...what if you really need the money (and never finished college, so no bigcorps are interested)?
Are you applying through the blackhole that is an online resume upload? Don't do that.
Find someone in your network who works at one of these places and get them to forward your resume.
Oh yeah, if you really need the money, maybe an early stage startup isn't the best idea :P
I don't really have a network, though; I grew up on a farm and taught myself to program, and everything I've worked on so far has been either a remote contract (which usually ends up falling apart with refusal to pay for services rendered), or a startup (which usually ends up with my salary slashed to 1/8th industry standard under a "we're working for equity, right?" declaration.)
Right now, my wildest dream is a programming job that simply allows me to work eight hours a day and pays for a 1br apartment and food. At this rate, I'm almost considering leaving the industry entirely and working in retail or something.
Unfortunately, most of the obvious advice is true. Since you don't have the "normal" credentials of college/past employement/referrals, you will need to put some time in building an alternate set.
The good news is our field is an awesome one for credentialing yourself. If you don't feel like you have the stamina/drive for a open source projects etcs, how about competing on topcoder?
Good luck.
People who haven't been to college aren't likely to have those kinds of connections. If they do, they're not going to be desperate for work.
> Oh yeah, if you really need the money, maybe an early stage startup isn't the best idea :P
If you really need the money you'll work for the next paycheck no matter who's paying it, even if it's just for the next month or two.
It's really not that hard to meet and develop a relationship with someone who works at FB/Apple/Google/Etc. Especially if you live in the Bay area and go to meetups/network a little.
> I grew up on a farm
Not everyone lives in the bay area. I'm sure there are plenty of places where it really is "that hard", and it sounds like derefr might live in one of them.
The whole world is not the Bay Area. Most of us do not have it so easy as to be able to walk into random meetups and leave with three potential contacts at decent tech companies.
I made a lot of contacts by organizing local meetups, travelling to different conferences in other parts of Europe and fostering relationships online.
I now work as a software engineer at Facebook, prior to that I worked at Apple. Effective networking takes a lot of work and can be achieved even if you are living in a remote area.
Not every "bigcorp" is so short-sighted that they reject non-traditional candidates.