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Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

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Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

#51

Post by Nathandim »

nirvana wrote: post #32

Do realize, that even if it is harder, this is only initially. Once you have 3-4 years of experience in the field, the CS degree (or lack thereof) is irrelevant. I've had, on more than one occasion, bosses be surprised that I didn't have a degree when it came up, long after hiring me. No degree is mentioned on my resume and it never comes up in interviews-- in fact, it the last time anyone mentioned it was when I onl…

Do you believe that it gets harder by age? I mean, I'm at the same spot as the original poster but I'm 30 years old. Does it matter?

Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

#52

Post by mani27 »

Yes , you can do it. As other people here mentioned degree has brownie points. But you should know about certain CS concepts like Algorithms, data structures ,databases and networks and some maths. I think all this can be done by self learning. Plenty of resources like OCW,edx or coursera available for videos lectures. Best of luck buddy.

Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

#53

Post by matthias_k »

pheon wrote: post #5

My experience is the best coders ive met who get shit done, dont have CS degrees. If they do have a degree then its either in real engineering(building hardware) or pure math/physics.

Just that coders who get shit done are often not the A-people. We had a few people that get shit done, and their code was shit. So in the end they cost us more time and money since we had to refactor large parts of their code.

Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

#55

Post by caw »

jessedhillon wrote: post #40
lutusp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is my back-of-the-envelope speculation: Suppose you go to UC Berkeley for CS. A nice, round, accurate number for that is ~$52,000/year. Suppose you work during for two of those years (I did, not everyone can), and your overall obligations are $208,000 for four years, less your wages -- say a meager $18,000/year. Also, you would have had to pay rent whether you went to school or not, so that is not truly a cost o…

Your choice of school greatly changes how fast you'll repay your schooling.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/which-colleges-help-grads-s...

Additionally, going to school doesn't have to saddle you with debt, because it doesn't preclude you from working at the same time. I think it says a lot about a person if you're able to work and keep up your grades.

Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

#56

Post by geedee77 »

I've not got a CS degree (or any degree actually) and I've never really had trouble getting a job in IT. I started as a junior developer and worked my way up. I'm currently 35 and working as European Director for a large company.

As people have said, the trick is learning in your own time and learning quickly in your jobs. I agree with whoever said it that there's somethings that will be a challenge because you might not have the right level of Maths (etc) but you should be able to get by as long as you're committed.

Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

#58

Post by OnesAndZeros »

True story of what I did....

Went to college for 2 years while doing projects on the side (web apps in 98). Dropped out because I got two offers on monster.com working for internet companies and noticed that what they were offering ($52K) was more than the starting salary for my CS degree (they hired me for my experience).

After two years at that co I moved on, rolled over the 401K from there, about 10K and bought AAPL at 29 and AMZM at 40, then GOOG at 200 (if any of my kids want to go to college its paid for already, they are 10 and 9).

Moved on to work for a university (I still have no degree) and am there now making a good salary supporting my family and have lots of time off and get to work on new tech at job whenever I want with the projects I get (I keep my customers happy).

During the last two years I made 4 games for WP7 in the evenings, was first to market with them (free) and made a killing. http://CheeseZombieGames.com

My advice....FUCK THE CS DEGREE! Unless....you really really want to learn all that math and theory and other specialties (AI, OS's, Networking etc etc etc) because you are a geek at heart and constant learning is one of your passions (it is for me).

But you CANT do both, you will be horrible at both if you try. Pick one route, go with it, stick with it and do the best you can with it. Either will pay off immensely in the end, just be prolific (github sure, mobile, web etc anything).

Which will you choose?

Re: Can programmers without CS degrees find jobs?

#59

Post by benkross »

Yes, more than ever, startups are ok with people without CS degrees or degrees altogether for that matter. There are always the startups that will have a bias toward Ivy League and top tier only comp sci, but those are generally run by biz focused ppl vs techies. It is easier in the beginning of your career to get hired without a CS degree, b/c the general quality is lesser than good startups and the headcount demands are higher. It is nearly impossible at big firms to get hired early in your career w/o a degree b/c the gatekeepers are not technical and have no understanding what they are looking at on a resume. If you have a degree in Math, Physics, Statistics or something else quantitative, it is not that difficult, but if you have an english degree or music that could pose a bigger challenge. This is my perspective as a headhunter supporting everything from small startup to enterprise firms. Just my 2cents
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