

Make $30 an hour, no bachelor's degree required - thejteam
http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/21/news/economy/web-developer-job/index.html?source=cnn_bin

======
nbouscal
This is not necessarily a good thing for the web development field. This is
how you end up with people with large gaps in their knowledge responsible for
parts of your codebase.

To be clear, it is entirely possible to be self-taught and learn everything
you need to know. I'm self-taught, and I like to think I've filled in most of
the gaps by now. I've also worked with a few self-taught people who make me
feel like a novice.

However, I've also encountered numerous self-taught people, working in
industry on real projects, who have gaps in their knowledge significant enough
to cripple a company if left unsupervised. Things like not knowing what SQL
injection is, not knowing what version control is, never having heard of unit
tests, etc. College curricula in other fields generally make sure that you at
least encounter every essential part of the field. Without that safety net,
you have to do that research yourself, and many self-taught people don't take
that extra step.

EDIT: Judging from the comments I need to clarify. I'm not saying that CS
programs in college teach you these things. I'm saying that in other fields,
your college curriculum will make sure you encounter everything you need to.

~~~
jeffasinger
I just had the experience of interviewing about 10 grad students from a
computer science program that's relatively highly regarded (definitely not top
10, but most would associate CS with the school).

Only one of the candidates was able to explain any meaningful difference
between GET and POST in HTTP.

I don't know that universities are places that are likely to impart this type
of knowledge in their grads.

~~~
3pt14159
You need to do a better job pre-filtering candidates. You are not doing your
company a service by letting down a bunch of people over and over.

I have a rule: Code samples or OSS contributions or it is an auto "no-
interview". Even for first year co-op students. From the code it self you can
usually judge competence. If the code samples pass most of these
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_smell> then I bring 'em in for an
interview. I have yet to meet someone that doesn't know what the difference
between a GET and a POST. For me a bad interview is if someone doesn't know
what types of things are found in the headers, or doesn't understand the
basics of oAuth.

Before people come in here and start up with the "you are not mid-thirties
with kids" BS, no I'm not. But I know plenty of people that are, and it isn't
too hard to get 200 lines of code to someones inbox.

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citricsquid

        Since then, he has worked for Percolate, Vimeo and other 
        startups, and now, at age 25, he's earning more than six figures.
    

Six figures is $100,000 - $999,999. More than six figures = $1,000,000+.

~~~
jonknee
It's worded poorly, but it means he's making more than $100k.

~~~
eclipxe
Clearly, but that is not what "more than six figures means".

~~~
jonknee
Not technically, but it does colloquially.

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icatchcows
While a degree isn't necessary to become a developer, this article makes it
sound like the average person can pick up a "how-to" book and become an
employable web developer in a weekend or two. If this is true, I'd worry about
the quality of developers joining the workforce.

~~~
scotth
It doesn't actually. Take this quote --

> To say this occupation is attainable for anyone though is a bit of stretch.
> It still requires some math chops and long hours of practice.

> "You have to be a self-starter to go along with this," Kenefick said. "In
> the beginning, it was literally all day and all night, day after day, I was
> practicing and building up my portfolio. I'm pretty sure it's more work than
> going to college."

To be fair, that quote is right at the end of the article.

~~~
adaml_623
Ironic that the quote "I'm pretty sure it's more work than going to college."
is from somebody who only spent a few weeks at university.

(Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with dropping out)

~~~
joonix
It doesn't take long to discover that university education is an inefficient
sloth, a waste of time and basically a broken system for almost all majors.

~~~
VLM
Its incredibly good at educating, and fairly efficient. Training is better off
at a vo-tech. Most of the people attending just want a credential proving they
are trained, its their meal ticket. They're obviously not going to be huge
fans of a liberal education curriculum. Yet their employers demand credentials
from educational facilities not training facilities, so the 2-yr vo-tech is
seen as toilet paper.

Its a messed up situation. They make an excellent product, but most of the
people going don't want it, but they can't get something else because the
market demands they attend. Very much like complaining a 5-star restaurant
sucks because they don't have cheap hamburgers and a drive-thru, or the
reverse situation.

------
nicholassmith
Missing at the end of the title 'as long as you're willing to work your ass
off getting good at it'. There might be a shortage in the talent pool but I
can't see lots of companies taking on crap devs to put bums in seats.

~~~
TheCowboy
These articles seem to frequently discount the hard work part of the equation,
and make it sound like anyone can pick up a keyboard and get a job.

The "no degree, no problem" idea isn't backed up by my personal experience. I
wish it were that easy, but I still find myself struggling to break in. I've
been told by temp agencies that my associates degree is worthless here as
well.

I wish I had known over a year ago that the most important thing is having
enough savings and time to start with so you can build up a portfolio, and
disregard the sentiment that if you don't know algos then you're second-rate
and don't cut it.

For awhile I've been in a position where it's hard to focus on projects that
would make me stand out because I'm distracted working weird hours part-time
for minimum wage. While I'm getting more contract work, it still is just a
trickle, and seems to be more of a distraction than it's worth sometimes.
Additionally, most entry-level positions I've encountered seem to want someone
who is a designer/developer hybrid rather than a developer.

I live in Washington, DC, so it could just be that the market here has a
enough of a concentration of CS grads and experienced developers to not need
to bother with people who are junior and lack a CS background.

~~~
bluedino
> The "no degree, no problem" idea isn't backed up by my personal experience.
> I wish it were that easy, but I still find myself struggling to break in.

I've found in a lot of companies in middle America, it's nearly impossible to
get in with out a BS. Even if you know someone.

The smaller companies will often take you but the pay and benefits are usually
lower. On the other hand, they're more likely to have flexible schedules,
allow working from home, and not have a dress code.

------
minimax
"Nobody really cares about your education in this field -- it's can you do it,
or can you not?"

Is this unique to software development? Like, if I wanted to break into the
fast paced world of industrial fastener sales would prospective employers be
worried about my undergraduate degree? My experience on both sides of the
interview table has been that after a few (2-3?) years of working in a field,
your professional experience counts for much more than your academic
credentials. I don't think it's unique to web development.

~~~
jonknee
No, but if you wanted to actually design the industrial fasteners your
education would probably be questioned. That's more akin to software
development.

~~~
sanxiyn
To me software development seems more akin to (say) game art design. As long
as you can program (or draw) -- which can be checked by portfolio -- education
is less important.

~~~
randomdata
If you have a great portfolio of designing fasteners as a hobby, couldn't the
same be said of that job?

To me, it is a matter of supply and demand. When the talent pool is larger
than the demand for talent, there is a need to find a way to filter the hiring
application results down to something that is manageable. A degree has become
the defacto standard for doing that. It doesn't matter if you throw out great
people with the bath water doing that, because you still have a ton of great
people to choose from.

Web development, and software development in general, have been through a
fairly lengthy period of demand outpacing supply, leaving many companies
without the need to arbitrarily reduce their application result set. That
gives them the ability to evaluate all applicants as the normally would, just
without the arbitrary filter to start.

------
ryhanson
Sounds a lot like my situation, except I didn't drop out, I finished out the
associates degree so I could take the few programming classes I wanted. It
took my two years, I got a little bit of college under my belt, got a job
before I finished, and was only 18 when I graduated.

I think experience and skill level speak higher than a degree in this field. I
have hired people that don't have a degree, because they have a nice portfolio
and have the skills I need.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
I don't have a degree (I dropped out of college) and I make more than that.
I'm good at what I do; its not easy, and its obscure.

------
spankermonkey
I'm studying software engineering and also working as a junior web developer.
Realistically speaking I'd have to quit my job to be able to finish my school.
The problem is, I view school as a waste of time. Teachers don't know about
SQL injection and don't teach unit testing. I learn more efficiently on my
own. It's scary how big gaps there'd be in my knowledge if I relied only on
the stuff school taught me. The reason I applied to a developer position in
the first place was boredom in school(and financial stress). At work I've been
learning a lot more and IMO worked on more interesting projects than most of
my class mates at their internships.

It's school or work for me but I fear that lacking a bachelor's degree means I
can't advance to more challenging programming positions or that nobody would
hire me outside of my current company.

Nothing would stop me from starting my own business tho.

------
patatino
A lot of people ask my why I never got a degree. As a .net web developer I
don't wan't so spend 4 years part time (no money for fulltime) studying java,
because that's what you mostly learn in our country.

Edit: I maybe should add theres nothing wrong with java. It's just not my
choice that's all. And in my country (switzerland) the education system looks
little bit different. I started a education at age 16 as software a developer.
2 days school, 3 days work at a software company for four years. Now you add
some years of experience and there you are with no degree.. and that's why I
wrote my first statement

~~~
ikkyu
Whats wrong with Java? I am focusing most of my time on it. Bad decision?

~~~
powersurge360
Not really. It's actually kind of funny that a .NET programmer said that
because Java and C# occupy many of the same niches, which is to say, heavy
enterprise-y apps. But then that may be his point, that it would be redundant
for him to learn a language so similar.

Java isn't a bad decision but I 100% believe you should try as many languages
as possible, especially from different paradigms. Every language has something
to like and most have something you can bring back to your primary language to
be more productive.

Happy trails!

------
sabalaba
This is the market at work.

A massive demand for web development combined with a low supply of competent
engineers leads to high salaries relative to the amount of time you need to
invest to command such a salary. This leads to entities like Dev Bootcamp and
Coursera charging to provide the necessary training, they can also command a
hefty bonus for making a hiring referral. An influx of newly minted developers
enter the market, prices go down as the supply curve slides to the right.

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MechaJDI
I think a more appropriate title would simply be "get paid lots of money for
working hard and being good at something that's in demand" but it's not nearly
as catchy. Seemingly, what's the case in the job market is that the degree is
just the minimum required whereas your catalog of work shows that you weren't
just following the trend of "fast growing/unfilled computer jobs". It seemed
to work for me...

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munchbunny
Without a bachelor's degree, you can be quite a good developer. I've seen
plenty of such people, but they've all had several years of self-learning and
experience, often substantially more than their college-trained comrades.

I wish the article would get that across - in lieu of a degree, you had to
have spent years programming on your own time.

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sanxiyn
I don't have a bachelor's degree, but I get paid to write a compiler! How
cool.

~~~
bluedino
I doubt many of these self-taught guys are writing compilers. They're mostly
doing CRUD apps or 'plain old web development'.

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zavulon
This reads like an article from 1997.

