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How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

learnwithjeff.com

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Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#101

Post by slurgfest »

hackerbob wrote: post #69
TheCowboy wrote: post #68

I should probably do a write-up about how a year later I still do not have a job doing development. Jeff touches on a few things I am pretty sure I would do differently. I think the most important thing is working on visible projects and seeing them through to completion, as opposed to acquiring more depth through study. Additionally, I would have went with Ruby instead of Python. Python jobs and internships seem to…

I'm debating whether to learn Python or Ruby. And the initial post as well as this one has me leaning towards Ruby despite all the good things that have been said about Python. Are there non CS majors out there that picked up Python as a first language and had doors opened for them?

Python is great in itself, but it seems to me that there are significantly more jobs for junior Ruby coders than junior Python coders... there is no reason you can't learn one after learning the other, though

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#102

Post by slurgfest »

samspot wrote: post #76

Self-taught programmers get a bad rap because we've all seen the guy who didn't know about arrays and defined 300 variables (I'm not kidding by the way, and this was in perl. Full of wonderful names like $aa1, $aa2, etc.). However you can get around this by having the OP's attitude about being a life-long learner. It's important to get a lot of exposure to different people and styles to offset some of the lack of bac…

Self-taught programmers get a bad rap for multiple reasons; because people with degrees want to protect their market value and ego, because programmers have a tendency to act very competitively and arrogantly toward other programmers, and because the industry's business culture is so absolutely intolerant of perceived weakness and negativity. There are hardly any companies which did not decide that they require 'A players' which means not having a single apparent dent or scratch anywhere in your record, regardless of what ability you have manifested.

Basically, this is a hostile industry and being self-taught is blood in the water, a lot like being female (this needn't be explicit sexism, just a prevailing macho culture where if you seem weak in any way you don't belong).

Nothing I have said affects the ability of a life-long learner to have fun and do good work in any way. Getting respect and getting paid are another issue.

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#104

Post by slurgfest »

textminer wrote: post #79
hackerbob wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm debating whether to learn Python or Ruby. And the initial post as well as this one has me leaning towards Ruby despite all the good things that have been said about Python. Are there non CS majors out there that picked up Python as a first language and had doors opened for them?

If you're from more of a math background (with maybe a little MATLAB knowledge). Python's a great language for machine learning and natural language processing tasks. Great glue language, lots of libraries, prototype quickly, scale with multiprocessing or Hadoop streaming or pycloud. Build your own analysis stack or classifier then display the results on the web with Bottle or Flask.

These are true statements about Python's strengths. I don't realistically see how those are going to help you get a job unless that job also takes an advanced degree, or at the very least a BS touching on a field you have specialized knowledge of.

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#105

Post by philhippus »

zupatol wrote: post #90

I'm an unemployed programmer with 10 years of experience and I've been looking for a (part-time) job for less than six months. I keep telling myself it would be great if instead of looking for a job I could spend all that time just coding. I have plenty of ideas. I've avoided that because it feels like running away from my responsibilities, but this post makes me think again. On the other hand the situation seems to…

You can always sign up to odesk and/or vworker and pick up some paid coding tasks there. You might even end up working full time (I have).

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#106

Post by thomseddon »

lightcatcher wrote: post #67
tgrass wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time you cross a bridge, realize civil engineering has the same issue.

Is this a metaphorical point, or do you actually have knowledge of the civil engineering job market? I wouldn't think that civil engineering would find itself in a similar place as the software industry, because civil engineering work seems like it would be more constant over time and less susceptible to bubbles. This would mean the demand for new civil engineers would be relatively time constant. However, I know not…

I've just graduated in Civil Engineering and many of my peers are seeking jobs in the industry (UK).

In terms of market conditions, you are quite right in that although volumes do fluctuate with economic conditions, work is always required (remedial work for example). Also, and I can only speak for the UK here, in tougher economic times the government often tenders large infrastructure projects to boost demand (think HSR).

The other reason civ eng is quite different is due to a high level of regulation and accreditation, in most countries you simply cannot practice (legally) if you are not chartered. This is one of the major factors that drove me away and into an industry where i could move much faster, with more freedom and lesser consequences (most of the time!!).

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#107

Post by slurgfest »

wilfra wrote: post #53
lachyg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I advise Dev Bootcamp. Here are three student reflections on Dev Bootcamp: - http://douglascalhoun.tumblr.com/post/26059106238/beautiful-... - http://newbietoruby.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/devbootcamp-ref... - http://mehulkar.tumblr.com/post/18897643140/devbootcamp-test... And here is a Quora thread with a lot of relevant responses: http://www.quora.com/Ruby-on-Rails/Should-I-quit-my-job-and-... . Please f…

I have a question: I've tried to learn Ruby and don't think it is for me. Too hard to deal with setting up my environment and the language just does not come easily to me. Can you recommend a program like yours that is of very high quality that focuses on Python, JavaScript (possibly with HTML/CSS) or Objective-C?

Sounds like you could spend some time boning up on basic shell and the like...

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#108

Post by slurgfest »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #4

You really did a great job! I took longer than you, but I followed a similar path. In hindsight, I can't imagine taking any other path, its been a blast! If I could emphasize one of your points, it would be to MAKE stuff, don't pick out problems out of thin air, MAKE stuff you want! I really happy for you, and I'm really glad you wrote this. I haven't agreed with someone so much in a while! Also, I would reinforce yo…

Genuine question: what does IRC do for getting a job other than taking up time?

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#109

Post by RutZap »

psylence519 wrote: post #47
duked wrote: post #10

I don't mean to be a mood killer but that has to be taken with a grain of salt. Ruby/Python/Perl are awesome language for beginner because it abstract so much that they think they know how to code after a day, and when they have to learn a new language like C they are completely lost and produce spaghetti code. That might be ok for web development where you can hack here and there (with JS/CSS/HTML) but I really chal…

Why must all software developers be able to operate in all domains? What other industry has a requirement such as this? There's more than enough work out there, why must a web dev know or care how to twiddle bits, or vice versa?

It's not about one language and one issue... it's about being able to solve problems regardless of tools given (i.e. programming language)

We don't code, we don't write code... we solve problems with code... there's why.

And if you're not eager to learn all of these... you should think about a change in careers

Re: How to Get a Job as a Developer in Less Than Six Months

#110

Post by keithpeter »

lightcatcher wrote: post #67
tgrass wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Next time you cross a bridge, realize civil engineering has the same issue.

Is this a metaphorical point, or do you actually have knowledge of the civil engineering job market? I wouldn't think that civil engineering would find itself in a similar place as the software industry, because civil engineering work seems like it would be more constant over time and less susceptible to bubbles. This would mean the demand for new civil engineers would be relatively time constant. However, I know not…

UK specific: very tight regulation, including audited software, together with economy of scale leading to standardised and 'modular' construction. I don't think people here would like being a civil engineer, it's a very conservative profession.

Construction is notoriously cyclic: demand for civils will ramp up when the next boom comes along.

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