Self-taught programmers; got any tips on how to get a good job through self-educating yourself in programming?

TangentLogic · 2015-10-28T14:43:31+00:00

If you're a contributor to open-source projects typically hosted on GitHub, and can cite them in your resume, that'll give you a big leg up.

rurpe · 2015-10-28T14:24:45+00:00

Look for problems to solve at your current job using the computer and then solve them. Then you can take what you have built to someone in the company that recognizes talent or you can take that example to an entry level job.

2comment · 2015-10-28T14:24:54+00:00

I got out of programming due to the long hours, dealing with PHBs, the long hours (at crunch time), feeling like shit and hating a desk job, did I mention the long hours?

Of course, I was in a very specific niche of programming. Games, mostly. At the time I quit, the three major areas of employment was Seattle, in California, and in Texas.

Other fields of programming may be different with both major locations and resume needed. For instance, I heard the military still uses the ancient language of COBOL. I have no clue what you want to get into. It's a whole wide field.

AFAIK, it's not about degree yet (unless you want to work on Microsoft or Google research projects, etc) but being able to get shit done and getting to know the right people. In that aspect, it's a lot better than other fields that rely on you putting up with tremendous amounts of bullshit to get a degree and then continue on with a billion certifications just to get your foot in the door.

Learning to code well is a major undertaking no less than learning the piano. Actually, with the complexity and everything these days, I'd say it's about 3 instruments. But that's game programming and specifically game engines for consoles. With all the garbage programs I see on smartphones and on computers in general.... it won't be that hard.

I would suggest going to slashdot, doing a lot of reading on people who asked the same exact question you are here. That's where many of the techies, especially seasoned ones, are.

http://slashdot.org/

a_nus · 2015-10-28T15:18:00+00:00

Best way to learn is to pick a small project and work on it. When you get stuck, Google your way out of it.

skeetch_a_leak · 2015-10-28T17:31:44+00:00

The answers from /u/raceAround126 and /u/crixusin are partially true, but insufficient.

If you want to be a programmer, they're right. But you're looking at being a developer. I took the path you're starting. I started teaching myself in '07, and got my first dev job at the end of '08 making $18/hr. In December of last year I hit 6-figure salary, and there's no indication that I'm slowing down.

If you're looking at Javascript as your specialty, certifications are irrelevant. Learning the programming principles that are basic to software development will put you far ahead of our incredibly lazy field. Now you'll want to move ahead, so focus on NodeJS, and NoSQL databases, because that's what's trending.

VIICHYVALOIS · 2015-10-28T21:43:53+00:00

Those of you who have taken the same road in self-taught programming, what are some tips, or things I should be doing now that can help me in the long run?

congrats on taking the first steps, you are to be commended. i think it's great that you're learning programming, and from what i gather you're in the beginning stages. focus now on the principles and concepts - looping, control flow, data types, MVC patterns - and then, you should start sniffing out how your target job or industry uses javascript.

Should I get some books to help me further my self-education?

Personally, I wouldn't, mostly because whatever's committed to paper can get outdate pretty quickly. plenty of good blogs and subreddits out there. Books can't hurt, but they won't take you as far as hands-on application

Are there resources to use after codeacademy?

Teamtreehouse.com. $25 or $50 a month, but definitely worth it

A lot of jobs require portfolios, how extravagant do your programs have to be, to be considered good enough to land a job? Can I make a simple text-based game? Or do I have to literally make something unique and complicated to get noticed?

What kind of job do you want? To be hired as an outright DEVELOPER, you need, without a doubt, a portfolio (a la github) or a website where you showcase what you've made - this is key - but I must warn you, to be hired as full developer, you'll really need to know a bit about computer science and engineering. you may need to take a more specialized class, like General Assembly, or DevBootCamp, but they ain't cheap and the ROI may not be there for you

HTML/CSS being great compatible wise with JS, should I refresh on those languages as well? What other languages should I be learning on the side? I don't want to be doing the bare minimum.

HTML,CSS, and JS are pretty much the dark triad that composes front-end web design - how a webpage/site looks and behaves. nothing wrong with that, but javascript is so much great than just 'a language that gives interactivity to the page. JS also has a TON of dialects - Angular, jQuery, node, d3.js etc.; which dialect you pursue is totally up to you. Angular, jQuery, d3.js mostly deal with manipulating a webpage to make it look differently. node.js takes javascript out of the window and turns it into a scripting language that can handle server-side type tasks.

Now in terms of other languages, what interests you? Would you like to build a mobile phone application? then check out Objective-C, Swift, Java (for Android), or C# for Windows Phone/windows ecosystem.

Are you optimizing to a certain operating system? C/Objective-C/Swift are the languages of choice for Apple. .NET and C# for Windows. Java for Android.

Do you want to build a web-app, or write software for some kind of SaaS product? Then consider Python, Java, Ruby, etc... you've just scratched the surface and you could spend a lifetime wading through each design.

Hope this is helpful. To close I'd recommend you spend a lot of time working with JS - programming concepts are, IMHO, largely the same across a given language - so the more you know how to traverse an array in JS, the better off you'll be when when decide to learn Ruby, or something similar.

boreddiscordian · 2015-10-28T18:57:58+00:00

http://www.theodinproject.com/

PoopInMyBottom · 2015-10-28T20:09:47+00:00

Find a University who publish their lecture slides or lecture notes publicly for their students. If possible, find a course where either the exercises and assignments are on the lecture notes, or also published publicly alongside them. Start with the best universities and work down. Check out British universities in particular.

Once you're confident with your level of coding ability, build a portfolio. Contribute to open source projects on GitHub, as well as building your own projects from scratch. Your own projects show that you have the ability to structure your code well without a pre-existing framework. Open source projects show you're able to work on large systems where you don't understand how the majority of the system works - this emulates what you're most likely be doing in industry. If you can stay consistent to the open source projects style guidelines, it shows you can do the same thing within a company. For that reason I'd advise picking the large-scale open source projects if possible.

In terms of networking, search for things like Hack Days or other weekend coding events, and go along. You will be grouped up with small groups of professional programmers as well as some trainees, and you'll have X number of hours to produce something. This is an incredible way to learn where you're deficient by observing the pros, and you'll also get a good benchmark of your ability. If you're learning on your own, it could be that you're a lot worse or a lot better than you think you are. Once you get good, coding events are an excellent way to actually show off your skills to other programmers, live. Many companies pay recruiters to go to Hack days and simply join in, to see if there is any talent they can snap up. If you want to get hired on your merit when you don't have references or much of a portfolio, coding events are a good opportunity.

Bear in mind that no matter how good you are, if you don't have a degree there are certain companies that simply can't hire you, usually because of shareholder policies. It may honestly be worth doing a computer science degree. Online resources are great for teaching you how to code, but they're abysmal when it comes to teaching you how to actually engineer a system. Coding is like learning how to weld girders together. The money is in learning how to engineer the bridge.

raceAround126 · 2015-10-28T14:35:22+00:00

Well the down side here is a lot of hiring managers generally won't hire programmers without higher education certs with a related degree being the standard. Sadly code academy is good to start but not enough.

If a degree is not an option, certification may be the way. Microsoft has several and either a C# or HTML5/AngularJS cert would be a big step (certs 70-480 or 70-483).

A portfolio is relevant but if you have just started, be aware that programming syntax is only part of what is needed. Demonstrable expertise in databases and persistency solutions and good old problem solving are all key.

Hope this helps.

Title	Self-taught programmers; got any tips on how to get a good job through self-educating yourself in programming?
Author	laere
Upvotes	7
Comments	36
Date	October 28, 2015 1:34 PM UTC (10 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/3qk44q/selftaught_programmers_got_any_tips_on_how_to_get/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/self-taught-programmers-got-any-tips-on-how-to-get.155747 https://theredarchive.com/post/155747

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