Ask HN: How Did You Land Your First Tech Job with No Experience? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How Did You Land Your First Tech Job with No Experience?

3 pointssonichigo6 comments

I'm curious about the paths people have taken to break into the tech industry without any prior experience. I'd love to hear your stories and any tips you have for those of us just starting out,

- How did you build a portfolio or demonstrate your abilities? - Any advice for networking or finding job opportunities?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences.

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1982 graduated in computer science, -Missed the hiring fair, literally cried at my supervisors desk, got the phone number of a sole trader who needed a junior. Next week I was alternating between monkeypatching Cobol systems for a shoe wholesaler and clean room reverse engineering a network protocol (he was bidding to replace a health informatics system) -about the only job which a fresh, IPR untainted graduate is designed for. It was a terrible gig. Underpaid and mildly unethical.

Word got out and I was told about a sysadmin and network coding gig in a uni in the next town and I jumped ship. 42 years later I've specialised in network protocols, never been unemployed since and expect to retire inside 3 years.

The first company I worked for would recruit at my school for students with the highest grades. As the school used letter grades, I was in a tie with three other students, but I was the only one who applied for this particular position. Glad I did, as I learned a ton b/c previous hirelings from my school had done well there. So they trusted me with tasks I didn't expect to be asked to take on right off the bat.

that's the thing tho, today grades aren't much of relevance since skills are more favoured but there's a lot of competetion as well

I went to a concert with a girl; when I got to her house she was out getting the tickets, so I chatted with her mother, who turned out to have a tech company and hired me for the summer.

Back then nobody knew much about computers so experience wasn't expected. Got in with a failed maths degree.

I've been programming since childhood. ROM Basic was everywhere. I got a help desk job in cc. Then worked into their tech team, where I leveled up on a dozen platforms, languages (DCL :|) and support processes. Soon there after a boom made my sheet attractive for hybrid support/systems.

Automation was what I was good at. And I'm a natural sleuth, so I don't need direction only tasks and responsibilities. I'm actually lazy af, my strategy is to automate and "normalize" tech stacks.

I would say my natural intellectual curiosity and predisposition for order and organization out paces my conventionally trained peers, who race to catch up with the next task. How many times have you actually randomly scrolled through your data? Really? Just peeked at how the streams are doing and what kinds of things you notice?

For the past ten years I have achieved the ultimately satisfying freedom of "independent contractor". Next you will be asking me, "how do you bill?" To which I will answer, "art of invoicing." Git them an agreed upon invoice immediately, and do the work

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