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Ask HN: Confused software developer

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Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#31

Post by kazinator »

smtddr wrote: post #23
eps wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bullshit spin won't withstand even the most basic technical interview. It will also ensure that he'd come across as a pompous noob who's out of touch with reality. I've been programming for money close to 25 years and I can assure you that the "junior" period covers at least 5 years. Yes, 3 years in you would think that you know a lot, have a boatload of experience and just a wee bit under "senior", but then at…

>> I can assure you that the "junior" period covers at least 5 years. You can't assure that. There are super sharp people out there with less than 3 years of experience that know a whole lot and there are devs with 10+ years experience who can't determine when a for-loop should be used. The problem is that term 'programmer' means very different things depending on the industry and company you're in.

Yes, so "junior" covers up to 5 years, and it also extends to "same 5 years, N times over again". I.e. it has a base case of a number of years, over which it potentially recurses/iterates. :)

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#33

Post by kazinator »

smt88 wrote: post #16
peterhi wrote: post #4

Not wanting to be brutal but if you have 2 years experience of anything then you are no longer a junior. Maybe not actually a senior but certainly not a junior. Junior is like saying trainee. Stop thinking that you are junior. You seem to play down your accomplishments "Just converted some existing HTML(static) sites to dynamic(developed a simple & crude cms like interface to edit the content on the website). I also…

Don't take this advice. Don't pretend you have skills that you don't. Also, this guy obviously doesn't know what he's talking about because "Web 2.0" implies social features. The biggest red flag I ever see on a resume is someone incorrectly using Web 2.0 (and anyone who actually knows what it means won't use it). The description was also vague and contained multiple grammatical errors. Yikes.

Web 2.0 did not originally imply social features. You may understand that now, but Web 2.0 originally meant the use of browser-side programming to create a more "desktop like" experience, together with CSS for snazzy layouts, whereas Web 1.0 is more plain HTML, with flow based on form filling and submission.

For example, if we compare two webmail applications -- Squirrelmail and RoundCube -- we might identify Squirrelmail as "Web 1.0" and RoundCube as "Web 2.0".

If the job meant taking static HTML to Web 2.0, that is clear: the pages were transformed or replaced with a fairly "rich" UI, skipping the stage where you have drop-down lists, checkboxes and submit buttons in a blocky layout.

(What is social features, anyway? "Log in with your Facebook account" or "comments powered by Disqus"? This fluff is simply not applicable in many kinds of professinoal websites! Do you want to see twitter comments underneath when accessing some medical record? "Share your medical history via Google+! Yes/Learn More/Not now" ...)

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#34

Post by disputin »

You say you're battling to get hired with only two years experience, but now you're wanting to abandon that two years of .Net experience and then go job hunting with skills in which you have no commercial experience. Build on the little foundation, stay with .Net at least until job hunting isn't a problem.

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#35

Post by Adrien_L »

not_kurt_godel wrote: post #9

If your sloppy grammar and spelling are anything to go by, perhaps your issue lies with inattention to details.

You should consider the fact that not everyone on Hacker News is a native english speaker before judging someone based on their spelling and grammar.

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#36

Post by mattdeboard »

Maro wrote: post #28
nxi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dubai, UAE

Would you consider moving? If you could move to San Francisco, you most certainly would get a job, junior or not. Then improve.

Surely you understand how unrealistic this is. I mean, it's so unrealistic that "unrealistic" is almost a comical understatement. Why not just go all the way and say, "If you could just win the lottery and grow a set of beautiful, angelic wings, you could be a very wealthy, flying programmer."

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#37

Post by jammycakes »

The main thing I'd recommend here is this: start building up an online portfolio.

Get yourself a GitHub account if you haven't already done so and start contributing to one or two open source projects. Submitting pull requests or patches to existing projects and having them accepted is one way of getting yourself noticed.

Start answering questions on Stack Overflow. Start a blog. Leave comments on other people's blogs.

Things like these can compensate considerably for a lack of workplace experience.

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#38

Post by phektus »

"I do not have experience due to which I cannot find a job and I cannot get a Job as I lack experience. Its like a dead-lock situation"

Nowadays, whenever a programmer says this a cat dies in the other side of the world. We developers are almost immune to this, because we have what we call open source software and free cloud services doing very specialized tasks. What I mean to say is that if experience is your problem, you should be glad to know that there are ways to gain experience without a job. This is quite easy to do in our field - contribute to open source, do some personal projects for portfolio, or even help out some startup in need of manpower. All these things can be done right now, and reaching out to HN is a good start. Relax, my friend. Just head out and continue on, say, the Python web development path, and pretty soon you will find some arrangement or gig that will get the wheels rolling for you.

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#39

Post by nxi »

Sakes wrote: post #20

Some more background would be nice. All I was able to gleam was that you have 2 years experience developing in c# which mainly consisted of converting a legacy code base to an ASP MVC code base. Don't worry about being 30, it just matters what you can do. So, with that being said. How were you making money before you became a c# developer? It sounds like you might have been programming, but what specifically? What ci…

I did IT support for a yr after that I was a market analyst. Then a 2 month opening for an intern came up, which I managed to stretch it to 2 yrs. But the new manager wanted only senior developers on staff and I was out. C# was my first professional language. Before that I did some collage projects and some freelance work on static sites, MS Access based app with VB. C# was not a choice but what the company was working on. I have only developed websites with forms. Basically a fancy CRUD. They is nothing special I see in C# but I liked the intellisense of Visual Studio. My vision for 25 was that, I would have a clear aim. As in, picked a language, domain and stuck to it for atleast 5 yrs. My resume, have been a long time in making. Guess since the last 4 years, my Cv has been the same. Just keep updating it. I apply for about 3-10 jobs weekly, depending on the openings available. As for reading, I usually follow the articles on asp.net and hacker news. Anything with keyword .net, C#, python.

Re: Ask HN: Confused software developer

#40

Post by eps »

smtddr wrote: post #23
eps wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This bullshit spin won't withstand even the most basic technical interview. It will also ensure that he'd come across as a pompous noob who's out of touch with reality. I've been programming for money close to 25 years and I can assure you that the "junior" period covers at least 5 years. Yes, 3 years in you would think that you know a lot, have a boatload of experience and just a wee bit under "senior", but then at…

>> I can assure you that the "junior" period covers at least 5 years. You can't assure that. There are super sharp people out there with less than 3 years of experience that know a whole lot and there are devs with 10+ years experience who can't determine when a for-loop should be used. The problem is that term 'programmer' means very different things depending on the industry and company you're in.

Knowledge is not the only thing that defines a junior. It is also the actual experience, with the actual real world problems. Super sharp people with 3 years in the industry simple don't clock enough time to step on all the rakes. They are still prone to making rookie mistakes simply because they haven't made them yet.
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