Ask HN: Landing a programming job by virtue of a side project only?

The $500 MRR is an interesting selling point, for sure.

See yourself as a product you must sell to a new client, your future company. The client is made of: - A future manager - Future colleagues - HR / Upper management

Each part of the client has its own set of requirement. Getting the interview depends mostly on selling the resume: make professional accomplishment clear, show that you understand what's happening around you and focus on problems and their solution.

1) I would definitely consider you for an interview, but with a strong bias against you: I, like many others, have a formal education and believe it helped me. I also hired exotic profiles and got bitten. The fact you have a product up and running is the only reason why I'd pay to see you.

2) Vanilla or not, what I would want to see in frontend code is clarity and team-orientation. If your code can be worked on by a team, and is clear and well done, that'd be more impressive than an angular spaghetti. I would ask you your opinion and try to determine if you can scale to team work, big project and deadlines. Your profile is usually understood to be able to accept ungrateful work happily while learning, and become senior in a 5-year horizon at best. You'll be expected to be humble unless you can demonstrate exceptional insight about programming.

3) I would refuse to see you immediately if I heard about you wanting to slack while we pay you to learn, and I would strongly signal during an interview that not only this is not possible even for the CEO, but that wanting it while you have so much work to do just to be on par with the team that will have to support you for a few years is disrespectful.

The top rule I try to apply when recruiting, is : is that guy better than me. If yes, hired.

I’ve never hired someone who was self-taught, not because self-taught people can’t be equal or better, but because you’re trying to buy security and stability. The most expensive mistake you can make as a manager is hiring the wrong person, and self-educated people just aren’t worth the risk when you have a dozen other candidates who are great. I’m Danish though and things are a little different here because education is free. In face the government will even pay you a small amount of monthly money while you study. So we don’t have that many self-educated people, and those who are, are typically self-educated for a range of reasons that put them at a disadvantage from the get go.

So my point isn’t to discourage you, but to make you aware that managers might see your lack of formal education as a risk that you need to mitigate.

Everyone can learn to program, but learning how to program, correctly, efficiently and safe comes with formal education and you probably need to show that you know at least something about how to make CS based decisions. Maybe you do, if so great. If you don’t, spend a little time researching best practices, read up on design patterns and maybe complete the MITX intro course(s) to CS on edx.org.

I’m not sure knowing a specific framework is really all that valuable. If your can build something with LAMP/JS that makes money then you’ve already demonstrated your ability to write software. On the other hand it wouldn’t hurt you either.

Can't say for sure without spending some time with your code, which you would need to entice me to do. Without a resume, you need a portfolio. That could be one app, if it really catches my attention. A blog with a few short but insightful posts about programming could help too. Catching me at a meetup and demonstrating some intelligence and thoughtfulness would probably clinch it.

Your marketability is fairly limited with just vanilla JS/LAMP. At this point I'd say learn basic React, Node and Python (preferably) or Ruby. Familiarity with AWS would also be a high return investment. You don't need to know any big back-end frameworks (e.g. Django/Rails) really well, but be able to bootstrap a project and use the management app. Spending some time with a microframework is a good idea (e.g. Express/Flask/Sinatra).

At your level working remotely part time is probably not going to be an option. Offering to take a lower salary during negotiations might get you a few days remote but I wouldn't expect it. I would definitely negotiate for more remote time as a reward for positive performance reviews though.

I have no formal education.

YES! Side projects are the best way to demonstrate you know what you know.

1) YES! A million times YES! When recruiting people I don't care about their degree I know how academia works I know its all talk no walk, I want proof and a public repo is the best way to do that.

2) When searching for jobs search your skills (php / javascript) not a job title.

Your biggest selling point is that you are a self starter. If there is something you don't know you will just learn it, while the academics sit on their ass waiting for some one to show them. Its hard to understate how much of a massive advantage this is, especially to business minded people.

3) Yes

Your biggest obstacle will be self doubt or over confidence, don't bull shit if there is something you don't know just stick to your winning attitude.

I know you think you want a programming job, but try to avoid it. I was in a similar position to you years ago. When you start working for other Sr. Dev etc, they will break your spirit and add levels of code bureaucracy and egos. This doesn't include the arguments about naming variables.

Just keep working on your own projects. Who cares if it's spaghetti code, you are making money, those people you interview with are working for the man, you are not.

Creative, drive and initiative (the talents you used to build your own web site and make it profitable) are talents not found in programming. Coders and Sr. Devs who see that you have those talents will soon extinguish those positive traits from character.

Sent from a government office... Help I'm trapped.