Hey, I can only answer for the UK so I'm sure there will be differences.

1. Open source contributions are largely meaningless when it comes to employment. That's not to say it's bad, and it's good to have some personal projects or commitments that you can talk about in interviews, but it's really, really, not a big deal. Most engineers do not have time or desire to do more work outside of work, and that's okay.

2. If you do want to work on an open source project, then great! Look for projects that align with your interests, and particularly ones that have a code of conduct document and information on how to contribute. These will be the most welcoming to you.

2a. In my first job I feel like it took me the better part of a year to understand what was going on. I largely blame that on my boss, who to be honest was pretty rubbish at explaining things and enjoyed complexity. These days as a senior dev, I generally need to know very little to start contributing, but that's often because you learn to make small precise changes.

3. I have worked with people that joined my work in junior positions only after doing code camps of 6-12 weeks. Personally against that, I would still prefer your degree despite the gap. Of course you should expect to be taking an entry level role as well. On that, I would advise you to set your expections appropriately. You may not end up in an ideal job. That said, to grow your career, you don't necessarily need a great graduate plan or a mentoring system etc. One good (more) senior engineer who will take you under their wing will send you a long way in any environment.

4. I don't know anything specifically about programmes for people with autism, but in the UK it's very typical to see a box when applying to state any special support you may need for an interview. If such a thing exists in the US, I'd suggest you use that when applying to ensure you get a fair interview.

5. It's really hard to know how to do this. There's big companies with big programmes that are useless, and tiny startups with amazing engineers who will teach you heaps. Likewise some of the big programmes are amazing, and other startups will demand too much of you without giving much back. So my advice would be to focus on the people you'll be working with and ask yourself if you could manage 6 months or a year with them. Try to measure what you're enjoying and not enjoying about a job, and be open about that with a mentor that can help you. On top of this, if you're interested in the field, at a certain point it'll be hard not to build skills at some rate.

6. I can't speak to the experience of having ADHD, but in terms of work I'd again suggest being as open as you feel comfortable with your colleagues (note, this is maybe not something to stress too much in interviews unless you want to speak to how you handle it and succeed). You can help others to know how to get the most out of you, eg by asking to have a video call over a message.

7. You will be mediocre. This is true of people that get jobs straight away after university too. It's expected, and fine. Most courses do not prepare you for a real job software engineering. What I found was thst the skills I learnt would come in handy here and there as I got on with my career, but not so much at the start. I like to think you will be motivated by learning, and if not, the large amount of cash you can earn in this career. If you're still living at home, your ability to save money will be huge, particularly in the US. I don't know what you mean about being treated like shit if you succeed I'm afraid, please clarify and I can get back to you.

8. At most you may be overthinking things a little if I'm honest. There's no harm in starting to apply now. You don't need permission from anyone and you sound qualified for any junior engineering position. Get out there!

9. Something like roadmap.sh can be great for tracking your progress against a specific skillset. If you want to build technical skill, I would start there, maybe when you feel ready start creating a few projects (simple projects! No big ideas whatsoever) to develop those new skills. You could perhaps also get some inspiration from various conferences talks from technical conferences. I like videos from goto; on YouTube. There's also Uncle Bob's Clean Code talks which are great, though he's a somewhat controversial character these days.

I hope this is all useful. If I can help any more please get back to me 😊

I can only contribute to some of your questions, but happy to answer what I can.

I think the portfolio thing is highly dependent on what industry you're looking to be part of. I'm a hiring manager in aerospace and "portfolio" really means nothing to me - I look at grades and internships for new grads and employment history for industry hires. It probably means a lot more in industries that I'm not familiar with, probably including commercial tech.

The problem you'd present for me is that, at least at my company, a "college hire" is someone who graduated in the last two years tops, so you wouldn't fit my college hire requisitions, but you have no experience to fit an industry requisition. Philosophically, though, I'd have no issue with your story if you explained it the way you did here: graduation, COVID, at risk parents, etc.

I don't know what your situation is or if you need a paycheck right away, but one thing you might consider is going back for a masters degree, either CS or something adjacent like computer engineering. Then you become a new grad again and the story looks even more fine: all of the above, then you wanted to get a job but were concerned about your skills being rusty or whatever so went back for your MS. Plus you get the opportunity to get more self confidence again.

You're clearly pretty hard on yourself and I hope you can find a way to cut yourself some slack. Do the best you can, forgive yourself for past mistakes, recognize that you're as deserving of love and success as anyone else, remember that most of us suffer from imposter syndrome, at least from time to time (including me and I've been working for 38 years), etc.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

Any company worth working at is going to understand your concern about your parents' health.

Definitely doing something and being consistent with it is more important than having a finished thing at the end of it; like, challenging yourself and having fun with it. Open source projects are just one way to do this, it's kinda like volunteering where you can earn bonus points with people for being invested in collective good and working collaboratively. Being able to effectively collaborate is a really valuable skill to have (and companies know it) and worth finding ways to include in whatever you're doing. There's other ways to do this. For instance there's nonprofits and local communities that look for volunteers to build websites for them.

I also recommend finding community if you can. Dunno where you live, but I've had a good time getting to know the folks at Out In Tech, which has chapters in various cities (more generically, they have a slack that anyone can sign up for).

Also, for me, finding motivation in isolation has always been hard for me; joining a company gave me that external motivation I kinda needed to get started. If your goal is to find a job I recommend not creating artificial barriers for yourself just start applying to stuff. Interviewing is a skill and you probably need to develop that by just interviewing a lot. Try setting a goal for yourself of number of companies to apply to per day (10 a days and you're cooking with gas, but at least 2 is respectable). Volume is kinda your friend until you get your foot in the door.

I hope this is helpful. You got this!