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Comment by Kephael | Hacker News Reader

It's very difficult to start your career at leading companies such as Google, Facebook, etc without going to a reputable school.

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This so much. The only reason I'm going for a Master's degree is so I have an easier time getting my foot in a great company. And where I live we don't have any student debt (no, none at all). Life as a student is pretty bliss so why wouldn't I study? It's the best time of your life and you also get a degree out of it without getting in debt. Sign me... oh wait I'm already signed up.

How do you pay rent and food?

Parents, a job, savings, or a combination of those.

That's why you usually do not start there. Google might require a degree, but your local hairdresser does not ask for one as long as you can create his website. Then move your way up from there. After several years recruiters will be more interested in your experience, projects and contributions than your non existing degree.

EDIT: other options include working at startups/smaller companies, contributing to open source to get social validation of your abilities, learning some skills through coursera/online courses, ...

That's absurd, you're much better off going to a reputable school, working hard, grinding leetcode, completing internships, and then getting a $150k+/yr TC job to start. You'll come out far ahead by going to a good school. If you're able to start at Google while you're still in high school, that's a different story.

This seems like a rather expensive way to experiment whether you’re well suited for something and like it.

I have plenty of friends that dropped out of College with no degrees and now work for large tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. It's not really tough to come in as an E1 and work your way up, especially if you have a great GitHub/Gitlab and possibly experience as a dev at another smaller company. I see a lot of women coming in as E1's off of those 12 week software engineer bootcamps as well.

There's a difference between dropping out and not going at all. There are plenty of "elite" dropouts at FAANG.

I never went to college at all and I’m making 150k a year at a large bank. It’s very possible to do with experience. But it takes a lot of experience.

"$150k+/yr TC" ... is that considered an average/expected comp coming right out of college these days?

It's the compensation some expect, not the one they get. And if they took a student loan based on those calculations, they end up being the subject of the article.

It's common amongst my peer group at the school I attend.

I hate to say this, but the jobs that most of us did to get in the door no longer exist. Most people create websites without any html or programming experience. You pick a CMS and buy a theme that has a few options. Gone are the days of needing to know php/css/javascript to advertise your business or start selling online.

The local hairdresser will be a poor client and not pay you very much and most developers don't want to run a small business.

FAANG is a tiny fraction of the job market.

Nope. Get in the pipeline at Google and ace your interviews. There's no checkbox in our hiring process labelled "went to a famous school so I'm impressed and we should hire".

On the other hand, I interviewed at Google some years ago and during my conversation with an HR rep, my very first meeting in the day-long interview process, she noted my lack of CS degree and said point blank: “You know we place a lot of importance on degrees here, right?”

(And this was for an ops position, not development)

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