Are there any YC companies willing to train people coming from a non-software engineering background in exchange for free work?<p>Basically, an intern but not one in school.
Before someone gets to the "effective autodidacticism" regime and for a not insignificant period afterwards, they are not likely to be very productive. Meanwhile, helping them make effective progress is a major time sink for more experienced personnel.<p>In a big company, you have a very big load with a lot of momentum behind it and a lot of people are responsible for pulling the load. If this guy pulls really hard and that guy can barely pull at all or gets tangled and pushes it in the opposite direction...it keeps moving.<p>In a startup, you're trying to juggle an ever-heavier load while making everything up as you go and trying to figure out what route your on, while everyone is riding full gallop and trying not to break their necks. Throwing someone into that who can't handle it can be quite disruptive. At best, it can be inefficient.<p>Maybe you'd learn fast and that period wouldn't last long - but if so, you should just do it and <i>then</i> try to join a startup (or whatever).<p>Finding a mentor will greatly reduce the potential gap between where you are and a useful level of skill, but that should be something you look for independent of involvement at a startup. As a stopgap, look into attending developer meetups in your area and look for organizations like ACM chapters. This can give you people to turn to when you get stuck. Eventually, you can help tutor others and learn even faster that way. Maybe it's what leads to developing a good mentoring relationship too.
I think that's going to be tough. Mostly because startups are generally moving full force on whatever their project/server/app is and don't have time to trains someone with no development experience.