Is Tech getting more elitist ?

I've worked with a number of Codesmith alumni and everyone is an adult capable of deciding what approach they are most comfortable with, and we can make that work, but my general advice is: 1. Leverage what's unique about your pre-SWE experience. If you were an accountant, or a doctor, or a lawyer, or something else that you put a lot of time into preparing to be, then you should present openly and try to pull out relevant things from it, rather than hiding it. For example, a doctor who did research in protein folding and was fascinated by the large scale computer systems used for simulations and some day wants to work on such systems to help save lives. 2. Target entry level roles and apprenticeships at top companies. I time box the time I spend writing replies on Reddit and this one needs it's own essay. 1. A summary for entry level: starting off with right support and expectations, crushing the lower bar - getting signed permanently or promoted and becoming a rising superstar, rather than trying to hide and avoid getting caught, having breathing room to grow and discover your unique areas of expertise instead of focusing on not getting fired. 2. A summary for top tier companies: good compensation and benefits, learn how to build things well/at scale from day zero gives you a bit of a head start. 3. Work on your OSP or another project for passion-sake, not for checking off the boxes to setup a website, medium post, post in slack, copy paste README file, etc... The projects I've looked at have very underwhelming code and any hiring manager can see this. I love the idea of building tools, but your tools will be judged against real tools, which is a high bar for the thoughtfulness that goes into this kind of thing. Building a more consumer project aligned with your passions that solves a real user problem and can get actual users using it, then iterate based on real feedback is ideal. Some people can do that with their OSP tools, but I've seen it very rarely.