I haven’t gotten any degree or certifications, nor do I want to.
First and foremost, I stopped high school because it was boring, and became a full time developer when I was 16, I’d always done development before that just not full time. I do online high school still (I’m in my 20’s), more as a formality, not that I want to. I don’t believe in schooling, they teach you useful skills but after grade 9 I was tapped out.
When I turned 18, I got my first full time development gig, $36k a year, 10x less than I wanted, but I had to make ends meet. Fast forward a year, I’m proudly earning over $45k per year (in my area, the average family only earns $50k between two married adults), married, have a child, and I’ve received offers of employement in the high five figure salary range (70k+), and been interviewed for 100k+ positions.
Let me tell you something I’ve learned: school is irrelevant in development, even if you’ve got a degree or certificate it means nothing to me, what matters more is the experience you have. Show me the non-textbook practical experience, and don’t give me a perfect answer you think I want to hear.
I now run my own business, and I’m a full time developer and I do what I love - the cost? Nothing, I never do over time, I work 7-3, and I’m never in a rush. I get to spend all night and weekend with my child and wife, and I’ve got my own place. My hobby is my job, and my job is a hobby. I work on what I built, and love every minute of it.
To summarize, certificates and degrees are not important, at least to me anyways.
I run & manage a website design and development company in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
I love PHP and JS. I mainly build web applications using Laravel and VueJs. Hope to learn and to meet ppl
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
Work
Project Manager at TYC Web Design and Development Ethiopia
Thanks, man!! That is some inspiring post. But just to add my experience, where I am from anyone who has a lot of certificates and schooling would get ahead in the competition for gigs.
So people like me who detest the idea of certificates would have to prove that we are better than paper hunters. You would lose some contracts because of this but it would make you a better programmer. Because you would have to work hard and practically proof that your work is better!
Sometimes I am bothered by the lack of certificates and the contracts I lose. But most of the time it turns out that I am better of those contracts. In fact, they will drag you down. If you think about it, those people who see certificate and validate you as a good developer are not informed enough to use other methods. That means they are not worth your time anyway.
Started learning to program seriously early 2017. Love fixing problems so decided to switch careers from e-commerce and management to programming and web dev. Longterm goal is full stack developer.
I haven’t gotten any degree or certifications, nor do I want to.
First and foremost, I stopped high school because it was boring, and became a full time developer when I was 16, I’d always done development before that just not full time. I do online high school still (I’m in my 20’s), more as a formality, not that I want to. I don’t believe in schooling, they teach you useful skills but after grade 9 I was tapped out.
When I turned 18, I got my first full time development gig, $36k a year, 10x less than I wanted, but I had to make ends meet. Fast forward a year, I’m proudly earning over $45k per year (in my area, the average family only earns $50k between two married adults), married, have a child, and I’ve received offers of employement in the high five figure salary range (70k+), and been interviewed for 100k+ positions.
Let me tell you something I’ve learned: school is irrelevant in development, even if you’ve got a degree or certificate it means nothing to me, what matters more is the experience you have. Show me the non-textbook practical experience, and don’t give me a perfect answer you think I want to hear.
I now run my own business, and I’m a full time developer and I do what I love - the cost? Nothing, I never do over time, I work 7-3, and I’m never in a rush. I get to spend all night and weekend with my child and wife, and I’ve got my own place. My hobby is my job, and my job is a hobby. I work on what I built, and love every minute of it.
To summarize, certificates and degrees are not important, at least to me anyways.
Thanks, man!! That is some inspiring post. But just to add my experience, where I am from anyone who has a lot of certificates and schooling would get ahead in the competition for gigs.
So people like me who detest the idea of certificates would have to prove that we are better than paper hunters. You would lose some contracts because of this but it would make you a better programmer. Because you would have to work hard and practically proof that your work is better!
Sometimes I am bothered by the lack of certificates and the contracts I lose. But most of the time it turns out that I am better of those contracts. In fact, they will drag you down. If you think about it, those people who see certificate and validate you as a good developer are not informed enough to use other methods. That means they are not worth your time anyway.
Love it, at the end of the day can you do the work. That's all that matters. everything else is just fluff and improvement.