How do I pay the bills as a life-long hobbyist dev turned student?

If your cost of living is actually that low, a $15/hr job at 40 hours per week would net you more than that. I think your best bet is to get any job that leaves you with time to finish your degree.

You are competing against a lot of people and just like any job that has some knowledge/skill necessary, you’ll need experience. You may want to try temp office types of jobs, or entry level call center/helpdesk types of work. This would allow you to possibly pivot into jobs related to software or software directly and at a minimum start building a network.

Dude. You've been exploited and now you're getting fucked. I guess you are in US. I don't have any advice because the uncertified are given rewards for risks that you shouldn't have to take. Drug dealing for example is not a good business to be in. There is legitimate stuff with not as high risk that you can do, but it won't be as lucrative.

Just remember that competence is king and open your eyes to the opportunities that exist around you. Find customers not employers. The former cares about things that you know and understand while the latter will want you to prove things that will cost you a lot to prove. Education is a ridiculously huge opportunity cost and if you do it with loans or while relying on benefits afforded by "student status" it will also become a burden on your health via anxiety about maintaining said status (ymmv I personally don't care much but this affliction is quite common fwict).

Also. Programming is a means to an end. If you already have some web scraping skills etc. then you have some advantages when looking for / exploiting opportunities. But without certification it is tricky to convince anyone to give you a chance. Therefore; customers not employers. Programming can help you test your assumptions w.r.t. business model and manage your business.

Hey. Maybe some helpful tips:

* I think lots of startups need part-time help when they're early. They need scrappy generalists and people who can write some scripts or do some outreach or whatever. You might be able to fill that niche. Cold reach out to some with a good email (better if you get warm intros to startups if you have any in your network). * Similar for Indiehackers. I bet you can find people there who might need some help but dont want to hire full time. This might get you the foot in the door. * I started up https://parttimetech.io/ to try to fill the void in part time roles in tech. Maybe you'll find something there.

I have a friend that got into web development in Malaysia without a degree. He accomplished this by networking aggressively and reaching out to everyone he knew to let them know he was looking for work. It took a few months, though this was not done anywhere near optimally for various personal reasons. As matt_s said, networking is at least one good pathway into building a career, and I think it's doubly important when you don't have a qualification yet.

Feel free to reach out to the email in my profile if you'd like to chat about how he managed it, etc. Even though he's paid decently now, it wasn't easy (though it wasn't that hard either) and the work can be tough.

Breaking in is tough. If you’re confident in your skills, there are a bunch of platforms like fiverr which aren’t glamorous, but it’s something. The tough answer might be to work the blue collar for a couple months and then go all in on software once you have some money saved up.

You can't. Blame the guys who milked you for all you were worth to them. They left you high and dry.

You can go indie. It usually doesn't pan out but works great if it does. You can also find jobs from local small business owners who usually cannot afford an IT team but still needs something done.