think most companies even looked at my Github account. While having done some hobby projects is better than nothing, those projects don't tel anything about how you can work in a team. And yes, soft skills are way more important that coding skills, the later you can always learn on the job but if you not a good cultural fit, that will be difficult.
So just get some job. Sounds difficult? Apply for some jobs that might not use your preferred tech but might be desperate to hire people. Join that shitty start up that is sure to fail. Or if you really can't get anything, find some friend to found a start up together. (And yes you need a friend or well at least someone else, if the start up only consists of you, nobody will be impressed.) You only need to work part time on the start up while you do some non tech related work for money.
Don't get suckered in, that is only a temporary measure. After roughly six months to a year, you will have gained proper work experience and will find the job market to be way easier.
So nothing failed, you just need to hustle for a bit to get back on track.
Man I feel this guy. After my past startup failed I just have not had the energy to find any work and its been almost two years. No math/algo experience, seems like everyone and their mother can build shit with react. The only industry I find interesting is simracing (simulated racing) and I'm trying to find some sort of "in" in this industry, or any motorsports. Applied to some formula1 web development jobs, red bul…
I started on a computer science degree when I was 28. Graduated at 30, had several job offers before the end of my last year. It was tough to go through those 3 years working part-time while trying to keep up with a high load of university assignments, but at the same time, I never learned so much in my life and had fun while doing it, met lots of incredible people and campus life was pretty nice. But now, all that i…
I am thinking of doing a mechanical engineering degree but it is rough to have worked 15 years in the startup industry with nothing to show for it, all equity turned to dust, opportunity cost etc. Could have had a house and a family at this point.
Good luck in your journey, it's great you finished and so quickly too!
* "we even tried to make a shooter game"
* "constantly shifting my focus, different programming languages, different platforms, cool new technologies"
* "I don't want to deal with introductory python courses"
* "I choose an arts bachelor for fun and easy scholarship" ... followed by low grades
I recommend you figure out how to FINISH things, and check your ego at the door. Those are pretty much the two skills every entry-level developer needs.
You've not failed. You're 22. You probably know as much as any graduate does. There are companies out there who don't put a lot of emphasis on a degree. A degree is a good filter, but that's it. You have good programmers with a degree and you have people who really make you wonder how they got a degree. I'd recommend not exclusively looking for jobs through job seeking websites but instead email directly as an enquir…