Let's assume you want mean you want to get paid as Software Engineer, either as a temp/contractor/consoltant or an employee. You will have achieved this when y

Let's assume you want mean you want to get paid as Software Engineer, either as a temp/contractor/consoltant or an employee. You will have achieved this when you get paid for software engineering work you have done or intend to do. So how does one make that happen? As a professional software engineer who is self taught, here's what I did... tl;dr - spent two years learning to code, working as needed to pay the bills, and then got software job by applying to software jobs 1. Accepted I have no real clue how to proceed, and commit to trying something 2. Picked a language that seems to be an essential skill for many entry level jobs 3. Studied a little bit (coded through a book or two), applied to jobs, and get no response (maybe a couple phone interviews) 4. Locked myself in a room for 1 year, coding 40+ hours per week (let's say I spent 2000 hours coding on anything I found interesting) 5. Applied to jobs, saying I have 5 years of experience in my language of choice (technically true, as I'd goofed around for 4 years prior with a bit of code here and there), getting many interviews, and no offers 6. To pay the bills, I applied for & got a job doing tech support at a software company, and continued programming at work, nights , and weekends for another year (probably putting in another 2000 hours of learning to code) 7. Applied to jobs, saying I have 6 years of experience in my language of choice & using verbiage I picked up doing tech support, getting many interviews & 2 offers 8. Took best offer, and was now professional software engineer who was self taught