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>The line between learning to code and getting paid to program as a profession is not an easy line to cross. Really. It took me more than a year of self-taught

>The line between learning to code and getting paid to program as a profession is not an easy line to cross. Really. It took me more than a year of self-taught study before I got a freelance gig. That actually makes it sound easy.

pkaye 10y ago
Programming is the profession with the least barriers to turn into a career. Most others has mandatory licensing, degrees, training, etc. How long does it take to be a doctor? A Lawyer? Most traditional engineering degrees? Heck working as a barber takes more effort in most states.
- ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
  Hence a lot of people have problems with calling our field 'engineering,' when you compare the training and licensure of programmers with 'real' engineers. I personally like it, though I prefer programmer over engineer regardless.
  - Nursie 10y ago
    This is also probably why there are so many just-plain-awful coders out there who don't belong in the same room as people who do things well.
    - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
      At the same time, disparities in practitioner quality are going to exist in every field, not just software development.
    - pkaye 10y ago
      There are "just-plain-awful" engineers in other fields of engineering also. I started my career doing mechanical and electrical design work before gradually switching to programming (and then getting a degree.) Engineers who don't understand gear ratios, tolerances, circuit design, etc. Maybe a little more in the programming because that is where the money is at right now.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Programming is the profession with the least barriers to turn into a career. That's largely because its not a profession, by any of the usual definitions that separate a "profession" from a "job".
ef4 10y ago
Yup. "With no credentials I was able to work hard on my own for a year and then landed an entry level position with very good future prospects." What other lucrative professional industry is this easy to break into?
- Alex3917 10y ago
  > What other lucrative professional industry is this easy to break into? It's only easy if you're an autodidact and have high-level English proficiency. In reality it's easy for the people it's easy for, but 95% of the population is still excluded. Programming as a skill will be completely commoditized in the next ten years. But some developers will still make good salaries, because as the world gets more interconnected the value of being a winner in a winner-take-all market is only increasing.
- jtnegrotto 10y ago
  Well, there are other skilled professions that pay well and are relatively easy to get into. Welding for example.
  - rubidium 10y ago
    US avg. salary welder: $37,000 US avg salary software developer: $99,500
    - LyndsySimon 10y ago
      A simple mean doesn't fully illustrate what's going on there. Most welders are self-taught, and while their skills are more than adequate for what they're doing they likely don't have the skills necessary to (for instance) weld stainless steel or aluminum. A welder who graduated from Tulsa Welding School with a year or so of training is likely going to start out somewhere around $50k. I have a friend who went there and specialized in underwater welding, and now he works for BP in the Gulf somewhere. His job consists of mostly inspecting the work of his juniors, and he makes about three times what I make as a software engineer.
jarcane 10y ago
It's not. You know how I got started in the restaurant industry? A friend said, "Want to work at my restaurant?" So I did. Another friend, knowing I wanted to get into film, said "Wanna come work on sets with me?" Just like that. Foolishly, I blew 3 and a half years in school instead. But I didn't have to do any of that, I could've just gone to Cali and started working so long as I wasn't picky about what I did in the beginning. I, like the author of the piece, have managed, with considerable cajoling, to get into an entry-level position at a software consultancy but even that took me 8 months of government-paid internship and another year of self-training before that, plus hours as a hobbyist programmer when I was a kid. It was basically luck, and persistence, that got me this job at all, most other software firms and recruiters took one look at my resume and passed. Getting this job is one of the hardest things I have ever done. There's no easy route. As a self-trained programmer, I'm hampered heavily by the lack of degree, but a degree means 4 years minimum of schooling, and even some amount of study just to qualify to get into the university that I will do that schooling in. I am, it's true, after all that, making more even with what is a pretty small salary for a coder, making more than I ever did cooking in the states. And I've got a very understanding employer, with a flexible schedule and benefits even as an entry-level grunt that are better than I ever dreamed of as a kid. But it's hardly been an easy or magic road to career success. I had to prove myself over and over, and still fight with anxiety over making sure I can do it again every day just to keep a hold on where I am, let alone move up from there. Coding isn't for everyone, and while yes, I pulled it off so far, I still think the bootcamp/Codecademy/MOOC snake oil of "Buy our course for just €49.99 and become a rockstar coder!" shit is basically a pack of lies.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  None of my friends have the whuffie to get anyone else a job like that. So I had to get the paid-for credentials just to get my foot in the door. I could not now get anyone else a job, nor can any of my current or former technical-side co-workers. My career is owned and operated by the good ol'boy network of a completely foreign caste. So you can't "just get a job" in this field. I don't know if you have noticed, but HN regularly features articles and blog posts about how incredibly broken tech hiring is these days. All those people pushing young folks into learning how to code see it as the long-term solution to their perceived problem of not being able to find affordable skilled labor for their businesses. But the supply of skilled labor is not the problem. The problem is that the businesses are not only failing to look for it in the seemingly obvious places, but it is very likely they would not recognize it if they were literally handcuffed to a qualified applicant for a solid fortnight, in a survival challenge designed specifically to favor analytical personalities. Rather than fixing the system to identify and match labor to business, they want to rearrange the entire world such that picking a random person off the street to do the job won't be a complete failure. They want everyone to learn how to code so they won't have to worry so much about their woeful inability to discern if someone is truly well suited for their open position or not.

pkaye 10y ago

Programming is the profession with the least barriers to turn into a career. Most others has mandatory licensing, degrees, training, etc. How long does it take to be a doctor? A Lawyer? Most traditional engineering degrees? Heck working as a barber takes more effort in most states.

ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
Hence a lot of people have problems with calling our field 'engineering,' when you compare the training and licensure of programmers with 'real' engineers. I personally like it, though I prefer programmer over engineer regardless.
- Nursie 10y ago
  This is also probably why there are so many just-plain-awful coders out there who don't belong in the same room as people who do things well.
  - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
    At the same time, disparities in practitioner quality are going to exist in every field, not just software development.
  - pkaye 10y ago
    There are "just-plain-awful" engineers in other fields of engineering also. I started my career doing mechanical and electrical design work before gradually switching to programming (and then getting a degree.) Engineers who don't understand gear ratios, tolerances, circuit design, etc. Maybe a little more in the programming because that is where the money is at right now.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Programming is the profession with the least barriers to turn into a career. That's largely because its not a profession, by any of the usual definitions that separate a "profession" from a "job".

ef4 10y ago

Yup. "With no credentials I was able to work hard on my own for a year and then landed an entry level position with very good future prospects." What other lucrative professional industry is this easy to break into?

Alex3917 10y ago
> What other lucrative professional industry is this easy to break into? It's only easy if you're an autodidact and have high-level English proficiency. In reality it's easy for the people it's easy for, but 95% of the population is still excluded. Programming as a skill will be completely commoditized in the next ten years. But some developers will still make good salaries, because as the world gets more interconnected the value of being a winner in a winner-take-all market is only increasing.
jtnegrotto 10y ago
Well, there are other skilled professions that pay well and are relatively easy to get into. Welding for example.
- rubidium 10y ago
  US avg. salary welder: $37,000 US avg salary software developer: $99,500
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    A simple mean doesn't fully illustrate what's going on there. Most welders are self-taught, and while their skills are more than adequate for what they're doing they likely don't have the skills necessary to (for instance) weld stainless steel or aluminum. A welder who graduated from Tulsa Welding School with a year or so of training is likely going to start out somewhere around $50k. I have a friend who went there and specialized in underwater welding, and now he works for BP in the Gulf somewhere. His job consists of mostly inspecting the work of his juniors, and he makes about three times what I make as a software engineer.

jarcane 10y ago

It's not. You know how I got started in the restaurant industry? A friend said, "Want to work at my restaurant?" So I did. Another friend, knowing I wanted to get into film, said "Wanna come work on sets with me?" Just like that. Foolishly, I blew 3 and a half years in school instead. But I didn't have to do any of that, I could've just gone to Cali and started working so long as I wasn't picky about what I did in the beginning. I, like the author of the piece, have managed, with considerable cajoling, to get into an entry-level position at a software consultancy but even that took me 8 months of government-paid internship and another year of self-training before that, plus hours as a hobbyist programmer when I was a kid. It was basically luck, and persistence, that got me this job at all, most other software firms and recruiters took one look at my resume and passed. Getting this job is one of the hardest things I have ever done. There's no easy route. As a self-trained programmer, I'm hampered heavily by the lack of degree, but a degree means 4 years minimum of schooling, and even some amount of study just to qualify to get into the university that I will do that schooling in. I am, it's true, after all that, making more even with what is a pretty small salary for a coder, making more than I ever did cooking in the states. And I've got a very understanding employer, with a flexible schedule and benefits even as an entry-level grunt that are better than I ever dreamed of as a kid. But it's hardly been an easy or magic road to career success. I had to prove myself over and over, and still fight with anxiety over making sure I can do it again every day just to keep a hold on where I am, let alone move up from there. Coding isn't for everyone, and while yes, I pulled it off so far, I still think the bootcamp/Codecademy/MOOC snake oil of "Buy our course for just €49.99 and become a rockstar coder!" shit is basically a pack of lies.

logfromblammo 10y ago
None of my friends have the whuffie to get anyone else a job like that. So I had to get the paid-for credentials just to get my foot in the door. I could not now get anyone else a job, nor can any of my current or former technical-side co-workers. My career is owned and operated by the good ol'boy network of a completely foreign caste. So you can't "just get a job" in this field. I don't know if you have noticed, but HN regularly features articles and blog posts about how incredibly broken tech hiring is these days. All those people pushing young folks into learning how to code see it as the long-term solution to their perceived problem of not being able to find affordable skilled labor for their businesses. But the supply of skilled labor is not the problem. The problem is that the businesses are not only failing to look for it in the seemingly obvious places, but it is very likely they would not recognize it if they were literally handcuffed to a qualified applicant for a solid fortnight, in a survival challenge designed specifically to favor analytical personalities. Rather than fixing the system to identify and match labor to business, they want to rearrange the entire world such that picking a random person off the street to do the job won't be a complete failure. They want everyone to learn how to code so they won't have to worry so much about their woeful inability to discern if someone is truly well suited for their open position or not.