[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Any other self taught devs terrified of inte...
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Ask HN: Any other self taught devs terrified of interviewing these
days?
When I got into this industry 10 years ago, the world was a
completely different place. Bootcamps weren't a thing. Computer
Science programs were still something just for the nerds. And the
industry was almost entirely autodidacts like myself who grew up
immersed in technology and did it for the joy of it. Fast forward a
decade, and now literally everyone and their uncle wants to be a
software dev, and CS programs are churning out hundreds of
thousands of graduates. The thought of competing against someone
credentialed with 5 years experience vs. myself with 10 years and
no degree, feels hopeless. It almost seems like the path I took
back then would be completely impossible today.
Author : ramesh31
Score : 27 points
Date : 2022-05-13 19:05 UTC (3 hours ago)
| take_it_not wrote:
| you have ten years of exp, you shouldn't be worried about having
| no degree at all... unless you are not in US?
| logbiscuitswave wrote:
| I feel this. I've done pretty well for myself -- I have decades
| of practical experience and have risen to be a principal engineer
| at my work. I can write what I feel is pretty solid, robust,
| performant, and well-architected code in many different languages
| across all ends of the stack from high-level UI to low-level
| system-level components. I don't have a CS degree and am largely
| self-taught. I tend to struggle a lot with theory and I stink at
| algorithms. (I can generally understand them, but coding one from
| scratch would be a struggle since these fundamentals aren't
| committed to memory and in the real world are rarely necessary to
| recall at the drop of a hat.)
|
| Given my non-traditional background and keen awareness of my
| blind-spots, I really struggle with impostor syndrome. I also
| fear the interview process because I don't want to look stupid
| and come to realize my past success was driven by chance rather
| than smarts. I also know how much of a grind the entire process
| can be and how it seems like many interviewers are more
| interested in making themselves look smart rather than honestly
| assess a candidate.
|
| All of these things are probably more of a function of projection
| and insecurity rather than reality, but they all feel real to me.
| gdfgjhs wrote:
| I graduated in early 2000s, and I heard same things from CS
| students/graduates and self-taught developers. They all said the
| golden age of computer science was 60s, 70s, 80s, or early 90s
| when people got into computers for love of it not money. Now
| everyone is computers for money.
|
| Sadly though I did meet a lot of students in my CS program who
| were in it for money and openly admitted they hate programming,
| logic, etc and cannot wait until they get a job and then move
| into management.
| ravenstine wrote:
| With the demand for software, I don't think it matters that much
| how many devs are churned out. Most of them are going to be
| mediocre and have poor interviewing skills. Boot camp grads
| really don't pose serious competition to anyone besides other
| junior developers. With a resume that has good formatting and
| spelling, people skills, networking, and maybe a few personal
| projects, it's entirely possible to get hired today. With 10
| years of experience, I'd be surprised if anyone gave a f--- about
| whether you have a degree in most cases.
| mindcrime wrote:
| Considering how many candidates are out there who have B.S.,
| M.S., or even Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science, but can't even
| manage to write FizzBuzz, I think your fears are a bit overstated
| IF you are actually reasonably competent and are capable of
| showing it.
|
| Anyway, in my experience degrees are more about simply getting
| past the first-level HR filter than anything, and don't get you
| hire per-se. And with 10+ years of experience, you'll get past
| the first-level HR filter just as easily, so really it comes down
| to demonstrated competence. Can you show/convince (an)
| interviewer(s) that you are competent? If you can, you'll be
| fine.
| afr0ck wrote:
| I am doing PhD in CS. I solved and designed algorithms to solve
| very tricky and hard concurrency problems (mostly in the Linux
| kernel). I ported the Linux kernel to a research CPU
| architecture. I wrote complex system software to deal with
| memory models, heterogeneity and cross-ISA migration, modfying
| glibc, llvm, linux.ld and tens of other system software. I
| worked on KVM, kernel network stack, networked filesystems and
| implemented distributed systems levraging all of them. However,
| I have no single idea what is FizzBuzz, and if someone asks me
| to do it an interview, I would fail miserably. I also only code
| in C and lots of LeetCode type of questions are a nightmare for
| me.
| aaronrobinson wrote:
| Why do you think it's hopeless? Having a CS degree is just one
| attribute a candidate brings. I'd personally value 10 years
| without that 5 with but there are so many other factors to
| consider in candidates.
| EddieDante wrote:
| I'm not terrified of interviewing. I just think it's an even
| bigger pain in the ass than dating. The older I get the less
| patience I have for people who need me to _sell myself_ to them
| as if I were a commodity and not a human being.
|
| I don't think you need to be a feminist to say "WE ARE NOT
| THINGS".
|
| I am not a resource.
|
| I am not "human capital".
|
| I'm a man who happens to need to work for a living. Deal with me
| as such or not at all.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > I just think it's an even bigger pain in the ass than dating.
|
| It's even worse compared with modern dating apps. Like dating
| apps, I can't even trust that job applications are real and
| actually interested in finding someone.
|
| And just as with dating no one I seem to like likes me and vice
| versa.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Can you dig further into the specifics of your worry? I find that
| most interviews focus on my knowledge or experience, I've never
| really had the degree come up. You are somewhat alluding to two
| problems though, interviewing with 10 years of experience and the
| path you took to get there. Starting out may be harder(although
| it's an employees market out there right now so it may be a great
| time to start)
|
| But it's funny you say 10 years ago. I started 20 years ago and
| don't feel like 10 years ago is that much different from
| today(though would say it seemed easier to start out 20 years
| ago)
| treis wrote:
| I'm pretty sure 85% of the people I interviewed with didn't read
| my resume and my education never came up.
| pjerem wrote:
| I'm not in the US but from France.
|
| I know two things for sure : - Hiring is stupidly hard. There is
| basically nobody applying. - For any non junior position, we dont
| even care about the degree. Personally, I don't even read this
| part of the CV. Experience matters way more.
|
| For me, as long as you are doing decent work, nobody will avan
| care about what degree you have. Furthermore, I'd say that
| companies filtering you on this is a good thing : you really
| don't want to work for a company that recruit people based on a
| piece of paper they got decades ago.
| [deleted]
| mikebenfield wrote:
| I don't know if I can relate.
|
| Was the industry really "almost entirely" autodidacts 10 years
| ago? Were CS graduates "nerds" in a way that autodidacts weren't?
|
| It's still very possible to get into tech without a traditional
| CS education, and it's not clear why it seems hopeless to you to
| compete against someone with a degree -- ACAICT most interviewers
| don't even look at candidates' resumes.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| 10 years ago? I sincerely doubt it.
| kusha wrote:
| Not at all -- I have no degree with ~8 YOE. Recruiters and hiring
| managers don't even inquire about my education anymore.
|
| I assume your worries come from the leetcode trend in interviews.
|
| Personally, I let recruiters that are knocking down my door via
| LinkedIn or email my expectations up front. Salary & no leetcode
| (algorithmic problems), I have found a lot of success. There are
| many companies willing to give sane interviews with real world
| SWE problems.
|
| Experience is highly valued in this field. Someone with 10 YOE
| isn't really competing with someone with 5 YOE. If you talk to
| anyone involved in hiring nowadays it's extremely difficult to
| find experienced devs. Experience will always trump education.
| barrkel wrote:
| No. I learned algorithm complexity in secondary school and
| started early enough that coding my own hash table was a normal
| exercise because the standard library didn't come with one (Turbo
| Pascal).
|
| I also discovered competitive coding via the International
| Olympiad in Informatics (also a school thing, pre-college), and
| the kinds of problems in those turn out to be almost identical in
| form to today's style of coding interview. I only had to learn
| recursion and I could start hacking away at problems.
|
| Fancy techniques like "dynamic programming" are normally amenable
| to memoized (i.e. cached) recursion implementations, but in
| practice most interview problems aren't even that hard.
|
| Now, I went to college, but it was a mixed degree with business
| and it didn't teach things like hash table implementation, let
| alone pointers. Algo analysis material was weak. I was the best
| student only because I knew it already. The degree is mostly
| useful for visa qualification. I also got very good at pool.
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