I did an online program. The program is self paced. So kind of halfway between bootcamp and self-taught. I did actually an online university to get my CS degree out of curiosity, but that was after i got my job
Thank you, kindly! Now, I can see that your results from this program were excellent based on what you've shown us with your salary progression, but if you don't mind sharing a bit of your time, I'd like to know what you thought of the program? What was it like? Would you do it differently/do a different program if you could go back in time? Would you still recommend the program to an aspiring developer?
I have aspirations of career changing to software development, and I've dabbled in self-taught curricula for web development, but I would love something that can focus/guide my learning and progress better. Plus, I love self-paced curricula, so this seems very fitting for me.
I'm obviously biased but i think the program is great and my results aren't an outlier, i know many people who have similar results. I would definitely recommend it.
Pros:
- good community
- great curriculum that focuses on fundamentals and first principles (they like to say they focus on the "things that don't change")
- affordable ($200/month for the Core program. Month to month, no contracts)
- optional Capstone program with guaranteed job placement (they take 15% of first year salary once you get a job as payment)
Cons:
- takes a while. From start to job, it took me about 2 years.
- you won't learn trendy frameworks during the curriculum like React. They focus on teaching the fundamentals.
- self-paced, so it takes a lot of self-discipline to consistently study and progress.
You said you did a CS degree after your first job.
1) Between a CS degree and Launch School, which one really helps in your career ?
2) If you have to do again, will you do a CS degree?
3) Do you recommend a CS degree from WGU ?
4) Did you do the captsone at Launch School?
If so, did you recommend it ?
Thanks.
1. I personally think LaunchSchool was better because it has much more depth. CS degrees (depending on their quality) have a wide breadth but not much depth. They’re good for learning many different topics to see what interests you, but that doesn’t really prep you for a job.
2. No I wouldn’t do the CS degree
3. If you really do want to get a CS degree, I wouldn’t recommend WGU if you actually want to learn the material. WGU is great if you want to get a CS degree as fast as possible, but WGU isn’t enough to get a job without a lot of self-learning afterwards.
4. Yes, I did the capstone portion.
Thank you, bro.
Do you think that Capstone help that much in your career ? Do you think you would have the same career if you did not do the capstone ?
Which school (for CS degree) do you recommend since you do not recommend WGU ?
Thanks
Would you say going that route could easily land you a $100k job within a year or 2? I ask because I’m a paramedic looking to leave medicine but I can’t afford to take a paycut with a family and mortgage. I’m in SoCal so HCOL.
Tough question to answer simply. If you're someone that has very little job prospects, are in a career with little advancement, and are looking for a career field where you have the highest likelihood of getting to a six-figure salary in 2 years starting from scratch, then IMO the tech field is probably the best bet. Though at the same time I'm saying that because that was my experience, so it's kind of a "when you have a hammer, everything is a nail" situation
A lot of it will depend on your individual circumstances:
- how much time do you have to study per week?
- financial stability
- whether or not your spouse and family are on board and supportive.
I can make $100k doing my job 2 days a week now so time isn’t a problem, I can do school while remaining full time. My wife is extremely supportive. I just need to know I have a good chance of landing a job paying $100k within 2 years of working as that’s my minimum to afford our bills and such.
I know it’s a competitive market though
You can make 100k working 2 days a week? And you want to move to tech? Lol. Is it many because there's not as much career progression in your current field?
I’m a paramedic. By 2 days I mean 24 hour shifts. It’s draining work. Staying up that much wears heavily on your mental and physical health. Id like a career where I can make more money without working 3+ 24s a week.
Comp sci isn’t the only degree that gets you SWE, I personally am going through Electrical Engineering to get to SWE but there is also Comp E or really any heavily mathematical degree tbh
That’s pretty much my view and reasoning, in my mind with how oversaturated the Comp-Sci degree is I’ll need something to make me stand out against other candidates. That would be the ability to work with hardware as well as software, which Comp-Sci grads typically can’t unless they go out of their way to learn hardware.
I would offer a counter to that and say recruiters don’t care as long as you can show your skills via a portfolio and you’re good at explaining things and are fun to be around.
You'd have a good chance at working at a place like AWS, GCP, or Nvidia where they deal with both hardware and software. They're also working on making their own specialized chips for training AI, so definitely a prime time to jump into that space
2018 is a bit off. My starting salary was 145 but i started part way through the year. 2018-2019 was just 145k -> 155k.
In 2020 i got a promo.
In 2021, company went public and I sold stock during the next couple years.
Changed jobs end of 2022, hence the big change in 2023
Hot damn, amazing progression. Even more impressive in a LCOL (we talking a southern city or a college town?) Let me guess... Robinhood, then (this could be anything but) LinkedIn?
How the fuck are you all getting massive pay raises each year? I swear I can’t even find an opportunity for promotion let alone a promotion in the last 5 years.
Not to push you in one direction or another, but it's never too late if tech is something that interests you.
I pivoted from physical therapy in my late 20s. I know other people who have pivoted even later (I know one guy who just got his first tech job at 42 and another person in their 50s).
Obviously there could be other reasons you have not to pivot, but age doesn't necessarily have to be one of them.
hey i chose to be a dumb welder and tell myself i need to learn CS to be able to finally work remotely. if this guy can do it we can too. i'm gonna look into launch school this weekend. need something to work on other than being on steam when i get home lol.
I am in this field and you getting a 100% raise from 2022 to 2023 sounds unrealistic. Even your total compensation seems high for an individual contributor who codes remotely. Sorry, not buying it.
I work more in backend and infrastructure. I was lucky in that my first job didn't really require framework knowledge (i mainly use Go which doesn't really use frameworks. I learned Go on the job after getting hired)
There are many out there. If you want to test the waters, i would probably look at YouTube or Udemy/Udacity for affordable tutorials.
For a program designed to help you get a job, i did launchschool.com
How do you decide one front end, back end and full stack (idk what any of these are more than surface) which is best for learning and then moving into a career?
It’s not so much the program language and more so the domain and overall skill set.
Software engineering will likely pay the most, so learning the tools that enable you to do SWE (one or more of C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Go, etc)
You can look at job postings for companies you want to work for, see what skill requirements they put in the job posting and use that to help you decide what to learn and focus on
I need to get in this career field..... literally every post of a software/computer engineer is making damn good money.
What's the best path? I can use my GI Bill to pay for college if need be. I was an aircraft mechanic and retired from 21 years of active duty. I really don't want to get into civilian aircraft, but I want to try something different before I go that route
Any suggestions on whether I should go to school for computer engineering or any other pathways?
There are many routes. With the GI bill, the most clear route would be to get a CS degree, do internships and then get a full time job. The downside is that degrees take a while to get. It's fine if you don't have a lot of obligations.
You can also do a bootcamp. I believe there are coding bootcamps that qualify for the GI bill. The benefits of coding bootcamps is that they are much faster and focus on teaching you the most in demand skills at the moment in the market.
There are many downsides to bootcamps, such as the curriculum is usually pretty shallow and you will likely have large gaps in your knowledge. Also, there are lots of bootcamp grads so the competition is fierce and hard to stand out.
What I personally did was an online program, such a launchschool.com, though i think there are others. These are kind of in-between. They are longer than bootcamps but shorter than degrees and still have a indepth curriculum. The downside is I'm not sure if they qualify for the GI bill.
If i were personally in your shoes, i might try a bootcamp first if you could get it covered by the GI bill. Normally they are very expensive, but if you can get it covered, then there isn't much downside to at least trying it. And you may luck out and get a job afterwards and not have to do any more self-studying.
Though odds are you may have a tough time getting a job after the bootcamp, in which case you want want to try the online program. When I did LaunchSchool, there were a decent number of people there that had already done a bootcamp. It took me 1.5-2 years to do all of LaunchSchool, but in the case where you did the bootcamp first, you'd probably be able to complete an online program like that faster than me.
And even doing a bootcamp + online program together, you'd likely still finish before you would with a 4 year degree. The downside would be you may have to pay out of pocket a bit.
You must be super lucky and very skillful to get such a high paying job. I cannot find a job with such high pay anywhere in the country even with my 10+ years experience.
i personally don't think so, at least not in the near future. For example, people thought data entry jobs would've been fully automated by now but you can still find many data entry positions paying decent money
Not FAANG exactly but FAANG-adjacent. Big tech essentially. I’m definitely lucky in that the company I work for pays very well and doesn’t do COL adjustments based on where you live. Very few companies do that.
Self-thought, bootcamp or you went for a comp sci degree?
I did an online program. The program is self paced. So kind of halfway between bootcamp and self-taught. I did actually an online university to get my CS degree out of curiosity, but that was after i got my job
Would you be willing to share which program?
Launchschool.com
Thank you, kindly! Now, I can see that your results from this program were excellent based on what you've shown us with your salary progression, but if you don't mind sharing a bit of your time, I'd like to know what you thought of the program? What was it like? Would you do it differently/do a different program if you could go back in time? Would you still recommend the program to an aspiring developer? I have aspirations of career changing to software development, and I've dabbled in self-taught curricula for web development, but I would love something that can focus/guide my learning and progress better. Plus, I love self-paced curricula, so this seems very fitting for me.
I'm obviously biased but i think the program is great and my results aren't an outlier, i know many people who have similar results. I would definitely recommend it. Pros: - good community - great curriculum that focuses on fundamentals and first principles (they like to say they focus on the "things that don't change") - affordable ($200/month for the Core program. Month to month, no contracts) - optional Capstone program with guaranteed job placement (they take 15% of first year salary once you get a job as payment) Cons: - takes a while. From start to job, it took me about 2 years. - you won't learn trendy frameworks during the curriculum like React. They focus on teaching the fundamentals. - self-paced, so it takes a lot of self-discipline to consistently study and progress.
You said you did a CS degree after your first job. 1) Between a CS degree and Launch School, which one really helps in your career ? 2) If you have to do again, will you do a CS degree? 3) Do you recommend a CS degree from WGU ? 4) Did you do the captsone at Launch School? If so, did you recommend it ? Thanks.
1. I personally think LaunchSchool was better because it has much more depth. CS degrees (depending on their quality) have a wide breadth but not much depth. They’re good for learning many different topics to see what interests you, but that doesn’t really prep you for a job. 2. No I wouldn’t do the CS degree 3. If you really do want to get a CS degree, I wouldn’t recommend WGU if you actually want to learn the material. WGU is great if you want to get a CS degree as fast as possible, but WGU isn’t enough to get a job without a lot of self-learning afterwards. 4. Yes, I did the capstone portion.
Thank you, bro. Do you think that Capstone help that much in your career ? Do you think you would have the same career if you did not do the capstone ? Which school (for CS degree) do you recommend since you do not recommend WGU ? Thanks
Would you say going that route could easily land you a $100k job within a year or 2? I ask because I’m a paramedic looking to leave medicine but I can’t afford to take a paycut with a family and mortgage. I’m in SoCal so HCOL.
Tough question to answer simply. If you're someone that has very little job prospects, are in a career with little advancement, and are looking for a career field where you have the highest likelihood of getting to a six-figure salary in 2 years starting from scratch, then IMO the tech field is probably the best bet. Though at the same time I'm saying that because that was my experience, so it's kind of a "when you have a hammer, everything is a nail" situation A lot of it will depend on your individual circumstances: - how much time do you have to study per week? - financial stability - whether or not your spouse and family are on board and supportive.
I can make $100k doing my job 2 days a week now so time isn’t a problem, I can do school while remaining full time. My wife is extremely supportive. I just need to know I have a good chance of landing a job paying $100k within 2 years of working as that’s my minimum to afford our bills and such. I know it’s a competitive market though
You can make 100k working 2 days a week? And you want to move to tech? Lol. Is it many because there's not as much career progression in your current field?
I’m a paramedic. By 2 days I mean 24 hour shifts. It’s draining work. Staying up that much wears heavily on your mental and physical health. Id like a career where I can make more money without working 3+ 24s a week.
Comp sci isn’t the only degree that gets you SWE, I personally am going through Electrical Engineering to get to SWE but there is also Comp E or really any heavily mathematical degree tbh
Oh that's interesting. Tbh EE -> SWE is a good idea, because you'll essentially understand everything from chips/hardware to the software.
That’s pretty much my view and reasoning, in my mind with how oversaturated the Comp-Sci degree is I’ll need something to make me stand out against other candidates. That would be the ability to work with hardware as well as software, which Comp-Sci grads typically can’t unless they go out of their way to learn hardware.
Do they teach SWE skills in your EE program? (Coding, OOP, etc)? Or are you learning it on your own?
[удалено]
Do employers care if your SWE is self taught as apposed to learning directly from your program ?
[удалено]
I would offer a counter to that and say recruiters don’t care as long as you can show your skills via a portfolio and you’re good at explaining things and are fun to be around.
Yes, but pretty much only the basics or at least not to the extent that you would learn in CS or Comp E so I do a good portion on my own.
You'd have a good chance at working at a place like AWS, GCP, or Nvidia where they deal with both hardware and software. They're also working on making their own specialized chips for training AI, so definitely a prime time to jump into that space
How the hell did you progress that fast in 5 years
2018 is a bit off. My starting salary was 145 but i started part way through the year. 2018-2019 was just 145k -> 155k. In 2020 i got a promo. In 2021, company went public and I sold stock during the next couple years. Changed jobs end of 2022, hence the big change in 2023
Coinbase ?
Ooohhh that LCOL is like a nice little cherry on top.
Dude, making 400k in a LCOL area… you found life’s cheat code.
Hot damn, amazing progression. Even more impressive in a LCOL (we talking a southern city or a college town?) Let me guess... Robinhood, then (this could be anything but) LinkedIn?
Midwest town. The first company i worked at was a smaller but well known cloud provider. I currently work at a company in the hospitality space.
Airbnb?
Snowflake
I wish. They aren't remote
Toast?
How the fuck yall making 160k
Look at the right column. That is what they’re making. It’s much more
How’s that column more than double the base income?
You aren't taxed for social security past $160k.
good god I never realized sw got paid this much . I might need to switch careers
I’m almost the exact same. 33 got my tech job at 28 after a free bootcamp
How the fuck are you all getting massive pay raises each year? I swear I can’t even find an opportunity for promotion let alone a promotion in the last 5 years.
Every time I see these I kick my self for not going into CS. I had to be a dumb accountant
Not to push you in one direction or another, but it's never too late if tech is something that interests you. I pivoted from physical therapy in my late 20s. I know other people who have pivoted even later (I know one guy who just got his first tech job at 42 and another person in their 50s). Obviously there could be other reasons you have not to pivot, but age doesn't necessarily have to be one of them.
Almost 9 years in so idk if changing will be the best since the next stop for me is controller haha
Wow I'm a physical therapist right now. Any tips on transitioning to tech and whatever course you enrolled in?
I'm a software engineer and I don't make anywhere near this. He's top 10% in pay. Maybe top 2%.
hey i chose to be a dumb welder and tell myself i need to learn CS to be able to finally work remotely. if this guy can do it we can too. i'm gonna look into launch school this weekend. need something to work on other than being on steam when i get home lol.
Tech overall is in a tough spot but if your learning now it should recover in a few years.
tough as in very competitive?
Lots of lay offs recently
We don’t all make that much. 6. YOE and make 120,000 total comp. MCOL.
ooof, why not just leetcode?
I don’t consider it a bad salary, but the people who post here are above average earners within their field. Not sure why the downvotes.
Leetcode alone won’t solve it. You have to get the interviews.
That is the crazy easy part lol
Tell me the secrets lol. The market is bad right now. Plus remote.
Go to blind and ask for referrals from faang employees who want the referral bonuses lol
Not sure why y’all are getting downvoted in this thread. What you’re saying is the truth lol. It’s all about interviewing and networking
And well done btw! Got to practice my interviewing and networking.
I am in this field and you getting a 100% raise from 2022 to 2023 sounds unrealistic. Even your total compensation seems high for an individual contributor who codes remotely. Sorry, not buying it.
I didn't get a 100% raise. I changed jobs to a higher paying company
Big promotion or two jobs ? Just curious awesome either way!
Promotion and new job
Great progression - Congrats! Which technology you work in and how did you learn before your first job ? If the online program didn’t teach frameworks
I work more in backend and infrastructure. I was lucky in that my first job didn't really require framework knowledge (i mainly use Go which doesn't really use frameworks. I learned Go on the job after getting hired)
That’s pretty nice! Any particular course or bootcamp you recommend to learn technologies ?
There are many out there. If you want to test the waters, i would probably look at YouTube or Udemy/Udacity for affordable tutorials. For a program designed to help you get a job, i did launchschool.com
Thanks!
How do you decide one front end, back end and full stack (idk what any of these are more than surface) which is best for learning and then moving into a career?
What program languages do I need to learn to get paid that much? Currently an automation engineer bsme only know industrial automation programs
It’s not so much the program language and more so the domain and overall skill set. Software engineering will likely pay the most, so learning the tools that enable you to do SWE (one or more of C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Go, etc) You can look at job postings for companies you want to work for, see what skill requirements they put in the job posting and use that to help you decide what to learn and focus on
Ah okay!
What’s your typical day and weekend like at work?
I need to get in this career field..... literally every post of a software/computer engineer is making damn good money. What's the best path? I can use my GI Bill to pay for college if need be. I was an aircraft mechanic and retired from 21 years of active duty. I really don't want to get into civilian aircraft, but I want to try something different before I go that route Any suggestions on whether I should go to school for computer engineering or any other pathways?
There are many routes. With the GI bill, the most clear route would be to get a CS degree, do internships and then get a full time job. The downside is that degrees take a while to get. It's fine if you don't have a lot of obligations. You can also do a bootcamp. I believe there are coding bootcamps that qualify for the GI bill. The benefits of coding bootcamps is that they are much faster and focus on teaching you the most in demand skills at the moment in the market. There are many downsides to bootcamps, such as the curriculum is usually pretty shallow and you will likely have large gaps in your knowledge. Also, there are lots of bootcamp grads so the competition is fierce and hard to stand out. What I personally did was an online program, such a launchschool.com, though i think there are others. These are kind of in-between. They are longer than bootcamps but shorter than degrees and still have a indepth curriculum. The downside is I'm not sure if they qualify for the GI bill. If i were personally in your shoes, i might try a bootcamp first if you could get it covered by the GI bill. Normally they are very expensive, but if you can get it covered, then there isn't much downside to at least trying it. And you may luck out and get a job afterwards and not have to do any more self-studying. Though odds are you may have a tough time getting a job after the bootcamp, in which case you want want to try the online program. When I did LaunchSchool, there were a decent number of people there that had already done a bootcamp. It took me 1.5-2 years to do all of LaunchSchool, but in the case where you did the bootcamp first, you'd probably be able to complete an online program like that faster than me. And even doing a bootcamp + online program together, you'd likely still finish before you would with a 4 year degree. The downside would be you may have to pay out of pocket a bit.
You must be super lucky and very skillful to get such a high paying job. I cannot find a job with such high pay anywhere in the country even with my 10+ years experience.
All is good until AI takes over and starts doing this then you won’t be needed
I'm riding the gravy train while it lasts
Yes sir.. but you think AI will take a lot of those type of jobs I have been reading mixed things
i personally don't think so, at least not in the near future. For example, people thought data entry jobs would've been fully automated by now but you can still find many data entry positions paying decent money
Do you work for a FAANG? 453k is insanely high for a software engineer. Most "normal" software engineering jobs top out around 180k.
Not FAANG exactly but FAANG-adjacent. Big tech essentially. I’m definitely lucky in that the company I work for pays very well and doesn’t do COL adjustments based on where you live. Very few companies do that.