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There's a tech boom going on in the bay area, and it seems like I'm constantly reading comments here on HN about how companies are having to scramble to find en

There's a tech boom going on in the bay area, and it seems like I'm constantly reading comments here on HN about how companies are having to scramble to find enough people with programming skill to fill the jobs being created. I hope this is true, and I have a related question. Let's say you have a 22-year-old living in the bay with no post-high school education and no programming experience. How far does this boom go? If he's smart, can he get a job out of this if he decides, today, to self-study as hard as he can and see if he has an aptitude for this kind of thing? Are there 'low-level' jobs being created for the non-rockstars, too? Argh, it's really hard to keep this impersonal. Obviously this is me, and I want really badly to be told I have a shot. I genuinely have no idea whether this is a pipe dream. Thanks to anyone who responds--a job counselor I asked was "encouraging", but somehow I feel like a semi-anonymous HN comment would be worth more....

thetrumanshow 14y ago
I think you certainly have a solid shot at being successful at this. Heck, that's true even in a down market and/or in places other than SV, but I also think you're lack of interest in the field up until now might suggest that you'll end up hating it. Build something and launch it in public (by which I mean a product). You'll prove both an aptitude and a willingness to see something to the end, which to many people will be as good as a degree, and you'll find out if you love this field or hate it. If you start, make sure you finish. Get someone to hold you accountable to this if necessary.
tolvak 14y ago
Your best bet for getting companies to be willing to take a risk on you, if you have no relevant education or work experience yet, is to start working on side projects(that you can share on places like GitHub), contributing to open source, maybe work on a phone app or two and release them (depending on where your interests lie exactly in the software world). Perhaps gather these into a slick, well designed, simple web site, basically saying what you said above. Anything tangible that will make people more excited about giving you a shot. They likely won't be willing to just take your word that you were a proficient self-study, but if your work is good, some people will be willing to look beyond just the education. While you are trying to teach yourself, take a bit of time to get a basic familiarity with Computer Science concepts (data structures, algorithms, common design patterns, and OO concepts if applicable, etc). These can often seem unnecessary and overly complicated to a self taught developer (speaking from experience), but they can really help with writing nicer, cleaner, more efficient code in the long run. One thing that helped move me in the right direction for my career was starting a couple of web sites for ideas I had for various niche communities (I had dreams of grandeur and selling my websites for millions, ha). They both failed miserably, and never really generated a sustainable user base. However, I learned a ton in the process about web technologies from front end to the database side of things, and having that on my resume really helped in start-up interviews, as it was a mentality that people in those circles could relate to.
- sincerely_ 14y ago
  Thanks for the advice. I'm near the beginning of Harvard's free Intro to Computer Science online course at the moment, and creating a niche community website sounds like an excellent project to take on once I have the skills. :)
beatpanda 14y ago
1) Create Github account 2) Make cool things you are interested in in your off time 3) Parlay into job This works. Really. Block Hacker News in your hosts file until you have a job.
yen223 14y ago
By living in the bay, you already have access to jobs most of us can only dream of. Treasure the opportunity :)
reissbaker 14y ago
There's hope: I know plenty of successful mostly-self-taught to entirely-self-taught engineers at great companies. One of the best engineers I know is a former nurse. You have to be incredibly dedicated, be willing to put in many many hours before it seems to click, and try to find good peers or mentors to learn from... But it's doable, and you can get very good in a few years. Don't just do it for the pay or it'll be a hard road through. But if you love technology and think you could love programming, then try it out. Tiny little secret: once you get good enough that you can reliably [make dynamic websites with Rails / write iOS apps / insert technology you're interested in here], try freelancing on something like elance to get experience. You'll probably mess up enough that you'll be making minimum wage or less after the time spent fixing things, but you'll grow your skillset pretty quickly.
- sincerely_ 14y ago
  Thanks for the tiny little secret! That sounds ideal, once I reach that level of competence. :)
SiVal 14y ago
If he's smart, can he get a job out of this if he decides, today, to self-study as hard as he can and see if he has an aptitude for this kind of thing? Aptitude for what kind of thing? Since this is HN, I'll guess it means becoming a programmer, but you might also mean non-technical startup partner, other entrepreneur, or something else. If you are dreaming of being a programmer but have no programming experience, I'd have to wonder what it is you are dreaming. It's not a glamorous profession when seen from the inside, but if you've been programming for a while and love programming enough to want to do it whether you are paid or not (like me), then it makes sense to try to get paid for it. But you'd have to program for a while before you could know that. I think someone in your position should just find a job, any job that leaves your evenings free--Home Depot is hiring--and try to teach yourself to program every evening after work. Programming is frustrating for quite a while, so don't let it make you feel stupid. Just see if it starts to grow on you eventually or you gradually lose interest. If it grows on you, then start attending in-person meetups, participating in projects online, building things of your own and (later) showing them off, and talking to people you meet about your interest in a programming job somewhere. Continue building skills, relationships, experience, and your resume by being strategic about gaining experience. If you can live with a Home Depot-level salary, you'll probably find small companies that won't care about your lack of college if you don't care that they don't pay much. Big companies like Google or Apple probably won't even talk to someone without either an impressive degree or an impressive list of professional accomplishments. You can eventually come up with the latter if you really do come to love programming, but until then, a bootstrap strategy suggests starting with programming for free (after work), then programming for a small company (that might not pay much), then specializing your skills a bit into whatever area you do best, then working at better (but not giant) companies, then deciding what to do from there. If you find that you hate programming, don't despair. My Silicon Valley plumber makes $140/hr and thinks my programming job sounds like having to do math homework all day long for a lifetime (as if that were a bad thing, go figure), while his is driving around saving people and socializing, running his own company, working whatever hours he feels like...and the grime washes off at the end of the day.
- sincerely_ 14y ago
  Thank you for the detailed reply. I guess I was a little coy about "no" programming experience. I dipped my toe in far enough already that I feel I can guess (with not too much precision) what to expect. I'm not expecting glamour, but I am hoping I end up loving it. I do wish I had started programming earlier. The "find a job at Home Depot and program at night" strategy is basically what I plan to do. And yeah, plumbing is on the list of possibilities too. But I hope I find something I like in programming. Somehow it feels like I've been waiting for "permission" to do this, which is bizarre and makes no sense. But the five replies I've gotten to the first comment are confirmatory enough that I think I can keep my mouth shut, stop doubting, and just pursue this for a few months. Then I can pop up for air and see how far I've gotten. Again, thanks.
snowwrestler 14y ago
How does a 22-year-old high school graduate with no programming experience end up on Hacker News? What do you read here? I'm not challenging your right to be here (I think it's cool)--I'm just curious. I think it would be interesting insight into how Hacker News grows.

thetrumanshow 14y ago

I think you certainly have a solid shot at being successful at this. Heck, that's true even in a down market and/or in places other than SV, but I also think you're lack of interest in the field up until now might suggest that you'll end up hating it. Build something and launch it in public (by which I mean a product). You'll prove both an aptitude and a willingness to see something to the end, which to many people will be as good as a degree, and you'll find out if you love this field or hate it. If you start, make sure you finish. Get someone to hold you accountable to this if necessary.

tolvak 14y ago

Your best bet for getting companies to be willing to take a risk on you, if you have no relevant education or work experience yet, is to start working on side projects(that you can share on places like GitHub), contributing to open source, maybe work on a phone app or two and release them (depending on where your interests lie exactly in the software world). Perhaps gather these into a slick, well designed, simple web site, basically saying what you said above. Anything tangible that will make people more excited about giving you a shot. They likely won't be willing to just take your word that you were a proficient self-study, but if your work is good, some people will be willing to look beyond just the education. While you are trying to teach yourself, take a bit of time to get a basic familiarity with Computer Science concepts (data structures, algorithms, common design patterns, and OO concepts if applicable, etc). These can often seem unnecessary and overly complicated to a self taught developer (speaking from experience), but they can really help with writing nicer, cleaner, more efficient code in the long run. One thing that helped move me in the right direction for my career was starting a couple of web sites for ideas I had for various niche communities (I had dreams of grandeur and selling my websites for millions, ha). They both failed miserably, and never really generated a sustainable user base. However, I learned a ton in the process about web technologies from front end to the database side of things, and having that on my resume really helped in start-up interviews, as it was a mentality that people in those circles could relate to.

sincerely_ 14y ago
Thanks for the advice. I'm near the beginning of Harvard's free Intro to Computer Science online course at the moment, and creating a niche community website sounds like an excellent project to take on once I have the skills. :)

beatpanda 14y ago

1) Create Github account 2) Make cool things you are interested in in your off time 3) Parlay into job This works. Really. Block Hacker News in your hosts file until you have a job.

yen223 14y ago

By living in the bay, you already have access to jobs most of us can only dream of. Treasure the opportunity :)

reissbaker 14y ago

There's hope: I know plenty of successful mostly-self-taught to entirely-self-taught engineers at great companies. One of the best engineers I know is a former nurse. You have to be incredibly dedicated, be willing to put in many many hours before it seems to click, and try to find good peers or mentors to learn from... But it's doable, and you can get very good in a few years. Don't just do it for the pay or it'll be a hard road through. But if you love technology and think you could love programming, then try it out. Tiny little secret: once you get good enough that you can reliably [make dynamic websites with Rails / write iOS apps / insert technology you're interested in here], try freelancing on something like elance to get experience. You'll probably mess up enough that you'll be making minimum wage or less after the time spent fixing things, but you'll grow your skillset pretty quickly.

sincerely_ 14y ago
Thanks for the tiny little secret! That sounds ideal, once I reach that level of competence. :)

SiVal 14y ago

If he's smart, can he get a job out of this if he decides, today, to self-study as hard as he can and see if he has an aptitude for this kind of thing? Aptitude for what kind of thing? Since this is HN, I'll guess it means becoming a programmer, but you might also mean non-technical startup partner, other entrepreneur, or something else. If you are dreaming of being a programmer but have no programming experience, I'd have to wonder what it is you are dreaming. It's not a glamorous profession when seen from the inside, but if you've been programming for a while and love programming enough to want to do it whether you are paid or not (like me), then it makes sense to try to get paid for it. But you'd have to program for a while before you could know that. I think someone in your position should just find a job, any job that leaves your evenings free--Home Depot is hiring--and try to teach yourself to program every evening after work. Programming is frustrating for quite a while, so don't let it make you feel stupid. Just see if it starts to grow on you eventually or you gradually lose interest. If it grows on you, then start attending in-person meetups, participating in projects online, building things of your own and (later) showing them off, and talking to people you meet about your interest in a programming job somewhere. Continue building skills, relationships, experience, and your resume by being strategic about gaining experience. If you can live with a Home Depot-level salary, you'll probably find small companies that won't care about your lack of college if you don't care that they don't pay much. Big companies like Google or Apple probably won't even talk to someone without either an impressive degree or an impressive list of professional accomplishments. You can eventually come up with the latter if you really do come to love programming, but until then, a bootstrap strategy suggests starting with programming for free (after work), then programming for a small company (that might not pay much), then specializing your skills a bit into whatever area you do best, then working at better (but not giant) companies, then deciding what to do from there. If you find that you hate programming, don't despair. My Silicon Valley plumber makes $140/hr and thinks my programming job sounds like having to do math homework all day long for a lifetime (as if that were a bad thing, go figure), while his is driving around saving people and socializing, running his own company, working whatever hours he feels like...and the grime washes off at the end of the day.

sincerely_ 14y ago
Thank you for the detailed reply. I guess I was a little coy about "no" programming experience. I dipped my toe in far enough already that I feel I can guess (with not too much precision) what to expect. I'm not expecting glamour, but I am hoping I end up loving it. I do wish I had started programming earlier. The "find a job at Home Depot and program at night" strategy is basically what I plan to do. And yeah, plumbing is on the list of possibilities too. But I hope I find something I like in programming. Somehow it feels like I've been waiting for "permission" to do this, which is bizarre and makes no sense. But the five replies I've gotten to the first comment are confirmatory enough that I think I can keep my mouth shut, stop doubting, and just pursue this for a few months. Then I can pop up for air and see how far I've gotten. Again, thanks.

snowwrestler 14y ago

How does a 22-year-old high school graduate with no programming experience end up on Hacker News? What do you read here? I'm not challenging your right to be here (I think it's cool)--I'm just curious. I think it would be interesting insight into how Hacker News grows.