I Taught Myself to Code on a Cracked Android Phone. Now I Can't Get Hired (opens in new tab)

I tinkered with programming as far back as 1994 or so (I was 10 years old at the time), on a 486 dx/2. I installed Mandrake Linux (Now Mandriva? if it’s still around), had to write my own connection scripts for my 56k modem, and I was off to the races in C. I played with VB5 quite a bit in high school.

I had a full scholarship to a state university in 2002, but lost it due to undiagnosed ADHD and depression. In 2012 I enrolled in WGU because I needed a degree to climb at my corporate job… but less than a year later I realized that corporate wasn’t really for me, and decided to pursue startups instead. That was a good decision.

My advice: do whatever it takes to get in the door at the type of company where you want to work. That’s the hard part. Once there, you do the best job you can and constantly look for ways to put your skills to use. This is the boring part - it’ll probably take a couple of years, but in my experience you can slowly mold any position into one that’s either “programming” or “programming-adjacent”. Once you do that, it’s a short leap to get the actual title.

It doesn't matter how skilled I am, no country will let me cross their border without a passport. I can sit around and treat it as a personal slight, but that will do zilch for my situation.

In your case it might be best to focus on finding a local (or semi-local) branch of a multinational business to work for (where you can work in person). That will become that provenance.

I was hiring devs for a number of years in EU, and we never ever looked at education - more specifically, any degree was good, as it was only an indicator that the person can learn. I would never assume practical software engineering knowledge based on a degree.

Anyone in the same situation, what the author did is a perfectly good way - build up knowledge, get mentors, build up a portfolio, work for well-known entities. But then judge your market value realistically, and possibly be in the same region/country. Even if it could technically possible, remote work with such distances has too much legal liability.

My recommendation for you, when you see a job listing, is to investigate the company and project, try and find people on the responsible teams, and see if you can network or reach out to them directly. This often will get you past the arbitrary screening that is setup, and they’re much more likely to be able to judge you on your merits and not whether you meet some arbitrary filtering goal. The first pass in hiring is always a fast rejection pass, and is rarely one that is looking for qualified people, just one that is trying to get the flow of applicants down to a manageable level.

https://xcancel.com/rly0nheart

https://about.me/rly0nheart

These aren't me. I'm no longer on X or about.me.

Might learn a thing or two, also

It is quite difficult to be on both sides of the situation.

Then I studied robotics at university, which forced me to dig into several subjects I most likely would never have touched by free choice.

That foundation took me this far, we'll see what I'm doing once whatever this is has passed.

I'm not even sure I even want to work with software anymore.

No one gives a shit these days, which means experience is worthless and the chances of doing good few and far between.