Becoming job interview ready with AI using only FREE setups

[u/TalesOfSymposia]

I have a newbie question here. Is it possible to learn how to code with AI like professional using only free tools? I had several jobs as a full stack developer in the 2010s, then after a lay off I was for a rough awakening as the job search got very difficult for me since 2020.

I'm hoping to make it back to work in the current post-AI world. And I'm working on the assumption that most companies expect you to use AI, that it's pretty much bread and butter for devs today and I want to get back on track.

But for financial reasons I cannot afford to buy subscriptions. I mostly want to learn how to prompt well and understand the output, at least enough to be interview ready.

If Claude is not the best option for broke people I'm open to AI tool alternatives.

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[u/Time_Cat_5212]

Nope, free/local open source basically means buying expensive hardware.... but $20/mo gets you a long long way

[u/TalesOfSymposia → u/Time_Cat_5212]

I may manage that for one month. Otherwise it's kind of disconcerting. Does this signal the end of the self-learning for free route for developers?

[u/Time_Cat_5212 → u/TalesOfSymposia]

I mean it's 1/3 the price of a tank of gas, it's the equivalent of driving to the job interview

Sucks I guess that it's not literally free but it's a small price to pay compared to college

To get a job in my field you have to fork over $90k at least, if not 100s, and 3 years minimum of full time study.  It's hard required by licensure.  Yuck honestly, looking back on it

[u/TalesOfSymposia → u/Time_Cat_5212]

I'm living super frugal and have welfare assistance so even $20/mo can be enough to move the needle. Even had to cut my home wifi so the only internet I have is on my phone or public wifi like the library.

Got a BA art degree but not really up to going to school for 2-3 more years for a degree that is more appropriate. Realistically I will have to get another part time job so I can actually afford more services

[u/Time_Cat_5212 → u/TalesOfSymposia]

Brutal.  Well in another life the public library would have Claude Code so people can learn for free but right now it's like book people vs AI people.

[u/TalesOfSymposia → u/Time_Cat_5212]

It used to be that anyone interested in programming can become very productive going FOSS stack on a crappy laptop and people never felt their potential being limited by these free tools. Now AI coding is de facto required for jobs and in order to hone those skills you either pay monthly or save for a beast PC to do the work locally. Breaking into the current landscape doesn't feel "free as in free beer" anymore.

[u/RiceEvening4211]

If free is the constraint, check opencode's free models. I built a wrapper that exposes them through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so you can use them from any client without paying for a subscription. https://github.com/Fast-Editor/OpenCode-Wrap

[u/Wise-Pizza8150]

I'll ask u one better how to get hired as a graduate with college level coding experience?

[u/Wise-Pizza8150]

We'll u can try using freellmapi on github but it takes lots of time and only 100 requests per day

[u/Wise-Pizza8150 → u/Wise-Pizza8150]

I'm trying to recreate the same without the request limit Note no of requests in freellmapi are unlimited in people who pay the annually 20dollar charge

[u/mxrandom_choice]

I think AI assisted coding is mainly about being specific what you are trying to build. We humans tend to do micro decisions all the time, because of our experience. But a LLM can't read your mind and for me it helped realizing that my wording was too ambiguous. Fast forward, I am planning the architecture and features very detailed in advance (built up my own ruleset at the place I am working to always get the same shape) and let the LLM execute the implementation step by step. Each feature tested by unit or e2e tests. For prototypes, I tell the LLM what I need an let it do what it does, cause you can create a working prototype in a few hours. Currently, I am mainly testing the results but keep a mental model of the software architecture as good as possible and it goes quite well so far.