Ask HN: How do I know I'm ready to be a full time developer?

2 points by 123fr456 8y ago ↗ HN

I graduated in CS in 2008 but all my jobs have been Sales Engineer roles so far, one of which was a long-term role at a top 5 global travel site.

I code every day on my own side projects as well as building multiple internal tools that have been used by numerous staff, and external clients.

I've comfortable in Python, PHP, MySQL, HTML/CSS and JS but how do I know I'm ready to take the step up to be a full-time dev?

My main side project is an algorithmically (Collab Filtering) powered music recommendation site running off an API I wrote and integrated with several 3rd party APIs including Spotify, Twitter, Last.fm, Pinterest and Facebook. The site gets ~20,000 uniques per month and is profitable.

(using a throwaway)

3 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 14.1 ms ] thread

patio11 8y ago ↗

Do you need to have someone tell you you're ready? You're ready.

alfredallan 8y ago ↗

Do your own thing - you seem to have the right mix of skills: dev + some sales exp. Don't bother with an actual dev job.

crzwdjk 8y ago ↗

You've got a profitable site that you developed, so you're already a developer. Yes, you can do this, and the money coming into your bank account is solid evidence of that.