"Just learn to Code" they said... the TRUTH about Coding / Programming Jobs

Carlton Banks

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Thanks bc i thought it was cap but didn't know for sure.

Also, i was briefly a linguistics major in ug and was welcomed into nsbe. Conferences was lit.

No problem.

There's money to be made for sure. But it's simply not as easy as it sounds just because you have the skills. Some of my OP can sound like it's written out of frustration because this can very much be a frustrating uphill battle, especially being black.
 

Deoji

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It's always better to know multiple languages, brehs. Even if you're just supporting apps and not developing per se. Even for a basic web forms application you should know your way around HTML, CSS, Javascript/Jquery, C#, and SQL. It just comes with the territory. I do know shops that just do Web API microservices in C#, but by default they still deal with data abstraction, JSON creation and parsing, etc. All that shyt goes together and you pick a lot of it up as you gain experience.
 

player611

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What do you want though? A handout?

If you get suckered into an online course that teaches you one language and expect to be rich from coding.... in 2020... you’re unfortunately mistaken.


Like everything, you have to set yourself apart, you have to be able to create, excel, network, etc. :manny:

None of these dudes on here who "learn to code"
you to death ever add the extra stuff that you're mentioning though. It's not some golden ticket skill set that'll bring you instant wealth, the way it's talked about on here. You're right, but this thread isn't directed towards people with your mentality
 

Insensitive

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That’s the thing, I’ve had horrible math teachers my whole life and to have to khan academy everything all over again.. I’ll be a student until I’m 35 unless I do web design
I think the best way to look at it is in a certain number of years you'll be 35 anyways might as well go to school and get that education under your belt.
 

Dr. Acula

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I think the best way to look at it is in a certain number of years you'll be 35 anyways might as well go to school and get that education under your belt.
I was a returning student, and I didn't regret returning at all. My first degree was an AAS in computer networking but I just did general IT work and had trouble finding work in that field before I decided to go back to school because I was unhappy with my life path. More and more older people are doing it these days and I actually saw quite a few older students in my program.

If I had tried to get my current BS as 18 yo I wouldn't have been able to do it. I was to immature socially and I didn't have any of the discipline I had now. I actually was pretty shytty in high school and Hated math but I realize now it's because I never put the effort to learn it when I was younger. I felt directionless and shyt. It wasn't until I was older that I matured and was able to get focus. I went from struggling with algebra in high school to taking differential equations when I got older.

Something not talked about is that a lot of 18 year olds aren't really mentally there yet to do well in a university environment and may benefit waiting until later in life to try.

I never felt shame doing this and was never to made to feel ashamed of doing this. So, if you have thoughts of returning to college, do it. You only live once. Do what makes you happy.
 
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Alvin

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I'm going to try not to rant but "Passion" is a tirgger word for me. It sets me the fukk off and to be super real with you, is probably the single driving force behind me going so hard Initially.

When I was unemployed, feeling like the walls were closing in on me I attended this job fair at this IT boot camp school I was attending, I got a couple of :mjpls: vibes from a few of the vendors I slid my resume to which I was totally prepared for, But then I got to the table with this Asian guy.

When I handed him my struggle resume with all these manual labor jobs with just an A+ cert to my name, he had the:upsetfavre: face and instead of just saying "thank you for your time" or "we'll be in touch", He proceeds to go on this elitist fake -ass wanna be Ted Talk monologue about "passion", not even talking to me , but talking at me like a wall and was basically insinuating I was a bum who didnt belong and was just trying take any job I can get and that I I dont posses the passion and qualities to have a career in tech... Iike the only way I could have a career in tech is if I was some uncouth hobbyist incel who's been building Rasberry Pis and studying quantum computing since I was 5 yrs old or some shyt.

He kept going on and on about passion and the more he kept talking the more I felt the need to physically assail him and murder him right there on the spot. I'm not joking or being exaggerate. I felt so low that I seriously considered just duffing him out and stomping his face in. It was a split second decision that made me not act on my impulses.

I swallowed my pride, made peace with not only my rejection but my then current lot in life and I thought to myself "yeah I'm fukked up in the game, But this'll never happen again, Ima make these bytch ass nikkas a believer"

I learned to ignore the inner voice of my own self doubt and other people's opinions and just grind grind grind.

There were no preacher's, life coaches, mentors, confidants or self-help gurus; I had to spiritually and mentally reconstruct myself as a person and become my own man and make shyt happen.

I spent mad nights staying up to 3 am just asorbing as much knowledge as possible, building my own vison board and drawing up practical ways to execute my long-term goals. I had never studied this much ever...at any point in my life for any reason, but the more I researched, and labbed, shyt begin to snowball FAST.

Even my wife noticed the change, and while she loved my new found ambition, she also thought I was falling into unhealthy obscession territory in pursuit of some pipe dream. Understandably so as I was uncharted territory for the 1st time in a long time in life. But sure enough shyt started changing FAST.

Jan, 2019 - I was working my 1st job in IT following a shaky two years of unemployment making $15 hourly, PT imaging PCs in setting up workstation

Jan 21, 2019 - a few weeks later I landed my 1st real enterprise IT gig doing Desktop Support, asset management and mobile device management for this huge ass company making $18 dollars an hour. I got exposed to alot of shyt in a short amount of time, but muthafukka didint want me to spread my wings so I dipped immediately.

July, 2019 - I landed a job as system administrator making $28 dollars per hour, 7 months later I got an increase to $36 Hourly. Again a picked up on alot of shyt in a short amount of time, and I was thrusted into a leadership role while juggling my self study in home labs and stacking certs.

Aug, 2020 - Just accepted and started this Cloud / Infrastructure Engineer @ $85,000 annually with a few more companies after the fact all offering me $95K-$115K for similar roles. Hell, I just got off the phone with a talent aquisition manager talking about $90K-110K is a very doable range.

I'm not cac benefitting from nepotism or any other ism, I'm not well-connected in the industry(yet), I didnt benefit from some incentivized program t\o hire minorities and I sure as hell didnt have a mentor or people holding my hands every step of the way. All I had was an old Dell laptop, several accounts spread across Udemy/Oreilly/Linux Academy/ITPro, VMware workstation to spin up VMs, and my ambition. Through my nonstop grind I started achieving and leapfrogging to the next level and higher paygrades and it made my wife a believer, She saw the method to my madness and she cant stop smiling now, She held me down too.

Lemm just wrap this up by circling back to "Passion".

Throughout my entire journey in IT thus far, I have never encountered someone who exuded unwavering extreme levels of "passion" about the shyt they do on a daily basis. What I do see 30% of the time is people dedicated enough about their crafts to keep their lights on, a roof over their head and their car not getting reposessed. What I do see is people who take pride in their profession but still maintain a great work life balance and are not really pressed to be in the office any longer than they have to.

The the other 70% is a combination of people looking to get into IT and washed up career tech support bums looking to get out of IT due to career burnout because they never had the wherewithal or ability to succeed long-term in Tech industry.

In short you dont need 24/7 365 passion, not even close to resembling passion.
What you do need is an 'always be growing' mentality, self-sufficiency and hustler's spirit. get a few certs and some experience under your belt and you should be gaining decent traction in your career. But you still gotta know your shyt, but that goes without saying.

This is a career...treat it as such

If you're meandering around and doing the bare minumum like its some forklft driver gig through a rinky-dink temp service; especially with all the resources you can parlay into a six-figure lifestyle then as the OG coli brehs use to say....

You pouring jelly on your self.

Step your hustle up brehs:ufdup:
that's very dope, good on you bruh
 

Insensitive

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I was a returning student, and I didn't regret returning at all. My first degree was an AAS in computer networking but I just did general IT work and had trouble finding work in that field before I decided to go back to school because I was unhappy with my life path. More and more older people are doing it these days and I actually saw quite a few older students in my program.

If I had tried to get my current BS as 18 yo I wouldn't have been able to do it. I was to immature socially and I didn't have any of the discipline I had now. I actually was pretty shytty in high school and Hated math but I realize now it's because I never put the effort to learn it when I was younger. I felt directionless and shyt. It wasn't until I was older that I matured and was able to get focus. I went from struggling with algebra in high school to taking differential equations when I got older.

Something not talked about is that a lot of 18 year olds aren't really mentally there yet to do well in a university environment and may benefit waiting until later in life to try.

I never felt shame doing this and was never to made to feel ashamed of doing this. So, if you have thoughts of returning to college, do it. You only live once. Do what makes you happy.
I agree.
I'm also an older non-traditional student.
I got an opportunity to change my life and I took it.
I'm a year away from finishing a degree andI already work at a large Engineering focused company.
And it all came from taking a chance, finding some discipline and staying the course.
 

Trustus

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I'm going to try not to rant but "Passion" is a tirgger word for me. It sets me the fukk off and to be super real with you, is probably the single driving force behind me going so hard Initially.

When I was unemployed, feeling like the walls were closing in on me I attended this job fair at this IT boot camp school I was attending, I got a couple of :mjpls: vibes from a few of the vendors I slid my resume to which I was totally prepared for, But then I got to the table with this Asian guy.

When I handed him my struggle resume with all these manual labor jobs with just an A+ cert to my name, he had the:upsetfavre: face and instead of just saying "thank you for your time" or "we'll be in touch", He proceeds to go on this elitist fake -ass wanna be Ted Talk monologue about "passion", not even talking to me , but talking at me like a wall and was basically insinuating I was a bum who didnt belong and was just trying take any job I can get and that I I dont posses the passion and qualities to have a career in tech... Iike the only way I could have a career in tech is if I was some uncouth hobbyist incel who's been building Rasberry Pis and studying quantum computing since I was 5 yrs old or some shyt.

He kept going on and on about passion and the more he kept talking the more I felt the need to physically assail him and murder him right there on the spot. I'm not joking or being exaggerate. I felt so low that I seriously considered just duffing him out and stomping his face in. It was a split second decision that made me not act on my impulses.

I swallowed my pride, made peace with not only my rejection but my then current lot in life and I thought to myself "yeah I'm fukked up in the game, But this'll never happen again, Ima make these bytch ass nikkas a believer"

I learned to ignore the inner voice of my own self doubt and other people's opinions and just grind grind grind.

There were no preacher's, life coaches, mentors, confidants or self-help gurus; I had to spiritually and mentally reconstruct myself as a person and become my own man and make shyt happen.

I spent mad nights staying up to 3 am just asorbing as much knowledge as possible, building my own vison board and drawing up practical ways to execute my long-term goals. I had never studied this much ever...at any point in my life for any reason, but the more I researched, and labbed, shyt begin to snowball FAST.

Even my wife noticed the change, and while she loved my new found ambition, she also thought I was falling into unhealthy obscession territory in pursuit of some pipe dream. Understandably so as I was uncharted territory for the 1st time in a long time in life. But sure enough shyt started changing FAST.

Jan, 2019 - I was working my 1st job in IT following a shaky two years of unemployment making $15 hourly, PT imaging PCs in setting up workstation

Jan 21, 2019 - a few weeks later I landed my 1st real enterprise IT gig doing Desktop Support, asset management and mobile device management for this huge ass company making $18 dollars an hour. I got exposed to alot of shyt in a short amount of time, but muthafukka didint want me to spread my wings so I dipped immediately.

July, 2019 - I landed a job as system administrator making $28 dollars per hour, 7 months later I got an increase to $36 Hourly. Again a picked up on alot of shyt in a short amount of time, and I was thrusted into a leadership role while juggling my self study in home labs and stacking certs.

Aug, 2020 - Just accepted and started this Cloud / Infrastructure Engineer @ $85,000 annually with a few more companies after the fact all offering me $95K-$115K for similar roles. Hell, I just got off the phone with a talent aquisition manager talking about $90K-110K is a very doable range.

I'm not cac benefitting from nepotism or any other ism, I'm not well-connected in the industry(yet), I didnt benefit from some incentivized program t\o hire minorities and I sure as hell didnt have a mentor or people holding my hands every step of the way. All I had was an old Dell laptop, several accounts spread across Udemy/Oreilly/Linux Academy/ITPro, VMware workstation to spin up VMs, and my ambition. Through my nonstop grind I started achieving and leapfrogging to the next level and higher paygrades and it made my wife a believer, She saw the method to my madness and she cant stop smiling now, She held me down too.

Lemm just wrap this up by circling back to "Passion".

Throughout my entire journey in IT thus far, I have never encountered someone who exuded unwavering extreme levels of "passion" about the shyt they do on a daily basis. What I do see 30% of the time is people dedicated enough about their crafts to keep their lights on, a roof over their head and their car not getting reposessed. What I do see is people who take pride in their profession but still maintain a great work life balance and are not really pressed to be in the office any longer than they have to.

The the other 70% is a combination of people looking to get into IT and washed up career tech support bums looking to get out of IT due to career burnout because they never had the wherewithal or ability to succeed long-term in Tech industry.

In short you dont need 24/7 365 passion, not even close to resembling passion.
What you do need is an 'always be growing' mentality, self-sufficiency and hustler's spirit. get a few certs and some experience under your belt and you should be gaining decent traction in your career. But you still gotta know your shyt, but that goes without saying.

This is a career...treat it as such

If you're meandering around and doing the bare minumum like its some forklft driver gig through a rinky-dink temp service; especially with all the resources you can parlay into a six-figure lifestyle then as the OG coli brehs use to say....

You pouring jelly on your self.

Step your hustle up brehs:ufdup:

Not to diminish your post but I think this is the important part of your post. Self doubt I believe leads to imposter syndrome. Which makes so many people quit. :salute:for you to recognize that a keep grindin. Thanks for the inspiration.
 

#1 pick

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Btw, i didnt mean to talk down on anyone by calling this "easy". Ill use a better word and say "rewarding" based on personality.

Do not get into this field if you don't have a passion for this shyt. The amount of technology you have to learn and keep up with is enough to crush you if you dont enjoy it.

My company sends me across America (pre-covid) to attene conferences on the latest developments so we can be in the know. And that shyt gets me geeked! I love it, i could do it all day.... in fact i do. I constantly have conferences playing on YouTube while i work.

My point is, if you dont have a passion for it... you wont want to learn 6 languages, travel for seminars, build your own personal projects, etc. Passion is what makes it easy, not the actual difficulty level
Facts! When I lack the passion, this can become really hard.
 

TRUEST

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No problem.

There's money to be made for sure. But it's simply not as easy as it sounds just because you have the skills. Some of my OP can sound like it's written out of frustration because this can very much be a frustrating uphill battle, especially being black.
Breh there’s no reason to be apologizing for ur belief system. U got to have that particular standpoint based on your specific life journey. Your life story. I get where you’re coming from. Nobody wants to feel like they’re going to school for the rest of their lives. Especially when the educational institutions keep churning out young fresh competitors every year.

Considering the hardheaded nature of most of the replies in this thread so far I can see why there’s such great disparity between those that succeed and those that don’t. You are thinking outside the box and by so doing, you cast yourself in a different category speaking a language only those in the same category can understand.

my point here is, stand by your belief.
 
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