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Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 stud

Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how the market for juniors is flooded. That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that will hire you today. As a self-taught engineer you have to convince them of that, which mostly means a solid portfolio, but there is insane demand. And if you get even one year of experience you won’t believe how many opportunities open up. There are individual companies whose annual growth in engineer hiring is greater than the total number of CS and bootcamp grads combined.

ArtWomb 8y ago
>>> there is insane demand I am seeing it as well. And am recommending Lambda School to just about everyone who asks ;) The main problem I see is the steep learning curve. The intro lessons are facile enough. Anyone can setup VS Code, and install an App Engine SDK. But by the time they get to modules 3-4 ("designing the data schema"). They are ready to throw in the towel. At some point, a student requires one-to-one mentoring and repeatable reinforcement. Like learning a second language or playing the piano. Also check out this nice write-up in Dealbook today on Lambda's model: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/business/dealbook/education-student-loans-lambda-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/business/dealbook/educati...
- dpark 8y ago
  > At some point, a student requires one-to-one mentoring and repeatable reinforcement. Like learning a second language or playing the piano. It’s entirely possible to be a self-taught pianist. It’s also entirely possible to learn a second language without ever speaking to someone else in that language. What you can’t realistically do is become conversational, because you cannot practice that skill in isolation. Similarly, it’s entirely possible to learn to develop software independently. You can learn languages and SQL normalization and good design all by yourself. You might learn faster with a teacher, but you can do it independently. You cannot learn to work well with others (properly subdividing designs, dependency ordering, giving good feedback, etc) in isolation, but honestly these are the things you generally learn on the job, because schools also suck at teaching these things.
  - ellius 8y ago
    Case in point: I'm self taught and have a junior manager job in software engineering. I had a lot of good resources and got some guidance, but I never went to a boot camp or had a dedicated mentor. It was just a lot of "learn something, apply it as much as I can to the job I have, keep learning, keep trying to understand the big picture." Eventually I developed enough knowledge to get hired as a programmer and moved up from there.
    - softawre 8y ago
      Good job. I think determination and willpower like you have is fairly rare, at least where I'm from (Midwest US).
- dssu 8y ago
  One on one dedicated mentoring is very beneficial but not a requirement. You can also obtain mentorship/advice just by visiting various communities and asking questions online as well. Over the past decades, many developers are self taught. And online communities and resources have only improved over time.
- tracker1 8y ago
  I think it depends... I've worked on interviewing and hiring candidates that come out of coding schools. It's generally those that go above and beyond the assigned homework that get hired. When you're working as a developer, most of the time you don't have a prescriptive answer and you need to figure it out. Sometimes it's not the best solution, but that is the point advice can be given on how to improve/mentor. Self-drive is probably 50% of success as a software developer. 35% is knowing what some of the options are (prescriptive or otherwise) and the last 15% is aptitude. You can be a solid B level developer without any aptitude, but it requires more drive. YMMV. Different people have different personalities. When I was 4yo, I broke the training wheels off my bicycle and figured it out myself because it felt like they were more in the way trying to ride. In my early career, I spent time removing obstacles and learning literally everything I could. I am self-taught, not higher education at all. Other people need more hand holding. Once you start working, you need to be able to jump into the deep end and at least tread water.
will_brown 8y ago
>Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. Do you have some salary statistics (maybe broken down by market) for your grads?
- austenallred 8y ago
  https://lambdaschool.com/outcomes https://lambdaschool.com/outcomes We need to do a better job of breaking it down geographically, but it’s what you’d expect. $100k+ in SFBA, big salaries in cities, lower salaries (but actually higher standard of living) in smaller cities.
eu2usthrowaway 8y ago
I wanted to PM you but don't know how, hence throwaway. I apologize for not using my real hacker handle. I've just graduated (did 3 IT study programs in total -- 6 years of studying, overkill yes, I didn't have any good career advise via my friends, family or uni). Do you help people from the EU to work in the US? If so, then I'd really consider applying to your school since I am noticing that I can't get there myself and US companies aren't noticing me. I am also pretty open to learn basics again since right now algorithms and data structures has been years away. And for advanced topics I only needed that knowledge on a surface level.
- austenallred 8y ago
  We just launched in the EU yesterday, but immigration is very difficult right now, for obvious reasons.
  - katsura 8y ago
    Will you have classes in EU timezones as well? I have friends who would be interested in that. Also, I noticed on the website that when I check a course it says that ISA option is available for EU citizens as well, but your FAQ says that it is for US only.
- tracker1 8y ago
  Not just the U.S. but in most cases, short of a Masters degree or equivalent, it's almost impossible to get hired in another country (some countries have easier migration treaties). Even then it will be difficult. You might be able to come into the U.S. under an H1B program, but there are down sides there. I'm in the US and have looked into moving overseas in the past. Good luck, I wish I had contacts that could help/share, I just don't.
CrackpotGonzo 8y ago
If you were getting started today, would you choose the data science or web dev track if you were looking for most long-term career stability?
- Will_Parker 8y ago
  I would say it depends on whether you enjoy the data engineering part of data science. E.g. writing SQL queries, writing scripts to scrape data from APIs, tracking down edge cases and verifying correctness, designing clean and scalable pipelines, writing scripts to make messy data cleaner, automating report generation, data warehousing. This is very detail-oriented work and requires a certain kind of personality to excel at (imo). But if you build this skill set there is extreme demand for you that will be timeless. This is also the foundation for all data science. If what you have in mind is feeding data into TensorFlow or PyTorch, and tuning parameters to get some magic out the other end, I don't think there's as much of a market (there are many juniors looking for work from bootcamp programs), and you risk yet another "AI Winter" backlash making companies go sour on these sorts of approaches. I think you could also easily getting a job as a master of a particular analytics tool, like MixPanel or Google Analytics. But I'm not sure how timeless this will be: in my experience sooner rather than later you'll want deeper and more customized tools and run into the limitations of simple event-based analytics services.
- tracker1 8y ago
  It depends on where you want to start out, or go. Most developers of all types will wind up working in a dozen different environments and tools that weren't even a thing when starting. In the end, you will never be able to stop and rest on your laurels, as you will be unable to find work if you do. Constantly learn, constantly grow, and when starting out, go above and beyond any assigned work.
JanJansen 8y ago
Notice you guys are in the UK! I'm a self taught engineer (more back end focused though) and I'm trying to help my younger brother enter the industry. Is there a minimum earning threshold for the 10% salary deduction for UK courses? I think something like this would do him the world of good, especially looking at your curriculum, but don't want to saddle him with debt if it doesn't work out.
nickreese 8y ago
Is there anything similar to Lambda School in Spanish? Looking for a family member who would be a great dev, but her English isn't quiet strong enough to join Lambda School.
- reymus 8y ago
  Start there, learn English. I know so many potentially good devs that cannot be hired at good paying companies because of lack of English skills. (Speaking of Mexico, btw.)
ronilan 8y ago
That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. I no longer believe this. I think “people who cannot code” is a myth perpetuated by those who gain something out of it. People who’s business or job is to filter candidates, people who’s business is to sell their own “improved” version of training, people in need of an ego boost and actually, mainly by people who just repeat it cause they heard it somewhere. I’m off that train. But, then again, I just might be old and wrong. I literally know 100 companies that will hire you today. As a self-taught engineer you have to convince them of that, which mostly means a solid portfolio, but there is insane demand. I’d like to test that. That’s my homesite: https://www.ronilan.com https://www.ronilan.com I’m in the market. Thanks, Ron
- jspiral 8y ago
  As a hiring manager, my experience has been that the average unsolicited resume belongs to someone who can't implement fizzbuzz. (this has a lot to do with the population that spams resumes though i believe) My experience has also been that most raw junior candidates need significant handholding to implement anything into a typical production system at first, and that the learning curve from there varies greatly. What do you think?
  - catwind7 8y ago
    My guess is that he's taking issue with this argument that I'm not quite sure was made: "The market is flooded with people who cannot code, therefore it's easy to find a job as a junior engineer" The market could in fact be flooded with people who cannot code (I don't know for sure). Assuming that's true, that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to get a job as a junior dev (speaking from someone on the interviewing side).
    - tomc1985 8y ago
      On the market being flooded, I think it varies greatly depending on where you are and whom you are with. With my current job I am part of a competent team of smart people but on my last job it seems that IQ was in short supply, for candidates, vendors, and even our "partners". Even though the last job ended months ago, I'm still trying to unconvince myself that everyone in this world is stupid and incompetent, because that was what it felt like.
voidhorse 8y ago
You're probably correct (I don't know enough about the junior applicant pool myself but I am going to speculate nonetheless), but 'cannot code' is vague, and I think this precise sort of vagueness creates confusion around: a.) What companies need. b.) What companies think they need. c.) What prospective programmers think companies need. What companies actually need (or should need, if they're solving some problem), I'd argue, is people who are capable of solving domain problems in structured ways. This has everything to do with logic and almost nothing to do with 'programming' or 'coding' in the sense that I believe most people understand those words today. This is a skill that has very little to do with knowing xyz language, framework, or even paradigmatic abstraction and everything to do with having familiarity or mastery of both recent and ancient mathematical and logical principles (algorithms, data structures, computability theory, set theory, lambda calculus, etc.) Of course, the way we actualize these skills is through programming languages, but programming languages themselves are not the important part (at a high level). I think a lot of hopeful and ambitious autodidacts unfortunately miss this, as the bulk of (I'd wager) free resources for learning 'how to program' do not do an adequate job of conveying the fact that programming is ultimately the application and encoding of abstract principles into a concrete solution for a particular problem domain. This effectively leads to a pool of job-seekers that are well versed in the latest lower order abstractions (as these are encoded in programming languages, e.g. iterators or a particular framework or paradigm) and not higher order abstractions (e.g. what makes a particular construct iterable, what structural properties suffice to assert 'iterability' of a set or structure, or e.g. how should one compare paradigms and select between paradigms for a particular problem). At the end of the day, a lot of this doesn't matter. Most people in the programming field do just fine without diving too deeply into the heart of computability or information theory (some demanding positions in the field, of course, are exceptions to this). But I think if we want to produce better 'coders' an important step lies in disambiguating logical/mathematical/programmatic problem solving from the concrete practice of 'programming' (using a particular language with particular resources, paradigm support etc.) From what I can tell, University CS programs do an effective job at this (e.g. classes on algorithms and data structures and architecture are all distinct) but many free resources, I feel, do not. This may be the culprit in the production of that bevy of people who 'cannot code'--they can program, but they can't problem solve computationally or model problems well (I can't do this myself). And I think it leads to the following common realizations on a.) b.) and c.): a.) Companies need people who can determine and analyze sets of potential structured/logical/computational solutions to problems. b.) Companies think they need people who are good at using xyz tool in particular because xyz tool/language/paradigm etc. is popular, new, generally thought to be useful, etc. c.) Prospective developers think they must learn xyz tool/language/paradigm/framework because companies seem to want that. They do so, never exploring the fundamentals behind xyz tool/language/framework and move on to learning the next xyz ././. next year to stay relevant. The result is that many companies are bound to the solutions, abstractions, patterns etc. that xyz tool/language/whatever supports and thus they're actually quite okay hiring people who cannot really 'code'. In truth you probably only need a few smarty-pants engineers behind the important stuff. The majority of folks can enter the workforce only having a basic knowledge. The ones that are curious enough will start to dig into the general/abstract principles behind computation and eventually learn enough to fill the shoes of the big boys. Most entry level programmers can get by just fine with a thirst for further knowledge, the ability to notice, adapt to, and use patterns that are already in place, and some very basic analytical skills. Of course, many hiring practices don't necessarily reflect this, which leads to the classic condition of "in the interview I had to show that I could do abcd with data structure xyz and implement algorithm hjk to solve problem p in t time but on my day job I just write against apis." Disclaimer: I am not a programmer or software engineer. This is just my sense of the state of affairs as a curious outsider (I do work in the software field, but my job role is different).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dev_19 8y ago
>If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that will hire you today. As a self-taught engineer you have to convince them of that, which mostly means a solid portfolio, but there is insane demand. And if you get even one year of experience you won’t believe how many opportunities open up. This just isn’t true. The industry has become insanely competitive for anyone but the top level seniors who are above the whiteboard/coderpad interview. I’ve been on the market for 4 months now without so much as an in-person interview. It’s absolutely brutal. And that’s with 3 years experience + solid references. For every job posting now there are a hundred freshly minted CS grads applying who can pass LeetCode exams in their sleep. It seems companies are far more interested in these people than those with self taught skills and practical experience.
- lintuxvi 8y ago
  This is the result of poor tactics. If you're not a CS grad, quit the CS grad hiring path. Get off the job boards and use services like Vettery and Hired, do outreach on LinkedIn with recruiters and startup CTOs/VP Engineering/Engineering Leads, go to more popular tech meetups consistently and network. Every job I've gotten has been through this.
- sodafountan 8y ago
  I hate to break it to you, but you're just not trying hard enough - keep trying. During my last round of looking for a job I never applied to a single company, I let all of the recruiters come to me. In five months, I had a total of five interviews and three offers. I have an active github portfolio which shows a professional picture of myself and I have React skills which might set me apart (React is very hot right now, won't be like that for much longer though as the market is starting to saturate), but aside from that I'm self taught and have about 3 years of professional experience, ten if you include personal/self-taught experience. I had to go through some BS phone screens though, it was to the point where I had to buy books specifically on C# design patterns and architecture just to pass them, I had managers grilling me on some pretty esoteric aspects of the language, but it was worth it. (I have ten years of self-taught .NET development experience)
- taurath 8y ago

ArtWomb 8y ago

>>> there is insane demand I am seeing it as well. And am recommending Lambda School to just about everyone who asks ;) The main problem I see is the steep learning curve. The intro lessons are facile enough. Anyone can setup VS Code, and install an App Engine SDK. But by the time they get to modules 3-4 ("designing the data schema"). They are ready to throw in the towel. At some point, a student requires one-to-one mentoring and repeatable reinforcement. Like learning a second language or playing the piano. Also check out this nice write-up in Dealbook today on Lambda's model: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/business/dealbook/education-student-loans-lambda-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/08/business/dealbook/educati...

dpark 8y ago
> At some point, a student requires one-to-one mentoring and repeatable reinforcement. Like learning a second language or playing the piano. It’s entirely possible to be a self-taught pianist. It’s also entirely possible to learn a second language without ever speaking to someone else in that language. What you can’t realistically do is become conversational, because you cannot practice that skill in isolation. Similarly, it’s entirely possible to learn to develop software independently. You can learn languages and SQL normalization and good design all by yourself. You might learn faster with a teacher, but you can do it independently. You cannot learn to work well with others (properly subdividing designs, dependency ordering, giving good feedback, etc) in isolation, but honestly these are the things you generally learn on the job, because schools also suck at teaching these things.
- ellius 8y ago
  Case in point: I'm self taught and have a junior manager job in software engineering. I had a lot of good resources and got some guidance, but I never went to a boot camp or had a dedicated mentor. It was just a lot of "learn something, apply it as much as I can to the job I have, keep learning, keep trying to understand the big picture." Eventually I developed enough knowledge to get hired as a programmer and moved up from there.
  - softawre 8y ago
    Good job. I think determination and willpower like you have is fairly rare, at least where I'm from (Midwest US).
dssu 8y ago
One on one dedicated mentoring is very beneficial but not a requirement. You can also obtain mentorship/advice just by visiting various communities and asking questions online as well. Over the past decades, many developers are self taught. And online communities and resources have only improved over time.
tracker1 8y ago
I think it depends... I've worked on interviewing and hiring candidates that come out of coding schools. It's generally those that go above and beyond the assigned homework that get hired. When you're working as a developer, most of the time you don't have a prescriptive answer and you need to figure it out. Sometimes it's not the best solution, but that is the point advice can be given on how to improve/mentor. Self-drive is probably 50% of success as a software developer. 35% is knowing what some of the options are (prescriptive or otherwise) and the last 15% is aptitude. You can be a solid B level developer without any aptitude, but it requires more drive. YMMV. Different people have different personalities. When I was 4yo, I broke the training wheels off my bicycle and figured it out myself because it felt like they were more in the way trying to ride. In my early career, I spent time removing obstacles and learning literally everything I could. I am self-taught, not higher education at all. Other people need more hand holding. Once you start working, you need to be able to jump into the deep end and at least tread water.

will_brown 8y ago

>Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. Do you have some salary statistics (maybe broken down by market) for your grads?

austenallred 8y ago
https://lambdaschool.com/outcomes https://lambdaschool.com/outcomes We need to do a better job of breaking it down geographically, but it’s what you’d expect. $100k+ in SFBA, big salaries in cities, lower salaries (but actually higher standard of living) in smaller cities.

eu2usthrowaway 8y ago

I wanted to PM you but don't know how, hence throwaway. I apologize for not using my real hacker handle. I've just graduated (did 3 IT study programs in total -- 6 years of studying, overkill yes, I didn't have any good career advise via my friends, family or uni). Do you help people from the EU to work in the US? If so, then I'd really consider applying to your school since I am noticing that I can't get there myself and US companies aren't noticing me. I am also pretty open to learn basics again since right now algorithms and data structures has been years away. And for advanced topics I only needed that knowledge on a surface level.

austenallred 8y ago
We just launched in the EU yesterday, but immigration is very difficult right now, for obvious reasons.
- katsura 8y ago
  Will you have classes in EU timezones as well? I have friends who would be interested in that. Also, I noticed on the website that when I check a course it says that ISA option is available for EU citizens as well, but your FAQ says that it is for US only.
tracker1 8y ago
Not just the U.S. but in most cases, short of a Masters degree or equivalent, it's almost impossible to get hired in another country (some countries have easier migration treaties). Even then it will be difficult. You might be able to come into the U.S. under an H1B program, but there are down sides there. I'm in the US and have looked into moving overseas in the past. Good luck, I wish I had contacts that could help/share, I just don't.

CrackpotGonzo 8y ago

If you were getting started today, would you choose the data science or web dev track if you were looking for most long-term career stability?

Will_Parker 8y ago
I would say it depends on whether you enjoy the data engineering part of data science. E.g. writing SQL queries, writing scripts to scrape data from APIs, tracking down edge cases and verifying correctness, designing clean and scalable pipelines, writing scripts to make messy data cleaner, automating report generation, data warehousing. This is very detail-oriented work and requires a certain kind of personality to excel at (imo). But if you build this skill set there is extreme demand for you that will be timeless. This is also the foundation for all data science. If what you have in mind is feeding data into TensorFlow or PyTorch, and tuning parameters to get some magic out the other end, I don't think there's as much of a market (there are many juniors looking for work from bootcamp programs), and you risk yet another "AI Winter" backlash making companies go sour on these sorts of approaches. I think you could also easily getting a job as a master of a particular analytics tool, like MixPanel or Google Analytics. But I'm not sure how timeless this will be: in my experience sooner rather than later you'll want deeper and more customized tools and run into the limitations of simple event-based analytics services.
tracker1 8y ago
It depends on where you want to start out, or go. Most developers of all types will wind up working in a dozen different environments and tools that weren't even a thing when starting. In the end, you will never be able to stop and rest on your laurels, as you will be unable to find work if you do. Constantly learn, constantly grow, and when starting out, go above and beyond any assigned work.

JanJansen 8y ago

Notice you guys are in the UK! I'm a self taught engineer (more back end focused though) and I'm trying to help my younger brother enter the industry. Is there a minimum earning threshold for the 10% salary deduction for UK courses? I think something like this would do him the world of good, especially looking at your curriculum, but don't want to saddle him with debt if it doesn't work out.

nickreese 8y ago

Is there anything similar to Lambda School in Spanish? Looking for a family member who would be a great dev, but her English isn't quiet strong enough to join Lambda School.

reymus 8y ago
Start there, learn English. I know so many potentially good devs that cannot be hired at good paying companies because of lack of English skills. (Speaking of Mexico, btw.)

ronilan 8y ago

That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. I no longer believe this. I think “people who cannot code” is a myth perpetuated by those who gain something out of it. People who’s business or job is to filter candidates, people who’s business is to sell their own “improved” version of training, people in need of an ego boost and actually, mainly by people who just repeat it cause they heard it somewhere. I’m off that train. But, then again, I just might be old and wrong. I literally know 100 companies that will hire you today. As a self-taught engineer you have to convince them of that, which mostly means a solid portfolio, but there is insane demand. I’d like to test that. That’s my homesite: https://www.ronilan.com https://www.ronilan.com I’m in the market. Thanks, Ron

jspiral 8y ago
As a hiring manager, my experience has been that the average unsolicited resume belongs to someone who can't implement fizzbuzz. (this has a lot to do with the population that spams resumes though i believe) My experience has also been that most raw junior candidates need significant handholding to implement anything into a typical production system at first, and that the learning curve from there varies greatly. What do you think?
- catwind7 8y ago
  My guess is that he's taking issue with this argument that I'm not quite sure was made: "The market is flooded with people who cannot code, therefore it's easy to find a job as a junior engineer" The market could in fact be flooded with people who cannot code (I don't know for sure). Assuming that's true, that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to get a job as a junior dev (speaking from someone on the interviewing side).
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    On the market being flooded, I think it varies greatly depending on where you are and whom you are with. With my current job I am part of a competent team of smart people but on my last job it seems that IQ was in short supply, for candidates, vendors, and even our "partners". Even though the last job ended months ago, I'm still trying to unconvince myself that everyone in this world is stupid and incompetent, because that was what it felt like.

voidhorse 8y ago

You're probably correct (I don't know enough about the junior applicant pool myself but I am going to speculate nonetheless), but 'cannot code' is vague, and I think this precise sort of vagueness creates confusion around: a.) What companies need. b.) What companies think they need. c.) What prospective programmers think companies need. What companies actually need (or should need, if they're solving some problem), I'd argue, is people who are capable of solving domain problems in structured ways. This has everything to do with logic and almost nothing to do with 'programming' or 'coding' in the sense that I believe most people understand those words today. This is a skill that has very little to do with knowing xyz language, framework, or even paradigmatic abstraction and everything to do with having familiarity or mastery of both recent and ancient mathematical and logical principles (algorithms, data structures, computability theory, set theory, lambda calculus, etc.) Of course, the way we actualize these skills is through programming languages, but programming languages themselves are not the important part (at a high level). I think a lot of hopeful and ambitious autodidacts unfortunately miss this, as the bulk of (I'd wager) free resources for learning 'how to program' do not do an adequate job of conveying the fact that programming is ultimately the application and encoding of abstract principles into a concrete solution for a particular problem domain. This effectively leads to a pool of job-seekers that are well versed in the latest lower order abstractions (as these are encoded in programming languages, e.g. iterators or a particular framework or paradigm) and not higher order abstractions (e.g. what makes a particular construct iterable, what structural properties suffice to assert 'iterability' of a set or structure, or e.g. how should one compare paradigms and select between paradigms for a particular problem). At the end of the day, a lot of this doesn't matter. Most people in the programming field do just fine without diving too deeply into the heart of computability or information theory (some demanding positions in the field, of course, are exceptions to this). But I think if we want to produce better 'coders' an important step lies in disambiguating logical/mathematical/programmatic problem solving from the concrete practice of 'programming' (using a particular language with particular resources, paradigm support etc.) From what I can tell, University CS programs do an effective job at this (e.g. classes on algorithms and data structures and architecture are all distinct) but many free resources, I feel, do not. This may be the culprit in the production of that bevy of people who 'cannot code'--they can program, but they can't problem solve computationally or model problems well (I can't do this myself). And I think it leads to the following common realizations on a.) b.) and c.): a.) Companies need people who can determine and analyze sets of potential structured/logical/computational solutions to problems. b.) Companies think they need people who are good at using xyz tool in particular because xyz tool/language/paradigm etc. is popular, new, generally thought to be useful, etc. c.) Prospective developers think they must learn xyz tool/language/paradigm/framework because companies seem to want that. They do so, never exploring the fundamentals behind xyz tool/language/framework and move on to learning the next xyz ././. next year to stay relevant. The result is that many companies are bound to the solutions, abstractions, patterns etc. that xyz tool/language/whatever supports and thus they're actually quite okay hiring people who cannot really 'code'. In truth you probably only need a few smarty-pants engineers behind the important stuff. The majority of folks can enter the workforce only having a basic knowledge. The ones that are curious enough will start to dig into the general/abstract principles behind computation and eventually learn enough to fill the shoes of the big boys. Most entry level programmers can get by just fine with a thirst for further knowledge, the ability to notice, adapt to, and use patterns that are already in place, and some very basic analytical skills. Of course, many hiring practices don't necessarily reflect this, which leads to the classic condition of "in the interview I had to show that I could do abcd with data structure xyz and implement algorithm hjk to solve problem p in t time but on my day job I just write against apis." Disclaimer: I am not a programmer or software engineer. This is just my sense of the state of affairs as a curious outsider (I do work in the software field, but my job role is different).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dev_19 8y ago

>If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that will hire you today. As a self-taught engineer you have to convince them of that, which mostly means a solid portfolio, but there is insane demand. And if you get even one year of experience you won’t believe how many opportunities open up. This just isn’t true. The industry has become insanely competitive for anyone but the top level seniors who are above the whiteboard/coderpad interview. I’ve been on the market for 4 months now without so much as an in-person interview. It’s absolutely brutal. And that’s with 3 years experience + solid references. For every job posting now there are a hundred freshly minted CS grads applying who can pass LeetCode exams in their sleep. It seems companies are far more interested in these people than those with self taught skills and practical experience.

lintuxvi 8y ago
This is the result of poor tactics. If you're not a CS grad, quit the CS grad hiring path. Get off the job boards and use services like Vettery and Hired, do outreach on LinkedIn with recruiters and startup CTOs/VP Engineering/Engineering Leads, go to more popular tech meetups consistently and network. Every job I've gotten has been through this.
sodafountan 8y ago
I hate to break it to you, but you're just not trying hard enough - keep trying. During my last round of looking for a job I never applied to a single company, I let all of the recruiters come to me. In five months, I had a total of five interviews and three offers. I have an active github portfolio which shows a professional picture of myself and I have React skills which might set me apart (React is very hot right now, won't be like that for much longer though as the market is starting to saturate), but aside from that I'm self taught and have about 3 years of professional experience, ten if you include personal/self-taught experience. I had to go through some BS phone screens though, it was to the point where I had to buy books specifically on C# design patterns and architecture just to pass them, I had managers grilling me on some pretty esoteric aspects of the language, but it was worth it. (I have ten years of self-taught .NET development experience)
taurath 8y ago