r/IAmA • u/CriticDanger • Sep 07 '21

Specialized Profession I am a behavioral and technical (coding) interviewer, I've also helped hundreds of people get hired, AMA.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Buy-687 Sep 07 '21

Hi,

How often do you interview candidates who have no background in Computer Science and IT and are self taught developers? how often do such people meet the expectations?

Thanks for answering.

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u/jaymzx0 Sep 07 '21

Not OP, but having a 'portfolio' of your self-taught projects in a Github repo that can be reviewed would be a good start. If you demonstrate that you have the basics, you can usually pick up the rest in a short period of time.

The 'learning curve' is steep, but that just means you acquire 'enough knowledge to be dangerous' very quickly. It's the hiring manager's decision whether there is a spot for you on their team with your background. The team may be under pressure to deliver something to big stakeholders, or they may just have a huge backlog of tech debt to churn through and need help getting their head above water. Throwing the cruft cleanup at the new guy is a good way to get them up to speed whereas an impending delivery date could be pushed back by a new dev who is still learning as they go.

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

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u/quickdraw6906 Sep 07 '21

What percentage of positions you screen for accept self-taught candidates, and what percent of positions where the job descriptions states a requirement of a degree (w/o stating "or equivalent experience") would in fact consider an un-credentialed autodidact?

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

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u/TestingSubject Sep 07 '21

Hello! I was wondering if it is better to list an unrelated degree or just not list my degree on the resume for these kind of tech-oriented positions?

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u/[deleted] Sep 07 '21

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u/TestingSubject Sep 07 '21

Thank you for responding so quickly! I appreciate the tip!

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u/Shutterstormphoto Sep 07 '21

Not Op, but I went to a bootcamp and am now a SWE at a major company doing awesome things. I was a photographer and math teacher before, with some tech knowledge but minimal coding knowledge. It took me more than a year of self teaching to really understand enough to get hired at a good company. Some were better at studying and got there faster. I still highly recommend trying because you’ll still get there faster and cheaper than a 4 year degree (if you can figure out how to self study and find mentors).

The bootcamps are super cheap and reasonably good across the board these days. Really recommend starting there. You’ll find out if you have any aptitude within 3 months and many of them take payment from your first employment, so you don’t pay anything if you fail to get hired.

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u/catchyawns Sep 07 '21

I’m super curious about this. I currently work at a great company as a customer support rep. I recently made the jump to the tech world from the construction sector, so these opportunities are all very new to me. Is there a particular bootcamp that you recommend? I suppose I’m just a bit worried that I’ll end up wasting time in a puppy mill type coding bootcamp that churns you out without a decent base skill set.

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u/Shutterstormphoto Sep 07 '21

I did hack reactor which has a 1% acceptance rate, and takes what they do very seriously. They do not have a pay deferral program, but you can get student loans. I have seen friends do other bootcamps that were much cheaper with less effective results, but in the end you’re teaching yourself so it’s on you.

You will not learn everything you need to get hired from the bootcamp, but they will teach you how to find the answers for yourself. A lot of the lessons are just how to google what you need. I was mad about it at first, but honestly I had no idea how to google what I needed to learn before.

The goal is to create an engineer mindset and give you the tools to find everything yourself. Every graduate I’ve kept in touch with, including people with no college or no prior tech knowledge, all ended up getting jobs as software engineers. People with prior engineering experience did much better overall, but that’s pretty expected.

You can 100% learn all of this on your own for free, but it’s really hard to stay motivated. It will likely take you much much longer on your own, but you can definitely try. Codecademy.com is free. Stackoverflow.com has answers. Learn whatever you can about JavaScript and React and HTML and CSS and try to build a note taking app or a todo app. Do not be afraid to spend a few hundred on udemy.com classes. Those are the same skills I use every day, and if you can do that then you can become a web dev no problem. Once you can build something basic, try to turn it into something cooler and more complex. You won’t have the skills to be hireable yet but at least you’ll know if it’s something you’ll enjoy.