
Ask HN: Shortest route to $60K+ salary without college - NPMaxwell
I&#x27;m developing a project to support U.S. 25+ year olds in getting college educations.  The first step is increasing their wages quickly to make their lives easier and free up time for study.  My first guess is that the fastest route I can provide is Java through the Oracle&#x27;s Java Programmer II certification and creating an original Android app for Google Play store.  What would you suggest for a fast and reliable training program?  (Apologies for fanning the rush-hurry-impatience fire, but I&#x27;m dealing with a need.)
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gt2
> My first guess is that the fastest route I can provide is Java through the
> Oracle's Java Programmer II certification and creating an original Android
> app for Google Play store.

Very unreasonable. You're expecting someone will be capable of making an app,
making it usable (different skill than the programming part), and then you
will be lucky enough to hit upon something people use a lot and are willing to
pay for (also 2 different things).

I would say you can get to 60k a year a lot faster waiting tables or bar
tending in many locals than a new person getting into development, let along
trying to strike it rich on an app store. Many people claim the app store gold
rush is over, with most people downloading only apps from major companies
which don't even charge for theirs. I'm inclined to agree, outside of
professional tooling apps, some games, although those are mostly in-app
purchase and ad based (additional skills needed to gamify an app, and
extremely high active user counts to pull 60k from simple ad inclusions).

~~~
NPMaxwell
Thanks. I wasn't clear. I'm not expecting the app to sell at all. It's just
for demonstration during interviews -- something that shows that the coder can
take a project from idea to completion. AND YES! Making a finished app usable
is different from the programming. That's why I thought it would be a
compelling credential. AND I appreciate the feedback about unreasonable. Last
thing I want to do is mislead people.

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ilikeatari
Lineman training -> 15 weeks -> over 60k in most geographies with potential
well over 100k

Huge shortage of talent.

~~~
NPMaxwell
Thanks! I'll check it out. You mean working for the local PUD. Maybe there are
even programs that hire and train?

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bdcravens
I don't understand the Android app bit. If you're trying to free up time for
studying, that implies passive income to me. If you think an Android app will
generate $60k/year, you should probably recheck your assumptions.

~~~
NPMaxwell
Thanks. I wasn't clear. The app is supposed to serve as a credential for
interviewing: "Look what I can do." Perhaps working on an open-source project
would serve that purpose better, but that seems to me to involve less
flexibility -- more coordinating with existing projects. That might just be my
own background and inexperience in open source.

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SamReidHughes
What subset of 25+ year olds do you want to get college educations? Anybody
that can pick up Java and be productive with it doesn't need a college
education, and anybody that can't is only going to play a pantomime of being
educated.

See the recent Reddit thread for an answer to your question:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9a830g/what_are_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/9a830g/what_are_some_jobs_that_pay_60k_a_year_without_a/)

~~~
NPMaxwell
Sort of. I agree that they do not need a college education to get a job, but
they do need cultural anthropology to understand the society they are working
in. Close reading to be able to deconstruct microaggressions. History and
political theory to make sense of the current risks of fascism and to be
sensible while considering democratic socialism. Psychology to inoculate
themselves from depression and to help them raise happy and secure children.
Etc. All of this college education can be obtained on your own. There are
probably as few as 10 media sources that, combined, would get you there on
your own.

And going to college is not the same as getting a college education. Half of
Americans who have been awarded bachelor's degrees cannot figure out their
change after buying two items, even with a pen and paper and unlimited time.
Those folks have only an incomplete college education.

So I pretty much agree with you. Thanks!

AND YES! That is exactly the Reddit conversation I needed!

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seekingcharlie
Do they actually have any interest in programming? Development can be
incredibly stressful and frustrating and without any personal passion or
interest for it, I doubt someone could really stick to it for the long-term.

There are many jobs in tech that would have an easier learning curve IMHO
(customer support, success, QA, growth hacking, even UI/UX design).

~~~
NPMaxwell
Good point

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potta_coffee
That took me ~3 years:

Year 1: Learn basic Python and Javascript.

Year 2: Get some freelance jobs building basic websites in my local area.

Year 3: Laid off from normal job, apply for hundreds of web development jobs
and grind through interviews, using the interview process to sharpen my coding
skills. Keep doing side projects to sharpen skills and add things to resume.

Year 4: Be a senior developer at a small company, make ~80k

~~~
NPMaxwell
Thanks! Where you work now, are there any coders who were hired for Java
without any ability in any other language?

~~~
potta_coffee
I work at a small company, I don't really want to dox myself.

My advice (worth what you pay for it) is to focus on problem solving skills
rather than language-specific skills. Enterprise companies might be concerned
about Java skills, but in my experience smaller companies are much more
concerned with your ability to solve real business problems with code,
regardless of technology.

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BaronVonSteuben
Are you trying to "increase their wage" through generation of income or
through salary?

~~~
NPMaxwell
Through getting a job. As other folks here have pointed out, entry-level Java
work may be way too taxing for what I'm hoping to do. Thanks for checking.

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hluska
Others have pointed out that you're highly unlikely to make $60k a year off of
an Android app. When I first read your question, I was going to write the same
thing. But, now I read it again and I wonder if you mean:

1.) Get them certified in Java.

2.) Get them to build an app and put it in the store as a portfolio piece.

3.) Get them to apply for entry level full-time Java jobs.

If that's the case, I think it could work. My only concern though is that
being an entry level developer is freakishly hard. I wonder how much mental
capacity they'll have left to study if they've just spent a day debugging
something crazy.

~~~
NPMaxwell
Yes. You got my question. Got your point. Thanks for that perspective. Yes. My
hope is that they'll come away from work feeling NOT wiped out -- up for an
hour of studying.

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kgc
Realtor - approximately 4 weeks training in my state.

~~~
NPMaxwell
I was considering that. A long time ago, I met a guy who went from high school
to real estate, earned enough to cover his expenses for the next decade, and
then enrolled in college. Thanks!

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Recurecur
"Shortest route to $60K+ salary without college"

Become a welder...

I'm sure there are a lot of other trades that'll achieve similar results.

~~~
NPMaxwell
Do you know off-hand how the timing goes on that? My impression is that the
training would be several months. 1 month? This is not the world I know, so
I'm ignorant. Do you need to apply and be admitted to a union? Thanks very
much!

~~~
toomuchtodo
I learned how to weld well enough for a job in ~3 months of community college
night courses (Welding 101, 102, 110) three nights per week. They even offered
job placement if I was interested in having a job after completing those
courses. Books for my courses cost ~$200 total. Total cost (books and classes)
was under $1000.

Trades are fantastic. You can't offshore them, you can't easily outsource
them, everyone currently doing them will retire soon, and you'll usually have
union protecting compensation, benefits, and working conditions. Can't
recommend them enough.

~~~
NPMaxwell
Cool! What state are you in? I think these things may vary from state to
state. Thanks very much!

~~~
toomuchtodo
This was in Illinois.

~~~
NPMaxwell
Got it. Thanks

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romanovcode
From my experience if one is in the programming just for the money - one will
never make a lot of money as a programmer, only hatred and despair awaits
because one will hate the profession.

You are doing a disservice to those 25+ year olds most likely by wasting their
time.

If, however those people are interested in programming - learning front-end is
the quickest way to get good salary because it does not require any CS
knowledge. Doing something like Java/.NET will take some time to learn
properly.

I've personally seen a guy in his 30ties who had interest in front-end
development become mid-level Angular/React developer in a matter of 3 years.
Obviously he has decent salary as you'd expect from mid-level developer.

~~~
gt2
I'm not going to get into whether frontend development needs as much CS
knowledge as backend (on the whole, because some backend is actually quite
simple and requires 0 CS knowledge).

What I will say is that even if frontend takes 0 CS knowledge , which is a
more common sentiment than that about backend, you are severely
underestimating the other skills required, which some people are not cut out
for, just as some are not cut out for hard core CS.

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zunzun
What is the second step?

~~~
NPMaxwell
Thanks for asking. This is VERY MUCH still in development. I don't have step 1
figured out. Tentatively, step 3 would be increasing skills with Javascript.
Current thoughts abuot step 2 is a course organized around the topic of
working in America. Topics include: Code switching; Conflict resolution &
negotiations without drama; Work estimation & reliability; Employment law;
Morale

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DrNuke
sales is so underrated and despised but nevertheless...

~~~
NPMaxwell
Entry level sales positions that I have bumped into have paid only slightly
over minimum wage. And I appreciate the suggestion. I'll check locally.
Thanks!

~~~
arandr0x
The workflow goes as such: you get an entry level sales position of the retail
or cold calling variety. You become the best person on the floor. There you
go, now you can sell anything, get hired at a high commission position selling
software, ad space, furniture, things with high price tags.

Sales jobs are as taxing as entry-level Java jobs and not much more likely to
leave someone capable of going to school in their off hours (especially since
they tend to require some travel or entertainment on your own time). However,
presumably you also wish to help extroverts, who are unlikely to want to spend
hours writing "public static" in front of random character strings every
single day.

~~~
NPMaxwell
About extroverts: good question. I'll have to think about it. Thanks

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camreynoldson
Lambda School

~~~
NPMaxwell
Yes, or Ada. Ada currently takes something like less than 10% of their
applicants. I don't know about Lambda. What I'm trying to get together is in
that area

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akulbe
Easy. The trades.

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wasd884
> My first guess is that the fastest route I can provide is Java through the
> Oracle's Java Programmer II certification and creating an original Android
> app for Google Play store.

Oh great, flooding the already low quality programming industry with even more
"in it for a quick buck and I don't really care about quality" programmers?

~~~
croo
Oracle's Java SE certification exams are actually quite hard.

~~~
bdcravens
Passing an exam means you're a good exam taker, not a good programmer.

~~~
croo
Nah, this exam actually means you have an abnormal understanding of Java and a
good understanding of how OOP works. It also means you can read and understand
code fast. It does not mean you are a good team player or have experience in
building things. To say that the code in the exams are not clean code is an
understatement though. The questions usually grab all clean code practices by
the neck and murder it violently then asks questions about the output. So
there's that.

