
Show HN: I made a jobs board for developers without degrees - Pete-Codes
https://nocsok.com
======
zzzeek
I don't have a degree (though I do have a few years of college in the CS
/engineering fields) and I'm pretty sure every programming job I've ever had
required a "degree", if you were to look at their posted job requirements. If
it's known that you can do the work (which is the kicker of course), I've
never seen an employer hiring people to write code actually care about the
degree. Even in academic environments I've been offered programming jobs
(obviously not teaching jobs).

Now, you should definitely __get __a CS degree or similar if you want to be a
programmer. I would have done a lot better having one even though I got by
without it. Also, my career path was ridiculous and is entirely non-
replicable.

~~~
wvenable
As a hiring manager, I fully agree. All our job postings say "CS degree
required". But if you have experience and a good resume it absolutely doesn't
matter.

It matter a lot more for juniors who lack any sort of experience. I think it
make good sense for young people to get a degree but it makes less sense for
seasoned professionals to go back and get one.

If you don't have a degree but have experience, don't let the degree
requirement stop you from applying.

~~~
samstokes
In case you're not aware, there is evidence [1] that this sort of "required
but not really" job posting deters a lot of people, and especially women, from
applying even if they would actually meet the (unstated) actual requirements.

Making it explicit that you will accept "experience and a good resume" in
place of a CS degree might increase the diversity of your applicant pool.

[1] [https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-
unless...](https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-
theyre-100-qualified)

~~~
wvenable
The whole point of my comment is to encourage people to who don't exactly meet
the requirements to apply.

I might attempt to make that more explicit next time but it's a slow process.

~~~
joshmanders
Why would I waste my time applying if it specifically states a CS degree is
required? If you don't REQUIRE it, state that. It's not encouraging at all.

Last time I was applying for work, I sent out 150 applications/resumes, every
single one I look at the list of requirements, if I don't meet one of them, I
don't apply because it's a waste of my time.

~~~
new_guy
Job 'requirements' are there to get rid of people like you.

If you're not confident in your fundamentals then you won't apply because you
can't tick all the boxes.

If you ARE confident in your fundamentals then you'll apply and probably get
the job and the posted 'requirements' won't even factor into it.

Knowing that is the difference between 150 applications, and just 1.

~~~
gizmo686
You don't want to select for people who are confident. You want to select for
people who are competent.

Unfourtuantly, these features are often inversly correlated.

------
jedberg
I've worked with a bunch of people who don't have degrees. At the more junior
level, you can tell the difference, because while they tend to be really smart
and can pick things up quickly, they have funny holes in their knowledge -- CS
theory that you'd only pick up from a CS textbook, stuff like Big O notation
or A* search (ok maybe that one is a bit more common now, but in the early 00s
you didn't really learn that without a textbook).

By the senior levels you can't really tell the difference between someone with
or without a CS degree. Experience definitely beats textbook knowledge after a
couple of years.

~~~
benbristow
I did Big O Notation in college and I still can't remember which notation is
faster/slower.

After college/university you begin to forget a lot of the specific textbook
stuff and begin to replace it with the put-food-on-your-table practical stuff.

~~~
jedberg
Absolutely. But Big O still comes up in practical stuff depending on what
you're doing. You can usually get by without it, but sometimes when you need
to process a few 100 terabytes of log files, having a basic grasp on Big O
comes in handy for reducing your processing time from days to hours by picking
the right algorithm.

~~~
taqwerty
In practice I've always found avoiding premature optimization and then
profiling better than worrying about Big O.

~~~
learc83
You save an awful lot of time when you know have an idea of what's going to be
slow up front.

I've spent so much time trying to chase down bugs caused by junior programmers
because something that worked fine with 100 rows in db, slows to a crawl when
we move a feature out of beta and we suddenly have 1000 rows.

If they had some idea that the query they were writing was O(n^3) they could
have done a quick estimate and saved us all the trouble.

------
Etheryte
Not entirely on-topic, but the cover image on your homepage is scary — it
looks like the exact type of workplace I wouldn't want anyone to end up,
degree or not. Noisy open office where people are like cattle, essentially the
same as cubicle era, except no cubicles.

~~~
swayvil
It looks like a sweatshop.

~~~
19ylram49
Bingo. Environments like that seem to be the new “wave” now. I can’t stand
them! Maybe it’s just me but I don’t understand how anyone can get any work
done in those settings.

------
WhitneyLand
I have a degree in computer science and still think degree screening is
bullshit.

Ironically, it probably hurts companies more than candidates.

If you really look into it there are some good ideas out there on how to do
better.

One big problem seems to be that alternate approaches break down when scaling
up. For example they can't be easily automated, or cant be easily handed to
human recruiters with little tech understanding than are culling tons of
candidates each day.

Screening based on college reminds me of screening based on an "IQ test", it
may have some correlation to good candidates so people think it's good.
However the correlation is weak and highly inefficient. Hard to imagine the
productivity and opportunities lost compared to a high-correlation more fair
process.

------
dboreham
Hmm. Wouldn't this be just a regular job board where an applicant ignores any
requirements in the postings that applicants have a degree?

For me, hiring, the criterion is more like "could get a degree". Whether or
not you actually have the degree doesn't matter to me. Someone who isn't smart
enough/motivated enough to get a degree, if they wanted to and had the
time/money, well I'd probably not hire that person. Perhaps this is what folks
are really getting at when they say you need a degree?

------
Pete-Codes
Hey, author here. You might remember me from posts such as "No CS Degree –
Interviews with self-taught developers".

I've made a job board for people without CS degrees. Since I am going to be
applying for jobs soon and I am career-changer I figured I would make a
solution for myself. It's really annoying to get to the end of a great looking
job ad only to find they insist on a CS degree.

All of the job positions are fine with applicants being either self-taught
with a good portfolio or having done a coding bootcamp. Let me know what you
think!

~~~
machbio
little feedback - there is lot of whitespace between the email subscriber form
and the actual listing of the jobs.. you might want to move the listing to the
top over the email subscriber form.

~~~
Pete-Codes
Ok, thanks for the tip!

------
honkycat
How do you know someone doesn't have a CS degree? They'll tell you.

You're right: Nobody cares you don't have a degree. It's not impressive, it is
just normal. What I have a problem with is the huge chip on people's shoulders
about "not having a degree" and insisting on dissing anyone who chose to go a
different route.

I have a CS degree, I went to school on a scholarship, did not have these
massive loans and "wasted years" everyone keeps harping on about. I
volunteered my time, I was on the programming team, I did internships, I got
amazing insights and advice from my professors. I went to school at night and
worked during the day.

I consider my CS degree the best decision I ever made. I found the training
and education I received extremely valuable. However, not all degrees are
created equal. I went to a really great school. Probably would have had a
different experience if I went to whatever crappy state school was nearby.

I also don't think it is necessary to have a degree to be a great programmer.
What I DO think is necessary is study and honing your craft. Experience for
software development is worth much less than people give it credit for.

Hacking sucks. Just hacking at stuff for years on end leads to you being an
expert beginner. Do you have 10 years of experience? Or have you done the same
thing for 10 years. This applies to everything: You can get twice as far in
half the time if you don't have to figure everything out for yourself, and
listen to and learn from experts.

What I look for in a developer: READS BOOKS. ( Audio books count )

That's the only thing. I'm sorry, if you are not reading and studying to keep
up, you are getting left behind. There are so many brilliant people writing
amazing books on a huge array of subjects. If I could get every one of my
developers to read ONE book in on software design[0] a year, I would die happy
and the entire industry would be 10 years ahead.

They don't even have to be technical books. I just want to see intellectual
curiosity and a commitment to self improvement.

\- 0: In the vein of Clean Architecture, The Pragmatic Programmer, The
Mythical Man Month, Designing Data-Intensive Applications, The Google SRE
book, etc.

~~~
mywittyname
> Probably would have had a different experience if I went to whatever crappy
> state school was nearby.

I went to a bottom-ranked state school and loved it.

~~~
ticmasta
I've have degrees from 3 different universities; the one I enjoyed the most
was at a school that evolved from a community college over the past 30 years:
small classes, profs who care about teaching, administrators trying to build
something new & exciting and diverse students with no preconceived notion of
their own self-importance. It wasn't all gravy but overall I loved it.

~~~
wildrhythms
I also did the community college route (before transferring credits to a four-
year school) and I learned so, SO much in those two years. The community
college had some cutting edge classes (at the time) like a web development
course that taught PHP, MySQL, and Javascript, but also language-focused
courses like Java and C# that focused on teaching OOP. The community college
did not teach traditional CS concepts like Big-O, sort algorithms, etc. it
wasn't until the four-year school that I learned those. It cost all of $2,500
to attend the community college those two years (with the added bonus of
skipping two years worth of general education requirements at the more
expensive four-year school school).

Money well spent.

I actually considered taking my newfound web development knowledge (this was
in the mid-late 2000s coming out of the Web 2.0 craze) and starting my own
website business, but the advisor at the community college recommended I go
ahead and get the four-year degree, which I absolutely realize was a good
decision.

------
archeantus
I dropped out of college about seven years ago, about 24 credit hours shy of
getting my IS degree. The classes left were a mix of business classes I don't
care for (Accounting) and generals I don't care for (Biology 100? PASS). I
haven't had any problems finding great jobs as a software engineer throughout
my career, including working at Apple in Cupertino straight out of college.

Recently, a guy in my neighborhood who works at the school I went to tried to
talk me into going back and finishing up. He talked to the dean and said they
could waive four of the eight classes I had left to do! So now I only have
four classes left, all doable online, most of them easy generals like arts and
letters...

That sounds pretty tempting and everything, but part of me has also enjoyed
achieving success outside of the path that our society more or less mandates
as a requirement. I almost want to skip the degree to continue showing that it
isn't the paper that matters, but the line of work that you pursue and the
effort you put into it.

Am I crazy? Should I just go get the silly degree?

~~~
sunir
The degree is an accredited qualification that checks boxes. It may not have
short term career value for you, but my degrees have helped me in some
situations.

I used it to get my TN1 work permit. If you ever find yourself emigrating,
even temporarily or even on a client project, that degree will get you across
most borders to work. If you don't have a degree, it is much harder.

I used it on my IRAP grant application. If you ever want a grant from the
government for a startup research project, and it requires a qualified
individual, the degree is proof you're qualified.

etc.

------
lostgame
My lack of degree has never been relevant in my 12-year-long coding career, I
have never had issues getting jobs I want and often seen them choose me over
someone with a degree.

Side projects, my obvious passion for coding, and eventually, of course, my
experience got me where I’m at, making a triple-digit salary as a senior iOS
developer at a major bank here in Canada.

I’m so very glad I avoided the horrors of student loans that half the people
my age I know are going through.

I was able to see ‘higher education’ as the debt trap it was like I can see
the sky is blue on a clear day.

At the age of 18, it was: 1) make $50k a year doing something I’ve been doing
for ten years every day, know how to do well and love, or 2) go $50k in debt
every year for four years paying to struggle through the school system - I
hardly passed high school, the way school works just does not click with me or
many others.

If you are a coder without a degree, even if it says a degree is required -
just apply. This is how I got to work as an iPhone developer at LEGO, Winners,
Universal Music, et cetera, until the list of these names became so notable
they’d essentially be dumb to not at least look my resume over.

The other most solid piece of advice I can give - just keep doing side
projects. If you’re going for your first job, an impressive side project is
actually a way better way to get their attention than the dozens of people who
will apply with degrees. It’s different, it will always be different, because
you made it your way.

A degree isn’t anything unique, and is not actually any serious indication of
actual programming talent. A degree in CS basically gives your potential
employer the promise that you at least understand the fundamentals of computer
science enough to slog it through school. Whoop-de-do. You meet the basic
requirements and can even be considered.

Coded a custom instant messenger client while you were in your teens? Played
around with ROM hacking, assembly language? Created a Mario fan game? Show
them this.

You, your passion and your side projects are. I know this from the utmost
experience - because those examples I just gave, I did all of, from the ages
of 9-16, which got me doing web sites for real estate agents at 16, which got
me working in software at Chase banks at 18. I’ve never looked back and
watched my salary and experience grow year by year. :)

~~~
mav3rick
A lot of self taught programmers have gaps in knowledge especially when it
comes to synchronization, how threading works, basic data structure and
operation complexity on them. Whenever it's required they say "it's not
required for web development". Of course I don't say this for all but many of
them have this problem. Bootcamps don't help.

~~~
lostgame
To counter - I have met all too many folks some with a CS degree that don’t
understand these concepts, either.

I hear about them every day because I sit next to the HR manager, and hear the
horror stories of the blank faces when basic concepts were asked. The phrase
‘how did they even make it through a CS program?’ is common.

Fortunately, I have a ton of experience with threading and data structures, I
wouldn’t personally make such generalizations - I knew this would be among the
first responses I got from someone with a degree.

No, our lack of degree doesn’t imply we lack fundamental concepts - any more
than a degree assures you do - and, I don’t know about you, but most of the
full-time employers I’ve had would happily pay for a coding boot camp for me
on a topic of my choice. _shrugs_

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _I hear about them every day because I sit next to the HR manager, and hear
> the horror stories of the blank faces when basic concepts were asked. The
> phrase ‘how did they even make it through a CS program?’ is common._

That's true but entirely beside the point. Being given the opportunity to
learn CS concepts and failing to do so is separate from never having been
exposed to the concepts in the first place. They don't even know what they
don't know.

> _No, our lack of degree doesn’t imply we lack fundamental concepts_

It doesn't guarantee that they lack fundamental concepts but I would say
better than 95% of the time, they do.

------
19ylram49
Many a time, I’ve hired software engineers without degrees over software
engineers with Ivy League or top-10 school CS degrees, and I haven’t regretted
it even once.

Nowadays, I don’t even put education “requirements” in job descriptions, and
even if you mention your school during an interview, I don’t really care for
it, to be quite honest. At the end of the day, our real technical/programming
interview (no whiteboard nonsense) will tell me the things that I need to know
about your technical abilities.

I remember interviewing one candidate with a CS degree from RIT, and I
honestly spent a good portion of the interview genuinely feeling like this
poor individual just flushed the tuition $ down the toilet, because he was
just failing the interview miserably! Funny thing is, he knew a lot of theory,
but when it came time to produce, it didn’t work out too well for him. (He
could use whatever set-up that he preferred, Google usage was obviously
allowed, he was given space to work without disruption at various points, and
most importantly, the problem was a legitimate problem that we had to solve at
the company.)

All of this to say: Just apply! If you have the skills and a company doesn’t
give you a chance because of a stupid degree requirement, they aren’t a good
fit for you and don’t deserve you! Cross them off of your list, move on, and
apply to another company.

------
rezz
Is this actually a problem still? I haven’t hopped around as much as most SWEs
I suppose, but I’ve never faced an issue not having a degree in any of my
previous hiring processes.

I work at a large bank and we don’t screen candidates for degrees.

~~~
danielvinson
I’m a college dropout and have about 8 years of experience as a developer.
I’ve been interviewing a lot lately at mostly startups (7 onsites in the last
month). Every single place except for one asked me about college or why I
dropped out. One place asked me incredibly difficult whiteboard problems which
appeared to be to filter out people without CS degrees (very specific
algorithms to implement which I’ve never heard of before). One place had me
reverse a linked list on a whiteboard, and was rude and standoffish when I
commented that I’d never thought about doing that before so I didn’t have the
algorithm memorized.

The job I accepted is the one job that didn’t even mention my lack of a degree
and gave me practical coding problems.

~~~
SonOfKyuss
> One place had me reverse a linked list on a whiteboard, and was rude and
> standoffish when I commented that I’d never thought about doing that before
> so I didn’t have the algorithm memorized.

A good interviewer prefers it if the candidate does not have the algorithm
memorized. The whole point is to gauge their problem solving skills. Reciting
something from a textbook doesn't tell the interviewer much. The reason you
didn't get a favorable reaction in that situation could be because not knowing
the algorithm was perfectly acceptable in that situation. It's expected that
you figure it out instead of challenging the validity of the question.

~~~
danielvinson
In this case, it played out as a wrote it - I offered some solutions to the
problem and thought about different ways to solve it, then implemented the one
I thought was best on the whiteboard. About halfway through he asked me why I
wasn't implementing the best version, so I thought some more about it and
couldn't come up with an in-place solution (which is very hard to find in an
interview setting), so I continued down the same line when he wouldn't give me
any help. After the interview his feedback to the manager (which I received
because this was through a referral) was that he expected me to have this
algorithm memorized and he gave me a "Strong No Hire" because I couldn't give
the best solution.

Its worth noting that I received offers from over 50% of companies I
interviewed at and I certainly am not bad at coding - this was just a
particularly bad interviewer using a very bad problem. With this company, I
actually told them I wouldn't accept an offer even if they did give me one
because the interview was so bad.

~~~
nostrebored
You had a hint that there was an in place solution and a set of pointers. I
mean the only real question here is how many spots you need to look ahead...

I understand that whiteboard can be frustrating and hard, but it sounds like
your interview was the exact kind of interview people try to make

~~~
LocalPCGuy
The point is that interviewers should not be looking for a "specific" answer.
They should be looking for how well a candidate matches the expectations of
the position. Asking for specific algorithm implementations is objectively bad
interview practice.

~~~
nostrebored
So, it sounds like the candidate was interviewing for a senior engineering
position and was given a problem to reverse a linked list in place. This is an
entirely reasonable constraint and something that you would expect someone in
a senior position to be able to do.

Space constraints do come up frequently and being able to reason about them is
important.

~~~
LocalPCGuy
I still maintain that asking for specific answers is a bad interview practice.
It's a sign of a poor interviewer, not necessarily a bad candidate. It could
be both in this case, but I'm talking about it at a more meta/higher level.
IMO, it is objectively BAD interview practice being described here.

------
BWStearns
Pete, just a heads up your copy in the about says $50 for a post and the
button says $99. I don't have particularly good input on which price point
makes more sense but you probably want it consistent to avoid confusion.

That said, slick looking site. Best of luck.

~~~
Pete-Codes
Thanks! Oh, I thought that had been changed. Thanks for catching that!

------
Phillips126
I may have to try this job board out sometime.

I hold a 4 year degree in Graphic Design and sort of fell into programming. I
was working at a small print company as the only graphic designer and was
being "groomed" to take over the management position. I was asked often to
provide quotes, make orders, take calls from customers, etc. We didn't have a
good system in place for quoting or keeping track of our workflow so I started
building a dashboard with PHP. In the end I really loved the work I was doing,
it felt good knowing I was providing a ton of value. When they asked me to
take the management position I told them that I was going to work for another
company as a web developer (they loved the dashboard there as well). I worked
in that position for 2 years making similar dashboards/internal applications
when the company decided it was time to start a Software Department and hired
another developer to work beside me.

I've now been with the company for 5 years but things are starting to get a
bit rocky with the lack of meaningful work to do. I'm dreading the
interviewing process as I feel inadequate not having a formal CS degree -
despite several years of experience in software development. We've made cool
things (surgical training simulators, dashboards for manufacturing, custom BLE
Mesh network, mobile applications to name a few) but I feel they may just be
overlooked by the recruiters.

~~~
souprock
I didn't know that degree existed until I found a coworker with it. He
switched careers because being a color-blind graphics designer was difficult.
He had to constantly use a color picker to read out the RGB values.

We got him doing assembly code. He was lots better at that.

------
tylerl
Very few "real" tech companies require degrees now, certainly none of the
sensible ones do. Looking at the front page of job listings on this board, you
see Dropbox, Google, Uber, Oracle, Amazon, Visa, Atlassian, and Bank of
America all with serious tech jobs (some of them quite senior) with no
education requirement.

But what you _will_ need is the knowledge that you would have otherwise gotten
with a CS degree. If you don't know a priority queue from a linked list, or
you can't name an example of an O(nlog(n)) algorithm, then you're going to
struggle in way more than just the interview; this crap comes up in real life
more often than might be obvious.

Luckily there are more than enough free places to learn this stuff. It's far
less structured than a college, and requires an absurd amount of discipline to
do on your own time, but nothing is missing. Beyond the ad-hoc content,
several top-tier universities put their CS courseware online for free, and you
can totally get the same CS education that others pay $200K for. You don't get
the paper that says you did it, but you don't really _need_ it.

Getting through the resume barrier is a bit more tricky, but here's a tech
recruiting open secret: Stack Overflow. It's _gold_ for recruiters, and
extremely heavily used. They find people who consistently post strong answers
on topics relevant to the company they're recruiting for and directly recruit
them to interview. Skip the job listings. If you have a strong S.O. profile
and provide enough information for recruiters to track down who you are,
you'll get no end of attention.

That and GitHub. Write some code that demonstrates good design and put it up.
When I was doing talent vetting for small firms, a person's Github page was a
far more valuable signal than their "qualifications".

------
dyeje
Was super confused by the name (was reading it as Noc Sok) until I clicked
through to the about page which formats it as "No CS OK".

~~~
Pete-Codes
Fair enough - I might roll it into my other website No CS Degree in future.

~~~
adventured
Keep the name. Definitely keep the name. Six letter dotcom, easy to rhyme and
easy to remember. Easy to brand, easy to put on things to distribute &
promote.

At first glance the name seems a bit odd. That is quickly overwhelmed by the
benefit of being easy to remember and being very short. It doesn't get much
easier than noc sok (knock sock as someone else noted) when trying to remember
the site later. Plus, this is a site for developers (for now anyway), they
will appreciate the benefits of knock sock as a memory device, far outweighing
the no-cs-ok vs noc-sok issue. And there's no bad connotation with noc sok
(the classic ExpertSexchange issue).

------
algodaily
I love this, though I'd be curious to know how often developers without
degrees will actually get hired (versus those with degrees).

Some really quick feedback: I think multi-tag search is a must. As an example,
I typed "nyc js" and got nothing, despite there very much being plenty of jobs
in NYC with JS requirements.

~~~
Hermitian909
Experience of the dozens of devs I know with no degree is that if you can
manage to get 3 years of experience under your belt you're golden.

That's not to say there aren't doors that are closed to you, but by and large
the industry just doesn't care.

The better you are, the truer this becomes. I know a highschool dropout I'd
consider at least a 95th percentile developer, he turns down offers for work
on a regular basis.

------
redleggedfrog
This is a tough one for me. I _wish_ I had a CS degree, because, well, I just
want one.

But I don't have one - I studied for a different BA degree, found computers,
neglected classes, and then proceeded on to 27 years of programming. I'm
nearly 100% self taught.

And here's the weird part. At the handful of companies I've worked at there
has most certainly been mild disdain for those _with_ degrees. Nothing overt,
but it was understood that if you didn't have the passion to teach yourself,
and went to school to learn your programming, you were somehow inferior. We
did have lots of people with degrees who turned out great, but they were
always considered the exceptions, not the rule. I found this fascinating.
Nearly all the senior developers, even lead developers, had no degree.

------
firefoxd
This is good, myself being a no CS degree who worked as a lead in a high
performance company, I appreciate if more of those can surface.

But I made a comment on another job board show hn that's relevant here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20973309](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20973309)

> What's the relationship with the employers? I find the main issue with job
> website that are posted here is that there is usually zero relationship.
> Meaning it's mostly information copied from the career page of companies.
> That's why most these job boards disappear after a couple years.

> I suggest if you gather enough interest here today, use it to get actual
> connections with employers, even if it's a handful.

~~~
Pete-Codes
hey, yeah that's a fair comment! So I've actually gotten to know some senior
devs and CTOs from interviewing them for my other blog -
[https://www.nocsdegree.com](https://www.nocsdegree.com) \- so for things like
pricing I have input from them. I'll definitely prioritise talking to
companies and building relationships. I've also been in contact with some
bootcamps.

------
natch
Many jobs are CS degree or equivalent experience but people misread them as CS
degree only. The domain name is somewhat misleading and perpetuates a
misconception. People without CS degrees sometimes have plenty of CS skills
and knowledge.

(Off topic: This is a case of “naming is hard but not for the reasons you
think.” Naming is hard in part because being picky about names has a social
cost. My being picky about the name here, perfect example. How do you (other
HN readers) feel about me being picky? I suspect many of you would think I’m
kind of annoying for making a big deal of it. Just saying this is a big part
of why good naming is hard.)

~~~
non-entity
The problem is what is considered equivalent. I've seen jobs that claim the
equivalence as a decade of industry experience.

------
fillskills
In my 18 years of career, the best of the best engineers I have worked with
did not have a degree. They learnt engineering as a passion. It just boggles
my mind that there is still a requirement for a degree despite that.

------
ericmcer
I have done some interviews for front-end positions and it is interesting
watching non-degree candidates crumble on certain really easy questions. Even
something simple, like a while loop can trip up some of the newer devs who try
to figure out which of the canned JS array library functions I am asking for.

Not that you often need a while loop, it's just interesting that modern web
development has shifted to be so functional that you could be a professional
programmer who does not fully grasp a while loop.

~~~
quickthrower2
I am not sure how this is correlated with not having a degree. In my degree
they didn't teach me while loops specifically. I taught myself them before the
degree because I programmed as a hobby. I'm sure bootcamps would teach
`while`.

I also don't see what this has to do with FP. I bet there are few people who
understand map/reduce functions and don't get for/while loops, unless they are
literally just memorizing tutorials without understanding them.

~~~
ericmcer
map/reduce deals specifically with an array whereas a while doesn’t? Most
people get traversing an array with a for/while loop vs traversing with map,
but using a while loop in a more algorithmic question trips people up.

Let’s say my terminating case is that a number no longer has a remainder when
divided by X, that confuses people, different from terminating at the end of
the array.

------
harel
Is a degree absolute requirement an actual "thing"? I don't have a degree,
never went to uni. I didn't even finish high school properly. But I've been in
very good work coding for over 20 years now. Almost every position or contract
I took had some sort of a degree "clause" in it, but not once was it ever
asked, raised or inquired about anywhere. Ever.

------
motohagiography
Not sure for how much longer this will be true, but if someone can survive in
the market without a degree, something about them must be exceptional. Not
having a degree is a ridiculously expensive counter signal that is costly
enough to be honest in many cases, so as a fast filter, it's often worth
interviewing them.

I get that a business that needs autodidact polymaths to run it is by
definition going to have trouble scaling, will probably fail because nobody
else could understand it, and that it is probably not a very good business,
but this describes the vast majority of businesses, which fail in their first
few years anyway. The outcome of blowing your capital on mediocre staff vs.
unproven mavericks is the same.

However, expecting unconventional outcomes while only risking conventional
failure seems a bit self fulfilling.

------
jlevers
I agree with the many people who've said (in essence) that for 90%+ of
programming jobs -- i.e., writing CRUD apps or the like -- a CS degree is
unnecessary.

But how about that last 10% of jobs? Does the degree open doors to cutting-
edge, exciting opportunities that aren't available without it?

I'm in the process of deciding whether or not to drop out right now. I know
that I have what it takes to self-study and get to a similar level of
knowledge as a CS grad, but I'm wondering if not having a degree will preclude
me from the less common, more exciting jobs that I'm most interested in.

------
29athrowaway
Consider these sets of skills:

a) skills acquired through a CS program

b) skills acquired on the job

c) skills acquired in a programming bootcamp

d) skills acquired studying on your own (MOOC, books, videos, documentation,
etc.)

To build the first iterations of a product, you may need only c) and d).

Once that product gets traction, things get exponentially more difficult and
problems can get very abstract. That's when a) and b) makes a difference.

Most software engineers can create a simple Twitter clone, but only a small
tiny fraction can make it work at Twitter scale.

------
xenospn
I never graduated high school and have been in the software industry for about
20 years. No one has ever asked about my education or where I went to school.

------
selfipaprazzi
Another interesting job board would be for people who are trying to switch
fields. For example, how do you transition into web-dev with 5 years of
experience in embedded (or vice-versa)? I find it funny that in the era of
standard tests for interviews (i.e. Leetcode style), employers still ask for
relevant experience in their tech stack, too. Somehow the industry helped them
have their cake and eat it too.

------
eganist
I hope you pronounce it "knock-sock" because that would be brilliant. Leave
the "No CS OK" reference for people to think about.

------
crimsonalucard
I hate these affirmative action initiatives. I get you want to help a
minority, but you do so by implementing discriminatory practices.

------
amdavidson
I understand the desire for a site like this from a job seeker's perspective
(no CS degree here either), but what is the incentive for the employer?

Are these no-CS job hunters not on every other site? As a job poster just put
"No degree required" and your inbox should be flooded.

I don't see "no degree" as a skill that needs to be sought by paying $99 to
post a job.

~~~
Jaygles
I can imagine a company reasoning that someone who doesn't have a traditional
CS education may approach problems from a unique perspective as they wouldn't
have the standard logical flowchart in their heads you might expect from a CS
graduate.

I remember taking a geology class as a substitute for an ecology class I
couldn't get in to before I moved states for my environmental studies degree
where the professor would often comment that my descriptions of certain
geological principals were interesting to read through because I couldn't just
regurgitate the info my classmates had from taking pre-requisite classes I
didn't have to take.

------
swayvil
In other words, jobs for devs who are willing to work cheap.

None of my dev jobs ever required a degree. None of them advertised the fact.

------
mcqueenjordan
I dropped out of college. I self-studied CS and I've now worked at both AWS
and Google.

A degree is just a piece of paper. The only thing that actually matters is
what you know and what you're able to do.

Getting through the door the first time is the hardest part. Keep trying. Once
you have any experience, you can keep building on it.

------
eternalny1
Who needs a CS degree? I don't have one and I've been a software engineer for
decades.

Nobody has ever asked or cared.

~~~
rootusrootus
If you are going through the front door, it will matter. Your resume has to
make it through some filters before the hiring manager sees it, and they might
have their own filters.

If you only get jobs by referral, it doesn't matter.

------
adamredwoods
It's interesting to see job boards becoming so diversified. Are there ones for
women in dev, PoC in dev, and LGBQT in dev? What about disabled people? What
about over-middle aged people? (...there probably are, I didn't search)

------
SenHeng
A lot of countries will not give you a work visa unless you have a degree.

------
jmlon
Nice. Just wondering how are employers going to filter candidates qualified
for their postings... Isn't this just transferring all the responsibility to
verify qualifications on the employer?

------
winrid
I was so lucky that my high school was able to send me to a three year
vocational CS class.

Don't have a real degree. But once I was shown what a function was my passion
for this stuff just took off.

------
codesushi42
How many of the job listings are above entry level positions?

~~~
Pete-Codes
I just checked - there are 7 out of 50 marked that have Senior in the title or
description. Only 6 are marked as junior (I should have added more junior
positions for the launch tbh)

So that leaves about 37 mid-tier positions that aren't entry level.

------
0xdead
Makes sense; You don't really need a degree to be a web-dev anyway. On the
other hand, people with CS degree rarely become a web-dev.

~~~
non-entity
> people with CS degree rarely become a web-dev

Source? I think there definitely needs to be a better categorization between
simple CRUD development, and jobs that require more in-depth knowledge of CS,
but plugging "software developer" or "software engineer" on any job board
seems to yield vastly more "web development" jobs than anything else.

------
bernierocks
A degree only matters if you have zero experience, which could be supplemented
by personal projects or open source contributions.

------
codeisawesome
Immigration is the biggest reason for citizens of non-wealthy/previously-
colonised countries to get a degree.

------
cromulent
When you have 100+ applicants for a job, you have to apply a filter. Requiring
a degree is an easy one to apply that your boss will support. Whether you get
the best candidate or limit your hiring pool is immaterial.

A guy I met years ago at a very large company had another filter - he used to
split the pile of resumes in two, and throw half in the bin. He then said "I
want the guy I hire to be lucky".

~~~
commandlinefan
> Requiring a degree is an easy one to apply

It’s also a safe one in terms of low rate of false positives and low rate of
false negatives. There are a few, of course (if there weren’t any, there’d be
no need to meet the candidates), but ability to complete a four-year-degree
correlates highly with ability to complete software projects.

~~~
RussianCow
> ability to complete a four-year-degree correlates highly with ability to
> complete software projects

[citation needed]

------
Pete-Codes
Just had first two sales now :)

------
jahlove
great url

------
kissgyorgy
This shouldn't be a thing. It really doesn't matter nowadays. You can send
your resume and nobody will care.

~~~
Pete-Codes
It shouldn't be but while adding jobs to the site there were tons that require
a CS degree. And I know people with 13 years of experience that have been
turned down for jobs due to no degree.

~~~
kissgyorgy
I personally don't want to work for a company who turns down somebody because
of not having a degree. If they are not smart enough with their hiring
process, it's a good sign that will be other, bigger problems too.

~~~
ticmasta
This is the attitude of someone with a good job or lots of opportunities and
seems pretty common on HN. Many (most?) people do not have the luxury of high-
minded ideals like this.

Plus, you _do_ realize you're categorically ruling out a company by projecting
one trait onto their entire culture, for the crime of using an arbitrary
signaling factor?

~~~
kissgyorgy
> you do realize you're categorically ruling out a company by projecting one
> trait onto their entire culture

I usually don't do that, but I can't tolerate this kind of rigidness with old
habits.

------
mnm1
This only matters for one's first job, if that. Afterwards it's irrelevant.
Regardless of what the job description says, it's never mattered in my
experience working at well over a dozen companies in the last twelve years or
so.

~~~
mixmastamyk
At a lot of places, yes. However, try getting even a "no thank you" form
letter in response to a job post at a desirable company without a degree.
First step in the hiring funnel: no 4-year degree --> /dev/nul.

I live nearby Netflix, Space X, Hulu, JPL, etc with twenty years experience in
what they do and have never even spoken to a single person at any of them
despite applying for years. I'm good at what I do, now I ignore their job
postings.

~~~
mnm1
I have had no issues getting interviews with Microsoft (and a position),
Google, Netflix, FB (turned down), etc. No CS degree. I doubt it's because of
my philosophy degree. Marketing is very important however.

~~~
non-entity
Hmm, I've always been told getting FAANG interviews as an experienced
developer (regardless of a degree) is near to impossible as an experienced dev
unless your work history is already FAANG or unicorns

------
fiatjaf
$99 to post a job? I want a developer, but I won't pay that price ever unless
I need dozens of developers and I'm posting on a big site with big audience.

~~~
jsty
That's peanuts compared to the 15-30% of salary a recruiter will charge

~~~
codingdave
You are only charged that if a recruiter delivers. $99 for a posting on a
brand new job board, for which we have no idea if it will ever gain traction,
is expensive. Not because the price is wrong, but because we have no idea if
this board will be there next month, or next week.

If they had metrics proving out the number of devs who look at the board, and
the number hired through the board, that would be a reasonable price. But as
far as I know, this board could have been set up last night, with jobs scraped
from other sites. I can't spend $99 on every job board that exists. I need to
choose the right boards.

------
fiatjaf
If you're going to hire a developer for their first job, don't think twice.
Developers without degrees are better than developers with degress in 100% of
the cases.

If they don't have a degree that means they've learned something without being
forced to, they love the subject and are genuinely interested.

~~~
SonOfKyuss
In my first-hand experience doing hiring, for every coding savant who doesn't
need a CS degree, there are 10 others who just want a shortcut to SWE $$$ but
don't have what it takes (motivation, skills, whatever) to get a degree. For
better or for worse, when you're working your way through a stack of 100
resumes, having a degree is an easy filter.

~~~
sodafountan
I've probably looked at hundreds of resumes and I can't recall ever seeing
someone list their education credentials at the top, it's always their work
experience first unless they don't have much professional experience and I've
rarely been a position to hire junior developers. Unless you're going through
some Nazi-era HR department then I probably won't even make it to the last
page of your resume before deciding whether you're worth interviewing or
passing on.

And by the way, if you're part of the 9 in 10 developers who don't have a
degree and aren't cut out for development then your resume won't even make it
to my desk, that's what the recruiters filter out.

All of that being said I'm not sure who you worked for but sorting through 100
resumes seems like a colossal waste of time. Lifehack: Just tell the
recruitment firm "Give Me Your Top 5" and that's that.

~~~
SonOfKyuss
> All of that being said I'm not sure who you worked for but sorting through
> 100 resumes seems like a colossal waste of time. Lifehack: Just tell the
> recruitment firm "Give Me Your Top 5" and that's that.

You're right. The filtering is/was done by recruiting, but I had some insight
into their general content. And yes, education is almost never at the top for
senior positions. At that point it is mostly irrelevant.

My comment was a response to OPs statement that 100% of non-degreed candidates
are better than those with degrees because they are more motivated. This is
certainly not the case for entry level positions which is what I was referring
to.

