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Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?

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Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?

#1

Post by culopatin »

Against the trend, just moved to SF from a mid size hub-of-nothing city of the East Coast. My GF got an internship in biotech and I work remote so here we are at least until January.

I'm self taught, have a technical high school degree in electronics and computers, and an AA that I meant to use to start a CS degree back in the east coast before we moved.

My work is a mix of App support with light software dev. I mostly support and update old apps written using ASP.NET (of which I know almost nothing), Nintex workflows that should've never been, make little scripts for ServiceNow virtual agent, and we have a series of low code apps that I also support, modify, etc. I replaced a guy who was also self taught and had no best-practices checks.

I'm solo in this endeavor since my product owner is not a developer and my other peer mostly deals with the red tape and administrative stuff like dealing with InfoSec's recurring paperwork and vendor licenses. Happy to have him, but I can't skill up in my field.

I'm now much closer to all the tech brain power of the country, and I'm trying to figure how to leverage my stay to improve my skills. I work 5AM to 1:30PM and so I have the whole evening open to feed my brain.

Are there any groups, meetups, schools, apprenticeships, or whatever else I could use to become a better dev? I know I could enroll in a CS degree and I do want that, but I already know of that answer.

I'd love to work on tools for people outside of the field that maybe boosts their productivity or makes their lives easier. A few months ago I worked with my GF to make an app that helps her identify cyanobacteria automating a process they used to do in MS Word and it was super satisfying, but I know it can be much better if I had someone to work with.

Anyway, any idea will be very appreciated, even if you are in the same position I'm in and you'd like to meet to work on something.

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?

#2

Post by MilnerRoute »

The Bay Area has really top-notch tech Meetups. They're sometimes even hosted at top tech companies like Pandora or (top recruiting firm) Robert Half. Not only will you learn a bunch, you'll be able to talk to people actually working with the same tech you are. Which besides being educational, is also a great networking opportunity.

If your goal is to get a tech job, you're in the right city -- and it'll be easier for you to go on job interviews (than someone who's not actually living here). For what it's worth, you'll probably also have an easier time attending some Bay Area tech conferences. They're expensive, but they're also good ways to network with people in your industry and potential employers.

Last piece of advice: upload code to GitHub. They're ultimately samples of your work, which tech employers will want to see. So it's good to have a lot, and to have it spread out over time (so start now). If there's not enough, you might consider volunteering for an open source project. (Maybe even one that meets in-person from time to time here in the Bay Area.)

If this is really what you want to do -- you're in the perfect city. Just put yourself out there, and have faith that things will eventually start to happen.

Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?

#4

Post by k310 »

Biotech is big in the Bay Area. Perhaps your GF can identify openings, or neat people to speak with. The kind of skills you speak of remind me of the way that perl infiltrated biotech like WD-40 infiltrates squeaky hinges. It just works.

How Perl Saved the Human Genome Project

https://bioperl.org/articles/How_Perl_saved_human_genome.htm...

Skip down to "I think several factors are responsible:" for the TLDR list.

Now, this is not to say that perl is your ticket: just to say that organizations often have many "glue" chores that require scripting skills.

From experience. Oh, and from experience, you may be able to pick up contract work to build skills and your CV.

Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?

#6

Post by ah27182 »

MilnerRoute wrote: post #2

The Bay Area has really top-notch tech Meetups. They're sometimes even hosted at top tech companies like Pandora or (top recruiting firm) Robert Half. Not only will you learn a bunch, you'll be able to talk to people actually working with the same tech you are. Which besides being educational, is also a great networking opportunity. If your goal is to get a tech job, you're in the right city -- and it'll be easier fo…

Where can you find these meetups normally? Just by googling?

Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?

#8

Post by hw »

Take a bootcamp - General Assembly, Hack Reactor. CS degrees are’t worth the 4 years if all you want is a job in tech or building products. If you’re looking to go into hardware, r&d, AI/ML then the cs degree is more of a pre req.

Launch School is great if you want more in depth learning compared to a coding bootcaml but not a 4 year degree.

Re: Ask HN: Just moved to SF. How can I leverage my new location to skill up in dev?

#9

Post by langsoul-com »

Get a job that pays well and has high learning prospects.

Deal with the start up business after getting money and a fall back. You'll learn more all round stuff at a start up, but that's not what matters atm, only pure dev does.

Tech meetups are cool.

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