Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 170 posts

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#141

Post by nindalf »

jstx1 wrote: post #124
nindalf wrote: post #29

I’m a UK based software developer without a CS degree. I wrote about my experience interviewing at various software companies (including Google) in 2021 - https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/tech-interview/ . I also talk about how I prepared for the interview, so that may be useful. If you want to talk to someone about this don’t hesitate to reach out over email!

You had already worked at Meta at that point, getting interviews from other similar companies as hard as it would be for someone in OP's position.

I’m up front about that. Regardless, my experience here was similar to my previous round of interviews where I successfully interviewed at Meta. That went well despite not having a CS degree or a well known company on my resume.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#142

Post by meneer_oke »

morelisp wrote: post #127
meneer_oke wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree, but the topic started with that they are anti signals.

You're still not getting it. Taking the course is not a negative signal. Putting the course on your resume , as if that conveys useful information, is.

I think it's clear that you are not getting it, that is just your opinion.

Are you a hiring manager? A you are hiring manager of the whole IT industry?

Even in this thread there are many that have successfully landed great jobs with certificates on their resume.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#143

Post by morelisp »

meneer_oke wrote: post #142
morelisp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're still not getting it. Taking the course is not a negative signal. Putting the course on your resume , as if that conveys useful information, is.

I think it's clear that you are not getting it, that is just your opinion. Are you a hiring manager? A you are hiring manager of the whole IT industry? Even in this thread there are many that have successfully landed great jobs with certificates on their resume.

OK, good luck.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#144

Post by hnthrowaway0315 »

treprinum wrote: post #66

You can do a master in CS even without a CS bachelor online at the University of Colorado Boulder via Coursera. You just need to take 2 classes and get at least B in each. https://www.colorado.edu/cs/academics/online-programs/mscs-c... But as they say, this will only put you on the radar, but then it's all about LeetCode-Hard and -Medium and system design.

Looks interesting, but unfortunately the courses are mostly towards big data and data science AFAIS, with one robotics pathway as exception.

Would love to see something that sticks to malware and reverse engineering. Say something starts with low level programming, proceeds to os internals and then exploitations and such.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#145

Post by taurath »

weeznerps wrote: post #116

I wrote this FAANG interview guide a while ago after doing the LC grind and interviewing a bunch of places. I email it to people when they ask me about getting into FAANG. Note that Blind, while useful, is very toxic: 0. Total Compensation (TC) Salary comparison site: https://www.levels.fyi/ Anonymous posting with verified employees: https://www.teamblind.com/ These are the best tools for finding out what compensatio…

Thanks for this post. Its a huge elephant to bite off but takes consistent effort, which is for me the most difficult part.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#146

Post by tomcam »

bsimpson wrote: post #4
tomcam wrote: post #3

Dude I got into a FAANG company with no CS degree (or any other degree). Unless you're going into research, where is PhD is almost required, they'll hire you based on your skills.

Same. Self taught as a child (like OP). Offered a job at a FAANG twice, and took it the second time.

I actually started learning programming at 21. That was in the early 80s ;)

Thought it might be too late. As a magazine writer I had interviewed Chris Espinosa of Apple, their first documentation person. He started his employment at Apple when he was 14 years old.

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#147

Post by l33t7332273 »

hyperhello wrote: post #133
gorjusborg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is that perfect combination of over-confidence and lack of understanding that often veils insecurity and incompetence. Screams Dunning-Kruger effect. Again, I also have nothing against the person here, it is the behavior that is a red flag.

Dunning-Kruger didn’t mean what you’re assuming it to.

Can you elaborate?

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#148

Post by a_vanderbilt »

gorjusborg wrote: post #136
a_vanderbilt wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it's a bit more nuanced. If someone is early in their career and they have some decent certs (CCNA, RHCSA, Sec+) then I see it as a positive. What really matters is how they present that knowledge. As you have alluded to, a lot of candidates just memorize and regurgitate to get the cert. Unfortunately, at big firms the resume robots filter out plenty of great candidates simply because they lack ITIL or some ot…

> Unfortunately, at big firms the resume robots filter out plenty of great candidates simply because they lack ITIL or some other kind of useless cert. They don't get a chance to show off what they know. Fair enough. If someone it doing it satisfy a bureaucratic machine, I'll suspend judgement. If they think that makes them actually better than someone who actually does the thing, hard pass. It's usually pretty easy…

Agreed

Re: Ask HN: I'm a SWE without a CS degree. Will online certs help me get into FAANG?

#149

Post by JambalayaJim »

morelisp wrote: post #138
jmye wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying a Harvard CS degree isn’t a thorough education? Or are you assuming that everyone at Harvard pays full freight? I don’t get the elitism or why you think someone with a degree from a specific school is inherently stupid. That’s as weird as refusing to hire non-formally educated people.

I think you can get a better formal CS education than Harvard for a fraction of the price at two dozen places, probably including at least one state school you have access to. Harvard is good for signalling, traditional liberal arts, and pre-law (but, I repeat myself). It's not a very good teaching university overall, and especially not in CS.

If you don’t have a high regard for the Harvard CS curriculum, it’s reasonable enough to disqualify people on that basis.

That said, I think you’re completely out of touch with how 18 year olds choose universities. It can be as simple as a friend of theirs is also attending, or the school is close to a parent’s home, or they were actually in a liberal arts program before they switched into CS.

Sometimes as you implied, it’s their parents making that decision for them.

There’s no point in holding the cost of a student’s education over them, especially as you don’t know even how much they paid.

Post reply on HN