But without a college degree, experience or a stack of projects in my pocket no one is going to believe me.
Step 1: figure out which of this is easiest to change. Hint: it's "stack of projects".
Step 2: change it.
Yay, github.
Step 1: figure out which of this is easiest to change. Hint: it's "stack of projects".
Step 2: change it.
Yay, github.
As the person who makes hiring decision at a startup, all I care about whether you can actually make things. College degrees and resumes correlate with making things, but the stack of projects proves it.
Go now and put some functioning thing up on the web and get some people using it. Iterate in response to feedback, improving both the product and the code. You don't have to make something massive; a few hundred users and a few kloc of code is sufficient for me to be able to measure your skill.
Having a github account with several projects on it is a big positive signal. There will be companies who feel that you need a degree, but that's a small portion of the job market. Committing to build and grow a github is probably the single best thing a developer without a degree can do.
Also, put in a readme, that makes it easier for me to evaluate the project. And put in tests, so I know you are familiar with those. In short, show me you know what you are doing by actually doing it.
Committing to build and grow a github is probably the single best thing a developer without a degree can do.
Or even a dev with a degree.
I've gotten a number of interviews based on my github and projects, without even sending a resume. For all the interviewer knows, I never went to school. And when I hire, I look at github first, maybe a resume if there isn't a github. Or, equally likely, no github -> resume goes into the circular file.
Test coverage is nice to have, but I don't know that it's a requirement up front. I can't think of any circumstances where having test coverage will hurt, so I'd agree that it should probably be there, even if you're not a TDD/BDD zealot. It at least shows that you're familiar with testing and can do it.
The point of this is to market yourself as an Actual Programmer, and it doesn't take much time or effort to reach that point. (Although, in my case, I was distinguishing myself from the plethora of generic comp sci students, and you might have a higher barrier.) After all, whoever hires you will _really_ judge based on how well you interview, which is just a few hours of your life.