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BirdOfPlay posted:This discussion is oddly timed for me. I just got a call from a recruiter asking me about my interest in a help desk position. Is it really a bad way to start things out if you don't have a degree and haven't worked in any sort of technology profession? It's not going to move you any closer to becoming a professional developer, that's for sure.
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Oct 25, 2016 21:02
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help desk is worthless experience but at smaller companies you might be able to talk your way into a dev role eventually. don't even bother at anywhere with 100+ employees tho
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Oct 25, 2016 21:53
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Yeah, I suppose the recruiter was blowing smoke by calling this a foot in the door opportunity. I guess the bigger question is will it peg me as being "support" when trying to move on? Because I'm at the point were I just need a job. Is there a functional difference from having help desk, office assistant, or garde manger as my last/current job?the talent deficit posted:help desk is worthless experience but at smaller companies you might be able to talk your way into a dev role eventually. don't even bother at anywhere with 100+ employees tho The company itself is international, but the local office is relatively small and sits above a sandwich shop. I assume the dev work is done at a different location.
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Oct 25, 2016 23:35
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BirdOfPlay posted:
But if you are really stuck for a job, go for it. It's no worse than office assistant on your resume, and you can look for actual dev jobs without going busto.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:01
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If you're in desperate need of a job, any job, please somebody just give me a paycheck then take it. Then at home work on your coding skills, write code when you can, and get better at it while still applying to coding jobs. "This is a foot in the door" is probably bullshit but you know, money is money.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:17
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Rattus posted:..in a different city and who you will never meet. Sometimes you can leverage company resources to get further educated too. I work for a tech company in a pseudo-finance position and there are a ton of certs and classes I can take for free.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:18
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Speaking as someone who did manage to move from helpdesk to a developer position: I wouldn't really recommend it. If you need work/money then by all means go for it. There are plenty of worse jobs than helpdesk and while it won't really advance your development career it is a jumping off point for other lucrative career paths in IT. Just don't do what I did and get complacent and waste two years at an easy, decent paying job that isn't really what you want to do.
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Oct 26, 2016 00:38
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I don't think someone would blink too much if they saw a couple months of desk support. If someone asks about it, you could shrug and say that you were in a tight spot and needed some quick & easy cash. So if your goal is to be a dev and your plan is to use this as a short-term thing while looking for a dev job, sure, it's probably better than office clerk or kitchen work. It's not a long-term prospect or a position you could advance too far from at the same company, though. As long as you don't have any illusions about that, I think you'll be fine.
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Oct 26, 2016 02:21
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What exactly is the definition of help desk?
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Oct 26, 2016 04:05
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First tier IT support. Helping users with basic computer issues. It can range from being The IT Guy at a small company to working at a lovely call center.
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Oct 26, 2016 04:17
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AKA the path to suicide: Call centre rant thread: Hell is other people A ticket came in There are milder versions of help desk, if you are the internal support for your company's IT systems, you at least don't have to deal with the general public, and your domain knowledge means you're not just some 100% replacable cog that people poo poo on. Not all companies have those terrible metrics and slave drive antics. But join random call center as a "sales consultant" or whatever, and I'm sure it will be hell.
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Oct 26, 2016 09:28
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BirdOfPlay posted:This discussion is oddly timed for me. I just got a call from a recruiter asking me about my interest in a help desk position. Is it really a bad way to start things out if you don't have a degree and haven't worked in any sort of technology profession? Don't do it, unless you absolutely have to. For what it's worth, I've been working in support roles at software companies for the past five years. For the last two years, I've been pursuing a second bachelor's in CS through Oregon State University. When I took my current support role (which is decent as far as support roles go), my boss said he only saw me doing support for another year or so and said there'd be an easy path to the development side. I've now been here over a year now, and during my last check-in my boss said he's in no rush to get me out of support because I'm "too good with the clients." They do let me contribute to some development projects, but only so long as it doesn't interfere with my support work. In general, though, there is very little in my day-to-day work that would be of any interest to someone hiring a developer. So, yeah, even when they tell you there's a path out of support, take it with a grain of salt. Fortunately, I am still in school so I can apply to internships--which I am now doing actively. B B fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 17:41
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Rattus posted:..in a different city and who you will never meet. From cursory research the dev office is on the opposite coast of the US. So, yeah, I'm not picturing much upward mobility here besides to Tier 2 help desk. Even if offered, I don't really like webstuff and would be lost if I couldn't get any IC Light Mango. And, yes, it would be the sucky kind of help desk: external user support. Thanks for the responses, goons. Just as a last stupid question, what's the likelihood that I'll need to sign a contract when I get hired? I've, obviously, never had a salaried job and don't know if non-competes and other nonsense is standard even for entry-level jobs like this one. EDIt: Haha, got an email from the recruiter that they're forwarding my resume. Guess that means I'm not even guaranteed an interview. Way too much worrying over nothing. BirdOfPlay fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Oct 26, 2016 |
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Oct 26, 2016 19:25
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BirdOfPlay posted:Thanks for the responses, goons. Just as a last stupid question, what's the likelihood that I'll need to sign a contract when I get hired? I've, obviously, never had a salaried job and don't know if non-competes and other nonsense is standard even for entry-level jobs like this one. I've signed non-competes even for the support jobs I've had, but they've all been the types that are basically unenforceable so I've never really raised much of a stink about them when accepting a new job.
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Oct 26, 2016 21:47
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BirdOfPlay posted:Thanks for the responses, goons. Just as a last stupid question, what's the likelihood that I'll need to sign a contract when I get hired? I've, obviously, never had a salaried job and don't know if non-competes and other nonsense is standard even for entry-level jobs like this one. It really depends on the company. I didn't have to sign any contract at all. Really the worst thing I deal with is basically "our company policy is that you can't directly compete with us and you can't do anything that interferes with your ability to do your job but beyond that go hog wild." Non-competes are kind of an odd thing but if they do make you sign a contract make sure you read it all multiple times. If it's huge, incomprehensible, or smells bad it might be worth ponying up a few dollars to have a lawyer look at it if you can. Then again if the company makes you sign a contract that says "you are literally not allowed to write software for anybody else within X years of your last day and we own absolutely everything you make if you are working for us" then just don't. That company is poo poo and will be poo poo in many other ways even if that turns out to be unenforceable.
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Oct 26, 2016 23:30
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Those sorts of "we own all products from your brain except the ones you notify us of in advance" clauses seem pretty universal in programming. Even at the good places I have worked.
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Oct 26, 2016 23:40
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Non-competes are kind of an odd thing but if they do make you sign a contract make sure you read it all multiple times. If it's huge, incomprehensible, or smells bad it might be worth ponying up a few dollars to have a lawyer look at it if you can. Then again if the company makes you sign a contract that says "you are literally not allowed to write software for anybody else within X years of your last day and we own absolutely everything you make if you are working for us" then just don't. That company is poo poo and will be poo poo in many other ways even if that turns out to be unenforceable. Yeah, I assumed paying for a lawyer to read a contract was a possibility, especially if it smells unenforceable (specifically in this case: including an overly broad definition of "technology"). One of the consulting firms I applied to here made a non-compete a part of their application process. brainwrinkle posted:Those sorts of "we own all products from your brain except the ones you notify us of in advance" clauses seem pretty universal in programming. Even at the good places I have worked. I've always assumed that it's a boiler-plate carried over from engineering. I know selling patents for a buck to the company you work for is a relatively common part of an engineers contract.
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Oct 27, 2016 00:26
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brainwrinkle posted:Those sorts of "we own all products from your brain except the ones you notify us of in advance" clauses seem pretty universal in programming. Even at the good places I have worked. I was referring to things that go beyond programming. I've heard of companies claiming the rights to absolutely everything you create. Like if you use the weekends to write a fantasy novel the company owns it as per the contract. That's absurd. I can see a bit of justification for stuff relating to what the company does to a certain degree but "absolutely everything" is just nuts.
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Oct 27, 2016 03:07
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The contracts still seem overly broad to me, but I'm not a lawyer etc. I can see specific non-compete clauses. Like, if I work on Youtube's backend and spend all my free time off work making a better video hosting site, then immediately quit and compete with Youtube, it seems pretty clear that at the very least the company has a legitimate interest in not funding direct competitors. But if I spend that time writing a video game, it seems a bit shady that they can own something not even competing with them. I understand that in practice the line isn't necessarily so bright, e.g., if on the course of writing my game I invent a video compression scheme that could be used on Youtube, but it still seems like a bit too big of a blanket claim on IP.
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Oct 27, 2016 03:14
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Does anyone have a ballpark estimate on how long it takes to find an entry level position? This weekend will be the 12th consecutive weekend I've searched, trying to get one before graduating in December. Getting no responses beyond occasional rejection letters is frustrating at this point.
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Oct 27, 2016 13:37
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mekkanare posted:Does anyone have a ballpark estimate on how long it takes to find an entry level position...before graduating This is much harder than finding one after graduating. Don't expect much right now. Also, don't limit yourself to things marked as entry level. My first programming job required two years experience, but they'll take what they can get.
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Oct 27, 2016 13:57
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mekkanare posted:Does anyone have a ballpark estimate on how long it takes to find an entry level position? Apply to literally everything. Mine took 8 months though. Just keep hammering. Sometimes you won't get interviewed for exactly what you applied for but they just happened to need more coders at every level so hey would you like to come in anyway? Granted I also got rejection letters recently from places I applied to a year ago. The process can be positively glacial.
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Oct 27, 2016 18:25
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It took me three weeks from "I should quit my job and find some contracting gig" to "I quit cause I found a contracting gig ". My fiancée , who is also a developer, put her resume online Tuesday afternoon and got 17 calls and emails from recruiters before she took it offline again 24 jours later. Yeah, we both have 15 yrs of experience in IT but very different roles, in terms of actual coding experience we both have like 12 months and no formal education. My advise is to just get to work on something, anything that will get you experience. Build some app, submit bug fixes for your favourite open source project, hell, fix their docs and put in a pull request. Last week I was called by some guy who found and liked my lovely kattis code solutions on github. A friend found a job by answering questions on Stack exchange. So keep working, applying, coding and truckin'
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Oct 27, 2016 19:24
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mekkanare posted:Does anyone have a ballpark estimate on how long it takes to find an entry level position? I didn't get my first job until 4 months after graduating, and it was through a recruiter who reached out to me about a company I had never heard of and which wasn't listed on Glassdoor. Just get as many eyes as you can
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Oct 27, 2016 19:39
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Ok, so after almost a week this job is more support heavy than I envisioned. I guess it's my own fault since I was just so excited to get a (high paying) offer. I should have thought about it more. Am I stuck now?
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Oct 27, 2016 23:20
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dantheman650 posted:Ok, so after almost a week this job is more support heavy than I envisioned. I guess it's my own fault since I was just so excited to get a (high paying) offer. I should have thought about it more. Am I stuck now? why would you be stuck? Look for another job, don't let on that you're doing so, when you find one - quit
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Oct 28, 2016 00:04
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JawKnee posted:why would you be stuck? Look for another job, don't let on that you're doing so, when you find one - quit I've had 3 jobs this year and each one paid a lot more than the one before it. Permanent job search is the pro strategy.
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Oct 28, 2016 00:10
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Seriously? You don't get like...blackballed from the industry for doing that? What do you tell people in interviews about why you were there for such a short time?
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Oct 28, 2016 00:51
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dantheman650 posted:What do you tell people in interviews about why you were there for such a short time? dantheman650 posted:Ok, so after almost a week this job is more support heavy than I envisioned.
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Oct 28, 2016 00:53
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Touché.
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Oct 28, 2016 01:04
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rt4 posted:This is much harder than finding one after graduating. Don't expect much right now. That's weird to think it works like that when it's a two month difference at this point. But nothing I can do about it. ToxicSlurpee posted:Apply to literally everything. Mine took 8 months though. Just keep hammering. To you and rt4, I kind of do that already. I apply to everything that says ~<3 years experience with only a few exceptions (e.g. I've always lived in WI and don't want to stay here.) Keetron posted:My advise is to just get to work on something, anything that will get you experience. Build some app, submit bug fixes for your favourite open source project, hell, fix their docs and put in a pull request. it because of how terrible it was. I have this weird relationship where I can get into the mindset easily, and enjoy reading about CS stuff --language design, RE/security, etc-- but I don't have a desire to make programs in my free time. I feel like this hinders my chances for employment. This post shouldn't come off as a pity party thing, so if it does, sorry! Thanks for the replies though!
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Oct 28, 2016 02:10
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dantheman650 posted:Seriously? You don't get like...blackballed from the industry for doing that? What do you tell people in interviews about why you were there for such a short time? Well, I was laid off from one job back in May after being there a year and a half. Worked the next job for 4 months. It was a multi-level marketing cult. The management was totally nuts and the software was a serious mess. Coworkers were stereotypical awful neckbeards, too. Horrible experience. I started the current job 3 weeks ago. I was polite but basically honest about why I was quitting. Just told them the place was technically backward and the open floor plan office was annoying. Now I'm working from home and loving it. That's not to say I love all the software, but I've never worked on a piece of software that I think is actually good. It's not that bad, though, and the compensation is good, and I like the coworkers. So, yeah, every time you roll the dice you get something different from last time. You also get the chance to negotiate your compensation, which is a huge opportunity.
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Oct 28, 2016 03:04
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dantheman650 posted:Seriously? You don't get like...blackballed from the industry for doing that? What do you tell people in interviews about why you were there for such a short time? Also, the tech industry is huge. This isn't a small niche run by an elite, where everyone knows eachother, you can pretty much do whatever and still find another job, so don't worry about being collectively blackballed. Every day a new company opens its doors. However: Don't take it literally when people say you should be literally permanently job hunting; everyone wants a steady job they enjoy, so at some point you should settle down a bit. No one keeps switching jobs 3 times a year forever.
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Oct 28, 2016 09:22
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Pilsner posted:Don't take it literally when people say you should be literally permanently job hunting Yeah, I was overstating it. That said, I do recommend going out for an interview once per year, even if you're not looking. It keeps you sharp just in case something happens and you need to interview. Who knows, you might even get a really good offer out of it. Good things come to those who go out and get them (sometimes)!
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Oct 28, 2016 16:22
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Hopefully this is the right place to ask.. I am a 3rd year CS student and I'm having a lot of fun learning and writing code but I feel miles away from being hireable. What should I start learning right now that isn't being taught in school to increase my marketability? My interests are the .net stack, SQL and Visual Studio. I'm reasonably confident in the code that I write but when I look at more experienced people I feel like I've barely started climbing the mountain.
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Oct 28, 2016 17:22
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I don't remember getting much object oriented design, unit testing, and code hygiene in my CS program. I wish I had read Designing Object Oriented-Software by Rebecca Wirfs-Brock and Clean Code by Robert Martin much earlier in my career. Are you familiar with version control? Find a useful-looking C# library on Github. See if you can find anything worth improving. Broken or missing unit tests tend to be low hanging fruit. If you get your pull request accepted, you're safely into Real Programming territory. In general, just learn to read other peoples' code, because that's what you'll spend your career doing.
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Oct 28, 2016 17:36
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rt4 posted:I don't remember getting much object oriented design, unit testing, and code hygiene in my CS program. I wish I had read Designing Object Oriented-Software by Rebecca Wirfs-Brock and Clean Code by Robert Martin much earlier in my career. Familiar, yes. I am not familiar with writing unit tests but I will make it a point to know them. I will check out those books too. Thanks!
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Oct 28, 2016 18:50
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Clean Code and Code Complete are probably the best programming books I've ever read.
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Oct 28, 2016 21:54
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PokeJoe posted:Clean Code and Code Complete are probably the best programming books I've ever read. Those are the two worst programming books I've read. By "read" I mean went page by page, gagging. Both authors are total bozos. Code Complete is the worse of the two.
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Oct 29, 2016 06:21
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sarehu posted:Those are the two worst programming books I've read. By "read" I mean went page by page, gagging. Both authors are total bozos. Code Complete is the worse of the two.  That's a bold and crazy statement. Do you think it's too obsessive about code quality or what? What if everyone just hammered down code like they were drunk, making it "just work", how would that be?
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Oct 29, 2016 08:43
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