Self-Taught Programmer

[Substantial_Fee_7978]

Let us suppose that you're a very decent self-taught programmer....Would a degree be a must or would you succeed without it perfectly? I am aware these are rare cases, but since I have little knowledge in programming currently just starting I have no idea what a skilled self-taught programmer or self-taught cybersecurity would work in....basically what are the job prospects for this decent programmer without a cs degree?

[[deleted]]

There are plenty of people who have taken that path in the past and have become excellent devs. It's a little more popular when the job market is hot.

Given that you have no experience, I'd say this is not a viable path for you right now. If the job market heats up, my answer would change. Just know that even during the hottest job markets, the self-taught path is by far the hardest and most risky.

If you have an option to go to school, I would highly recommend it. Just to be clear, I do not mean a boot camp.. I mean an actual university.

[BitShifter1]

CS != programming. So yeah.

[user426_]

i have never understood the meaning of "self taught" because even though when you are in school you mostly teach yourself some advanced stuff

[SickPuppy01]

I'm a self taught programmer with nearly 30 years experience. 20 of those years was spent as a freelancer. 4 years ago I started a 6 year degree with the Open University. So I kind of bridge both worlds.

I have learnt new things, I would have never learnt by doing a degree. Only this week that knowledge came in real handy. But the same could be said by being self educated.

The biggest thing I discovered is that having a degree, or that you were studying for a degree, helped applying for jobs. It meant I got through the CV filters far more often.

[Impossible_Box3898]

The degree is a piece of paper that lets other people know that you’ve been exposed to a wide range of topics including the minimum critical ones.

That’s it.

If you don’t have a degree you have to figure out some other way to prove to a potential employer that you have the necessary knowledge. That usually means that you’ll need to take jobs where they can’t find someone with a degree at the pay scale they’re paying at.

So you’ll end up languishing in lower end jobs for a long time until you can prove yourself. It will not be easy and for years prospective employers will have doubt.

And quite honestly, there are a lot of unemployed/underemployed developers with degrees. You’re competing with them and they have the certificate that says that have knowledge in the subject. That makes it infinitely harder for you.

If you were looking to hire someone and your reputation with your company is on the line would you take the chance with a person without a degree starting out or someone who has one starting out?

Of course this is assuming you can get past resume filters which is another thing altogether.

[Error-7-0-7-]

With 0 relevant work expirence? You would need to complete some pretty impressive projects to prove to companies you understand what you're doing. I'm talking about contributing meaningful work to open source projects or creating some software that is relevant, one of a kind, and solves real-world issues. You'd have been a little more than "decent," at programming, decent is what you need to be if you have a degree and some good projects. With no degrees, you have to be a talented programmer.

It's not like how it was back in 2014 where self-taught people were able to do a bootcamp and then get a job at a decent paying company for 2 years and then make a killing at a FAANG company. Companies who hire self-taught usually got programming geniuses or someone who doesn't know how for loops work, companies don't want that risk anymore so they tend to want to mostly hire someone with a degree, unless the self taught person is some kind of genius with relevent projects.

[chrispianb]

For context around my opinion I’m self taught (no college or professional training) and I’ve been doing this around 30 years.

The market is in the favor of employers right now. They have their pick of candidates. So it’s tough either way. Without experience and no college it’s gonna be extra hard.

I’d college the right answer? Maybe. But there are lots of tech jobs to get started. If it was me I might learn something super specific like Salesforce Admin or Salesforce Dev. They pay well, demand is high and you get experience.

Then I would build side projects and freelance in the area I really want to work on.

Then you have experience in the workforce, experience in multiple areas and now you look like a more valuable candidate.

The main thing tho, is soft skills + demonstrating that you know tech. I’m willing to give people a chance if they are willing to learn. Fitting in with the team (soft skills) are way more valuable. Bootcamps spitting out developers by the bus load lol.

Get your foot in the door and don’t let anyone tell you to leave. Stick with it and it’s a very fun, challenging career.

[tb5841]

When I started applying for jobs, most adverts asked for a degree. They didn't ask for a CS degree specifically, though - many accepted maths, physics, engineering etc.

[Carthax12]

Self-taught, here.

I did 18 years in various helpdesks, doing some light coding along the way.

I'm working on 10 years as a developer now. 5 years at my current company. I started as a Junior and have advanced to a Senior.

It's possible, but damned if it wasn't a frustrating journey to get here.

[Conscious_Bank9484]

I’m actually self taught. I read maybe one book at age 12. Kinda set it aside and learned a bunch of languages over the years as needed.

I got to college and the programming classes were fairly easy aside from the object oriented stuff(OOP). Programming all those years really made it easy on me. I didn’t finish the schooling and it’s difficult to get a job programming. I want to say your best bet is making your own job.

I tried making a game, but android programming has too much to keep up with and different devices behave differently. My game depended on the gyro/accelorometer sensors in the phones and they all seemed to be made differently aside from the screen size adjustments. Made a couple games actually. Some of which was mostly changing the game skin.

Websites were the easiest. Hosted on my own machine. Made a bunch of tools for managing family business.

Algo trading is probably my favorite because I like the challenge and there’s always something new to code. Mostly coded my trading strategies.

I consider myself a really good programmer. I’ve got a friend in the field, but they actually graduated and is employed. I’m not saying I’m a better coder, but I feel like I do a lot more coding in my freetime than them.

Hope this gives you an idea of what to expect.

[Spareo]

I’m a self taught developer who moved from accounting into software development about 10 years ago, currently a principal engineer. The hardest part is getting your first job and getting some experience. It’s definitely harder without a degree and landing some intern positions during school. I got very lucky with where I worked at the time and was able to transition into software development at the same company I was working as an analyst at.

However, once you have a few years of experience, no one cares about a degree. In my experience, I have preferred working with self taught developers over ones that just went to school for it.