4 ms·

So what do you do if you lack a degree and professional experience?

pjc50 10y ago
You need to get one of those two. Which means getting the experience somehow. Unpaid work is one (expensive) way of doing it, but so is getting into a related position and working your way across. QA is potentially a good path for this: hired to do simple things without the degree requirement, move into test automation, move across into development. Then you have it on your CV.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  It's actually pretty tough to go from QA to dev.
  - strangetimes 10y ago
    Teach yourself test automation (Selenium, etc.). Shockingly few QAs know even the basics of scripting/programming.
    - pmiller2 10y ago
      It seems like that would be a ticket to a QA automation job, not a dev job. People say QA -> dev is a good way to get in, but I've seen very few people actually accomplish it.
      - gregshap 10y ago
        I've seen it happen several times (my employer may be unusually prone to hiring jr devs as qa automation). I agree that if you can hold out for a dev job, do that and save a year or two getting to the same place. If you really can't get a dev job and need the income, get a QA Automation job and start migrating early by asking to fix small bugs yourself, or work on the automation tooling. At a smaller company, working on the build system and QA automation tooling might be more interesting and get more attention than what you would do as a jr software dev.
  - user5994461 10y ago
    Agree. Don't get into QA if you want to be a dev.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Yes, but it's also quite hard to get hired as a dev without either qualifications or experience. If you've got the qualifications you can go in directly.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
It probably varies from place to place but in the Bay Area at least you pretty much have to get a degree of some sort. There are so many programmers out there that the degree/no-degree has become an easy filter for recruiting types and no-degree + no experience (which means no one to talk to about how you work and what it is like to work with you) makes it doubly difficult. That said, it doesn't have to be a degree from Stanford or Berkeley, it can be from pretty much any accredited institution. Typical path forward here is community college for a couple of years and doing the general education requirements, then transferring to one of the state schools to finish a degree in a STEM subject (typically math, cs, ee, or physics)
- mindcrime 10y ago
  Silicon Valley used to be famous for the exact opposite: the story was always that formal credentials were less important than demonstrated competence. Have things really changed that much? Anyway, at least here on the East Coast, I find that many (most?) companies don't have a strict requirement regarding a degree. At least, not if you have real world experience. Maybe it's more crucial if you're going for your first job.
  - jamesmp98 10y ago
    Where are you on the east coast?
    - mindcrime 10y ago
      The RTP (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC) area.
      - jamesmp98 10y ago
        Yeah NC and GA seem to have much more / better jobs than SC (where I am stuck). I might have a developer job if I was still in the Atlanta metro area.
      - ooqr 10y ago
autotune 10y ago
Start contributing to open source projects on github that solve business problems. Usually for popular projects there are a good number of issues that are available to solve at varying levels of difficulty.

pjc50 10y ago

You need to get one of those two. Which means getting the experience somehow. Unpaid work is one (expensive) way of doing it, but so is getting into a related position and working your way across. QA is potentially a good path for this: hired to do simple things without the degree requirement, move into test automation, move across into development. Then you have it on your CV.

pmiller2 10y ago
It's actually pretty tough to go from QA to dev.
- strangetimes 10y ago
  Teach yourself test automation (Selenium, etc.). Shockingly few QAs know even the basics of scripting/programming.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    It seems like that would be a ticket to a QA automation job, not a dev job. People say QA -> dev is a good way to get in, but I've seen very few people actually accomplish it.
    - gregshap 10y ago
      I've seen it happen several times (my employer may be unusually prone to hiring jr devs as qa automation). I agree that if you can hold out for a dev job, do that and save a year or two getting to the same place. If you really can't get a dev job and need the income, get a QA Automation job and start migrating early by asking to fix small bugs yourself, or work on the automation tooling. At a smaller company, working on the build system and QA automation tooling might be more interesting and get more attention than what you would do as a jr software dev.
- user5994461 10y ago
  Agree. Don't get into QA if you want to be a dev.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Yes, but it's also quite hard to get hired as a dev without either qualifications or experience. If you've got the qualifications you can go in directly.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

It probably varies from place to place but in the Bay Area at least you pretty much have to get a degree of some sort. There are so many programmers out there that the degree/no-degree has become an easy filter for recruiting types and no-degree + no experience (which means no one to talk to about how you work and what it is like to work with you) makes it doubly difficult. That said, it doesn't have to be a degree from Stanford or Berkeley, it can be from pretty much any accredited institution. Typical path forward here is community college for a couple of years and doing the general education requirements, then transferring to one of the state schools to finish a degree in a STEM subject (typically math, cs, ee, or physics)

mindcrime 10y ago
Silicon Valley used to be famous for the exact opposite: the story was always that formal credentials were less important than demonstrated competence. Have things really changed that much? Anyway, at least here on the East Coast, I find that many (most?) companies don't have a strict requirement regarding a degree. At least, not if you have real world experience. Maybe it's more crucial if you're going for your first job.
- jamesmp98 10y ago
  Where are you on the east coast?
  - mindcrime 10y ago
    The RTP (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, NC) area.
    - jamesmp98 10y ago
      Yeah NC and GA seem to have much more / better jobs than SC (where I am stuck). I might have a developer job if I was still in the Atlanta metro area.
    - ooqr 10y ago

autotune 10y ago

Start contributing to open source projects on github that solve business problems. Usually for popular projects there are a good number of issues that are available to solve at varying levels of difficulty.