1–10 of 73 posts
- Why did you get into the field? What did you focus on at first?
- What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
- How did you break that first-job barrier?
- What were you doing before this?
- Any tips for the rest of us?
Appreciate your response in advance! Keep hacking!
Always was interested in programming, wrote first lines of code (in BASIC) at the age of 6 (in 1989). Wasn't interested in getting a CS diploma until 2010. Got it in 2014 after already working for 12 years in the industry.
- What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
Currently I am ironically back in the academia working on epidemic modeling (as many people these days), but for the most of my career I worked with financial/trading software engineering.
- How did you break that first-job barrier?
Offered to work for (nearly) free in a small company owned by an acquaintance.
- What were you doing before this?
Not much, as you could infer. :)
- Any tips for the rest of us?
Loving programming is a necessary and sufficient condition to have a good career in it. Enthusiasm here can still overcome many barriers (as opposed to many other industries).
Thank you for an excellent topic!
Started in QA, did that for over 3 years. Transitioned to a SEIT, did that for a year. Then finally got the software engineering title. Took much longer than I wanted but got it eventually.
Since then I’ve been through the whole stack. Now doing more DevOps, SRE type stuff. It’s honestly been great. Worked for startups, mid sized and Fortune 500s.
My only tip is if you love to code just keep doing it. Everybody wants to say “I don’t want to code outside of work, I want a life, ect ect.” The only way I’ve truly been able to learn is by having side projects and working on them constantly. I’ve had a side project going consistently for the past 7 or 8 years. Hacking on your own stuff, at least for me, brings me actual joy rather then a lot of stuff I do for my day job.
> Why did you get into the field? What did you focus on at first?
I always liked computers and building things. It felt like a natural progression of my favorite hobbies, so one day I looked up how to write a Discord bot and the rest is history. I had made some websites when I was 12 (specifically for Sims 2) as well.
> How did you break that first-job barrier?
I found an internship when I was in university, and looked for a full time job while I was there. Once I found one, I left my internship and dropped out of university.
> What were you doing before this?
Taking a sabatic year after high school I guess. I played a lot of Phantasy Star Online 2 that year, and it's indirectly the reason my career started.
> Any tips for the rest of us?
It's hard to say because everyone's situation is so different. But one thing I wish I knew is that it's OK to not listen to family sometimes. Personally I heard a lot of backlash from them because from their perspective I wasn't doing anything really. It affected my mental health and was pretty tough at times, but probably to a lesser extent than pushing through university in my opinion.
Loved programming, did it as a hobby for a few years, was able to get a job. I focused on understanding what I was doing, always dropping a level of abstraction down from the task I was trying to complete so that I could understand and debug it.
- What are you doing at your job? Is it everything you dreamed of and more?
I'm a team lead on a low level systems team. I'm actually quitting soon, but more for a move to another company rather than I don't like the field.
- How did you break that first-job barrier?
A lot of resumes, and ended up at a company who's hiring strategy was to find diamonds in the rough.
- What were you doing before this?
A little bit of everything, retail management, general contractor, project manager for marijuana dispensary upgrades, etc.
- Any tips for the rest of us?
The assumption is that without a degree you don't know the underpinnings of what you're doing. Prove them wrong early by putting in the work to cut through the abstractions and truly understand the why of what you're doing. The difference between being an engineer and being a technician is that that the technician follows a a checklist, and an engineer understands the checklist and knows how to recognize and account for the 1% of the time it doesn't apply.
If you don’t count the two years of Java I took in high school (AP CS), I’m self-taught. No CS degree. Switched majors 6 times in college and didn’t realize until I graduated I wanted to code. Started in QA, did that for over 3 years. Transitioned to a SEIT, did that for a year. Then finally got the software engineering title. Took much longer than I wanted but got it eventually. Since then I’ve been through the whol…
I got started by working in tech support (no real job requirements besides being vaguely "good with computers") and then coding some tools that made my team more efficient. Then I told my managers that I could be a full-time force multiplier instead of a single-unit contributor (in other words, generating more value for the company) and they liked that idea and what I'd done so far so they helped me transition pretty quick. I continued working in support tools development for a couple of years and really enjoyed it.
There's a footnote here that I moved from the US to Europe because labor laws are more relaxed here so I was able to code for work for free on my own time without there being an issue, which I needed in order to show what I could do for the company to get that initial foot in the door for the support tools dev position. In the US, they told me they couldn't let me work for free (I suspect because of the Fair Labor Standards Act, but I never asked) so I requested and got a transfer.
Now I work on anti-cheat software for games. I angled for this because I wanted to get closer to security-related work without being exactly infosec, and there was a clear need for this at the company. It's a little more vanilla than I was expecting, but I have a ton of autonomy and voice in guiding my team's work, so I'm happy.
My advice for anyone interested in making software full-time is to start by doing whatever you can quickly get hired for. Then make software to make you better at doing that. Don't wait for someone to give you permission, because they won't (and this continues to be a rule even after you "make it" - continue jockeying for what you want and don't wait for permission unless there's no other way). If you show (with actual live code) that you're a force multiplier at your company's thing using code and they're in a position to hire someone for that work, then make your case for why you're that someone to whoever has the power to make it happen for you. It doesn't even have to matter if they don't hire SWEs. You can negotiate contract work if you have to. Everyone needs software even if they're not a software shop themselves.
For the first job, mine was at a startup. Founders may be more willing to take a bet on someone who demonstrates passion and an ability to hack on stuff and get it to work, whereas big company hiring seems to be more conservative.
Performing superbly on technical interviews will always get you hired, regardless of your background. If you have a buddy also interviewing, pair up and give each other as many whiteboard interviews as you can (I did 2-3 weeks of 5-6 problems per day). You'll feel much more confident.
Lastly, work on projects you are actually excited about, and interview at places doing stuff you're excited about. That sort of excitement really shines through in an interview. Additionally, it will pay off in quality of life.
Good luck!
Fall in love with an uber-ambitious technical side project that you'll never turn into a business but that will make you learn every tech you'd ever be interested in. Then you can tinker on it for life and it'll keep you employable.