how to become software engineer

How to become software engineer

 Hey it's Simon supersimple.dev So we all know by now that software engineers make a lot of money and the job is very comfortable and everything's all great, but you might be wondering how do you get into this industry. So I want to share with you the 3 ways that everyone gets into the software engineering industry. We're going to take a look at them from the highest chance of success, to the lowest chance of success but still pretty high. 

This industry is growing rapidly and there's a lot of demand for these kind of skills, so even if you don't have any experience, don't worry about it it's a lot easier to get in than you think. So the first way to get into software engineering is to go to college for a computer science or math or engineering related degree. 

Now this might not be what you want to hear especially if you're watching a youtube video on this, but the fact remains that this is the standard way to go for getting into the industry. So stack overflow does this survey every year of thousands of developers, it's meant to be a representative survey of the developer population, mostly. 

And one of the questions that they ask on this survey is: what is the educational attainment, or the highest level education that you have. And it turns out that most professional developers do have a college degree and most of them have a college degree in a computer science related field. Now there is a large percentage of people who don't have a degree but what I want to convey to you is that most people, if you ask them if you're at work, and you ask the engineers around you, they do have a degree, even people who are teaching on the internet, they probably went to college. 

So the reason I think that college is so effective, is not because of the stuff that you learn in school. Everything you learn in school you can learn somewhere else. It's not because of the courses you take, or even the degree that you have. It's because you can get internships. So companies like to offer internships because they can pay you basically half or they can be students basically half of what they pay for a regular employee. 

And it's great for you because you get work experience and you don't have to compete with everyone, you're just competing with other students. Because most internships do require that you are a student or you're a new grad, the barrier of entry is just really low to get these jobs. Once you get these jobs, it becomes so much easier for you. You can either stay at the company after you graduate, or because you have work experience, you instantly have an advantage over everyone who is going to a bootcamp or who is self-taught. 

Now the only downside to this is that of course college takes four years to complete, which is a really long time and it takes a lot of money.. But this is still the standard way to go and if you go through this path of getting an internship, then you have a really high chance of success and you don't really have much to worry about. So I don't want to spend too much time on college, it's pretty straightforward, we're going to move on to the next way of getting into software. So the second way of getting into the software engineering industry, is to go through a boot camp or really any program that you register and then they have all the materials prepared for you and a schedule for you and then you just go through the program. 

So bootcamps have gotten very popular because you learn everything that you need or everything that a company is looking for in a very short amount of time, so in three to four months they will pretty much hit every single skill that a company is listing on their job posting and you also have some portfolio projects on your resume. And that'll usually be enough to get you interviews and eventually a job. So bootcamps can cost anywhere from 20 000 to 30 000 in total. 

Note that for a lot of boot camps, you do have to relocate, so if you have a full-time job already you're probably going to have to quit that job, and then relocate to the city where the boot camp is being held. And so you're going to miss out income on your current job if you do decide to go to one of these on-site bootcamps. Of course the advantage of an on-site bootcamp is that you're there with the instructors, and all the students together and then you can ask questions, and it's a lot more interactive. So just keep that in mind if you have a full-time job. For a lot of boot camps, they run five days or six days a week for you know eight to nine hours a day and you're probably going to be doing projects after those learning hours so it's going to take up all your time. So in terms of which boot camps you should go to, if you're worried about the cost financially then you should pick a boot camp that has an isa or an income sharing agreement.

 This means that you can basically study for free and then pay them back after you get a job. Other than that I would suggest going to a boot camp that has a good reputation and is pretty popular. So that's enough about boot camps it's pretty straightforward, the only challenging thing is picking the right boot camp and then after that you go through the program and after you come out of the program you should have a resume that is ready to apply for jobs. So the third way of getting into software engineering is to become self-taught, so this means that there's no registrations, no programs, no course or schedule prepared for you. You have to figure out what you need to learn and how to learn it. Now this is where I can give more advice here, because you know for college you just go through the college for boot camp you go through the boot camp, but for being self-taught there's not really a set path for you to take. 

So the best advice I can give you if you want to be self-taught, is that think of all the work that a boot camp does for you and you're going to be doing that work on your own. You're going to make a list of the technologies that companies are mentioning in their job post, and then for each of these technologies you're going to figure out how to learn them, and in which order you should learn them so you can learn them by searching on google for documentation, or blog posts. You can learn them by searching on youtube for a tutorial, you can even learn them by buying a book, or an online course it's really up to you how you learn these technologies.

 Some online instructors do offer to do this kind of work for you where they tell you the list of technologies that you should know, and how they fit together, and which order you should learn them so you might save a little bit of time if you buy these online courses. 

Of course they do cost money so it's a trade-off between your time, and your money. Of course if you have a lot of money you can always just spend it on a bootcamp, and that will save you the most time. Now remember the second thing that a bootcamp does for you is that after you go through the bootcamp you're gonna have a portfolio of projects that you can show when you're applying to jobs. Now when you're being self-taught, you have to create this portfolio yourself. So I have a suggestion of 3 projects to put in your portfolio. You can put more if you want but I would suggest putting these three projects. The first project is to have a personal website. So this is just some information about yourself, your skills, basically like an online resume, and it's just gonna teach you to create a website that looks nice and it's gonna teach you how the internet works. So how to put a website on the internet. Now the second project that I would suggest is to have a project where you can log into an account, and then do something with the account.

 So think about this like making an instagram clone or a smaller version of instagram, where you can log into an account and then you can upload pictures to the account, or maybe a youtube clone where you can log in and upload videos to your account. So most of the companies that you're going to be applying for, they usually have an app or a software where you log into your account and then you do stuff, to do something in your account. So it's important to have a project where the project does the same thing, just a smaller version, of what their actual software does. 

So the third project I would recommend is to have a project where you're using external apis, so incorporate google maps into your project, maybe like an airbnb clone, or you're using more advanced features like websockets and you're doing some sort of real-time messaging app. So those are the three projects I would recommend to have in your portfolio, they're going to show that you have a wide range of skills, and these skills are used very often on a real job. Thanks for watching, those are the three ways that I find that everyone gets into software engineering.

 You either go through college and get internships, or you go through a registered program like a boot camp, or you are self-taught. Now which one you choose depends on your situation. If you can go to college I would highly suggest going to college, it is the standard way to go. You'll have an extremely high chance of success. But if you can't go to college, then you can choose to spend the money to hire the services of a boot camp. 

So a boot camp is gonna prepare everything that you need to know and then put it in a compact curriculum for you. Or if you don't want to pay that money or if it's not convenient to go to boot camp, then you're going to have to be self-taught and if you are self-taught then just make sure you have a list of technologies you, learn each one by one, and you have a portfolio of projects. 

Those are the two things that you need if you're self-taught. My name is simon from supersimple.dev I want to make a tech career possible for anyone. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them down in the comment section below. As always you can contact me at supersimple.dev/feedback Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one.