[fish45]

To be honest, I would consider finding some sort of bootcamp type thing if not for my parents being pretty dead set on college. I do have a lot of stuff I want to learn which will, in my limited experience, be a lot easier to to understand with a formal education.

I've been looking for a software dev job for the past few months and almost everything I've found that's more than a WordPress/shopify job wants a bachelor's. Do you have any advice for getting a software dev job straight out of high school?

[analog31]

I graduated from high school in 1982, and already knew how to program. I was keenly interested in programming, and my mom was teaching intro CS courses at a local community college. Now her advice may be outdated, but it was that programming per se is too easy to justify 4 years of college study, if that's what you want to do for a living. Also at the time, many of the colleges didn't really have full blown CS departments.

I ended up teaching myself programming (and electronics) while doing a double major in math and physics, which led me to develop enough of an interest that I continued in physics through grad school.

I had a summer internship at a computing facility, which led me to think that a pure programming job would actually be kind of boring. Again, this was long ago, and is related to my interests and not yours.

Today, I program. A lot. In fact, if you walk past my office (my basement right now), you've got a 50% or better chance of seeing a code editor up on my screen. But I use programming as a problem solving tool, and am not employed as a programmer. Good programming skill is a "force multiplier" for virtually any occupation.

One thing about college is that many students change their majors. College is a place where you can be exposed to a whole variety of fields, and where you can soak up the vibe of a field and get excited about it. I don't know where I'd have found my love of physics at a coding boot camp.

CS attracts a lot of students who are interested in computers, or who hear that it's lucrative, but are not necessarily interested in computer science as an end unto itself. But, figuring this out is part of the college experience!

[jrumbut]

Start with a WordPress/Shopify job and then look for ways to expand your horizons.

Struggling startups, small consulting companies, they also have more ability to bring someone in straight out of high school so even if they say "bachelor's required" still apply.

[_fqqr]

That depends on what type of job and career you are looking for, CS is a pretty broad field.

If you are looking for one of those high paying jobs in the top companies and want them without a degree, you will need to impress much more than your graduated peers.