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If you're self taught, get a degree as soon as you can, even if you take night classes over an extended period. No matter how good you are, a large portion of c

If you're self taught, get a degree as soon as you can, even if you take night classes over an extended period. No matter how good you are, a large portion of companies and recruiters will autotrash your resume without an education section. If you're not a founder, NEVER take equity in leu of salary. If they offer a competitive salary and equity, that's a significant plus, but equity as a portion of your compensation value is essentially a scam. if the company goes under or you're let go before the cliff (which is usually two years or more, a lifetime in this industry), all that money disappears: not true of salary. If a founder or officer alludes to houses, cars or other riches as a pitch to join their company run. Seriously. Take the time to understand systems and infrastructure. Not every dev needs to be a kubernetes expert, but the big difference between a code monkey and a code assassin is that the assassin can deploy their own code to production if necessary. If you're a web dev and you can't configure nginx or apache, you have a gaping hole in your skillset. Launching off the last point: learn to be competent with linux. Linux is the preeminent environment of the software world and it pays huge career dividends to be able to script, configure, compile, install and maintain linux software and systems. RTFM. This is a big one. Don't skim. Relax and dedicate some time to a thorough understanding of details. You can save yourself an immense amount of time when working with a new library/framework/language if you actually read the manuals and understand what your tools are capable of, otherwise, you end up wasting tons of time brute forcing your way into a crude solution that may have been trivially and correctly solved by utilizing the tool's strengths and features where appropriate.

umurkontaci 9y ago
> If you're self taught, get a degree as soon as you can, even if you take night classes over an extended period. No matter how good you are, a large portion of companies and recruiters will autotrash your resume without an education section. Not true. I'm self taught and I had very generous offers from the two of the three big names. Screw spending a time to getting a degree just for the sake of it and build stuff. I know it wasn't like that before, but times have changed and so have recruiters.
- deleted 9y ago
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- root_axis 9y ago
  I don't mean to suggest that you can't get great opportunities while self-taught, only that a sizable portion of opportunities will be closed off without a degree. There happens to be a glut of developer work at this time, so the consequences are dampened, but that won't be the case forever, better to get the degree when you don't need it rather than wait till the time when it makes a bigger difference. Also, I'll add that getting hired by an elite software firm is absolutely possible without a degree, but you have to be considerably above average intelligence and skill to get in the door, whereas a degree will give you an opportunity to get in the door even if you're not a star, providing you with the environment and resources to become one.
guntars 9y ago
I'm self taught and will never get a degree, unless it's for fun and completely unrelated to CS. The recruiters at those companies skipping me over are just doing a part of my job for me - filtering out places with culture that I wouldn't want to work at.
dozzie 9y ago
> No matter how good you are, a large portion of companies and recruiters will autotrash your resume without an education section. If the company looks that closely to academic degrees, it most probably doesn't know how to hire staff. I don't want to be the only competent person around. > ([...] two years or more, a lifetime in this industry) Where "this industry" is "startups plus websites". General IT doesn't move that fast, especially with regard to good tools and ideas. A carefully chosen toolbelt of things that are ten-fifteen-twenty years old is still stronger and more flexible than most of the new sexy applications programmers now use.
- root_axis 9y ago
  > Where "this industry" is "startups plus websites". Well yeah, only in the startup world are software developers offered equity instead of liquid compensation.

umurkontaci 9y ago

> If you're self taught, get a degree as soon as you can, even if you take night classes over an extended period. No matter how good you are, a large portion of companies and recruiters will autotrash your resume without an education section. Not true. I'm self taught and I had very generous offers from the two of the three big names. Screw spending a time to getting a degree just for the sake of it and build stuff. I know it wasn't like that before, but times have changed and so have recruiters.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
root_axis 9y ago
I don't mean to suggest that you can't get great opportunities while self-taught, only that a sizable portion of opportunities will be closed off without a degree. There happens to be a glut of developer work at this time, so the consequences are dampened, but that won't be the case forever, better to get the degree when you don't need it rather than wait till the time when it makes a bigger difference. Also, I'll add that getting hired by an elite software firm is absolutely possible without a degree, but you have to be considerably above average intelligence and skill to get in the door, whereas a degree will give you an opportunity to get in the door even if you're not a star, providing you with the environment and resources to become one.

guntars 9y ago

I'm self taught and will never get a degree, unless it's for fun and completely unrelated to CS. The recruiters at those companies skipping me over are just doing a part of my job for me - filtering out places with culture that I wouldn't want to work at.

dozzie 9y ago

> No matter how good you are, a large portion of companies and recruiters will autotrash your resume without an education section. If the company looks that closely to academic degrees, it most probably doesn't know how to hire staff. I don't want to be the only competent person around. > ([...] two years or more, a lifetime in this industry) Where "this industry" is "startups plus websites". General IT doesn't move that fast, especially with regard to good tools and ideas. A carefully chosen toolbelt of things that are ten-fifteen-twenty years old is still stronger and more flexible than most of the new sexy applications programmers now use.

root_axis 9y ago
> Where "this industry" is "startups plus websites". Well yeah, only in the startup world are software developers offered equity instead of liquid compensation.