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Discussion on: Can you become a developer on a team with no devs?

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andrewbrown profile image
Andrew Brown 🇨🇦 • Edited

Can you become a dev without working with other devs? I did.

  • I never had a mentor
  • Stackoverflow didn't exist
  • I didn't have a CS degree

Just to spend one day with real developers I had saved up enough to take a 24-hour greyhound from Thunder Bay to Toronto, to go the second meeting of the Rails Pub Night.

I grinded for 3 years, coding every day, building application after application and I made very little money building e-commerce websites on the side for random and very demanding small businesses.

Then one day I complained on Twitter about an open-source application, the co-founder asked what was wrong with it, and instead of telling I just contributed 2 weeks of commits with no expectation of pay. Turns out I saved the startup and they asked me to join the team and I became the CTO fo that company.

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heysarahpaz profile image
Sarah

This is just such an incredible story! I love hearing about people's journeys, especially when they are self-taught. It's a huge motivation and inspiration. I can't imagine how it must have felt to be offered a position after contributing towards that application. It's stories like this that keep me positive and believing the best is yet to come. Thanks for sharing this!