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As a developer, people always ask me about my job and the things I do, they always think it's something very complex, and I always answer the same thing: being a developer is not more complex than being an engineer who builds houses, a doctor who saves lives, or an accountant that calculates taxes. Development is just different and unknown, and people are afraid of what they don't understand. I don't mean people are afraid of developers, what I mean is that people assume it's very hard and even unachievable for a non-tech person.
They always think my work is like a hackers movie they have seen, or imagine me in a job like Google, working on a couch with my laptop, playing ping pong, having tons of free food, wearing t-shirts every day, and drawing things on whiteboards, and actually, they are not entirely wrong, not all companies are the same, but most of them are very good places to work and they usually offer great salaries, benefits, and flexibilities like working from home. The reason is simple, the law of supply and demand, there are more job offers than developers, so companies try to keep their workers happy.
If you thought like that, this article is for you! I will try to change your mind and convinced you of how easy it could be to become a developer and even more important, that we don't work with zeros and ones.
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You don't need to go to college
My career path was very straight forward: school, college, and work. I was taught that you needed to go to college to be able to get a job, and if you were lucky to get a job without going to college you would always be underpaid and your growth would be coursed by your lack of a diploma, and that you would have to be some kind of genius or extraordinary people to skip college and succeed.
Sounds familiar right? Well, it is! But the good news is that things have changed. Don't believe me, just search for the tech background of the developers leading the industry, most of them started at home and didn't go to college. Even regular employees in regular tech companies don't need a diploma, in fact, I’ve worked with mathematics, physician, designers, philosophers, engineers of all kinds (Telecom, Industrial, Electrical), and a developer that learned on a Bootcamp or at home.
But wait, where is the catch? What changed? Why is this possible now? The reason is simple... the internet! Sorry if you expected an extraordinary answer, but I'm not a genius, that's why I went to college remember? The internet and the way we now access the information has changed, information is available 24/7, and the amount of content out there is huge, you are a couple of clicks away from learning almost anything and to answer almost any question, that's the reason you are reading this, to answer a question and to learn something.
How do I start?
I strongly recommend starting with web development, it's very easy to build small things, for example, you can create a small web page on a weekend.
So, find an HTML, CSS and JS course, there are plenty of free courses out there, if you want something simpler and more familiar to you, you can just search on Youtube for videos, and pick the one with the most views and likes. If you are still skeptical about the diploma, Google has some great free courses you can take, and you will have your diploma.
After that, you will know if you like it or not. I don't know anyone who doesn't enjoy creating an app to solve a daily problem like a movie tracker, a grocery list, a blog, a business idea you have, or even that game you love to play on your phone.
Your next step is to take this rush of motivation and transform it into a habit. Start small, 15 minutes a day, something so simple you just can't skip and keep learning. In no time you will be able to put more things in your LinkedIn and people are going to start messaging you, you have my word.
Conclusion
If you want it, start today! No matter your age, gender, location, or career, you are always on time to start something new. A weekend is enough to try something and see if you like it or not.
People are not aware of this, but now you are, take advantage of it and start something!
Last but not least, find a mentor, call that developer you know and buy him/her a beer or tea, and ask all the questions you have, establish that bond, so the next time you get stuck you have someone to help you. Don't overwhelm him/her, always ask google first, and only then you can contact your mentor.
I've had great mentors and is the fastest way to start, not the only one, but one I strongly recommend, and once you get there don't forget how important it was for you and mentor someone else.
I've mentor friends, family, junior developers and now I want more. But, how am I going to do that? I’m still figuring that out but needed to start somewhere so I wrote this post. Hope you like it and I would love to hear from your experience and your doubts.
Top comments (4)
I completely agree its a field that anyone can get into the hardest part for many people is actually finding the time to start. Programming is quite simple as a concept all you are doing is following some documentation and then building something. I think that some people get a little bit scared to begin with and think that you need to have a masters in maths to build things. When really the bar to entry is actually quite low depending on the programming language you choose to learn.
I totally agree with you, you only need to find yourself a couple of minutes per day to start. I also think that if people were aware of the great community behind it, they will be less scared to start and they would give it a try.
Hi Simón, very nice article and I completely agree with you. Nowadays no don't need to have a career to get a programmer job and become a great developer, all you need it is thirst of learn every day. In my case I tried to study by myself when I was 14 years old around year 2000. I bought a Pascal and C++ (1000 pages bible) and I tried, without internet and anything and I didn't even knew what was a compiler and stuff and it was very hard time, why? Because we had no internet, and the internet we had later was not sown with so much great tutorials and answers. Some years after that I finished a college where I had only one subject of programming, so I could learn some HTML and CSS. Then I went to high college and learned some C and VisualBasic which helped me to understand some stuff, but everything else around front-end web development I had to learn from internet and work colleagues. Conclusion 8h a day during 4 years with internet + mentor, you can learn much more :)
I'm happy to hear that, a 1000 pages book of C++ is for sure a big first step! I'm happy you managed to keep trying and didn't quit.
I felt the same as you when I was at college, I felt I knew nothing, like Jhon Snow. I was very frustrated and thought that I didn't have the knowledge needed to do anything in a company, I even started working before finishing college to calm that feeling.
If I could tell something to my college me, I would tell him that he would learn everything he needs to know at work and that he should focus on learning. Just working is easy, finish that feature or fix that bug it's the easy path, but learning from everything you do, that's the key, getting 1% better each day, that whats separates seniors from juniors.