For coders, are these 100% online, accredited programs any good?

[The Old Man]

@THF
Everyone is telling you that a CS degree is not necessary. Listen to them!

It is frequently the case that self-taught developers have gaps in their background. The best way to deal with this is to engage in self-study to rectify these deficiencies. In interviews you could explain that you recognize the limitations of your education and have taken proactive steps to compensate. I believe this approach would strongly demonstrate a desirable candidate.

You are now in the CS field. Make the most of your opportunity. Remember a degree means you can learn. You have several degrees. You don't need more.

[The Old Man]

If anything, I'd blame HR and higher-ed for causing so many of us to jump between fields as we figure out which one is good & bad for us.

@TopHatFox
These are excuses. Remember, personal responsibility. Only, you care about you. No one else does, especially HR and higher-ed.

[zbigi]

I've noticed my career/income trajectory has slowed. The higher I go, the more it seems to take to get recognition. If it interests you, project management, SCRUM master, product management certificates CAN make you more attractive as a SWE candidate. Having soft skills, and getting certs that back those up, can really set you apart from the average coder, even if your title stays SWE.

This highly depends on the place. If the hiring is highly influcenced by non-technical types, then these soft skills might be useful. On the other hand, if hiring selection is basically done by the dev team (very common case), then any detour into soft skills might be seen as attempt at bailing out due to not having enough chops to code. IMO, it's best to focus on being the best coder (there's really tons to learn), unless someone really doesn't feel like it. Then, early exit into soft roles is also a viable career track - although they also require some aptitude (thinking on your feet, very good memory, good public speaking skills, ability to hide your true feelings/opinions well) and can be truly miserable if someone is not a good fit.

[bostonimproper]

@THF Yes, in a lot of places you can choose to not take on team level responsibilities and stay at a midlevel role pretty much indefinitely. You still would be responsible for taking care of your own stuff without handholding (including coordinating with other teams, product, etc. as required for your own projects) but you won’t have to take on making decisions/doing “soft” work on the behalf of others as much.

[7Wannabe5]

I don’t know. It seems to me that if you are applying for a job at a whorehouse, everybody’s going to tell you that you just need to know how to @&$@, but you are actually going to be better off if you are the one who is hired based on ability to play upon the pianoforte.

[TopHatFox]

UPDATE

I took a trial of the first course in the online MS - CS program from CU - Boulder, and it was just theory concept after theory concept, and they didn't bother to explain a lot of CS jargon, they just used it sans introduction. Then they wanted me to do something complex in Java despite my main language being Python, and the instructions video was like: "here's what you need to do, OK, now go do it," rather than actually explaining *how* to do it to start. I'm lucky I know a lot of jargon terms from what I've done on TTH already, but damn, if the rest of the program is like this, that's a full-time+ commitment, and I doubt understanding the "Fast Fourier Transform" will be helpful in coding a web app. The next 2 years will be better spent doing all the tutorials on TTH after work after all. Cheaper too.

[white belt]

UPDATE

I took a trial of the first course in the online MS - CS program from CU - Boulder, and it was just theory concept after theory concept, and they didn't bother to explain a lot of CS jargon, they just used it sans introduction. Then they wanted me to do something complex in Java despite my main language being Python, and the instructions video was like: "here's what you need to do, OK, now go do it," rather than actually explaining *how* to do it to start. I'm lucky I know a lot of jargon terms from what I've done on TTH already, but damn, if the rest of the program is like this, that's a full-time+ commitment, and I doubt understanding the "Fast Fourier Transform" will be helpful in coding a web app. The next 2 years will be better spent doing all the tutorials on TTH after work after all. Cheaper too.

Almost as if the posters in this thread may have been onto something? Yeah, as others have said, a MS takes work and is an advanced degree which means they are expecting you to already have baseline knowledge from your undergrad degree. Also just FYI, programming is not a job where you are spoonfed answers. In fact, most of your day might be spent googling how to code a solution to something. It’s also common to have to learn a new language/plugin/tool on the job.

[zbigi]

I don’t know. It seems to me that if you are applying for a job at a whorehouse, everybody’s going to tell you that you just need to know how to @&$@, but you are actually going to be better off if you are the one who is hired based on ability to play upon the pianoforte.

I don't know about the whorehouse, but in coding, there a very wide range of skills between candidates. Some are just mediocre or even borderline frauds, while some are true stars who've been living and breathing their particular stack (working hard at job, experimenting in their free time etc.) for the past couple of years. It may not be apparent at the junior level, but at senior, your knowledge and experience is often inspected quite thoroughly during the interviews. So, if you want to code, it's best to continue learning all that stuff required to get to the senior payscale levels. Btw, the need to constantly learn new things is IMO what burns out most people from this job.

[CS]

CS degrees worth their salt are nearly all theory (I have a MS in one, and worked as a developer for a few years… left when I decided I didn’t want to be an architect… not sure about that decision).

Learning the language, aka coding, is baseline expectation. It’s like expecting to be taught how to use a pencil when going to college.

[7Wannabe5]

I don't know about the whorehouse, but in coding, there a very wide range of skills between candidates. Some are just mediocre or even borderline frauds, while some are true stars who've been living and breathing their particular stack (working hard at job, experimenting in their free time etc.) for the past couple of years.

I was just makiing a more general observation that whenever that which you are selling, whether product or service, is commodified, you are more subject to the downside of free market mechanisms to the extent that it is commodified. Of course, this model has me imagining entry-level coders working in a sweat-shop type of environment with entry level pieces of projects being sent down a conveyor belt. Those who can't code will be quickly eliminated by this mechanism, and those who can code will be "rewarded" with ever more entry level coding to do as the conveyor belt is accelerated.

Because I am older, this is the sort of situation I would like to avoid Thus, I seek a niche for which I am uniquely qualified and/or hope to create my own niche.

Another analogy would be that I was reading that the producers of the show "The Bachelor" are spinning off a senior citizen version entitled "The Golden Bachelor" in which senior women will compete for senior bachelor, and I can't imagine why any senior woman would possibly sign up to be on that show. It's always a loser move to put yourself on the competing-for-contract-offer side of a negotiation if it can be creatively avoided. Let them come to you or stick to your knitting.