i'm a self taught programmer. i fooled around making web sites & basic crud apps using php for a few months before i began advertising on craigslist. i severely undercharged initially to get my foot in the door (it was a lot of money to me at the time though lol) but i gained enough experience after about a year to eventually land a job doing production support. fast forward 6 months and i landed my current role as a software engineer for a major financial institution (w/o a college degree).