Getting a job as a self-taught Python developer

Hey there,

I got this question from newsletter reader Brad:

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First, with regards to your Python Tricks book, I thought it was well-written and well-priced.  I got good use out of, I’d say, 4 or 5 sections.

I’ve been writing in Python for a little under a year now.  I’m entirely self-taught and had 0 programming experience prior.  I’ve picked it up pretty quickly though just by devouring any book I can get my hands on.  (McKinney, Hilpisch, Shaw, Sargent/Stachurski, yours, etc.) 

Here is my question: If I’m thinking about making Python the core of my career/job rather than just a smaller part of it, is formally going back to school necessary in your opinion? 

If so, where do I start looking—at general comp sci degrees or are there more specific programs out there?  How many self-taught guys do you know who have done very well for themselves?

~~~

Alright, I counted at least three questions in there. Let's tackle them one by one.

I'll get on the "is formally going back to school necessary to get a coder job" question first:

Getting a formal computer science degree is the "classical" option (it's the path that I went down.)

And I think it's a thorough and helpful option if you love doing a deep dive on CompSci theory.

I would NOT do it purely for career options, however.

Do it if you love and enjoy computer science and want to focus a few years on building your skills with a solid theoretical foundation.

Don't do it if your biggest goal is to "get a job" as a dev—

In my experience most schools don't teach very many practical skills or help you build up a portfolio as part of their CS programs.

So that's something you'd have to figure out on your own and do it on the side. (Brad sounds really proactive so this might not be a problem.)

Also, getting a formal degree can be quite expensive—and, as I said, it's probably not the fastest route to "employability."

If you don't want to go down the formal education route and your main goal is to get a coder job, another option would be joining a development bootcamp.

That's a practical, hands-on experience lasting several weeks (and up to around 3 months) where you meet, code, and learn with peers and mentors.

The greatest benefit of doing a bootcamp is that you'll end up with some example projects and code in your portfolio that you can show in an interview. 

You know, for employers the biggest challenge in hiring junior/entry-level developers is that there's little or no data about their past performance.

So if someone who's still early in their career looking for their first job it helps a lot if they can share some example code (on their GitHub profile etc.)

These programs absolutely do work for someone who's committed and I've worked with people who had entered the dev industry that way.

So attending a bootcamp might be an option worth exploring. It's also a smaller commitment from a time and money perspective.

Plus you can pair it with online training classes to get up to speed on the theoretical fundamentals.

Just to be clear: a 3 month coding bootcamp is NOT going to replace the breadth and depth of a 4 year bachelor's program.

But if your goal is to get a paid job as a coder as quickly as possible it can be a great option.

I'll get on the "can you do well as a self-taught dev" question in one of my next emails.

Happy Pythoning!

— Dan Bader