Anyone with experience in the IT field, please advise me on where to start as a self-taught person?

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Initial_Luck_7986@reddit

First off, Software Developers don’t say IT field. If you ask a Developer if they work in IT they will look at you funny as it’s kind of an insult.

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Ristler@reddit

Who cares software developers are working in IT it’s not that deeo

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Ristler@reddit

Actually yes i am. I’m currently studying software engineering now and i’m almost finished 👍

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ninhaomah@reddit

Eh he said "you aren't a software developer"

You said "yes I am. I'm currently studying software engineering now and I'm almost finished"

Are you working as a freelance software developer or something ? I failed to see how is it a yes you are a software dev and also a student.

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Ristler@reddit

I develope software. My profession is software developer. Software developing and software engineering are different.

If somebody takes offence to being called for being in ”IT” that’s immature person right there. But who cares being a programmer isn’t some kind magical wizard you have to careful how you speak to lol.

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Miserable-Primary815@reddit (OP)

Thank you for pointing out my mistake.

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luckynucky123@reddit

imo you made no mistake.

from the outside perspective (especially accounting), information technology (IT) is a catch all word for anything related with computers that manages information. so from that framing, software developers is part of the IT field.

there's a unique set of skills, discipline, and complexity that has to do with deploying and managing infrastructure and networking that is different than software engineering and development - especially at scale.

that being said - there is a convergence of development and developing/deploying/maintaining infrastructure (thank you devops - or devsecops and cost cutting). regardless of where you are at - you will one day professionally have to work in OR work alongside with such colleagues - even on the help desk/support level. knowing whats going on with our colleagues is important.

getting certs don't hurt - just expensive. ideally company help sponsors you to get those certs.

tldr; stay curious. don't be tribal. learn everything. help your colleagues.

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iLiveForTruth@reddit

Figure out which direction you actually mean first, IT support vs dev are pretty different paths and people mix them up a lot.

If it’s dev, just start building stuff early, even small messy projects. That helped me way more than tutorials.

Also curious what got you interested in this in the first place?

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Miserable-Primary815@reddit (OP)

Since childhood I have been interested in some way in how programs/games/websites and the like are created and in addition to all this, for most of my life if I had the desire, I relatively quickly learned and adapted to new material somewhere

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project19lover@reddit

start by learning the basics of programming or IT through free resources like freeCodeCamp or The Odin project, and practice by building small projects on your laptop. Focus on one path and build skills and a portfolio for employers.

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BlueGnoblin@reddit

Get a graduation or develope software people want to use.

None will hire you without references. A graduation is the savest way, but you can try to build some really good software or a portfolio of software (tools) and try to get hired this way.

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Overall-Worth-2047@reddit

This. There's also career-change focused programs like TripleTen in the middle of that. They're expensive though.

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Due-Influence0523@reddit

I’m still figuring this out myself, but starting with something like Python and building small projects while following beginner roadmaps seems like the most realistic way to get into IT without feeling overwhelmed.

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techne98@reddit

As someone (mostly) self-taught, there's a few different paths. My path into tech was quite unique so I'll share it. It probably goes against common advice here, so take it with a grain of salt. Do what is right for you.

Here's the basic approach I took:

- Learn to program (e.g. in Python)

- Build some projects yourself (it will be a struggle)

- Find a niche you can stand out in

If you are playing the HR lottery against a bunch of people with possibly mutliple degrees and years of experience, I found it hard to stand out.

Instead, I found a project I liked, and either wrote about how their project worked, or tried to build a useful project with their SDK/service/etc. I did this and started to build up authority, got hired on some contracts, etc.

Obviously the market right now is not great, so please be thoughtful with what you decide to do. But just thought I would share my experience in case it helps at all.

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skysparko@reddit

Don’t stress too much, you’re 19, you’ve got time.

Pick one path to start, web dev is the easiest:

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, then React.

Focus on building, not just watching tutorials. Even small projects are fine, just keep shipping and put them on GitHub.

If you get stuck after tutorials, try smaller, structured problems instead of full apps. I had the same issue and used platforms like skillron.com to practice real-world style tasks before moving to bigger projects.

Consistency for a few months will take you way further than overthinking.

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UnburyingBeetle@reddit

There are plenty of potential game developers that aren't great at programming, and a good game buffs up your portfolio significantly even if it doesn't go big, employers can look at how good its code is. And it's more motivating to work with something that has nice art and fun mechanics than with some boring and visually uninspiring apps.

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RobertDeveloper@reddit

Get a computer science degree at a university. You can't become a doctor by just reading up medical notewls either.

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MrFartyBottom@reddit

The market is currently flooded with developers who have years of experience who have been displaced by the recent AI sacking waves. You really wouldn't stand much chance of breaking into the market with no qualifications or experience.

That being said if you do want to learn some programming a good place to start is https://stackblitz.com/ You can runup JavaScript projects straight in the browser and don't need to install anything locally on your machine and can access your projects from anywhere you have a browser available.

Start with some vanilla JavaScript, learn the basics of development with the language fundamentals like data structures, loops, arrays and functions. Once you have a basic understanding of how the language works you can learn a bit of TypeScript and then try and build something. The standard intro app is usually the todo list. Move onto trying to make some simple games like tic tac toe, backgammon or a slot machine.

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Agitated-Sky-6464@reddit

Best of luck on your journey. As people mentioned some accredited credentials would make things easier to get hired but people have been self taught before. Most interviews nowadays involve some sort of test anyway to prove your skills (at least that’s been my experience)

Some resources to get your started for free would be theodinproject.com or [freecodecamp](https://www.freecodecamp.org

There are lots of resources on YouTube to to learn from

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dmazzoni@reddit

It is competitive to get a job as a software developer these days. Most applicants will have a college degree in Computer Science.

If you're trying to get hired and most other candidates have a degree, but you don't, how will you stand out?

As others pointed out, IT is not the same thing. As a very rough rule of thumb: IT is installing, repairing, and fixing computers. Software development is making computers do totally new things.

You can get an entry-level IT job, like a help desk job, with a few months of study and work your way up.

There are no entry-level jobs like that left in software development.

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No_Pen_9441@reddit

were you talking about IT field like network and system infrastructure or the programming stuffs(fullstack devs)

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Miserable-Primary815@reddit (OP)

About programming stuffs