there were no computers when i was 7 or i would have. actually , true story , i played with a plastic binary toy computer when I was a wee lad. it had levers and shit you played with and output binary 0101010101 . wonder if i can find a pic of it here it is or something a lot like it . proof of budding genius https://www.retrothing.com/2009/10/build_your_own_.html
Here's what Google software engineers are payed. Most Google employees make it to at least L5 given enough time / experience. And this data looks a bit outdated. Salaries jumped over the past 2 years. levels.fyi is the source. Anyone can make an offer. Doesn't mean that the offer is a fair value.
...probably way over the head for most folks here...those levels are similar in terms of competition and difficulty to reach than analyst, associate, VP, AD, D, MD at sell-side firms. Heck most here on this site start drooling when they see a bitcoin image on Twitter...
I am from ´77 and my first "computer" was a Spectrum Sinclair, it came with a book that had a few programs written in BASIC. I script-kid'ed them, as a kid would do, but I am not sure if I can claim that I wrote any program at that age.
Exactly. From what I hear most employers aren't focused on any degree anymore and are very happy to hire self-starters. Degrees are required in some very specific fields like machine learning for example. There's a massive shortage of developers and devops out there, employers are quite desperate to find people - most are now looking to India and Africa.
Reading "Spectrum" I initially assumed you're British, then I read Spain into your profile so it also makes sense. It's an European thing. I was born in '78 and my first computer in Romania was also a ZX-Spectrum compatible. Quite a few quality games were asking me to select "teclado" over "kempston", Spain was producing some competitive software in this area even at the time.
Completely polar opposite, North Korea situation here. You couldn't find and buy a commercial Spectrum if you'd have paid a kidney for it. There were no imports, only local manufactured ones, and the only factory in the country was fully booked by the State system, mainly schools in case of ZX-Spectrum. Plus the "official" cost of a ZX-Spectrum (which you couldn't buy anyway even if you had the money unless you also had "Relations") was around 15x the average monthly pay of a factory worker. Add another 15x if you wanted a floppy disk drive. So even though my parents were making quite a bit more, I still couldn't convince them to throw that much money and influence on a "toy". Luckily there was a high school in my town and they had ONE Spectrum. Nooone knew how to use it, I mean noone. Occasionally some substitute math teacher from the city would come and go and in between be able to use the mysterious asset. One of them introduced it to us kids, first time I seen such beast. He wired the thing to a TV and said to us "you can press any buttons in any order and won't break it", which I thought was completely bull*hit, no way I can do that and least they'll also force me pay for it after I break it. Later asked my younger brother why such idea, why was I so weary about "pressing any button". And my brother nailed it: "Because anything you had in your mind as a reference to this sort of cutting-edge technology was MECHANICAL. And when you drive a mechanical beast like a tractor, there's still a heck load of 'buttons' and levers and pulls but surely you can't freaking press them all at once or in random order or you'll break the darn thing". So this was my introduction to computers, some 35 years ago.