I want to be an amazing programmer

>The kind that makes $350k/yr in San Francisco like in yesterdays thread.
No, you really don’t. Gun for making $150k/yr in the sunbelt

Don't listen to this faggot.
C++ coder here from Silicon Valley.

How many C++ coders do you know? And what's the ratio between C++ and Java/Javascript developers?
OP wanted a fast way to get a good job, if you want fast you should start with Java/Javascript.

I'm gonna be honest, I'm kind of retarded

Unironically JavaScript and whatever hot meme frameworks everyone is using. C++ is used a lot, but has a steeper learning curve. Python also seems to be used a fair bit.
You can probably find some job just with javascript and associated frameworks, but to work at a silicon valley company on the track to making big bucks, your best bet is to go to a reputable CS school, network, do internships, and graduate with a half-decent GPA. Sounds like you're older though so you may want to try to be a project manager.
What have you done for work in the past 30 years?

Languages are nothing, you basically want architecture/CS knowledge to be able to write code at Google/Netflix/Amazon/Facebook scale

InfoSec Engineer and then Risk Management/Audit.

Enjoyed the former (although it's gone to shit now that it is a mass marketed industry), and hated the latter. I hate project management with a passion since you have to own shit and be very outgoing and do constant presentations to people that are never satisfied. Setting up the never ending string of conference calls and running the show sucks. I'd rather be an individual contributor.

All I really want to do is find the right trajectory to be a proper programmer that is in demand.

just learn COBOL bruh

Most company executives have an average salary of around 250 to 300 good luck getting remotely close to that being a programmer, need to move into management

Are you very intelligent?
>yes
Do research or consultant work.
>no
Make a faggy startup and beg venture capitalists for free money. Abscond with it.

Yeah I know that thread was full of bullshit but if I could get 150-180k in say, Southern California, that would be ideal.

i dont understand why people have such a wish being le rockstar sw engineer at silicon valley. yeah you might get well above 100k but at what price? these guys sure as fuck dont work 35 hours per week.

>i want to be an amazing programmer
>i have no recent programming experience

You are well on your way to success.

Okay pussy, let me tell you what I've done and what I'm currently doing/planning to to do. I'm going to make 400k even if it kills me before I hit 30. Currently 24 with 2.5 YOE

Here's my story so far
>Graduated university in CS with honors
>2 years being a front end monkey, was an intern and got hired full time because I tried to go back to school
>continued school part time doing mostly dumbass electives
>when I had 10 CS courses left I went back to school and dunked them, graduated
>got a job at a fortune 500 company as a distributed systems developer

I've been kicking ass there, have a few services out that are serving customers, and serving other services - one of which I wrote entirely myself. Delivered react front end shit, and the services are written in node.js.

Once I had proven my clout and built a reputation as a strong developer, I started "working" from home once a week to greenlight, and will often greenlight 1-2 hours a day if it's slow. When I'm greenlighting its usually studying.

I've have a study plan, right now I'm going through principles of computer system design. I've went most of SICP. After my 8 hours of work, I'll study for 3-4 hours, which are scheduled in my calendar. Every week I appoint a data structure to learn to the point where I can implement it blindly in golang. I pick a datastructure at random from this opendatastructures.

Don't focus too much on languages, pick the ones that you like. If you're not stupid it shouldn't be difficult to move from one to another - the paradigms and abstractions will carry over from one to another.

The way experience works is that if you do something for 1 month at a company that you work for 2 years at, you can claim 2 years of experience for it. Now, you need to have enough expertise to back it up. I plan to spin up a service in golang so that I can claim this past year at this company as one year of golang experience.

I'm probably coding 10-12 hours a day

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What’s your daily schedule from rise to sleep?

>CS degree

I want info from a non trad.

>wake up at 7:00
>bike to work
>gym at work at 8
>shower at work
>drink coffee with the BOYS
>sit down, bust something out
>scrum at 11
>lunch with the BOYS
>if busy, continue working till 5. Otherwise, do some learning while responding to people on slack
>get home at 5:15, sometimes I'll leave at 4
>clean, cook some dinner
>depending on sports schedules, I'll watch some sports
>I'll practice coding for 2-4 hours during 6-11:30
>I'll go through a bit in the book I'm currently reading and write notes

Granted this is if my wife isn't being needy, and I don't gym every day

>350k
>San Francisco
That'll get you an apartment if you room with someone. Have fun wading through human shit and used needles everyday.

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Nontrad here. 25 yo making 140k in TX. I started by writing Pong in C++ using allegro libraries by second grade. (8 years old)

Fast forward to mobile revolution and I was making games (A publishing company wanted to outsource games for their characters, I lived outside the US and got lucky)

My father is a programmer so that greatly helped, although I've far surpassed him. He knew javascript was going to blow up so pressured me into learning it, it paid off big time.

Now I work on both backend and frontends for many Fortune 500s you may be familiar with. Just build random shit, oh a discord bot for fetching mmorpg character info. Oh, a react native app for Playboy's picture of the day or whatever. Sometimes I'll sit down and solder some hardware to play with Arduinos. Just tinker

For what it's worth I graduated HS with a 4.0 GPA and all the AP classes validated, but dropped out of college. You have to read, read, and keep reading, this is the one trick that will catapult you. Design patterns, mythical man month, clean code handbook, whatever you can get your hands on.

>I haven't programmed since Commodore Basic in the early 80s

Might as well give up now gramps, nobody over 40 gets hired in tech

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But... they do. And it’s actually 200k USD for new grads. Over 40 hour work weeks are super uncommon at the Big N nowadays.

It isn’t even hard, just grind Leetcode for a few months and you’re in. You aren’t lazy, are you user?

You are old. It's over for you gramps

Based

Javascript (or Java but I prefer JS) is probably a good language in good demand

This guy's correct and has the right mindset. He's also at least fifteen years younger than you and had the luxury of being in the right place in the right time. Do what he says, and assuming that you're , you might have an okay shot for something in the sunbelt or flyover country. You're never going to be some FAANG guy because of 's mentality at almost every level of startup culture (Unless you have some complimentary training, I knew one old dude who used to be a graphic designer for magazines get hired as a front-end developer for USAA.)

SF really needs to clean out all the homeless niggers and street shitters.

My scenario: 21yo, no college degree. Took a year or two of C++ in high school. I'm confident I can brush up/learn new languages. Where should I go from here?

What do you make at your current job?

Fuck that shit, 350k is more than enough to be comfy in the bay area even with a wife and kids at home. If you can't bank six figures and retire early after putting your kids through a nice private school you're completely fucked in the head.

But hey nice cope, you guys who can't make it out here should be happy where you land. I don't hold it against you.

but do the needles have shit in them cause if not fuck that

>java
>good language
>$350k/yr
unless you're an AI expert, you can't even expect $200k

>What languages do I need to know?
Actually doesn't matter much. None of the FAANGs care about what languages you know, you can use pretty much anything (non autistic) for the interviews. And if you're good enough to pass them, you'll learn whatever language you need later in 2 weeks top. Just do hundreds of leetcode exercises, find someone who can refer you (either irl or on the internet) and give it a shot.
But since you're pretty old for a programmer, so getting in may be much harder for you. As far as I know, ageism is real.

Check out comp.fyi, in bay area fresh grads at FAANG can make more than this. And AI doesn't pay more.

i got to $200k in SF then moved to chicago. instead of saving $40k/yr im now saving $90k/yr and there arent tons of homeless people (and my grandparents are 20 minutes away on the L)

A laughable 80k us because I live in Canada, but I'm going to move to the states soon. I don't care as long as I'm in the states by 28

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If you were only saving 40k a year on 200k income in SF you are simply retarded.

They can’t because like Seattle they have basically stripped cops of all authority. So homeless and drug dealers migrate there because the penalties for breaking the law are so lax. You can deal meth on the street and not go to jail:/.

if you aren't a degenerate piece of shit you can make 200k+ easily as a DoD contractor not licing in CA

Learn haskell.

If you aren't a degenerate piece of shit you can make 400k+ easily as a JavaScript engineer in CA.

I don't get it, I keep seeing threads and posts of trying to either make it big or simply get an in in programming but practically no mention of doing gov work. Any of the three letter agencies, really. Always had the impression that those would be an easy in, no?

Government pays less but has the added benefit of not hiring H1Bs or Visas which you might like if you're racist, and being an equal opportunity employer for citizens if you're not.

It's also almost impossible to get fired and there's often barely any work so you show up, browse reddit/youtube/imgur/SFW shit on your laptop for 8 hours and then leave. So comfy.

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>What's my path?
leetcode

i make 300k+ and work 10 to 5 with free lunch in between

I graduated from a state school with a BS in nuclear engineering 3.1gpa, 3 years ago. I don't want to be tied to a fucking nuke plant.

How do I slide into CS and work for Boston Dynamics or some AI shit?

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c# pays like shit, java is the way to go

Huh, so it's as I thought and wanted. Turning down such a straightforward and modest opportunity is what I didn't get. I mean, could always take whatever experience gleaned and go private sector.
Just hope they don't mind taking in a brainlet

Amazing programmers are saving the world and n/ot making any money.

Better off becoming a Big 4 public accounting partner and making $1 million.

>t. Neet who graduated with 2.1 gpa in CS

In real life $350,000 is astronomical. Making $125,000 on your own merit puts you in the top 1 of Americans, assuming you aren’t some mystery meat mutt who got a fluff job at google to write AUPs for corporately-issued dragon dildos.

Because that would require that people get the CompTIA Security+ and even tho it’s like the third easiest real cert to get, it’s still more work than any of the dipshits on this forum are willing to get. They’d rather fantasize about being a leet coder when really they only come here to shitpost about GPUs.

Oh, I didn't know about that, but that actually makes things easier in the sense that there's a concrete thing to achieve and study for instead of the typical blanket "just be 1337 lul thats the only way to get hired" badge of honor that the poster may or may not actually have themselves.

Yeah the DoD actually requires that you have a Sec+ to even work there. The IT field is much better for NEET and non-uni people because a guy with a GED can still get A+, get a helpdesk job, then Net+, get a raise, then Sec+ that qualifies him for the DoD, then CCNA R&S, promotion to network engineer, then a smattering of other CCNAs or MCSAs, then a Red Hat Linux cert or a cybersec cert and then you have a full career.

vs.

> “just get really good at Java”.

That's very helpful, I've always placed more credence on certs and licenses anyway. Really gave me a nice boost after a particularly rough patch of being lost at sea in the doldrums.

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I'm considering on being a sysadmin for the government (specifically school districts). Is being a sysadmin good overall or is it going to be a meme job in the future where it's pointless?

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No it won’t be useless but it certainly won’t be 120k and a company car.

Sysadmin will soon be the new accountant. Above average job security, above average wage, a nice job that will make you enough to live and save and go out for food occasionally and live a normal life, just like most other jobs.

Sysadmins are not the $160k at 25 “rockstar” “coding-ninjas”. But there’s nothing wrong with it. Honestly, an entry level sysadmin could be a 23 year old who got net+ and MCSA server 2016 and literally any Cisco cert.

I think you should do it but don’t expect miracles. All the talk of six figure salaries on the forum and I bet that in reality there’s like 4 people total of all weekly Jow Forums visitors who make that much

use templeos as ide

Drink bleach, shit smear.

That honestly sounds like my dream job. I live modestly and frugalistic so pay is not an issue. I don't go spend shit on luxurious stuff other than conventions and geekshit. Plus, I'm planning on retiring very soon since my mom made a huge living from investing into stocks so I'm gonna be a NEET when I turn 24.

Do you have any resources for sysadmin?

1. Get any CS job
2. Get good at leetcode
3. Apply every couple months to big players until you get an interview
to get a big salary you just need to get more than 1 offer so they compete. fwiw I hate the bay area but most of the complaints people make in these threads about the jobs themselves aren't true. you can easily work

This is what I like to hear! I took one c++ class at community college and finished the tsecond half of the textbook on my own in a few weeks. I keep collecting books and I'm actually reading them. I got bit through SICP took a step away to work on The Little Schemer. I go back to K&R occasionally, I really like the way that book is presented. I have half a dozen more PDFs, I just make sure to track down every book that seems important.

I really like reading the books. Not just reading them, but taking notes and working through the exercises as best as I can. I'm probably not spending enough time actually coding (besides exercises), but fuck it. I'll ride this wave.

My only problem is I just can't get myself to study webshit. I know it's my quickest path into actually making money with coding skills, but I HATE it. I'm considering doing some kind of code boot camp just for webshit so I can at least be forced to know the basics. I have a great business idea that I'm working towards, but it's most likely going to need a web app.

>over 40 hour weeks are super uncommon
That’s utter bullshit. I work for a FAANG, and we all work 60+ weeks. My first year I worked like 35,40, but ever since I’ve been in the gun barrel. In addition I’m on call 24/7, and that is everywhere.

Can you offer some sort of resource for more detailed information about certs? I've often thought about going this route so I could at least have a decent job while I'm getting 1337. I'd love to babysit some server all day while I jerk my dick over SICP.

come to google white man, paid oncalled!

How do you go from working as a programmer in flyover country to a major tech city? I've been at my employer almost 5 years and at this point I'm sick of the town, the project I've been on for the last couple years and the pay and I fear that staying will cause my career to plateau early

>google
>white

Kek!

If you're international, get a grad degree from a top program in the states and then apply from there. Its that easy.

By flyover country I meant the US Midwest, I'm not international

White and Pajeet

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these threads always make me sad as a europoor.
Outside of Switzerland €60k gross is close to the top.

yeah but you get like 6 weeks vacation and sane work hours.

Why is it higher only in Switzerland?

I rather trade for a lower pay for some actual good work culture rather than being forced to take +60 hours with shitty labor laws. I'm actually fucking jealous of you europoors and britbongs.

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Ah yes, yet another statistic to beat myself over not being great at maths despite the asian heritage.
Christ, I need to work harder at turning my life around.

if you have to ask, you're not going to make it sorry.

just work whatever hours you want and if anyone complains act like they are being unreasonable. it's all about frame dude.

Alright lets realign your sights OP

1. Do you really want to be a programmer or do you just want to make the money? Thats important because the money on its own wont motivate you. VERY few humans are motivated by just making money after a certain point of comfort. This leads to the next question

2. So you're not in it for just the money you want the life, So a better question would be, what does the life of a SF bay programmer look like?

Thats the main thing to look at, you can be successful in alot of fields but its easier if you enjoy what you do. For example if your extroverted you're not going to enjoy sitting in front of a computer all day, you may begin to crave interaction

I like playing the following game.

Ask Europeans to name an American tech company

>Google!
>Apple!
>Microsoft!
>Facebook!

It's instant, every time.

Then, ask Americans to name a European tech company

>Uhh....SAP? Is that a thing?
>Nokia? Are they still around
>*crickets*

Europe has missed the software boat. They will never enjoy the network effects that the pioneer american companies will benefit from for the next 100 years.

Learn cobol.

Well shit, you got me, though I'm more willing to blame that on my ignorance than the lack of success on the other side of the pond.
Didn't raspberry pi and arduino originate in europe? That element 14 company or something and something else over in italy, respectively.

Jobs are adult daycare centers

Slant-eyes and pasties are in it together.

Same question, but I'm okay capping at $100k and CS50 is kicking my ass.

don come here, ur too competitive and will take our jerbs

I'm at community college right now trying to decide where to go in the fall
I got into UC Irvine and UC Santa Cruz for CS, as well as UC San Diego for my alt major choice, Cognitive Science
The CogSci program there is pretty heavily computational, and you can specialize it in machine learning or human technology interaction. It's def one of the best CogSci programs, and while it's probably the most 'prestigious' of the schools I was admitted to, I'm concerned it won't get me as far in the field as a vanilla computer science degree. Have any of you had any experience or know of anyone getting into tech through a cognitive science program?
Any advice would be cool, sorry if this is too off topic, seemed like the most relevant thread

>UC Irvine
Oh nice, that's a 10-15 minute drive away. I'm considering on getting into web-development (basic front-end bitch) or system admin but not entirely sure if I need to uni for it. What community college are you at?

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ay, good shit, I'm in laccd right now so Irvine is real close to me too. I think web development stuff is probably the easiest to get into without school, there's tons of freelance work especially if you're in orange county. a bunch of companies hire out of irvine though so there's definitely some pros, even if it's just for the connections.

I'm in Orange County so I'm in a good spot now. Being a freelancer is a bit questionable for me and I prefer to be in a company for it. If it doesn't go well, I consider on being a sysadmin for the school district I was in.

Yeah I hear you, those are good routes for sure, don't totally discount freelancing though if you don't wanna go through school, it can be really good for resume building to make you more competitive for full time dev jobs

I plan on doing some personal projects. I still have to take a single computer science course since I'm fresh out of highschool. I'm probably going to do a personal homepage this summer.

this
language doesn't matter OP
C++ is the best way to learn memory, IO and network architecture
You're too late to get a 6figure code monkey job anyway so don't dwell into JS