Ask HN: A place to sleep, a laptop, no résumé and a hungry man.
I've found myself in this situation more often than not. Due to my own fault of course. But I always ended up relying on others until I caved in, doing jobs that provided me with more money than I need but with no enjoyment and the feeling of unfulfillment, dropping them like I had a choice even if I didn't.
I can program, it's what I can do best, it's what's keeping me happy. But without a college degree, experience or a stack of projects in my pocket no one is going to believe me.
With all the app hype one could lose himself dreaming about all the money that's in the business.
But what real chances are there? What small jobs can one do with the ability to write code but the inability to prove oneself just to keep from starving?
Guitarists can busk, drifters could mow the lawn, artists can do caricartures. What can a lone man with a laptop under his arm do?
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadAmount of income depends on site design (probably quite good), type of subject site tackles (how much scope there is for a visitor checking the site to see related ads that they would then go on to click).
For instance a week or so ago one guy came along with a passive site that gave away simple, free gift certificate templates. He was getting a few hundred dollars every week. Not enough to live on, easily enough to just feed him, could be replicated for more income.
This is your busking. Dirty dirty ad revenue from sites that do stuff the common man would take hours doing themselves.
He got in touch with us directly, somehow he'd found dev labs near him and we agreed to his request for experience. No degree or experience but a resume full of the right things you want to see from a self-learner (online Stanford classes etc) and he backed it up when we interviewed him.
Maybe try that, or ask here on HN for someone to mentor you through developing a real-world project that they need, and don't have the budget or time for. All you can lose is your time, and if things work out maybe some great new friends and a chance at a real opportunity.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?pag...
edit:
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) has developed the six factors below to evaluate whether a worker is a trainee or an employee for purposes of the FLSA: http://wdr.doleta.gov/directives/attach/TEGL/TEGL12-09acc.pd...
1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period; and
6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.
Which is a shame, because I've seen some people benefit enormously from similar intership-ish things. They got in the door of cash-poor companies, were ambitious enough to take on hard things, and eventually got hired at a level way above what they could have achieved through the normal process.
Of course, I've also read about no-pay internships that were total scams, companies just using and abusing the naive so they could get out of paying minimum wage. So I'm glad this stuff is illegal, but I regret that the cheap assholes have ruined it for everyone.
Of course item 4 will always be a grey area: "The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern" - few employers would take action that provides no advantage, or impedes their business.
Tech Schools and University programs offer syllabuses which outline teaching a breadth of knowledge. If you assign an unpaid intern a project based on a need of your company then you likely haven't designed the project to be a teaching tool. (Which then runs into #4).
On the other hand, a traditional apprenticeship entails a formal contract which places substantial obligations on the master...that's why most industries use employees today.
Step 1: figure out which of this is easiest to change. Hint: it's "stack of projects".
Step 2: change it.
Yay, github.
Having a github account with several projects on it is a big positive signal. There will be companies who feel that you need a degree, but that's a small portion of the job market. Committing to build and grow a github is probably the single best thing a developer without a degree can do.
Also, put in a readme, that makes it easier for me to evaluate the project. And put in tests, so I know you are familiar with those. In short, show me you know what you are doing by actually doing it.
Committing to build and grow a github is probably the single best thing a developer without a degree can do.
Or even a dev with a degree.
I've gotten a number of interviews based on my github and projects, without even sending a resume. For all the interviewer knows, I never went to school. And when I hire, I look at github first, maybe a resume if there isn't a github. Or, equally likely, no github -> resume goes into the circular file.
Test coverage is nice to have, but I don't know that it's a requirement up front. I can't think of any circumstances where having test coverage will hurt, so I'd agree that it should probably be there, even if you're not a TDD/BDD zealot. It at least shows that you're familiar with testing and can do it.
As the person who makes hiring decision at a startup, all I care about whether you can actually make things. College degrees and resumes correlate with making things, but the stack of projects proves it.
Go now and put some functioning thing up on the web and get some people using it. Iterate in response to feedback, improving both the product and the code. You don't have to make something massive; a few hundred users and a few kloc of code is sufficient for me to be able to measure your skill.
The point of this is to market yourself as an Actual Programmer, and it doesn't take much time or effort to reach that point. (Although, in my case, I was distinguishing myself from the plethora of generic comp sci students, and you might have a higher barrier.) After all, whoever hires you will _really_ judge based on how well you interview, which is just a few hours of your life.
If you enjoy coding, start creating projects. Then start completing projects. Consider one of the million "fart" apps: the app itself is far from glamorous, but the person who wrote it has gained experience in (1) writing an app, (2) completing an app, (3) getting the app into an app market.
If you keep doing that, and have 5-20 apps on a market, even if none of them are very popular, it looks a LOT like experience.
Create an online presence.
Contribute under that name.
Never ever flame or troll under that name. Appear calm and sensible and rational and kind and polite and exciting and dynamic.
There's a bunch of things you could do: Many open source projects need help. (Especially with documentation.)
Many people want some small app to help them do something, but they have no idea how much that would cost, and they have no programming skill. (I have a million ideas. "X-Face for HN profiles" is just one.)
In theory, you do jobs you don't enjoy to give you money to do things that you do enjoy; or you do a job you love which leaves you poor. (If you're really lucky you get great money and a great job.) Doing a lousy job shouldn't stop you from being able to code in your spare time.
> With all the app hype one could lose himself dreaming about all the money that's in the business.
This is, I'm sure you know, a distraction. You're not doing it for the huge 1-in-a-million chance of getting rich. You're doing it to solve a problem, or to create something awesome.
Good Luck!
And material you create while teaching kids can later be converted into book form and published.
I had only toyed around before that.
Anyway, I think prtk is right: there is a lot to be picked up in education. And as always; make yourself cheap enough to build portfolio at first.
[1]: http://edu.kde.org/kturtle
Apply to a couple startups even just as an intern to see whether that floats your boat.
Find a good(!) co-founder and start a company. or If you feel that the problems are deeper than just not wanting to work in a traditional environment and you have a bad outlook on live seek advice of a therapist.
I am quite interested in helping teach or working with voluntary organisations if I can make enough money for Diesel and food.
It is both exciting and scary at the same time.
For me, it's draining more energy than it gives. Programming should be fun. I hope your journey goes well. Hopefully I will be on the same track in a couple of months. First I have to save enough cash to feel secure. Happy hunting.
I am just trying to kickstart my company (I am a contractor) into doing more than just contract work and me and a friend are working on a few small projects/ideas.
Really want to hit the road soon, but its the fear of effectively being 'homeless' and not being able to find such well paid work when/if we return.
Good luck with your plans too, our situation sounds very similar.
Where I'm from (South Africa), internet was expensive and not accessible to all at the time.
Some advice for your situation:
- You are at the bottom, your only way from there is up - this is something to be excited about.
- Fake it until you make it. When meeting potential clients, talk the talk and do the walk later.
- You'd be surprised at how many SME's need IT services and don't know it yet :) You can simply walk in the door and have a chat to them.
- Put your ego away and always be aware that in order to eat, you need to sell. Selling is actually pretty simple if have a bit of confidence.
- Look after your laptop with your life, it's your key to getting out of your situation.
- If you can write code, it most likely means that you can solve problems logically - this doesn't only apply to coding, figure out where you can use that and make a bit of money.
- Don't be afraid of charging for your time. Poverty is also a mindset, as soon as you realize that, you are one step closer to getting past it.
- Just ask for help. You are not alone and most people will be sympathetic when they are asked.
- You don't need to prove yourself to anyone in order to survive, simply do what you do best and the rest will follow.
Goodluck! S
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2012/04/04/arts/JP-SAGMEIS...
And even if you're not, take heart - some of the best people I know have been in this situation at one time or another.
We've always got room at the lodge: http://gdkr.ma/LodgingSociety
Seriously, we're always welcoming hackers to come hang with us in NY.
We put you up, give you plenty of your own time to work on what you want, and ask for a part time contribution to our startup.
Hit me up if that interests you,
Adrian
If I had the money to fly to NY, gee, that sounds both awesome and frightening. I envy people who can just take the already filled suitcase out of their closet and end up in a distant place without fear or confusion about what to do next.
Good luck man, I really wish you all the best!
I did 2 things. Firstly I went on the freelancer job boards and picked up some of the worst jobs going with the most hard to please clients. I think my average wage was like $3/hr for the first handful of projects. However.. soon enough I starting getting 10 star ratings which opened up better jobs. Also I started to get a portfolio from these jobs which gave me credibility. It was a miserable time but I wouldn't have to got to where I have any other way.
The second thing I did was found a framework which was semi-popular and just camped the forum. I learned everything I could about it. I read every thread. I only answered questions. If I had a question I would join IRC under an alias. I didn't want to look nooby.
I would take notes on frequent questions. I was soon known as someone who always had the right answer. I would then usually be the first to respond on the job board for the framework. I would link to my forum profile and reputation. Some of those jobs paid really well and there was very little competition to get them.
I currently make 36k a year from a job I picked up on the forum. The post for the job was titled 'Developer Required'. The message was 'Urgent, please PM name, portfolio and email address'. Turned out well.
Ultimately though to succeed you need to stick with what you are doing. You may find the job terrible but if it leads to a great portfolio piece at the end then you should be doing it. Its rarely about where you are now, its about where what you are currently doing will lead you.
I assume you have some sort of internet since you're posting this. If hosting costs are an obstacle, shoot me an email and I can cut you off a piece of a Linode or something.
As for 'proving you can code', get a free Github repository and start filling it up. Find a project, any project, in any language, and build it. Projects don't have to be amazingly complicated or fit a broad needs. One of my first 'open source' projects was a library that would reliably fetch a favicon from a website.
No, it hasn't made me famous, and no, it hasn't made me rich, but it has helped a few people based on the messages I've gotten through Github. I have had offers from work based on it (not full time jobs, but implementation / freelance stuff), and if anybody questions whether or not I can write a line of code, I can point them at that.
After you write one library / module / program / app / whatever, write another one. The idea being that you'll establish a 'body of work'.
We recently tried to recruit another HNer to fill in on some project work recently and, when my project manager was asking how qualified he was, I just pointed him to his github profile. Not only has he released a lot of code, but he's worked on a lot of the libraries that we're using in our code as well.
Don't worry about whether or not the code you release is 'production ready', or if it's too small, or if you think it's only of limited utility. My favicon parser is under 100 lines of code. Backbone.js is only ~700 lines of code. Code doesn't need to be huge to make an impact. Hell, code doesn't even have to be GOOD to make an impact, but that's a different story.
Irrespective of where you live I may be able to offload some paid work your way, that would then be part of your portfolio.
Even with those, people won't believe you. That's why interviews exist, so you can prove your knowledge.
Either contribute to an existing project, or start your own.
Think of it as code busking.
I'm just wondering, how is that you say you can code and you cant find a job / project to work on. I did my first project for money in PHP when I was 16 - no degree, no experience and not much code to show - just few HelloWorld playpen projects.
People rarely ask developers for a degree and even if they do, once you have impressive code to show is worth much more.
So my advice would be maybe harsh but simple - stop complaining and get working!
you can always use "drug dealer's" method - do the first project for free :)
Can I ask how you got those jobs and what you got paid?
To document your experience the best you can do is to fix bugs into any popular open source project, like WordPress, Rails, ... If you know how to program, it will be easy for you to enter those dev groups and be taken into account.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5qUR3tpEdA&feature=playe...
However in the App Store there is a distribution network that checks for purchase before download and signs ipa files with DRM technology. I wish there was something like that for artists (but their isn't and probably never will be).
My advice is to learn ObjC and get the money up front for freelancing gigs while registering as a sole-proprietorship with your local chamber of commerce. Then pay Apple a registration fee for the App Store. It takes about 10 days to get their approval. Or learn another language. Go to Starbucks or whatever coffee house is in the "nice and upscale" part of town and eavesdrop on the business deals that are going down. Learn what people want and figure out a full proof way to help them get what they want while getting paid for your effort. Now. Be greedy. They will be. Trust me.
That's my advice. You're welcome to it. If you can't make money as a software developer and you CAN ACTUALLY PROGRAM software, then I don't know what to say except learn some confidence. Life isn't hard unless you make it.