The Question

I am completely self-taught. I went to school for Music and Education and have been a middle school teacher for the last 9 years.

Any time I go online I see the obvious things like:

• Have a portfolio
• Be involved with the community
• Make sure your code is online (like on GitHub) so potential employers can see it.

My question is, what types of thing do you put on your cover letter? What types of jobs should you even look for? (It seems as though every job wants 3+ years of professional experience). In teaching land there are very ridged things that employers look for, so if I were to change positions, it would be fairly straight forward what I should be doing.

So, if you've been in my shoes, what's worked for you?

If you are someone who's interviewing and doing recruitment, if someone had no CS degree, bootcamp, or something similar, what would you be looking for at first glance to consider them as a legit candidate?