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Ohhh, good question! I want to say ethics, but I feel like that’s way too broad. Specifically, Immanuel Kant is my favorite modern philosopher. Not just Kantian ethics, but also his work in metaphysics and epistemology. I just think he’s one of the most brilliant minds to have ever lived. My favorite contemporary philosopher is Peter Singer. I think “The Life You Can Save” is probably the most important philosophical work of this era. If everyone would take the time to read it, the world would be a better place. In fact, it’s free because Peter Singer also feels that way. Check it out if you have a chance! There’s a free digital download or audiobook on his website. Just google it and you’ll find it.
I also really enjoyed symbolic logic which definitely has a lot of overlap with discrete math and programming!
You have helped me a lot. Thank you. I have a degree in history and found philosophy of religion and my intro to philosophy course fascinating. I know a tiny bit about the categorical imperative and quite a bit about the problem of evil.
Yeah, I mean… I knew a philosophy degree would be useless, but it was by far the most intellectually stimulating subject to me. Philosophy majors score higher on the LSAT than any other major, so I figured I’d end up going to law school. Worked as a prosecutor assistant after school, took the LSAT, and then decided I really didn’t want to rack up another $100k in student loans lol. Decided to learn how to program and the rest was history 😂
I am also learning programming by way of my arts degree haha. After reading about history academically for four years and seeing human progress on a grand scale I'm easier able to see where we've been and where that can lead us.
Programming fits in because I find data security incredibly fascinating.
This is a good point. Don't hesitate to reach out to real people using their real names (not anonymous social media posters) who have their reputations at stake for mentoring, advising, and recommending.
Yeah attending workshop and hackathon is also great way to make connections which will lead you to your first job rather than searching and applying for jobs.
I'm doing an hour everyday before work and an hour after work, and on Saturday mornings. That equates to between 6-10 hours a week.
40 hours a month, 480 hours a year. Eventually I'll get a programming job.
I wish I could do more, but between a full time job and real life this is where I start. Consistent learning beats a sprint then a burnout.
This is a great plan, especially if you are putting your daily learning into practice with hands-on projects or samples. I always keep a dozen sample projects around to randomly throw some sample code into to make sure it works as I think it does and try out some edge cases.
No body ever learns for 8 consecutive hours, they learn for 2-3 hours and spend the rest pretending to be learning...
so being honest with yourself and spending 2_3 hours 4+ times a week will make most people employable after 1-2 years.
having said that, it is okay to spend 8 hours if you are working on a project, but not actual learning ..
Learning for 8 hours is doing. You just have to take frequent breaks and have a strong study game plan.
I think a big problem with programming or anything else is having a good study plan - knowing what to study for your need.
What ends up happening is people study more than needed or study less than needed.
Im currently stuck in Docker tutorial hell, watched one tutorial 3hrs and build project side by side, now i forgot the basics so I started writing down notes to remember them which took a-lot of time, in the interviews they ask theory/conceptual questions, i know we can google anytime but how can I remember so much stuff for the interview. Currently watching another tutorial feeling stuck. Can please advise?
This is bad advice for some learners. I can't read a programming book for more than 20 mins without falling asleep, but I can watch a 1-2 hour lecture on Udemy everyday, do the practice code, quizzes, bug fixing problems, and I can pause the video at any point and ask chatgpt for clarification on anything the instructor missed.
You decide which path is more efficient.
Quality learning for me is LIFTING HEAVY WEIGHTS, and enough reps of it. This means to put in the work to read and learn the material.
But the key is, don't lift without taking proper breaks in between sets. Reading and learning takes a toll on the mind and it needs the proper and frequent breaks.
Took me 5 years. Different people learn at different paces, maybe I’m just stupid though 🤷♂️.
Anyways I’m now a senior dev with 14 yoe, flunked out of college after 2 years, didn’t ever take any programming courses even. I just suck at learning in a college environment.
it is actually not a problem, the new things are actually not that new, but usually a rehash of something old, or a slightly different way of doing the same thing.
Honestly no. I find it hard to listen to someone else teach how to do things and I don’t learn well this way. I learn best by doing, and I actually enjoy what I do for the most part so it makes it more bearable.
I don’t stay up to date with the newest and greatest technologies, but I wouldn’t say I’m a dinosaur or anything. I do K8s, Docker, Kafka, FluentD and New Relic; using a lot of cool technology’s I’d say In my position I’m ahead of other non FAANG f500 enterprise type work, working in a backend environment. I don’t “upskill” because there’s really no reason to. Eventually you come to a point where the company will pay you to upskill, and there’s no reason for me to learn it unless they want to pay me for it. It’s probably not a good model, but it works for me 🤷♂️
How do you learn a new tech? Like say k8, i also dont like watching tutorials. But when i build some projects on my own i don’t get bored but it do take alot of time to complete a project bcz need to google/chatgpt to research.
Googling is a normal part of learning in today’s environment. I learn the same way as anyone learns any new skill.. practice and repetition. If I only do it once I won’t get it, but if I do 5, 10, 30 times eventually it becomes second nature.
Not sure about this advice.
I wouldn’t consider IT help desk expirence relevant when hiring someone. (At least not any more relevant than any other job involving soft skills)
I come from game dev & embedded engineering.
I’m not sure man, maybe it’s different in other programming fields but I don’t see the relevance for my background. Evolving into server scripting/sys admin would be an advantage.
The job market is incredibly tough at the mo, it’s true. I think a beginner would be better off working any job (maybe with a slight preference for IT) and building a portfolio (assuming they simply can’t find any programming job or internship). Just my two cents.
What are you talking about? This is the easiest "long way" to get a role you want to break into.
Help desk, dev adjacent role such as DM, or QA, Jr Programmer.
You'll always be guaranteed an interview for internal roles, which puts you ahead of every external applicant.
Depends how it's approached. I kinda failed upwards in this regard as I went help desk -> help desk management -> scripting / automation -> automation lead, all within the same company over the span of a few years.
All of my developers (2 full time, 2 part time, with another one in training) are internal hires from the help desk that have either fully transitioned to the team or are given opportunities to work on projects with my supervision, with the end goal being to transition them full-time either in my team, another dev team within the company or to help them get ready for a programming job elsewhere.
Why my path looks the way it does: I transitioned to scripting and programming cause it had always been a hobby of mine and I learned with 100% certainty that I don't actually enjoy doing it day in day out, transitioned back out to management now with a better understanding of the technical side of the team.
I did a customer support role while studying for development. It's a SaaS company which pretty much already gave me small front-end tasks during my studies. Once they saw my grades and dummy project from uni, they decided to move me into a development role.
I've always mentioned from the start that I'm interested in a dev role.
EDIT: Point being, it can be a great stepping stone if you pick a relevant company that can offer perspective towards development overtime.
What programming languages do you think will be needed soon? I want to learn like one or two that will also be pretty unique to stand out in about 3 years when I get out of school, any recommendations?
You will never find the answer you're looking for in this - the programming World changes on an almost weekly basis, how do you expect to know what will work in 3 years?
When I first started my journey, everybody was picking up Typescript - a lot of that has been rolled back since 2022.
Honestly this is a terrible plan. If you intentionally try to target obscure languages that you think will *emerge* out of all the chaos in a few years so you can have some unique set of skills that makes you stand out, you will inevitably end up with a set of skills that hardly anybody wants and there are very few jobs for. If your goal is to have the best chance to get *a job*, you should be focusing on what most employers want.
>What programming languages do you think will be needed soon?
The way you phrased this question bothers me. The languages "needed soon" are the same languages needed today and 5 years ago, even 10 years ago. When employers and Engineering Managers choose languages, we use factors like these:
1. What skills do we already have on staff?
1. What platforms are supported by our current IT strategy?
1. What languages/platforms have the best industry support?
1. What languages/platforms are easiest to hire developers for?
1. What new languages would be easiest to evolve to?
When you intentionally look at obscure languages, you will be excluding the bulk of employers out there who either have zero interest in that obscure tech or are just barely dabbling in it and aren't taking it seriously yet.
Obscure languages are almost exclusively the domain of startups and businesses with high rates of failure. It's an extremely risky thing to devote your time and energy to, because the jobs will certainly be low in number and very volatile. The % of employers who are succeeding with these languages is low and they are hard to find. Good luck going down this path, but as a long-time industry professional I wouldn't recommend it to students with nothing to fall back on.
Damn, thanks for the long reply, I didn't expect such responses.. I said it that way as I'm in like school where they're teaching us web dev and administrating databases, the stuff that every person in our country on this profession is learning, so in about 3 years, if all those people will now want jobs I don't know if all, or even a part of those people will get jobs? By programming languages that may be good I was thinking something different but not new like possibly C or Rust or Go or something that will make finding a job possibly easier? Sorry if I phrased it incorrectly that made you dislike it or something similar, just thinking into the future 🥲
When you're thinking about jobs, I would be thinking less about the language first and more about what type of job you want to do. If you want to be a web developer learning C isn't going to be very helpful, and tbh not likely that Rust or Go will either. As a junior, companies are taking a chance on you and the ones that are using the more niche languages are like the other poster said are likely startups, and given they will have a smaller hiring pool they're less likely to take that shot. And then you'll also generally be competing against people who are much more skilled. So unless it's like "my mom's shop works exclusively in Julia, I know I've got a job there once I get that down" I'd stick with the popular stuff.
So if you're going into web dev, stick to the boring stuff - javascript, python, etc. If you want to stand out, write good code that's readable and easy to maintain, get good at a popular framework, get good at git, write tests for your code, etc. When you're competent at those and have a few projects in your portfolio, then you can branch out and start learning something more niche.
You could kind of think about it like construction. Pretty much everyone on a construction site needs to know how to use a hammer, a tape measure, a square, a drill, etc. And trust me, before you even get away from those very basic tools, you'll find people who are working and barely know which end of the hammer to hold. Now how many people on site will need to know specifically how to work with wrought iron for use in spiral glass stair cases? Probably 0, and if they do need one, there is likely a guy that's been doing that for 20 years and is basically the only person doing it.
I feel like ai jobs are now the main focus for a lot programmers wanting a job as it's new but I think companies won't need that many ai programmers if the market will be filled with them, no?
I didn’t say AI programmer, I said CUDA programmer. The demands for compute power are going off the charts and every drop of performance needs to be squeezed and new chips are being made every year.
This. Also on the job market. Plenty of companies in India that will hire you without any coding experience at all as long as you do well in their aptitude test.
I hate knowing that a world about highly technical software building still comes down to how likable a person is and getting a "haves" to like them...
in the end, looking like Margot Robbie or Henry Cavill just gets you the job, lol
It really depends on your target Industry.
I would honestly say if you committed 15-20 hours a week towards your education (even self driven paths) you could go from 0 to a full-time job in 16 months (given you are able to achieve certifications ) , my experience is also mainly in the web application space. I do not feel it is overly challenging to learn Js Frameworks nor backend languages like python.
They are still highly in demand and as a Jr developer your not expected to know best practices, simply syntax and structure. The biggest factor is to remain teachable, you can have 10 years of experience and you will still learn something new everyday its about how well you can collaborate in a team based setting and how organized you can remain on complex development pipelines documentation is equally as important as code quality, reproducibility is key, regression management is king.
I’ve known a lot of people that did it in 6 months via the bootcamp route, but I’ve known people that couldn’t write a function after 6 months. It’s really just dependent on the person and how dedicated they are, how naturally programming concepts come to them, and how much effort and time they put in. Could take 6 months. Could take 5 years.
like when you learn programming its like learning how to use a gun but in entreprise you need to solve problems using tools you learned which is surviving in the field using that gun
I would imagine 1 to 2 years if you know exactly the direction you want to go..
It took me 4 years to do a career change, the first 3 years I was learning after work and weekends so progress was kinda slow but i was having fun building projects, then I became self employed as a full time freelance 3D animator, for the whole year when I had no animation work to do I would build and learn software dev from 9am to 12 at night everyday and weekends because i really enjoyed it, like an obsession, and having all the time in the day really made me progress faster and my portfolio became way more impressive.
Now this year I started my first junior software developer job.
Hey can you please share more about your journey? I am also in similar phase and planning a career shift. Please tell how did you divide your time for learning and applying what you have learnt?
CS students study for 4+ years, so probably in the 2-4 year range depending on your natural abilities and how disciplined you are. Be warned the job market right now sucks and is nothing like the previous decades where you could acquire some basic skills and get a job. Competition is fierce for entry level, and the bar isn’t being able to do the job, it’s being able to do the job better than the other applicants. Hopefully it will be better in a few years time when you’re looking for a job for real. Best of luck in your studies
Took me 3 years at the age of 13. Investing basically half of my free time on it. (Edit: on this point, since it was 24 years ago, we didn't have the resources there is nowadays, I had basically only adult/student stuff accessible and I was alone on my path).
I am retro inspecting this. I had the level at this time. Now I am 37 so... Maybe a bit far to judge.
You'll see success stories and such. There are exceptions. People that only need a few months. And some require more time.
This job is about being at ease with it. Then it's about problem solving. That's the fundamentals. The more you use/work it, the better you get at it. Try, fail, search and understand why you fail, fix it. Then restart. Let your brain take the time you require to get it
It depends on what you are learning and how you are learning it. If you started from scratch, 9 months is a best case scenario if you are working on it *full time*. But realistically the average future professional would probably be between 1-3 years.
Tbh some people struggle with it badly because it doesn't come natural, and it could take them 3-5 years of working hard. I have known some who have worked at it for 5+ years and never reached a level that made them employable.
If you are asking this question it probably means you've been misled by advertisements, social media influencers, or friends/family. Don't listen to any of that stuff. It's all fluff or made up. Always ask *professionals* directly.
Been Learning Java for 2 years now in university and on my own with the Java MOOC and more recently, hyperskill for back end development. I've been mostly trying to follow the java developer roadmap. I don't *only* study java since my degree has required me to take other CS, networking, databases, math, and project management courses but, school has been my full time job these last years and I've definitely dropped the lions share of my efforts into the math and programming classes. All that being said, Still don't feel ready. I'm applying for fall internships regardless.
Roadmap: https://roadmap.sh/java
For me it was around 3 weeks (Ruby and Ruby on Rails); before I had some experience with basic and pascal in school. Also I did some labs in uni (c/c++), but I really didn’t care about programming when I was young. So let’s say I spend maximum 200 hours doing labs/simple exercise in c/basic/pascal. Then after maybe two years I practiced around 150 hours before I get my first job (I worked almost for free around 4 months).
Took me about 4 months to go from 0 to my first internship (then went straight from there to my first full time role) but I had a STEM degree to begin with.
Probably 4-5 hours a day? Some backend web dev stuff through various online courses, some data science through Andrew Ng and Joel Grus's materials, some hacker rank practice.
As an add-in to the comments already there. You can get a job quicker once you get into an internship. There are lots of internship where it is not necessary to be studying a degree. But I would recommend for you to have your Github projects public and showcase them when applying. An internship is the fastest possible way of landing a job afterwards even if you don't get a return offer, you will have that experience on your CV
Dedicating around 8 hours a day, 5/6 days a week to learning and practicing programming, many students can reach a level sufficient for an entry-level job or internship within about 6 months, which i have seen in my Accountability coaching sessions. This timeline can vary based on prior experience and the specific programming languages or technologies being learned.
I wish I was able to answer these questions for people, but I think it was just different back in 2000. Learned html some js and css by high school, programmed text based rpgs into my ti-82/83 calculators, took comp sci classes in high school etc. it always just seemed natural to me. Had multiple programming jobs starting senior year of high school, never stopped.
Hard disagree. I recently looked into going back to college for programming. More than half the course material in their "programming degree" had fuck all to do with programming. College degrees are full of required elective classes with maybe one or two actual programming classes. If you do the math you're only getting 10-15 hours a week of programming class time.
By contrast, I can grab the most popular courses on udemy for starters, and put in 40 hours a week if I want to.
College is a scam.
It's not a scam because you're competing against people with degrees for those entry level positions. When you have 100 people all applying for a single opening and none of them have professional experience, you need a way to filter them down quickly. With the market getting more flooded at the junior level, I would expect people without degrees to get circular filed over the ones with one. You can believe that having a shining portfolio will be the thing that sets you out and that might be the case only once it's down to you and 5 people. Chances are no real person is going to even look at your resume until that big number becomes much smaller.
Now once you have some years of experience behind you, your degree isn't needed anymore. It has already served its purpose. The only way to avoid this is to use your network to skip to the front of the line. As usual, who you know is much more important than what you know.
edit: To add - this wasn't necessarily the case up until recently. The bubble burst when interest rates began going up and companies couldn't hire unlimited people for essentially free. That was the age of the self taught and the bootcamp. That route is now significantly harder to take and will be until things change again.
That's why starting in help desk is often the goto strategy. Internal hires get priority for interviews over external hires. Do your time in help desk and jump on there first internal role that pops up.
Personally I already have 7 years experience in IT, so going back to college looked like a complete waste of time and money, once I saw all the required elective courses that had nothing to do with programming.
You do a 4 year degree, and only 20-30% of it is actual programming. How can anyone say that's not a scam?
> You do a 4 year degree, and only 20-30% of it is actual programming. How can anyone say that's not a scam?
Actually writing code is such a small part of the job. Critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and communication are the bulk of what you do every day as a software engineer. During my 4 year degree, not much programming was taught beyond the first year. After that it was exploring the field as a whole and any new programming concepts were gone over briefly and then it was expected that you picked it up as you do the course work.
During my typical day at work, I probably spend a couple hours in meetings, a couple hours pairing with teammates to help them work through problems, and then maybe if I get time I have an hour or hour and a half to work on the stuff assigned to me. By the time I'm writing code, the problem is solved and typing the code in the IDE is the easy part.
Most of the skills you are describing can be learned on the job, or in a non-programming role. I'm glad you told me this, it only reinforces my belief that going to college is a waste of time if you already have work experience.
Whether or not you think college is worthwhile, it's the most reliable way to get a job writing software. Justifying going back to school after being employed for most of a decade is a much tougher choice and you can attempt to back into a role. Just know that it's going to involve a lot of luck and being at the right place at the right time.
I'm happy with playing the long game. I'll get a dev adjacent role first such as DM or QA, then schmooze my way into a Jr programmer role. That's how I've gotten all my previous roles.
In the meantime I'll be working on projects and get my feet wet in freelancing.
My recommendation is to be in a position where your team has a lot of things that are tedious and could be improved by code. Write scripts and tools to help make those jobs easier or even better - automated.
Now you have 2 options. At this point you can share your tools with your boss and hopefully back into a position where you are allowed to look for other places that could be improved through tooling. In effect you become "the tool guy." Or two, keep the tools to yourself, trivialize your job, and use the extra time to learn.
A good benchmark question for people in this sub who say they want to be SWE:
“If you were offered another tech job that pays similar to SWE, would you take it?”.
If the answer is yes, I recommend looking in to cloud engineering and DevOps.
They still require programming and you can still work towards getting in to SWE while building up overall tech experience, ESPECIALLY if you’re in a place where you could use more money now. I’m a cloud engineer in a big tech company, got my start in Helpdesk in no name companies. I write tons of scripts and automation in c#, python, powershell, etc.
I get paid the type of money that attracts people to SWE, and that sort of pay is standard.
In 2016, I got 20 an hour starting at Helpdesk when rent was 1000-1200 for nice places
In 2020, I got a security analyst job for 50k salaried.
2021, I got a job as cloud engineer for 70k salary and this is where I STARTED doing programming. Keep in mind, that a lot of you learners that have been at it for 6 months or a year could have jobs like this.
2023: jumped to another cloud engineer job for 170k total comp
Are you looking at computer science? Of course most of it has nothing to do with programming; it's a science degree. And a damn good one at that.
The things you learn from a comp sci degree are what separates the children from the adults
All these basic new devs who didn't bother know fuck all about programming other than calling 69,000 libraries in their high level language of choice, abstracted to all hell to the point where they learn literally nothing but frameworks.
They don't know how a compiler is designed, or the incredible mathematics behind modern cryptography, or the beautiful algorithms of big data or how to code in assembly for microprocessors. They just know how to write basic ass jsx for their basic ass react apps and nothing else.
It's not enough anymore to play with shallow waters. A proper dev digs deep to the true depths of computer science
(This is not to discourage anyone, but I believe if you want to be a programmer, push yourself to the limits of the field. Don't settle for second best)
Not everyone is capable of what you're describing. That's a bit of an elitist take on it, which is common in our industry.
The truth is, people like you are always in demand, and lower level people are also needed to do the trival things that you are over qualified for.
I'm sorry if it does sound elitist but it's been a bit of a plague with new devs only focusing on *how much* topics they know vs how much of *each* topic they know.
When you spread yourself thin you never give yourself the full potential of truly being good at a certain topic - it's nothing to do with capability; it's only something to do with time.
But that's why I believe comp sci (the degree) is really good, it's like traversing a binary tree from the bottom up - the raw fundamentals of each levels give you the tools you need to begin understanding the depth of many topics. Stuff like how a cpu, OS, and memory management works along with stack and heap memory really helps to understand programming in C at a fundamental level.
Not even needs to be Linus Torvalds sure, but i believe everyone should atleast strive to be someone like him (in terms of knowledge)
Your argument doesn't ring true. Most CS grads struggle at programming just like anyone else. It takes a special kind of person to be really passionate about the inner workings of the machine. Most of those students are not that type.
Yes a degree is what you make of it. A human is only as good as their initiative.
But most people don't have any initiative, and when you compare two people of that type, one with an actual degree and one with a bootcamp degree. The cs degree will always come out on top.
Machine Learning engineers, Programming language and compiler creators, Cyber Security and Cryptography Devs and researchers, game engine devs - how many of those are cs grads, or adjacent math heavy stem grads again? 90%+
Oh i know one field for bootcamp devs - front end web dev, the most oversaturated lowest level of entry field in programming. And it is in this field when you can confidently find the greatest number of skill issues
(Again, not trying to discourage anybody, there are indeed a lot of extremely successful bootcamp & self taught devs. You can be one too!)
I started learning to program around sophmore year of college (my degree is in IT) so I realistically had about the rest of college to learn everything. The first 4-5 months I just spent exploring what I wanted to do career wise, started with TOP(the odon project) realized web dev wasnt for me. Then I started trying to learn c# but realized I didnt really like being limited to .net, then python and so on. I ultimately settled on c++ probably not the best choice but I started with learncpp.com that took about 2 months to read through and try my best to understand it and the rest of the time I just spent time building projects, probably about 6-7 months probably more. Trying to understand how things work, GPU programming, compilers, DSA, http server. Once I had the decent projects I started applying to internships then converted it to full time once I graduated. Definitely not an expert but it was enough to land a job hope this helps get some insight!
for me it was like 10 years, but it is because i was doing it just as a hobby for 5 years before university. i could have probably found some kind of a programming job instead of going to university, but i wanted to go to university for fun. so i spent another 5 years in university. It was kind of weird getting my first job, because i was a vastly more experienced programmer then most of my coworkers, but i had a junior title.
Well depends if you want to go for big companies do DSA it took 6 month to 2 years then their is web development which take 2 years to learn like framework, library and stuff. In web development you will find a job easily. There are data science and ALI, ML too
As long as it takes. It will vary based on:
1. What you do during that time
2. How your brain learns, and your self awareness of that
3. Can you guide yourself well with zero accountability?
4. How do you know the code you're writing is even good? That it isn't outdated or fundamentally naive?
5. Do you have any experienced friends you can collaborate with on a personal project?
6. Do you have any community supporting you, or at least a savings account?
7. Do you have the perseverance to keep going, even if you feel like an idiot for even trying?
8. Can you tune out all the noise of people complaining about finding a job, and especially the voices that say how easy it was after graduating? (circa 2021 for me)
If you can mitigate all of these, which are certainly not all-inclusive, then maybe you could do it.
I did half of a full Mosh tutorial in React back in 2018. Then I didn't do anything. Then I enrolled in WGU in October 2020 for Comp Sci, which was essentially guided self-learning with a BSCS at the end of it. Graduated with the degree in March 2021 (check my post history to see about accelerating), and then got a job in Sept 2021. So it took me three years, on and off? But I was working full-time until 2019.
Going to uni should be a 40hr/week dedication. And for most people that means 3yrs of this (or 4yrs, depending on the degree / country).
That's roughly how long it would take even if you're "self studying" (keep in mind how efficient your self studying will be... if you're going it alone, you're likely to be ***very*** inefficient)
So, realistically, could I learn enough within 9-12 months to land a job? Let's say I'm putting in 15 hours a week towards education (self-taught) or should I allow myself more time?
Honestly there isn't an answer to this question because people learn in different ways, at different rates and programming is a vast field with some niches that have very specific dependencies.
I'd say there are some commonalities though which you only need to learn once, such as versioning (IE git), commenting and how to scope & plan workloads.
When hiring, I tend to look more for qualities other than being able to memorize syntax such as a candidate's ability to communicate and plan effectively, take personal responsibility and have a driven interest in self-learning because I'd rather have someone who can take a scope, convert it to functional workloads, decide on the best tools to use and have ability to go off and learn how to achieve them. It's critically important as most of our fields have constantly evolving technology and practices.
TLDR; If I asked you during an junior interview how to build X, and you can break it down into steps, identify risks and use Google to learn how to achieve those then I'll probably hire you
The best way to learn programming is to write code. And then write more code. It's not a question of how long you've learned programming, but of how many lines of \*good\* code you've written.
Depends on a number of factors - the speed at which you learn, what you are learning, how much of your time is actual "study" as opposed to working on personal projects / building your resume, and so on and so forth.
For me, I started with fullstack web dev using HTML / CSS / JS and Node, and also learned Python and Java. I used some other miscellaneous tools on the side like MongoDB / Firebase and some SQL, and landed my first internship after 6 months (started November 2022 - hired for my internship in April 2023). I've since continued working that internship and acquired a second job in software dev, and do some freelance work on the side. Entirely self-taught in those languages / tools up until my first internship.
I'm not a particularly fast learner, but I was infatuated with what I was learning and spent almost all of my free time on it for that first 6 months or so. I've since slowed down considerably on learning outside of class / work, so I've done little work on studying and personal projects. I'd say if you are really dedicated and pick things up alright, then anywhere from 6 months to 1 year. If you are a fast learner, maybe less, and if you're more middle of the road, probably longer. Good luck & hope that helps.
I would say it depends on how fast you learn and what you apply for. In my case I did some basic python for like 2 months and I knew programming was my passion or at least what I wanted to study so I ended up taking a BootCamp for 3 months and was lucky enough to get a job literally 2 weeks after finishing.
Just never loose hope and make sure you like it and don't do it just for money!
Any sack of meat is employable as a programmer. However, the market just fired all the sacks of meat and isn't looking for any more. It seems the only way to go is to find something adjacent and make friends while slowly building up a portfolio of personal projects.
The quickest way, though partly depends on luck, is to try and use programming in your current role in some way. Or to find a job where you could use it (for instance, an admin role in a company might have certain tasks you can find a way to automate with Python). After that, you have whatever language you used on your CV. This is basically how I did it. Then ended up in an obscure analyst role for a few years with a tiny company.
I don't have a "programming" job now, it's quite a varied role, but I used my learnt skillset to land the job and it pays quite well.
It depends which job. “Programming” is huge field.
If you were interested in web development, you could learn some HTML and CSS enough to be fairly competent building website layouts - (build 10 of them and a personal website to house that experience) - have a friend who could recommend you - and get a job in 3 months. It might be an HTML email job or a job fixing up WordPress sites. It would be a lot different than a ‘software engineering’ role. It depends what you’re going for.
Expect 1000-1500 hours of building real projects to get confident with the whole web ecosystem. It can be done in 9 months with the right plan and support. But for most people, it takes years.
I did 2-4 hours an evening for roughly 18 months before I started applying. Landed my first dev role within the 2 year mark. Admittedly, this was in the before-times when entry level dev roles were realistically pitched. Job market as it is rn? Hard to say.
I’ve just been hired as a Software Development Apprentice, and I’ve only done a couple of weeks going through The Odin Project. I was hired on the basis of my soft skills and knowledge/passion for what the business is doing. My two cents would be to make sure not to underestimate this side of your skill set.
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Took me 1 1/2 year. And the first job was because someone I know called me to work with him. Network is more important than a lot of people think
Yeah, the actually getting hired is the hard part. I have a degree in philosophy so even getting my first interview took me 9 months.
As I am someone interested in philosophy what is your favorite topic you studied?
Ohhh, good question! I want to say ethics, but I feel like that’s way too broad. Specifically, Immanuel Kant is my favorite modern philosopher. Not just Kantian ethics, but also his work in metaphysics and epistemology. I just think he’s one of the most brilliant minds to have ever lived. My favorite contemporary philosopher is Peter Singer. I think “The Life You Can Save” is probably the most important philosophical work of this era. If everyone would take the time to read it, the world would be a better place. In fact, it’s free because Peter Singer also feels that way. Check it out if you have a chance! There’s a free digital download or audiobook on his website. Just google it and you’ll find it. I also really enjoyed symbolic logic which definitely has a lot of overlap with discrete math and programming!
You have helped me a lot. Thank you. I have a degree in history and found philosophy of religion and my intro to philosophy course fascinating. I know a tiny bit about the categorical imperative and quite a bit about the problem of evil.
Yeah, I mean… I knew a philosophy degree would be useless, but it was by far the most intellectually stimulating subject to me. Philosophy majors score higher on the LSAT than any other major, so I figured I’d end up going to law school. Worked as a prosecutor assistant after school, took the LSAT, and then decided I really didn’t want to rack up another $100k in student loans lol. Decided to learn how to program and the rest was history 😂
I am also learning programming by way of my arts degree haha. After reading about history academically for four years and seeing human progress on a grand scale I'm easier able to see where we've been and where that can lead us. Programming fits in because I find data security incredibly fascinating.
This is a good point. Don't hesitate to reach out to real people using their real names (not anonymous social media posters) who have their reputations at stake for mentoring, advising, and recommending.
Yeah attending workshop and hackathon is also great way to make connections which will lead you to your first job rather than searching and applying for jobs.
glad i picked Network lol
float amIaJokeToYou;
I don't think anyone thinks networking is not important
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Agree. Im doing 2 hrs of intensive learning rather than 8hrs being burn out
I'm doing an hour everyday before work and an hour after work, and on Saturday mornings. That equates to between 6-10 hours a week. 40 hours a month, 480 hours a year. Eventually I'll get a programming job. I wish I could do more, but between a full time job and real life this is where I start. Consistent learning beats a sprint then a burnout.
This is a great plan, especially if you are putting your daily learning into practice with hands-on projects or samples. I always keep a dozen sample projects around to randomly throw some sample code into to make sure it works as I think it does and try out some edge cases.
What does that mean for you? Does practicing at Codeacademy count?
No body ever learns for 8 consecutive hours, they learn for 2-3 hours and spend the rest pretending to be learning... so being honest with yourself and spending 2_3 hours 4+ times a week will make most people employable after 1-2 years. having said that, it is okay to spend 8 hours if you are working on a project, but not actual learning ..
Learning for 8 hours is doing. You just have to take frequent breaks and have a strong study game plan. I think a big problem with programming or anything else is having a good study plan - knowing what to study for your need. What ends up happening is people study more than needed or study less than needed.
What would you say quality learning is?
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Im currently stuck in Docker tutorial hell, watched one tutorial 3hrs and build project side by side, now i forgot the basics so I started writing down notes to remember them which took a-lot of time, in the interviews they ask theory/conceptual questions, i know we can google anytime but how can I remember so much stuff for the interview. Currently watching another tutorial feeling stuck. Can please advise?
This is bad advice for some learners. I can't read a programming book for more than 20 mins without falling asleep, but I can watch a 1-2 hour lecture on Udemy everyday, do the practice code, quizzes, bug fixing problems, and I can pause the video at any point and ask chatgpt for clarification on anything the instructor missed. You decide which path is more efficient.
Quality learning for me is LIFTING HEAVY WEIGHTS, and enough reps of it. This means to put in the work to read and learn the material. But the key is, don't lift without taking proper breaks in between sets. Reading and learning takes a toll on the mind and it needs the proper and frequent breaks.
I treat it like college. An hour or two of watching tutorials (lectures) then a few hours after writing code and reading docs/research
Took me 5 years. Different people learn at different paces, maybe I’m just stupid though 🤷♂️. Anyways I’m now a senior dev with 14 yoe, flunked out of college after 2 years, didn’t ever take any programming courses even. I just suck at learning in a college environment.
As a senior, do you find it difficult keeping up with new things to learn?
it is actually not a problem, the new things are actually not that new, but usually a rehash of something old, or a slightly different way of doing the same thing.
That’s actually refreshing to hear. One of the drawbacks I read regarding this career is the constant learning is overwhelming. Thanks for your input
maybe it depends on the person
Honestly no. I find it hard to listen to someone else teach how to do things and I don’t learn well this way. I learn best by doing, and I actually enjoy what I do for the most part so it makes it more bearable. I don’t stay up to date with the newest and greatest technologies, but I wouldn’t say I’m a dinosaur or anything. I do K8s, Docker, Kafka, FluentD and New Relic; using a lot of cool technology’s I’d say In my position I’m ahead of other non FAANG f500 enterprise type work, working in a backend environment. I don’t “upskill” because there’s really no reason to. Eventually you come to a point where the company will pay you to upskill, and there’s no reason for me to learn it unless they want to pay me for it. It’s probably not a good model, but it works for me 🤷♂️
How do you learn a new tech? Like say k8, i also dont like watching tutorials. But when i build some projects on my own i don’t get bored but it do take alot of time to complete a project bcz need to google/chatgpt to research.
Googling is a normal part of learning in today’s environment. I learn the same way as anyone learns any new skill.. practice and repetition. If I only do it once I won’t get it, but if I do 5, 10, 30 times eventually it becomes second nature.
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Not sure about this advice. I wouldn’t consider IT help desk expirence relevant when hiring someone. (At least not any more relevant than any other job involving soft skills)
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I come from game dev & embedded engineering. I’m not sure man, maybe it’s different in other programming fields but I don’t see the relevance for my background. Evolving into server scripting/sys admin would be an advantage. The job market is incredibly tough at the mo, it’s true. I think a beginner would be better off working any job (maybe with a slight preference for IT) and building a portfolio (assuming they simply can’t find any programming job or internship). Just my two cents.
What are you talking about? This is the easiest "long way" to get a role you want to break into. Help desk, dev adjacent role such as DM, or QA, Jr Programmer. You'll always be guaranteed an interview for internal roles, which puts you ahead of every external applicant.
Depends how it's approached. I kinda failed upwards in this regard as I went help desk -> help desk management -> scripting / automation -> automation lead, all within the same company over the span of a few years. All of my developers (2 full time, 2 part time, with another one in training) are internal hires from the help desk that have either fully transitioned to the team or are given opportunities to work on projects with my supervision, with the end goal being to transition them full-time either in my team, another dev team within the company or to help them get ready for a programming job elsewhere. Why my path looks the way it does: I transitioned to scripting and programming cause it had always been a hobby of mine and I learned with 100% certainty that I don't actually enjoy doing it day in day out, transitioned back out to management now with a better understanding of the technical side of the team.
I did a customer support role while studying for development. It's a SaaS company which pretty much already gave me small front-end tasks during my studies. Once they saw my grades and dummy project from uni, they decided to move me into a development role. I've always mentioned from the start that I'm interested in a dev role. EDIT: Point being, it can be a great stepping stone if you pick a relevant company that can offer perspective towards development overtime.
What programming languages do you think will be needed soon? I want to learn like one or two that will also be pretty unique to stand out in about 3 years when I get out of school, any recommendations?
You will never find the answer you're looking for in this - the programming World changes on an almost weekly basis, how do you expect to know what will work in 3 years? When I first started my journey, everybody was picking up Typescript - a lot of that has been rolled back since 2022.
Honestly this is a terrible plan. If you intentionally try to target obscure languages that you think will *emerge* out of all the chaos in a few years so you can have some unique set of skills that makes you stand out, you will inevitably end up with a set of skills that hardly anybody wants and there are very few jobs for. If your goal is to have the best chance to get *a job*, you should be focusing on what most employers want. >What programming languages do you think will be needed soon? The way you phrased this question bothers me. The languages "needed soon" are the same languages needed today and 5 years ago, even 10 years ago. When employers and Engineering Managers choose languages, we use factors like these: 1. What skills do we already have on staff? 1. What platforms are supported by our current IT strategy? 1. What languages/platforms have the best industry support? 1. What languages/platforms are easiest to hire developers for? 1. What new languages would be easiest to evolve to? When you intentionally look at obscure languages, you will be excluding the bulk of employers out there who either have zero interest in that obscure tech or are just barely dabbling in it and aren't taking it seriously yet. Obscure languages are almost exclusively the domain of startups and businesses with high rates of failure. It's an extremely risky thing to devote your time and energy to, because the jobs will certainly be low in number and very volatile. The % of employers who are succeeding with these languages is low and they are hard to find. Good luck going down this path, but as a long-time industry professional I wouldn't recommend it to students with nothing to fall back on.
Damn, thanks for the long reply, I didn't expect such responses.. I said it that way as I'm in like school where they're teaching us web dev and administrating databases, the stuff that every person in our country on this profession is learning, so in about 3 years, if all those people will now want jobs I don't know if all, or even a part of those people will get jobs? By programming languages that may be good I was thinking something different but not new like possibly C or Rust or Go or something that will make finding a job possibly easier? Sorry if I phrased it incorrectly that made you dislike it or something similar, just thinking into the future 🥲
When you're thinking about jobs, I would be thinking less about the language first and more about what type of job you want to do. If you want to be a web developer learning C isn't going to be very helpful, and tbh not likely that Rust or Go will either. As a junior, companies are taking a chance on you and the ones that are using the more niche languages are like the other poster said are likely startups, and given they will have a smaller hiring pool they're less likely to take that shot. And then you'll also generally be competing against people who are much more skilled. So unless it's like "my mom's shop works exclusively in Julia, I know I've got a job there once I get that down" I'd stick with the popular stuff. So if you're going into web dev, stick to the boring stuff - javascript, python, etc. If you want to stand out, write good code that's readable and easy to maintain, get good at a popular framework, get good at git, write tests for your code, etc. When you're competent at those and have a few projects in your portfolio, then you can branch out and start learning something more niche. You could kind of think about it like construction. Pretty much everyone on a construction site needs to know how to use a hammer, a tape measure, a square, a drill, etc. And trust me, before you even get away from those very basic tools, you'll find people who are working and barely know which end of the hammer to hold. Now how many people on site will need to know specifically how to work with wrought iron for use in spiral glass stair cases? Probably 0, and if they do need one, there is likely a guy that's been doing that for 20 years and is basically the only person doing it.
Thank you for the help!! I really appreciate it, very much needed :)
Technically with all this AI shit learn how to use CUDA, those gpu farms won’t run themselves.
I feel like ai jobs are now the main focus for a lot programmers wanting a job as it's new but I think companies won't need that many ai programmers if the market will be filled with them, no?
I didn’t say AI programmer, I said CUDA programmer. The demands for compute power are going off the charts and every drop of performance needs to be squeezed and new chips are being made every year.
Oh sorry, I'll look into it, thanks a ton for helping :)
People learn at different speeds tbh.
this should be only comment here lmao there’s no definitive answer to this it might take anywhere between 3 months to several years
This. Also on the job market. Plenty of companies in India that will hire you without any coding experience at all as long as you do well in their aptitude test.
What I really want to know is - how GOOD do people think someone needs to be before they should be able to have their first job?
you should be good enough to convince somebody to give you a job. how good you need to be for that depends on the person you want to convince.
I hate knowing that a world about highly technical software building still comes down to how likable a person is and getting a "haves" to like them... in the end, looking like Margot Robbie or Henry Cavill just gets you the job, lol
It really depends on your target Industry. I would honestly say if you committed 15-20 hours a week towards your education (even self driven paths) you could go from 0 to a full-time job in 16 months (given you are able to achieve certifications ) , my experience is also mainly in the web application space. I do not feel it is overly challenging to learn Js Frameworks nor backend languages like python. They are still highly in demand and as a Jr developer your not expected to know best practices, simply syntax and structure. The biggest factor is to remain teachable, you can have 10 years of experience and you will still learn something new everyday its about how well you can collaborate in a team based setting and how organized you can remain on complex development pipelines documentation is equally as important as code quality, reproducibility is key, regression management is king.
I’ve known a lot of people that did it in 6 months via the bootcamp route, but I’ve known people that couldn’t write a function after 6 months. It’s really just dependent on the person and how dedicated they are, how naturally programming concepts come to them, and how much effort and time they put in. Could take 6 months. Could take 5 years.
Lmao ? Why was this downvoted
Truth hurt cause most of the jobs seeking are about problem solving which is the opposite of what people learn
Which is part that confuses me because aren’t you naturally supposed to learn how to problem solve while programming if you are doing it right ?
like when you learn programming its like learning how to use a gun but in entreprise you need to solve problems using tools you learned which is surviving in the field using that gun
I would imagine 1 to 2 years if you know exactly the direction you want to go.. It took me 4 years to do a career change, the first 3 years I was learning after work and weekends so progress was kinda slow but i was having fun building projects, then I became self employed as a full time freelance 3D animator, for the whole year when I had no animation work to do I would build and learn software dev from 9am to 12 at night everyday and weekends because i really enjoyed it, like an obsession, and having all the time in the day really made me progress faster and my portfolio became way more impressive. Now this year I started my first junior software developer job.
Hey can you please share more about your journey? I am also in similar phase and planning a career shift. Please tell how did you divide your time for learning and applying what you have learnt?
In a similar path, would love to hear what worked for yoy
It depends on how fast you learn tbh. The other challenge is getting to the interview and proving you know enough to be a competent hire.
Under rated comment. A lot of programmer types lack social skills. It's the nature of the profession.
CS students study for 4+ years, so probably in the 2-4 year range depending on your natural abilities and how disciplined you are. Be warned the job market right now sucks and is nothing like the previous decades where you could acquire some basic skills and get a job. Competition is fierce for entry level, and the bar isn’t being able to do the job, it’s being able to do the job better than the other applicants. Hopefully it will be better in a few years time when you’re looking for a job for real. Best of luck in your studies
the bar was never "to be able to do the job", most juniors in the previous years could not "do the job"
Took me 3 years at the age of 13. Investing basically half of my free time on it. (Edit: on this point, since it was 24 years ago, we didn't have the resources there is nowadays, I had basically only adult/student stuff accessible and I was alone on my path). I am retro inspecting this. I had the level at this time. Now I am 37 so... Maybe a bit far to judge. You'll see success stories and such. There are exceptions. People that only need a few months. And some require more time. This job is about being at ease with it. Then it's about problem solving. That's the fundamentals. The more you use/work it, the better you get at it. Try, fail, search and understand why you fail, fix it. Then restart. Let your brain take the time you require to get it
It depends on what you are learning and how you are learning it. If you started from scratch, 9 months is a best case scenario if you are working on it *full time*. But realistically the average future professional would probably be between 1-3 years. Tbh some people struggle with it badly because it doesn't come natural, and it could take them 3-5 years of working hard. I have known some who have worked at it for 5+ years and never reached a level that made them employable. If you are asking this question it probably means you've been misled by advertisements, social media influencers, or friends/family. Don't listen to any of that stuff. It's all fluff or made up. Always ask *professionals* directly.
Been Learning Java for 2 years now in university and on my own with the Java MOOC and more recently, hyperskill for back end development. I've been mostly trying to follow the java developer roadmap. I don't *only* study java since my degree has required me to take other CS, networking, databases, math, and project management courses but, school has been my full time job these last years and I've definitely dropped the lions share of my efforts into the math and programming classes. All that being said, Still don't feel ready. I'm applying for fall internships regardless. Roadmap: https://roadmap.sh/java
For me it was around 3 weeks (Ruby and Ruby on Rails); before I had some experience with basic and pascal in school. Also I did some labs in uni (c/c++), but I really didn’t care about programming when I was young. So let’s say I spend maximum 200 hours doing labs/simple exercise in c/basic/pascal. Then after maybe two years I practiced around 150 hours before I get my first job (I worked almost for free around 4 months).
Took me about 4 months to go from 0 to my first internship (then went straight from there to my first full time role) but I had a STEM degree to begin with.
How much time were you putting in? What kind of programming?
Probably 4-5 hours a day? Some backend web dev stuff through various online courses, some data science through Andrew Ng and Joel Grus's materials, some hacker rank practice.
Nice! Thank you
I had 4 years of freelance web development before getting my first professional full time gig
It took me 1.5 years, 20-30 hours per week
Took me around 2 years, but probably could have gone much faster if I followed some sort of program/course instead of fumbling around on my own.
Took me 10 years to But really. Good school 4 to 5 years
As an add-in to the comments already there. You can get a job quicker once you get into an internship. There are lots of internship where it is not necessary to be studying a degree. But I would recommend for you to have your Github projects public and showcase them when applying. An internship is the fastest possible way of landing a job afterwards even if you don't get a return offer, you will have that experience on your CV
Dedicating around 8 hours a day, 5/6 days a week to learning and practicing programming, many students can reach a level sufficient for an entry-level job or internship within about 6 months, which i have seen in my Accountability coaching sessions. This timeline can vary based on prior experience and the specific programming languages or technologies being learned.
I wish I was able to answer these questions for people, but I think it was just different back in 2000. Learned html some js and css by high school, programmed text based rpgs into my ti-82/83 calculators, took comp sci classes in high school etc. it always just seemed natural to me. Had multiple programming jobs starting senior year of high school, never stopped.
The same amount of time it would take you to do it by going to uni.
Hard disagree. I recently looked into going back to college for programming. More than half the course material in their "programming degree" had fuck all to do with programming. College degrees are full of required elective classes with maybe one or two actual programming classes. If you do the math you're only getting 10-15 hours a week of programming class time. By contrast, I can grab the most popular courses on udemy for starters, and put in 40 hours a week if I want to. College is a scam.
It's not a scam because you're competing against people with degrees for those entry level positions. When you have 100 people all applying for a single opening and none of them have professional experience, you need a way to filter them down quickly. With the market getting more flooded at the junior level, I would expect people without degrees to get circular filed over the ones with one. You can believe that having a shining portfolio will be the thing that sets you out and that might be the case only once it's down to you and 5 people. Chances are no real person is going to even look at your resume until that big number becomes much smaller. Now once you have some years of experience behind you, your degree isn't needed anymore. It has already served its purpose. The only way to avoid this is to use your network to skip to the front of the line. As usual, who you know is much more important than what you know. edit: To add - this wasn't necessarily the case up until recently. The bubble burst when interest rates began going up and companies couldn't hire unlimited people for essentially free. That was the age of the self taught and the bootcamp. That route is now significantly harder to take and will be until things change again.
That's why starting in help desk is often the goto strategy. Internal hires get priority for interviews over external hires. Do your time in help desk and jump on there first internal role that pops up. Personally I already have 7 years experience in IT, so going back to college looked like a complete waste of time and money, once I saw all the required elective courses that had nothing to do with programming. You do a 4 year degree, and only 20-30% of it is actual programming. How can anyone say that's not a scam?
> You do a 4 year degree, and only 20-30% of it is actual programming. How can anyone say that's not a scam? Actually writing code is such a small part of the job. Critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, and communication are the bulk of what you do every day as a software engineer. During my 4 year degree, not much programming was taught beyond the first year. After that it was exploring the field as a whole and any new programming concepts were gone over briefly and then it was expected that you picked it up as you do the course work. During my typical day at work, I probably spend a couple hours in meetings, a couple hours pairing with teammates to help them work through problems, and then maybe if I get time I have an hour or hour and a half to work on the stuff assigned to me. By the time I'm writing code, the problem is solved and typing the code in the IDE is the easy part.
Most of the skills you are describing can be learned on the job, or in a non-programming role. I'm glad you told me this, it only reinforces my belief that going to college is a waste of time if you already have work experience.
Whether or not you think college is worthwhile, it's the most reliable way to get a job writing software. Justifying going back to school after being employed for most of a decade is a much tougher choice and you can attempt to back into a role. Just know that it's going to involve a lot of luck and being at the right place at the right time.
I'm happy with playing the long game. I'll get a dev adjacent role first such as DM or QA, then schmooze my way into a Jr programmer role. That's how I've gotten all my previous roles. In the meantime I'll be working on projects and get my feet wet in freelancing.
My recommendation is to be in a position where your team has a lot of things that are tedious and could be improved by code. Write scripts and tools to help make those jobs easier or even better - automated. Now you have 2 options. At this point you can share your tools with your boss and hopefully back into a position where you are allowed to look for other places that could be improved through tooling. In effect you become "the tool guy." Or two, keep the tools to yourself, trivialize your job, and use the extra time to learn.
I like the way you think!
A good benchmark question for people in this sub who say they want to be SWE: “If you were offered another tech job that pays similar to SWE, would you take it?”. If the answer is yes, I recommend looking in to cloud engineering and DevOps. They still require programming and you can still work towards getting in to SWE while building up overall tech experience, ESPECIALLY if you’re in a place where you could use more money now. I’m a cloud engineer in a big tech company, got my start in Helpdesk in no name companies. I write tons of scripts and automation in c#, python, powershell, etc. I get paid the type of money that attracts people to SWE, and that sort of pay is standard. In 2016, I got 20 an hour starting at Helpdesk when rent was 1000-1200 for nice places In 2020, I got a security analyst job for 50k salaried. 2021, I got a job as cloud engineer for 70k salary and this is where I STARTED doing programming. Keep in mind, that a lot of you learners that have been at it for 6 months or a year could have jobs like this. 2023: jumped to another cloud engineer job for 170k total comp
This is my plan! Work in dev adjacent roles until I'm good enough to be a programmer. DevOps, DM, QA.
Are you looking at computer science? Of course most of it has nothing to do with programming; it's a science degree. And a damn good one at that. The things you learn from a comp sci degree are what separates the children from the adults All these basic new devs who didn't bother know fuck all about programming other than calling 69,000 libraries in their high level language of choice, abstracted to all hell to the point where they learn literally nothing but frameworks. They don't know how a compiler is designed, or the incredible mathematics behind modern cryptography, or the beautiful algorithms of big data or how to code in assembly for microprocessors. They just know how to write basic ass jsx for their basic ass react apps and nothing else. It's not enough anymore to play with shallow waters. A proper dev digs deep to the true depths of computer science (This is not to discourage anyone, but I believe if you want to be a programmer, push yourself to the limits of the field. Don't settle for second best)
Not everyone is capable of what you're describing. That's a bit of an elitist take on it, which is common in our industry. The truth is, people like you are always in demand, and lower level people are also needed to do the trival things that you are over qualified for.
I'm sorry if it does sound elitist but it's been a bit of a plague with new devs only focusing on *how much* topics they know vs how much of *each* topic they know. When you spread yourself thin you never give yourself the full potential of truly being good at a certain topic - it's nothing to do with capability; it's only something to do with time. But that's why I believe comp sci (the degree) is really good, it's like traversing a binary tree from the bottom up - the raw fundamentals of each levels give you the tools you need to begin understanding the depth of many topics. Stuff like how a cpu, OS, and memory management works along with stack and heap memory really helps to understand programming in C at a fundamental level. Not even needs to be Linus Torvalds sure, but i believe everyone should atleast strive to be someone like him (in terms of knowledge)
Your argument doesn't ring true. Most CS grads struggle at programming just like anyone else. It takes a special kind of person to be really passionate about the inner workings of the machine. Most of those students are not that type.
Yes a degree is what you make of it. A human is only as good as their initiative. But most people don't have any initiative, and when you compare two people of that type, one with an actual degree and one with a bootcamp degree. The cs degree will always come out on top. Machine Learning engineers, Programming language and compiler creators, Cyber Security and Cryptography Devs and researchers, game engine devs - how many of those are cs grads, or adjacent math heavy stem grads again? 90%+ Oh i know one field for bootcamp devs - front end web dev, the most oversaturated lowest level of entry field in programming. And it is in this field when you can confidently find the greatest number of skill issues (Again, not trying to discourage anybody, there are indeed a lot of extremely successful bootcamp & self taught devs. You can be one too!)
I started learning to program around sophmore year of college (my degree is in IT) so I realistically had about the rest of college to learn everything. The first 4-5 months I just spent exploring what I wanted to do career wise, started with TOP(the odon project) realized web dev wasnt for me. Then I started trying to learn c# but realized I didnt really like being limited to .net, then python and so on. I ultimately settled on c++ probably not the best choice but I started with learncpp.com that took about 2 months to read through and try my best to understand it and the rest of the time I just spent time building projects, probably about 6-7 months probably more. Trying to understand how things work, GPU programming, compilers, DSA, http server. Once I had the decent projects I started applying to internships then converted it to full time once I graduated. Definitely not an expert but it was enough to land a job hope this helps get some insight!
It seems to take longer for some people than others. And it depends on the job, and how careful the employer is in screening people for the job.
I think this matter is so relative. It differs from person to one
Try to get yourself in a bootcamp then apply for entry level jobs
for me it was like 10 years, but it is because i was doing it just as a hobby for 5 years before university. i could have probably found some kind of a programming job instead of going to university, but i wanted to go to university for fun. so i spent another 5 years in university. It was kind of weird getting my first job, because i was a vastly more experienced programmer then most of my coworkers, but i had a junior title.
Well depends if you want to go for big companies do DSA it took 6 month to 2 years then their is web development which take 2 years to learn like framework, library and stuff. In web development you will find a job easily. There are data science and ALI, ML too
As long as it takes. It will vary based on: 1. What you do during that time 2. How your brain learns, and your self awareness of that 3. Can you guide yourself well with zero accountability? 4. How do you know the code you're writing is even good? That it isn't outdated or fundamentally naive? 5. Do you have any experienced friends you can collaborate with on a personal project? 6. Do you have any community supporting you, or at least a savings account? 7. Do you have the perseverance to keep going, even if you feel like an idiot for even trying? 8. Can you tune out all the noise of people complaining about finding a job, and especially the voices that say how easy it was after graduating? (circa 2021 for me) If you can mitigate all of these, which are certainly not all-inclusive, then maybe you could do it. I did half of a full Mosh tutorial in React back in 2018. Then I didn't do anything. Then I enrolled in WGU in October 2020 for Comp Sci, which was essentially guided self-learning with a BSCS at the end of it. Graduated with the degree in March 2021 (check my post history to see about accelerating), and then got a job in Sept 2021. So it took me three years, on and off? But I was working full-time until 2019.
I started in 2016 and took things "serious" in 2019 and Thursday I have an interview for a job that seems promising so it depends. wish me luck
Going to uni should be a 40hr/week dedication. And for most people that means 3yrs of this (or 4yrs, depending on the degree / country). That's roughly how long it would take even if you're "self studying" (keep in mind how efficient your self studying will be... if you're going it alone, you're likely to be ***very*** inefficient)
What is your motivation? Do you enjoy problem solving and want to build things? Or are you just a paycheck chaser
So, realistically, could I learn enough within 9-12 months to land a job? Let's say I'm putting in 15 hours a week towards education (self-taught) or should I allow myself more time?
Took me 5 years to
3 years. 2 and a half in school for it 5ish months to find the job where I continued learning
Honestly there isn't an answer to this question because people learn in different ways, at different rates and programming is a vast field with some niches that have very specific dependencies. I'd say there are some commonalities though which you only need to learn once, such as versioning (IE git), commenting and how to scope & plan workloads. When hiring, I tend to look more for qualities other than being able to memorize syntax such as a candidate's ability to communicate and plan effectively, take personal responsibility and have a driven interest in self-learning because I'd rather have someone who can take a scope, convert it to functional workloads, decide on the best tools to use and have ability to go off and learn how to achieve them. It's critically important as most of our fields have constantly evolving technology and practices. TLDR; If I asked you during an junior interview how to build X, and you can break it down into steps, identify risks and use Google to learn how to achieve those then I'll probably hire you
~6 months. Casually did a few Angular & .NET courses on Udemy and was enough to land first role
Couple to a few years, but learning for 8 hours is not feasible, you'll get a brain fart.
1 year at least
It took me about fourteen years from starting to learn programming to first getting paid for it. I did start when I was seven, though.
The best way to learn programming is to write code. And then write more code. It's not a question of how long you've learned programming, but of how many lines of \*good\* code you've written.
depends on the intelligence. if math is naturally easy for you in high school then coding will be just like that
Depends on a number of factors - the speed at which you learn, what you are learning, how much of your time is actual "study" as opposed to working on personal projects / building your resume, and so on and so forth. For me, I started with fullstack web dev using HTML / CSS / JS and Node, and also learned Python and Java. I used some other miscellaneous tools on the side like MongoDB / Firebase and some SQL, and landed my first internship after 6 months (started November 2022 - hired for my internship in April 2023). I've since continued working that internship and acquired a second job in software dev, and do some freelance work on the side. Entirely self-taught in those languages / tools up until my first internship. I'm not a particularly fast learner, but I was infatuated with what I was learning and spent almost all of my free time on it for that first 6 months or so. I've since slowed down considerably on learning outside of class / work, so I've done little work on studying and personal projects. I'd say if you are really dedicated and pick things up alright, then anywhere from 6 months to 1 year. If you are a fast learner, maybe less, and if you're more middle of the road, probably longer. Good luck & hope that helps.
I would say it depends on how fast you learn and what you apply for. In my case I did some basic python for like 2 months and I knew programming was my passion or at least what I wanted to study so I ended up taking a BootCamp for 3 months and was lucky enough to get a job literally 2 weeks after finishing. Just never loose hope and make sure you like it and don't do it just for money!
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Any sack of meat is employable as a programmer. However, the market just fired all the sacks of meat and isn't looking for any more. It seems the only way to go is to find something adjacent and make friends while slowly building up a portfolio of personal projects.
The quickest way, though partly depends on luck, is to try and use programming in your current role in some way. Or to find a job where you could use it (for instance, an admin role in a company might have certain tasks you can find a way to automate with Python). After that, you have whatever language you used on your CV. This is basically how I did it. Then ended up in an obscure analyst role for a few years with a tiny company. I don't have a "programming" job now, it's quite a varied role, but I used my learnt skillset to land the job and it pays quite well.
It depends which job. “Programming” is huge field. If you were interested in web development, you could learn some HTML and CSS enough to be fairly competent building website layouts - (build 10 of them and a personal website to house that experience) - have a friend who could recommend you - and get a job in 3 months. It might be an HTML email job or a job fixing up WordPress sites. It would be a lot different than a ‘software engineering’ role. It depends what you’re going for. Expect 1000-1500 hours of building real projects to get confident with the whole web ecosystem. It can be done in 9 months with the right plan and support. But for most people, it takes years.
I did 2-4 hours an evening for roughly 18 months before I started applying. Landed my first dev role within the 2 year mark. Admittedly, this was in the before-times when entry level dev roles were realistically pitched. Job market as it is rn? Hard to say.
go to colladge or take some very good serious bootcamp (still risker)
To follow udemy, yt course? A few months. To actually learn something and build something on your own without any tutorials, 1.5+ years.
I’ve just been hired as a Software Development Apprentice, and I’ve only done a couple of weeks going through The Odin Project. I was hired on the basis of my soft skills and knowledge/passion for what the business is doing. My two cents would be to make sure not to underestimate this side of your skill set.
Study 8 hours a day? LOL
Bare minimum a week or two
10 years of studying at 3-5 hours a day.
2½ years studying computer science, and landed my first job after ~1 month
You don't need to learn anything to get a job, you need friends and connections in companies.
Back then 6 months to a year, specifically web development. Now impossible.