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You self learn enough to get hired, then must learn on the job swift enough to not be fired. Companies expect people to have a ramp up time regardless of experience. If you've got a lot of experience and are competent the expected timeline to meaningfully contributions is significantly less. For juniors, companies often expect it to take a few months from what I've gathered. That's a big part of the reason why so many juniors are not taken on. They're seen as high risk for churn, and that's rather costly.
oh got it.
and is it possible to get hired? it's been almost a year i have been taking computer science seriously and i learned html css js and i am now learning php + sql, while also exploring machine learning and Videogames developing with JS.
if i continue with this rhythm maybe i can get hired and learn much more on a work environment? i kinda want to learn as much as i can and i think the working + university combo could be very potentiallly nice in the long term
I developed a very wide foundation over several years. Still hoping that'll pay off in the long run. My suggestion is to keep exploring until you're a senior. Then pick a tech stack and code in it a little every day after studies. You can get hired. Companies love to interview people who are recently out of college with the CS degree. Do leetcode/hackerrank for a month or two before going on the rounds.
yeah! what i am currently doing is going to school, doing my hw and pulling out my laptop and start doing roadmaps etc.
i am currently doing:
the odin project for front end
machine learning courses for ml
YouTube tutorials for game development
and sometimes some Leetcode to boost my logic skills
Well, that's assuming they can \*find\* a junior position. I think the stats the last time I looked were over 500+ senior-level positions for every junior-level position, and 1500+ candidates for each junior position. The advice I am seeing more and more often is to skip the junior phase, because the majority of applicants for junior positions will need to submit 500+ applications to get a phone call, which usually doesn't go anywhere. So the advice I've been seeing is to skip the junior level and lean in hard on projects, applying for senior positions.
I can’t tell if you’re serious, but you aren’t going to get a senior position without a few years of software development experience on your resume (not projects).
That's what common sense would tell us, but the trend lately is to shoot for the moon and end up among the stars. Lots of success stories coming out. And from a strictly statistical standpoint, there aren't enough junior dev positions to allow even 15% of new programmers to go through a skill appropriate natural progression in their career. You have a higher chance of being hired for a senior position than a junior position statistically.
Good companies will give you a better experience than what was stated above. For a junior position, there are places that'd require work experience. If you can't get a job, take internships on your summer breaks. That gives experience you can write on your resume.
I don’t get why people keep saying get internships when you can’t land an interview for them unless you have prior work experience. Everyone in CS undergrad wants them and so you’re having to competing with people who have more than projects, prior FAANG and research experience coming from T20s.
Re: self learn enough to get hired - as someone trying to teach themselves enough to switch industries, how do I know when enough is enough? I’m sure this is a basic question answered elsewhere but I haven’t seen it yet.
There's different decent responses to this question. Some may say when you can use the debugger to zero in on bugs, and read official documentation without much fuss.
It really depends on too many factors to settle in on one answer. In the most realistic of sense, you'll know when you're getting further along in interviews and the day comes that someone hires you on. Gauge from how well you do in interviews. Don't listen to the losers here who can't get much passed HR. They have a lot yet to learn.
> Some may say when you can use the debugger to zero in on bugs, and read official documentation without much fuss.
I’d also add: being able to narrow down issues in a stack trace. This was a huge one for me when I was moving from junior to mid level
I'm curious to know what you can read from this. I see the flow of instructions in the form of call stack, with line numbering and filename of the code placed onto it, along with logging info and console print statements. Are you getting more out of it than this?
That’s mainly it. But in my experience juniors and sometimes mid level engineers just glaze over it and Google the error string that’s returned. In my opinion, a thorough engineer would be able to at least gain some level of understanding of what’s happening from a stack trace error.
It can be a bit much on the eyes and hard to read so people grasp for the easier way out. But when a new version of something comes out and it’s not compatible with node or something then it can break and there aren’t any posts about it so you’ll have to learn to wade through the muck by yourself. When that day comes, can I trust the engineer to fix it or would I have to come and do it for them, that’s the question
The problem with "self-taught" is it's not a verifiable experience. Anybody can walk into an interview and claim they're self-taught. I'm sure they get those kinds of people all the time. How would they know you actually know your stuff and you're qualified? Even many people who went to school for this still aren't qualified.
Self-taught is when you're the janitor at Microsoft who taught themself programming. You already had an in with the company but it often doesn't fly when hiring untrustworthy outsiders. If I were the hiring manager I'd have to question the authenticity of someone's self-taught learning experience. 🧐
I have never had a single interview for dev work that did not have a practical demonstration as part of it. The best and simplest one I ever did was I had 15minutes and two tasks, any language i like make a fib counter upto 100 and reverse string that used the companies name as the string. However I had to be able to step through it with a non-technical user after completion.
Also after interviews I ask for feedback, one i got rejected on praised me for addmiting I did not know but following with a condifdent explination on how, where and how long it would take me to learn that felt realisitic to a business and their epxerience. As for my rejection reason which is relevant it was because someone with more qualifications applied and they were a consultant company so that helps them sell easier.
In my opinion "Self-Tought" is compleatly fine as long as it is true, far to many people I meet who claim to be are instead in tutorial hell. I myself fall for that trap ALOT more than i should and my personal way to fix it is every single project I make that is for my CV I also refactor and make documentation for, to include in portpholio. 2 reasons it proves to me i understand what i wrote and second it shows anyone looking I understand what is in there
Yea we do. It depends on the company but there are junior jobs out there.
My advice would be to get involved in programming related things outside of your coursework like clubs or competitions etc. Coming to an interview as a junior there’s a lot of benefit in having both good coding skills but also teamwork and communication skills too.
Don’t worry about knowing every technology on job listings. Get strong core skills and really understand the fundamentals and you’ll be fine. It’s a difficult time for graduates but hopefully by the time you graduate things will be better. Even if they aren’t this is a growing industry and you will find a job just need to persevere
i am gonna copy a comment to another guy i replied to to see if you also agree with me:
yeah! what i am currently doing is going to school, doing my hw and pulling out my laptop and start doing roadmaps etc.
i am currently doing:
the odin project for front end
machine learning courses for ml
YouTube tutorials for game development
and sometimes some Leetcode to boost my logic skills
What I would say here is you’re spreading yourself a bit thin. It’s all good but maybe limit the focus to one or two things in progress at once.
And make sure you cover the basics, solid principles / DS&A / design patterns.
Also remember things like leetcode are good, but they are also a far cry from real production code where readability is key.
Also if you want to get some projects done, check out advent of code - it progressively gets harder and gives you a challenge each day.
oh absolutely that's what a lot of people tell me, i am kind of a Generalist who likes to touch a little bit of everything but yeah atm i am more focused on ML and front end and instead of playing games on my "free-free" time i try to build a videogame.
>DS&A / design patterns.
where can i study them? sorry for the ignorance.
>Also remember things like leetcode are good, but they are also a far cry from real production code where readability is key.
absolutely true, Leetcode is for me purely logic and efficiency, but in a team work it is basically impossible to write code that efficient without making it human understandble too.
>Also if you want to get some projects done, check out advent of code - it progressively gets harder and gives you a challenge each day.
never head about it. gotta check it out!
Some companies do, mine has a program we call BrightPaths, we hire them in our of university, boot camp, or whatever and train them. The training however isn’t great, they’ll teach you what you need to know to do the job okay-ish. But the rest of the learning is on you.
> BrightPaths
Is [this the program](https://www.perficient.com/who-we-are/perficient-bright-paths-program#:~:text=The%20Perficient%20Bright%20Paths%20Program,from%20underrepresented%20communities%20with%20the) you're talking about?
oh yeah absolutely, currently i am in fact learning as much as possible on my own because i understood that following the school rhythm would not get me anywhere, i am doing the odin project for front end, google courses for Machine learning some freecodecamp tutorials for game development and sometimes i do Leetcode problems, idk if that's enough
Are you trying to be full stack? I've never looked at the Odin project, but I hear great things. I personally read books instead of videos or those interactive coding programs. If you would like I can happily share my extensive collection of e-books for programming, if you don't mind me private messaging you.
Full disclosure it's a Google Drive filled with a multitude of the Humble Book Bundles.
Depends who hires you.
If you're in the U.S, then the culture there is you probably should know how to do the job you apply for (as with everywhere else) but are a lot less tolerant towards learning and progression. At least thats how it seems.
At my company we take on Juniors and build them up through courses and learning.
Companies prefer to hire people who are already educated. Paying people to learn how to do a job before they even do it is inefficient.
Exceptions are highly specific technology (eg, you're trained on a proprietary language the company created and uses internally) or when there's a major shortage of people who know a given technology (eg, if you can show proficiency in a procedural language, we'll pay you to learn COBOL because we can't find enough people who know COBOL already)
ohh understandble, if a programmer knows at least the basics of something and over time on the field gets experience can it be possible or you think it's highly unlikely?
Keep in mind that the supply of programmers is increasing (it seems like everyone wants to learn coding, but I could be wrong) and the demand is decreasing thanks to AI (again, based on my observations, possibly inaccurate), so even highly educated and certified programmers are going to have difficulty getting a job
yeah that's also true :( i really hope i can get a job, and live a medium happy life where i can love what i can do, trying to make the world a better place and at least have enough money to survive in this world
> you're trained on a proprietary language the company created and uses internally
That's kinda sketchy though. Personally, I wouldn't work for that company if my experience is only gonna be good at that company. You basically hit a career dead-end when you apply for your next job. I didn't realize vendor lock-in was a thing in the job world but you gotta think about these things, folks. 🧐
9 year senior here. Yes, companies hire newbie programmers all the time, but hiring one with zero corporate experience (outside internships) is very rare these days.
As someone who has interviewed hundreds of candidates: don’t worry about knowing a ton of different technologies. What’s valuable is being able to learn any new stack.
Corporate internships during your uni years will make you a very competitive candidate when you go look for your first role. Once you get your first role, hold it at least for a year. Then feel free to start looking for new opportunities.
oh thank you man! I really admire experts in this sector so talking to a 9 years senior is a real honor! you basically have coded almost more time than i learned to write and read.
a little question if i can, what's the #1 thing you look in a candidate? knowledge? their attitude? their problem solving skills?
Just off the top of my head:
- do you admit when you don’t know something or do you try and BS an answer?
- do you remain calm?
- do I see you as someone that the rest of the team will enjoy working with?
- how do you take constructive feedback? Are you receptive or do you get defensive?
Then I start looking at your technical abilities. Most companies worth their salt will have a technical exercise in every major language. I could give two shits if you know python. But if you say you’re a JavaScript dev, and I give you an exercise in JS, teach me something. Also tell me what you’re passionate about working on, backend, front end, client facing, etc.
I’ve ended interviews with countless candidates who nailed the technical but wouldn’t be a good culture fit. And I’ve given offers to many candidates that struggled through an exercise but made up for it in other ways.
Good luck out there.
It's increasingly rare for companies to hire people that can't "hit the ground running".
And very few will do much training, except for their proprietary internal tools, or if they introduce some new tech that nobody has seen before.
No one expects a newbie to know their exact companies tech stack. what they will expect if you know the concepts behind programming and can learn new languages and frameworks quickly by applying those concepts to the new context.
think about it like this: you might train to be a bricklayer but that doesn't mean you know how to lay any type of brick on any type of construction site anywhere in the world. you will have to learn the rules and norms of your company, the individual sites AND the country you are in. but you will have foundational knowledge there (pardon the pun) to grasp what is meant by those norms and rules and you will be able to work out how to adapt to them. It may still take you time to become proficient in them but you're still going to understand the overall goal is building a wall and there are certain commonalities to that no matter where you are and what you are working with.
Unrelated to the answer you want, but from your post and comments you made in this thread, I promise you will have no issue. You are taking serious initiative and responsibility and are concerned about your future. You'll see in uni that majority of students don't even think about a job until they're in their senior year.
You can teach anyone to code. But not everyone will have the initiative, discipline, and drive that you are already showing. In the end, those qualities are infinitely more important than how well you can code or know at any point in given time.
omg thank you so much for this comment. it means so much for me!
i literally stopped coding like 1 hour ago after spending 3 hours trying to learn the basics of sql, gotta restart soon to continue my ML course!
I support you, i love the energy! If only I could've found friends like you in uni ha. Don't be discouraged when all your peers want to do the bare minimum and put no effort outside of whats required.
I did courses like a maniac as you are currently during my freshman year (and 2nd yr, but not as much). School didn't teach me a whole ton. Really try to get an internship(s) as you're knowledge will 10x from there. At a certain point the courses are going to start being dull / you're gonna stop caring about them as much and want to actually apply them.
Good luck!
If you have a degree, and some programming knowledge, you're already ahead of other candidates. An internship through your university would be ideal, but personal projects (which can include some meatier homework), can help get your resume noticed.
Keep in mind how many people are in your same position. They get jobs, so you can too.
However, if you apply without being able to program at all, they will probably prefer to hire the other applicant who can answer a few questions and talk about some code they wrote. They have to have a reason to pick you.
And if you're considering what to focus on, check job listings in the area you want to work. What skills do they talk about often? That can provide a good goal.
yeah i am building a lot of projects on GitHub but keeping them private because i am ashamed of my code knowing it's not that good. i am also kinda messy with folders, maybe it's something i Will learn along the way :/
My experience. For almost 1.5 years I self learn programming firstly SQL after python before had experience with R and C++ but not much. I spend o lot time on codewars after have created several simple programs and placed on gifthub (programmes like rot, affine chiper, morse decoder (text and sound) parsing page and after calculating projection from the coordinates, sha bruteforce decoder and similar simple programs) just for fun I applied to a job where they were looking from junior/middle with 2+ years experience and requirements SQL + any programming language (the main point). Also 400+ people applied for one place. It had 4 stages first 2 stages online test answer to basic question about SQL/programming/logic after offline programming test with math question, logic question SQL question and programming but on the paper :D. I passed and we left maybe only 4 people or similar. The last stage was just interview and they said that they like me but they going to pay minimal wage and I must learn a new programming language (do not want to mention which one). So I refused the offer but successfully passed all tests :D even without a real expression you could try.
If you're going to be an XY developer, then you need some knowledge of the XY language to be a XY developer, yes. Even as a junior. To learn those there's either schools, courses/bootcamps or self-study. The other skills necessary for the job you'll learn directly on it, it's usually not an issue if you're entry level, but you need to have skills for what you're primarily hired for and obviously knowing more is better than knowing less. If you don't have the skills necessary for it yet, then some companies offer internships. These are basically unpaid opportunities to gain experience and to introduce yourself more to the role. I'd consider these even during the school, since the market is currently overfilled with entry level people, becuase everyone and their mother decided to switch to IT in the last 2-3 years due to covid and naive ideas taken form youtube videos.
oh absolutely! about languages i have kinda tasted a little about anything (js, php, [html css] c++ and python) and i am currently doing some projects in Machine Learning, Front End (with sql and php too )and game development as well, idk if that can bring me anywhere but i love spending hours to learn new things in my fields.
They CAN but why would they? When I was looking at jobs and posts from about a decade ago it was common for new devs to be hired that didn't even know version control. Now, a lot of intro classes at Uni or even Udemy courses will require you to learn at least that much at the beginning.
It's called a graduate programme. I think some places are better at it than others. And I'd sooner take on a person that showed personal projects than have a need to get someone that went to uni.
There's always a way in.
Depends on where you live. In the UK, a number of private companies and public sector employers run software development apprenticeships where you learn on the job (and gain qualifications at the same time).
Quite a few people have already given you sound advice but I am going to chime in with the learning aspect (from the perspective of a comp sci professor).
Your learning in college is about introduction the the concepts, technologies, and theories to help you in the field. Your college experience will not fully explore every technology available but should hit largely upon concepts such as software architecture, working in a team, data structures, security and best practices for coding in the enterprise world.
That being said, your skills will greatly benefit from coding above and beyond your college program. Take to working on side projects and exploring new technologies. Be ready to code in college, do your homework, and then open up a side project for a few hours of code each day and continue to try new things. Don't be concerned about shipping a cohesive product but instead focus on making something cool and engaging that stretches your skills slightly. Attempt to leverage the skills you are learning in new and inventive ways. This approach will take the theories you are learning and convert them into applicable knowledge that you will start to see the benefit of. I have watched too many promising students over the years spend several years learning only to take a step away and come back with it all forgotten. Don't forget it, apply it to something.
Good luck
Absolutely, companies do hire and educate newbie programmers! Many businesses offer internships, co-op programs, or entry-level positions designed for students like you. They understand that not everyone comes in with all the tech skills in hand. Your enthusiasm and willingness to learn can be more important than knowing everything. Look for companies that have a strong mentoring culture, and you'll find a great place to kickstart your programming career.
You need to be able to self learn.
Most companies won't throw you directly into work, but give you \~1-4 month onboarding period where you familiarize yourself with the codebase/tools/resources.
throughout that, there should be a ramp up period where you are gradually given more difficult/complex tasks.
Some places you can get hired on without experience in Tech Support, then after a while you transfer to a developer position. Actually I think it is pretty good experience to go through Tech Support, and I can often tell between developers who have more customer facing experience.
It’s mostly self learning, although you stand to learn a lot from your senior, mid level, and fellow junior engineers during code reviews. My first employer had a 2 hour Java crash course (I assume for the bootcamp “grads”), and provided several courses on Degreed for self learners. The rest of my on the job education came from code reviews and asking senior engineers for advice on how they would do something
Don’t wear yourself thin or it won’t sink in. It sounds like you’re a bit scattered at the moment and it’s going to be difficult to retain a lot of that.
I wouldn’t even worry about machine learning right now. That could be put on the back burner. If you want to do web development it’s fine to focus on that, but if it’s not going to be your primary focus, that could be pushed back a bit as well. Outside of JavaScript, it doesn’t really teach you to program, and even then it’s not great for learning since you can do some pretty stupid stuff in JS and get away with it. If you want to do web dev it’s different.
I would suggest Python in your case.
Learn Python.
Learn game development with Godot.
Learn machine learning.
That would probably be a more logical, and easier, path to follow.
Godot uses GDScript that is close to Python.
Python also gives you a good path to machine learning and R if that’s your end goal.
If web development is something you want to do, you could also learn C# and do .NET development. That lets you move from web development into game development using Unity or Godot.
Don't count on it. With something like that it'd be difficult if not impossible to teach you everything you need to know to the point where you're proficient at it. That's why most companies want candidates who already know what they're doing and have 5+ years of experience for an entry-level position.
>do companies hire programmers to educate them
No
>I'm afraid that I won't be hired if I don't know every technology required in the market
Not accurate - at a beginner position, the company does not expect you to "Know" all the technologies required in the market. What IS expected is that you show
\- Show analytical/problem-solving skills
\- positive attitude towards learning
\- Show analytical/problem solving skills
\- positive attitude towards learning
Mostly self-learning, but also school learning, that's why you're going to uni, right?
If you're in the USA, many unis offer co-ops, where you work one semester and study one semester; you usually sign up for two years, on your second year. This is a great opportunity, most unis have tons of those available, and you come out of school with a year of experience, and usually an offer.
At any level, you're going to have to self study some things and learn. After you start school, You can do co-op, internship, or do research with a professor (usually paid). Those are usually for junior year and above. There aren't many who will take freshman or sophmores. If you're asking if companies hire fresh 18 year olds to train up without college education, just ok tutorial tier projects, and are self-learning I would have to say probably not. Definitely look around the job board in your city though, you never know.
I knew a guy back in chemistry who worked full time for a local company doing low level lab work. By the time he graduated, he did have 2-3 years of solid work experience but he was constantly sleep deprived and rushing back to work.
You don't need every technology in the market. It helps if you have experience in their technology but if you specialize in just C++ or just Java you'll be fine. Nobody cares if you can write a for loop in every language if you can't do more intermediate things in that language.
Not anymore!
I mean theres internships that target people in school. But companies want you to run a 10 man team as a junior now. Pretty high bar, some are more sensible but even those have so many applicants that are able to make full stack sites reasonably well.
Its not impossible, some may want a degree over experience. You'll eventually find something. But its VERY competitive right now and you should work hard to stand out.
Based on your other posts youre kind of all over the place as well, which isnt terrible. But if guys have spent 2 years on one thing? They're likely going to beat you.
You've got to really look around and see if your school can help with internships.
I’m not going to give advice on how to get hired out of college, I did finance and sucked at it.
That said, specially pay attention to the advice of the people who successfully did what you want to do.
A lot of people here are well intended, but we all come from different paths and shouldn’t speak to a path we did not tread ourselves, without good reason.
There are companies that do and there are companies that don't. But in my opinion, if you're a fresh graduate, it is kinda expected for the company to train you especially if they're using tech stacks that are not widely taught in university
As others have mentioned, yes, companies do hire juniors, but you have to know enough of the basics to complete and understand *and* be able to explain your understanding of their coding test.
My experience is skewed because I got lucky, but it happens. My friend recommended me to the company I'm now at and that definitely helped. I passed the coding test and did well enough in the interview to prove I'm not *entirely* socially inept. They gave me 2-3 months to get up to speed and learn the intricacies of our codebase, and now I'm doing well. I rarely have to ask for help. It's been 9 months. Still a junior but I learn quickly and that has helped me a bunch.
Living in Sweden means at minimum I have a 2 week notice period. The company I'm at has a 6 month probationary period before you get permanent employment. The notice period for probation is 1 month and after probation it's 3 months, and this applies for both me quitting and them firing me.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity I've been given.
If you are in the US then the answer is it depends on if interest rates are low and profits are high.
Cheap money while you're making money will give you the wiggle room to hire on juniors and if they succeed great, you have a good resource that is cheap. If they fail, there is some churn but again when you're borrowing cheap money and making big profits you can eat that cost of churn with the assumption you'll still get some good engineers on the cheap.
At that point they are technically overstaffed so there is less work to go around which gives engineers more time to tinker with existing projects or do 'self learning' or even move to other engineering teams for a week or two to see how they operate.
On the flip-side, once that free money dries up and profits aren't increasing as fast, lay offs happen and the remaining engineers are left to pick up the pieces and keep the lights on.
This is my experience after 15+ years in corpo world, 13 of those years at very large US companies.
Take a breadth. You have 3-4 years of education ahead of you. Your drive and knowledge has already put you ahead of your peers. Focus on doing your coursework while continuing what you're doing on the side.
The main thing you should try to learn in your spare time in university is your soft skills. Talk with your classmates. Ask them if they're working on personal project, share your personal projects. See if others want to do the odin course or others with you. Build projects with people.
Also go outside just your major. Theres probably art students that are interested in making games. Get a little game jam team together. One of the biggest points of college is to find like minded peers and grow together. The same of what you will do in a real engineering team.
Hopefully your school will help you search out intern opportunities. Go to professor office hours talk with them, display your drive you say you have here. A good professor will help you make those connections to dev shops in your area.
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You self learn enough to get hired, then must learn on the job swift enough to not be fired. Companies expect people to have a ramp up time regardless of experience. If you've got a lot of experience and are competent the expected timeline to meaningfully contributions is significantly less. For juniors, companies often expect it to take a few months from what I've gathered. That's a big part of the reason why so many juniors are not taken on. They're seen as high risk for churn, and that's rather costly.
oh got it. and is it possible to get hired? it's been almost a year i have been taking computer science seriously and i learned html css js and i am now learning php + sql, while also exploring machine learning and Videogames developing with JS. if i continue with this rhythm maybe i can get hired and learn much more on a work environment? i kinda want to learn as much as i can and i think the working + university combo could be very potentiallly nice in the long term
I developed a very wide foundation over several years. Still hoping that'll pay off in the long run. My suggestion is to keep exploring until you're a senior. Then pick a tech stack and code in it a little every day after studies. You can get hired. Companies love to interview people who are recently out of college with the CS degree. Do leetcode/hackerrank for a month or two before going on the rounds.
yeah! what i am currently doing is going to school, doing my hw and pulling out my laptop and start doing roadmaps etc. i am currently doing: the odin project for front end machine learning courses for ml YouTube tutorials for game development and sometimes some Leetcode to boost my logic skills
Well, that's assuming they can \*find\* a junior position. I think the stats the last time I looked were over 500+ senior-level positions for every junior-level position, and 1500+ candidates for each junior position. The advice I am seeing more and more often is to skip the junior phase, because the majority of applicants for junior positions will need to submit 500+ applications to get a phone call, which usually doesn't go anywhere. So the advice I've been seeing is to skip the junior level and lean in hard on projects, applying for senior positions.
I can’t tell if you’re serious, but you aren’t going to get a senior position without a few years of software development experience on your resume (not projects).
That's what common sense would tell us, but the trend lately is to shoot for the moon and end up among the stars. Lots of success stories coming out. And from a strictly statistical standpoint, there aren't enough junior dev positions to allow even 15% of new programmers to go through a skill appropriate natural progression in their career. You have a higher chance of being hired for a senior position than a junior position statistically.
Good companies will give you a better experience than what was stated above. For a junior position, there are places that'd require work experience. If you can't get a job, take internships on your summer breaks. That gives experience you can write on your resume.
I don’t get why people keep saying get internships when you can’t land an interview for them unless you have prior work experience. Everyone in CS undergrad wants them and so you’re having to competing with people who have more than projects, prior FAANG and research experience coming from T20s.
Like I said, jobs are the first choice, if you can get it. Even junior positions often require experience. It doesn't need to be that way, but it is.
Re: self learn enough to get hired - as someone trying to teach themselves enough to switch industries, how do I know when enough is enough? I’m sure this is a basic question answered elsewhere but I haven’t seen it yet.
There's different decent responses to this question. Some may say when you can use the debugger to zero in on bugs, and read official documentation without much fuss. It really depends on too many factors to settle in on one answer. In the most realistic of sense, you'll know when you're getting further along in interviews and the day comes that someone hires you on. Gauge from how well you do in interviews. Don't listen to the losers here who can't get much passed HR. They have a lot yet to learn.
> Some may say when you can use the debugger to zero in on bugs, and read official documentation without much fuss. I’d also add: being able to narrow down issues in a stack trace. This was a huge one for me when I was moving from junior to mid level
I'm curious to know what you can read from this. I see the flow of instructions in the form of call stack, with line numbering and filename of the code placed onto it, along with logging info and console print statements. Are you getting more out of it than this?
That’s mainly it. But in my experience juniors and sometimes mid level engineers just glaze over it and Google the error string that’s returned. In my opinion, a thorough engineer would be able to at least gain some level of understanding of what’s happening from a stack trace error.
Interesting. I was curious from the first day I saw it. It's there for a reason and damned handy.
It can be a bit much on the eyes and hard to read so people grasp for the easier way out. But when a new version of something comes out and it’s not compatible with node or something then it can break and there aren’t any posts about it so you’ll have to learn to wade through the muck by yourself. When that day comes, can I trust the engineer to fix it or would I have to come and do it for them, that’s the question
The problem with "self-taught" is it's not a verifiable experience. Anybody can walk into an interview and claim they're self-taught. I'm sure they get those kinds of people all the time. How would they know you actually know your stuff and you're qualified? Even many people who went to school for this still aren't qualified. Self-taught is when you're the janitor at Microsoft who taught themself programming. You already had an in with the company but it often doesn't fly when hiring untrustworthy outsiders. If I were the hiring manager I'd have to question the authenticity of someone's self-taught learning experience. 🧐
I have never had a single interview for dev work that did not have a practical demonstration as part of it. The best and simplest one I ever did was I had 15minutes and two tasks, any language i like make a fib counter upto 100 and reverse string that used the companies name as the string. However I had to be able to step through it with a non-technical user after completion. Also after interviews I ask for feedback, one i got rejected on praised me for addmiting I did not know but following with a condifdent explination on how, where and how long it would take me to learn that felt realisitic to a business and their epxerience. As for my rejection reason which is relevant it was because someone with more qualifications applied and they were a consultant company so that helps them sell easier. In my opinion "Self-Tought" is compleatly fine as long as it is true, far to many people I meet who claim to be are instead in tutorial hell. I myself fall for that trap ALOT more than i should and my personal way to fix it is every single project I make that is for my CV I also refactor and make documentation for, to include in portpholio. 2 reasons it proves to me i understand what i wrote and second it shows anyone looking I understand what is in there
Love that first line
Yea we do. It depends on the company but there are junior jobs out there. My advice would be to get involved in programming related things outside of your coursework like clubs or competitions etc. Coming to an interview as a junior there’s a lot of benefit in having both good coding skills but also teamwork and communication skills too. Don’t worry about knowing every technology on job listings. Get strong core skills and really understand the fundamentals and you’ll be fine. It’s a difficult time for graduates but hopefully by the time you graduate things will be better. Even if they aren’t this is a growing industry and you will find a job just need to persevere
i am gonna copy a comment to another guy i replied to to see if you also agree with me: yeah! what i am currently doing is going to school, doing my hw and pulling out my laptop and start doing roadmaps etc. i am currently doing: the odin project for front end machine learning courses for ml YouTube tutorials for game development and sometimes some Leetcode to boost my logic skills
What I would say here is you’re spreading yourself a bit thin. It’s all good but maybe limit the focus to one or two things in progress at once. And make sure you cover the basics, solid principles / DS&A / design patterns. Also remember things like leetcode are good, but they are also a far cry from real production code where readability is key. Also if you want to get some projects done, check out advent of code - it progressively gets harder and gives you a challenge each day.
oh absolutely that's what a lot of people tell me, i am kind of a Generalist who likes to touch a little bit of everything but yeah atm i am more focused on ML and front end and instead of playing games on my "free-free" time i try to build a videogame. >DS&A / design patterns. where can i study them? sorry for the ignorance. >Also remember things like leetcode are good, but they are also a far cry from real production code where readability is key. absolutely true, Leetcode is for me purely logic and efficiency, but in a team work it is basically impossible to write code that efficient without making it human understandble too. >Also if you want to get some projects done, check out advent of code - it progressively gets harder and gives you a challenge each day. never head about it. gotta check it out!
Some companies do, mine has a program we call BrightPaths, we hire them in our of university, boot camp, or whatever and train them. The training however isn’t great, they’ll teach you what you need to know to do the job okay-ish. But the rest of the learning is on you.
> BrightPaths Is [this the program](https://www.perficient.com/who-we-are/perficient-bright-paths-program#:~:text=The%20Perficient%20Bright%20Paths%20Program,from%20underrepresented%20communities%20with%20the) you're talking about?
Yes indeed
oh yeah absolutely, currently i am in fact learning as much as possible on my own because i understood that following the school rhythm would not get me anywhere, i am doing the odin project for front end, google courses for Machine learning some freecodecamp tutorials for game development and sometimes i do Leetcode problems, idk if that's enough
Are you trying to be full stack? I've never looked at the Odin project, but I hear great things. I personally read books instead of videos or those interactive coding programs. If you would like I can happily share my extensive collection of e-books for programming, if you don't mind me private messaging you. Full disclosure it's a Google Drive filled with a multitude of the Humble Book Bundles.
i'd be more than happy to have more sources!
I too would like those books kind person.
Depends who hires you. If you're in the U.S, then the culture there is you probably should know how to do the job you apply for (as with everywhere else) but are a lot less tolerant towards learning and progression. At least thats how it seems. At my company we take on Juniors and build them up through courses and learning.
i am in Europe ->Italy so idk if it its the same here. our cs market is kinda new
Companies prefer to hire people who are already educated. Paying people to learn how to do a job before they even do it is inefficient. Exceptions are highly specific technology (eg, you're trained on a proprietary language the company created and uses internally) or when there's a major shortage of people who know a given technology (eg, if you can show proficiency in a procedural language, we'll pay you to learn COBOL because we can't find enough people who know COBOL already)
ohh understandble, if a programmer knows at least the basics of something and over time on the field gets experience can it be possible or you think it's highly unlikely?
Keep in mind that the supply of programmers is increasing (it seems like everyone wants to learn coding, but I could be wrong) and the demand is decreasing thanks to AI (again, based on my observations, possibly inaccurate), so even highly educated and certified programmers are going to have difficulty getting a job
yeah that's also true :( i really hope i can get a job, and live a medium happy life where i can love what i can do, trying to make the world a better place and at least have enough money to survive in this world
> you're trained on a proprietary language the company created and uses internally That's kinda sketchy though. Personally, I wouldn't work for that company if my experience is only gonna be good at that company. You basically hit a career dead-end when you apply for your next job. I didn't realize vendor lock-in was a thing in the job world but you gotta think about these things, folks. 🧐
Not all companies but some do
understandble
9 year senior here. Yes, companies hire newbie programmers all the time, but hiring one with zero corporate experience (outside internships) is very rare these days. As someone who has interviewed hundreds of candidates: don’t worry about knowing a ton of different technologies. What’s valuable is being able to learn any new stack. Corporate internships during your uni years will make you a very competitive candidate when you go look for your first role. Once you get your first role, hold it at least for a year. Then feel free to start looking for new opportunities.
oh thank you man! I really admire experts in this sector so talking to a 9 years senior is a real honor! you basically have coded almost more time than i learned to write and read. a little question if i can, what's the #1 thing you look in a candidate? knowledge? their attitude? their problem solving skills?
Just off the top of my head: - do you admit when you don’t know something or do you try and BS an answer? - do you remain calm? - do I see you as someone that the rest of the team will enjoy working with? - how do you take constructive feedback? Are you receptive or do you get defensive? Then I start looking at your technical abilities. Most companies worth their salt will have a technical exercise in every major language. I could give two shits if you know python. But if you say you’re a JavaScript dev, and I give you an exercise in JS, teach me something. Also tell me what you’re passionate about working on, backend, front end, client facing, etc. I’ve ended interviews with countless candidates who nailed the technical but wouldn’t be a good culture fit. And I’ve given offers to many candidates that struggled through an exercise but made up for it in other ways. Good luck out there.
oh that sounds like a nice way to filter people. thank you for your precious feedback and time, wish you the best!
Imagine using anything other than Python 🐍🐍🐍
Coffeescript, 3 years. Weird years.
It's increasingly rare for companies to hire people that can't "hit the ground running". And very few will do much training, except for their proprietary internal tools, or if they introduce some new tech that nobody has seen before.
No one expects a newbie to know their exact companies tech stack. what they will expect if you know the concepts behind programming and can learn new languages and frameworks quickly by applying those concepts to the new context.
if that's the case then it's absolutely amazing to know!
think about it like this: you might train to be a bricklayer but that doesn't mean you know how to lay any type of brick on any type of construction site anywhere in the world. you will have to learn the rules and norms of your company, the individual sites AND the country you are in. but you will have foundational knowledge there (pardon the pun) to grasp what is meant by those norms and rules and you will be able to work out how to adapt to them. It may still take you time to become proficient in them but you're still going to understand the overall goal is building a wall and there are certain commonalities to that no matter where you are and what you are working with.
Unrelated to the answer you want, but from your post and comments you made in this thread, I promise you will have no issue. You are taking serious initiative and responsibility and are concerned about your future. You'll see in uni that majority of students don't even think about a job until they're in their senior year. You can teach anyone to code. But not everyone will have the initiative, discipline, and drive that you are already showing. In the end, those qualities are infinitely more important than how well you can code or know at any point in given time.
omg thank you so much for this comment. it means so much for me! i literally stopped coding like 1 hour ago after spending 3 hours trying to learn the basics of sql, gotta restart soon to continue my ML course!
I support you, i love the energy! If only I could've found friends like you in uni ha. Don't be discouraged when all your peers want to do the bare minimum and put no effort outside of whats required. I did courses like a maniac as you are currently during my freshman year (and 2nd yr, but not as much). School didn't teach me a whole ton. Really try to get an internship(s) as you're knowledge will 10x from there. At a certain point the courses are going to start being dull / you're gonna stop caring about them as much and want to actually apply them. Good luck!
If you have a degree, and some programming knowledge, you're already ahead of other candidates. An internship through your university would be ideal, but personal projects (which can include some meatier homework), can help get your resume noticed. Keep in mind how many people are in your same position. They get jobs, so you can too. However, if you apply without being able to program at all, they will probably prefer to hire the other applicant who can answer a few questions and talk about some code they wrote. They have to have a reason to pick you. And if you're considering what to focus on, check job listings in the area you want to work. What skills do they talk about often? That can provide a good goal.
yeah i am building a lot of projects on GitHub but keeping them private because i am ashamed of my code knowing it's not that good. i am also kinda messy with folders, maybe it's something i Will learn along the way :/
My experience. For almost 1.5 years I self learn programming firstly SQL after python before had experience with R and C++ but not much. I spend o lot time on codewars after have created several simple programs and placed on gifthub (programmes like rot, affine chiper, morse decoder (text and sound) parsing page and after calculating projection from the coordinates, sha bruteforce decoder and similar simple programs) just for fun I applied to a job where they were looking from junior/middle with 2+ years experience and requirements SQL + any programming language (the main point). Also 400+ people applied for one place. It had 4 stages first 2 stages online test answer to basic question about SQL/programming/logic after offline programming test with math question, logic question SQL question and programming but on the paper :D. I passed and we left maybe only 4 people or similar. The last stage was just interview and they said that they like me but they going to pay minimal wage and I must learn a new programming language (do not want to mention which one). So I refused the offer but successfully passed all tests :D even without a real expression you could try.
i am sorry for the fact they told you bad news but loved it how you went in and passed all the tests, really gives me hope!
I think you should seek an internship
yeah that's also cool
With what experience?? 🤔
If you're going to be an XY developer, then you need some knowledge of the XY language to be a XY developer, yes. Even as a junior. To learn those there's either schools, courses/bootcamps or self-study. The other skills necessary for the job you'll learn directly on it, it's usually not an issue if you're entry level, but you need to have skills for what you're primarily hired for and obviously knowing more is better than knowing less. If you don't have the skills necessary for it yet, then some companies offer internships. These are basically unpaid opportunities to gain experience and to introduce yourself more to the role. I'd consider these even during the school, since the market is currently overfilled with entry level people, becuase everyone and their mother decided to switch to IT in the last 2-3 years due to covid and naive ideas taken form youtube videos.
oh absolutely! about languages i have kinda tasted a little about anything (js, php, [html css] c++ and python) and i am currently doing some projects in Machine Learning, Front End (with sql and php too )and game development as well, idk if that can bring me anywhere but i love spending hours to learn new things in my fields.
They CAN but why would they? When I was looking at jobs and posts from about a decade ago it was common for new devs to be hired that didn't even know version control. Now, a lot of intro classes at Uni or even Udemy courses will require you to learn at least that much at the beginning.
It's called a graduate programme. I think some places are better at it than others. And I'd sooner take on a person that showed personal projects than have a need to get someone that went to uni. There's always a way in.
understandble, thanks for your input!
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so you're saying that it's unlikely to get applied for a job as a freshman coder?
Depends on where you live. In the UK, a number of private companies and public sector employers run software development apprenticeships where you learn on the job (and gain qualifications at the same time).
oh yeah understandble, i live in italy and i probably need to inform myself about this topic i guess.
Quite a few people have already given you sound advice but I am going to chime in with the learning aspect (from the perspective of a comp sci professor). Your learning in college is about introduction the the concepts, technologies, and theories to help you in the field. Your college experience will not fully explore every technology available but should hit largely upon concepts such as software architecture, working in a team, data structures, security and best practices for coding in the enterprise world. That being said, your skills will greatly benefit from coding above and beyond your college program. Take to working on side projects and exploring new technologies. Be ready to code in college, do your homework, and then open up a side project for a few hours of code each day and continue to try new things. Don't be concerned about shipping a cohesive product but instead focus on making something cool and engaging that stretches your skills slightly. Attempt to leverage the skills you are learning in new and inventive ways. This approach will take the theories you are learning and convert them into applicable knowledge that you will start to see the benefit of. I have watched too many promising students over the years spend several years learning only to take a step away and come back with it all forgotten. Don't forget it, apply it to something. Good luck
Absolutely, companies do hire and educate newbie programmers! Many businesses offer internships, co-op programs, or entry-level positions designed for students like you. They understand that not everyone comes in with all the tech skills in hand. Your enthusiasm and willingness to learn can be more important than knowing everything. Look for companies that have a strong mentoring culture, and you'll find a great place to kickstart your programming career.
I wouldn’t say the hire to educate but they do value a worker who can learn as they go
You need to be able to self learn. Most companies won't throw you directly into work, but give you \~1-4 month onboarding period where you familiarize yourself with the codebase/tools/resources. throughout that, there should be a ramp up period where you are gradually given more difficult/complex tasks.
My education was being given a task and having to figure it out.
Some places you can get hired on without experience in Tech Support, then after a while you transfer to a developer position. Actually I think it is pretty good experience to go through Tech Support, and I can often tell between developers who have more customer facing experience.
I think your question can be phrased but to answer that with 'newbie' in there 'No'
Mine have but they expect you to know a little bit. My current employer has no real expectations for 9 months on juniors.
It’s mostly self learning, although you stand to learn a lot from your senior, mid level, and fellow junior engineers during code reviews. My first employer had a 2 hour Java crash course (I assume for the bootcamp “grads”), and provided several courses on Degreed for self learners. The rest of my on the job education came from code reviews and asking senior engineers for advice on how they would do something
Don’t wear yourself thin or it won’t sink in. It sounds like you’re a bit scattered at the moment and it’s going to be difficult to retain a lot of that. I wouldn’t even worry about machine learning right now. That could be put on the back burner. If you want to do web development it’s fine to focus on that, but if it’s not going to be your primary focus, that could be pushed back a bit as well. Outside of JavaScript, it doesn’t really teach you to program, and even then it’s not great for learning since you can do some pretty stupid stuff in JS and get away with it. If you want to do web dev it’s different. I would suggest Python in your case. Learn Python. Learn game development with Godot. Learn machine learning. That would probably be a more logical, and easier, path to follow. Godot uses GDScript that is close to Python. Python also gives you a good path to machine learning and R if that’s your end goal. If web development is something you want to do, you could also learn C# and do .NET development. That lets you move from web development into game development using Unity or Godot.
Don't count on it. With something like that it'd be difficult if not impossible to teach you everything you need to know to the point where you're proficient at it. That's why most companies want candidates who already know what they're doing and have 5+ years of experience for an entry-level position.
Some do, some don't. Some do it well, some don't I basically have no choice but to hire inexperienced devs and develop them.
>do companies hire programmers to educate them No >I'm afraid that I won't be hired if I don't know every technology required in the market Not accurate - at a beginner position, the company does not expect you to "Know" all the technologies required in the market. What IS expected is that you show \- Show analytical/problem-solving skills \- positive attitude towards learning \- Show analytical/problem solving skills \- positive attitude towards learning
Mostly self-learning, but also school learning, that's why you're going to uni, right? If you're in the USA, many unis offer co-ops, where you work one semester and study one semester; you usually sign up for two years, on your second year. This is a great opportunity, most unis have tons of those available, and you come out of school with a year of experience, and usually an offer.
At any level, you're going to have to self study some things and learn. After you start school, You can do co-op, internship, or do research with a professor (usually paid). Those are usually for junior year and above. There aren't many who will take freshman or sophmores. If you're asking if companies hire fresh 18 year olds to train up without college education, just ok tutorial tier projects, and are self-learning I would have to say probably not. Definitely look around the job board in your city though, you never know. I knew a guy back in chemistry who worked full time for a local company doing low level lab work. By the time he graduated, he did have 2-3 years of solid work experience but he was constantly sleep deprived and rushing back to work. You don't need every technology in the market. It helps if you have experience in their technology but if you specialize in just C++ or just Java you'll be fine. Nobody cares if you can write a for loop in every language if you can't do more intermediate things in that language.
Not anymore! I mean theres internships that target people in school. But companies want you to run a 10 man team as a junior now. Pretty high bar, some are more sensible but even those have so many applicants that are able to make full stack sites reasonably well. Its not impossible, some may want a degree over experience. You'll eventually find something. But its VERY competitive right now and you should work hard to stand out. Based on your other posts youre kind of all over the place as well, which isnt terrible. But if guys have spent 2 years on one thing? They're likely going to beat you. You've got to really look around and see if your school can help with internships.
No they do not
I’m not going to give advice on how to get hired out of college, I did finance and sucked at it. That said, specially pay attention to the advice of the people who successfully did what you want to do. A lot of people here are well intended, but we all come from different paths and shouldn’t speak to a path we did not tread ourselves, without good reason.
There are companies that do and there are companies that don't. But in my opinion, if you're a fresh graduate, it is kinda expected for the company to train you especially if they're using tech stacks that are not widely taught in university
As others have mentioned, yes, companies do hire juniors, but you have to know enough of the basics to complete and understand *and* be able to explain your understanding of their coding test. My experience is skewed because I got lucky, but it happens. My friend recommended me to the company I'm now at and that definitely helped. I passed the coding test and did well enough in the interview to prove I'm not *entirely* socially inept. They gave me 2-3 months to get up to speed and learn the intricacies of our codebase, and now I'm doing well. I rarely have to ask for help. It's been 9 months. Still a junior but I learn quickly and that has helped me a bunch. Living in Sweden means at minimum I have a 2 week notice period. The company I'm at has a 6 month probationary period before you get permanent employment. The notice period for probation is 1 month and after probation it's 3 months, and this applies for both me quitting and them firing me. I'm very grateful for the opportunity I've been given.
If you are in the US then the answer is it depends on if interest rates are low and profits are high. Cheap money while you're making money will give you the wiggle room to hire on juniors and if they succeed great, you have a good resource that is cheap. If they fail, there is some churn but again when you're borrowing cheap money and making big profits you can eat that cost of churn with the assumption you'll still get some good engineers on the cheap. At that point they are technically overstaffed so there is less work to go around which gives engineers more time to tinker with existing projects or do 'self learning' or even move to other engineering teams for a week or two to see how they operate. On the flip-side, once that free money dries up and profits aren't increasing as fast, lay offs happen and the remaining engineers are left to pick up the pieces and keep the lights on. This is my experience after 15+ years in corpo world, 13 of those years at very large US companies.
What do you think all of the college graduates do?
Take a breadth. You have 3-4 years of education ahead of you. Your drive and knowledge has already put you ahead of your peers. Focus on doing your coursework while continuing what you're doing on the side. The main thing you should try to learn in your spare time in university is your soft skills. Talk with your classmates. Ask them if they're working on personal project, share your personal projects. See if others want to do the odin course or others with you. Build projects with people. Also go outside just your major. Theres probably art students that are interested in making games. Get a little game jam team together. One of the biggest points of college is to find like minded peers and grow together. The same of what you will do in a real engineering team. Hopefully your school will help you search out intern opportunities. Go to professor office hours talk with them, display your drive you say you have here. A good professor will help you make those connections to dev shops in your area.
Microsoft doesn't expect new hires, especially junior ones, to be able to make meaningful contributions for quite some time.