The problem with a lot of these "you can do it too" videos is that they don't tell it like it is. The biggest piece of misinformation about the tech sector is jobs. You always hear it, there are tons of jobs out there. That's absolutely true, but the vast majority of these openings are for mid-career developers - 3+ years of experience. I struggled to find employment after I graduated with a C.S. degree and I applied all across the country. It took almost 6 months to land something and my skills trended towards the above average group. I have coworkers at my level of experience telling me that people they graduated with still don't have jobs in industry, and this is well over a year later. So people without a degree have to understand they face stiff competition. My employer, multinational Fortune listed company, only took less than 1% of applicants to my positon this past year. Entry-level applicants are fighting tooth and nail to get their foot in the door.
Maybe the DB Programmer or System Admin path will work for some who eventually want to be Software Engineers but it's not going to be as easy a dude tries to make it out. Even though I'm working an atypical role for a new developer, I'm doing DBA work, Sys Admin work, and Software Engineer work on a day-to-day basis. So if you really want to break into the industry you will need a breadth of skills. Object Oriented Programming, scripting, database programming, operations. You need to be fluid with languages and be able to learn your application's tech stack quickly. If any of this seems like a big obstacle then you just won't make it. If you do then you'll be the developer that people want to strangle every day :franchit:.
Forewarning It's basically the outline for the one I actually plan on turning in
