The most important skill you will need to go from a hobbyist to a "professional" is knowing how to share you code on code repositories. Any Joe Schmoe can get a computer science degree, but it's my experience from working with these people with degrees that only a small percentage actually have the skills to write code.
I am a professional software developer with no post-secondary training in the field, and have so far had a successful career involving web and desktop software.
About 60% of places I've worked at contacted me through code I had publically available on google code, github, and bitbucket.
Here is a reasonable piece of advice: always work on some interesting code, even if it's broken or trying to recreate something that has already been done, and for every interview, bring your laptop to show off your code. Also, employers who want to test your ability to program solely from memory without any resources are probably shitty places to work. I have had a few interviews where the interviewer would just ask me to explain random functions in javascript, some that were quite obscure - this type of information does not make anyone a good programmer.
With that in mind, a good programmer (or any type of engineer) is a person who can understand and break down complex problems into a series of simple problems, and finds creative solutions to those simple problems. A simple problem is just understanding a single aspect of a complex problem. If you can't break down a complex problem, it either means you do not have a good understanding of the problem, or the problem is already broken down into it's simplest form (this is unlikely).
This is also a recursive cycle, so you may have 1 major problem, and you break it down into 3 simpler problems, but then those three may need further breaking down once you understand them, and so on.
I will go against what /u/Empire_of_the_mind has said, that there are a number of companies that care about a degree, and it makes it tough for people like us to find work. Even my six years of professional experience in a number of things employers find interesting (Computer vision, full stack web development, a number of computer languages) still does not cover my lack of post-secondary degree for a number of companies that I've applied to (both small and large).
I would also not recommend working remotely for your first few programming jobs; you will miss out on a lot of interesting opportunities to learn from people just by being in proximity to them. Aim to be the dumbest person in the room.
My first real programming job was remote, and it was the most difficult job I have ever had. The company was actually very supportive of me in both my education and remote working situation, but there was a huge work-culture disconnect, which is difficult when meshing with any-sized programming team.
To close things up, don't stop learning. Don't stop with Python and C#. And most of all, figure out what you like to code, what the best tools to use for what you want to do, and learn. Did I mention keep learning? The software world is constantly coming up with new ideas, standards, techniques, and it's a programmers job to keep somewhere near that edge (without getting too caught up in hype of something new), and it's always looking for someone to champion the challenges those bring.
The most important skill you will need to go from a hobbyist to a "professional" is knowing how to share you code on code repositories. Any Joe Schmoe can get a computer science degree, but it's my experience from working with these people with degrees that only a small percentage actually have the skills to write code.
I am a professional software developer with no post-secondary training in the field, and have so far had a successful career involving web and desktop software.
About 60% of places I've worked at contacted me through code I had publically available on google code, github, and bitbucket.
Here is a reasonable piece of advice: always work on some interesting code, even if it's broken or trying to recreate something that has already been done, and for every interview, bring your laptop to show off your code. Also, employers who want to test your ability to program solely from memory without any resources are probably shitty places to work. I have had a few interviews where the interviewer would just ask me to explain random functions in javascript, some that were quite obscure - this type of information does not make anyone a good programmer.
With that in mind, a good programmer (or any type of engineer) is a person who can understand and break down complex problems into a series of simple problems, and finds creative solutions to those simple problems. A simple problem is just understanding a single aspect of a complex problem. If you can't break down a complex problem, it either means you do not have a good understanding of the problem, or the problem is already broken down into it's simplest form (this is unlikely).
This is also a recursive cycle, so you may have 1 major problem, and you break it down into 3 simpler problems, but then those three may need further breaking down once you understand them, and so on.
I will go against what /u/Empire_of_the_mind has said, that there are a number of companies that care about a degree, and it makes it tough for people like us to find work. Even my six years of professional experience in a number of things employers find interesting (Computer vision, full stack web development, a number of computer languages) still does not cover my lack of post-secondary degree for a number of companies that I've applied to (both small and large).
I would also not recommend working remotely for your first few programming jobs; you will miss out on a lot of interesting opportunities to learn from people just by being in proximity to them. Aim to be the dumbest person in the room.
My first real programming job was remote, and it was the most difficult job I have ever had. The company was actually very supportive of me in both my education and remote working situation, but there was a huge work-culture disconnect, which is difficult when meshing with any-sized programming team.
To close things up, don't stop learning. Don't stop with Python and C#. And most of all, figure out what you like to code, what the best tools to use for what you want to do, and learn. Did I mention keep learning? The software world is constantly coming up with new ideas, standards, techniques, and it's a programmers job to keep somewhere near that edge (without getting too caught up in hype of something new), and it's always looking for someone to champion the challenges those bring.