You nailed it. I was surprised that this quality article is from someone who is not in the industry. There’s no bigger fallacy than the `YOU DON'T NEED A DEGREE`. You need it.
There are so many computer science universities worldwide that are enough to cover any open position and yet still most of their graduates will still be unemployed. When I finished computer science I had already worked on my first real programming job, had two academic papers published, contributed to open source and had a good internship. Guess what: so did my peers. All of that simply because universities in computer science can facilitate those opportunities. You cannot beat that if you are from a bootcamp or even a holder of another degree.
Obviously not all cs students are good enough to make it, that’s why a limited number of graduates is going to be employed but that number is enough to cover the industry needs.
Most software influencers never had a real job in the industry for over a year, you can see the pattern on their cv: they land a job, probably they get fired (and hide it) and then they boast how they got in to sell hope to other individuals. Obviously by targeting individuals without a degree they have a bigger pool to sell courses and get views. The industry does not give them any time and money, you should do the same.
Spot on. The toxic positivity online regarding self taught programmers is a relic of the earlier 2000’s. It’s fundamentally a different ball game now.
The funny thing is that I had tons of related experience to programming, and had built a 6 figure game development business which I ran for about 8 years. Our games accrued a total of around 250k unique players. But even having that on my resume along with 4 years worth of programming projects, some of which garnered thousands of users, it was not enough.
Since the online tech culture is so positive, it can make you feel like coding projects for 6 hours a day while looking for a job is productive.
Thank you for the confirmation. This article received a lot of hate on Reddit and it’s because many developers themselves are unaware how bad it is now for newcomers, or either they are trying to break in themselves and are in denial of the state of affairs.
Well would love to see that reddit thread, I bet they just try to break in (it's pretty easy to understand when someone's in the industry). The issue is that influencers and bootcamps are doing the same tactics that we see all over the place.
- Try hard, if you don't achieve, you did not try hard enough
- If you don't find a job we will hire you as an instructor (pyramid 101)
- If you don't land a job you can become a content creator on programming
This is a toxic combination which makes it tough for the victims to speak up since they already invested time and money, it's just like the get rich quick industry.
I had unfortunate individuals asking me for any open positions which they will hardly ever qualify, and all of that because a snake oil salesman made a profit by selling them hopium.
It's awful, you are unable to help them and you know that someone screwed them.
It's actually funny that people think software engineering is an easy job. I just finished working for 12 hours straight including facing an incident, yet I have to spend 3 hours to stay up to date with latest tech. Among with that probably influencers forgot the part were you get laid off and redundant.
What makes it so convincing is that it in no way resembles the old tactics of the get rich quick schemes of the past. Many are candid about it being extremely difficult, and not something you are likely to achieve in 6 months.
I suspect this whole trend makes the hiring process a lot more difficult. It seems like if we could get someone popular in the industry to speak about this, it may save many others from wasting months or years of their lives pursuing an unrealistic dream.
Although many do view learning to code as a get rich quick method, they tend to give up after 6 months. The more sinister impact is on those like me who spent years while only landing temporary contract gigs.
Considering how much more popular software development is now compared to just 5 years ago, this is going to have severe implications to many industrious, but ultimately misled individuals.
You nailed it. I was surprised that this quality article is from someone who is not in the industry. There’s no bigger fallacy than the `YOU DON'T NEED A DEGREE`. You need it.
There are so many computer science universities worldwide that are enough to cover any open position and yet still most of their graduates will still be unemployed. When I finished computer science I had already worked on my first real programming job, had two academic papers published, contributed to open source and had a good internship. Guess what: so did my peers. All of that simply because universities in computer science can facilitate those opportunities. You cannot beat that if you are from a bootcamp or even a holder of another degree.
Obviously not all cs students are good enough to make it, that’s why a limited number of graduates is going to be employed but that number is enough to cover the industry needs.
Most software influencers never had a real job in the industry for over a year, you can see the pattern on their cv: they land a job, probably they get fired (and hide it) and then they boast how they got in to sell hope to other individuals. Obviously by targeting individuals without a degree they have a bigger pool to sell courses and get views. The industry does not give them any time and money, you should do the same.
Spot on. The toxic positivity online regarding self taught programmers is a relic of the earlier 2000’s. It’s fundamentally a different ball game now.
The funny thing is that I had tons of related experience to programming, and had built a 6 figure game development business which I ran for about 8 years. Our games accrued a total of around 250k unique players. But even having that on my resume along with 4 years worth of programming projects, some of which garnered thousands of users, it was not enough.
Since the online tech culture is so positive, it can make you feel like coding projects for 6 hours a day while looking for a job is productive.
Thank you for the confirmation. This article received a lot of hate on Reddit and it’s because many developers themselves are unaware how bad it is now for newcomers, or either they are trying to break in themselves and are in denial of the state of affairs.
Well would love to see that reddit thread, I bet they just try to break in (it's pretty easy to understand when someone's in the industry). The issue is that influencers and bootcamps are doing the same tactics that we see all over the place.
- Try hard, if you don't achieve, you did not try hard enough
- If you don't find a job we will hire you as an instructor (pyramid 101)
- If you don't land a job you can become a content creator on programming
This is a toxic combination which makes it tough for the victims to speak up since they already invested time and money, it's just like the get rich quick industry.
I had unfortunate individuals asking me for any open positions which they will hardly ever qualify, and all of that because a snake oil salesman made a profit by selling them hopium.
It's awful, you are unable to help them and you know that someone screwed them.
It's actually funny that people think software engineering is an easy job. I just finished working for 12 hours straight including facing an incident, yet I have to spend 3 hours to stay up to date with latest tech. Among with that probably influencers forgot the part were you get laid off and redundant.
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/15v6iz7/a_message_to_those_who_are_struggling/?rdt=54315
What makes it so convincing is that it in no way resembles the old tactics of the get rich quick schemes of the past. Many are candid about it being extremely difficult, and not something you are likely to achieve in 6 months.
I suspect this whole trend makes the hiring process a lot more difficult. It seems like if we could get someone popular in the industry to speak about this, it may save many others from wasting months or years of their lives pursuing an unrealistic dream.
Although many do view learning to code as a get rich quick method, they tend to give up after 6 months. The more sinister impact is on those like me who spent years while only landing temporary contract gigs.
Considering how much more popular software development is now compared to just 5 years ago, this is going to have severe implications to many industrious, but ultimately misled individuals.
Thank you for writing this article.
You are very welcome! People need to be liberated from the group think of tech culture.