r/PythonJobs • u/[deleted] • Dec 20 '23
Python is nothing without a degree..
To the work force.
Doesn't matter if I've been using python since 1993.
If I don't have a CS degree, it doesn't matter.
I've shown my code to hiring managers, been told to my face that there's no way I could know how to do that. Been called a liar and cheater once they ask me if I have a degree.
30 fucking years, doesn't matter at all.
Screw you. I'm gonna make an AI to destroy humanity..
With python.
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Dec 20 '23
Yeah, just an fyi having a degree doesn’t help, I have one, and it has opened zero doors. The reality is there is an over abundance of people looking for jobs in the tech industry right now. With the Silicon Valley layoffs and general dissatisfaction everyone has with their jobs, you are competing against a lot of talent. The unemployment numbers look good, but everyone is quietly looking for something better, so there is a ton of competition out there. Sorry my dude, and I wish you luck.
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Dec 20 '23
Yeah, I've given up trying to find a job.
The only path seems to be coming up with some nifty software and selling it.
I've been working on AI cognitive models for the last decade. I've made some pretty excellent strides in things. Turns out you can get a lot done if you don't give a shit about the consequences, morals, scientific duty, etc.
I don't publish anything, don't use github, etc. I'm like Sam Altman, but with no oversight. haha
Edit: And no money! :D
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u/JobsandMarriage Dec 20 '23
The only path seems to be coming up with some nifty software and selling it.
your initial post was unnecessarily dramatic but you aren't wrong about this. This should be plan A for everyone but there should be no expectation that it will take off, it should be used as a tool to advertise on LinkedIn to obtain objective A, getting hired for a lucrative tech job to obtain F U money as quickly. A resume itself, even with a CS degree and no project to show for what you have learned/built results in the same chances you and I have. So build something useful and share it on linked
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Dec 20 '23
I could. But, a lot of it is weirdly esoteric.
I've taken some of my AI research into weird tangents.
I've integrated the A* path finding algorithm, took some of the q-star stuff, and wiggled it around into a liquid quantum neural network using pennylane and some other libs to make a maze solver.
Another thing I did when I was bored was make a web browser with an anti-refresh button.
I recently had a rather life-threatening bout of encephalitis too. And after that, I seem to have gained a solid ability to take a mathematical equation and turn it into a python program.
I mean, there's a lot I could do with this. But, without the credentials, it's worthless in a commercial sense.
So, yeah. I'm gonna get ahead of the basilisk on this one.
Edit: I did take that stuff from Walter Russell and made a nifty wave cycle simulator program with matplotlib. Lots of sliders, intensity and interference stuff. Pretty cool. I may give out a copy for someone to dink with if they want it.
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u/JobsandMarriage Dec 21 '23
This is just my opinion, but if your project can't be hosted clearly via an App Store or via GitHub repository, you are wasting unnecessary time on the project. Make use of those platforms to add more legitinacy to your candidacy
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Dec 22 '23
[deleted]
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Dec 22 '23
Delusions only are such if none of these things were true.
However, I do have code I have made, and the like.
Pretty good try to discredit me, skeptic, go find an easier target.
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Dec 22 '23
[deleted]
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u/nnulll Dec 22 '23
Even if code exists… the thing this person lacks is the ability to work in an enterprise environment.
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Dec 23 '23
Yeah big surprise why they didn’t get hired. Good managers want a team player, not someone with main character syndrome.
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Dec 22 '23
that’s your problem: you don’t have your projects validated by other people. So, you’re biased about your skills. Show me a Github project with 1-2k stars instead and then we’ll see if you can find a job.
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Dec 22 '23
Yeah, I don't need someone else pouring over my cognitive model prototypes yet.
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u/blackz0id Dec 23 '23 edited Jun 09 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/InvestingNerd2020 Dec 21 '23
There is always consulting and contractor work. Pays the bills until someone stops being a degree biased idiot.
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u/doa-doa Dec 20 '23
But isnt that what coding interview are for? If they ever doubt you just ask them to test you
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Dec 20 '23
Oh, I can get through a coding interview just fine.
It's when I get to the end, and I have to pass through an approval filter. They usually stop and are like "A Data engineer/python developer/AI/ML Developer with no degree? Nope! Not possible, no degree no job."
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Dec 21 '23
[deleted]
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Dec 21 '23
Probably a solid 10 times.
But, I do have an opportunity on the horizon in a sort of cloud developer/noc position coming up next year. It seems promising, and a significant pay raise with it too with the company I am currently at.
So, maybe I might be ok.
But, you know, the AI thing is still on the table. I'd rather be riding the basilisk than be in front of it. :)
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u/28948 Dec 20 '23
Why don’t you get some kind of certificate?
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Dec 21 '23
Do you find that helps? I’ve been told by many others on other subs it’s useless. Also, any particular paths you’d recommend that don’t cost thousands of dollars? I’ve googled it before but couldn’t really figure out what was worth while and what wasn’t?
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u/Some_Guy_At_Work55 Dec 21 '23
I did the tech degree program on TeamTreeHouse and got my Python development degree. You pay monthly for the program and you have to complete like 8-10 assignments and then a final which are all graded reviewed by an instructor. You can go at your own pace, however when I was in the program you were only allowed to submit 1 assignment per week so the minimum amount of time you could complete the course was 2 months. IIRC it was a couple hundred dollars per month but I landed a job using Python so it was definitely worth it.
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Dec 21 '23
I’ll look into them. Thanks for the recommendation
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u/28948 Dec 22 '23
Well, in todays market there is a lot of competition. If you have some kind of proof that you have completed the needed work and you are able to sit down and do the job, that filters you as one of the possible candidates. That is just that, you can still not be hired for a lot of reasons. It is also important to finish a course that makes you do projects, make you own portfolio
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Dec 22 '23
What kills me is I have experience (3 years). I do need to organize my portfolio. I landed a temp job though, in data analytics. I’ll probably take time to organize the portfolio while I work there, no guarantee that goes more than 3 months
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Dec 23 '23
Can u tell me what all projects u did in that course ?
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u/Some_Guy_At_Work55 Dec 26 '23
Sure, sorry for the late reply.
The first project was a number guessing game. Generate a random number between 1 and 10. Have the user guess the number until they get it correct. If the number is higher than the user guess, print "higher", if the number is lower than the user guess, print "lower". Once the user guesses the correct number print "Correct!" and the program should end.
Project 2 was a Basketball team stats tool. This program is designed to display the names of the teams in a basketball league. Selecting a team will tell you how many players are on the team, as well as list the players. The program is structed in a way that the user can return from the teams menu back to the main menu and then quit the program if they choose.
Project 3 was a game called PhraseHunters. Basically the game Hangman. Display a word of phrase that the user has to guess. The letters should be replaced with '_' until the user guesses a correct letter in the phrase and it should be filled in accordingly. For example, the phrase is "Python is cool" should be displayed as "_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _" and if a user guesses the letter "o" it should display "_ _ _ _ o _ _ _ _ o o _"
Project 4 was a store inventory app which would pull inventory from a sqlite data base and you had to write a program that would access that information. The user should be able to select any item in the inventory and see certain information about that item like current stock, price, etc.
Project 5 was an online journal that used Flask to create a webapp in which you could log entries, edit, and delete them.
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u/musclecard54 Dec 21 '23
Let this be a lesson to all those considering if they should go the self-taught route. Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean it’s a better decision. Many companyies straight up filter out qualified candidates because they don’t have a degree. Whether you agree with it or not, that’s what they do. Going the self taught route is essentially volunteering yourself out of contention at those companies.
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u/InvestingNerd2020 Dec 21 '23
The biggest issue with colleges are the cost of the degree. Wages for college graduates isn't keeping up for most majors, and the few majors that do lead to high paying jobs are dealing with extreme competition. Ivy leaguers > Top tier elite private colleges >= Top tier state schools > smaller state schools or new private colleges.
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u/musclecard54 Dec 21 '23
Yes we’re all well aware that college is expensive… that doesn’t change the fact that without a degree you’re eliminating yourself from contention for a very large part of the job market, which is already very competitive as it is…
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Dec 22 '23
I found out about it when I was attending a major tech university in the USA in the 90s.
I was busy learning Ada and C. My buddy told me about python and I was hooked.
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u/IfImhappyyourehappy Dec 20 '23
All you need to get a job is 4 years work experience, good speaking skills, magic, and a little bit of luck.
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u/SeymoreMcFly Dec 22 '23
Where do you live? I used to be a 3rd party recruiter that specialized in talented coders with no degree??? Hearing this makes me confused… sounds more like ageism…
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u/InvestingNerd2020 Dec 21 '23
On the next episode of "Scorched Earth Programmer".
I agree that the HR department can be mindlessly obsessed with a degree. A degree helps for someone without experience. Not someone with 30+ years experience.
Forcing every experienced person to take on college debt is unnecessary just to say they have the people with degrees on staff is idiotic at the very least. Most college degrees teach a broad range of sub-subjects. On the actual job, you will use 25% of what you learned. This is assuming your employment is within your college major.
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u/Prior_Woodpecker_863 Dec 20 '23
If you have A in python then down the road you never practiced or done any project with it you are the same as the person as who have scored c or d in thier grade. The only thing it should matter for the job is do you have enough knowledge so we can work together and understand the codebase
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u/Jzmu Dec 21 '23
You can get a bs cs for super cheap from WGU and very quickly if you already know how to code.
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u/The_Homeless_Coder Dec 24 '23
I’ll help. This whole degree elitism made me program less. One day I was like, well why fucking bother trying to be the best programmer on the planet when they are going to hire a graduate who doesn’t even have projects or know how to use git. Like fuck you society!
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u/TraditionalPeach15 Dec 20 '23
It's not nothing, but a CS degree is going to be a huge unblocker.
The majority of larger tech companies and even many startups and smaller companies (especially in this market) will automatically prefer candidates with CS degrees over candidates without them (and those with degrees from the best schools get the most priority).
It matters very little how good your portfolio is when that filter is so prominent. And you may be able to network your way into a job, but that's incredibly unpractical despite what a lot of online advice will tell you, and the jobs willing to actually interview you is a much smaller pool.
Ignore what everyone else is saying. Survivorship bias and the desire for idealism (a fair and perfect world) will do you more harm than looking at reality from the most practical perspective. Do what you can to secure the degree, preferably a Master's if you already have one.
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u/thenewbigR Dec 21 '23
Why not just buy some phony assed degree? Religious nutcases do it all the time. https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5dw9/how-to-get-a-fake-college-degree-certificate
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u/Historical_Wash_1114 Dec 21 '23
Yup. Have you considered going back and getting your degree? I got mine at 32 and just started programming professionally. I seriously gave up on going back for a long time until everything went crazy with Covid.
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Dec 21 '23
Depends on the degree as well, no? If you got the Python degree from a decent and respectable University, it's way better than some shady government-funded piece of paper.
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u/RaidZ3ro Dec 21 '23
Some cultures still value a degree more than a proven skillset, but this is not universal. Consider finding remote work, or moving abroad.
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u/thefittestyam Dec 21 '23
Working in start-up. A couple of my colleagues don't have degree and they're great engineers. Not all places discriminate against non traditional education.
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Dec 21 '23
With python it will take a bit longer. How about a different language? Also fuck educated fools. Educated idiots have been destroying critical thinkers throughout the who history of humanity.
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u/TheTurtleCub Dec 21 '23
I find it hard to believe a 30year resume didn't get you considered. But yeah, jobs tend to gatekeep using degrees. Which kind of makes sense in some way for people with not much on their resume
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Dec 21 '23
Try the Python certifications from Python Institute. Same certification Cisco uses (their link goes directly to Python Institute).
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u/I1lII1l Dec 22 '23
2cents: you need to learn how to sell yourself. E.g. if someone tells you that they suspect you didn’t write the code you could offer to write code on the spot. Or you could ask them to show you code you haven’t seen before and you review and explain it. Stuff like that.
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Dec 22 '23
Do you have a popular or at least technically very interesting open source Python project to show? Do you have contributions to major Python open source projects? I mean, I don’t think the problem is the degree or lack of. The problem is solid evidence of your skills.
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u/Slight-Living-8098 Dec 22 '23
I enjoyed the sarcastic rage. Don't let it get you down. I got my first commercial gig using Python with no degree. (I did complete Harvard's OpenCourseware CS50, though).
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u/StaticFanatic3 Dec 23 '23
Bro is living in an alternate reality where CS recruiters care about degrees and not job experience
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u/savvyprogrmr Dec 24 '23
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. I don't think all hiring managers will act or treat you in this way. If you are good at Python, then I don't see any issue for anyone to hire you despite not having a degree. I'm a self-taught programmer myself and have been working professionally for 10+ years, so I know a degree isn't the most important thing.
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Dec 20 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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Dec 20 '23
I do IT stuff.
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Dec 22 '23
The more I read, the more I think you’re very likely delusional of your skills. People who can code for real can find a job as a software engineer even before finishing high school and you have been writing code for 30 years and never got a job as a software engineer? That makes no sense to me.
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u/angellus Dec 20 '23
I do not have a degree and I am at a place with a $250k/yr salary working on Python.
If you are having trouble getting positions, it is either because of your resume (not getting callbacks), or your skills. Interview/soft skills if you are not getting to a technical screen step or you are not getting an offer after the "final" interview with the CTO/hiring manager. Technical skills if you are not making it past a technical screening step.