How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#141

Post by mattdeboard » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 1:39 PM UTC

jeffreybaird wrote: post #136

So, there have been a lot of negative comments and I understand where they are coming from. I will try to address them as best I can. "Seeing a self-taught guy with 6 months coding experience writing software at a medical lab testing facility makes me a bit nervous." I am working mostly on internal systems and when I venture outside of that I have my own branch write thorough tests and have multiple people check my c…

If you're like me those kinds of comments probably gnawed at you. Don't let it. In a few years you'll have achieved parity in terms of salary and respect to most of these surly commenters, and no one will give a shit about your "origin story". Your work will speak for itself.

To all the negative nancies, take it up with Dr. Norvig. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3278080

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#142

Post by LnxPrgr3 » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 1:41 PM UTC

jeffreybaird wrote: post #136

So, there have been a lot of negative comments and I understand where they are coming from. I will try to address them as best I can. "Seeing a self-taught guy with 6 months coding experience writing software at a medical lab testing facility makes me a bit nervous." I am working mostly on internal systems and when I venture outside of that I have my own branch write thorough tests and have multiple people check my c…

I too am largely self-taught, though I took a much more convoluted path to get where I am today. I lucked out several years ago and found an employer willing to take a chance on me in spite of zero real-world experience and incomplete schooling. It seems to have worked out pretty well so far!

You know you're still green, and I respect that. Everyone has to be at some point. I don't care if they went to school—I've seen people come out of respectable CS programs not knowing a damn thing about actually writing software.

I've also seen people with plenty of experience—people who should really know better by now—still code trivially avoidable vulnerabilities and make other silly mistakes. School and experience are both lost on someone not really willing to take learning seriously, who already believes he's an expert.

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#143

Post by sp4rki » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 1:41 PM UTC

slurgfest wrote: post #102

samspot wrote: post #76

Self-taught programmers get a bad rap because we've all seen the guy who didn't know about arrays and defined 300 variables (I'm not kidding by the way, and this was in perl. Full of wonderful names like $aa1, $aa2, etc.). However you can get around this by having the OP's attitude about being a life-long learner. It's important to get a lot of exposure to different people and styles to offset some of the lack of bac…

Self-taught programmers get a bad rap for multiple reasons; because people with degrees want to protect their market value and ego, because programmers have a tendency to act very competitively and arrogantly toward other programmers, and because the industry's business culture is so absolutely intolerant of perceived weakness and negativity. There are hardly any companies which did not decide that they require 'A pl…

I agree completely. But I think that both subsets, the degree laden and the "no degrees allowed" crowd both apply the same labeling towards one another. Get's to a point where no one who's hiring for a worthwhile company cares about computer science degrees and cares more about exposure, references, and past experience. I think the industry is becoming more hostile towards both, no degree and degree types all the same. It's hostile towards anyone that hasn't proven they're worth their weight in gold either because of their github account or their past work experience. And that my friend a good thing.

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#144

Post by JoeAltmaier » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 1:48 PM UTC

LnxPrgr3 wrote: post #142

jeffreybaird wrote: post #136

So, there have been a lot of negative comments and I understand where they are coming from. I will try to address them as best I can. "Seeing a self-taught guy with 6 months coding experience writing software at a medical lab testing facility makes me a bit nervous." I am working mostly on internal systems and when I venture outside of that I have my own branch write thorough tests and have multiple people check my c…

I too am largely self-taught, though I took a much more convoluted path to get where I am today. I lucked out several years ago and found an employer willing to take a chance on me in spite of zero real-world experience and incomplete schooling. It seems to have worked out pretty well so far! You know you're still green, and I respect that. Everyone has to be at some point. I don't care if they went to school—I've se…

Really, we're all self-taught. The practice of development is so far removed from college courses as to make us all essentially even at first hire.

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#145

Post by RutZap » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 1:49 PM UTC

jeffreybaird wrote: post #131

RutZap wrote: post #96

This is a nice story but there are some hidden issues around here. The ones that want to get into programming should be aware of these: It's not an easy trip.. it's not just six months... it's a lifetime. Yes you might get a job in 6 months but then you will have to work even harder to keep that job and to be in the game. You will never stop learning... you will have to constantly adapt yourself to the new technologi…

"It's not an easy trip.. it's not just six months... it's a lifetime. Yes you might get a job in 6 months but then you will have to work even harder to keep that job and to be in the game." That is exactly why I fell in love with programming. There will never be an end to the learning.

I'm also very glad that I will use my brain extensively for the rest of my life... keeping Alzheimer away :P

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#146

Post by ValG » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 1:52 PM UTC

jeffreybaird wrote: post #15

duked wrote: post #10

I don't mean to be a mood killer but that has to be taken with a grain of salt. Ruby/Python/Perl are awesome language for beginner because it abstract so much that they think they know how to code after a day, and when they have to learn a new language like C they are completely lost and produce spaghetti code. That might be ok for web development where you can hack here and there (with JS/CSS/HTML) but I really chal…

Totally want to learn C, but I wouldn't even have thought to try if I hadn't tried ruby first. I got my first look at C digging through the Ruby source code, trying to figure out how it implemented Array.sort. Ruby opened me up to the world of programming and I look forward to exploring the rest!

If you want to learn C check out the CS50 from Harvard. It gives you the basics of programming (which you obviously already know), but focuses on C, and will teach you a lot of the basics. Watch the videos and do the problem sets, it will give you a broad understanding of algorithms, sorting, and C https://www.cs50.net/lectures/

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#147

Post by supernayan1 » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 2:01 PM UTC

Get hired sooner.

Audax Health is hiring in SF & DC.

Work in a fun and entrepreneurial environment where dress is casual and flip-flops are encouraged. We provide the best tools such as brand new Apple computers for every employee. Collaborate daily with top talent from companies like Zynga, WebMD, Microsoft, Bloomberg, Booz Allen Hamilton, and XM. Your contributions will directly impact the way millions of people interact with healthcare.

What makes our office fun:

• Our super swanky waterfront office space in Washington D.C. • Top of the line Apple products • Couches, ping pong, foosball, air hockey, arcade basketball shooter, Xbox and TVs • A kitchen filled with scrumptious food, snacks and beverages

Contact nayan.jain [at] audaxhealth.com

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#148

Post by debacle » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 2:05 PM UTC

jlarocco wrote: post #95

Seeing a self-taught guy with 6 months coding experience writing software at a medical lab testing facility makes me a bit nervous. The need for proper security in that area is (IMO) even more important than for credit card and financial processing, and I just don't trust a guy with only 6 months experience to do it correctly. Nothing against him, but I think it's too complicated of a subject to learn in 6 months wit…

I almost completely disagree.

I've mentored guys who were greener than grass who grasped things like input sanitation intuitively. I've also worked with guys with 5+ years experience who thought this:

$foo = $_GET['foo']

Was input sanitation.

I would posit that, because of the vastly different quality needs, understandings, and valuations inherent in the industries that our industry touches (namely, all of them), it's unlikely that you're going to see any strong correlation between age/experience and code quality.

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#149

Post by giulianob » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 2:05 PM UTC

jlarocco wrote: post #95

Seeing a self-taught guy with 6 months coding experience writing software at a medical lab testing facility makes me a bit nervous. The need for proper security in that area is (IMO) even more important than for credit card and financial processing, and I just don't trust a guy with only 6 months experience to do it correctly. Nothing against him, but I think it's too complicated of a subject to learn in 6 months wit…

It's a junior level position. They aren't going to expect the guy to architect their solution. He's probably going to start doing some of the easier tasks.

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#150

Post by Jgrubb » Tue, Aug 21, 2012, 2:26 PM UTC

jeffreybaird wrote: post #136

So, there have been a lot of negative comments and I understand where they are coming from. I will try to address them as best I can. "Seeing a self-taught guy with 6 months coding experience writing software at a medical lab testing facility makes me a bit nervous." I am working mostly on internal systems and when I venture outside of that I have my own branch write thorough tests and have multiple people check my c…

Hey, way to go! I remember that letter on the NYC Ruby list.

I find music and computers to be so parallel in so many ways. The whole "scrubbing toilets" thing is what they told all of us recording students we'd have to be doing to get an internship at a recording studio. As a side note, I always wanted to be playing more than either scrubbing toilets or making records, which turned out to have been a good thing in the long term here.

I was one of the jazzers in a classical music school. We were pretty much the 1% in that we had every paying gig for a 50 mile radius. I could never tell if the classical kids (and teachers) held their noses up because we were "untrained louts" or because we "untrained louts and working a lot more than they were". Take from that what you will...