Is it realistic to get a job as a developer with an unrelated degree?

Career Advice
1

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to find out if it’s possible or realistic to get a job as a developer without a related degree?

I’m 23 years old, currently working as a real estate agent and I am about to finish my Honors in Business Management.

I started learning to code a few months ago and have fallen in love with it, but I don’t want to waste time learning more about coding if it’s not realistic to make a career switch without getting a CS degree. I have a wife and 2 kids so I want to provide for them more than I want to be in a career that I love.

Any advice would be amazing.

2

Well, with your current experience I would say absolutely not, but that’s kind of obvious.

The question is, how will you get experience roughly equivalent to the CS graduates that you may be competing with jobs for? How long would that take?

I would say keep earning money at your current job, and see how your business management can help with that. Keep learning programming as a hobby and try to create small projects that can help you in your current job.

Post those small projects on github and live websites and see if they can help other realtors. Real world, practical projects like this will give you an advantage over CS grads and webdev bootcamp grads who all have similar looking projects.

You also have an advantage over those grads because you have domain-specific knowledge about real estate. You could become known as a programmer that makes useful utilities for realtors and actually get your first freelance work this way.

Maybe a webscraper or utility website that accesses useful information through an API.

Then, maybe there’s a development company that works within real estate that would appreciate that experience.

This is kind of a fantasy scenario, so please take it with a grain of salt, but I think it’s an example of how you might make it work.

You also have to decide what it is about programming that you like. Is it making websites and web applications? is it 3d game programming? databases?

There’s also the possibility that you might not enjoy working as a professional programmer in the end! You’ve only been coding for a few months and it could be a “honeymoon” period.

EDIT:

I wanted to add to this point. Earning money at your current job also gives you an advantage over CS grads. You are earning money and students are spending money or in debt. Earn money and put it away savings. This will give you time and flexibility.

2 Likes
3

That’s an unusual definition of love.

1 Like
4

Thanks so much for this advice! It’s along the lines of what I thought I should do. Really good to just hear it from someone else.

Thank you!

5

I think this person is trying to avoid the heartbreak of unrequited love.

1 Like
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Haha. A bit more clearly then, I love coding but I don’t have much time in the day and spending time with my family is more important than spending time learning coding.

7

To become job ready you would most probably need at least 1 year+ of full time, committed learning assuming little or no prior knowledge.

For part-time learning, getting to the same level might take a few years.