Ask HN: How do I go from Admin to Dev? • Hacker News Board

Post by james-chipper » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 12:34 AM UTC

I went to school,studied CS and graduated. I really enjoyed school and since my graduation in the spring of 2009 I have had a Linux Admin job for the last two years. When I graduated jobs, even dev jobs were hard to find. I applied for a while but the common trend was that you needed 3-5 years of experience for entry level positions and my personal finance prohibited me from doing an internship.

I am not a great programmer but think I am pretty good. As a Linux admin I come into contact with developers of various degrees and would say without a doubt that my programming knowledge exceeds some of theirs at times. It's odd to say that but meeting a senior web developer who has no idea what GET or POST are does cause concern. Or one who when you mention rest looks at you with a blank stare even though their rails is architected on rest.

My problem is I have been a linux admin for the past two years and whenever I apply, no matter what I do I am instantly pushed aside due to that. I asked this question some time ago on another site and was told to put up personal projects on github. I did and it looks great. The problem now is HR at many of these companies presumes that admins can't code so why would he have a github. It's an odd association because most of the admins I know also have CS degree's and can code. They may not understand/remember the specifics of OO or how to create a socket in C but they can program. If you asked them to do something they would look up what they don't know like anybody else and get it done.

I could say that I am a Python programmer but the truth is it doesn't really matter what language it is. Whether it be Java or SML, in a week or two I can write and test decent code. The first time I was asked to do a fizzbuzz I had no issues and did it quickly.

Post by sk2code » Thu, Oct 25, 2012, 5:22 PM UTC

James, Thanks for asking this question on HN. My position is same like yours. I am a UNIX system admin and I am also trying to learn coding. 16 hours on HN and 0 comments is the proof that people do ignore sys admins who are trying to change their career to coding :)). That was a joke BTW.

What you can do to get noticed is instead of you going to people and asking for job why not you build something (a website, an app, or any other thing) to get their attention. I am planning to do the same. Sharing your code on github will be an perfect strategy but if it is not working for you then try to make something practical out of it. I am sure with your kind of confidence you can build something nice and attractive.

Good Luck with your quest.