How fast you can learn enough programming to get a job?

I started to programming more or less a couple of years ago.. with no math background, no computer science background.. nothing! I didn´t know anything about programming. I havn´t any degree or studies, only the mandatories here in my country. And when I started.. I fell in love with code and started to read about it, started to compete in programming contests like TopCoder, Codeforces, etc... started to study more programming lanugages. i was working in a job with nothing related about programming. And when I came home I started to study my passion.. the code. I made a blog about competitive programming.. you know? Was a hobby for me! Programming is my passion.. is what I love to do every day.. is what make me happy! Then, a couple of months ago, I thought about to convert my hobby in a real job, and I started to look for a job. And now.. I got a job as .NET Software Developer! I don´t know if it is fast enough for you, but for me.. a couple of years have been enough to get my first programming job! But this is only the first step.. now, I need to keep going :D What I mean is... forget about time! Do what you love to do every single day.. and you will get what you want! ;) You can do it!

The best way for a college drop-out to get a decent programming job is to: Start or join an open source programming effort Start your own project, and hopefully you can make it a success, or at least end up with a product that you can show off to a potential employer. Network!  If you have a relative/good friend with some sway at a company, leverage that if you can.  Otherwise, show up regularly at conferences, and meetups for local programming groups.  The idea is to let people know your ability well enough to vouch for you. Don't underestimate proper software engineering.  Learn how the big companies do it.  Learn how continuous integration works, along with the Agile development process. If you do get an interview, know the position and the company very well. Finish your education at a cheaper college.. online if necessary.  Sadly, a lot of opportunities will be denied to you by a mindless HR weed-out filter.  Even if you do get the job, your salary is likely to be much lower than what you'd command with a degree under your belt.  What credits you have probably can be transferred.  There are some cheaper colleges out there with some very easy grading, and if you stay away from the work-intensive courses (generally CS people do psychology for their "humanities") then you probably will make it through.

hehehe .... been there, done that, i dropped out and started learning programming after that, because programming seemed like the only profession at the time that allowed you to make a living without a degree. i started as a freelancer/contractor, worked with a friend who was into designing and all for a year, then went solo, here is the "evolution of my skills": earning-enough-money-to-take-care-of-myself: 5 months,onestly though, if i'd have just stuck to wordpress, this'd have happened sooner. entry-level-programmer-skills: 6-7 months, was capable of pulling my weight around few php frameworks and jquery, and hade become pretty devent at sql, was also able to design and stuff. And i bet thats much more than what entry level programmers do advanced-noob-programmer-level: 12 months, was pretty decent in php and javascript by this time, and had just touched the surface of "application design" veteran-programmer: 16 months, this was the time i started looking into architecture, and open source stuff in languages other than php and js. Was capable of working in most parts of web-dev fuck-all-can-do-all-web-dev-thingy-programmer: 24+ months. Can write awesome php, JS, python and somewhat decent ruby, and also can pick up new languages/frameworks within a week or two, like started java yesterday and implementing backbone.js's model-collection datastructure in java to learn it (almost done), also looking at socket programming in scala. And gotten pretty good at application design and architecture, and can do the job of several of your "standard" programmers alone. Oh, even gonna give a talk on this topic pretty soon: http://laracon.eu/2013/ All this time, IRC helped me a lot, and networking, and open source, etc, ie, whatever said. But i just had to share my timeline. :D Oh and i worked for foreign clients only once, i stuck to freelancing locally because i knew i had to build up up my "people skills" too.

I know this is not the kind of answer that you are looking for, but it completely depends, especially on your work ethic, and ability to learn new things. In my opinion, it should be 1 year minimum, and that is assuming you work at least 10 hours a day. My opinion is based on the fact that you can only focus your time on learning programming, and that you don't have to take any other classes or any other jobs. Follow the college level curriculum, it prepares you very well for getting a good job. Because you said you were good at math, I would recommend learning C, C++, Java, MATLAB, R, or S. Buy tons of textbooks, read them through, solve problems, and do TopCoder and CodeChef competitions.

I'll boil down a lot of the advice in here and throw in a bit of my own experience. I got a job, at a major mining company, with no qualifications and very little experience because I was able to walk into an interview, slap down a thick listing and say I can debug and fix code like this. The listing was some horrible BASIC code from an accounting system I'd been working on part-time after learning a bit of how to program at the University Computer Club (it was in the early 80's). Fixing other people's problems is a great way to learn and to get credibility. I think someone working hard, with reasonable intelligence and a good eye for detail, can learn to do this in a couple of weeks. You need to do enough to build up credibility and to be sure you're coping with a range of things. Some of the research below alone will also take you a couple of weeks. My suggestion is: Pick your field (probably web development) Find programmers in your field either nearby or associated with companies of the kind you want to work for. Find out what open source code they use. Review the bug lists and languages for that source. This alone will start giving you things to study, as you try to understand the bugs and you may find you quickly learn which language feels more natural to you. Pick something to work on based on it having a lot of bugs for you to fix, so you can be of value to that community, which are of varying size. You should plan to be a member of this programming community for years - it's an important part of your career credibility. So, pay a bit of attention to the tone of the email conversations. Fix a bug, submit it, repeat, build up reputation. You can find people and what they use by starting with searches for company names, look on Linked-in to identify individuals and then search for their postings on programming forums. Use http://meetup.com to find discusssion groups that meet in person in relevant technologies and go to a few meetings across different related tech, both to listen and to meet people. Tell people what you are trying to do and also ask if you can get contact details and you get back to them with progress - most people are interested in seeing how people get on and this is a way to build a reputation as someone who delivers.

This is such a broad question.  It highly depends on the language in question, and the job requirements (which may require more than one type of "programming" skill).  I think it's easy enough to learn a basic scripting language at least.  I started learning the 'BASIC' programming language when I was around 10 (1985) on the C64 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64) and the ZX81 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12703674), and found it very easy to understand: ...but, this was the start of an awesome hobby, nothing good enough to get hired over. ;)  In fact, I found it fun to run over to the C64s in the store and run this script (with other text ;) ), and watch as people thought it was crapping out. :) It wasn't long (perhaps a few months) before I started copying out code from magazines into the C64s IN THE STORE (my parents couldn't afford one, but the the store guys were intrigued, and let me "play" with the demos).  I remember copying out about up to 8 pages, both sides, of BASIC C64 code to create a Donkey-Kong-style game (using sprites, etc.).  It took some time, but the store guys were amazed, and played it also! :)  Though I had no idea how it actually worked (and no way to save it!), I played the game, and had fun messing up the logic in various ways to get a feel for what was going on - which brings me to my next point... IMHO, it's a good idea to grab some *simple* code, and play around with it.  Feel free to mess it up, and find out how things work.  In fact, a lot of IDEs will create template projects (like Visual Studio, and others I'm sure), that literally create "Hello World" type outputs (in various ways) that you can start working on.  Watch all the online "Training 101" videos on the language you want to start with (I recommend JavaScript, but only because it's also very useful to know), and try out what you learned.  In time, you will get better.  You will never really know 100% of any language, but that's why Google is a developer's great investigative tool. ;)  That said, I would begin at the basic theory first!  At least get a handle on bits, bytes, how memory works, etc., and build your foundational knowledge. My parents couldn't afford a C64 until around 1989, at which time I started learning how to program sprites, and every other month start pumping out game after game for my brothers to play. 8)  Around 1993 my family moved, and I met a guy who knew how to program in assembly.  I had never heard of it before, and watched as he inserted a tape to load the software (I never had a disk drive).  He taught me the basics of what was going on, and made me a copy of the assembler software.  I eventually got good at it (after just a few weeks), and started writing out assembly on paper (pages and pages), and debugging it on the paper as well!  I proceeded to create some really nice games with the extra processing boost I got from it. Anyhow, for me, it became a life style.  I just kept learning one thing after another, and eventually I had people asking for some minor MS Access scripting (VB) work, while I was still in high school. This smaller work helped me hone my skills, and by the time I graduated, I was almost hired immediately by others familiar with my various "talents". By 2000, I had amassed BASIC (most forms of it), PASCAL, Assembly, C/C++, JavaScript, and much more.  At this time, however, I think many companies were hiring Java developers, so I ended up in an application support role in Healthcare.  It wasn't long before the developers were swamped, and they looked internally (key point here) for anyone with programming skills (C++ for some electronic whiteboard project).  I did such a great job, they moved me into a new developer position that became available! Over these years now I've been further developing my skill sets, and recently changed jobs (from healthcare to the private sector).  I started at a basic (bottom) job doing simple VB stuff, and within a year, the same thing happened again! They needed to create a mobile app, and needed a skilled HTML5/JS developer.  Guess who got it?  That was just a few months back - and we just had the official go live event last week, with huge positive client feedback! :) Summary: Programming takes a lot of ones time, and is not easily learned on a weekend (nothing much useful anyhow, accept as a hobby).  I find it really has to become a part of your lifestyle if you wish to do anything more than "Hello world" scripts.  IMHO, a good programmer is one who can see how all the pieces fit together - SQL, application code, interfaces needed, client side language, server side language (and processes), etc.  I doubt learning one language is good enough these days - and even if you did get hired, you'd be stuck in the same job for many years (as has happened to one lady I know - she only knows one language, and can't find time [she has kids] to do anything else).  This is also a bad position to be in (mastering only one language, and little experience with anything else). BTW: I make more $ today than many people I know from University - and I only went to College (mostly because I was already self taught).  I find if they see what you have done (while working your way up), those "degrees" become less and less important (proof is in the pudding!).  As well, I found I was usually hired on my personal skills, and less so on the actually programming skill (many times they will even help you on the job if they like you [at least in my experience]). Bottom line, I would follow this (again, my experience [YMMV]): 1. Learn a RELEVANT language to today, and the future (such as C# for business apps, or JavaScript and HTML5 for web development [though this boundary is quickly becoming blurred]). 2. Don't just learn languages - SEE how the client and server sides can work together (including databases). 3. When ready, LOOK for a job that will hire you to do small simple development tasks (where you are part of a team). Don't take on whole project on your own (not to say you couldn't try).  I used to help hire people for small short-term contract tasks, and I know many others do as well (smaller companies I find, not usually the big ones). 4. WATCH the job postings.  Once you get at least a year or two under your belt (depending on how fast you progress), apply from within! You'll have a great advantage now over all others on the outside. ;) 5. REPEAT, get better, and grow! Hope that helps somewhat. 8) Please consider 's answer here as well: If you have a big drive, and dedication, you can do almost anything (humanly and physically possible) within enough time!

I have been teaching myself how to code for five years plus, and am continuing to do so. There's no stopping to learn when it comes to coding. My background was in design, and transitioning was not as hard as getting others to approve of your "unbranded" skill. My advice is to approach small gigs and people who can give you opportunities to prove your self. And always learn online (courses like those from Coursera, EdX  and Khan Academy helped me much) instead of just going online for solutions and copying them. At last, be humble and easy on yourself. You don't have to be a great programmer. Many people with "mediocre" programming skill have done great projects. See Jacob Kaplan-Moss (Co-founder of Django, a very popular Python web framework) speaks on how the programmer community and recruiters are thinking the wrong way about noob programmers.

completed high school, was anti-math but loved math, physics and all that concern about technology like programming and so on,  wasn't good in math because I didn't know to sit like even one hour to solve a problem , during math lessons I used to sleep because I didn't like the teacher. after I completed high School didn't like to continue anymore, one fine moment I started Programming, watching youtube  tutorials,  it was cool and I had fun leaning new things, I was siting on a chair writing codes more than 12 hours without a problem.  because I have unlimited Free internet and plenty of time. hope I will  acheive my goals.