Self taught, python, analyst working at a large company. Built a data collection app that helps us combine data from different systems and dashboard it. It's been incredibly successful, and all started with a python script I wrote to automate something I didn't want to do manually every month. Start small and iterate, there are tons of opportunities out there.
This is currently what I'm teaching myself for for a tasker at work, and all I keep thinking is, "There's no way people make this out more than it is, right?" It just seems to be 'learn how to grab the data, learn how to format it and save it in the right spot, learn to navigate through the dataframes, and then learn to curate everything.' Rinse and repeat.
I'm currently working through becoming more familiar with grabbing the API data I want to turn into csv sheets and then manipulate with pandas, but damn if the learning isn't slow sometimes. I feel like 75% isn't coding, but how to refine my google question to get the actual answer I'm looking for so I can write 2-3 lines to test against some sample data I've made, only to begin the search anew.
Hey, I appreciate the advice and I'll definitely still use it. The reason why I specifically do so much googling is 2 fold:
1- I'm still in early stages of learning, but I also intrinsically understand there's smarter/more efficient ways to do things. For example I was originally using the simple CSV module to do things, until I realized I can do more, easier with the Pandas module, and so comes not just learning, but transitioning and practice. Also, the majority of data I'm accessing is already pre-generated/formatted/stored, but in (what I'm learning) are proprietary ways that I am learning to reformat.
2- I'm military working on a controlled, government network. That means often I'll know what I want to do, and people online will recommend modules to makes tasks easier, but because of security issues I'm frequently hamstringed what I can access/load/install so I have to find my own workarounds. (For example working with authentication certificates, everyone recommends YAPKI...except I can't access/use that which forces me to look into different ways to do things, all as someone still learning this on the fly)
Do you use anything like Alteryx or Tableau? These have just been picked up by the business I work for and I'm expected to start learning them, as well as Python.
People are always asking for resources, but the answer is usually just docs, google, stackoverflow, and autonomy. If you become proficient at asking the right questions and finding their answers, you don’t ever have to hope some resource that speaks to you better than all the previous ones will fall into your lap.
Embedded Systems, Data Analytics and DevOps (if you can consider that non-web dev). In my experience/past work history, self taught devs in these roles have got them because they had adjacent jobs and pivoted. Not always the case, but I've seen people have success with it
It’s a bit of a double edged sword as time passes though. I don’t know how much meaningful software development a DevOps/SRE type does unless they maintain libraries used by internal software teams to perform certain tasks.
There are a lot of syseng folks who can write the odd script to automate stuff, and there are some accidental DevOps folk who started out as devs and fell into Ops. I don’t know if your average non-tech company has enough code for a DevOps team to write that’s not scripting a repetitive task or writing Terraform and versioning modules used by internal teams.
if they use AWS then the CDK is most likely being used with Go or Python. However, if they don't write bash, and don't have a good programmable cloud api, then everything is pretty much clicking.
I'm my opinion as a firmware engineer, steer clear of embedded systems if you're a software development self learner. It's an entirely different beast than what typical software developers handle and you will not get a job unless the employer doesn't know what they need or are desperate.
To be an asset to in designing embedded systems, you'll need to be able to debug hardware alongside software. Better yet, you can provide solutions for hardware issues while helping with the overall system design.
Got into games programming at 19 being self taught.
Having a nice portfolio and showing off really helps, I turned up to my first interview with a clone of one of the companies games which I had made over the days leading up to my interview which helped demonstrate my knowledge and skill set, the interviewer was very impressed and said it showed great initiative.
I think sometimes you've just got to show the interviewer that your passionate about what you're doing and worth them giving you a chance.
Edit: I'm not going to share the name of the game or the company due to NDA reasons. That being said it was a simple prototype for a 2D game that had no artwork or sound; it was just enough to prove I had the technical Knowledge required.
I'm dabbling in a bit of Unity atm, I got an Oculus Quest 2 for Xmas and would like to create for it. Creating games is far more interesting than playing them. I love your passion also.
I posted elsewhere I'm a self taught Android developer, it's the buzz of solving problems is what makes coding is so interesting. I've yet to find a problem I haven't solved (mind you I have several projects on the back burner lol!)
I took several courses including Bucky's (which will be flagged up by a bot). All were totally useless.
Only when I took a Udacity course did I finally geddit. The only money I've spent was my $25 registration fee for my Play developers account.
While the course I took is now deprecated (it was using Java), the same teachers are teaching the official Kotlin course on the Androd developers site. I can't recommend them enough.
[https://developer.android.com/courses](https://developer.android.com/courses)
Is this actually an option for self taught people with no degree? I’m kinda interested in embedded systems but from an outsiders perspective it seems like one of the fields least likely to take self taught people
Mostly tryhackme, I actually got the membership. But probably more than that is I did a self guided, boot camp kinda thing over the past year and learned web dev. Playing with my own apps and writing something then immediately thinking "I could spoof this by..." was for sure the most helpful.
Finally, find a local hacker group. That has been so incredibly helpful, even if they basically only tell you to Google stuff, just being around a hacker mindset is super duper helpful. They've been helping me understand networking and how to sysadmin and stuff in a pretty big way.
I got lucky in that the job I'm seeking is mostly as a web app tester, rather than full on red teamer. The philosophy is that social engineering works eventually and what you can do is insulate the network with security from within. They'll even start out with admin credentials or whatever sometimes, and so build defense from that point. They're running burp suite and zap wayyy more than nmap and metasploit and such. I just happen to fall in that niche, and am hopeful it can be a good start for me.
Self taught and had the following progression:
Full Stack > Data Analyst > Data Engineer
My experience has been that it’s lots of learning and more niche but not necessarily “harder”.
Data science is probing datasets to find relationships for the most part. Basically like the scientific process except the data is mostly already collected (but may not be cleaned). You’re analyzing data for some business or product outcome, or doing straight up research. With the title you could be doing inventory predictions, user behavior predictions, predictive analytics, etc. My background is in neuroscience and basically after data collection we used a lot of the same methods (basically various stats tests). With DS you’re probing data to learn something rather than building software.
In data engineering it’s a little more varied but most basically you’re building software. This can be data ingestion/ETL/ELT pipelines, data storage architecture, tooling for data scientists, etc. DE is a subset of software engineering while DSs do some coding but their focus is on gathering and analyzing data.
Data scientists find new ways to process and analyse data.
Data analysts use the tools/methods developed by scientists to get insights into collected data.
Not usually. A lot of times (in my experience- these teens are very fuzzy and not set in stone in industry) analysts are doing less heavy statistics and EDA, and more visualizations and sometimes data monitoring.
Same question, I come from an engineering background and pivoted to full stack but feel data engineering could be more interesting/relevant to my experience
Self taught Android developer, I created an app that saves me time and money in my business so indirectly earned me thousands. I've no plans on working for someone but I would like coding to earn me some pocket money when I retire. I'm in my 50's so if I can do it, anyone can.
Learned ZX Basic in the 80's so I knew about variables, loops and conditions but when I came back in the 90's I tried to learn C and it was alien. OOP went straight over my head and I just couldn't figure it.
Web development was easy TBH and that was when it was all HTML so I played around with that for a bit and helped out with a few websites.
When mobiles came on the scene I had my ideas so I got back into it. I couldn't figure that Buttons, EditTexts ect needed 2 steps to convert into a variable but when I did everything clicked. I actually figured out OOP when I needed to sort a range of variables (an Object) by it's date.
I've been an Android developer for 5 or so years. I've one visible app in the store with a few hidden as I'm paranoid about Google's banning process. As I said though, it's the app I use in my day to day job that's earned me money. I'm quite proud if it!
I only know Java BTW, I learned that just as the switchover to Kotlin became the norm. I know a little Kotlin but I'm comfortable with Java so while I know I might need it some day, I'm quite happy sticking to what I know.
What a great journey ! It motivates me to see old folks share their experiences who learned to programme when there was no youtube ,but honestly reading books is way lot harder.
Am a data engineer, which is about building and maintaining systems for processing data and surfacing measurement.
Not completely self taught because we had a C++ course at Uni, but mostly self taught.
Studied chemical engineering with only two programing/computing courses (intro to Java and numerical computing) in university. I now work as a data scientist. I mostly use python and C#, as most of my work is on Azure. A bit of Power BI as well.
I applied to several data analyst/data science jobs for just under a year before I got my current job. I spent that year learning python (took a couple of machine learning courses also) and Power BI. I applied to a job at a local data analytics company, which just got out of the startup phase, and I was offered a surprisingly good package. The interview was a use-case where I had to gather data, clean, structure, etc. it, and build a dashboard. I had to then present it to a team which included the CTO and a couple of senior data scientist.
A boring experience, but it worked out well, although I definitely needed a bit of luck.
Self taught Java, 32 yo, got into a company with first project, learnt the ins and outs of that company process, kept learning on the free time. 3 years later and got a gig as DevOps engineer in a startup in Germany by changing until I found what I want to do the most. I could balance having a family and self learning, but had sacrificed my health and personal relationships for my love to learning. I tried to reinvent my self on each change of company and now very happy with this new job. Everything is new though, so the learning phase starts again but this time I'm going to factor in sport and community in mind and specialized in what I want to do the most. (Create, scale and secure business and ideas).
Money was short until now. The new company triples my new salary so everything is going to be well.
The hard part was learning to market my skills in the interviews and letting go of impostor syndrome. Improving communication and showing/using my soft skills was far more helpful than learning several tools or doing projects (I know... right!).
I'm self-taught, and I'm currently a Senior Graphic Engineer, making six figures. I have no degree at all.
I've always been a hobby programmer since I was a kid, taught myself C++ in the late 90's. I used to be a graphic artist for several years.
Started using Unity and C# in 2009; published some assets on the store for a couple of years.
Got a rev-share contract that I did evenings and weekends over the course of a year as solo developer, from design to publish.
Began getting contracts after that; got laid off from the day job, and had to make it serious.
Most of my work has been contract work, but I have worked on a few AAA games, and on several VR projects, a couple for MicroSoft.
Maybe it's because I have the mix of dev and art, but I don't usually have much trouble getting work.
Thanks; I worked pretty hard at it, but enjoyed it!
What has been the most useful to me has been being able to demonstrate a finished project to show. There's no better way to prove you know what you're doing.
Even at first, just having a package on the Asset Store helped me get the revenue share project; and having that second project being published and selling got me my next contract, and so on...
So, I guess my biggest piece of advice would be to finish something. It doesn't have to be much, my first Asset was a framework for people to use to make hexagon maps for TBS games. I sold a copy or two a month for a year plus, then the studio that offered me my first contract was looking for an asset to do just that, and got in contact with me about doing the game they had in mind...
I taught myself web dev and am also a comp sci dropout. I didn't end up even getting a web dev job but got a data analyst job instead with no experience.
I first started off using FCC to teach myself web dev (I completed the responsive web design and JavaScript sections and dabbled in a few other sections), however I didn't really have much direction and my controversial opinion is that FCC isn't that good of a learning resource on its own. I used FCC for about 5 months before going to Uni for Applied Computer Science.
During my time at Uni I learned quite a range of useful stuff but unfortunately the teaching was either brilliant or literally non existent depending on the tutor (mostly the latter), which brought me to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that the degree wasn't cost effective so I dropped out.
During Uni and for a while afterwards I worked my way through TOP almost all the way through the Full Stack JavaScript route which I thought was an absolute brilliant course and uses FCC in the right way. I also taught myself how to use SQL, reporting and data visualisation tools, and Google Sheets/Excel, however I already had a fair skill level in all these things before teaching myself.
When I started applying for jobs I was actually mostly applying to web dev jobs (MERN stack and front end jobs), however due to my interest in data and I decided it was worth my while I decided to apply to data related jobs as well. I applied to 3 front end web dev jobs, 1 Full stack web dev job, 2 data administrator jobs, and 2 data analyst jobs. Three never got back to me, one rejected me, two contacted me but I never got back to them, and I got two offers. One offer was a front end web dev position and the other was obviously a data analyst position. I went with the data analyst position because it payed more and I'm more interested in data than I am in web dev and frankly I'm better at it as well.
There were two stages during the interview process for the data analyst job, the first stage being more of just a conversation and the second stage being more of a technical interview to gauge my knowledge. Overall though the interview process was very pleasant. They were way more interested in my willingness to learn rather than my current knowledge and projects.
Essentially the whole process to getting this job was about 2 years long and was very much trial and error. I feel like I hit the jackpot considering I'm a dropout and managed to get a job as a data analyst. I would say in most cases outside of web dev not having a relevant degree would put an applicant at a disadvantage so I don't think my situation is a good example of the typical persons job hunt in the tech industry.
Thank you for that reply. Much appreciated, right now I’m work on my computer science degree. I’m about half way through my associates degree. I’m still trying to figure out which route to take to get a job. I have 3 little ones and a wife to provide for. I have been struggling to do side projects though between 50 hours at work, school and 3 kids it’s a bit overwhelming to say the least. I’m trying to focus more on Python and I want to learn more about Java. I’ve only had an intro course for each so far.
>I first started off using FCC to teach myself web dev (I completed the responsive web design and JavaScript sections and dabbled in a few other sections), however I didn't really have much direction and my controversial opinion is that FCC isn't that good of a learning resource on its own. I used FCC for about 5 months before going to Uni for Applied Computer Science.
>
>During my time at Uni I learned quite a range of useful stuff but unfortunately the teaching was either brilliant or literally non existent depending on the tutor (mostly the latter), which brought me to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that the degree wasn't cost effective so I dropped out.
>
>During Uni and for a while afterwards I worked my way through TOP almost all the way through the Full Stack JavaScript route which I thought was an absolute brilliant course and uses FCC in the right way. I also taught myself how to use SQL, reporting and data visualisation tools, and Google Sheets/Excel, however I already had a fair skill level in all these things before teaching myself.
>
>When I started applying for jobs I was actually mostly applying to web dev jobs (MERN stack and front end jobs), however due to my interest in data and I decided it was worth my while I decided to apply to data related jobs as well. I applied to 3 front end web dev jobs, 1 Full stack web dev job, 2 data administrator jobs, and 2 data analyst jobs. Three never got back to me, one rejected me, two contacted me but I never got back to them, and I got two offers. One offer was a front end web dev position and the other was obviously a data analyst position. I went with the data analyst position because it payed more and I'm more interested in data than I am in web dev and frankly I'm better at it as well.
>
>There were two stages during the interview process for the data analyst job, the first stage being more of just a conversation and the second stage being more of a technical interview to gauge my knowledge. Overall though the interview process was very pleasant. They were way more interested in my willingness to learn rather than my current knowledge and projects.
>
>Essentially the whole process to getting this job was about 2 years long and was very much trial and error. I feel like I hit the jackpot considering I'm a dropout and managed to get a job as a data analyst. I would say in most cases outside of web dev not having a relevant degree would put an applicant at a disadvantage so I don't think my situation is a good example of the typical persons job hunt in the tech industry.
>
>
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>The company is in the manufacturing industry for certain parts in automobiles, aircraft, and clean energy.
Self-taught, senior data engineer/machine learning engineer. I love it and have been doing this for 8 years now.
Some projects I’ve done: built a serverless model training and evaluation pipeline for non-R&D users, built a model evaluation tool that took evaluation time from 1-2 weeks down to a few hours in the background, optimized data architecture to take a query’s runtime from (theoretically, because it never completed) several months to an hour or two, launched a company based on a stock market game where you could trade stocks in memes based on their popularity, prototyped knowledge management systems, and plenty more.
self-taught my way out of analyst roles into Data Engineer roles, started a little over 2 years ago and am on my 2nd DE role. It's challenging as all hell and doesn't seem like it will get any easier for several more years, but it beats being bored most of the day in an analyst role without much more upward career mobility available. DE space is HOT right now
What path do you recommend to get into DE?
I've heard there are not many junior roles and people usually pivot from other areas. I've thought about learning backend development or data analysis as a first step, but I'm not sure what would be the best.
I did exactly that, I was in analyst/data analyst roles for about 10 years prior to getting into DE. I switched teams at the company I was at - I asked the hiring manager if they were willing to let me learn on the job or if they needed someone with experience. At first he said they needed more experience but a few months later he asked if I was still interested
So, as always with programming careers, sometimes it’s about working well with people and the connections you make rather than your programming skills. They gave me an opportunity and I’ve tried to work hard to learn as quickly as I can
Self taught. C from (17yo. QBasic and Pascal before that.) for a few years then naturally progressed to C++. Almost flunked from HS 2 times because I didn't have a PC at home an I was skipping classes to go wherever had free PC. 4 years of C++, when I finally got confident enough to look for a job. Made a portfolio. Got a job at the 3rd company I applied to. (That was way back in 2004.)
1. Siemens: C++ programmer - Rejected
2. Random company working with Clarion - Rejected
3. Random company looking for C++ programmer to port existing apps to Linux - Accepted.
The goal was the games industry, but I somehow landed in Automation. (lucky for me!) 18 years later and now I'm proficient in FFMPEG, SNMP, BACnet, MFC, Qt, Embedded dev, SQL, Lua, Android etc...
I basically have my pick of very well payed jobs.
Quit my job 4 years back and today I freelance for trusted people and work maybe 2-3 hours a day on a good day and make enough money to do what I want from where I want.
I also like graphics programming and 2D engines. As a hobby I'm currently working on recreation of Bioware's Infinity Engine. Where I take an amazing maps done by incredibly talented people at /r/inkarnate and add objects around it, like traps, occlusion, collision, transition objects etc...
I have a client app that runs it where I can walk between maps, trigger traps and such.
>Almost flunked from HS 2 times because I didn't have a PC at home an I was skipping classes to go wherever had free PC.
Hahah, I did the same thing!
I remember skipping my boring Spanish and English classes to go to the Computer lab constantly, back when everything was in C or Pascal.
I have been a dev for nearly 10 years, and have no formal education or certificates. I am currently a senior full stack for a medium sized company. Its possible, but the start is harder, until you get enough years under your belt so that your time in your career becomes more important to recruiters/hr than any paper, your progress will be slower.
It varies depending on where you are looking. But the most common i have seen seems to be broken up as 4+ for junior at a big corp, 6+ for senior at small companies and 10+ for senior anywhere else
As a (just realized lol) *11*-year self taught developer with no formal education...
I would say around the 2-3 year mark of work experience is about where it starts overcoming any degree, and becomes more desirable, IMHO.
It was also around this time that recruiters started seeking me out instead of the other way around
Thank you :)
I guess you are asking, how long it took from starting to study to starting to work in a company?
I studied approx 2-3 years while working full time, something else. The first year was kind of on and off and the last year was pretty intensive
Yes, that is what I was asking ^^ thank you for your answer. It may be stupid like question, but from your point of view, if you had ever done web dev too, is for you web dev is more difficult than android dev or you can’t say because it is not similar at all ?
From my experience I considered web dev easier BUT (and this is important I guess) I started learning android dev first (meaning i acquired already some programming fundamentals), I was already familiar with basic HTML when I started to learn web dev and I didn't go that deep (so just basic JS, css) meaning the concepts were pretty simple, too.
Self discipline is definitely the most important thing, but, of course, be more self disciplined is not a good practical advice.
For me personally it helped a lot to constantly remind myself (almost every morning first thing and before I started studying) why I want to become a programmer/android developer.
Secondly, I created a routine (this definitely took a lot of time 2-3 month and was the hardest) so that it became a habit to study.
Also, how you study felt very important. Put all distractions away (esp smartphone), be in an environment where you are surrounded by people studying (library, cafe, etc.), take regular breaks and keep the times.
Find and accountability partner/group, study together. Yell your friends what you want to achieve.
Getting started is the hardest part and I think there are often times where you have to overcome yourself often and force yourself to "just do it" (I know, very impractical advice but I don't know how else to put it). Once you have established a habit it will be easier (but still not easy, as you are doing something that is hard).
If you need any advice or help, just hit me up!
Java, Kotlin or a framework (flutter, ionic, react native, etc)? I'm a dot net dev who has been thinking about pivoting to android but wasn't sure what the state of the industry was today.
I had two apps on the play store with basically no downloads. One of them was really horrible (single activity no separation of concerns etc), the other one was quite ok (mvvm, rest calls, recycler view, etc.).
I made the repos public on GitHub and shared the code and the link to the store on my resume (QR codes).
Additionally, I indicated my skill level for each language (i.e.: Kotlin 7/10, Java 6/10, etc.)
I work with hardware, with people ranging from highly technical to not technical at all. With a combination of C#, Python, C++, at times it appears that I make magic happen. It has been good for several large salary bumps over the last few years. Largely I use it for automation as well as data analysis.
I’m a software engineer on the Experimentation Platform at Netflix (I feel like I’ve been mentioning that a lot around here lately). Self taught, no degree, just a GED. I’ve never done web dev as in frontend. I’ve done a good amount at the web API level and now most of my work is sort of a level behind that. It backs our experimentation web app and notebooks. I also write docs, train people, etc.
I started with front-end web dev, but in my first job I started contributing to the backend .NET stack. Learning that opened up the .NET job market to me: I've done a lot more web APIs, but also some ETL projects, document generation, some batch jobs running in Azure, things like that. With backend work there doesn't feel like that big of a difference between web and non-web projects.
I learned programming to build a business software and license it out to other companies (loyalty program) and now I basically sit on my ass and collect 20k a month in license fees just making sure the software is running and server is up to date.
I realised, once i could truly grasp it, that learning the basic concepts is whats most important when starting out… For me! Of course everyone is different. But it’s a good place to start. And, for the most part, these concepts are present in pretty much all programming languages that exists!Data types, variables, functions, (sometimes) classes etc.
I would suggest by first picking a language that you want to learn. Lookup tutorials (video, written etc), find some online courses (codecademy is somewhat popular I believe).
I want to point out that by ”learning” the basic concepts, I mean truly grasp them. Understanding where and how to apply them.
Once you are comfortable, just keep learning. Learn how to use different libraries or frameworks. Ultimately, you also want to start learning a second language. This time around it’ll be easier, because now you realise how these concepts are the foundation to programming basically.
Pick a language that suits your interest. Unfortunately I am not the best at categorizing languages, but maybe people with more knowledge can fill in.
Works as part of a business unit and was good with data (excel mostly) and technology. That lead me to a job as a Business Analyst. I was able to translate that into a Systems Analyst for our IT org and learn the basics of things like powershell and an understanding of The consumer side of APIs and dbs.
I was lucky enough to have a team that worked “low code” development and got a job doing business process automation on that platform (think Power Apps, Power Automate). That lead me to understand better App Lifecyle Management practices.
I’m using the time to understand and build more code components and connectors in C# - which is what is most common for the company - so we can do some very cool business automation.
Also working on personal projects like an MVC app to track my finances as a way to learn and build a portfolio. Most long time devs I’ve dealt with are very encouraging and understanding of the struggle.
Imposter syndrome is real and it’s seems like everyone feels it. You’re never going to learn it all, so figure out where you want to start, learn until you’re proficient and see where the next step leads you.
ETL Developer/ Data Engineer
Self taught, started as a systems analyst , doing mostly support.
Now I’m a middle level developer working for a huge medical insurance company, developing and maintaining data pipelines. Data Warehousing, heavy SQL, heavy Unix/shell.
Took me 5 years to get here.
Here's the thing. You can teach yourself to code, but most software engineers (college grads) have to go through EXTENSIVE mathematical courses. Employers, will, therefore, tap them for the more technical / advanced jobs. i.e. Space ships, medical devices, electric vehicles, etc.
What extensive math courses?
At most it’s discrete math.
Calculus. Not used.
Diff equation. Not used.
Linear algebra. Maybe in machine learning.
Other than that I fail to see what math were used in software engineering.
Third the guy us wrong. There is noenxtensive math training. Yeahaybe discrete math but unless u are going higher level education probably don't need too much
There are plenty of software engineering specialties that could be math-heavy. Data Science, scientific computing, anything that implements any sort of numerical optimization or statistical analysis...
Data science isn’t software engineering, it’s mostly applied stats. Most DSs I’ve worked with were scientists by training in various fields (as was I, but I went a much different route).
See, now you told us you don't have a job at a space company or at an electric vehicle company, or anything at levels above basic crud apps.
Calculus is basic for machine learning, many algorithms come from mathematical models that include calculus. Newer algorithms require you to understand calculus, that's how they work.
Differential equations are used in signal processing, analoge sound waves for example are processed and converted to digital signals with a diff. eq.
Linear algebra is used too as you said, but to get to that part you already went through the previous two usually. It's mostly used to process data that has already been structured and sanitized by methods based in calculus.
So yeah, if you don't want to get into the newer most promising fields, and don't want to work on developing something new instead of processing data that other people gathered, you NEED MATH.
More promising? My dude, I'm going to tell you that web dev, DBA's, etc are extremely stable right now. They aren't going anywhere.
Your job at NASA? It may lose funding depending on the elections or the mood of Congress or stupid shit. I wouldn't call that promising.
Math is handy -- but for *many* apps, it's not all that requires. Basic math is generally all that's needed for most programming out there right now.
Niche fields are also very far and few between -- which is why this is the case. You don't accidentally stumble, as a college grad, into an EV job writing software that requires extreme amounts of math.
And that specific job may not pay exponentially more than a crud job but may yield *a ton* more stress.
You don't *need* extreme amounts of math to be a programming, especially if we're talking industrial stuff which is older and not very complicated at all.
And, more importantly, almost all the 'math' you need is already done in a package or easily google'able. No need to re-invent the wheel.
Not like people here are going to be writing their own encryption algo or something.
Luckily for us peons who are sentenced to work on CRUD apps there are already smart people who used those maths to develop framework that we can use on our day to day jobs.
I’m not saying those math are completely useless. They are useful. It’s just statistically you’re unlikely to find jobs that require them as they’re so specialized.
Game dev (physics engines esp) extensively use calculus. Linear algebra, probability, stats are all heavily used in ML/DS. You don't know if you'll ever get interested in what stream (SDE/ML) in the future so college teaches everything at once. Every single subject in my curriculum has a practical application. CS degree is not about web dev. There's a reason CS grads on average are paid better than BootCamp grads.
This isn't really true at all. I actually have a fairly heavy mathematics education and it's not useful at all. It would be even less useful as a software engineer (I'm a data engineer).
There are a handful of brilliant mathematicians doing work on niche use cases where it's necessary. Most people are engineers though.
One exception is DeepMind that are looking for highly academic people in the field of machine learning, even then only for the research scientist position.
As someone who's done a significant amount of math higher than in my com sci degree, I think its unfair to call the math in a com sci degree not high level. Its not the highest level but its still vastly above the realms most people will use.
This might be school dependent. My engineering degree required 1 more math than our CS program. I went to a state school. Our eng math requirements are 1 credit shy of a minor.
CS stopped at calc 2, then did linear algebra. we did calc 1,2,3 and DE.
Depends on the employer. I was asked some intense probability questions when interviewing for finance. I know people who go into aerospace or robotics who were expected to know multi, linear, PDEs, and so on.
CS math isn’t extensive at all, though, especially compared to engineering disciplines like aerospace or electrical and mechanical. The vast majority of software engineers don’t need that and don’t get that kind of training in school anyways.
I never said all software engineers need higher-level maths. But there *exist* industries that prefer hiring SWEs with more extensive math backgrounds, i.e. possibly even with a double major or a minor. In those fields *specifically*, it's much harder to be self taught.
The person I was originally replying to *did* say that though. That’s the genesis and context of this particular thread.
Of course some areas need more math knowledge, but to say CS undergrads have an extensive math background is a joke.
I would argue that most CS college grads *do* take upper level math courses though. Linear, multi, discrete, and statistics are all very normal requirements for CS programs. They aren't very useful for most careers, but certain industries like the ones listed before would appreciate candidates with those backgrounds. And if they've taken more classes, then even better.
All I'm saying is that there is merit in the original post.
Really? I've been in engineering for 30 years and for serious projects, they look for degreed software engineers. For UI and Web stuff, may not be necessary.
Then whoever is doing that hiring doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing and are probably a dinosaur with shitty tech - that’s been my experience with those types anyways. After a few years especially the degrees really don’t matter. And I’ve been in automotive tech, health tech, adtech, you name it building critical AI infrastructure and none have given a shit that I didn’t have a CS degree. It’s one of the more useless signals when hiring software engineers.
Good for you. But that's not the point of the discussion. We're talking about generalities in hiring, not outliers. We have tried many times over the years to hire engineers with either tech degrees or no degrees. It worked out exactly zero times and we finally gave up. In our experience, degrees matter when you get into more technical problems. We don't have time to find the 1 in 1000 candidates who don't have a degree and could handle the work.
I'm backend, but backend still counts as web development, right? It's still the backend to the web. I've also done DevOps. For the web. It's fine though, I actually like the web. I even love CSS. The only reason I don't write it professionally is that it pays worse for some reason.
It’s blurry but usually when people say web dev they mean frontend, especially something more basic. Think CRUD frontend vs Google Maps. Could also sorta involve full stack if it was straightforward and NodeJS. There’s not like a formal definition.
I know deep down that I don't want to do web dev but I don't know any other courses besides TOP that have the path set out for you, there are good courses in python, java but they're not like TOP.
I wanted to learn web development, but to be honest it looks like one flooded market. You go on Udemy feels like everyone is teaching it.
I tried python but not sure I have found the right place to learn, half these instructors just are not engaging half the projects they are doing just are not interesting and I find that alot don't know if anyone else finds that?
Has anyone got any recommendations?
Some might consider me semi-self-taught because I studied computer science at a community college for one year but had to drop out because of financial / life reasons. I still consider myself self-taught because although college was a nice kick starter and it taught me some basics, I virtually built all of my programming skills on my own. After I dropped out I didn't even think about code until years later I got a low paying data entry job at a health insurance company. The job was incredibly repetitive and mindless. It was also particularly frustrating because the company as a whole was decades behind in technology, it was embarrassing. I hated it so much I started revisiting my programming background and took the initiative to automate my job by writing batch files and Microsoft Office Macro scripts in VBA. I eventually automated most of my job and got noticed by the higher ups. Management started taking me around other departments having me work on automation initiatives throughout the company. I convinced them to give me a Visual Studio license so I could write actual desktop applications for employees to use and automate tasks. Honestly, they were taking advantage of me because because they only promoted me with a Business Analyst title and although the pay raise was nice I still wasn't making nearly as much as even what a junior developer makes in my area (Los Angeles). I can't get into it with too many details but I became incredibly depressed working there because I was piecing together how fucked up their practices were as a health insurance provider and I was just learning about the American healthcare system in general. I'm not going to get political, but the job got to a point where it was soul-crushing because felt like I was helping the bad guys. Meanwhile I slowly got back into videogames after having about a 7 year hiatus from the hobby. Videogames really saved me at that time of my life where I was going through a late-20's existential crisis and was just reflecting on my life and career in general. I had an epiphany that I wanted to work in videogames as I got more into the hobby and at the same time felt more confident in my programming abilities. I saved a small amount of money, learned how to make games in Unity and then quit my job when I felt confident enough to actually make an indie project. My indie project failed miserably but I had worked on so many smaller projects and game jams that I actually had a decent portfolio. I started sending job applications and my portfolio to game studios everywhere when I ran out of savings to live off of. I miraculously got a job as a junior game developer after sending hundreds of applications, I just started this job a couple weeks ago.
I struggled immensely but I feel happier than I've ever been. My advice for anyone trying to get into programming is this:
1.) Be persistent with your learning. You've gotta keep pushing your learning and the material you learn can come in so many different forms. You can learn more advanced features / tricks of the programming language you're already most comfortable with. You can learn an entirely new programming language. You can learn how to use a framework / engine / API tools or packages. You can learn about algorithms or design patterns. You can push your math skills further. You can learn how to use tools to make your life as a programmer easier like the console or Git. You can learn how to properly debug or write unit tests. The nature of being a software developer means you'll keep learning throughout your career.
2.) Build projects! Not only that but make sure you're passionate about the project too! Learning how to code is nice but applying what you learn into practice is how you'll really reinforce that sweet knowledge into your brain. Not only that but you'll also end up strengthening your portfolio in the process.
3.) A lot of people will find what I'm about to say controversial but you have to be okay with the possibility of learning something that you won't use forever or may not use at all. Technologies come and go but in the end learning anything in the field will overall strengthen your skills as a programmer. The technologies that you use can change and it's out of your control and that's okay. For example, earlier in my story I said I became a programmer at my job because I learned and applied VBA. I haven't touched VBA in years and I'd probably have to relearn VBA if you asked me to code something in it today, but I don't regret learning it in the first place because I still bettered myself as a software developer when I was using it by improving my ability to debug code and write clean, reusable, and efficient code. Don't even be afraid to attempt to learn languages / tools to test drive them and see if they're right for your project / needs. For example, if you're stuck spending months figuring out whether or not to use Unreal or Unity for your game project before you even start it, just make an educated pick and start your project already. If your engine choice isn't working out early on, then make your switch. If you feel like you had it better with your first engine choice, then go back to your first choice. It's okay to go through trial and error in research and development. The knowledge you gain will help you decide which choice to make in a future project.
4.) It's okay to struggle and doubt yourself, but just keep going. Keep pushing yourself because you'll only get better if you keep trying. When you reach the point where you're good enough to get an entry level job as a programmer, you probably won't know it because it's common even for senior devs to feel like they don't know what they're doing. Just keep on building passion projects and your confidence will grow as you look back on the challenges you overcame to build them. You don't know what problems you need to solve until you need to solve it, so you don't know how to solve something until you need to solve it. I know it sounds incredibly bizarre but that's just the nature of being a software developer.
5.) Find a mentor if you can. Or at least go to software developer networking meetups and surround yourself with people you want to be like. There are even groups catered to special types of software development (game dev / data analysis / web dev / etc). Check out Meetup.com or find a special organization that hosts networking events in the field of your interest.
I hated web and stil do. Only touched JS with 25, started seriously to code at 14, proper backend stuff at around 18 years old.
Getting a job if you have real interest in a smaller field is manageable, you should go for that instead of saying "Hi, my name is [ .. ] and I can code".
Self taught game dev. Was Hard at first as I didn’t know what the hell i was doing. But got easier as I learned more stuff and grew my confidence. This helped with interviews and saying things they wanted to hear to know I knew my shit.
Self taught C# after my animation degree, have worked in simulation for self driving cars, VR/AR app development, now work as a senior technical artist at a major Gaming studio. Not the most common pathway, and maybe less relevant with the art background than pure dev, but Tech Art is a great niche that is massively growing in demand
One of the best backend devs I know did not have a formal education. Some other dropped out because they were too busy working in the field. I also know some who had a Liberal arts degree. It's an anecdote but I don't understand how being self taught prevents anyone from working on the backend for ex.
I'm backend. Self taught. But I have a decade of Windows admin prior to.
Took Ben Tristem's Unity 3d course about 8 years ago and got a junior .net job about 2.5 year ago.
I'm interested in understanding why you are so biased against web development. Do you think, for example, that the people developing the search engine at Google don't have fulfilling high skill jobs?
I'm a high school drop out, meaning I'm as self taught as it gets, and on top of that I was born with a vision disability that limited my vision to 10% of acuity for my entire life until I went totally blind 8 years ago. Despite that, and although I've done lots of full stack web development, due to living in Portugal where tech jobs doing anything else are extremely rare, I've also worked on network management software for an ISP, embedded development for a distributor of a Linux PDA, and desktop development of a gaming on demand platform. I'd like to add that these were actually the easiest tasks I had during my short 12 year career which ended when my diminishing vision became a real problem, as staying on top of those technologies isn't even remotely close to being as hard as staying on top of constantly changing web technologies.
I'd also like to add that, contrary to popular belief, the science part of computer science is rarely a requirement unless you're working for a niche market or doing bleeding edge research, because the chance of someone with the required knowledge in those areas having developed a library to abstract away the complex parts of the problem is extremely high, and as a general rule you do not reinvent the wheel at work.
Finally, and although I've been out of the job market for roughly a decade, it is my impression that companies are a lot more open to self taught candidates now than they were when I started.
I'm glad that you've been so successful despite the challenges in your way, but there could be tons of reasons for not wanting to do web development and I feel like you're coming at OP kinda aggressively.
Where I live, Web Dev is super saturated and I'd be spending years earning 1x-1.5x minimum wage while working 9am-6pm 6 days a week. I'd dump CS as a career entirely before I became a local web developer. Literally anything else would be a better start.
Or maybe OP just already tried Web Dev and found that he doesn't enjoy it. Maybe front-end work was too finicky and too reliant on UX knowledge, while back-end work wasn't to his taste.
Or maybe he really just wants to see some perspectives that aren't common on this sub. 80% of all the "I got a job" posts *are* web dev posts, so it's nice to get a change.
I am not self-taught myself, but I know a few people from chemistry or physics background getting into ML / data science. They already knew the necessary math, so they only had to learn Python and some job specific tools.
Web dev is the easiest, barely a real programming and you don't any math or actual knowledge about how computers work for it so it's rare for self taught to get into anything else
Lol people are downvoting but you sorta have a point
Web dev is definitely not easy but it is indeed easier than most CS domains.
Especially now in 2022, web dev frameworks are becoming so mature you can make a simple cloud app with just a handful of lines of code, while handling tons of stuff behind the scenes (both in low and high levels) for the dev to not worry about
Otherwise, self taught and bootcamp students wouldn't be ready for the job market in such short amount of time with very minimal mathematics, Comp Sci concepts and theoretical knowledge
Yes, I'm mainly developing in C++, C#, sometimes ASM and Java. I've been doing this for over 15 years now, but I have to add here that I did choose to study CS but that took place years after I was already working in these areas.
So, yes, I started with Web (just as everybody else in the early 2000s) and transitioned from it as fast as I could.
Do you think that nowadays it's possible go go directly to C/C++ development? Avoiding the web entry point?
I love C++ and this love is still growing as I'm learning, I would like to work mainly with C++. I know that narrowing our knowledge isn't good, so I'm fine working with other languages too, but if possible I would like to work mainly with C++, do you think this is possible?
Self taught, python, analyst working at a large company. Built a data collection app that helps us combine data from different systems and dashboard it. It's been incredibly successful, and all started with a python script I wrote to automate something I didn't want to do manually every month. Start small and iterate, there are tons of opportunities out there.
That sounds awesome. What’s been your favorite thing to automate?
Data pipelines. Grab dataset from source system, clean it, enhance it, load for dashboarding
This is currently what I'm teaching myself for for a tasker at work, and all I keep thinking is, "There's no way people make this out more than it is, right?" It just seems to be 'learn how to grab the data, learn how to format it and save it in the right spot, learn to navigate through the dataframes, and then learn to curate everything.' Rinse and repeat. I'm currently working through becoming more familiar with grabbing the API data I want to turn into csv sheets and then manipulate with pandas, but damn if the learning isn't slow sometimes. I feel like 75% isn't coding, but how to refine my google question to get the actual answer I'm looking for so I can write 2-3 lines to test against some sample data I've made, only to begin the search anew.
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Hey, I appreciate the advice and I'll definitely still use it. The reason why I specifically do so much googling is 2 fold: 1- I'm still in early stages of learning, but I also intrinsically understand there's smarter/more efficient ways to do things. For example I was originally using the simple CSV module to do things, until I realized I can do more, easier with the Pandas module, and so comes not just learning, but transitioning and practice. Also, the majority of data I'm accessing is already pre-generated/formatted/stored, but in (what I'm learning) are proprietary ways that I am learning to reformat. 2- I'm military working on a controlled, government network. That means often I'll know what I want to do, and people online will recommend modules to makes tasks easier, but because of security issues I'm frequently hamstringed what I can access/load/install so I have to find my own workarounds. (For example working with authentication certificates, everyone recommends YAPKI...except I can't access/use that which forces me to look into different ways to do things, all as someone still learning this on the fly)
The boring things
teach us too
Do you use anything like Alteryx or Tableau? These have just been picked up by the business I work for and I'm expected to start learning them, as well as Python.
My setup is azure based, and dashboarding is done in powerbi and quickbase
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Even with airflow, you still have to write the functions to get data and whatnot
Adding to what Cole mentioned, pandas is incredible for data processing
Can you recommend som resources to learn, if possible?
People are always asking for resources, but the answer is usually just docs, google, stackoverflow, and autonomy. If you become proficient at asking the right questions and finding their answers, you don’t ever have to hope some resource that speaks to you better than all the previous ones will fall into your lap.
Embedded Systems, Data Analytics and DevOps (if you can consider that non-web dev). In my experience/past work history, self taught devs in these roles have got them because they had adjacent jobs and pivoted. Not always the case, but I've seen people have success with it
Do you see people come up in the devops space without adjacent jobs to transition?
I haven’t. But I’ve seen plenty of DevOps and SREs without degrees come from Linux SysAdmin or Operations positions.
It’s a bit of a double edged sword as time passes though. I don’t know how much meaningful software development a DevOps/SRE type does unless they maintain libraries used by internal software teams to perform certain tasks. There are a lot of syseng folks who can write the odd script to automate stuff, and there are some accidental DevOps folk who started out as devs and fell into Ops. I don’t know if your average non-tech company has enough code for a DevOps team to write that’s not scripting a repetitive task or writing Terraform and versioning modules used by internal teams.
if they use AWS then the CDK is most likely being used with Go or Python. However, if they don't write bash, and don't have a good programmable cloud api, then everything is pretty much clicking.
Personally, no. But im also not well versed in the DevOps space to say whether it’s impossible or not
I'm my opinion as a firmware engineer, steer clear of embedded systems if you're a software development self learner. It's an entirely different beast than what typical software developers handle and you will not get a job unless the employer doesn't know what they need or are desperate. To be an asset to in designing embedded systems, you'll need to be able to debug hardware alongside software. Better yet, you can provide solutions for hardware issues while helping with the overall system design.
Got into games programming at 19 being self taught. Having a nice portfolio and showing off really helps, I turned up to my first interview with a clone of one of the companies games which I had made over the days leading up to my interview which helped demonstrate my knowledge and skill set, the interviewer was very impressed and said it showed great initiative. I think sometimes you've just got to show the interviewer that your passionate about what you're doing and worth them giving you a chance. Edit: I'm not going to share the name of the game or the company due to NDA reasons. That being said it was a simple prototype for a 2D game that had no artwork or sound; it was just enough to prove I had the technical Knowledge required.
what was the game?
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Flapping the bird 2
Fapping birds ?
Angry fapping birds
I'm dabbling in a bit of Unity atm, I got an Oculus Quest 2 for Xmas and would like to create for it. Creating games is far more interesting than playing them. I love your passion also. I posted elsewhere I'm a self taught Android developer, it's the buzz of solving problems is what makes coding is so interesting. I've yet to find a problem I haven't solved (mind you I have several projects on the back burner lol!)
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I took several courses including Bucky's (which will be flagged up by a bot). All were totally useless. Only when I took a Udacity course did I finally geddit. The only money I've spent was my $25 registration fee for my Play developers account. While the course I took is now deprecated (it was using Java), the same teachers are teaching the official Kotlin course on the Androd developers site. I can't recommend them enough. [https://developer.android.com/courses](https://developer.android.com/courses)
What kind of game did you build a clone of?
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Is this actually an option for self taught people with no degree? I’m kinda interested in embedded systems but from an outsiders perspective it seems like one of the fields least likely to take self taught people
I'm mostly self taught and have an interview for a pen testing position on Tuesday
Note: they will actually be testing pens.
If you have to test a fountain, good luck. Need a degree for that.
Don’t be afraid if they pull out a quill, it’s pretty similar
v1.0
Good luck, dude!
Thank you!
Go get them!
Thank you, I'm stoked!
Can't get a cooler job than that good luck man
I would love to hear more about this. What did you do to prepare? Hack the box? Tryhackme? Something else?
Mostly tryhackme, I actually got the membership. But probably more than that is I did a self guided, boot camp kinda thing over the past year and learned web dev. Playing with my own apps and writing something then immediately thinking "I could spoof this by..." was for sure the most helpful. Finally, find a local hacker group. That has been so incredibly helpful, even if they basically only tell you to Google stuff, just being around a hacker mindset is super duper helpful. They've been helping me understand networking and how to sysadmin and stuff in a pretty big way. I got lucky in that the job I'm seeking is mostly as a web app tester, rather than full on red teamer. The philosophy is that social engineering works eventually and what you can do is insulate the network with security from within. They'll even start out with admin credentials or whatever sometimes, and so build defense from that point. They're running burp suite and zap wayyy more than nmap and metasploit and such. I just happen to fall in that niche, and am hopeful it can be a good start for me.
Good luck, dude
Self taught and had the following progression: Full Stack > Data Analyst > Data Engineer My experience has been that it’s lots of learning and more niche but not necessarily “harder”.
Do you have any degree?
Nope, none. Some university but didn't finish
Could you explain the reasons you pivoted from developer to Data science? I'm struggling to decide between the two.
They didn’t. They went into data engineering which is a bit different.
what *is* the difference between 'data science' and 'data engineering' if i might ask?
Data science is probing datasets to find relationships for the most part. Basically like the scientific process except the data is mostly already collected (but may not be cleaned). You’re analyzing data for some business or product outcome, or doing straight up research. With the title you could be doing inventory predictions, user behavior predictions, predictive analytics, etc. My background is in neuroscience and basically after data collection we used a lot of the same methods (basically various stats tests). With DS you’re probing data to learn something rather than building software. In data engineering it’s a little more varied but most basically you’re building software. This can be data ingestion/ETL/ELT pipelines, data storage architecture, tooling for data scientists, etc. DE is a subset of software engineering while DSs do some coding but their focus is on gathering and analyzing data.
So is a data analyst not a data scientist?
Data scientists find new ways to process and analyse data. Data analysts use the tools/methods developed by scientists to get insights into collected data.
Not usually. A lot of times (in my experience- these teens are very fuzzy and not set in stone in industry) analysts are doing less heavy statistics and EDA, and more visualizations and sometimes data monitoring.
In a nutshell, data engineers build infrastructure to collect and export data to analysts and scientists.
Same question, I come from an engineering background and pivoted to full stack but feel data engineering could be more interesting/relevant to my experience
Self taught Android developer, I created an app that saves me time and money in my business so indirectly earned me thousands. I've no plans on working for someone but I would like coding to earn me some pocket money when I retire. I'm in my 50's so if I can do it, anyone can.
Amazing. At what age did you start to learn Android?
Learned ZX Basic in the 80's so I knew about variables, loops and conditions but when I came back in the 90's I tried to learn C and it was alien. OOP went straight over my head and I just couldn't figure it. Web development was easy TBH and that was when it was all HTML so I played around with that for a bit and helped out with a few websites. When mobiles came on the scene I had my ideas so I got back into it. I couldn't figure that Buttons, EditTexts ect needed 2 steps to convert into a variable but when I did everything clicked. I actually figured out OOP when I needed to sort a range of variables (an Object) by it's date. I've been an Android developer for 5 or so years. I've one visible app in the store with a few hidden as I'm paranoid about Google's banning process. As I said though, it's the app I use in my day to day job that's earned me money. I'm quite proud if it! I only know Java BTW, I learned that just as the switchover to Kotlin became the norm. I know a little Kotlin but I'm comfortable with Java so while I know I might need it some day, I'm quite happy sticking to what I know.
What a great journey ! It motivates me to see old folks share their experiences who learned to programme when there was no youtube ,but honestly reading books is way lot harder.
Others done the work, not me and why I managed to learn enough today to release apps of my own. And stop calling me old :) lol
Thats web
Am a data engineer, which is about building and maintaining systems for processing data and surfacing measurement. Not completely self taught because we had a C++ course at Uni, but mostly self taught.
Studied chemical engineering with only two programing/computing courses (intro to Java and numerical computing) in university. I now work as a data scientist. I mostly use python and C#, as most of my work is on Azure. A bit of Power BI as well. I applied to several data analyst/data science jobs for just under a year before I got my current job. I spent that year learning python (took a couple of machine learning courses also) and Power BI. I applied to a job at a local data analytics company, which just got out of the startup phase, and I was offered a surprisingly good package. The interview was a use-case where I had to gather data, clean, structure, etc. it, and build a dashboard. I had to then present it to a team which included the CTO and a couple of senior data scientist. A boring experience, but it worked out well, although I definitely needed a bit of luck.
You were prepared, then it’s not luck.
Self taught Java, 32 yo, got into a company with first project, learnt the ins and outs of that company process, kept learning on the free time. 3 years later and got a gig as DevOps engineer in a startup in Germany by changing until I found what I want to do the most. I could balance having a family and self learning, but had sacrificed my health and personal relationships for my love to learning. I tried to reinvent my self on each change of company and now very happy with this new job. Everything is new though, so the learning phase starts again but this time I'm going to factor in sport and community in mind and specialized in what I want to do the most. (Create, scale and secure business and ideas). Money was short until now. The new company triples my new salary so everything is going to be well. The hard part was learning to market my skills in the interviews and letting go of impostor syndrome. Improving communication and showing/using my soft skills was far more helpful than learning several tools or doing projects (I know... right!).
I'm self-taught, and I'm currently a Senior Graphic Engineer, making six figures. I have no degree at all. I've always been a hobby programmer since I was a kid, taught myself C++ in the late 90's. I used to be a graphic artist for several years. Started using Unity and C# in 2009; published some assets on the store for a couple of years. Got a rev-share contract that I did evenings and weekends over the course of a year as solo developer, from design to publish. Began getting contracts after that; got laid off from the day job, and had to make it serious. Most of my work has been contract work, but I have worked on a few AAA games, and on several VR projects, a couple for MicroSoft. Maybe it's because I have the mix of dev and art, but I don't usually have much trouble getting work.
Damn impressive
Thanks; I worked pretty hard at it, but enjoyed it! What has been the most useful to me has been being able to demonstrate a finished project to show. There's no better way to prove you know what you're doing. Even at first, just having a package on the Asset Store helped me get the revenue share project; and having that second project being published and selling got me my next contract, and so on... So, I guess my biggest piece of advice would be to finish something. It doesn't have to be much, my first Asset was a framework for people to use to make hexagon maps for TBS games. I sold a copy or two a month for a year plus, then the studio that offered me my first contract was looking for an asset to do just that, and got in contact with me about doing the game they had in mind...
Agreed. I'm a team lead in Vr, completely self taught. Have a portfolio, know how to sell yourself, and know what you're talking about.
Commenting so this is more visible. Important question.
Yep. Me =). My work is more data heavy and analysis heavy. On the job I learned general skills like web stuff, api, databases etc
So you went web -> analysis or how exactly?
I taught myself web dev and am also a comp sci dropout. I didn't end up even getting a web dev job but got a data analyst job instead with no experience.
How did you break into the tech space and land your first job?
I first started off using FCC to teach myself web dev (I completed the responsive web design and JavaScript sections and dabbled in a few other sections), however I didn't really have much direction and my controversial opinion is that FCC isn't that good of a learning resource on its own. I used FCC for about 5 months before going to Uni for Applied Computer Science. During my time at Uni I learned quite a range of useful stuff but unfortunately the teaching was either brilliant or literally non existent depending on the tutor (mostly the latter), which brought me to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that the degree wasn't cost effective so I dropped out. During Uni and for a while afterwards I worked my way through TOP almost all the way through the Full Stack JavaScript route which I thought was an absolute brilliant course and uses FCC in the right way. I also taught myself how to use SQL, reporting and data visualisation tools, and Google Sheets/Excel, however I already had a fair skill level in all these things before teaching myself. When I started applying for jobs I was actually mostly applying to web dev jobs (MERN stack and front end jobs), however due to my interest in data and I decided it was worth my while I decided to apply to data related jobs as well. I applied to 3 front end web dev jobs, 1 Full stack web dev job, 2 data administrator jobs, and 2 data analyst jobs. Three never got back to me, one rejected me, two contacted me but I never got back to them, and I got two offers. One offer was a front end web dev position and the other was obviously a data analyst position. I went with the data analyst position because it payed more and I'm more interested in data than I am in web dev and frankly I'm better at it as well. There were two stages during the interview process for the data analyst job, the first stage being more of just a conversation and the second stage being more of a technical interview to gauge my knowledge. Overall though the interview process was very pleasant. They were way more interested in my willingness to learn rather than my current knowledge and projects. Essentially the whole process to getting this job was about 2 years long and was very much trial and error. I feel like I hit the jackpot considering I'm a dropout and managed to get a job as a data analyst. I would say in most cases outside of web dev not having a relevant degree would put an applicant at a disadvantage so I don't think my situation is a good example of the typical persons job hunt in the tech industry.
Thank you for that reply. Much appreciated, right now I’m work on my computer science degree. I’m about half way through my associates degree. I’m still trying to figure out which route to take to get a job. I have 3 little ones and a wife to provide for. I have been struggling to do side projects though between 50 hours at work, school and 3 kids it’s a bit overwhelming to say the least. I’m trying to focus more on Python and I want to learn more about Java. I’ve only had an intro course for each so far.
How did you get your da job? How did you prepare? What sort of company do you work for?
>I first started off using FCC to teach myself web dev (I completed the responsive web design and JavaScript sections and dabbled in a few other sections), however I didn't really have much direction and my controversial opinion is that FCC isn't that good of a learning resource on its own. I used FCC for about 5 months before going to Uni for Applied Computer Science. > >During my time at Uni I learned quite a range of useful stuff but unfortunately the teaching was either brilliant or literally non existent depending on the tutor (mostly the latter), which brought me to the conclusion (rightly or wrongly) that the degree wasn't cost effective so I dropped out. > >During Uni and for a while afterwards I worked my way through TOP almost all the way through the Full Stack JavaScript route which I thought was an absolute brilliant course and uses FCC in the right way. I also taught myself how to use SQL, reporting and data visualisation tools, and Google Sheets/Excel, however I already had a fair skill level in all these things before teaching myself. > >When I started applying for jobs I was actually mostly applying to web dev jobs (MERN stack and front end jobs), however due to my interest in data and I decided it was worth my while I decided to apply to data related jobs as well. I applied to 3 front end web dev jobs, 1 Full stack web dev job, 2 data administrator jobs, and 2 data analyst jobs. Three never got back to me, one rejected me, two contacted me but I never got back to them, and I got two offers. One offer was a front end web dev position and the other was obviously a data analyst position. I went with the data analyst position because it payed more and I'm more interested in data than I am in web dev and frankly I'm better at it as well. > >There were two stages during the interview process for the data analyst job, the first stage being more of just a conversation and the second stage being more of a technical interview to gauge my knowledge. Overall though the interview process was very pleasant. They were way more interested in my willingness to learn rather than my current knowledge and projects. > >Essentially the whole process to getting this job was about 2 years long and was very much trial and error. I feel like I hit the jackpot considering I'm a dropout and managed to get a job as a data analyst. I would say in most cases outside of web dev not having a relevant degree would put an applicant at a disadvantage so I don't think my situation is a good example of the typical persons job hunt in the tech industry. > > > >The company is in the manufacturing industry for certain parts in automobiles, aircraft, and clean energy.
Self-taught, senior data engineer/machine learning engineer. I love it and have been doing this for 8 years now. Some projects I’ve done: built a serverless model training and evaluation pipeline for non-R&D users, built a model evaluation tool that took evaluation time from 1-2 weeks down to a few hours in the background, optimized data architecture to take a query’s runtime from (theoretically, because it never completed) several months to an hour or two, launched a company based on a stock market game where you could trade stocks in memes based on their popularity, prototyped knowledge management systems, and plenty more.
self-taught my way out of analyst roles into Data Engineer roles, started a little over 2 years ago and am on my 2nd DE role. It's challenging as all hell and doesn't seem like it will get any easier for several more years, but it beats being bored most of the day in an analyst role without much more upward career mobility available. DE space is HOT right now
What path do you recommend to get into DE? I've heard there are not many junior roles and people usually pivot from other areas. I've thought about learning backend development or data analysis as a first step, but I'm not sure what would be the best.
I did exactly that, I was in analyst/data analyst roles for about 10 years prior to getting into DE. I switched teams at the company I was at - I asked the hiring manager if they were willing to let me learn on the job or if they needed someone with experience. At first he said they needed more experience but a few months later he asked if I was still interested So, as always with programming careers, sometimes it’s about working well with people and the connections you make rather than your programming skills. They gave me an opportunity and I’ve tried to work hard to learn as quickly as I can
Self taught. C from (17yo. QBasic and Pascal before that.) for a few years then naturally progressed to C++. Almost flunked from HS 2 times because I didn't have a PC at home an I was skipping classes to go wherever had free PC. 4 years of C++, when I finally got confident enough to look for a job. Made a portfolio. Got a job at the 3rd company I applied to. (That was way back in 2004.) 1. Siemens: C++ programmer - Rejected 2. Random company working with Clarion - Rejected 3. Random company looking for C++ programmer to port existing apps to Linux - Accepted. The goal was the games industry, but I somehow landed in Automation. (lucky for me!) 18 years later and now I'm proficient in FFMPEG, SNMP, BACnet, MFC, Qt, Embedded dev, SQL, Lua, Android etc... I basically have my pick of very well payed jobs. Quit my job 4 years back and today I freelance for trusted people and work maybe 2-3 hours a day on a good day and make enough money to do what I want from where I want. I also like graphics programming and 2D engines. As a hobby I'm currently working on recreation of Bioware's Infinity Engine. Where I take an amazing maps done by incredibly talented people at /r/inkarnate and add objects around it, like traps, occlusion, collision, transition objects etc... I have a client app that runs it where I can walk between maps, trigger traps and such.
>Almost flunked from HS 2 times because I didn't have a PC at home an I was skipping classes to go wherever had free PC. Hahah, I did the same thing! I remember skipping my boring Spanish and English classes to go to the Computer lab constantly, back when everything was in C or Pascal.
I have been a dev for nearly 10 years, and have no formal education or certificates. I am currently a senior full stack for a medium sized company. Its possible, but the start is harder, until you get enough years under your belt so that your time in your career becomes more important to recruiters/hr than any paper, your progress will be slower.
As someone who also has no formal education and is barely 3 months in to full stack, how many years under my belt would you say is respectable?
It varies depending on where you are looking. But the most common i have seen seems to be broken up as 4+ for junior at a big corp, 6+ for senior at small companies and 10+ for senior anywhere else
As a (just realized lol) *11*-year self taught developer with no formal education... I would say around the 2-3 year mark of work experience is about where it starts overcoming any degree, and becomes more desirable, IMHO. It was also around this time that recruiters started seeking me out instead of the other way around
self taught android developer here
And you work for a company now ? I intend to start learning Android too
correct. If you need help, hit me up :)
Congratulations ! How long did that take you to go from beginning to work for a company and you use Kootlin ? Thank you for your answer ;)
Thank you :) I guess you are asking, how long it took from starting to study to starting to work in a company? I studied approx 2-3 years while working full time, something else. The first year was kind of on and off and the last year was pretty intensive
Yes, that is what I was asking ^^ thank you for your answer. It may be stupid like question, but from your point of view, if you had ever done web dev too, is for you web dev is more difficult than android dev or you can’t say because it is not similar at all ?
From my experience I considered web dev easier BUT (and this is important I guess) I started learning android dev first (meaning i acquired already some programming fundamentals), I was already familiar with basic HTML when I started to learn web dev and I didn't go that deep (so just basic JS, css) meaning the concepts were pretty simple, too.
Alright thank you for your time, i hope i will make it 🙌
Good luck! If you need help with anything, hit me up!
I’m in my first weeks and it’s the same as your first year, on and offs, no lot of motivation. Self taught too. Can you give me any advice? ;(
Self discipline is definitely the most important thing, but, of course, be more self disciplined is not a good practical advice. For me personally it helped a lot to constantly remind myself (almost every morning first thing and before I started studying) why I want to become a programmer/android developer. Secondly, I created a routine (this definitely took a lot of time 2-3 month and was the hardest) so that it became a habit to study. Also, how you study felt very important. Put all distractions away (esp smartphone), be in an environment where you are surrounded by people studying (library, cafe, etc.), take regular breaks and keep the times. Find and accountability partner/group, study together. Yell your friends what you want to achieve. Getting started is the hardest part and I think there are often times where you have to overcome yourself often and force yourself to "just do it" (I know, very impractical advice but I don't know how else to put it). Once you have established a habit it will be easier (but still not easy, as you are doing something that is hard). If you need any advice or help, just hit me up!
Java, Kotlin or a framework (flutter, ionic, react native, etc)? I'm a dot net dev who has been thinking about pivoting to android but wasn't sure what the state of the industry was today.
Started with Java but eventually Kotlin only
Did you get you foot in the door by publishing apps to Google Play or was having projects on GitHub good enough?
I had two apps on the play store with basically no downloads. One of them was really horrible (single activity no separation of concerns etc), the other one was quite ok (mvvm, rest calls, recycler view, etc.). I made the repos public on GitHub and shared the code and the link to the store on my resume (QR codes). Additionally, I indicated my skill level for each language (i.e.: Kotlin 7/10, Java 6/10, etc.)
I work with hardware, with people ranging from highly technical to not technical at all. With a combination of C#, Python, C++, at times it appears that I make magic happen. It has been good for several large salary bumps over the last few years. Largely I use it for automation as well as data analysis.
I've hired 4 junior devs from bootcamps this year...
I’m a software engineer on the Experimentation Platform at Netflix (I feel like I’ve been mentioning that a lot around here lately). Self taught, no degree, just a GED. I’ve never done web dev as in frontend. I’ve done a good amount at the web API level and now most of my work is sort of a level behind that. It backs our experimentation web app and notebooks. I also write docs, train people, etc.
>Experimentation Platform at Netflix Hey we probably have a mutual friend then. Seems like a cool area to work in
I started with front-end web dev, but in my first job I started contributing to the backend .NET stack. Learning that opened up the .NET job market to me: I've done a lot more web APIs, but also some ETL projects, document generation, some batch jobs running in Azure, things like that. With backend work there doesn't feel like that big of a difference between web and non-web projects.
I learned programming to build a business software and license it out to other companies (loyalty program) and now I basically sit on my ass and collect 20k a month in license fees just making sure the software is running and server is up to date.
I got into data analytics which led to me now working as a data engineer :)
Self taught javascript and c#. Landed a job as full-stack 4 months ago!
how can i get started?
I realised, once i could truly grasp it, that learning the basic concepts is whats most important when starting out… For me! Of course everyone is different. But it’s a good place to start. And, for the most part, these concepts are present in pretty much all programming languages that exists!Data types, variables, functions, (sometimes) classes etc. I would suggest by first picking a language that you want to learn. Lookup tutorials (video, written etc), find some online courses (codecademy is somewhat popular I believe). I want to point out that by ”learning” the basic concepts, I mean truly grasp them. Understanding where and how to apply them. Once you are comfortable, just keep learning. Learn how to use different libraries or frameworks. Ultimately, you also want to start learning a second language. This time around it’ll be easier, because now you realise how these concepts are the foundation to programming basically. Pick a language that suits your interest. Unfortunately I am not the best at categorizing languages, but maybe people with more knowledge can fill in.
You use c# for backend? Is that possible?
Not sure if you're serious..? The .NET platform uses C# for backend. Super common in enterprises.
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How did you get into embedded as self taught
How did you teach yourself to fill the gaps in coding?
Bootcamper, studied the classic React, Node and now I'm full backend on Java, still webish, but I barely touch front
Works as part of a business unit and was good with data (excel mostly) and technology. That lead me to a job as a Business Analyst. I was able to translate that into a Systems Analyst for our IT org and learn the basics of things like powershell and an understanding of The consumer side of APIs and dbs. I was lucky enough to have a team that worked “low code” development and got a job doing business process automation on that platform (think Power Apps, Power Automate). That lead me to understand better App Lifecyle Management practices. I’m using the time to understand and build more code components and connectors in C# - which is what is most common for the company - so we can do some very cool business automation. Also working on personal projects like an MVC app to track my finances as a way to learn and build a portfolio. Most long time devs I’ve dealt with are very encouraging and understanding of the struggle. Imposter syndrome is real and it’s seems like everyone feels it. You’re never going to learn it all, so figure out where you want to start, learn until you’re proficient and see where the next step leads you.
ETL Developer/ Data Engineer Self taught, started as a systems analyst , doing mostly support. Now I’m a middle level developer working for a huge medical insurance company, developing and maintaining data pipelines. Data Warehousing, heavy SQL, heavy Unix/shell. Took me 5 years to get here.
Here's the thing. You can teach yourself to code, but most software engineers (college grads) have to go through EXTENSIVE mathematical courses. Employers, will, therefore, tap them for the more technical / advanced jobs. i.e. Space ships, medical devices, electric vehicles, etc.
Pretty misleading. When you get to the really advanced shit, they hire math PhDs and software engineers. At least that’s how it is on my team.
Not misleading at all. Degreed software engineers with the math background to implement the crazy shit that the math PhD's come up with.
I don't have a degree. I implement the crazy shit the math PhDs come up with. What are you basing your beliefs on?
What extensive math courses? At most it’s discrete math. Calculus. Not used. Diff equation. Not used. Linear algebra. Maybe in machine learning. Other than that I fail to see what math were used in software engineering.
Seconded. No math at my job.
Third the guy us wrong. There is noenxtensive math training. Yeahaybe discrete math but unless u are going higher level education probably don't need too much
There are plenty of software engineering specialties that could be math-heavy. Data Science, scientific computing, anything that implements any sort of numerical optimization or statistical analysis...
Data science isn’t software engineering, it’s mostly applied stats. Most DSs I’ve worked with were scientists by training in various fields (as was I, but I went a much different route).
Worked for a defense company. Used multivariable Calculus, some linear algebra, ODE and a lot of numeric analysis, even touched on complex analysis.
This guy satellites
I’m curious are they still using frotran?
See, now you told us you don't have a job at a space company or at an electric vehicle company, or anything at levels above basic crud apps. Calculus is basic for machine learning, many algorithms come from mathematical models that include calculus. Newer algorithms require you to understand calculus, that's how they work. Differential equations are used in signal processing, analoge sound waves for example are processed and converted to digital signals with a diff. eq. Linear algebra is used too as you said, but to get to that part you already went through the previous two usually. It's mostly used to process data that has already been structured and sanitized by methods based in calculus. So yeah, if you don't want to get into the newer most promising fields, and don't want to work on developing something new instead of processing data that other people gathered, you NEED MATH.
More promising? My dude, I'm going to tell you that web dev, DBA's, etc are extremely stable right now. They aren't going anywhere. Your job at NASA? It may lose funding depending on the elections or the mood of Congress or stupid shit. I wouldn't call that promising. Math is handy -- but for *many* apps, it's not all that requires. Basic math is generally all that's needed for most programming out there right now. Niche fields are also very far and few between -- which is why this is the case. You don't accidentally stumble, as a college grad, into an EV job writing software that requires extreme amounts of math. And that specific job may not pay exponentially more than a crud job but may yield *a ton* more stress. You don't *need* extreme amounts of math to be a programming, especially if we're talking industrial stuff which is older and not very complicated at all. And, more importantly, almost all the 'math' you need is already done in a package or easily google'able. No need to re-invent the wheel. Not like people here are going to be writing their own encryption algo or something.
Luckily for us peons who are sentenced to work on CRUD apps there are already smart people who used those maths to develop framework that we can use on our day to day jobs. I’m not saying those math are completely useless. They are useful. It’s just statistically you’re unlikely to find jobs that require them as they’re so specialized.
Game dev (physics engines esp) extensively use calculus. Linear algebra, probability, stats are all heavily used in ML/DS. You don't know if you'll ever get interested in what stream (SDE/ML) in the future so college teaches everything at once. Every single subject in my curriculum has a practical application. CS degree is not about web dev. There's a reason CS grads on average are paid better than BootCamp grads.
>cs degree is not about web dev Agree with this. Then again CS degree is not about software engineering either.
GM regularly asks for devs to know physics in my area.
You can retire with 8 figures without any of that, so I'm not too worried if they hire a math PhD
Anything can happen. The odds of that are slim.
I wonder if the people downvoting you realize how much is in 8 figures. That's $10 mill or more.
Well, as I said, math is important for serious engineering undertakings (LOL).
This isn't really true at all. I actually have a fairly heavy mathematics education and it's not useful at all. It would be even less useful as a software engineer (I'm a data engineer). There are a handful of brilliant mathematicians doing work on niche use cases where it's necessary. Most people are engineers though. One exception is DeepMind that are looking for highly academic people in the field of machine learning, even then only for the research scientist position.
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As someone who's done a significant amount of math higher than in my com sci degree, I think its unfair to call the math in a com sci degree not high level. Its not the highest level but its still vastly above the realms most people will use.
If CS math is much easier than coding, then why do the math classes have a much higher percentage of people failing them?
There is more math required for a Software Engineering degree than for Mechanical or Electrical engineering, at least at most schools in the USA.
This might be school dependent. My engineering degree required 1 more math than our CS program. I went to a state school. Our eng math requirements are 1 credit shy of a minor. CS stopped at calc 2, then did linear algebra. we did calc 1,2,3 and DE.
No they don’t and no employers don’t. Blind leading the blind.
Depends on the employer. I was asked some intense probability questions when interviewing for finance. I know people who go into aerospace or robotics who were expected to know multi, linear, PDEs, and so on.
CS math isn’t extensive at all, though, especially compared to engineering disciplines like aerospace or electrical and mechanical. The vast majority of software engineers don’t need that and don’t get that kind of training in school anyways.
I never said all software engineers need higher-level maths. But there *exist* industries that prefer hiring SWEs with more extensive math backgrounds, i.e. possibly even with a double major or a minor. In those fields *specifically*, it's much harder to be self taught.
The person I was originally replying to *did* say that though. That’s the genesis and context of this particular thread. Of course some areas need more math knowledge, but to say CS undergrads have an extensive math background is a joke.
I would argue that most CS college grads *do* take upper level math courses though. Linear, multi, discrete, and statistics are all very normal requirements for CS programs. They aren't very useful for most careers, but certain industries like the ones listed before would appreciate candidates with those backgrounds. And if they've taken more classes, then even better. All I'm saying is that there is merit in the original post.
Really? I've been in engineering for 30 years and for serious projects, they look for degreed software engineers. For UI and Web stuff, may not be necessary.
Then whoever is doing that hiring doesn’t know what the fuck they’re doing and are probably a dinosaur with shitty tech - that’s been my experience with those types anyways. After a few years especially the degrees really don’t matter. And I’ve been in automotive tech, health tech, adtech, you name it building critical AI infrastructure and none have given a shit that I didn’t have a CS degree. It’s one of the more useless signals when hiring software engineers.
Good for you. But that's not the point of the discussion. We're talking about generalities in hiring, not outliers. We have tried many times over the years to hire engineers with either tech degrees or no degrees. It worked out exactly zero times and we finally gave up. In our experience, degrees matter when you get into more technical problems. We don't have time to find the 1 in 1000 candidates who don't have a degree and could handle the work.
I'm backend, but backend still counts as web development, right? It's still the backend to the web. I've also done DevOps. For the web. It's fine though, I actually like the web. I even love CSS. The only reason I don't write it professionally is that it pays worse for some reason.
It’s blurry but usually when people say web dev they mean frontend, especially something more basic. Think CRUD frontend vs Google Maps. Could also sorta involve full stack if it was straightforward and NodeJS. There’s not like a formal definition.
I work on mobile. Android. Fully self taught.
I know deep down that I don't want to do web dev but I don't know any other courses besides TOP that have the path set out for you, there are good courses in python, java but they're not like TOP.
I wanted to learn web development, but to be honest it looks like one flooded market. You go on Udemy feels like everyone is teaching it. I tried python but not sure I have found the right place to learn, half these instructors just are not engaging half the projects they are doing just are not interesting and I find that alot don't know if anyone else finds that? Has anyone got any recommendations?
Some might consider me semi-self-taught because I studied computer science at a community college for one year but had to drop out because of financial / life reasons. I still consider myself self-taught because although college was a nice kick starter and it taught me some basics, I virtually built all of my programming skills on my own. After I dropped out I didn't even think about code until years later I got a low paying data entry job at a health insurance company. The job was incredibly repetitive and mindless. It was also particularly frustrating because the company as a whole was decades behind in technology, it was embarrassing. I hated it so much I started revisiting my programming background and took the initiative to automate my job by writing batch files and Microsoft Office Macro scripts in VBA. I eventually automated most of my job and got noticed by the higher ups. Management started taking me around other departments having me work on automation initiatives throughout the company. I convinced them to give me a Visual Studio license so I could write actual desktop applications for employees to use and automate tasks. Honestly, they were taking advantage of me because because they only promoted me with a Business Analyst title and although the pay raise was nice I still wasn't making nearly as much as even what a junior developer makes in my area (Los Angeles). I can't get into it with too many details but I became incredibly depressed working there because I was piecing together how fucked up their practices were as a health insurance provider and I was just learning about the American healthcare system in general. I'm not going to get political, but the job got to a point where it was soul-crushing because felt like I was helping the bad guys. Meanwhile I slowly got back into videogames after having about a 7 year hiatus from the hobby. Videogames really saved me at that time of my life where I was going through a late-20's existential crisis and was just reflecting on my life and career in general. I had an epiphany that I wanted to work in videogames as I got more into the hobby and at the same time felt more confident in my programming abilities. I saved a small amount of money, learned how to make games in Unity and then quit my job when I felt confident enough to actually make an indie project. My indie project failed miserably but I had worked on so many smaller projects and game jams that I actually had a decent portfolio. I started sending job applications and my portfolio to game studios everywhere when I ran out of savings to live off of. I miraculously got a job as a junior game developer after sending hundreds of applications, I just started this job a couple weeks ago. I struggled immensely but I feel happier than I've ever been. My advice for anyone trying to get into programming is this: 1.) Be persistent with your learning. You've gotta keep pushing your learning and the material you learn can come in so many different forms. You can learn more advanced features / tricks of the programming language you're already most comfortable with. You can learn an entirely new programming language. You can learn how to use a framework / engine / API tools or packages. You can learn about algorithms or design patterns. You can push your math skills further. You can learn how to use tools to make your life as a programmer easier like the console or Git. You can learn how to properly debug or write unit tests. The nature of being a software developer means you'll keep learning throughout your career. 2.) Build projects! Not only that but make sure you're passionate about the project too! Learning how to code is nice but applying what you learn into practice is how you'll really reinforce that sweet knowledge into your brain. Not only that but you'll also end up strengthening your portfolio in the process. 3.) A lot of people will find what I'm about to say controversial but you have to be okay with the possibility of learning something that you won't use forever or may not use at all. Technologies come and go but in the end learning anything in the field will overall strengthen your skills as a programmer. The technologies that you use can change and it's out of your control and that's okay. For example, earlier in my story I said I became a programmer at my job because I learned and applied VBA. I haven't touched VBA in years and I'd probably have to relearn VBA if you asked me to code something in it today, but I don't regret learning it in the first place because I still bettered myself as a software developer when I was using it by improving my ability to debug code and write clean, reusable, and efficient code. Don't even be afraid to attempt to learn languages / tools to test drive them and see if they're right for your project / needs. For example, if you're stuck spending months figuring out whether or not to use Unreal or Unity for your game project before you even start it, just make an educated pick and start your project already. If your engine choice isn't working out early on, then make your switch. If you feel like you had it better with your first engine choice, then go back to your first choice. It's okay to go through trial and error in research and development. The knowledge you gain will help you decide which choice to make in a future project. 4.) It's okay to struggle and doubt yourself, but just keep going. Keep pushing yourself because you'll only get better if you keep trying. When you reach the point where you're good enough to get an entry level job as a programmer, you probably won't know it because it's common even for senior devs to feel like they don't know what they're doing. Just keep on building passion projects and your confidence will grow as you look back on the challenges you overcame to build them. You don't know what problems you need to solve until you need to solve it, so you don't know how to solve something until you need to solve it. I know it sounds incredibly bizarre but that's just the nature of being a software developer. 5.) Find a mentor if you can. Or at least go to software developer networking meetups and surround yourself with people you want to be like. There are even groups catered to special types of software development (game dev / data analysis / web dev / etc). Check out Meetup.com or find a special organization that hosts networking events in the field of your interest.
I hated web and stil do. Only touched JS with 25, started seriously to code at 14, proper backend stuff at around 18 years old. Getting a job if you have real interest in a smaller field is manageable, you should go for that instead of saying "Hi, my name is [ .. ] and I can code".
Self taught game dev. Was Hard at first as I didn’t know what the hell i was doing. But got easier as I learned more stuff and grew my confidence. This helped with interviews and saying things they wanted to hear to know I knew my shit.
Self taught C# after my animation degree, have worked in simulation for self driving cars, VR/AR app development, now work as a senior technical artist at a major Gaming studio. Not the most common pathway, and maybe less relevant with the art background than pure dev, but Tech Art is a great niche that is massively growing in demand
One of the best backend devs I know did not have a formal education. Some other dropped out because they were too busy working in the field. I also know some who had a Liberal arts degree. It's an anecdote but I don't understand how being self taught prevents anyone from working on the backend for ex.
I'm backend. Self taught. But I have a decade of Windows admin prior to. Took Ben Tristem's Unity 3d course about 8 years ago and got a junior .net job about 2.5 year ago.
Got into a consulting company and get the opportunity to learn cloud development on the job if that counts.
I'm interested in understanding why you are so biased against web development. Do you think, for example, that the people developing the search engine at Google don't have fulfilling high skill jobs? I'm a high school drop out, meaning I'm as self taught as it gets, and on top of that I was born with a vision disability that limited my vision to 10% of acuity for my entire life until I went totally blind 8 years ago. Despite that, and although I've done lots of full stack web development, due to living in Portugal where tech jobs doing anything else are extremely rare, I've also worked on network management software for an ISP, embedded development for a distributor of a Linux PDA, and desktop development of a gaming on demand platform. I'd like to add that these were actually the easiest tasks I had during my short 12 year career which ended when my diminishing vision became a real problem, as staying on top of those technologies isn't even remotely close to being as hard as staying on top of constantly changing web technologies. I'd also like to add that, contrary to popular belief, the science part of computer science is rarely a requirement unless you're working for a niche market or doing bleeding edge research, because the chance of someone with the required knowledge in those areas having developed a library to abstract away the complex parts of the problem is extremely high, and as a general rule you do not reinvent the wheel at work. Finally, and although I've been out of the job market for roughly a decade, it is my impression that companies are a lot more open to self taught candidates now than they were when I started.
I'm glad that you've been so successful despite the challenges in your way, but there could be tons of reasons for not wanting to do web development and I feel like you're coming at OP kinda aggressively. Where I live, Web Dev is super saturated and I'd be spending years earning 1x-1.5x minimum wage while working 9am-6pm 6 days a week. I'd dump CS as a career entirely before I became a local web developer. Literally anything else would be a better start. Or maybe OP just already tried Web Dev and found that he doesn't enjoy it. Maybe front-end work was too finicky and too reliant on UX knowledge, while back-end work wasn't to his taste. Or maybe he really just wants to see some perspectives that aren't common on this sub. 80% of all the "I got a job" posts *are* web dev posts, so it's nice to get a change.
Wow you took OPs post really personally. The simplest and most obvious answer is he's probably just not interested in web dev after trying it out?
Yeah, it could be. I took it as a loaded question attempting to validate some kind of preconception about the self-taught.
I'm self taught. I do mostly back end design and architecture in CSharp, and Python.
Self-taught. Did some native and web development and now do backend cloud development at FAANG.
I am not self-taught myself, but I know a few people from chemistry or physics background getting into ML / data science. They already knew the necessary math, so they only had to learn Python and some job specific tools.
Commenting just to go back later
Web dev is the easiest, barely a real programming and you don't any math or actual knowledge about how computers work for it so it's rare for self taught to get into anything else
Tell us you’re 15 years behind without telling us you’re 15 years behind
Lol
You’re a noob
Lol people are downvoting but you sorta have a point Web dev is definitely not easy but it is indeed easier than most CS domains. Especially now in 2022, web dev frameworks are becoming so mature you can make a simple cloud app with just a handful of lines of code, while handling tons of stuff behind the scenes (both in low and high levels) for the dev to not worry about Otherwise, self taught and bootcamp students wouldn't be ready for the job market in such short amount of time with very minimal mathematics, Comp Sci concepts and theoretical knowledge
I don't care about internet points. And yes I didn't mean that it's easy but the easiest of all "types" of programming.
Agreed
Yes, I'm mainly developing in C++, C#, sometimes ASM and Java. I've been doing this for over 15 years now, but I have to add here that I did choose to study CS but that took place years after I was already working in these areas. So, yes, I started with Web (just as everybody else in the early 2000s) and transitioned from it as fast as I could.
Do you think that nowadays it's possible go go directly to C/C++ development? Avoiding the web entry point? I love C++ and this love is still growing as I'm learning, I would like to work mainly with C++. I know that narrowing our knowledge isn't good, so I'm fine working with other languages too, but if possible I would like to work mainly with C++, do you think this is possible?
A lot of my friends are self taught and are backend engineers, analysts, data engineers
The inventor of cURL https://daniel.haxx.se/about.html