
Ask HN: What’s the best city/state for self-taught web devs without a degree? - Onixelen
Which city&#x2F;state has the maximum number of jobs available that are accessible to self-taught devs w&#x2F;o college degrees?
======
rubicon33
Build something.

This transcends geography. Show competency by building something that
demonstrates your technical ability. Better yet, build 2 things.

Be able to demo your projects, and talk at length about the technical
challenges in building them.

That said, your best best is always going to be small / medium sized
companies. Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are mostly going to be looking for
solid CS fundamentals in their interview. Unless you've taken a Data
Structures & Algorithms class recently, you can forget working there.

~~~
gwbas1c
> Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are mostly going to be looking for solid CS
> fundamentals in their interview

I gotta second the above statement. A software engineering job often has so
many unqualified applicants that it's just not practical to give every
applicant a courtesy phone call. In these cases, a CS degree requirement is a
way to filter out the people who are spamming their resume; or the crazies who
just don't understand the kind of experience that the job requires.

That being said, it doesn't hurt to couch-surf in Silicon valley for a week or
two. There are a lot of (cough) "startups" that need dirt-cheap developers
that you can meet at every single networking event. You'll have 2-3 years of
putting up with stupid ideas that go belly up every few months, but as you
build your network, you'll eventually find someone who values your skills and
forgets that you don't have a pedigree.

~~~
solipsism
You misread apparently. No one said anything about a _CS degree_. And your
intuition is wrong. The Facebooks and the Googles are the companies who are
confident enough in their screening that they don't care much about your
formal education anymore.

 _CS fundamentals_ absolutely. _CS degree_ nope.

~~~
legoartwork
Should I be able to get an interview with a pure math degree, but data
structures + algorithms study on the side?

~~~
solipsism
Sure. Just put something on your resume that gives a recruiter some confidence
in your capability with respect to those data structures and algorithms. A
computer science degree is only one way of doing that.

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santoriv
I don't know how anyone could answer this question accurately unless they've
gone through the process of applying for jobs in many different cities when
they had no work experience.

In San Francisco I was able to break into the market - it didn't happen
quickly - it took a couple of years to move from free websites for friends to
part-time work to a full-time salaried position. I have a music performance
degree. That was about six years ago.

My sister was able to break into a real job much more quickly. She had a
degree from UC Berkeley in Oceanography and then went to Hack Reactor for a
couple of months. After a couple of months of applying for jobs, she got a
pretty decent salaried position. This was from late 2015 to early 2016.

When you are starting out, it seems like getting a job is a matter of

1) Having a portfolio of work demonstrating that you can code

2) Applying to a _ton_ of jobs

The San Francisco Bay Area has so many jobs that you can apply to positions
literally all day long.

Good luck!

------
wbeckler
If you can code well and get freelance gigs, and if you are completely
flexible, you might want to consider becoming a global nomad. I'm sitting in
Medellin, Colombia right now with a team of developers from around the world
who are here because their money goes three times as far as anywhere else with
this level of quality of life.

------
turc1656
I don't know enough to say whether or not it's the best but...NYC is great for
developers of a certain personality type. Specifically in the finance
industry. There are a lot of corporate HQ's here that maintain large systems
and have public and internal websites and services that require maintenance.
Being friendly with Dev/IT staff at my current and previous employer, I can
attest to the fact that they all say finding people who can actually code well
is very tough. They seem to not think highly of college degrees, purely
because the colleges are handing out degrees to people who can't code. That is
the major reason they care far less about the degree. Another reason is that
the IT guys in finance (and probably most places) care a lot less about
"pedigree" or some kind of perceived educational status. Pretty much all of
the corporate lawyers and execs where I am are all Ivy League educated. Dev/IT
doesn't care about that if you can do the job - and they have easily testable
methods to verify you can actually do the job, as we all know. The biggest
roadblock is getting the interview in the first place if you don't have the
usual background. In that case, you would probably need to know someone who
works for the company to help get your resume in front of someone.

Also of note - I have seen a lot of very talented developers leave the
financial companies I have worked for because they find the Dev work
unexciting and they view their continued learning as stunted or completely
nonexistent. They all seem to hate supporting line-of-business applications
for whatever reason. That being said, it usually pays pretty well because
these are business critical services that support either a large user base or
are behind a large amount of money. Case in point - the brother of a friend of
mine never went to college but was a self-taught programmer and is extremely
talented - he works for a hedge fund running their entire infrastructure and
makes more than double what I make.

If the corporate thing isn't your style, there are also a fair amount of
startups here in NYC. But I don't have enough knowledge about them to comment
on compensation, job stability, work culture, etc.

~~~
newbear
Any advice you can give me on how to find these companies?

~~~
turc1656
If you don't already know anyone who works in Dev/IT at any finance-related
company in NYC, I would say your best bet is to go to networking events. There
are always events all over the city every week. I get emails every week about
them. You can also sign up to specific groups at sites like meetup.com and go
to the events when they schedule to meet up in person. A quick search on that
site yielded a bunch of relevant groups in NYC:
[https://www.meetup.com/mysqlnyc/](https://www.meetup.com/mysqlnyc/)
[https://www.meetup.com/NY-FinTech/](https://www.meetup.com/NY-FinTech/)
[https://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/](https://www.meetup.com/ny-tech/)
[https://www.meetup.com/nyandroiddevelopers/](https://www.meetup.com/nyandroiddevelopers/)
[https://www.meetup.com/UX-Data/](https://www.meetup.com/UX-Data/)
[https://www.meetup.com/NYC-Data-Engineering/](https://www.meetup.com/NYC-
Data-Engineering/) and for the ladies:
[https://www.meetup.com/WomenWhoCodeNYC/](https://www.meetup.com/WomenWhoCodeNYC/)

Granted, these are learning-oriented rather than strictly networking, so the
topics of conversation aren't going to be focused on job openings. But
networking is obviously a part of it and you can reach out to the contacts you
make at these events.

Basically, anything where you can talk to someone face to face so they can get
a feel for you and you can make an impression on them. That's the goal. If
they like your personality and they think you are competent, they are far more
willing to open the door for you and overlook the degree requirement. But you
definitely must be very, very competent if you don't have the degree.

Best of luck.

------
malisper
I have some experience with this since I went straight from high school to
working in San Francisco. I don't know about the best city for someone without
degree, but the best city for tech by far is San Francisco. To give you an
idea of how dense the tech scene is in SF, the headquarters of Uber, Square,
and Twitter, are all within two blocks of each other. There are hundreds, if
not thousands, of other tech companies just a few blocks further from there.

As for companies, I have found it much easier to interview at larger companies
than smaller ones. When I applied to three larger companies (Uber, Google,
Dropbox) all of who were interviewed me and eventually made me an offer. I
also applied to six smaller companies, of which four rejected me without
interview, and the remaining two wound up making me offers.

Since I was unsure whether I would be able to get a job or not, I deferred
from college for a year, so I could always go back if I couldn't find a job.
Depending on your situation, this may or may not apply to you.

------
gigatexal
Portland, Oregon -- if you got skills and can prove it you will get hired.

~~~
komali2
Why? I think this question is implying a desire for explanation of pros/cons
for a city.

~~~
hasbroslasher
I think you're reading into the question a bit much - it's just asking "What's
the best city for Devs without a Degree?" Granted, having a why is really
nice. So here goes:

I'm not sure I agree with OP's assessment that it's be best without
explanation, as a Portlander myself. There really aren't _that many_ tech jobs
here, not like SF at least, and given that it's competitive (everyone wants to
live here), anyone who wants to see a C.S. degree on their resumes can discard
the others until they find what they're looking for. Granted, since a lot of
companies here are small and don't have the money to fly prospective hires in
for a visit, living here and at least having technical skills is valuable. It
also helps your case that aside from Intel we don't have much of a presence
from top software giants - ya know, the kinda that can be picky about who they
hire. A lot of the jobs here aren't "high tech" though - as a developer you
might have a hard time finding the sweet spot of fun/interesting/world
changing work you're looking for.

That said, the DIY ethos is strong here, and there really aren't that many
techies, so a good history of development will get you as far here as
anywhere. I think the lack of nearby schools producing C.S. grads is another
factor in why most of our tech community is self-taught or imported from
somewhere where C.S. is taught.

Culturally, I think casual tech people are happier here since the community is
small and not as serious as in SF or other places. People who are really
serious about their work are rare and talking about work makes you seem
clueless in a city full of people who love to play.

------
vvanders
Not web-dev but self-taught(did college for a few years but landed a job in
industry so I didn't complete).

Your best bet is to target small companies/startups to build experience. Large
corporations tend to filter out candidates without a degree and extensive
experience. Prove that you can deliver and the rest will follow.

Also don't stop learning, you _will_ have gaps and the only way to fill them
out is to get off the comfortable path and dig into domains that you might not
traditionally work on.

------
cdubzzz
I get the impression that the Washington, D.C. area is probably good for this.
There are a _massive_ number of non-profits and other "associations" here with
varying budgets and needs. Many of them will turn to larger IT consultant
companies, but direct hire and contract work is probably still pretty solid in
the area just because there are so very many organizations and they all want
websites.

------
arikr
san francisco hands down. hopefully will change in the future, but hasn't yet

~~~
drawnwren
In SF, with a good portfolio and the ability to demonstrate your coding skills
well in an interview, you can expect to get a job w/in about 3 months. This
will cost you between $5 and $8k (cost of living) and you will be able to take
home anywhere from $53 - $80k/yr (after taxes and before cost of living.) I
don't know how this compares to other options, but just thought I'd give you
some numbers.

~~~
komali2
53$ is shockingly low for Bay Area, after taxes. 80K is also low... Hack
Reactor bootcamp grads are generally pulling 100-125 straight out, so, what,
85 after taxes?

~~~
drawnwren
I have friends who went to HR, and my personal perception is that bootcamps
are a bubble bound to fall on their faces. They have been aggressively
expanding for as long as they have been around, and I don't think the market
is keeping pace. 100-125 is the number they advertise, but we won't know when
that number has fallen until the 12 month average has fallen significantly.

~~~
komali2
Well, for reference, I graduated in September and my cohort are all pulling
above 100. Hack Reactor's expansion is old news - they acquired Makersquare
nearly 2 years ago, they settled on 2 floors of students earlier than that,
quite early in their history really.

As long as we see 1000 unique jobs posted on LinkedIn daily, which is the case
right now, Bootcamps will continue to profit off the massive lack of general
web dev talent. I'd expect a crash to be more of a general economic crash than
any fault of the bootcamps.

I can't speak for how other bootcamps are operating. So far the only model
that I've seen make sense is HR and Makersquare, which are now the same.

------
settsu
There's probably a general cultural or sociological alignment to such openness
you could identify in an area but the best chances are likely where the demand
simply outstrips the supply enough that companies will be more flexible in
their hiring.

Personally, I have zero degrees and no formal education in ANYTHING, not to
mention a general distaste for traditional classroom training in general, yet
starting with a graphic design job that fell in my lap in 1998 (it's who you
know...), I've simply developed my skills "organically" (?) and parlayed each
position into the next, having worked as a web developer (at loosely-run non-
profits and for _very_ traditionally-structured government contractors), UX
architect (at a very well-known company/domain name provider), UI developer
(financial institution), and now as software engineer building web apps for a
very narrow vertical market.

While my first "real" office job was Southern California (in an inland bedroom
community 1 hour north of San Diego), the bulk of my career has spanned 2
geographic areas: Phoenix and Denver (mostly the suburbs, at that.) Relocating
to both did entail factoring in the availability of relevant jobs but was more
about what I wanted for my life at the time the decision was made.

It's highly unlikely I'd ever be a strong candidate for a Silicon Valley-type
company or a startup, which is fine wth me since I'm a work-to-live type
temperament and have never been the "work hard, play hard" type. But I also
have a seemingly natural desire to be a good employee & coworker and like to
be proud of the quality of work I do. Some of that might be a result of the
"leadership development" that was unofficially required in my first job.

The foundations for my career are only based in teenage dabbling in software
(coding BASIC on a TRS-80 in the early 90s, reverse engineering the HTML in
webpages to build my own in the mid-90s) and a general technical bent overlaid
with creative tendencies. Having a nearly insatiable thirst for knowledge
probably helps too...

~~~
RUG3Y
TRS-80 was my first computer. Dad eventually threw it away and I was sad. I
wish I still had it.

~~~
settsu
You had to earn your fun with patience waiting for programs and games to load
from the cassette tapes...

------
mfrye0
I think San Francisco is definitely among the top cities.

You don't need a degree. It's all about what you can do. What have you done?
What skills do you have?

When I was looking, I researched a lot of the job openings and looked at the
skills they were hiring for. Then I taught myself the skills and technologies
I didn't know.

It also helps to know what the most in demand jobs are. I'm not sure if it's
the same, but last year the top jobs were front-end engineers and dev ops.

When I was ready I went out to apply for jobs and pretty much had the exact
resume jobs were looking for. Then the bidding war starts as everyone wants
you to work for their company!

------
up_and_up
Self-taught web dev here. Just have a solid portfolio and solid github
account. Focus on small and medium sized companies which will care less.
Should not matter where you are. Two Lead guys at a former startup I was at,
did not have degree. Chops matter.

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Roritharr
I'm german so can't answer your question directly. But what worked for me to
maintain a career after quitting university to pursue my own startup was to
work as a subcontractor for larger agencies. You get these types of jobs
mostly through your network, have to do some hustling and accepting a low
"first project" rate, but if you leave a good enough impression that leaves
you as a "safe choice" you'll quickly get projects of ever increasing
importance. After a while of this your resume should include big enough
projects and brand names that your lack of degree is only a footnote compared
to the experience obviously on display.

------
tdb7893
Best bet would be to just apply for jobs everywhere and move wherever you get
the best offer

~~~
komali2
My friend in Houston is trying this right now but it's incredibly stressful. A
lot of companies aren't interested because he's unsure whether he's even
coming to their city, some are turned off because they assume he'll want
relocation, not to mention it's emotionally trying for him to hop from city to
city for interviews and not even know where he wants to settle.

------
gdulli
I would imagine any city that's leaning more towards demand than supply is
going to make it easy for a self-taught developer to get hired. (Assuming that
developer is good. A bad developer with a degree will have an easier time
getting hired than a bad developer without a degree.)

And I think most if not all of the larger cities are like this. I have
personal experience with Boston, SF, San Diego. In 20 years I've never seen a
market that wasn't good for developers.

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rifung
I'm not really self taught as I did go to college but I didn't finish my
degree. I managed to get my first job after a few months in the Silicon Valley
(San Jose, not SF).

I don't know how much my not having a degree really mattered after that but my
last 4 jobs were in Seattle. I suspect I may have been "leveled" at one of my
jobs based on my not having a degree though, but I can't say for sure.

------
languagehacker
I'll throw Austin out there as the place where I met the most self-taught web
developers, even with a pretty good computer science department at UT. The
startup culture there is a bit more laid-back and open-minded, in my opinion,
and I think this translates into giving anyone who wants to break into the
industry more of a chance so long as they can exhibit competency.

------
fencepost
Don't focus on location. College is a way to shortcut the "I have
training/experience and/or am able to learn" requirement, so without that
you're going to need to prove that you have the skills, experience or ability
to learn.

Mucking about with location is going to turn into a side quest that will just
distract you from the important things.

------
Raphmedia
You can get in pretty good jobs in Montreal but the average pay is waaaayyy
lower than in the USA.

------
desbo
London is good. I'm a self-taught dev who moved from tech support to QA to
engineering. There's a lot of work here and quite a bit of competition, but I
wouldn't say not having a degree has been a problem.

------
komali2
I moved to SF from Houston, began self learning, and joined a bootcamp. It was
financially stressful and terrifying and I'm still paying off personal debts
accrued, but I believe I would have had a much harder time in a different
city. I was a recruiter before, and I say, go where the jobs are.

If you hop on linkedin and search "front end" and filter to Bay Area, posted
last 24hrs, you should see ~1000 jobs (maybe not this month). __Per Day.
__Every day there are thousands of jobs opened up that are very open to the
idea of a self taught or bootcamp educated person. Basically, this city seems
much more of a meritocratic system than Houston or Austin, other cities I 'm
familiar with. Also, the pay is excellent out here.

I second what others are saying about portfolios. I always say, if I asked you
to make pong in your given language, you should be able to do so in a couple
of hours from scratch and be able to send it to me to run on my
computer/phone. That's the level you want to be at and that's the kind of apps
that should be on your portfolio.

I have gone into more detail of my experience at my blog: blog.calebjay.com,
and the archive section links to my older blog with some other details about
my transition. I'm also happy to speak with anybody here or privately through
email (see my profile) that's interested in how they can make this happen for
themselves.

I moved from a crap job, a crap life (financially, I'm a happy guy otherwise),
and really no future to an engineer. I went from having no future to having a
guaranteed career, forever, barring catastrophic global economic collapse. I
really can't express the feeling of having the weight of future-worry taken
off my shoulders, but I know I want as many people that were where I was at a
year ago to feel it, and I will go out of my way to help any way I can.

EDIT: Here, this link may take you directly to a search that demonstrates what
I mean
[https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search?keywords=%28%E2%80%9Cso...](https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search?keywords=%28%E2%80%9Csoftware%E2%80%9D+OR+%E2%80%9Cfront+End%E2%80%9D+OR+%E2%80%9Cback+End%E2%80%9D+OR+%E2%80%9Cdeveloper%E2%80%9D+OR+Backend+OR+Frontend%29+NOT+Senior&locationId=us%3A84&f_TP=1&orig=FCTD&trk=jobs_jserp_posted_one_day)

That's the query I used in my job search, it worked quite well. Bay Area also
has the highest concentration of startups and smaller companies that are
notoriously open to non-traditionally educated developers. Try changing the
location to Houston, Denver, Austin, Seattle, the entire state of Wisconsin,
DC, etc and notice the difference. Try searching on angel.co in those cities.
I think unarguably the Bay Area has the highest concentration of jobs open to
self-educated developers, the question is, can you afford to live here for the
several months it may take you to get a job?

------
kapauldo
We are hiring, if you're interested please email me my handle at gmail.

~~~
newbear
I'm interested. Where are you located? Will email.

------
wcummings
Cambridge ain't bad

------
Chos89
Not Germany.

