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Ask HN: What to expect when a completely new coder

3 points by ergothus ↗ HN
A friend of mine is considering a career change, and after years of his programmer friends encouraging him, he's looking at coding.

He's taking it cautiously, but I pointed him at Python and suggested a few sample projects, and he's only got a few hours of coding under his belt but it's obvious he enjoys it and is a quick study. Once he has the basics down we plan to expand his exposure so he can learn what specialties (web, backend, etc) might appeal to him. This is all going very well.

My problem is that I have no idea what to tell him to expect going forward. I have no idea how long it will take him (using his spare time) to advance from "I made a text-based simple calculator" to "I can talk to databases and spit out web pages" to "I am employable at a salary equal or better than my current salary (40-50k)". I have no idea how a NEW coder finds work vs an experienced coder. It's been 20 years since I was new to this, I had coded for years before I entered the market, and the industry has changed a lot since then anyway.

A few factoids: * He has BA degree in an unrelated field * We are in Seattle, WA, USA * He is not currently looking at a bootcamp or other rapid training unless that is necessary * He is recently married and they are looking to start a family, so an amount of stability is required.

Has anyone had experience that is more relevant/helpful? Any non-obvious pitfalls that it makes sense to avoid?

4 comments

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socmag
Let his aspirations decide the language. Nobody ever got fired for learning C. Python is a great start for ML, JavaScript for the internet. Anything else is a plus.

He is lucky to be in Seattle; the only requirement is putting the time in and knowing what you want to achieve. The money will follow.

[dead] dudul
First of all, stop calling yourself a "coder". A coder is a code monkey that costs a lot of money and that companies will try to replace with a cheaper code monkey somewhere in a 3rd world country.

Coding is only one aspect of being a software developer. A software developer has to be able to talk to business experts, learn from them and understand their language. He has to be able to figure out how to solve their problems with the amount of resources he is given.

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benologist
The shortest path to a career would be if he could use Python proficiently, then applying for jobs that requires Python. An easy way to get proficient would be cheap online work that pays poorly but will have him solving diverse problems.