Ask HN: Any hobbyists turned professional developers?
I am still learning programming and I am pretty good at it as is in my own opinion, and I’m confident in my ability to turn ideas into a working products but for a while I’ve been comfortable at my job which kind of led me to become stagnant in-terms of building a portfolio and making myself marketable.
The languages I know well are Python and JavaScript, I also know how to use Linux to a good extent, I’ve played around with cloud computing a little bit—mainly setting up digital ocean instances, but I also dabbled a little bit with Azure and GCP, not much on AWS though. I’ve also been very interested in AI especially after I discovered LangChain a few days ago… the idea of giving GPT and ChatGPT tools (Python Repl, llm-math, document loaders, etc) really peaked my interest.
My goal since I was teenager has been to work in the tech field and be a software developer (I am 21 now), however due to personal issues I dealt with in the last couple of years I continuously put off making a serious commitment to it, but now I am serious about doing it and I figure starting off freelancing would be a solid way to build a resume and demonstrate my abilities to a potential employer.
Ultimately that’s just a guess though since I’ve never tried to do this professionally, which is why I’m here… in your own opinion is it feasible to spend time doing freelancing in order to get professional experience to land a job or should I hold out a little while longer (get a non-tech job) and go to a coding boot camp so I can have certification and try to break into the field that way.
My mind is torn right now trying to think about this, and I honestly need a little help with it. I am open to any and all suggestions here.