"Self taught" coders (non CS/math-major), how is your career going?
I worked my way from frontend to software engineer over 3 years after leaving a fairly lucrative (but incredibly demanding) career in management consulting. Have been taking CS courses via coursera/edX for the last 1.5 years (current job is way too chill), and have been leetcodin' for the last 2 months almost full time. About to start interviewing and still have no real sense if I'm just about there or way off the mark for big N, whether I'll be dismissed for being a non-CS major (seems the case at Google), etc. Any inspiration / thoughts on the journey would be much appreciated!
I’m a SysDev at Amazon and I’m learning on the job, you’ll be fine. You never stop learning in this field. L5, no college.
Yeah that's one thing I've realized haha. After 3.5 years in consulting I was managing a team of people and feeling pretty adept... after 5 years as a dev I still feel like I don't know shit
L6, possibly L7 soon, no degree.
That's awesome, has it been all on the job learning or do you seek out ways to expose yourself to new problems?
I started programming when I was 8 and never stopped, basically.
Got my associates in music. Currently working my third job as a developer. Nothing’s impossible dude. You should be good.
Gonna throw some cold water on this thread... I'm a former math/physics major and the last three years since breaking into software have been an uphill struggle. However, it's still early in my career so hopefully things will get better. Fwiw once you have experience, you can get your foot in the door with the big N.
But you have an epic math degree so why?
Employers don't really care about the degree. What I'm starting to understand is that knowledge + experience + soft skills >> raw intelligence. It's been a real struggle to pass interviews, my first two jobs have gone really poorly, and my current TC is below market. However, it's still early in my career and I've improved a lot as a developer in the past year, and managed to gain some valuable experience so hopefully things will start looking up.
ICT5 here with no degree. Things are going fantastic
Going well. Fuck taking courses online.
Wait Google doesn't consider self taught people? I think that's not true. Brad Traversy apparently got a chance to interview or was it an offer but he rejected it? Not sure if he was 100% telling the truth
I've heard they might consider you for an SRE role or something but not SWE. Ie: jwasham (https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/why-i-studied-full-time-for-8-months-for-a-google-interview-cc662ce9bb13/) didn't even get a phone screen after 15 years of experience and studying for 8 months full time. Would love to be wrong though!
I’m a non-CS major and got both L5 and E5 offers from Google and FB. 6 YoE and only noname companies on my CV. You can totally do it.
Friend was a biology major, joined FB after graduation, promoted to E6 in 4 years.
Sure but most climbing the ranks at a big company is bootlicking and people skills, not programming ability
Well the question was: how is your career going?