Hey, I'm a self-taught programmer who started at age 11 and ended up learning webdev. I'm in my early 20s now.
A couple years ago I suffered a neck injury that forces me to work remotely, as I can't sit or stand for long periods. Rather than speculate on what horrors my new future may hold, I got a setup that lets me use a computer laying down and started working. I had one goal: design and build a good solution to an interesting problem. So I did.
I built a big search engine website that indexed millions of user-generated creations for a pretty popular video game. The lack of one was a common complaint, and I had built the one and only solution. For the first time ever, you could just type in what you wanted and instantly find it!
Almost immediately after launch, thousands of people began using my site, and multiple YouTube creators reached out to me (most of them with between 100K-750K subscribers) and made videos on it. One of the videos is a great explainer on exactly why my site is so useful and what value it brings.
Although it's nothing special, here's the stack I used:
- TypeScript
- Next.js
- React
- Meilisearch (Not sure if you'd count this, but that's the search engine, and it's technically a database)
- Firebase (I'm gonna learn some real backend for my next project though, sorry Google)
I made a few interesting connections from this project, including a former software engineer and a popular YouTube creator who took interest in my upcoming project.
I have several other projects too, including a special contraption generator for the game, which was a very difficult but satisfying problem to solve. It's far more technically impressive than this project, but I chose to highlight this project because it's my most popular. (Also, I'm being vague with these project descriptions to avoid doxing myself.)
I plan to continue building big projects for now, but I want to know if it's possible for me to get a job. On one hand, I built a very useful product using modern technologies and got a lot of recognition for it. On the other, I have no college degree, a debilitating disability, and I don't really know that many people.
My instinctual reaction is to believe that my projects have very limited significance in the eyes of a prospective employer. I have no degree; I have no referrals. In today's economy, why take a risk with me? But perhaps my trauma has made me cynical.
So, what do you think? Could I still get a job?
I have a Patreon where people donate to offset the costs. I decided against commercializing it because I don't want any legal trouble with the game company. My upcoming project will be a proper business though, and it isn't tied to a company's IP, so I can monetize it freely.