
How to get hired as mature self-taught ex-freelancer? - iainduncan
(Ok, take two without attachment) Hi, I&#x27;m a self-taught, 39 year old Python web&#x2F;database coder, now looking to get into a full time position after 8 years of freelancing. My problem (I think?) is that I&#x27;m not what is considered a catch to the stereotypical founder: no CS degree, been working on regular Python+SQL projects, not young. I know I&#x27;m competent, I&#x27;ve been inhaling CS and coding books for years and have taught myself some tricky stuff like microcontroller assembly and real-time audio&#x2F;midi app development in C.  But maybe I don&#x27;t know how to properly present myself to people who might be interested in someone like me, or know who those people might be. I hope there are some companies who are actually impressed that someone has had to do all the running-a-business stuff in addition to coding, and has experience being completely responsible for the clients and the bottom line? Any one have thoughts on what kind of places those might be or what to stress in applying?
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esw
I went through this in 2009. What I found was that no one cared about my
degree (also non-CS), but a lot of companies were incredibly hesitant to hire
me _because_ of my business experience. I got questions like, "After being
your own boss, why would you ever want to work for someone else?" and "How do
I know you're not just going to quit in a year and start another company?"*

I rewrote my resume to emphasize my experience as a developer and downplay my
experience as a founder, and that was what ultimately got me a job. You want
to be truthful on your resume, but you also have to present yourself as
someone who is a logical fit for the position being offered.

* It took two years.

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pedalpete
I feel your pain, I'm in a similar position. I just turned 40, have experience
in PHP, Rails, lots Javascript (including Backbone, Knockout, a bit of Angular
and learning Ember now), a bit of Python and learning Scala. No degree, and
most of what I've worked on were internal corporate tools or start-ups that
are no longer around.

I've been building out sample apps in newer Javascript frameworks so that
along with learning the newer stuff, I have something in my portfolio that I
can point too.

What I've found in my interviewing is that the biggest concern people have is
that I'll stick around for a few months to a year and then move on, it wasn't
until an interview last week that I explained to the CEO that the work I'd
been doing was always project work, I didn't regularly just pick-up and leave
jobs. He wanted me to work for 60 days without pay so he could be sure that I
wouldn't leave without giving 60 days notice.

I'm in Sydney, Australia, and need full-time work to keep my visa or else have
to go back to Canada. Where are you based?

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Spoom
_He wanted me to work for 60 days without pay_

Run.

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ig1
If you've got a reasonable amount of Python experience you shouldn't have any
trouble going from freelance to permie, just apply for regular python roles
(assuming that's what you want). You might want to be upfront about salary
expectations because permie places might think you're likely to be expensive
because you've been freelancing.

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mateo411
I interview a lot of people. My experience is that people with degrees are
better are a little better at algorithms and they know big-O complexity.
People without degrees hate it when I ask big-O complexity problems.

However, I think the programming ability is something that's gained by doing
and not by studying. I think the programming abilities, knowing how to debug,
the languages, the IDEs, the people that know this well, are the ones who are
passionate about programming.

If I interviewed you, I would ask you some basic Python questions. I would
make you code and solve some simple algorithm questions. I would also ask you
some SQL questions. I would expect that you could write a SQL statement that
does a join, a group by, uses a having clause.

If you can demonstrate this knowledge in an interview that's awesome! If the
interview doesn't go well, don't worry too much about it. Try to learn what
you didn't do well on, then try again.

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ilaksh
I have issues that are similar. I am 35 and have been doing
freelancing/contract work for a lot of years. So I think actually this last
contract might have hired me but they used the fact that I had been
freelancing and knew that I would take a contract instead against me. Not
because they didn't want my help, but because they knew they didn't actually
have to hire me to get me to work for them, and so wouldn't need to bother
with health benefits or a hiring committee or anything.

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tanbo
People here told me that I could make money by teaching myself some code.
After seeing a lot of these posts, I am really starting to doubt it. You have
so much experience, expertise, and you're a successful freelancer. And you
have to ask about jobs? What am I getting myself into... I am 31, I might as
well go try to be a professional golfer or something else hilariously
impossible. Seriously, I think my life is going to be over soon. There is
nothing I can do.

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JHof
I feel you tanbo. I've been teaching myself and considering a career change
through one of the bootcamps. Always makes me wonder how I'm going to suddenly
become more employable than someone with years of experience. Haven't quite
figured this one out.

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EdwardDiego
> How I'm going to suddenly become more employable than someone with years of
> experience. Haven't quite figured this one out.

Well, you'll be asking for lower salaries than them for a few years, so
that'll help. :D

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teni
What projects have you worked on during your freelancing? Is there some tool
out there that you made? Have you fixed a bug somewhere? People usually don't
just want to hear "I can do xyz" they want to see stuff. Remember Feross
Aboukhadijeh who created youtube instant
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Instant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_Instant)
, he was offered a job by youtube CEO not long after.

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atjoslin
I would advise you learn some cutting edge tech, become good at that, and then
people will be begging you for work.

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ratsimihah
Any example?

