Specific Java Career Question - Not sure what the right thread is, I'd like to ask all Java Developers

CONTENTS DELETED

I've hired many developers over the years, and I think it's definitely possible to get hired without a degree if:

- You have a github full of good, well-documented code, and you wrote it all (i.e. it's not just unmodified forks), and you can talk about how it works and why you wrote it that way in depth
- If you know Java and the main APIs (like collections), can discuss them in depth, and can write code on the whiteboard or in a Google Doc during an interview
- If you know data structures and algorithms (maybe two undergrad courses' worth)
- If you know the basics of computer science (virtual memory, threads, locks, semaphores, et cetera, like you'd learn in a first operating systems programming course)

If you know those four things well, you'd be better than 90% of CS graduates I've interviewed :)

add some math and physics to it, as well as building a little compiler
and one full project on your own (thesis), then you have just described
a full course of applied science :)

Bottom line in my opinion:

A bachelor + masters gives you the directed opportunity
to learn how to learn and perform work on your own.

Doing this w/o a university is even harder.
Both shall be proven in the first months of employment.
An interview may help to preselect, but may also
lead to false negatives or positives. Who knows?

It shall not matter what you actually know at time of
your employment to evaluate your worth (salary),
but your experience and your pace to learn & adapt.

Surely a long discussion and I really don't want to divulge
into the new era of things like gender, social justice and
what not - which might be also today's criteria, sadly so.
Ooops, I just did it :)

Cheers, Sven

On 8/17/19 12:26 AM, Wade Walker [via jogamp] wrote:

RoggerJones wrote

I have been getting a little obsessed with Java, and know other languages like c# and python. But I have zero degrees, or formal experience. How hard is it to break in as a developer, if let's say you have a few app launches under your belt from some solo work. Would anyone take me seriously if I filled out some applications? And is it possible to make it, without a degree? Thank you everyone.

It's a bot, "it" edited its first post to add a link to a fake application "whatsapp plus/web, I'll have to remove its post.

Awesome .. having a nice convo w/ Wade triggered by a bot :)

Thank you Julien.
Yes, some late posts here are very much spam.
Even some detailed nagging questions almost seem like span,
judging on the emotional level of the message :)

Hacking along.

~Sven

On 8/17/19 12:46 PM, gouessej [via jogamp] wrote: