| :D :D I love this comment. I'm self-taught too, and I really enjoy reading about other self-taught people doing great things. There are a lot of barriers for us (not all of them justified), and I empathize with the struggle. Really sad to hear that you haven't gotten a software job yet. Usually I recommend that folks do enough open source work so that they can unquestionably prove that they can program; more solid proof than the average CS student can provide. Of course, this isn't always an option; as not everyone has that kind of time :( In your case you have written Lily, so this shouldn't be necessary either. What were your interviews like? Were they all "frob a linked list"-type? I've noticed that most self taught people (incl me) don't bother with these things. They know how to frob a linked list, but are not experts at it. Which makes sense because there are a lot of more fun things out there to get better at :) If this is the case for you, see if you can avoid such interviews; look for companies that ask more development-y questions. One such company I have had good experience with interviewing with Microsoft, and of course my current employer (Mozilla) asked good questions at my interviews. Of course, small sample space of interviews, ymmv :) If you need I can probably dig up more such companies from the experiences of friends in similar situations. Asking HN directly might also turn up some interesting opportunities. Keep up the good work! :D |