Meanwhile, people with years of experience might have trouble getting hired at all. Resume directly in garbage, among other reasons, for not using the word "engineer." It's not about skill or merit, it's about image and connections.
Damn good job. Genuinely happy for you, I think more so because I can relate so closely.<p>I've made the very tough decision to not pursue a residency after medical school and to finally commit to jumping into the startup world. It's both really frightening and exciting to go in a completely different direction after dedicating 4 years of my life to rigorous education. I graduate in May, so I've been trying to absorb as much information and to develop as many skills as possible in preparation for the leap. I'm hoping to perhaps find some good opportunities during Startup School weekend.<p>So I really commend you for making the jump. And thanks for writing about it. It's encouraging and reassuring, especially since I've been told I'll end up homeless if I take this risk.
While I commend the drive to switch to career it is a little scary that it's apparently so easy to become a $100k engineer in 5 months in SF.<p>Reading HN from the other side of the pond in UK sometimes I get the feeling that there's more money than sense flying around the startup world and that this sort of switch to work in this startup ecosystem is why there are so many dreadfully poor app ideas that should never see the light of day being funded with millions of dollars of VC cash.<p>I may just have a slightly distorted view of startup world but is it really that easy to score a highly paid job with so little experience because they're so desperate for bodies who can write some code or is OP someone very talented who's just rolled with it and got very lucky?
Congratulations! It is nice to find your calling (if that's what it is for you). I've been programming professionally for over 20 years, and I still love it for a lot of reasons. Mostly because I get to create every day, and the programs I create provide real value to lots of people. Still quite a thrill! I've listed more reasons in "Why I Love Coding" <a href="http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/" rel="nofollow">http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/</a>
This is interesting, I immediately thought wow this couldn't possibly give you enough training to be a software developer. However, now I'm wondering if most of my college education was worthless.<p>Seriously maybe this program condensed all the necessary experience into 5 months, while the traditional academic path is poor at creating career coders in 4 years. I would totally believe it. There should be some head to head competitions.
My fiancee and I are both studying computer science at a large university. She's graduating in late 2014, I'll be in early 2015.<p>In terms of employment as a developer, sometimes I wonder if we would have been better off attending one of these San Fran developer schools. I wonder though how much of the fundamentals do they learn? Do they ever hear the words "Big-Oh"? Do they know what a binary tree is?<p>And then I wonder -- does it matter? They're getting $90k offers. Perhaps these things don't matter as much, at least for web development.<p>So I suppose this is one of the benefits of a traditional path: you're well prepared for many types of development, not just web. The web is pretty cool though. :)<p>--<p>Question: if one wanted to teach themselves at home, is there an online curriculum that covers the same topics as these schools do?
My initial reaction to this was to pick it apart, but really, that would be stupid of me since it doesn't deserve it. There is value in the piece and it was a nice story. Congrats as well.
There's a lot of comments here that are like "you can't be an Engineer, I spent years getting there. It's not that simple. Grumble grumble grumble... etc..."<p>We should be welcoming him into our field! But instead we're too focused on the terminology he used.<p>I think it's fantastic that the author is now in software and programming. Software development is one of the most affordable ways to change the world. All you need is a laptop and an internet connection :D
Congratulations on the new job. I'm sure that sitting in front of a computer all day like some kind of fleshy office appliance was getting really old - oh, wait.
Nice post Gulnara :) As one of the first people you interviewed back when you had the webcast, I think it's also clear that you have an infectious personality that now pairs well with your new skills. Quite brave too, to not stay in SF and come back to DC when your transitioning into a cs career. Kudos, some more.
I did the same thing - I moved from international business into technology on transportation systems overnight actually - I learned on the job in big enterprise. Now I'm a full on scala/akka developer and don't regret the change one bit.<p>To me the greatest joy is actually working on my own projects.
Are there any other good in-person programs like this around SF that anyone could recommend? This one sounds great, except that I am a male which is not allowed apparently.
Why is the $12,000 "Coder" school only for females? It
does remind me of the store keepers who sold miners
overpriced goods for their dream? I have a feeling,
if these women are hired; it has more to do with companies
wanting the hidden benefits of a female's presence in the
office?<p>This term Coder has always irritated me. I'm surprised it's
not on Tee Shirts yet? "I'm a Coder", or better yet, "I'm
a Koder". All very cute.<p>Right now--I guess in San Francisco--you can go to one if these schools, and land a cute job as a Coder--at 90K?<p>I wonder if these people will be employed when the bubble
ends though?
must be nice to live in a country with such a strong demand for new programmers. interest from 20 companies and a 90k starting salary. even when you adjust for the cost of living that seems crazily high...
>Once I realized that I enjoy staring at hundreds lines of code trying to figure out where the bug is<p>I agree it's fun at first, but once you do it for a few years on a daily basis, it gets old. I suppose most things in life are like this though. Maintaining enthusiasm about work is difficult, for me at least.