Ask HN: How can I get a job in the tech industry out of high school?

I got an internship at a company in Bellevue while I was still in highschool. The key is to attend networking events and meet people in positions to hire you. Come off as impressive, either technically competent or showing interest/knowledge of the company's area of business.

Where around Seattle are you from?

Try to just phone different places and offer your services. Ask to speak to who's in charge of their computer systems. Bonus points if you actually check what they're running first and can engage them about it. "Hey, I noticed you aren't running the latest x on your server. I could help you keep that maintained." These days, you could probably use Google Maps and search for 'online' or 'store' or something generic and pick the geographic area of companies to target.

The best thing about the tech industry is all it takes to prove your competence is a computer and an internet connection (which means your in luck). Now the trick to getting hired and forgoing all the university/degree requirements is to prove yourself with projects. Start coding. Not dilly-dallying, but coding all the time. Code to learn and post all your projects on Github. It's good to explore, but try to focus on completing 1 or 2 projects that you're proud of.

You'll not only be building your skills this way, but you'll also have something to talk about at interviews.

setup a profile on elance/odesk etc.

> From my searching, it seems that many/most internships require applicants to at least be in college, and jobs require a degree.

You can still ask. The first company I worked for was looking for a developer with a 4 year degree. I was still a high school junior. I contacted them and after an interview, they brought me on board as an intern for the summer.

I'm 17. I chose not to do my senior year and instead got a job at a software company. From my experience, the number of people looking for young programmers far exceeds the number of programmers period (in major cities).

The best way I've found is to create a niche for yourself in software. Wether that's ops, node web development, ruby development, ios, etc. Create projects in that niche and post them to GitHub.com.

Then look for companies in your city hiring. Most major cities have tech job boards/mailing lists. Email the recruiter (or found if their email is listed) and let them know you're looking for work.

If it's a new company, even better, since they're likely trying to scale their system, offer to come in and see if you could help them get their API off the ground.

Most important note as your age is build casual business relationships with the tech scene, and you will get job offers regardless.

Don't work for free, don't take unpaid internships, you shouldn't have to do that, and it's not worth it.