Ask HN: Can you get a "good" job in the industry without a degree?
I'm at a point in my life where I have to decide what to do next.
I'm finishing high school (after some detours; I'm 21) this year and starting a software engineering degree this fall. The problem is that I don't want to. I live in Hungary and I'd like to leave this place. So I've started thinking thinking that maybe I could spend the next 4-6 moths learning and building things in hopes that I could get a job someplace else. But most job listings specifically list a degree or equivalent work experience as a requirement.
I've never worked in the field, not even as a freelancer and I only started programming a few months ago. I haven't written anything big either. ( https://github.com/randomchars )
Do you have any suggestion or input on this issue?
21 comments
[ 5.8 ms ] story [ 62.0 ms ] thread1. Looks through a job listings site and copy and paste every interesting job into a text file.
2. Look for the commonalities and also the things you don't know yet.
3. Without lying, tailor your résumé to address the key commonalities you've found.
4. Apply to any and every job that you think you could do.
5. Create a mini-action plan for how you'll learn what you need to and put it into practice in order to address the skill and experience gaps you've identified.
I've found that when moving into a new industry three-six months of practice and examples are all you really need to get your foot in the door at least at an entry level.
Look for any and every way to use your current job as a place to showcase what you're capable of. Don't worry about getting paid more for it because you're investing in yourself and I guarantee it will pay off.
I got my first bit of programming experience working as customer service for AT&T Wireless. I learned web development, made them a couple of tools, got an award and then was able to find my first small time web development job.
edit: formatting
The only thing is I haven't really seen entry level jobs anywhere. I looked on Github's and Stack Overflow's job boards, is there somewhere else I should be looking too?
Also, do not worry about money for your first real dev job. Just get one. Look to move jobs in 6-12 months and you'll get the money you want.
Good luck!
However, if you don't know how to do stuff then you'll just have to work on that and start learning shit. Maybe you could get a junior level job somewhere, but that really depends on where you are at as a programmer.
I don't know what the situation with schools is in Hungary, but if it's anything like here, I would strongly suggest to forget about college and start learning on your own.
I'm continously learning, and I still have 4 months from this school year.
Can I ask how much experience did you have before getting to a job in London and what kind of position is it?
You can consider the university course as being your backup plan. Edinburgh (and Glasgow/Dundee/Aberdeen) has a great tech community. Between university and meeting people from the tech community you'll have plenty of things to do.
Being a CS student would open a lot more doors than not having a degree. I help organise a monthly tech meeting called Techmeetup ( http://techmeetup.co.uk ) and we get a lot of people who are looking to find (paid) interns/hire full time employees/find co-founders.
Strong thumbs up here.
I went in person to each university's international student office ( or whatever that's called ) and told them I'd like to transfer.
Edinburgh Uni was like "We can't do that because bla bla bla" but Heriot Watt and Napier only wanted my transcripts from my university in Romania.
Ended up going for an undergraduate MEng in Software Engineering at Heriot Watt.
The transfer process was a piece of cake.
Just to give you an idea of the timeline:
-June 2007 came to Edinburgh
-July 2007 visited the student office of all 3 universities
-August 2007 sent Heriot Watt my transcripts and was offered a place
-October 2007 started the MEng course.
If this doesn't make you want to give it a shot I don't know what will.
Edit: And did I mention that I didn't have to pay University fees? Free education FTW :)
Look at what skills people in your area need. There are zero python jobs in my area. I love python, but it isn't marketable. It's either PHP or C#/.Net. So for my current job I did some C# projects while unemployed to show with my resume.
Your first job will probably suck. This is true of a lot of college grads as well. Don't be discouraged.
That said, I'm not sure if you've thought about the states, but just throwing this out there: I've been in the US for 8 years now (came here for college, been working since) and without my degree, I believe my chances of being here would have been reduced to almost none (I realize this every time I engage in any visa-related matter).
There are other ways you can get here (internal transfer, investor visa etc), but I think it's worth mentioning since you said that you'd like to leave Hungary. I briefly contemplated dropping out of college but looking back there's no doubt in my mind it was one of the most important and best decisions of my life to stick it out.
You have the rest of your life to work. Be a monk and study for a few years and come out the better. Having accomplished 'a degree' is a big deal. It's a lot of bureaucracy and busy-work, but that shows that you have not only skill, but perseverance.
Also other mentioned coming to the US. Why? I can't see why. I'd go to Berlin or Vienna or some other place in the EU.
There isn't a specific place I want to go to. It's easy to work in another EU country so those are on the top of my imaginary list, but I wouldn't have any problem with the US, or Canada either. Is there a reason why you don't like the idea of moving there?