I am from the UK, not the US, but I finished school at the age of 16, and didn't do any further education. No college, no university. I have been programming si

I am from the UK, not the US, but I finished school at the age of 16, and didn't do any further education. No college, no university. I have been programming since I was ten. I didn't learn it from an educational regime. I don't have any fancy letters after my name. And I work for a well known company in the UK. Was it because of qualifications? Nope. Was it because of my education? Yes. So how did I get educated without going to school? Well, silly, I did what you -- and most of the other devs here did -- I just wrote code, read blog posts, read books, watched videos, and wrote more code. You do not need to go to some rooty tooty university to be a developer. You just need to be useful, and good. > I have no portfolio Then get one. > or any real open source contributions Then make some. > My GitHub profile is pretty empty. Then fill it. > And I doubt anyone would hire me due to my age. Nonsense. If you're 17, your brain is ready for learning. Get an internship, or a junior position, and in five years time you'll be a valued employee with lots of experience. Good luck, 30thousandfeet.