Worked at Google, startups and various other places for the last 15+ years. No CS degree but over two decades of programming experience.
Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
21–30 of 59 posts
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#22Why yes, yes they can. I would say 95%~ of our graduates at Dev Bootcamp do not have CS degrees. We have an incredibly high placement rate, so I can say without a doubt, programmers without CS degrees can find jobs. We teach Ruby, by the way.
I've heard about you from friends. Applying.
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#23As a developer without a CS degree (or any degree) my experience has been mixed. Unfortunately, I'd say the cons outweigh the pros...
Pros:
-It's proof-positive you are capable of learning on your own; a very desirable trait.
-No/fewer student loans to pay off. A bigger plus than you could imagine.
-Less debt, faster hands-on experience, and the general experience of being scrappy leaner might mean you're better founder material. Take that with a grain of salt tho.
Cons:
-It will make getting past HR screens more difficult
-It will be used as an excuse to pay you less money
-It will make it harder to obtain a promotion
-Lacking a strong theoretical foundation will likely mean you're under-qualified for some interesting jobs. This one is more subjective- maybe jobs like that require core CS skills aren't that compelling to you.
-Another subjective one: A lack of undergraduate math may make learning about certain topics more challenging. Certainly not impossible but definitely more challenging (3D, ML/AI, physics come to mind)
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#24It'll be hard to get past HR, since non-techs attribute CS jobs to people with CS degrees. With your skill-set you can end up on the front-end. Take it little by little, start building websites for your friends for a start.
Best way to apply with your current skill-set? Be radical, a simple project suggestion: rebrand/redesign things. Take a look at how minimallyminimal got the eyes of many people with his rebrand of microsoft.
As for your question on the best way to apply for a job? Assuming you're applying for a position with your skillset: redesign their website. bring it along with your github profile on your interview.
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#25Yes you can! Just build something to show :)
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#26Yes.
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#27I've spoken to several people at the large south bay area company where I work about this. They are in senior positions and all have said they would be willing to hire a person without a CS degree provided they did well in the interview and had an appropriate background other than their education. The hard part is getting into the interview room, I suppose. Feel free to email me at douglas.treadwell@gmail.com if you want to talk further about this.
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#28As a developer without a CS degree (or any degree) my experience has been mixed. Unfortunately, I'd say the cons outweigh the pros... Pros: -It's proof-positive you are capable of learning on your own; a very desirable trait. -No/fewer student loans to pay off. A bigger plus than you could imagine. -Less debt, faster hands-on experience, and the general experience of being scrappy leaner might mean you're better foun…
> Another subjective one: A lack of undergraduate math may make learning about certain topics more challenging.
You're making a common but often mistaken assumption -- that "unschooled" equals "uneducated". The fact that a person doesn't have a degree doesn't mean he knows no math or physics.
> It will be used as an excuse to pay you less money
That's certainly true. The unanswered question is whether the increase in salary accompanying a college degree equals the cost of student loans to get the degree in the first place.
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#29No, it's illegal in every state except Vermont to hire a programmer without proof of a CS degree. President Obama has promised to support a Federal law to make it illegal for states to discriminate against the self-taught but it's been stalled in Congress.
Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?
#30Yes. I started off learning PHP/JS/HTML/CSS in my own time. It took me 6 months and I got my first webdev job. You have probably heard that it takes 10,000 hours to master a craft. That's about right. I realised that without going to university I was probably missing about 6,000 hours (4 years?) of experience. So I worked double overtime and built products so that I could get 6k hours under my belt. Then in the job i…
This is very inspiring. One of the better replies to encourage OP to continue on his current path