"Just learn to Code" they said... the TRUTH about Coding / Programming Jobs

[Insensitive]

These articles do a great job at convincing you that there's a huge "shortage" of programmers, developers and that there's soooo many job opportunities. They'll even tell you stuff like "a Python Developer makes avg $100k" or "C++ Developers make avg $100k" , "Mobile App developers make XXXXX), etc.

But here's what they don't tell you...

Yes, a Python, C++, Java developer can make 6 figures annually... but they leave out the part where you simply WON'T get a job JUST being a Python Developer or Java Developer.

They don't tell you that you'll MUST know and learn 3-4 different languages, 3-4 different frameworks, multiple libraries, and have 5-8 years experience in each of these.

They won't tell you that most of these Web Developer jobs are looking for "Full Stack Developers" meaning a jack of all trades. But what life will teach you is that a "jack of all trades" is a master of none. You won't be able to just be great at one language when you have to continuously spread your focus to many other languages and their frameworks.

Don't let these coding bootcamps and certificate courses fool you. The barrier to getting an actual coding job is higher than anything I've seen. Crazier than some healthcare jobs. Having a decent portfolio and the ability to make some websites/web apps simply isn't enough. They won't tell you that the tech industry requires CONSTANT learning of new languages, frameworks and technologies and that the stuff you're learning now will probably get old by the time you're able to master it (if you ever master anything).

Unlike being an electrician, technician or plumber where once you know the job, you know it. Programming/Development jobs will always have you constantly having to stay up to date, constantly feeling inadequate with new tech/software/programs, getting paid salary but putting in 60 hours or more a week (for projects that might eventually get dropped), the job WILL be your life so forget about hobbies and socializing.... Who honestly wants to live like that? The average person decided to code because they heard of the demand and the salary ranges. Most people with a "passion" for coding are the ones that have been at it since they were kids. There's a reason why there aren't many people in their 40's, 50's coding and why it's a constant revolving door of 20-30 something year olds. And I can talk about the lack of black people, but that's a whole new discussion. If anything brehs have a better chance of going into networking and cybersecurity.

Depends on WHERE you work too.
Because where I'm at (it isn't BIG TECH) they primarily use Java & Python.
There isn't a whole lot of Java script or anything like that (at least for the applications we use
everyday )

Also a lot of people just parrot what other people say "Learn programming", what is "learning programming" really ?
The truth is you need to learn SOLID computer science fundamentals.

What's the use in the guy who can code in Java but realistically can't do the linear algebra
necessary to solve a really difficult machine learning problem ? Or rather how many sources
can you realistically gain these skills from ? There are (ignorant) people who poo-poo college on here
but the ones who utilize college RIGHT, are achieving great things.
And really having the science/math background and a strong understanding of Data structures and algorithms
really separates you from the rest.

There's tons of "programmers" because the barrier of entry is really low.
However there aren't a ton of brilliant engineers or computer scientists.

 

[The Fade]

Depends on WHERE you work too.
Because where I'm at (it isn't BIG TECH) they primarily use Java & Python.
There isn't a whole lot of Java script or anything like that (at least for the applications we use
everyday )

Also a lot of people just parrot what other people say "Learn programming", what is "learning programming" really ?
The truth is you need to learn SOLID computer science fundamentals.

What's the use in the guy who can code in Java but realistically can't do the linear algebra
necessary to solve a really difficult machine learning problem ? Or rather how many sources
can you realistically gain these skills from ? There are (ignorant) people who poo-poo college on here
but the ones who utilize college RIGHT, are achieving great things.
And really having the science/math background and a strong understanding of Data structures and algorithms
really separates you from the rest.

There's tons of "programmers" because the barrier of entry is really low.
However there aren't a ton of brilliant engineers or computer scientists.

That’s the thing, I’ve had horrible math teachers my whole life and to have to khan academy everything all over again.. I’ll be a student until I’m 35 unless I do web design

 

[null]

99.99% of all Dev jobs will never require you to write a compiler. Its something great to know, and a good senior class project, but you aren't doing that in the real world.

Most in-house Devs are not at places where their software is profit center.
Most in-house Devs are modifying existing software for internal use

I'm not disagreeing with you, i'm just saying most dudes in this thread aren't going to be working on IDEs and OSes

It's an example. The point is in the relationships between the items I named.

Abstraction innit

For compiler substitute word processor, in memory cube, maths lib, graphics lib, encryption lib, network interface, graphics renderer ... i could go on.

That's the hard stuff that people were making their points with reference to earlier in the thread, the motivations and conclusions of which you disagreed with.

And ..

Modern cars, elec entertainment and communication devices, planes, ships, microscopes, high capital manufacturing tools, security systems .... etc etc etc need software.

You might be thinking like that because manufacturing is not high-profile in the USA but a sizeable proportion of programming jobs are a bit more than data/number crunching/processing or webby stuff.

You see all those tools that your company uses.. Someone had to write them.

 

[buzzkill]

I mean just like anything in life thats worth it... u have to put in work and pay your dues

I've been self teaching for 3 yrs 1 yr professional exp and im just starting to take off

And the payoff is looking sweet

Skies the limit for a programmer thats on his grind

 

[JT-Money]

This shyt is really eye opening.

There a reason salaries for US tech workers skyrocketed right after Trump started cracking down on those visa programs.

 

[TRUEST]

There’s real money to be made in IT. The best, very best advice I can give anyone interested is:


When u do start making money, save as much of it as is humanly possible. Don’t go buying giant houses or ridiculous cars thinking the money is gonna keep on coming in. Competition is real. Save ur money. And stay away from women that U know stand to gain a lot from u should u get them pregnant or marry them.

the world is very unpredictable. Ignore this warning at your own peril.

 

[Listen]

Having sold software for the better part of the last 20 years, I can tell you the people who are competent at multiple things are the ones every company I’ve ever worked at hunt and drool over, especially where you are asked to make commercially viable SaaS based products.

There are probably 40-60 people at my company who fall into some sort of engineering bucket. Some work on the core product, some work on implementing clients custom requests, some focus on integrations, some on front end web development etc.....but I can only tell you 3 of them by name, and I’m a friendly guy.

That’s because their are only 3 of them worth the conversation from the front of the businesses perspective.

The others are all hard working and potentially brilliant at whatever they have mastered.....but I can’t explain a business use case to them or ask them how to solve a problem that requires creative thinking and not just googling how someone else built it.

I can’t put them in front of clients and I can’t count on them to understand the “why” instead of the “how”.

The ones who can and do ALWAYS stick out, and always become the most valuable members of their teams.

Some people are looking to blend in, make that money and be left alone and that’s cool, you can find work if your good at something.

The people who keep moving up and become invaluable provide much more than a mastery of a single language.

 

[Carlton Banks]

 

[blues_funk_reggae]

I feel like the OP has a lot of truth to it. My boy is 39 and got out of coding in 2016 and wont go back. He told me a story he went to an interview and the interviewer asked him if he knew how to do XYZ which was not part of the job description, so my boy was like "No, I don't know how to do that" and the guy asked him, "Why not?" my boy was like "because no one knows how to fully do that, I'm sure you don't even know 20% of that language" my boy said the interviewer dead ass had this reaction:

 

[The Radiant One]

So the trades are better than tech correct?

 

[Software]

I’m a full stack engineer. I graduated from the Flatiron school in ATL this year and yeah, it’s not easy. Less than 1/2 of those accepted make it to the end. If you get into coding thinking it’s going to be easy, then you’re wasting your time.

Continuous learning is the name of the game. There’s always something new to learn, and the languages/frameworks that you’ve learned get updated regularly.

Why would anyone pay you 100k if anyone can do it with little effort?

Same it's not easy but it is rewar

Because your business' product isn't software. Writing banking software is easier than (for example) writing a compiler.

Sorry breh but you are wrong here.

But things of that nature are mainly reserved for people with Phds and masters degrees. Those people will have no problem getting a job provided their level of competency matches the degrees they hold. Idk if you guys had a side conversation which deviated but the mian point of this thread was to talk about getting lucrative development positions without any education or experience. Which at many companies are available as long as you show initiative and willingness to learn.

You are right in a sense that coding will only take you so far if you don't have an engineering background or attempt to learn to problem solve and gain exposure to many of the alogrithms used to deal with the problems we as a software engineer are exposed to on a daily basis.

 

[aXiom]

There's a lot of money to be made in tech without the need for knowing how to code code. Tech is not just about writing code, there's infrastructure, security, network/voice, cloud etc.. you don't need to know how to develop and deploy an application to get to 6 figures. Dip your feet in, see if there's something you like or excel at, and master that thing while learning about how it interacts with the other pieces of the puzzle.

One this is true though.. the learning never stops, so don't get into this field if you're the type that completely disconnects at 5pm. Outside of that, you can live decent life if you're somewhat decent at what yo do. You don't need to be a rock star. God knows how many people I see on the daily raking in 6 figures and haven't got a fukking clue how to do their jobs. The people who really have a passion for it? They will forever make bread.

 

[The Up Right Man]

So are you telling me I’m wasting my time learning scratch?

 

[Rhyme n Tekniq]

I should've mentioned this also... Tried to keep it non racial, but race is definitely a factor. A lot of these startups companies and people doing the hiring / recruiting / interviewing are Indian.

Matter fact, back in March and April I had an interview with Google. My 1st interview was with the recruiter who was white, but the two other people doing my separate interviews were Indian/Arab. Needless to say, I didnt get the job. This was for an IT Apprenticeship job mind you cuz at the time I shifted my focus from programming to IT and was studying for my CompTIA A+. They will ALWAYS look out for each other before hiring someone outside of their race, and when they do hire someone it's anything but black. Not saying I didn't get the job specifically cuz I'm black, but I'm not gonna be naive and say it wasn't a factor. When you're black you have a better chance of getting hired by white people than by Indians, Chinese, Latino, etc...

This is true, of course it depends on the company and how lucky you are but a lot of the senior engineers right now are 1st generation immigrants who are more likely to look out for their own. But you also can't explicitly chalk up a rejection to whether you were the only ___ in the room. The whole thing can be a crapshoot sometimes, 10x that for a company like Google

I agree, but in the process of getting my current job, I had to have a 6-person panel technical interview via WebEx and all of them were Indian. My first thought was "I'm fukked" but I decided to boss up and fully invest myself into it like I had nothing to lose. 3 hours later I was offered the position and I was kinda on stuck like because It totally went against everything I've come to expect dealing with Indians. They were even cool and down to earth. If they asked me something obscure and I didnt know I'd just admit and then they would explain and so forth. That was probably the 1st truly positive experience. Not saying that you guys arent right, but keep an open mind and dont let it phase you. I've been there plenty of times so I know.

I'm just saying, just because you're in a siutaion were you feel like you're out of your element, Dont let it kill your confidence. Pretend like that shyt dont exist and keep pushing.

From the time I got the 1st phone call from the indian recruiter at my current job, I was skeptical because usually it leads to no where, But I said fukk it and entertained him anyway and it worked out.

 

[LV Koopa]

There's an underlying theme in this thread that I hope people caught:

Programming and software engineering are not the same thing. Study some computer science topics in addition to a language. This makes learning future things (and getting jobs) easier because you understand the logic behind building things and solving problems.

Pick up a book or find sources online for algorithms and data structures. This is mandatory. Once you get these two areas down, especially all of the searching and sorting algorithms and you understand arrays, linked lists, and stuff you are good to go. Reason is you can derive most other data structures or understand things that initially look complex because you know the base forms and the components used to create them.

Discrete math - makes understanding programming and other computer science areas far easier. When I was in school this was mandatory and had to be taken sophmore year or else you couldn't take any upper level courses. You can get by without it in regards to programming, but the chances of going really far and into actual software development with little knowledge of it - I don't think so. There are too many useful areas of discrete math not to take a course on it. Do it online in your own time through Youtube if you have to.

Once you get this down I doubt you'll struggle learning a programming language. Again, they're just tools. The real value is in the logic behind using them which these areas give you. Once you are able to understand something like the Traveling Salesman Problem, you know you've "gotten it".