February 27, 2025 • 18 mins
Here are a few warning signs that the self-taught developer path may not be for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
Self-taught developers.
Can we be honest for a moment?
Most of you are going to fail.
It's just the truth.
Most self-taught developers donot break into the industry.
It's a really hard path.
We have to stop glamorizing it.
We have to stop pretending thatit is like the best solution
for so many aspiring developers.
Like most people, are trying togo the self-taught path and
(00:24):
most people will not succeed.
There's a lot of competition atthat level and I'm just going
to jump into it.
There are some early warningsigns that I want you to be
aware of.
If you are going theself-taught path, that maybe
it's not for you.
Now, you know me.
I'm always going to be honestwith the reality of things.
(00:46):
So the very first one is if youare someone that constantly
needs motivation kicks, you needto watch a ton of videos for
motivation, or you need to feelinspired to work on your project
(01:08):
.
You need to feel inspired to gothrough your course.
Basically, you don't know howto self motivate.
You're probably going to fail.
People who are successful withthe self taught path learn how
to self-motivate, and it's areally hard thing to learn if
you haven't learned it already.
(01:29):
It takes time.
It takes a lot of time and kindof just forcing yourself to
take action until thatmotivation comes afterwards.
And that's the key thing, don'tdepend on that motivation for
you to act and learn and grow asa developer.
You act and learn and grow as adeveloper, and then the
motivation comes.
But, most importantly, thatmotivation is not consistent,
(01:49):
which is why you can't rely onit.
But most people who areself-taught developers, who did
break into the industry, theylearned or most of them came
into learning to code, knowinghow to self-motivate, they know,
they kind of have figured outwhat motivates them and what
(02:13):
pulls them in a certaindirection and things that
demotivate them.
And they've examined thingslike their environment, their
relationships, stuff like thatthat can negatively affect some
of their motivation.
And they figured out you know,surround yourself with people
that are actually going toinspire you to be much better
and not hold you back.
Like there's so many littlethings you got to set up in your
(02:33):
life and you figure out overtime as you get older and make a
ton of mistakes where youbasically set yourself up for
success yourself, for successyourself.
If you are someone thatconstantly feels demotivated to
learn to code or you are someonethat feels like they can't kind
of kick their butts into gearor at least act and learn to
(02:56):
code.
Without motivation you'reprobably going to fail.
That self-taught path is rough,it's long.
There are going to be manypoints where you are not
motivated.
You do not want to wake up andwork on that project.
You do not want to wake up andget rejected again.
You are probably going to fail.
That's just the truth.
(03:17):
Um, so there are other avenues.
You know, like you have thecoding boot camp route, which I
think will work for the fewestamount of people, given the
price point.
But that can bring a little bitmore motivation to kind of
teach you how to learn and teachyou how to structure your day
and teach you that you arecapable of more when you push
(03:39):
yourself despite a lack ofmotivation, despite a lack of
motivation.
And then CS degrees can kind ofcarry you through a bit more
and a lot more people trust andare familiar with the structure
of CS degrees.
But you know CS, if you'retrying to get into web dev, cs
doesn't really teach you web dev.
So you're still going to needto branch out of that and learn
more practical skills.
(03:59):
After that You're going to haveto lean on your motivation.
But the hope is that, like, ifyou have structured learning
with mentors, with teachers, itcan kind of at least give you or
shape your day-to-day.
It can shape your structure oflearning what you need to do and
kind of just build patterns andhabits in you.
(04:20):
So when you do go off on yourown to supplement the rest of it
, you're set Like you havebetter habits, you have more
confidence in yourself.
That's kind of what thoseprograms are really good for.
So with self-taught you don'treally have that, which is why
you should connect with a ton ofother aspiring developers and
communicate, talk with them.
It can be a little bit of.
(04:41):
It could be inspirational tokind of feed off of that energy.
As you lift them up, they liftyou up, which is why I highly
recommend you don't go throughthe self-taught developer path
alone because it can be a verylonely and discouraging journey
if you do.
But you know, if you are tryingto make the self-taught journey
work, please get a mentor, paidmentorship, anything like that,
(05:06):
like or like make connections inthe industry and meet people at
meetups, like participate inhackathons, just build
friendships where you know likeyou can ping people and ask them
for questions and, um, maybesome of your favorite content
creators live stream and you canask questions there.
But self-taught path is verylonely, it's very rough, you're
to lack a lot of motivation andif you can't get past that,
(05:29):
you're probably going to fail.
So the second one is you needthe entire learning to code
journey planned out up front.
If I just had this perfectcurriculum, if I just had this
perfect path to becoming adeveloper, I would just execute
and do it.
There is no perfect path and alot of people a lot of people
(05:51):
are just trying to get adeveloper job, which is hurting
them because they should beaiming for something a little
bit more specific so they canhave a tailored learning path.
Tailored projects and makingthe right connections.
That's the ideal thing that youwant to do.
But a lot of people are justtrying to land any sort of job,
and then how the hell are yousupposed to even define your
(06:11):
path when you do that?
You can't.
So in the beginning you need tobe comfortable and accept this
idea that you're not going tohave the perfect path in front
of you.
It's not going to be perfectlylinear.
In fact, you might go backwardssometimes.
You might realize like, hey,I've spent a little bit too much
time in courses.
I actually need to go backrelearn some of these
(06:33):
fundamentals and then apply themin project work.
Right, it might be, it's notgoing to be linear.
And then we talked aboutmotivation.
But even me, I canself-motivate, I can act and I
understand my motivation isgoing to come afterwards and
it's taken me a while to reallybuild this confidence up in
(06:54):
myself.
But I know I can do it.
But even me, to go through whatsomeone tells me is the perfect
linear path to becoming a frontend developer and spending
potentially years on that pathJust learning all the right
technologies that is so boring.
(07:17):
Where's my curiosity in that?
Where's my excitement forsoftware engineering?
Where's my curiosity intechnology for software
engineering?
Where's my curiosity andtechnology as a developer,
someone who's like getting orgoing to software engineering
route into tech?
A lot of good softwareengineers are really fucking
curious.
They don't just learn whatthey're told to learn.
(07:39):
They learn something thatinterests them and maybe catches
their eye and they they buildsomething with it, because
you're not going to learn it ifyou don't build anything with it
.
And they spend time doing thatand then they organize that in
their own way and they havetheir own conventions with it
that they include on that, andmaybe they bring in a couple
libraries that weren'trecommended in the tutorial and
(07:59):
they build something else withit.
And I want to try this with thislibrary.
What if I use this newtechnology that I just learned
to build this?
It's different, it's outside ofthe tutorial, but I'm going to
go ahead and do that.
I'm going to reinforce concepts, and this is taking me further
and further away from what thistutorial said to become a
developer.
This course or this contentcreator told me to become a
(08:22):
developer.
I'm going all the way over here.
That's not good, right?
I can't do that.
No, no, I got to go on thesuper linear path and just try
to make it as efficient aspossible.
And you know what's going tohappen if I do that.
I go down this very linear paththat I think I don't know I
think is going to lead me to adev job.
I'm going to get bored and I'mgoing to burn out.
I'm going to quit because I'mnot a robot.
(08:44):
Be that person that goes off thebeaten path a little bit, gets
curious, learns something that'sfun for them, reignites that
passion in them, and they usethat reignited passion and put
that energy back into the linearpath.
So you're pivoting a little bit, a little bit, just to spark
(09:04):
that curiosity, spark thatmotivation.
Ooh, I'm having fun.
I'm learning something thatisn't the standard Merdstack
template.
I'm learning somethingdifferent and I can use some of
what I've learned, some of theideas, some of the paradigms,
the ways of thinking and applythem to this linear path.
Oh, by the way, if you're tryingto become a front-end developer
(09:26):
, I highly recommend you checkout Scrimpa.
I'm specifically talking abouttheir front-end developer career
path.
They have a fun, interactiveway to learn how to code and
become a web developer, andwhile that's true, that's not
the main reason that I want topromote them.
Honestly.
The main reason is theircurriculum is solid.
There are a lot of curriculumsthat do not prepare people to
(09:46):
actually be competitive in themarket, and I've reviewed a ton
of programs and to this day, itis still one of my favorites and
one of the best front-endcurriculums out there for
self-taught developers, andthey're backed by MDN, a leading
and well-respected resource inthe developer community, and I
actually personally run my ownmentees through the program to
(10:10):
prepare them for front enddeveloper jobs.
And if you choose to sign upvia my affiliate link below in
the description, you actuallyget 30% off if you sign up for a
paid plan, but you have to signup by the end of February to
take advantage of that, becauseit expires after that.
Anyways, check it out foryourself.
What do you have to lose?
Let's get back to the topic Now.
(10:31):
That's when the linear pathstarts to get fun again, right?
So, first of all, you're nevergoing to get the perfect, most
efficient path into getting adeveloper job.
It just doesn't exist.
The people that go up todevelopers like we we all know
(10:52):
these types of people, but likepeople that'll come and ask us
like, what is the most efficient, fastest path to becoming a dev
?
It's like one of the worstquestions in the world.
It's a self-report for yourmindset that is basically
telling us you're probably goingto fail.
There is no super quick,efficient path to become a
developer.
It just doesn't exist.
Stop asking that you want toland a dev job.
(11:14):
Become a really fucking goodsoftware engineer who is curious
, who builds things, who wantsto build things, who is learning
technology just in general, tobe able to utilize that to build
more interesting things andmore complex things.
Be curious why does anyone wantto hire some templated, surface
(11:36):
level bullshit developer thatthinks they're learning the most
efficient path possible becausethey're following the same mern
stack that tens of thousands ofother developers are following
and there is nothing uniqueabout them.
Why the fuck would anyone wantto hire you if you're going down
that path?
There's nothing unique aboutyou.
Why there is.
There is inherently somethingunique.
(11:57):
You come from an old industry.
You have different hobbies.
You can apply that industryinto the dev work that you're
going to be doing.
You can apply your interest inthese hobbies and solve problems
through your technicalsolutions.
With your hobbies, you cansolve the problems of your
hobbies.
You can find other problemsthat are interesting in the
(12:17):
world that a lot of other peoplewouldn't find interesting.
All these little things make upyour unique version version and
you want to go down the mostefficient, quickest path to
becoming a developer, which issome standard surface level
bullshit.
No company is going to want tohire you.
Bring some fucking life anduniqueness into you.
Bring your personality.
You're a human being that isbringing something unique into
(12:40):
the dev world.
And if you aren't and you'renot willing to do that.
You want to go down thistemplated path.
You are just going to benon-hireable because you're so
fucking boring and there'snothing you bring to the team.
What is interesting about you?
Bring something interestingabout you into the dev world to
bring something new andinteresting into the teams that
(13:01):
you're going to be applying to.
This requires a little bit ofresourcefulness too.
It requires exploring andanalyzing if this is generally
moving you in the rightdirection, if you are generally
growing as a developer.
How do I analyze my progress asa developer?
(13:22):
And I got to improvise.
Sometimes the market can change, technologies can change.
I got to improvise.
Market can change, technologiescan change.
I got to improvise.
You have to be able to beresourceful and improvise and
think on your feet a little bitto alter your path into the type
of deposition that you want.
(13:43):
If you're not capable of doingthat and you need someone
telling you what to do, what tolearn you are not going to make
it as a self-taught developer.
Someone telling you what to do,what to learn, you are not
going to make it as aself-taught developer.
Now the third thing and thisapplies to so many people.
I know some of you are movinginto the dev world because you
(14:11):
want more money.
I'm not going to lecture you onhow you are probably going to
fail.
If that is your only reasonI've created enough videos about
that I don't care about thatbut what I am going to say is
that if you choose to become adeveloper to rescue you from a
really crappy financialsituation and you're not able to
(14:35):
pay your bills while you'rebecoming a developer, you are
probably going to fail.
I have seen the financial burdenbury people mentally as they're
trying to become a developerand I think that's what partly
influences some of these peopleto get the most efficient path
possible and then they fail.
That burden, that financialburden, that weight on your
(15:00):
shoulders, I felt it.
It sucks and it's like it isvery.
It just destroys you mentallysometimes.
You mentally sometimes but thatweight makes you not, it shoves
out any sort of creativity orcuriosity.
(15:21):
It's driven by like all of youractions are driven by
desperation to get out of it.
You can't be curious, you can'tbe passionate, you can't love
the tech that you're learningand be motivated and inspired to
dive into different things andget excited about tech, when all
you think about is thatfinancial burden, that heavy
(15:42):
weight on your shoulders andwhen you look at software
engineering as that thing thatis going to rescue you from your
bills because they're going toswallow you in six months.
I see it time and time again.
So many new developers justthey make all the wrong
decisions and seeking out themost efficient path causes them
(16:06):
to take way longer to become adeveloper.
Ironically, it just causes baddecision and desperate decision
making and doesn't allow you toenjoy and get excited about
becoming a software engineer.
It crushes those spirits.
You're probably not going tobecome a developer if you have
(16:27):
that weight on your shoulder andthe only thing that's going to
rescue you is dev work.
It takes a long time to becomea developer.
I highly recommend that youdon't quit your full-time job if
you currently have one.
If you're going through a CSdegree, it's a little bit
different.
I don't know your financialsituation.
I don't know your current debt.
(16:47):
I don't know the loans thatyou're going to be taking out.
I just don't know yoursituation.
But if you have a full-time jobin this market, I highly
recommend whatever educationalpath you choose.
You do it part-time, outside ofthe work that pays the bills.
If you need to pick up morehours to pay the bills.
That's what rescues you out ofthat financial situation.
(17:10):
A lot of people have differentsituations and a lot of people
don't want to hear that, butgetting a dev job is not going
to rescue you, for, like 99% ofyou, it is going to destroy you.
When you are desperate for it torescue you, you take the wrong
actions and you take way longer,given your desperate actions,
(17:34):
to grow as a developer.
A lot of stuff doesn't sink in.
You get frustrated more withyourself because you're
realizing, like I just wentthrough an entire course and
none of it sticks right.
A lot of that's going to happenuntil you apply it again and
again and again.
You might need to relearnsomething.
You apply it again and againand again, but you are desperate
because you need it to workwithin six months.
You need it to work within ayear or I am fucked.
(17:56):
If you are in that situation,man, your focus immediately
shouldn't even be learning tocode to save you from that
situation.
It should be learning betterfinancial habits, stripping a
lot of your expenses.
It should be focused onfinancial management, health,
(18:21):
and that might mean picking upnew hours or getting a job
that's easier to get than a devjob.
In the meantime, that's goingto help you pay your bills.
It might be a little bit morestressful, but that financial
burden is something that crushesself-taught developers and it
beats them into the ground wheresome of them will never even
try to code again.
Maybe that won't be you, youknow.
(18:43):
Maybe none of these apply toyou, but you will be an
exception, not the rule.
Self-taught developers.
Can we be honest for a moment?
Most of you are going to fail.
It's just the truth.
Most self-taught developers donot break into the industry.
It's a really hard path.
We have to stop glamorizing it.
We have to stop pretending thatit is like the best solution
for so many aspiring developers.
Like most people, are trying togo the self-taught path and
(00:24):
most people will not succeed.
There's a lot of competition atthat level and I'm just going
to jump into it.
There are some early warningsigns that I want you to be
aware of.
If you are going theself-taught path, that maybe
it's not for you.
Now, you know me.
I'm always going to be honestwith the reality of things.
(00:46):
So the very first one is if youare someone that constantly
needs motivation kicks, you needto watch a ton of videos for
motivation, or you need to feelinspired to work on your project
(01:08):
.
You need to feel inspired to gothrough your course.
Basically, you don't know howto self motivate.
You're probably going to fail.
People who are successful withthe self taught path learn how
to self-motivate, and it's areally hard thing to learn if
you haven't learned it already.
(01:29):
It takes time.
It takes a lot of time and kindof just forcing yourself to
take action until thatmotivation comes afterwards.
And that's the key thing, don'tdepend on that motivation for
you to act and learn and grow asa developer.
You act and learn and grow as adeveloper, and then the
motivation comes.
But, most importantly, thatmotivation is not consistent,
(01:49):
which is why you can't rely onit.
But most people who areself-taught developers, who did
break into the industry, theylearned or most of them came
into learning to code, knowinghow to self-motivate, they know,
they kind of have figured outwhat motivates them and what
(02:13):
pulls them in a certaindirection and things that
demotivate them.
And they've examined thingslike their environment, their
relationships, stuff like thatthat can negatively affect some
of their motivation.
And they figured out you know,surround yourself with people
that are actually going toinspire you to be much better
and not hold you back.
Like there's so many littlethings you got to set up in your
(02:33):
life and you figure out overtime as you get older and make a
ton of mistakes where youbasically set yourself up for
success yourself, for successyourself.
If you are someone thatconstantly feels demotivated to
learn to code or you are someonethat feels like they can't kind
of kick their butts into gearor at least act and learn to
(02:56):
code.
Without motivation you'reprobably going to fail.
That self-taught path is rough,it's long.
There are going to be manypoints where you are not
motivated.
You do not want to wake up andwork on that project.
You do not want to wake up andget rejected again.
You are probably going to fail.
That's just the truth.
(03:17):
Um, so there are other avenues.
You know, like you have thecoding boot camp route, which I
think will work for the fewestamount of people, given the
price point.
But that can bring a little bitmore motivation to kind of
teach you how to learn and teachyou how to structure your day
and teach you that you arecapable of more when you push
(03:39):
yourself despite a lack ofmotivation, despite a lack of
motivation.
And then CS degrees can kind ofcarry you through a bit more
and a lot more people trust andare familiar with the structure
of CS degrees.
But you know CS, if you'retrying to get into web dev, cs
doesn't really teach you web dev.
So you're still going to needto branch out of that and learn
more practical skills.
(03:59):
After that You're going to haveto lean on your motivation.
But the hope is that, like, ifyou have structured learning
with mentors, with teachers, itcan kind of at least give you or
shape your day-to-day.
It can shape your structure oflearning what you need to do and
kind of just build patterns andhabits in you.
(04:20):
So when you do go off on yourown to supplement the rest of it
, you're set Like you havebetter habits, you have more
confidence in yourself.
That's kind of what thoseprograms are really good for.
So with self-taught you don'treally have that, which is why
you should connect with a ton ofother aspiring developers and
communicate, talk with them.
It can be a little bit of.
(04:41):
It could be inspirational tokind of feed off of that energy.
As you lift them up, they liftyou up, which is why I highly
recommend you don't go throughthe self-taught developer path
alone because it can be a verylonely and discouraging journey
if you do.
But you know, if you are tryingto make the self-taught journey
work, please get a mentor, paidmentorship, anything like that,
(05:06):
like or like make connections inthe industry and meet people at
meetups, like participate inhackathons, just build
friendships where you know likeyou can ping people and ask them
for questions and, um, maybesome of your favorite content
creators live stream and you canask questions there.
But self-taught path is verylonely, it's very rough, you're
to lack a lot of motivation andif you can't get past that,
(05:29):
you're probably going to fail.
So the second one is you needthe entire learning to code
journey planned out up front.
If I just had this perfectcurriculum, if I just had this
perfect path to becoming adeveloper, I would just execute
and do it.
There is no perfect path and alot of people a lot of people
(05:51):
are just trying to get adeveloper job, which is hurting
them because they should beaiming for something a little
bit more specific so they canhave a tailored learning path.
Tailored projects and makingthe right connections.
That's the ideal thing that youwant to do.
But a lot of people are justtrying to land any sort of job,
and then how the hell are yousupposed to even define your
(06:11):
path when you do that?
You can't.
So in the beginning you need tobe comfortable and accept this
idea that you're not going tohave the perfect path in front
of you.
It's not going to be perfectlylinear.
In fact, you might go backwardssometimes.
You might realize like, hey,I've spent a little bit too much
time in courses.
I actually need to go backrelearn some of these
(06:33):
fundamentals and then apply themin project work.
Right, it might be, it's notgoing to be linear.
And then we talked aboutmotivation.
But even me, I canself-motivate, I can act and I
understand my motivation isgoing to come afterwards and
it's taken me a while to reallybuild this confidence up in
(06:54):
myself.
But I know I can do it.
But even me, to go through whatsomeone tells me is the perfect
linear path to becoming a frontend developer and spending
potentially years on that pathJust learning all the right
technologies that is so boring.
(07:17):
Where's my curiosity in that?
Where's my excitement forsoftware engineering?
Where's my curiosity intechnology for software
engineering?
Where's my curiosity andtechnology as a developer,
someone who's like getting orgoing to software engineering
route into tech?
A lot of good softwareengineers are really fucking
curious.
They don't just learn whatthey're told to learn.
(07:39):
They learn something thatinterests them and maybe catches
their eye and they they buildsomething with it, because
you're not going to learn it ifyou don't build anything with it
.
And they spend time doing thatand then they organize that in
their own way and they havetheir own conventions with it
that they include on that, andmaybe they bring in a couple
libraries that weren'trecommended in the tutorial and
(07:59):
they build something else withit.
And I want to try this with thislibrary.
What if I use this newtechnology that I just learned
to build this?
It's different, it's outside ofthe tutorial, but I'm going to
go ahead and do that.
I'm going to reinforce concepts, and this is taking me further
and further away from what thistutorial said to become a
developer.
This course or this contentcreator told me to become a
(08:22):
developer.
I'm going all the way over here.
That's not good, right?
I can't do that.
No, no, I got to go on thesuper linear path and just try
to make it as efficient aspossible.
And you know what's going tohappen if I do that.
I go down this very linear paththat I think I don't know I
think is going to lead me to adev job.
I'm going to get bored and I'mgoing to burn out.
I'm going to quit because I'mnot a robot.
(08:44):
Be that person that goes off thebeaten path a little bit, gets
curious, learns something that'sfun for them, reignites that
passion in them, and they usethat reignited passion and put
that energy back into the linearpath.
So you're pivoting a little bit, a little bit, just to spark
(09:04):
that curiosity, spark thatmotivation.
Ooh, I'm having fun.
I'm learning something thatisn't the standard Merdstack
template.
I'm learning somethingdifferent and I can use some of
what I've learned, some of theideas, some of the paradigms,
the ways of thinking and applythem to this linear path.
Oh, by the way, if you're tryingto become a front-end developer
(09:26):
, I highly recommend you checkout Scrimpa.
I'm specifically talking abouttheir front-end developer career
path.
They have a fun, interactiveway to learn how to code and
become a web developer, andwhile that's true, that's not
the main reason that I want topromote them.
Honestly.
The main reason is theircurriculum is solid.
There are a lot of curriculumsthat do not prepare people to
(09:46):
actually be competitive in themarket, and I've reviewed a ton
of programs and to this day, itis still one of my favorites and
one of the best front-endcurriculums out there for
self-taught developers, andthey're backed by MDN, a leading
and well-respected resource inthe developer community, and I
actually personally run my ownmentees through the program to
(10:10):
prepare them for front enddeveloper jobs.
And if you choose to sign upvia my affiliate link below in
the description, you actuallyget 30% off if you sign up for a
paid plan, but you have to signup by the end of February to
take advantage of that, becauseit expires after that.
Anyways, check it out foryourself.
What do you have to lose?
Let's get back to the topic Now.
(10:31):
That's when the linear pathstarts to get fun again, right?
So, first of all, you're nevergoing to get the perfect, most
efficient path into getting adeveloper job.
It just doesn't exist.
The people that go up todevelopers like we we all know
(10:52):
these types of people, but likepeople that'll come and ask us
like, what is the most efficient, fastest path to becoming a dev
?
It's like one of the worstquestions in the world.
It's a self-report for yourmindset that is basically
telling us you're probably goingto fail.
There is no super quick,efficient path to become a
developer.
It just doesn't exist.
Stop asking that you want toland a dev job.
(11:14):
Become a really fucking goodsoftware engineer who is curious
, who builds things, who wantsto build things, who is learning
technology just in general, tobe able to utilize that to build
more interesting things andmore complex things.
Be curious why does anyone wantto hire some templated, surface
(11:36):
level bullshit developer thatthinks they're learning the most
efficient path possible becausethey're following the same mern
stack that tens of thousands ofother developers are following
and there is nothing uniqueabout them.
Why the fuck would anyone wantto hire you if you're going down
that path?
There's nothing unique aboutyou.
Why there is.
There is inherently somethingunique.
(11:57):
You come from an old industry.
You have different hobbies.
You can apply that industryinto the dev work that you're
going to be doing.
You can apply your interest inthese hobbies and solve problems
through your technicalsolutions.
With your hobbies, you cansolve the problems of your
hobbies.
You can find other problemsthat are interesting in the
(12:17):
world that a lot of other peoplewouldn't find interesting.
All these little things make upyour unique version version and
you want to go down the mostefficient, quickest path to
becoming a developer, which issome standard surface level
bullshit.
No company is going to want tohire you.
Bring some fucking life anduniqueness into you.
Bring your personality.
You're a human being that isbringing something unique into
(12:40):
the dev world.
And if you aren't and you'renot willing to do that.
You want to go down thistemplated path.
You are just going to benon-hireable because you're so
fucking boring and there'snothing you bring to the team.
What is interesting about you?
Bring something interestingabout you into the dev world to
bring something new andinteresting into the teams that
(13:01):
you're going to be applying to.
This requires a little bit ofresourcefulness too.
It requires exploring andanalyzing if this is generally
moving you in the rightdirection, if you are generally
growing as a developer.
How do I analyze my progress asa developer?
(13:22):
And I got to improvise.
Sometimes the market can change, technologies can change.
I got to improvise.
Market can change, technologiescan change.
I got to improvise.
You have to be able to beresourceful and improvise and
think on your feet a little bitto alter your path into the type
of deposition that you want.
(13:43):
If you're not capable of doingthat and you need someone
telling you what to do, what tolearn you are not going to make
it as a self-taught developer.
Someone telling you what to do,what to learn, you are not
going to make it as aself-taught developer.
Now the third thing and thisapplies to so many people.
I know some of you are movinginto the dev world because you
(14:11):
want more money.
I'm not going to lecture you onhow you are probably going to
fail.
If that is your only reasonI've created enough videos about
that I don't care about thatbut what I am going to say is
that if you choose to become adeveloper to rescue you from a
really crappy financialsituation and you're not able to
(14:35):
pay your bills while you'rebecoming a developer, you are
probably going to fail.
I have seen the financial burdenbury people mentally as they're
trying to become a developerand I think that's what partly
influences some of these peopleto get the most efficient path
possible and then they fail.
That burden, that financialburden, that weight on your
(15:00):
shoulders, I felt it.
It sucks and it's like it isvery.
It just destroys you mentallysometimes.
You mentally sometimes but thatweight makes you not, it shoves
out any sort of creativity orcuriosity.
(15:21):
It's driven by like all of youractions are driven by
desperation to get out of it.
You can't be curious, you can'tbe passionate, you can't love
the tech that you're learningand be motivated and inspired to
dive into different things andget excited about tech, when all
you think about is thatfinancial burden, that heavy
(15:42):
weight on your shoulders andwhen you look at software
engineering as that thing thatis going to rescue you from your
bills because they're going toswallow you in six months.
I see it time and time again.
So many new developers justthey make all the wrong
decisions and seeking out themost efficient path causes them
(16:06):
to take way longer to become adeveloper.
Ironically, it just causes baddecision and desperate decision
making and doesn't allow you toenjoy and get excited about
becoming a software engineer.
It crushes those spirits.
You're probably not going tobecome a developer if you have
(16:27):
that weight on your shoulder andthe only thing that's going to
rescue you is dev work.
It takes a long time to becomea developer.
I highly recommend that youdon't quit your full-time job if
you currently have one.
If you're going through a CSdegree, it's a little bit
different.
I don't know your financialsituation.
I don't know your current debt.
(16:47):
I don't know the loans thatyou're going to be taking out.
I just don't know yoursituation.
But if you have a full-time jobin this market, I highly
recommend whatever educationalpath you choose.
You do it part-time, outside ofthe work that pays the bills.
If you need to pick up morehours to pay the bills.
That's what rescues you out ofthat financial situation.
(17:10):
A lot of people have differentsituations and a lot of people
don't want to hear that, butgetting a dev job is not going
to rescue you, for, like 99% ofyou, it is going to destroy you.
When you are desperate for it torescue you, you take the wrong
actions and you take way longer,given your desperate actions,
(17:34):
to grow as a developer.
A lot of stuff doesn't sink in.
You get frustrated more withyourself because you're
realizing, like I just wentthrough an entire course and
none of it sticks right.
A lot of that's going to happenuntil you apply it again and
again and again.
You might need to relearnsomething.
You apply it again and againand again, but you are desperate
because you need it to workwithin six months.
You need it to work within ayear or I am fucked.
(17:56):
If you are in that situation,man, your focus immediately
shouldn't even be learning tocode to save you from that
situation.
It should be learning betterfinancial habits, stripping a
lot of your expenses.
It should be focused onfinancial management, health,
(18:21):
and that might mean picking upnew hours or getting a job
that's easier to get than a devjob.
In the meantime, that's goingto help you pay your bills.
It might be a little bit morestressful, but that financial
burden is something that crushesself-taught developers and it
beats them into the ground wheresome of them will never even
try to code again.
Maybe that won't be you, youknow.
(18:43):
Maybe none of these apply toyou, but you will be an
exception, not the rule.
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