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I'd highly encourage you to continue learning to code. You might also consider software QA. It is also easy to do remotely, pays well, and the learning curve is

I'd highly encourage you to continue learning to code. You might also consider software QA. It is also easy to do remotely, pays well, and the learning curve is a bit lower. If you learned selenium, the ability to navigate a SQL database, postman to test REST APIs, and some testing terms and methods you'd be well on your way. The first job will be the hardest to get, but once you have that, remote jobs are readily available. Obviously you didn't lay out all the reasons why you couldn't move, and I don't expect you to, but I'd also REALLY strongly consider the implications of what a steady, well paying job can do for a family. Relocation opens up a world of opportunities for you, which opens up support and services for your family (paid and otherwise) that just aren't available in the poorest places. You don't have to be away from the people you care for if you can bring them along. I understand that leaving a support structure, even a flawed one, may not be possible, but think about that REALLY hard before you rule it out, especially if you're young. Some initial pain may transform lives. There's a reason so may people move away from the places they grow up. Plus, if you move for your first job, you always have the option of moving back after a year or two if it doesn't work out once you've established yourself in the career, which would make finding remote work much easier.

asidiali 6y ago
This a great comment, and solid feedback. QA sounds like a great step for this person.
anm89 6y ago
Just to give an alternate take, I think you can get pigeonholed as a QA person and if you want to be a developer it may be a better route to look for positions that are going to give you practice developing. That being said, the reality of job market these days might be that entry level positions are too competitive and this just isn't practical in which case getting your foot in the door with a QA role is still a much better option than nothing. But I would say it is a fairly indirect route to where you want to go.
- curiousllama 6y ago
  QA is a VERY solid career, by any general standard. OP is looking for a job, not a creative outlet. Shouldn't apply an SF lens to this.
- littleninja 6y ago
  As someone who came into software dev without a degree and started in QA, this is correct. Some shops are setup with QA as a separate function on separate teams. If development tickles your fancy, starting on one of those QA teams may limit you. Sharing from my anecdotal experience, if you’d prefer an environment where you can grow beyond manual testing (QA Engineer) and automated testing (SDET), look for positive cues: “QA as a role” or cross-functional teams or embedded QA within development teams. Ask for stories (examples) about a team member who made a lateral move, how leadership looks for this potential and supports the transition.
- grumpwagon 6y ago
  Totally agree you can get pigeonholed, but my read of the OP is that they want a job that can support their family first, and that development was one of the things they were considering, not that development was a goal in and of itself. My thought is that QA is a solid career, and that once they are established, and get a support structure for their family, if they want to become a dev they can work towards that from a position of strength, rather than a position of near-crisis.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Plus, it’s 1000x better than sanding Bondo all day!
- faldore 6y ago
  I went this route. Once you are in QA it is extremely difficult to get out. Everybody views you as "a tester" no matter how good your development skills are. If you genuinely want to be in QA as your career, or if you are truly desperate for work and willing to spend the 5 years or so it will take for you to dig yourself out of QA, then do it. It worked for me. But if you really want to dev, do not take a QA job unless you really can't find a dev job.
cjohnson318 6y ago
> pays well, and the learning curve is a bit lower I've done development and testing, and I would characterize QA as "same job, less pay". In both roles you struggle with vague requirements, lots of edge cases, and unrealistic deadlines. It is surprisingly difficult to get out of the QA pigeonhole. People assume the job is easier, and that you're not as capable as a developer.
- rmk 6y ago
  As a developer, I emphatically disagree about the "same job" aspect. QA requires a pretty different mindset, one which developers lack entirely. This is particularly true about testing things like storage appliances, routers, switches, and such. Putting such complex systems through their paces requires specialist QA folks, including loads of manual QA'ing in addition to heavy automated QA. That said, despite how critical QA is to putting out a product that's even remotely serviceable, the market for QA folks generally pays lower. Apparently, if you are putting out reams of code and tossing it over the wall to the hapless QA guy, you deserve to get paid more. Much more. I have the misfortune of working at a place where some "bright" person got the bright idea of "eliminating" the QA budget because "developers should be able to do everything a QA can". QA was dissolved and existing QA specialists were told that they had to learn how to program, or get lost. The product quality went down the tube and the place got grief from (Fortune-500) customers who write fat checks that run into the millions for support alone. That has been a train wreck in slow motion. The simple fact is that you can maybe get away without separate QA staff for a something like an internal website, but for anything else, assuming that developers will test their work and put enough thought into even the most common use-cases and certify that the system as a whole works is delusional.
  - mdip 6y ago
    I mostly agree with your statement and your issue with companies wishing to eliminate the QA budget (never a good idea). But I question this bit: "QA Requires a pretty different mindset, one which developers lack entirely." I don't think that's true. I've done both roles, successfully, at various times. The key, I've found, is that a developer can't test their own work. Developers of a project should also not be put in charge of testing each-others' work if they are working in close capacities. A QA strategy that begins and ends with "test your own stuff", "code/peer reviews" and "write unit tests" is going to reach a quality cliff as the complexity of the software increases. You can get away with it, sometimes, but it doesn't scale. I'm not sure what the cause of this is, or if it can be improved (it can, but can it be completed eliminated?). It's a similar phenomenon to proof-reading your own work. You mentally add words that aren't there. You follow happy-paths in your software because you know what they are; you don't "misuse" your UI enough[0]. [0] One I think of often was when I wrote a UI for a desk conferencing device. I tested every aspect of it and it was returned to me shortly thereafter when the QA guy joined/exited about 15 "on demand" meetings as rapidly as possible throwing the UI into a state that couldn't be recovered from without rebooting the device.
samtheprogram 6y ago
I’ve been on projects with non-developer (but technical) QA that would barely go as far as diving into development tools... the pay for those team members was extremely low, but they were foreigners and the pay was still above minimum wage. If you wanted to be pedantic, these were, simply put, just testers. With that in mind, I think OP immediately has a shot on job boards for such a position if priced correctly — especially with the added perk of great written English / better communication. EDIT: that’s not to say they should not learn to code; agree with your general sentiment, but I think growing in that sense shouldn’t be a barrier to entry.

asidiali 6y ago

This a great comment, and solid feedback. QA sounds like a great step for this person.

anm89 6y ago

Just to give an alternate take, I think you can get pigeonholed as a QA person and if you want to be a developer it may be a better route to look for positions that are going to give you practice developing. That being said, the reality of job market these days might be that entry level positions are too competitive and this just isn't practical in which case getting your foot in the door with a QA role is still a much better option than nothing. But I would say it is a fairly indirect route to where you want to go.

curiousllama 6y ago
QA is a VERY solid career, by any general standard. OP is looking for a job, not a creative outlet. Shouldn't apply an SF lens to this.
littleninja 6y ago
As someone who came into software dev without a degree and started in QA, this is correct. Some shops are setup with QA as a separate function on separate teams. If development tickles your fancy, starting on one of those QA teams may limit you. Sharing from my anecdotal experience, if you’d prefer an environment where you can grow beyond manual testing (QA Engineer) and automated testing (SDET), look for positive cues: “QA as a role” or cross-functional teams or embedded QA within development teams. Ask for stories (examples) about a team member who made a lateral move, how leadership looks for this potential and supports the transition.
grumpwagon 6y ago
Totally agree you can get pigeonholed, but my read of the OP is that they want a job that can support their family first, and that development was one of the things they were considering, not that development was a goal in and of itself. My thought is that QA is a solid career, and that once they are established, and get a support structure for their family, if they want to become a dev they can work towards that from a position of strength, rather than a position of near-crisis.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Plus, it’s 1000x better than sanding Bondo all day!
faldore 6y ago
I went this route. Once you are in QA it is extremely difficult to get out. Everybody views you as "a tester" no matter how good your development skills are. If you genuinely want to be in QA as your career, or if you are truly desperate for work and willing to spend the 5 years or so it will take for you to dig yourself out of QA, then do it. It worked for me. But if you really want to dev, do not take a QA job unless you really can't find a dev job.

cjohnson318 6y ago

> pays well, and the learning curve is a bit lower I've done development and testing, and I would characterize QA as "same job, less pay". In both roles you struggle with vague requirements, lots of edge cases, and unrealistic deadlines. It is surprisingly difficult to get out of the QA pigeonhole. People assume the job is easier, and that you're not as capable as a developer.

rmk 6y ago
As a developer, I emphatically disagree about the "same job" aspect. QA requires a pretty different mindset, one which developers lack entirely. This is particularly true about testing things like storage appliances, routers, switches, and such. Putting such complex systems through their paces requires specialist QA folks, including loads of manual QA'ing in addition to heavy automated QA. That said, despite how critical QA is to putting out a product that's even remotely serviceable, the market for QA folks generally pays lower. Apparently, if you are putting out reams of code and tossing it over the wall to the hapless QA guy, you deserve to get paid more. Much more. I have the misfortune of working at a place where some "bright" person got the bright idea of "eliminating" the QA budget because "developers should be able to do everything a QA can". QA was dissolved and existing QA specialists were told that they had to learn how to program, or get lost. The product quality went down the tube and the place got grief from (Fortune-500) customers who write fat checks that run into the millions for support alone. That has been a train wreck in slow motion. The simple fact is that you can maybe get away without separate QA staff for a something like an internal website, but for anything else, assuming that developers will test their work and put enough thought into even the most common use-cases and certify that the system as a whole works is delusional.
- mdip 6y ago
  I mostly agree with your statement and your issue with companies wishing to eliminate the QA budget (never a good idea). But I question this bit: "QA Requires a pretty different mindset, one which developers lack entirely." I don't think that's true. I've done both roles, successfully, at various times. The key, I've found, is that a developer can't test their own work. Developers of a project should also not be put in charge of testing each-others' work if they are working in close capacities. A QA strategy that begins and ends with "test your own stuff", "code/peer reviews" and "write unit tests" is going to reach a quality cliff as the complexity of the software increases. You can get away with it, sometimes, but it doesn't scale. I'm not sure what the cause of this is, or if it can be improved (it can, but can it be completed eliminated?). It's a similar phenomenon to proof-reading your own work. You mentally add words that aren't there. You follow happy-paths in your software because you know what they are; you don't "misuse" your UI enough[0]. [0] One I think of often was when I wrote a UI for a desk conferencing device. I tested every aspect of it and it was returned to me shortly thereafter when the QA guy joined/exited about 15 "on demand" meetings as rapidly as possible throwing the UI into a state that couldn't be recovered from without rebooting the device.

samtheprogram 6y ago

I’ve been on projects with non-developer (but technical) QA that would barely go as far as diving into development tools... the pay for those team members was extremely low, but they were foreigners and the pay was still above minimum wage. If you wanted to be pedantic, these were, simply put, just testers. With that in mind, I think OP immediately has a shot on job boards for such a position if priced correctly — especially with the added perk of great written English / better communication. EDIT: that’s not to say they should not learn to code; agree with your general sentiment, but I think growing in that sense shouldn’t be a barrier to entry.