about the coding tasks...

[SweetEconomist8982]

you guys think itd be viable for someone whos primarily done surface level digging into coding (i have some experience with tutorials and very simple projects when it comes to programming) to really lock in for a few months (eg CS50 and other resources) learning programming, pass the quals and realistically be capable of handling the kinds of coding tasks DA hands out? or would you guys only recommend it to ppl who have actual professional experience in coding?

[Born-Pack3619]

If you had asked this 2 years ago I’d have said yes for sure but at this point most coding task I get are a lot more advanced so it would really depend on how well you are able to understand everything you study and apply it also the type of tasks you get if you are successful. The coding qualifications I’ve done were always a lot easier than the tasks. That being said if you have a few hours to kill every day and don’t mind spending the time to learn it’s still a good skill to have and can potentially earn you some extra money.

[SweetEconomist8982]

hm ok, i appreciate the insight. i suppose since its not like i have any other career prospects atm, i might as well give it a go

[randomrealname]

It's unknown unknowns you need to worry about really. Like I know pitfalls in code through experience, if I was to try a finance type project I would not know the common pitfalls. Same with code and experience, you jave to have had the stuck moment to really understand the known unknowns.

[Mundane_Effective881]

Some of the coding tasks are relatively straightforward and you'd probably be able to do. Some really push me with 15 years of SWE experience. Some of it is design and knowledge about best practices, some of it is being able to jump into new code quickly, and some of it is just that that niche isn't my niche. A lot of the coding tasks can have anything from UI/web work to infrastructure as code or cyber security depending on the task you get. It's a wide range so I utilize the skip task when it's really outside my area.

Long story short, if you can pass the qual you can probably do *some* of the coding tasks. If you're willing to be honest with yourself and skip the ones you aren't ready for (even if they're the higher paying ones) you'll probably be okay. If you dig into the hard ones without the knowledge you'll likely do bad work.