deciding to become a software developer is a great initial step, congrats!  the job opportunities are growing quickly and in just about every industry that you can imagine.  the best part is that you do not necessarily have to go to a four year university to become a great software developer to lock down one of these jobs.  the web has all the resources you’ll need to interact, learn, get support and finally find a job as a software developer.  let’s go through some of them!

0. interact (interactive resources to help you get started)

• codecademy - javascript courses
• code school - rails, jquery, coffeescript
• tryruby – really fun way to spend 15 minutes learning some ruby
• treehouse - web design (css, css3, html, html5, responsive design), web development (html5, javascript, and intro to programming), and ios (build iphone and ipad apps)

1. learn

• university courses
• stanford – interactive online classes in computer science (directory of all courses)
• see programming from stanford
• mit – opencourseware (electrical engineering and computer science courses)
• berkeley – lectures in computer science
• academic earth – computer science courses from mit, stanford, berkley, and harvard.
• cosmo learning – computer science courses
• non-university resources
• khan academy – computer science courses
• udemy – technology and internet courses
• railcasts – ruby on rails screencasts
• books
• python - learn python the hard way
• javascript - eloquent javascript

2. support (places to go if you have questions)

• stack overflow – lots of questions and answers on the site to search through, the difficult varies greatly too, so you can use it in all stages of your progression as a software developer.
• hacker news – a blend of sharing information on startups, engineering, and other tech related subjects.  questions here aren’t necessarily as targeted as other areas, but community is active and will prove thorough input.

3. get your first job/project

• odesk – you’ll have to bid on jobs, may be a bit tougher as a newcomer, but no reason not to try.
• elance – same as odesk, you’ll have to bid on job as a newcomer, but no reason not to try.
• hacker news - in the ‘ask’ section you can either offer your services as a new developer or respond when others are posting requests for freelancers.
• tip: put together a github profile and show your potential employers the code that you’ve been writing.  it gives more transparency to the process and a lot of employers will appreciate it.

4. move on to full-time work (great places to look for full-time employment)

• github jobs
• 37signals job board
• stack overflow job board
• angellist
• crunchboard
• hirelite
• grouptalent - these are temporary jobs, but they require a higher level knowledge.
• hacker news

[bonus] 5. further education

• hacker school – once you’re quite good at what you do, the next level is to attend hacker school and become even better at it!