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Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
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Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#2learn technologies you're interested in and would enjoy working with by building increasingly complex applications with them. even without a degree, practical experience, genuine curiosity and a willingness to learn will get your foot in the door.
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#3A degree is not a requirement to become a professional developer, experience is. The best engineers I have ran into have been self-taught, for those that had a degree it was normally to help them get past the initial HR wall earlier in their careers.
You can gain experience as a developer by doing projects, these give you something to talk about in interviews and also count as experience. If you have no experience pick up many of the operating systems, architecture and programming books that have been highly rated in your area of interest and start reading and applying what you learn until you have a deep knowledge of the material.
An engineering manager will hire people without degrees if they show aptitude, drive, passion and have created projects in line with their missions. If you were in an interview for say a Linux kernel developer and have built several kernel modules, documentation on them, their purpose and they are very secure and stable along with being in use by people that is enough to skip to the what would you like to do here, compensation talk and when would you like to start.
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#4I am a professional pilot. I have 1500+ flight hours and a jet rating. I have done exactly one paid flight in 25 years.
All you need to be a professional programmer is to be paid once to do programming (development). Then you are not an amateur anymore.
Doesn’t need a degree. Doesn’t need to be good. Just needs a penny of pay/revenue. Good luck!
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#5learn technologies you're interested in and would enjoy working with by building increasingly complex applications with them. even without a degree, practical experience, genuine curiosity and a willingness to learn will get your foot in the door.
To get started I would rather recommend to focus on a skill that is in demand. May be Java, JS or Python.
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#6For what it’s worth, I got my start by learning from good hackers that I found via IRC.
Nowadays you might want to look into various Discord servers like CodingDen. It’s nice to have someone to ask questions of.
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#7I got started with Python and spent time building lots of little projects and websites. Then I hit the pavement looking for clients. My first client paid me $200 for a simple website. I studied my butt off and did whatever freelance work I could find locally for a couple of years, and then I started applying for jobs, eventually landing one. Now I don't have any difficulty getting jobs, after a few years of experience.
My best advice is, learn to code, but focus more on solving business problems. Most companies care less about technology than they care about what problems you can solve for them.
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#8Coming from someone without a CS degree. Learn that every problem you are solving is for a person in the end. Learn to communicate with people, learn to break down problems and explain them and focus on people.
If you can do this, even if you are only "good" as a developer you will surpass the vast majority of CS grads and make far more money in your career.
I fully admit plenty of devs are probably better at specific things than I am, but few bridge the gaps I do between business, marketing and development. That makes me odd, but also makes me valuable and useful to almost any business. I am also highly competent in architecture, design and can adapt quickly, so that has been helpful, but I have met many others like me as well, many without a CS degree.
For my part, I have also raised my kids to understand that being able to apply what you know and learn is more valuable than feeling you know everything or having some specific degree. In the end I prefer to think that education never ends and a degree is just a stamp at a given time, it doesn't necessarily make someone more valuable or more intelligent than another.
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#9go to lambda school
Re: Ask HN: How can I become a professional developer without a degree?
#10Coming from someone without a CS degree. Learn that every problem you are solving is for a person in the end. Learn to communicate with people, learn to break down problems and explain them and focus on people. If you can do this, even if you are only "good" as a developer you will surpass the vast majority of CS grads and make far more money in your career. I fully admit plenty of devs are probably better at specifi…
Hi, I'm a younger version of you. I'm in the early stages of my career where I'm currently trying to build whatever I think will be useful to people. But I'm afraid a portfolio of projects might only demonstrate my technical skills.
How do I practically showcase that I am much more valuable as a person that understands a variety of roles and am able to unify them into a cohesive direction?
Also, what advice would you give to a 23 year old version of you?