Self-taught developers aren’t real.
Stay with me now....
It's a term that shouldn't really exsist because....
Even the CS grad from MIT.
Even the bootcamp alum.
Even the engineer with 10 years at Google.
They all are self taught....
Sure, some people had structured education.
Some had professors.
Some were lucky enough to learn from legends like David J. Malan
But let’s be honest…
Nobody spoon-feeds you how to debug a production issue at 2AM.
Nobody forces you to read documentation. (you'll learn)
Nobody can teach you how to think through edge cases under pressure. They can try but replicating the real life pressure is just not realistic...
At some point, it’s just:
• You
• The docs
• Stack Overflow
• YouTube
• And now… ChatGPT
And your ability to sit there and figure it out.
The real difference isn’t “degree vs self-taught”.
It’s:
Are you resourceful?
Can you teach yourself what you don’t know?
Can you stay when it gets frustrating instead of quitting?
That’s the actual skill.
In tech, your survival depends on how fast you can learn without permission.
So when I see people leading with:
“Self-taught developer ”
I don’t see a flex, that's just a gimmick at this point
I see the bare minimum requirement to survive in this field.
If you can’t teach yourself… you’re not lasting anyway.
I do get it though, it's normal for human beings to try and find ways to be "special". If you do this then from today start leading with your actual skills... your specialization and stuff like that, and let's dwell more on that.
Top comments (1)
Honestly in today's job market you can't afford to survive on gimmicks. It has to always be about your skills