Ask HN: Can someone without a degree expect to get a job in tech today? (EU)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32475422

by BazookaMusic • 4 years ago

3 7 4 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've been watching my girlfriend who's trying to get into UX research from a relevant master's degree (still studying, has a Philosophy background) struggle immensely to find even a student job. At the same time, I've had no issues getting multiple offers in big tech with little effort.

She's very methodical and sometimes impresses me with her insights in solving problems, so I thought she would do well in programming and I introduced her to web development as an idea. She started the Odin project (https://www.theodinproject.com/) and really loved the process of working on a website, both in terms of design with css and html and also in functionality by learning Javascript. She is also taking 3 master's courses as a guest student related to programming, mobile programming and interaction design this semester. From what I can see, she has the curiosity and intelligence to be a decent developer with some effort from her side.

My fear however is that there's a lot of developers coming out of tech schools, bootcamps and comp Sci master's degrees as competition. Can she expect to land any job if she gets a small. portfolio of projects and puts the effort to learn a frontend framework for example? Has anyone been in a similar situation and what would you suggest for tracking down a job that would accept her?

uberman• 4 years ago

You mention that she is a UX Researcher. Would you describe her strengths be artistic, behavioral physiological, or programming technical.

It sounds a bit like her strengths are in the first two areas but you want to help her get a job in the third.

Would that be a fair conclusion?

BazookaMusic2• 4 years ago

She's studying to be a UX researcher but isn't one yet. I'd say her strengths are more programming technical. She likes processes and learning tools and technology. She's less interested in the behavioral part of UX research and more into analyzing data and building tools to analyze user interactions. But ideally she'd like to design UIs and not just study users.

Unfortunately, this shows in her attempts to get a job in the field of UX where she hasn't had much luck as her profile doesn't really fit what they're looking for.

PaulHoule2• 4 years ago

I'd imagine there is one "UX researcher" job for every 100 "UX practitioner" job.

Maybe 90 of those practitioner jobs work on things that are routine that she might find boring but there are probably more places that develop advanced UIs than that claim to do research on UX.

If she doesn't know any frontend frameworks at all, however, I don't see how she'd expect to make it as a "UX researcher". I'd expect such a person to at the very least have a deep knowledge of one kind of system if not a broad understanding of UX systems in general.

BazookaMusic2• 4 years ago

On the contrary, I'd say she would really like to become more of a UX practicioner. She is more excited by the idea of implementing UIs rather than just doing user research.

To reframe the question around this. Her master's degree is from the Humanities and around research design, with her focusing on UX research. She wants to pivot towards frontend development and UI design but is afraid that she won't be able to get in due to her degree not being from a comp sci/tech university. Is it possible to break in just through projects and a decent portfolio?

PaulHoule2• 4 years ago

Yes. Maybe not at the very top (FAANG) but many smaller firms need design work done all the time. A good portfolio is key.

teekay• 4 years ago

I wouldn't let the lack of a relevant degree get in my way.

Sure, there are some EU countries where degrees are still being listed as a job requirement. Hell, when I contracted for a company in Munich, every other guy in the hallway had "Dr." in front of his name (and used it proudly in his e-mail signature).

Nevertheless, hiring can get very pragmatic when the company is hungry for engineers and few competent applicants come in.

Not sure exactly what the typical requirements are for a UX position. I'd imagine having a humanities background should be a huge plus, however. After all, this field is about human-vs-computer interaction, is it not?

Could she develop a small portfolio, maybe even using volunteer / non-profit jobs to get started? There's a good chance she could then use it to get in the door for better-paying UX jobs later, degree or no degree.

tahseen_kakar• 4 years ago

The short answer is: yes! You can expect to get a job in tech today without having a degree, but it will take some work on your part. Here's what you need to do:

1. Find an internship that will give you the skills employers are looking for in tech workers today. This means learning about coding languages like Python and C++, as well as working with the latest tools like Docker and Kubernetes. These tools are all important for getting hired by a company that values flexibility and speed of development.

2. Make sure you have experience using these tools through an internship or freelance work before applying for a full-time position at any company hiring these days. Otherwise they won't consider hiring you because it doesn't seem like their investment would be worth it—they want to make sure they're not wasting time training someone who doesn't know what they're doing!

3. Finally, if possible, try to get some experience with mobile app development using Swift or Objective-C (both of which are common among companies that hire entry-level developers).

Also Read: https://enou.co/blog/how-to-become-a-ux-designer-with-no-exp...

Ask HN: Can someone without a degree expect to get a job in tech today? (EU)

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