TL;DR: Been out of work for 5+ years, looking to become a developer, no degree, finding it difficult to transition into a development role. How did you do?

Hi HN,

I am in my thirties, have been out of work for a long while now (5+ years) living on savings. Decided I want to become a developer and what programming I've done and learnt in the past year, I do genuinely enjoy. My problem is I don't have a degree much less something CS related, I have no prior experience working in anything related to programming at all, and my resume looks abysmal due to such a large gap of no employment and irrelevant prior work experience prior to that.

I am slowly starting to build up a portfolio on my right now (majority of which is focused on front end work) and committing to github. I am studying backend languages as well but haven't made the connection on how to build out a full stack yet or even how to deploy stuff on the backend but I'm learning.

My question is for those in the same position and looking to transition, other than going back to school or going through a development bootcamp, how did you get your first job?

I talked to a friend of a friend who is a recruiter and they acknowledge even if I manage to pick up the skills needed, my resume would likely be overlooked due to the way it is. The best I could think of is to load it up with any future projects I complete or OSS I participate in but finding it a bit discouraging that so many companies are looking for quite a bit of knowledge starting out the door (although understandable).

Any advice or thoughts is greatly appreciated.