Disclaimers: I’m not the king of the world, these are my own opinions and experiences…take from it what you will, disregard what does not fit for you, but don’t think I am forcing myself upon you…do what you want with your life.
It’s been 437 days since I joined fcc…here is what I wish I knew on Day 1.
Doing this for two main reasons. One is to clarify for myself what I have learned and to take a hard look in the mirror at my own progress, and the second is to potentially help those also on this crazy path and to point out some of the traps, roadblocks and disasters so that another fellow human can get a bit of a heads up.
Background info: I am in the bay area, I do have friends who work at most of the big companies here. I have traveled extensively across the US.
In 2012, lot’s of ppl were into a resurgance of tech and tech related stuff…why? The recession of 2008 was still happening and the JOBS act and other programs were trying to get people employed. The first few group of guys that went to the original DevBootCamp are the same exact guys that did appAcademy, Hackreactor, etc, etc…within two years there were 30-50 buttcamps all over the US.
Lots of folks from all sorts of professions were swept up in a fantasy that a 100k+ job at a super fun company like googley would be theirs for the taking if they could only sit down and do some hard work and go to a code camp. Time to study again! Time to dust off those old html skills. Time to work in tech and have a ton of fun like everyone else. Right?
Reality check 1: The top jobs at places like googleX, spaceX, tesla, etc…etc…still only take top level PhD folks only…my friend at one of these places showed me a pile of resumes for these types of jobs, 75% of which had Phd’s from calTech, berkeley, Stanford, MIT, etc…if you are not part of these types of folks, their families and their networks, then you are not getting one of these fantasy jobs…you are also not going to be able to start a company that will one day be like these companies either.
Reality check 2:
The next level of jobs, at let’s say the top 50 companies for regular software engineering, are within your reach…if…you can do algorithms on a whiteboard, in a short time frame, with a clear understanding of the problem, solution, edge cases, the time and space complexity of each, best practices, etc…do all that, along with fitting into the ‘culture’ of the company, and you might get a job, in a hot market like the bay area, Seattle, LA or NYC. Not Portlandia, not Austin, etc.
Reality check about where you live:
Oh you can code anywhere? Can you be an actor anywhere or is it pretty much LA? Can you be in banking and finance anywhere or is it basically in NY? Tech is in the Bay area…the bay area was built for tech, just like hollywood and banking for LA and NY…don’t be fooled into thinking otherwise. Watch some documentaries about silicon valley, it’s history from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s until today…it is the place it is for a very good reason…you have to be here for a very good reason. If you are not in a top 5 city you are going to have a harder time, lower pay, less opportunities, less respect.
Reality check on front-end jobs, internships, startups, wordpress, seo, tech support, IT:
Lots of old gruff IT doods in here…but they can’t code…and IT is going to the cloud…so they sit in chat rooms and collect brownie points instead of doing the challenges…these folks are not going anywhere. But they will give you their unsolicited advice and wish to be respected. Fine, who cares.
Front end only, PSD slicers, working at a startup for free, doing endless internships for free, trying to sell wordpress sites to your local businesses…doing tech support, doing SEO telemarketing…these are not programming jobs…take them if you will, or must, but understand that they are almost always and in all cases a total waste of time, and will lead to most likely, nowhere.
Reality check about being too old, too young, etc:
When you are young, they tell you old people are in charge, when you get old, they tell you the young are running the show…it’s all BS…if you have the skills, age really does not matter…but again, if and only if you have the skills. If you don’t, then you will lose out to a pretty young thing of either gender instead of your old crusty self.
Reality check for those who already are working full time, have lots of kids or responsibilities, take care of others, or have a lot going on in their lives already:
Unless you really, really, really loveeeee programming…you won’t be able to do it. Spend that hour with your children instead of going through yet another beginner tutorial you found online. Be honest with yourself.
Ask yourself a question…of 150k ppl that signed up for fcc why have only a few hundred been able to find employment?
Ask yourself another question…do you have what it takes to be in that small group of folks?
Finish freecodecamp…lots of folks seem to stop at intermediate and advanced algo’s…that is where you should be gaining momentum and cranking!..
Don’t complain about freecodecamp…unless you send them a check or buy 1,000 tshirts don’t bite the hand that feeds you and provides you with a ‘fun’ place to get started.
Reality check about the chat rooms: they are a compliment to your learning and the forum…if you jump in and get abused well that is your experience…maybe toughen up a bit. In life there are always folks walking around waiting to get offended by anything and everything. Don’t let it affect you…I mean really? Some rando clown from who knows where hurt your feelings online? Be the bigger person.
I have been in chat for a long time…lots of weirdos come in, bully everyone, then leave…don’t let yourself be bullyed…if someone violates TOS, toss them out. Right now there are a bunch of goofy ppl in there that were not there 4 months ago…almost no one that was there 437 days ago is still there…
So what is the conclusion?
I wish that 437 days ago, someone would have told me the following:
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Make sure you really have a ridiculous love of software engineering, and want to do it forever.
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After you learn how to program, spend almost all your time doing the algorithm style problems that are given by all the big companies: discuss.leetcode.com, Gayle’s famous book, etc.
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Don’t give a crap about what anyone who is not actually doing it says…so if you are a senior dev at facebook and you tell me something about react, I listen…but if you are nobody from nowhere, forgive me for taking what you say with a grain of salt.
Don’t stress life…at the end of the day, 15/hr min wage will be a reality soon in most states and if you are making 15/hr doing wordpress seo well hey you are already at the bottom. Work slowly and with intention and you will one day be able to pull yourself up and out.
Disclaimers: I’m not the king of the world, these are my own opinions and experiences…take from it what you will, disregard what does not fit for you, but don’t think I am forcing myself upon you…do what you want with your life.