281–290 of 491 posts
As soon as I could work remote, I sold my house and moved across country. After moving I updated the city/state on my resume and immediately started receiving much better offers.
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I spent about three years contracting, and the way I started was to ask the company I was a permanent employee at (who routinely hired contractors) if they would like to hire me as a contractor instead of as a perm. They said "OK" and so I quit as a perm and restarted as a contractor (I actually also managed to negotiate a four day week and one of the four days at home, back when remote working was much less of a thi…
I'm interested as well, but I wonder, how early can you start (career experience wise or age wise)? I'm happy to email you if it's fine and requires a longer answer
Emails always gladly received!
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That does sound like an ideal career path to me – I'm one of those people who gets bored with everything far too quickly. What's your tech stack and how did you make the switch?
C#/.Net. Dev jobs in Ireland are predominantly corporate enterprise software — very few start-ups. This means Java, .Net and front end Javascript roles are most common. I actually landed my first .Net contract after a 10 year career as a C++ developer and learned on the job. There’s an idea out there that contractors need to be expert or top rung developers, but this is not true. You can learn on the job and usually…
At age 42 (11 years ago), going back to school and completing a Masters degree in Enterprise Architecture. I had been in the same job for 5 years when I made the decision. Work had a self-education program that paid for my tuition. The decision was literally made in the space of a couple of days before the mid-year intake. If I'd had to wait another 6 months, I probably would have talked myself out of it. It was hard…
What was the application process like, so many years out of school? Did you need old transcripts? Recommendation letters from supervisors?
Getting a job in a major metro area. I was very resistant to moving away from the smallish city/metro area I lived in until my late 20's. When I did, my career just took off. I'm not even talking about Silicon Valley. I worked in Boston, Seattle, and Sydney, Australia. Never set foot in the valley as an employee of a local company. Made insane salaries, one company I worked for got acquired, another one went public,…
How did Sydney compare to other medium sized cities in the US?
Emotionally detaching. I was a workaholic from age 16 until 33 and this was my primary identity. I used to always be proud of the work I did, no matter how lame the company or how many times I was screwed over. Then one day my father died, and I was fired from a company who I truly believed in and for whom I had sacrificed. This sounds cynical, but it's really peaceful. With the emotional energy and sheer time saved…
I'm now trying to hire other developers and have interviewed people who are still living in Brazil (some from my hometown) but excited to move here too.
Emotionally detaching. I was a workaholic from age 16 until 33 and this was my primary identity. I used to always be proud of the work I did, no matter how lame the company or how many times I was screwed over. Then one day my father died, and I was fired from a company who I truly believed in and for whom I had sacrificed. This sounds cynical, but it's really peaceful. With the emotional energy and sheer time saved…
On the other hand, hanging meaning and mission over one's head seems like a great way to manipulate and underpay them, and being susceptible to this seems like a great way to become a useful idiot.
Squaring these two views is something I struggle with.
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I've been contracting for two years now, and I agree with the majority of what you said. (UK here) However, I've recently started considering returning to permanent, primarily for one reason. At the age of 50, half of which has been in a software development career, I find being a code-monkey -- even a senior one -- quite unsatisfying. I would like to return to leadership roles I had while I was permanent, but they a…
This is very true. Management roles tend to be kept in-house.