
Ask HN: Would you hire me? - FajitaNachos
I'm asking this on behalf of all those who don't come from a programming background.  I often hear you don't need a CS degree to land a job as a developer. This isn't about me specifically, but anyone in a similar situation.<p>My background and a couple relevant links:<p>-28 years old with a Finance Degree from a non-Ivy league school<p>-Spent the last two years living overseas teaching English and learning to code<p>-Fairly well versed in html, css, javascript, and PHP<p>-Just getting started with Ruby<p>blog: http://fajitanachos.com<p>github: https://github.com/fajitanachos<p>stackoverflow: http://stackoverflow.com/users/1180335/fajitanachos<p>Would you hire me (or anyone with similar credentials) for a junior dev position?<p>Also, I wanted to make this a poll but my karma isn't high enough. A simple yes/no would be appreciated.
======
Udo
You say that you're fairly versed in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, a little bit
of Ruby - so you might have other domain knowledge (a lot of us do), but you
certainly seem to have a _programming background_ as well. Maybe you didn't
notice ;)

I don't see why a company looking for the skills you have would _not_ hire
you.

When I was running my startup, most people didn't have CS degrees. Most of
them did have, however, an extensive programming background in that they had
been hacking since early adolescence. All in all, I would still hire like that
today if I had to make those choices again: choose people who like to code and
still do that a lot in their spare time.

~~~
FajitaNachos
Thanks for the encouragement. I'm learning a little more every day.

------
didgeoridoo
You write well, you're interested in a broad range of things, and you've
learned quickly. You'd be an awesome hire for the right company (i.e. one that
can invest in developing your technical skills for a year or two before you
start getting majorly productive).

A note of caution to take or leave: don't apply through recruiters or HR. Your
résumé is too thin, and they won't bother to envision your potential. Meet
people (and develop real relationships), take side gigs, and get dug into your
local tech community. Good luck!

~~~
fecak
Recruiter here, and I wouldn't paint recruiters with that broad a brush. Sure
the resume is thin, but candidates that have certain indicators (such as
Andrew here demonstrates) generally come with substantial upside for clients.
I'd absolutely talk to him if he were looking for work in areas where my
clients hire.

------
mvkel
Honestly, I don't care about your qualifications. That's just checking off the
"requirements" list.

What I'd care about is: do you have a passion for what our company is doing?
Do you think you could make solid contributions? Prove it. Tell me a story.

I was in a recent roundtable and we all agreed that if someone sent us an
email that truly demonstrated a passion for the company, we'd _make_ a
position for them, even if we weren't hiring for it. Passion is worth way more
than "I need a job. Here are my qualifications."

~~~
mattquiros
Can I just say that this is really great feedback? I'm not in a hiring
position but I just came from jobhunting. I realized I wouldn't just apply to
any startup just to work at a startup--it really matters when you believe in
the product. That way, you can treat it as your own and come up with ideas how
to make it better, and think of your job less as a drag.

------
johnward
I'm in this same position: -Fairly well versed in html, css, javascript, and
PHP -Just getting started with Ruby

I've been working in the industry for the last 8 years but only have an
associates degree from ITT (yes I know how that sounds). I'm in more of a
consultant role and don't do a ton of development daily. I've wanted to make
the change away from consulting back into development. I have taken several
interviews but so far not gotten an offer. I'm not an idiot but I know I'm not
at a senior engineer level.

My advice from these interviews: It seems like everyone (especially smaller
shops and startups) want to see what you do outside of your current job. For
example they expect you to be able to show contribution to open source
projects, etc. I suggest you start either contributing to OSS project or start
some of your own projects so that you actually show what you can do. I know I
can do these jobs, but I don't have the proof . Everything I do internal to my
company is proprietary and contract states it cannot be shared. We are
actually forbidden from contributing to OSS without approval for each project.

In the situation I'm in I don't have time after working for 8-10 hours and
driving 4 hours to sit down and contribute to OSS projects. I'm married and
have a house to take care of. I have other responsibilities. It seems like
most of these places are looking for recent college grads who have a little
bit more time on their hands.

~~~
onedev
You should probably just never mention ITT. It has negative connotations among
most people so it could work against you rather than in your favor.

~~~
ricardobeat
this ITT? <http://www.itt-tech.edu/>

~~~
onedev
Yep that one.

------
adambrod
You're definitely on the right track. Honestly if I was still hiring I would
contact you.... passion and 'get up and go' go a long way.

I'm a newbie and also don't have a CS degree. I just recently exited my
startup and just started job hunting for a front end engineering position.

Tips from my limited experience:

    
    
      * Make a great *casual* LinkedIn profile that states how you're passionate about web development and how you value creating maintainable scalable code (assuming you do of course). Having it stick out helps get past the recruiters.
    
      * Study some softball questions about php/ruby that you'll bound to run into, but don't spend too much time on it.
    
      * Google engineer interviewing questions... as stupid as some of them are it might help to at least get a feel for them.
    
      * Build lots of apps... even if they are never public. One of my weaknesses was not being able to quickly build X,Y,Z in the 2nd interviews.
    
      * Just write a *short* email to the CEO/CTO and/or head engineers where you want to work, you'd be surprised how many get back to you and at least give you a chance to prove yourself.

------
kellros
I would definitely take it under consideration. What financial degree do you
possess? I'd imagine with your previous education that you would be well
suited in the financial industry (whether it be stock trading, banking or even
healthcare).

The only bit of advice I would suggest is that you consider the technology
stacks used by such (or other large) companies. I'd definitely look at
acquiring experience with a VM framework (ex. .NET or Java) as you can benefit
from that knowledge using multiple programming languages and many companies
prefer such experience.

Alternatively you should also consider doing some certifications - especially
for junior roles. The next best thing to employed experience is
freelance/consultation experience. I personally prefer if candidates do have
experience freelancing as it indicates a certain level of competence in
multiple areas (project management, planning, delivery, communication etc.).
If you are good enough as to bill for your time, then so should any company
planning on hiring you :)

~~~
FajitaNachos
I have a B.S.B.A in Finance. I was actually a stockbroker for a couple years
after I graduated, but eventually decided I wanted to pursue other career
paths. If I had a choice, I would probably lean towards smaller companies
rather than larger ones. I will look into doing some freelancing though.
Thanks for the input.

~~~
bonesinger
As the above poster said, you should totally try picking up something like
.NET, many financial companies use .NET, Java, or C++ for their trading
systems.

------
up_and_up
Sure. I would hire myself ;)

I was in the same boat in 2006. Non-CS degree and was learning html/css and
PHP.

Now I do mostly Ruby, JS and system admin at startups.

Be humble, work hard and try to learn as much as possible.

Without a CS degree, I know its easy to feel like an impostor sometimes but
carry on, dont give up!

The absolute best devs I have ever worked with were non-CS dropouts. Learned a
ton from those guys.

You will do fine!

------
brbcoding
This is a good post. I had similar credentials coming out of school last year
(but I did graduate with a CIS degree). I have a strong (maybe stronger than
CS) background in finance, but I love programming. I was hired in less than a
month as a PHP Dev (I have ~ 3 years PHP experience), making a decent living.
Most of my interviewers seemed to be looking for a strong grasp of the
fundamentals (particular languages didn't really matter as much as
understanding OOP concepts and SDLC stuff), as well as a desire to learn and
get better. I completed a lot of programming logic tests - mainly a bunch of
pseudocode - during my interviews, which I assume tell a lot more about the
quality (or potential) of a programmer than writing an actual program.

I can't be sure that any of this is true... It's just what I took away from a
recent, similar situation.

~~~
FajitaNachos
Awesome. Congrats on the job. It's nice to hear from someone who was in a
similar situation (fairly) recently.

------
FennNaten
I'm not in position to hire someone so I won't hire you but, as already said
by the others, I'm pretty sure you can be hired for a developer job. CS degree
is not necessary. I don't have one, I'm a former biologist self-taught in
programming, now in a software engineer position. Several of my coworkers are
in similar situations. My lead architect is a self-taught too, and he's damn
good. What you need is to be able to show problem-solving skills,
understanding of programming concepts, ability to write some pragmatic working
code in one language, ability to quickly search and find relevant solutions
when required, ability to learn and understand fast. With this skillset, not
only you don't need a degree, but you can even be hired more easily than
somebody who owns one.

~~~
FajitaNachos
That's good to hear and really motivating. Thanks.

------
fxtentacle
It heavily depends on the company.

You seem like a good candidate for front-end and web development. You should
drop that "junior dev" stuff, that sounds as if you know that you are
unskilled. Better show off some previous projects and simply state that you
are looking for a regular job. How about start-ups? Contract work? You might
want to clarify if you'd like that kind of job.

As for my company, no I wouldn't hire you, because everyone else here has 15+
years of experience with C++ and we only take the most challenging real-time
projects. The only people we'd hire without extensive experience are very
young developers who are willing to go through a sort of apprenticeship.

Still, "software is eating the world" they say, so your chances of finding a
job should be great :)

------
iztmzt
Thanks for posting this. Where did you teach?

I have a somewhat similar background myself, so its nice to see you get a warm
reception. Maybe in 6 more months of rigorous self study I will hopefully be
"hirable" as well.

As it stands today,here is my background:

-28, non ivy-league Bachelors of Marketing

-Two years teaching English in Japan and learning Japanese

-Epiphany upon returning that since I have a knack for spoken languages(Chinese, Japanese), I might like programming languages.

-3 months of self-directed learning, and familiarity with HTML, CSS, Javascript, Python, HTTP, Linux

I still have a ways to go however. Once I feel competent I would like to move
past tutorials and find a really cool open source project to work on, or start
something of my own.

Thanks for the inspiration!

~~~
FajitaNachos
We're in the Kansai area, were you with the JET program by chance? Not that
I'm in a position to give advice, but there's no need to wait to find a
project to work on or to start your own. I found the best way to learn was
actually building stuff. Hell, I spent the better part of last year building a
web app that I later abandoned. It was still a great learning experience for
me, and I learned a lot more than I would have just reading tutorials.

~~~
iztmzt
Thanks for the advice Nachos. I know I need to just start applying my
knowledge.

No, I wasnt with JET. I applied, but I think my Chinese second major made them
wonder why I was suddenly interested in Japanese.... I ended up doing ECC for
one year in Nagoya, and one year with Interac as an elementary school ALT in
Yokohama. Great, great experiences. Wouldnt trade them for anything!

------
aniketpant
I am very much like you except all the experience you have had in the real
world.

I just completed my third year of studying Mechanical Engineering at BITS
Pilani, India. In my last three years in college, I have worked with some
small clients. I also got the opportunity to work with two organizations
during the summer of 2011 and 2012. Currently, I am learning Ruby and working
on small projects of my own. If you end up with a job in the tech sector soon,
do let me know how you got it. I am sure it will be a good experience for me
to learn from someone who went on a path that I am about to take.

------
dylanhassinger
Easy ways to get more attention:

\- blog once a week and put a "hire me!" box in your sidebar

\- start a youtube channel with a video for each of your blog posts

\- start a podcast where you interview startup founders or kickass developers

this is all stuff i should do too

------
_smaugh
Hey Andrew, sorry I can't help. having the same problem here, seems like CSS,
html, JavaScript, PHP, a nice website, and a github account, just don't make
the cut to earn a decent living. Every company asks for years and years of
professional experience.

If I find the solution I'll share it with you anyway. hope you do the same.
best of luck, keep working and leave you a nice motivational video
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ujMP41Rphzc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=ujMP41Rphzc)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
> Every company asks for years and years of professional experience.

Nope, every company _wants_ someone who can do the job. Getting past the HR
door is the tick box of years of professional experience.

Tell you what, start a company _today_ , walk round to twenty small businesses
in the business park nearest you and ask them "if you had a button on your
website and the customer could press it, what would that button do?"

Listen to what they say. One of them will be something you can code, and hey
presto, real customer, professional experience.

~~~
ameister14
This is really good, clever idea.

It fulfills the experience requirement with "hey, I started a business and it
generated revenue"

And beyond that it gives you working code examples.

------
richo
For a junior position, yeah I'd get you in for an interview on the back of
this.

Anyone who would make a hiring decision without talking to you is insane (And
you don't want to work for crazy people).

~~~
FajitaNachos
I agree, but "Would you interview me" just didn't have as nice of a ring to
it. That being said, I know the interview is what will make or break things.

------
lsemel
I think you have a good background for a junior developer job, and I think
you'd be a good hire for the right kind of company, most likely a smaller one
that's interested in helping develop your skills. If you're not getting good
feedback, you're probably applying for the wrong types of companies, or
through the wrong venues, such as a recruiter or HR. You might get further by
networking, blogging, and continuing to release projects on Github.

~~~
johnward
If you are at the skill level of a Junior Dev are you really going to be
releasing useful projects on GitHub?

------
Beltiras
Yes. I would hire you to do CSS and HTML work. Not able to because of
budgeting. I like your approach to pagination.

I urge you to take a look at Python and the plethora of frameworks available
for it. PHP is a templating language that got handed a bigger task to do than
it was designed for.

My experience is that as soon as companies have HR, hiring is more often based
on education. I would much rather hire someone with a decent portfolio.

------
anishkothari
I'm in a very similar position as you. 28yo, BA Economics and spent some time
abroad. I finished a Master's in IT and did an apprenticeship at a software
firm but I've been looking for a month and nothing has worked out yet. I think
it's just a matter of time finding the right set of people to work with. You
could try some courses at Coursera to build up your programming fundamentals.
Good luck!

------
fecak
This post and the reaction to it inspired me to write a response
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5706562> "Indicators of Talent (and
Heuristics) For Software Engineers". I give a lot of thought to talent, image,
and how we judge them quickly, and this post and the comments seem to validate
some of my impressions.

------
dutchbrit
Yes. Even though I'm in no position to hire, your works looks decent. You show
interest in developing yourself when it comes to new languages. And 'judging'
from your photo, you look like a kind well hearted person (some people might
ask me how on earth I could say such a thing - I don't know, it's just a gut
feeling).

You also seem to have the motivation which is very important.

~~~
FajitaNachos
Thanks for the kind words. I wasn't really posting to try and land a job
(though it'd be nice). I just wanted to get some feedback that I'm headed down
the right path.

------
samble
I hired someone a lot like you recently, but with an English degree. He
started coding when he was a teenager and bounced around since then, but kept
up with tech during that time.

It's hard to find eager, motivated, competent devs at a decent price, so I bet
you'll do well.

------
filip01
OT:

Your hotfix project actually seems interesting. I tried it out but it couldn't
find any of my repos since they're tied to an organization I own (via my
personal github account) and not directly to my personal account. Am I doing
anything wrong?

~~~
FajitaNachos
That's something I've been meaning to look into, but I got sidetracked moving
my blog over to Jekyll/GitHub pages. I've only dealt with repositories that
are directly owned by the user. I don't belong to any organizations so it's
hard for me to test it. Looking at the API though, I definitely think it
should be possible.

~~~
filip01
Would be great if you solved it. I think you can just create a made up
organisation to test. Think it's pretty common to not only work on individual
private repos. If you would like to email me when/if you're done it would be
appreciated!

~~~
FajitaNachos
I took a crack at this tonight and I think I have it working. I also realized
how much I have learned recently when I saw some of the stuff I wrote a few
months ago.

I've updated it in the the chrome web store. I'll also send you an email.

------
masto
Sorry, this turned out not to be a simple yes/no. I thought I would explain,
as a hiring manager, what goes through my head:

> 28 years old with a Finance Degree from a non-Ivy league school

Don't care.

> Spent the last two years living overseas teaching English

Ok, no background in programming for a living, but this is a junior role, so
keep reading...

> and learning to code

Ah, so is this learning to code because the economy sucks and I heard coding
is lucrative, or learning to code because I discovered programming and
realized it's what I was born to do..

> Fairly well versed in html, css, javascript, and PHP

This, and the word "junior" are the part that jumps out and all I really care
about. I put very little value in resumes, they are dead documents and I'm
trying to hire living people. If I'm hiring a coder, I need to see them in
person, and I need to see them code. The resume is only useful so I can pick
out a few things to set the initial direction of the conversation. If you came
in for an interview, we'd grill you on the stuff you claim to know well. I
don't expect you to be an expert in building large scale client-side
applications, but if that's the job, I need to make sure you have the
fundamentals down, and that you "think like a software engineer". Look at it
from my point of view: I'm taking a chance on someone who might grow with the
opportunity and contribute value to the business, or might bring the whole
team down with sloppiness, laziness, or just mediocrity and a sense of
indifference. So I'm trying to answer some questions:

* Do you care about the craft of software engineering, beyond just slapping stuff together?

* What is your approach to code quality? Maintainability? Testability? Documentation?

* Are you a fast learner? Can you hit the ground running with someone else's code base?

* Are you self-motivated? Can you finish a project and ship it? Can I trust you to work without being micromanaged?

* Do you know how and when to ask for help or more information?

* Can you work well as part of a team?

* Am I going to get more out of you than I put in? (Eventually)

Of course, I don't ask these questions directly, I'm looking for evidence, a
little bit from your work history, but much more from the way you handle
problem solving in the ridiculously inefficient, artificial, and constrained
environment of a job interview. This is why it's so hard to hire the right
people, and so hard for the right people to get hired. The best you can hope
for is that everyone involved knows how the system sucks and has some
techniques for dealing with it.

~~~
FajitaNachos
It's really valuable for me to know what you are looking for, as a hiring
manager. It's also reassuring to know that I meet most of those requirements.
I just have to make sure I can show that to the right people. Thanks for the
awesome feedback.

------
shrikant
You sound a lot like me!

I posted something similar a year or so back and didn't get too many responses
(probably posted it at the wrong time), so I'll take the replies here to apply
to me as well :)

------
Maro
Personal qualities matter a lot more than what you say here, so I can't tell.
IF you'd be hired, it'd be a junior position.

------
davidw
Sure, you have what it takes to find a programming job.

I have no degree and have been programming professionally since 1997.

------
jzf
the money spot for you would be to a finance programmer. C++ FTW. If you can
code up a black sholes ( i know its antiquated, but its good practice) or any
kind of financial model, you will get hired. Maybe you don't want to work in
finance. Front office developer are rockstars though

~~~
samfisher83
Uh good luck even getting an interview at those places without a 3.8+ gpa from
an Ivy league school. They also tend to test you pretty hard during the
interview so if you get nervous you are screwed.

------
known
Unlike in Capitalism, Globalization demands you to be an "Highly Skilled Wage
Slave" to get/retain a job

------
mvp
Definitely. In fact, in most places I have worked there were hardly any CS
graduates.

------
rufugee
I might (and I have open seats). Where are you located? Are you willing to
relocate?

~~~
FajitaNachos
Right now I'm in Japan. We'll be moving back to the U.S. this fall. I wasn't
posting this looking for an interview, but I would obviously love to chat with
anyone who wants to. My email is in my profile or on my blog.

------
michaelochurch
Yes, you're a strong candidate. No, I wouldn't hire you for a _junior_ dev
position. You're 28. You'd hate it. Trust me.

I'd quite possibly hire you for a _mid-level_ developer position, perhaps with
a little bit more pairing than for people with a more traditional trajectory.
I wouldn't hire you unless I was confident that you'd be fully mid-level
within 12 months. That said, the fact that you're active in open-source and
have learned a lot on your own makes you a very strong candidate for that.

The above is, by the way, what you'll be facing. Based on what I've gleaned
from your work, you're a strong candidate for mid-level front-end positions.
No one is going to hire you for a truly junior position because of your age;
but you're a strong candidate for mid-level work.

What else? First of all, I'm biased against business undergraduate programs. I
don't hold it against the students (that's a decision made at 19-20, and
you're a lot older than that) but I dislike the idea of undergraduate business
majors. That said, you probably have stronger quantitative skills than most
college graduates, and combining that with your front-end chops, I think
you've overcome any bias there.

Also, you don't need a CS major to get a decent programming job. "Ivy League"
(or the lack thereof) doesn't matter after 25.

You want to market yourself as a well-traveled "jack of all trades". You've
taught. That's an extremely valuable experience. Most developers suck at
teaching others, which is why they generate undocumented, poorly-structured
code. You've learned a lot of skills on your own. That's a major plus. You
write better than most engineers. Include that in your pitch. You've worked in
the open source world. That's a bonus, too. You're probably overqualified (and
too old, sorry) for truly junior/subordinate developer positions but you're a
very strong candidate for the mid-level stuff that requires some leadership,
aesthetic sense, and creativity.

You don't have the "rubber stamp" of a CS degree, but you have a lot of
validations that matter more, in my opinion, so long as you can actually code
(and it appears that you can). Learning a new skill at 28 is more indicative
than having picked the right courses at 20, at least as far as I see it.

~~~
ayers
Very interesting that you link his age with the position. If he was 28 and
just graduated with a CS degree would that still apply? Or are you saying that
because of his other experiences you would not hire him as a truly junior
(taking his age out of the equation)?

Out of interest, on the salary side of things would you start him off at a
junior rate and then increase to mid-level when you think he has reached the
mid-level criteria?

~~~
onlyup
Interested in this too

------
EvilLook
I'd hire you. I'd hire you so hard. (You know, if we were hiring...sorry.)

On a more serious note to get past my company's HR filter (which I can
override, but the higher ups like it when I don't have to) how many years
HTML/CSS/JS/PHP?

~~~
FajitaNachos
lol. It's fine. To answer your question, only 2 years experience with the
above, but it feels like a lot longer.

~~~
EvilLook
It always does...now, do you deploy your own LAMP stack or do you let someone
else handle that? Being able to set up your own environment/stack without
someone doing it for you is a plus (even if company policy is that someone
SHOULD do it for you) that you should be listing!

~~~
FajitaNachos
I've set up my own local dev environment on a couple machines. If you're
talking about a dedicated server, I haven't ventured there yet. In due time,
though, I will.

~~~
Jgrubb
Go here - <https://www.digitalocean.com/> \- and pony up the $5.

Then go here - <https://library.linode.com/> \- and start getting familiar.

~~~
FajitaNachos
Had no idea. Will definitely look into this for my next project. Hell, $5 is
cheaper than I'm currently paying for a crappy shared hosting account...

~~~
EvilLook
If for some reason that is even too much take a look at the top providers on
the Low End Talk Wiki here: <http://www.lowendtalk.com/wiki/top-providers>

Then keep an eye on Low End Box here: <http://www.lowendbox.com>

When one of those providers runs a deal then get it. If you don't want to have
to shop deals then DigitalOcean is a good idea. I have trust issues with
Linode so I can't recommend them anymore, and frankly, some of their guides
are terrible.

You should be reading the documentation of the software as provided by the
vendor of the software along with the docs of your distribution before you
attempt any guide because quite often the guides will have you do something
that won't work, is suboptimal, or just plain wrong. nginx has an entire
section of their wiki dedicated to bad configurations from guides on the
Internet and what you should be doing instead:
<http://wiki.nginx.org/Pitfalls>

Understanding the full stack and being able to build it from scratch and tweak
it gives you a competitive advantage over people who cannot, and that makes
you look better to employers.

