From an Unrelated Career To IT/Programming? 374
An anonymous reader writes "I hate my career of the past few years. For a long time I've wondered what I'd do after I broke even and could get into something new, and I keep coming back to computers. I'd like to get into software, since I always enjoyed coding. I have some background with C++ so I'm not starting entirely from scratch. My problem is my degrees and past employment have no practical application to the field. Where should I start? I have friends in both IT and software development who might be able to pull some strings and get me an interview or two for entry-level positions, but what can I do to make myself hireable in a short period of time? Is it possible to pick up enough of what I'd need within a couple months? If so, what and how?"
Be Proactive (Score:5, Informative)
Having been a hiring manager for a couple of years, I got used to scanning resumes and deciding within 10 seconds whether to read further or not. Guess what: the one thing that matters is relevant experience.
How can you get relevant experience in a few months? Contribute to an Open Source project [sourceforge.net]. Join one of the Fair projects [fairsoftware.net] listed on my site.
Contribute. Learn. Then put this fresh experience on your resume. Then you'll be hired (at least you would have a year ago - in this new economy, even Bill Gates would be jobless).
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But then how does a person break into the industry?
The above question was rhetorical. You break into the industry by getting an entry level job. Then you work for 6 months, and get your promotion to the second level, or switch to a better job. 2 years later you have "experience."
Start with what you love. The money will come later.
Re:Be Proactive (Score:5, Insightful)
It can be done. I did it (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, I KNOW it can be done. I made a quite insane journey from traditional wooden boatbuilding to computer programmer. It took me a long time, because I got distracted by actually working in IT support (at quite a decent paid level, 3rd line network support), but it could have been done quicker.
I had no degree (a failed attempt at economics), not a single qualification in computing, and a work history as a guitar teacher and a boatbuilder, and yet I managed to shift into IT, and then into coding. This is how I did it:
1) I went to evening classes and got some C and C++ exams under my belt.
2) I coded some ganmes from scratch and started selling them, giving me something visually impressive on my CV
3) I didn't hide my previous jobs. In fact, I think they helped my CV to stand out
4) I acted confident about getting every job I went to. Being an ex-musician helped in this. No interview for a job is as scary as playing a gig to a bunch of drunk Hells Angels on a saturday night.
When I was a boatbuilder, the most hi-tech equipment we had was a telephone. We didn't even have electric screwdrivers, or for that matter, plumbing. The floor was sawdust on concrete. If I can go from that environment to lead programmer, then anyone can do it. That doesn't mean it isn't extremely fucking hard to do so, but I can assure you it is doable.
Re:Be Proactive (Score:5, Informative)
But then how does a person break into the industry?
Freelance. Absolutely work on open source projects in your spare time to hone your skills, but then do some paid work for people that know and trust you. Then you have real-world open source volunteer experience as well as paid experience. Lots of small businesses need small utilities or enhancements to existing products they had custom built.
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> I got my foot in the door in a similar manor
Fantastic! You'll be lord of the manor in no time...
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But then how does a person break into the industry?
The industry has more jobs than programming, and a lot of them are interesting. What about working for a software company that sells to your current industry? I did it myself for an year and liked it.
Depending on what you do and what your skills are you may be able to write specifications, deal with clients, explain requirements to developers, etc.
Re:Be Proactive (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd say the answer is no. I've never looked at a resume and saw that they had no PAID experience and then said, wait, they played around on some open source project, they must be good...
as a part of my department's hiring team, more weight is given to paid positions, definitely.
but the programming skill / quality of some of these paid positions is the same as the programming skill / quality of the fuzzies in my sock -- non-existent.
if you work on an open source project, we can at least look back at the commit tree and see some of the actual codewrites and adds/changes in the tree. in some cases, it gives us more of a knowledge of the applicants skill then someone who is just providing a resume, and using the buzzwords-of-the-{day,month,year}, since we actually have something TANGIBLE to look at. Plus, working on an open source project, the OP may likely start on a low end, handling documentation or tickets, until progressing upwards into the high technical levels -- useful skills to have.
if you filter out all technical people right off the bat, due to past paid experience or college degree, you may lose a great hire. some of our best workers are non-ee/cs (surpisingly, civil engineers make good coders, and one of our best is a former music major, orchestra performer, & music theory professor). additionally, having someone come in without the 'dogma' from a standard ee/cs education & job background may be refreshing -- as they think and will approach problems in different ways.
YMMV, but just my experience that cares more about the people than your standard fortune 500 chairfiller...
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There is one other thing too: If you can show (eventually) some significant contribution (not just bug fixes, etc) to a project, that gives you an additional point to sell your experience. There is a tremendous difference between "I fixed a few bugs in TuxRacer" and "I built an MRP module for LedgerSMB which is now used by over a thousand users." Obviously you can't do that at first, but at some point.....
One nice thing about this approach is you can pick something which leverages the skillset from your
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if you filter out all technical people right off the bat, due to past paid experience or college degree, you may lose a great hire.
This always bugs me - who cares what may happen? What matters is what will probably happen, and when you don't know the guys in the stack, it's a numbers game - optimize your time to make a good hire likely. This implies two courses of action for the submitter - develop your network and get hired through connections, and get experience any way you can. You don't have to choose - do both.
Re:Be Proactive (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. I had people look at my freelance experience like it was irrelevant:
HR: "I see here you worked for [company] for only 3 months"
Me: "It was contract work. I was on a team that built an inventory system for them that uses RFID to track over 1,000,000 discrete pieces of inventory, do automatic ordering, etc. We completed it on time, and all got bonuses. The floor guys liked it so much they threw us a barbeque."
HR: "So your work wasn't good enough for them to hire you full time?"
Me: "...It was a contract job."
HR: "I'll just put, 'No' how about that?"
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Commiserations. All we can do is just be hopeful that someday, somehow, we'll land the job with the company that really knows how to do things, and with unity and experience, crush those who failed to hire us.
It seems like companies won't commit to long-term relationships with the people who work for them, yet they expect applicants to show unbending loyalty for decades. Yeesh.
Re:Be Proactive (Score:5, Informative)
Hm. I'm not a hiring manager, but was recently hired by a hiring manager (and interviewed by several people from the team I now work with). I was hired for a testing role of a product that involved UNIX (e.g., AIX) as well as Linux. I was freshly out of college with two Bachelor degrees - computer science and music. A few commented on the music thing and asked about it. One thought it was fairly related (e.g., creative thinking and programming SHOULD go together, but often don't). I had NO experience AT ALL with UNIX. I had self-taught experience with most computer stuff, including Linux and all programming (my computer science coursework was mostly review for me).
I got hired not because of relevant experience, but because I apparently could show that I was hard working and diligent, fairly intelligent, creative [music], familiar with a lot of programming languages (but only "good" with one or two, since I primarily did scripting stuff in the past few years), and able to teach myself (that was a big resume item for me).
Relevant experience is good, but maybe not for an entry level position? If anything, my manager was more interested in my attitude, willingness to learn, willingness to work hard, etc.
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Re:Be Proactive (Score:5, Insightful)
I would disagree. My hiring manager has commented several times on my honesty, as well. I knew I was new and didn't know everything. My response, if asked if I knew something, was "No, but I can learn it." Maybe that sounds tongue in cheek but it's true; I was being considered for a position that I was going to have to learn a lot for, may as well be willing to do so. Furthermore, the people interviewing me actually asked for some examples (e.g., one guy asked about the advantages/disadvantages of Perl, one asked me to write a simple code snippet that would print out an array of somethings, etc).
Depending on who you end up working for/with, honesty can make you a great person to work with. Everybody hates it when someone doesn't answer a question. I have found that answering honestly (but positively) works very well. Lying in an interview would be even worse than lying on a resume. Which, by the way, I've had several interviewing people mention to me - most people lie on their resume. I didn't, but they still wanted to talk to me if they were interested, resume isn't enough.
Lies and resumes (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would you assume people lie on their resumes? You may, but most people don't. Don't get caught at it though: that's pretty much a definitive career ending move. And the incompetence of a technologically illiterate HR person doesn't constitute a "lie" either. That's something called a mistake. Or a typo.
I second that. I have never lied on a resume or even padded mine slightly. I have, however, been asked to an interview more than once by people who then proceeded to ask me for details about my experience with things that weren't on my resume. I will never understand why employers do that, I don't like it when people waste my time. I can only assume they were to lazy to read my resume. What I have experience with is on my resume, what I don't have experience with isn't and all they have to do is read the f*cking thing. Many HR people and head-hunters are a waste of space. I was recently asked by a head-hunter to put certain claims of experience in my resume. Even after I explicitly told him I had no experience with that technology, he wanted me to put it on my resume anyway so it would be easier for him to "sell my resume" to an employer. This, I resoloutely refused to do. In my time I have witnessed a couple of people get caught who outright lied about their experience and knowledge on a resume or in an interview and let me tell you, that's one thing I don't ever want to experience. I cannot even imagine how that feels. Never mind the fact that ever afterwards you'd have to explain why you were only at a certain company for a couple of months and why you left them. Even if you tell another lie, get away with it and get this new job you still have to worry that some PHB meets somebody from that other company on the golf course, they start chatting, and you are screwed anyway. A lie becomes a web of lies and eventually, when you lose track of what lies you have told to which people... that's when you get caught.
And that concludes my rant...
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So you want to work for a company that has incompetent employees? Are you sure you should be lying in interviews and hoping to get the company that can't even hire people properly?
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I can't remember which industrialist once said it, but your comments are very similar to his. He said:
If someone asks if you can do a job, you say "Yes sir!" and then go about figuring out how to do it.
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And a good interviewer will then proceed to ask you a few questions and expose the lie.
As an occasional interviewer I prefer to hear "no". Or "not extensively, though I have used it in", to an outright lie that I'm most definitely going to call you on.
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Relevant experience is good, but maybe not for an entry level position? If anything, my manager was more interested in my attitude, willingness to learn, willingness to work hard, etc.
But you are young and had some computer education. Changing career paths always happen, but there's some paths that are rather uncommon to switch to, like either you wanted to work with this or you just didn't have the skills or will to. That's exactly what will be questioned here. "Why are you figuring this out first now? Is this something he's really motivated for or is it just because he's fed up with his old career? Has he still got that willingness of a college kid to learn or does he just think he can
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Having worked on many diverse systems over the past few decades (CDC Cybers, VAXen running VMS, UNIVAC OS1100 mainframes, IBM boxes running TSO, Solaris/HPUX/Linux boxes, etc.), I would say that AIX, Linux, and Solaris are at least within the same basic OS family.
Which is my point. To me, separating Linux out from "Unix", and then lumping "Unix" together as something cohesive and separate from Linux just seems odd to me. Semantics aside, if you know Linux then you're already 80% of the way towards using Solaris (and if you happened to have actual "Unix" experience from say, HP-UX, then you're not in any better position jumping right into Solaris than if you'd used Linux, even though the first two are both officially "Unix").
Essentially, I'm just saying that sepera
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This advice is good.
I have been a programmer and manager. I can tell you that without a formal training in the field I wouldn't even bring you in for an interview.
Programming is more than just knowing a language. The other things you learn when obtaining a CS degree help you be a better programmer that doesn't require a lot of hand holding.
The only times I've seen this happen have been within a company. If the company you work for has an entry level programming opportunity and you've proven that you have so
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"I have been a programmer and manager. I can tell you that without a formal training in the field I wouldn't even bring you in for an interview."
Then I'd say you're missing out on good talent. I have yet to interview ANYONE just out of school who knew a damn thing aside from how to spell "Java" or point click drag, which tells me formal training is crap.*
*Crap for Web 2.0 Tech, not crap for hardcore stuff like pcb, assembly, medical, science, etc.
They certainly don't teach troubleshooting skills in school.
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They certainly don't teach troubleshooting skills in school.
Nor, typically, how to teach yourself. I was actually homeschooled and more or less "taught myself" for most of my schooling, so I had a bit of an advantage there, hehe.
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I can tell you that without a formal training in the field I wouldn't even bring you in for an interview.
Programming is more than just knowing a language. The other things you learn when obtaining a CS degree help you be a better programmer that doesn't require a lot of hand holding.
AMEN! I agree 100%. The boom times of the late 90s are very long gone. Employers are VERY discriminating today. They don't just want a person who knows a language syntax, they want someone who knows software, and that involves skills FAR beyond language syntax.
Re:Be Proactive (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason that everyone gives conflicting advice about "how to get hired" or "what to put on a resume" is that there is no universal formula. There is none, because if there was, everybody would game it, and then it would stop working.
The stock market works the same way. If someone is publicly advocating or selling a formula, then you already know that the formula doesn't work any more.
Women work this way too. They must give conflicting signals in order to avoid getting gamed. Only by watching you flop around trying to understand what they say they want, can they gather enough data to infer your true character.
There will never be a general success formula for any of these realms, because the payoffs (salary / money / womb-space) are too big.
hard work, a little determination... (Score:2, Insightful)
and some reserves in the bank (or mattress) should see you through til you can catch up.
Life is too short to work in a job you hate, so go for it dude(tte).
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Luckily it is never too late to switch to a new career you end up despising as it sucks the life out of you and makes you age at twice the normal speed.
And the bitterness, don't underestimate that.
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Agreed. Don't listen to the nay-sayers, you can do anything you put your mind to. Difficult != Impossible.
Read books, join communities, and get working on open source projects. In a couple years you'll be marketable. Start-ups are always looking for people who work cheap and hard.
I have hired many people off the street who had no paid experience. Some of them have gone on to surpass me by a mile.
no relevant background, no problem (Score:5, Funny)
"no practical application to the field"
Try management.
You could just lie and go for it. (Score:5, Funny)
Make it all up.... the worst that could happen is that you would get fired after a few months. But, believe me, there's a lot of shoddy programmers out there, so, you'd be hard pressed to do worse than some of the "pros" that are out there.
Re:You could just lie and go for it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, though obviously I can't advocate that approach, it's frankly not a bad idea. Your first hurdle is HR, and HR wants 5 years of this and 6 years of that, and they are going to toss everything that doesn't conform to those standards.
I've seen plenty of incompetent people lie their way through HR, so it definitely works. Now, if you do that, and get hired and it turns out you don't know what you're doing, you can expect your coworkers to turn on you big time. Nothing worse than an incompetent coworker: it's better to have no one at all.
Re:You could just lie and go for it. (Score:5, Insightful)
"I've seen plenty of incompetent people lie their way through HR, so it definitely works."
I blame a lot of this on companies who rely too much on HR to screen the resumes. When you submit a resume in hopes of scoring an interview, the first person to see it is the "Gatekeeper" in HR. Oftentimes that HR drone doesn't know the first damned thing about the industry for which the company is hiring, so they'll often read a resume a little differently from the hiring manager (who would at least have a clue). HR just scans the resumes and relies on bullet points and keywords; as a result a lot of talent can be completely overlooked because someone who otherwise might just have the chops didn't use the right words or format. Many people have found that careers can be affected by some nitpicking secretary so some will "pad" their resumes just to get by the clueless gatekeeper. In fact, I've even heard the argument that a lot of folks aren't necessarily getting their certs for the job itself; instead, they're getting them just to get past HR.
Re:You could just lie and go for it. (Score:4, Insightful)
When you submit a resume in hopes of scoring an interview, the first person to see it is the "Gatekeeper" in HR. Oftentimes that HR drone doesn't know the first damned thing about the industry for which the company is hiring, so they'll often read a resume a little differently from the hiring manager (who would at least have a clue).
That definitely jibs with my experience. I don't think I've ever gotten a job through the usual send-us-a-resume process. (My resume sucks. Forgot to finish my BA, and there's some holes in my experience where I was fighting illness.) But I've had more luck when I've been able to connect with the hiring manager directly and convince them that I could do the work.
(LinkedIn is good for that. But be selective about who you network with, or else the signal-to-noise ratio in your contact list will drop to zero. In particular, refuse all the invitations to network that you'll get from professional recruiters.)
HR isn't the only problem here. Upper management also tends to frown on people with weak backgrounds, no matter how much the hiring manager wants them.
Helps to start as a contractor. You do a good job, convince enough people that you're valuable, and you end up with a lot of advocates that upper management and HR can't ignore.
And of course you want to beef up your resume any way you can. Contributing to open source project (as others have suggested) is good, as is any other kind of volunteer activity that shows you have relevant skills. You should also look at getting some of those certificates and credentials that abound in the tech industry. Yeah, I know, most of them are bogus. But many of them aren't. And even the ones that are bogus help you get past the bureaucrats.
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And hey! After you're fired, you can *still* legitimately put that time down on your resume as professional experience! It's a win either way!
Are you sure you wanna do that? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Are you sure you wanna do that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously. Unless his previous job involved rendering pork fat or defusing mines, he should probably just stay where he is. Leave IT to those of us who made the mistake of getting in years ago and are now stuck because our minds have warped so much that we're unfit for normal society.
Re:Are you sure you wanna do that? (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately
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Unless his previous job involved rendering pork fat or defusing mines,
Actually, defusing mines sounds a lot like some of the IT work I've done. Back when I made a small detour from electrical engineering into a s/w project, I had a plaque made for my door that read "Software Conflagration Control Manager". And rendering pork fat is like dealing with PHBs.
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Speaking as someone who's been involved in IT for 30+ years, allow me to shout at you...."You're going the wrong way!!!"
Kara Thrace, is that you?
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No kidding I want advice getting OUT of SW Dev. (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez.
It is an outsourced jungle these days. Do you really want to justify why you think you are worth 10 times the salary of a coder in China? Or work for a while then train your Chinese replacements, spend EARLY morning and evenings across the timezones on calls with them to make sure everything is finally working out their new team, so they can cut you.
Meanwhile your company is going down the toilet while your execs reward themselves for reducing salary expenses with drastic moves to low cost centers.
Not a career I would recommend unless you are in some high security area that can't be outsourced.
Best of luck.
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"You're going the wrong way!!!"
My thoughts exactly. I have two teenage kids and while I'm making sure they both know how to code (Python and pygame FTW!) I'm discouraging them from going into anything that looks like "software development" as a career.
Software development skills are being commoditized very rapidly, both due to advances in technology and offshoring. Better frameworks, better libraries, and relatively simple and safe languages like Python and Java are allowing junior developers to do stuff
Small time.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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That's a funny way to spell MCSD.
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Whatever, they're all the same. Useless classes and a piece of paper that can get you into an interview.
Which is why our economy is all fucked up. Its inherent in the culture we've built that values bullshit over substance.
Look at your experience that isn't coding. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Hard field to transfer into (Score:5, Informative)
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Bureau of Labor Statistics (Score:3, Informative)
Testing/Analysis (Score:2)
It's possibly a tough route, but domain knowledge is as important, if not more, than technical skill.
You don't say what your current area is but is there an opportunity to stay in the same field, but in an IT role?
Portfolio + demonstrable talent (Score:4, Insightful)
In the absence of professional experience or coursework, I'd look for a portfolio of non-professional software projects you've worked on. Have you worked on any open source projects? If so, in what capacity? Did you submit patches, fix bugs, assist in documentation? Can you provide an example of a routine or software module you have written and are particularly proud of?
Also, good organizations will ask interviewees to discuss, at an abstract level,
* Algorithms
* Data structures
* Pointers
* Recursion
* Object oriented design concepts
And really good ones will ask interviewees to write and read/explain source code during their interview. Be prepared to do that.
Watch out for organizations that demand a certain level of niche domain experience or knowledge of a particular API/language/library/technology, yet claim to be looking for "entry-level" people. You're probably wasting your time talking to someone like that, if you're just getting into the biz.
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Pointers?
I asked a question about pointers in an interview once... the answer, paraphrased was:
"Pointers? Here's a pointer. If you're not writing device drivers, use a language like C# or Java that doesn't have them."
He got hired. I needed a Java guy who solved problems in a Java way.
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C# and Perl pay my bills right now, but I was hired based on an interview question that was something like "how do you reverse a linked list?", which is a classical pointer question. As Joel puts it: [joelonsoftware.com]
I've come to realize that understanding pointers in C is not a skill, it's an aptitude. In first year computer science classes, there are always about 200 kids at the beginning of the semester, all of whom wrote complex adventure games in BASIC for their PCs when they were 4 years old. They are having a good ol' time learning C or Pascal in college, until one day they professor introduces pointers, and suddenly, they don't get it. They just don't understand anything any more. 90% of the class goes off and becomes Political Science majors, then they tell their friends that there weren't enough good looking members of the appropriate sex in their CompSci classes, that's why they switched. For some reason most people seem to be born without the part of the brain that understands pointers. Pointers require a complex form of doubly-indirected thinking that some people just can't do, and it's pretty crucial to good programming. A lot of the "script jocks" who started programming by copying JavaScript snippets into their web pages and went on to learn Perl never learned about pointers, and they can never quite produce code of the quality you need.
Strategy (Score:4, Informative)
You don't give us much to go on, but surely software is used in your field . . . whatever it is. You probably already know more about that domain than most programmers already working in it. You might want to get as far away from that field as possible, but I doubt you can afford to not use your experience as a key selling point.
You probably don't want to hear this, but you're starting over. Without a relevant degree. So you're going back to entry level. I hope your finances are in order.
So, for example, you might apply to the support department for a software package that you use in your current field. I do QA, and I often say, "QA is a ghetto", but that's another possible entry point.
Once you get your foot in the door on the technical side you might be able to move toward programming if you bust your hump. For years. Largely without recognition. Be prepared, not just to prove yourself, but to prove your self over and over until someone actually notices. And then to that again until someone who is willing to take a chance on you notices.
Then, some day, if you put in a hero's effort, you might be able to be an entry-level programmer.
You've picked a tough row to hoe, sir.
-Peter
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Once you get your foot in the door on the technical side you might be able to move toward programming if you bust your hump. For years. Largely without recognition. Be prepared, not just to prove yourself, but to prove your self over and over until someone actually notices. And then to that again until someone who is willing to take a chance on you notices.
I cannot stress this enough. The original poster would actually achieve entry-level programmer status FASTER if they went back to school for a relevant degree. Getting to the point of actually programming at anything other than the smallest shops would take such a significant amount of time, that you have to wonder if there would be any benefit at all to making the career change.
Re:Strategy (Score:5, Informative)
Then, some day, if you put in a hero's effort, you might be able to be an entry-level programmer.
Peter, I understand why you are being negative (as with most of the replies here). Programming is not an easy field to succeed in. But neither is any other field. And besides, why are we discouraging someone to do what he loves?
You probably already know more about that domain than most programmers already working in it
This advice you give in the beginning is very good, and something that I tell all wanna-be programmers, whether they are CS grads or something else. There are very few "pure" programming jobs, maybe just Google, Microsoft, and Apple. But in the world today, every field requires software somewhere in it.
You ask the right question...what is it you are doing now? Because its is 99% likely that his current career has some niche need for software.
Car mechanic - Parts inventory and job tracking
Musician - MIDI interfaces
Lawn mower - Job scheduling and business backend (bookkeeping)
Restaurant manager - Server scheduling, inventory, POS, (wireless handheld order entry?)
Truck driver - Log management
and so forth.
I've always thought, its easier to get an expert in some knowledge domain and teach them to program, than it is to take a programmer and try to teach them some knowledge domain.
try it old school (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't want to be in this market (Score:4, Informative)
The market for IT is horrible right now and will probably get worse before it gets better. All the jobs are contract, temporary, and there's a high ratio of applicants to available positions. And the disconnect between those doing the hiring and those who have the ability do evaluate your technical skills? Let's just say HR can put on their job requirements "Five years Windows Vista" and will not look at your resume (for being honest), while some joker will get the job because he's willing to taylor his resume to whatever lies HR is looking for. There is no oversight. There are few left in this industry that actually do the hiring/screening and so a bunch of useless requirements now pervade many job listings. Legitimate workers can't find legitimate work because they're not being hired by anyone in the industry anymore... Everything (and I mean everything) is outsourced, contracted, subcontracted, then thrown in the basement bound and with a ball gag in its mouth. It's reinforced by the attitude that IT workers are a nearly unlimited and with 10% unemployment rates in some areas now and schools pumping out "msce certified technicians" by the boatload -- the industry itself is rotting due to an inability to actually see real talent in all the crap. It doesn't help that most of the jobs that used to be here are now overseas.
My advice? Start filling out applications for customer service, or find some really rare niche tech job and learn it. But the entry level is saturated to the point of disbelief, as far as I can tell.
- in the Midwest, YMMV.
Sometimes entry levelers are the best (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sure there will be a lot of posts about how much expeirence counts. Sometimes it counts in the opposite way.
Almost everytime I hired an experienced developer I was not happy and paid to much. When I got a kid out of school
and was smart it almost always worked out better.
The thing to ask yourself is do you really like coding and are you good at it. If you do and your hungry you'll find a way in.
Chances are you will lap other expeirenced developers that you come across. The kind that have never heard of slashdot for sure.
You can always demo in an interview. Create some silly little app and demo it with excitement. How well you communicate the idea
will let the employer know if you are write for their team.
Stick in your field (Score:3)
...and just start programming in it.
Hopefully, you have a relatively coherent background that is focused in some way. "IT/Programming" is a HUGE field. You can't really just get an "IT job" of any sort of quality. I mean, programming WHAT? Recipe apps for iPhones or reactor controls for ballastic missile submarines?
Think of this as changing your _role_ in your existing field rather than changing fields entirely. Hiring managers will be far more likely to listen to you if you present yourself as a seasoned professional in a specific field who is willing to expand their responsibilities, rather than a Johnny-come-lately with little to no skills and zero relevance.
Academia. (Score:2, Insightful)
One place that you might want to consider looking is academia -- in my experience, colleges and universities tend to be more relaxed about your official background and certifications and more concerned with whether or not you can do the job. Plus, most schools will allow you to take classes for free, which would help you get some "official" education on your resume.
Even smaller schools generally have a dedicated coding team working in the IT department. Send some resumes to the "Director of Information Tech
Things to remember... (Score:4, Insightful)
1. You didn't mention what career you were leaving, but if you can have strings pulled, remember that an entry-level position will carry entry-level pay. Have a nice cushion to take up the slack, especially in this economy.
2. Do SOMETHING. Paid experience is best. OSS isn't as good. "Hobby projects" are only marginally better than nothing. For the latter two, something demonstrable is almost nonnegotiable.
3. Get your head examined. :) If you enjoy coding, nothing will kill that love faster than doing it day-in, day-out under the "guidance" of PHBs and Marketing-directed design... (What? Me? Bitter?)
This is not a good time (Score:2)
There are too many qualified applicants for every job these days. I seriously doubt you'll have any luck. Try again when the economy heats up again.
Start small and you will win in the end. (Score:2, Interesting)
What you've done + computers (Score:2, Insightful)
Join the military. (Score:2)
I hate the Air Force, but it got me where I am today.
Start. Code Often. Contribute. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was a double music major in college: a BA in Music Ed K-12, and a BA in Music Perf. Percussion. I got my teaching certificate, then promptly went into programming. For me, the key seems to be just programming. All you can. All the time.
My last 2 years of school, I started doing HyperCard scripting, then UserLand scripting, then VB and whatever I could get my hands on, doing whatever departmental projects I could do, like test taking apps, etc. Then I worked my way into web pages, html, and doing the department web site.
I've been at it for 14 years now doing .NET, Perl, SQL, Rails, Catalyst, Django...all without a programming degree or background. So, my advice would be:
1. Don't expect someone to hand you a job by pulling strings
2. Program. If you love it, do it all the time. The best job is one where you get paid to do what you would do as a hobby.
3. Keep at it. Be a sponge, and show you can the job by doing as much as you can outside of that job. Contribute to open source. Work on other projects. Start your own projects. Get yourself noticed.
For the "hiring manager" who say they never hire anyone with o experience on their resume, I'd say we all had none when we started. Conversly, I've seen awesome resumes...by people who can't even tell me how to anything more than MS point and click.
Re: (Score:2)
I was a double music major in college: a BA in Music Ed K-12, and a BA in Music Perf. Percussion.
Yay for double majors and music majors! (BS in CS and BM in Composition, for me)
Relevant Experience (Score:2)
You've hit the nail on the head with the question about relevant experience -- it's the first thing people look for when hiring; it's way more important than qualifications.
I see two ways to get in:
(a) Contribute to some OSS projects that are relevant to the sort of coding you want to get into. Bear in mind that it will take you some time to build up enough experience doing this for it to really count for anything.
(b) Look for coding jobs in the industry you were previously in -- ie a cross-over job. For ex
Use your other expertise (Score:2)
At my last company I was part of a team of 16 software developers. Only two of us had CS degrees. The rest had degrees in finance, economics, electrical engineering, and math. We worked in a financial company, so economics degrees were a natural fit to solving the problems we were given.
So hopefully you could use your current knowledge to program within a certain domain.
As for experience, I suggest contributing to some open source projects and taking on small contract work if you feel you can handle it.
Leverage your existing experience (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing you may find is that generic coding jobs may be boring/unexciting for you and also hard to get into. I would advise you leverage your current experience, and see where new software may help in your current field, or what is it about the existing software that you feel is lacking and/or needs improvement.
It will also make it easier for you to get a job that way. "I don't have software experience, but due to x years of experience in this field, I understand the ins and outs and that will be invaluable while I build up software design and implementation experience."
If you were a biologist, look at bioinformatics, if you were in real estate look at companies building better MLS tracking software, if you were a teacher, look at jobs with a company like Blackboard, you get the idea.
Look for something related ... (Score:3, Informative)
You didn't say what your current career field is, but in many cases, unless you're looking for pure IT, the subject matter experience is more important and computer experience is a tool you use, or help others use, in that field.
For example, someone with lots of physics experience and some CS experience is probably a better candidate to do physics programming than someone with just a CS degree - though, obviously, not always...
what kind of development are you looking into? (Score:2)
I'm probably going to get modded as a troll, particularly amongst the linux elite, but depending on what you are interested in, what about iPhone development? Right now it seems the application waiting list is a bit long and delayed, but if, at some point you get in, would you consider creating a project on your own for the general consumer populace? Taking the initiative and creating applications on your own which can be readily identified in the market space might be a good thing to add to your resume,
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the wait time for an individual is still about two days. As a company, you'd likely face a longer wait.
I think this is a great idea. The iPhone SDK is simple to develop for compared to desktop environments, and the Objective-C language is close enough to C++ to have a bit of a head start, but far enough away to be something new.
If you [submitter] own an iPhone and a Mac, the cost to get in is $100. Even if you don't, a new 2nd generation iPod touch will cost about $230, and a low-end Mac mini is a
My advice: focus on project management (Score:3, Informative)
I can't recommend becoming a "coder" given the current business conditions.
What is in desperate need is process-oriented software project managers. The good news is that you can come at this with a bit of coding background if you combine it with rigorous project management training on the PMP [pmi.org] track. I'll admit that half of employers won't look at you as a project manager if you don't have "10 years coding experience," but the other half will be willing to overlook a depth of coding experience if you have a solid process-oriented project management training and attitude. And once you've landed a job as a software project manager and get a project or two under your belt, you will have the cred to work anywhere.
Even if you do move forward with a "coder" career, I suggest you bone up on your software project management processes, and point out in resumes and interviews that you are serious about project process.
There are 100 million potential coders on the planet, but if you are the kind of coder who can also gather requirements (in English, on site in the US ;), create work breakdown structures, generate project plans and test plans, track the project, and demonstrate successful testing, you will shine a bit above folks who can't, even if you have not ever written a compiler in class.
Hospitals and Universities (Score:2)
A friend of mine did this (Score:2)
Then one day he thought that he wanted to be a developer instead. He taught himself Ruby and Rails and started hanging out with the right people (this is a really key part of things). He makes continuous learning a priority. In a relatively short period of time he turned himself into a wonderful developer. I've had some people do code revie
Classes? (Score:2)
Wrong way (Score:2)
Christ, I've been working in IT for just shy of a year, and I already feel burnt out. Of course, that is working in more of a user-focused area, namely the helpdesk, so I can't speak for the coding or development-oriented jobs although I imagine they are far cushier. If want to retain your sanity, do not go into anything resembling support if you can help it, although without any prior experience it might be tricky.
We Don't Want You (Score:2)
Position yourself (Score:2)
Assuming it's your intent to get paid to do something you enjoy rather than getting rich in the next two months, you can establish credibility by getting code included in a non-trivial open-source project.
Combine that with networking to meet programmers who have jobs and could recommend you to their firms.
Also, sign up with a few local IT consulting firms who can get you contract work while you are waiting for something substantial (who knows--you may enjoy contracting).
Personal projects (Score:2)
Every single computer nerd has at least the skill level you've stated. If you want an entry-level programming position, you are competing with hundreds of thousands of kids right out of high school, every year. The only thing that's going to set you apart is your experience, and if that experience isn't programming-related, you need to get some.
Contributing to personal or open-source projects is a great way to start. If you can describe some of the work you've done (the nature of your contributions), thi
No Experience? No Problem (Score:2)
Large egos, poor communication skills, and inability to take criticism are a bonus as well [slashdot.org], it appears.
Just send your application in to
This is how I did it (Score:2, Informative)
You like to program, want to get into it. You are certain that you will be able to get the job done only if someone gives you a chance. Someone taking a chance on you is exactly what you need. To get to that point, you have to start programming.
Read object oriented programming principles, a book on JAVA would do to get an idea on things. Pick a project yo
Get in via testing (Score:2)
Then look for ways to do software-like things. Start by writing some of the scripts, based on the requirements. Test groups tend to be small, under-funded and loosely organised, so a
Change dept, same vertical (Score:2)
It doesn't mention what you are doing now, but I would try staying within the same vertical.
You might be (Equal to) a junior coder, but you still have X years experience in that industry, and that still counts for something, even if you are doing sales or whatever else, and now you are programming in that field, that gives you a lot of business experience that others don't have and that will count for something. Try to find out about your potential job role, you might just get an advisory role to begin with
IT != Programming (Score:3, Informative)
IT is Information Technology, and Programming is software development. Unless you specifically mean software development for information technology, I'd say the question is wrong headed. Its like asking how to bust into the field of auto-mechanics/taxi driving.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're quite correct to distinguish between "information technology" in the strictest sense and programming. (And other computer/network disciplines, for that matter.) But the looser sense is pretty common, and it's not going to go away.
It's sort of like another bit of loose terminology I've stopped objecting to (and even started using myself): "broadband" as in "lots of bandwidth". If you know about the broadband/baseband distinction, the now-common usage sounds kind of dumb. But there's no getting rid of
IT vs Programming entry point (Score:3, Informative)
Take a step back chief...... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd recommend investing in something like: http://www.aimstesting.org/ [aimstesting.org]
Take into consideration your age. Are you going to fit in with a bunch of 20 somethings fresh out of school?
Corporate culture will differ with the company, but your co-workers "mini culture" will have a big effect.
Is this really something you can do long term?
By that I mean, the sheer amount of IT work in your geographic area.
If you work for company A and it goes under or you decide to leave, what else is available?
(You will have to compete with a much larger pool of candidates if you try a tele-commuting gig.)
Do you enjoy your family, hobbies, etc? Plenty of IT jobs regularly require far more than 40 hours/week. Are you prepared for this as a long term situation?
If after all that you still want to give it a shot and your contacts will pull a few strings then give it a shot.....and may God have mercy on your soul.
It's a troubled industry (Score:3, Funny)
To get a feel for what IT is like try the following:
Write a useful program for some open source project. Redesign and rewrite it until you are happy it's as good as can be.
Do the above in the chimpanzee enclosure at the zoo. With the chimpanzees throwing their turds at you whilst you type. Do it in half the time it takes to do it right. Spend half of your remaining time explaining how the software works to the dumbest chimpanzee, call him the PHB. Have the second dumbest chimpanzee write every third line of code for you. Once you have finished give the chimpanzees your phone number and expect them to call you every time the software they didn't let you write correctly fails.
Seriously, working in IT for a multinational isn't in any way fun. At least stick to small sane companies.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Damn! There's only room for about two other people in my office, and that's with the door open!
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