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SingleUseOnly posted:-29 UK If your end goal is being a software developer then there's no need to bother with IT. Just start learning to be a software developer. Th big question is what do you want to develop? Video games? Websites? Mobile apps? Medical software? Machine learning? Etc? That will dictate the language(s) you'll end up learning. The next question is what do you want to get out of this? A big paycheck? Expression? The joy of building something? Are you overly curious and a field where you can't afford to stop learning is what you need? From there we can give you better answers.
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Jan 31, 2019 21:52
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pokie posted:Ah well, I applied for a bunch more positions today. When you apply to big companies, how do you try to select a particular role? E.g. Apple has 600+ data science job postings - it's kind of absurd. I just applied to Apple today and they asked me to apply by giving my resume and some info and then picking "areas" I might be interested in and they said they'll get back to me with what positions they think I'd match. Intel did this too. How long ago were you applying to Apple? As an aside, I think this way of hiring is way easier for potential employees and probably helps with misplaced potential / missed opportunity on the employer side.
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Jan 31, 2019 21:53
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Vincent Valentine posted:If your end goal is being a software developer then there's no need to bother with IT. Just start learning to be a software developer. brits (this is obviously a brit) consider software touching a subset of IT. americans see it as like computer janitoring. this extends to thinking that helpdesk and the dev are the same department, which they definitely aren't in an american tech company. IT in america pays $10, $15/hour, up to like $100/hour. I knew a software developer in America who got paid $5 million/year from a tech major (Google, etc). there are people in vaguely IT-like roles at big tech companies but what they really end up doing is to write code to do the IT things automatically, so everyone's coding all the time basically almost all of the ideology around IT and software development, that you don't need the degree and experience will do, etc etc was and is crafted by and specific to silicon valley and big american tech cities. it doesn't really apply 100% there but it doesn't not apply there. basically none of it applies to europe or the uk except as an import or something. you don't have within an order of magnitude of enough money to move. getting your first break in software dev is hardest but the tools are more accesible than getting your first break in midlevel IT (computer janitoring). nontrivial open source contributions, insane amounts of applications and grovelling, something like that. you are not in the exact target for a software bootcamp and the bootcamps in europe are appreciably worse, but you should seriously consider one (and one that takes a portion of your money after graduating, not one that you pay tuition for immediately), not because they're all that great but because they think real hard about getting your foot in the door. you should anticipate and act as if the callback rate for unsolicited resumes are about 0.1%. you can totally get a job that way entry-level, just fuckin ignoring any requirements: you just gotta send in on the order of a few thousand resumes or make contacts first. i recommend contacts in software development, certs, like the certifications you get from big vendors and stuff, are basically pieces of paper to wipe your rear end with. in computer janitoring there's a single-digit list of certs that actually mean things to people bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Jan 31, 2019 |
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Jan 31, 2019 22:01
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Uhh Nope posted:I just applied to Apple today and they asked me to apply by giving my resume and some info and then picking "areas" I might be interested in and they said they'll get back to me with what positions they think I'd match. Intel did this too. How long ago were you applying to Apple? I applied today. Last time I applied there it was through a recruiter and they picked a few interesting options. And, yeah, I agree about the approach you describe.
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Jan 31, 2019 22:04
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bob dobbs is dead posted:almost all of the ideology around IT and software development, that you don't need the degree and experience will do, etc etc was and is crafted by and specific to silicon valley and big american tech cities. it doesn't really apply 100% there but it doesn't not apply there. basically none of it applies to europe or the uk except as an import or something. you don't have within an order of magnitude of enough money to move. I mean, speaking as a British software developer with a degree in history (who has also spent years living and working in America), I'm going to call bullshit on this one tbh. What's your actual experience of the industry in Europe? The degree helps (everywhere) when it comes to your first job, but after that experience absolutely outweighs your degree or lack of it. I don't think there's a difference between he UK and US on that.
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Jan 31, 2019 22:17
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feedmegin posted:I mean, speaking as a British software developer with a degree in history (who has also spent years living and working in America), I'm going to call bullshit on this one tbh. What's your actual experience of the industry in Europe? not that much except talking to a lotta germans and a lotta brits, tbh
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Jan 31, 2019 22:19
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pokie posted:I applied today. Last time I applied there it was through a recruiter and they picked a few interesting options. And, yeah, I agree about the approach you describe. FWIW here's the link I used to apply today: http://jobs.apple.com/us/ Not sure how you ended up on a list of openings though, maybe you can apply that way if you want to? EDIT: Err, go to that link then scroll to the bottom and click "Get Started"
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Jan 31, 2019 22:26
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Uhh Nope posted:FWIW here's the link I used to apply today: Oh I see. I landed directly on the job listings page when I googled them and didn't realize that this existed. Thanks!
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Jan 31, 2019 22:34
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Vincent Valentine posted:If your end goal is being a software developer then there's no need to bother with IT. Just start learning to be a software developer. The first question I'm not too sure. Mobile apps/games? I can only really answer the second question: A big payslip. And while I was learning to code with java last year (for a month before it got interrupted by something unrelated), I guess there was the joy of building something and seeing it work, and using some of the maths I learnt at uni/a-levels. Edit: I mean, I guess could self-teach java and build up a portfolio throughout the year or find a bootcamp but both will cost money + time in the sense that I will have to pick up another wageslave retail job which more than likely suck all the life and time away from me like my last two wageslave jobs did. Is there no entry point where no experience/certs is required that will give me experience (and a living wage) and a pathway to software developer? SingleUseOnly fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Jan 31, 2019 22:49
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SingleUseOnly posted:The first question I'm not too sure. Mobile apps/games? Maybe look for a degree apprenticeship or the Civil Service Fast Stream scheme? Another option if you can live with your parents for a year is to do Lambda School. It won't cost you any money until you actually have a decent paying software job. Self teaching is definitely possible though, I've just reached six months as a professional developer a year after I started learning to code.
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Feb 1, 2019 12:26
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As a self taught UK software developer I can tell you that you don't need certs for any coding jobs. I'm not even sure if I've seen a job posting desiring certs. If you want to go towards infrastructure/IT side then you most certainly do. What I did was spend 3 months, 40 hours a week, learning how to code, making some small stuff and putting it all onto a portfolio page. I also did a 'bootcamp' with a recruiter, that at least guaranteed a first job, although the training was basically just a year of Pluralsight. I am probably an outlier with this, as I have been hobby programming since the age of 8, I had just moved back in with my parents, I was over 40 and felt like I had to do something, before I wound up a bitter failure. Most people don't have the willpower to stick to learning/applying as a full time job. You do not want to go into helpdesk IT unless you enjoy fixing peoples computers because they did something dumb. Nor do you want to go into QA, unless you like breaking things, and being blamed for why everything is late.
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Feb 1, 2019 14:17
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Were you guys working while studying or did you dedicate all your time to it?
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Feb 1, 2019 17:33
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SingleUseOnly posted:Were you guys working while studying or did you dedicate all your time to it? I did summer internships as did almost everyone else on my course, but no work during term time. And everyone who did do work during term time dropped out later on, though that may depend on how difficult your course is. (this is for the UK but I imagine it applies to the US as well) e: this only applies to university/college Private Speech fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 19:16
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SingleUseOnly posted:Were you guys working while studying or did you dedicate all your time to it? I was living with my parents (for free) and did Viking Code School, an online bootcamp. It was great and I found a position within 3 weeks, though I hustled my butt off and was open to relocation. VCS was bought out by Thinkful, which I don't have any experience with. However, the woman who works across from me went to Thinkful, and my friend is currently doing their program too, and they've only had good things to say, so that's another online tuition-deferred program you can look into, if you're interested in web development.
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Feb 1, 2019 20:07
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There is also The Odin Project ( https://www.theodinproject.com/ ) and Free Code Camp ( https://www.freecodecamp.org/ ). Both are targeted at web dev though, so maybe not the most relevant if you wanted to do mobile/gaming.
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Feb 1, 2019 20:31
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Web dev is actually well suited as an entry point to mobile development. Especially as of, ironically, this week. Google just opened up the Google Play Store to allow progressive web apps to be both distributed and monetized on the platform, which is a huge deal for web devs working on mobile. Obviously this doesn't help with games, but you can learn that later. Also, probably most importantly, web dev has the lowest barrier for entry and will likely get you a paycheck faster than any dev alternative, and while you hear stories of people going zero to dev in six months, realistically you're looking at a year of hard work. You can definitely do this while working another job, but you won't have much Fun Time. Part time as a bartender is the most ideal solution while learning. Viking code school and free code camp, both mentioned above, are great ways to get up to speed in a straightforward way.
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Feb 1, 2019 20:44
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Vincent Valentine posted:... most importantly, web dev has the lowest barrier for entry and will likely get you a paycheck faster than any dev alternative.... From the last replies, it seems like it'll be more time-worthy to go down the web dev route? Vincent Valentine posted:....Part time as a bartender is the most ideal solution while learning..... I'm not going to be any good at bartending but why?
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Feb 1, 2019 22:12
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SingleUseOnly posted:I'm not going to be any good at bartending but why? Flexible hours outside of normal school attendance hours.
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Feb 1, 2019 22:13
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Vincent Valentine posted:Web dev is actually well suited as an entry point to mobile development. Especially as of, ironically, this week. zero to dev in 6 months is basically usually a fib, if you investigate it's like, "i was an engineer and did scripting previously" or "i did vba scripts" or somethin like that
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Feb 1, 2019 22:18
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ModeSix fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 1, 2019 22:30
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bob dobbs is dead posted:zero to dev in 6 months is basically usually a fib, if you investigate it's like, "i was an engineer and did scripting previously" or "i did vba scripts" or somethin like that ModeSix posted:I've never worked in any sort of professional capacity in development, but I've been playing with code for around 20 years at this point.
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Feb 1, 2019 22:34
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ModeSix posted:Can you kindly take your negativity about everything and exit this thread. You are not contributing to the discussion in any meaningful way and are in fact making GBS threads up this thread. well, i'll gently caress off, sure, with one last piece of advice to the brit who wants to touch the computers don't fuckin do normal video games. mobile games sometimes make money and are sometimes reasonable, but the rest of video game dev is basically a labor hellscape that you should avoid at all costs
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Feb 1, 2019 22:41
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T.I.A.
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I don't see your point, but this guy is just being overly negative to other people. I made it, and yeah I didn't go from zero to dev, but ... oh gently caress it nevermind, I really don't care at this point.
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Feb 1, 2019 22:44
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ModeSix posted:I don't see your point, but this guy is just being overly negative to other people. Got any substantive complaints about something Bob's, you know, actually posted instead of vague baseless implications of negativity towards unspecified posters?
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Feb 1, 2019 23:33
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JawnV6 posted:And? A lot of newbies think they're god's gift and need a realignment with reality, negative posting is fine. In particular, Vincent Valentine's framing of the "zero-to-dev" was neutral at best and Bob's just making clear that in most cases it's a fiction and should be viewed negatively. He didn't insult Vincent or anyone else as far as I can tell? Point taken. Apologies to Bob and the thread for myself actually being the thread shitter.
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Feb 1, 2019 23:53
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I have a degree in mechanical engineering, took two computer science classes in college, wrote the code for my senior project and it still took me about a year and a half to land my first Dev job with a horrible salary. It's not that easy for everyone.
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Feb 2, 2019 02:51
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A correct poo poo post is still more useful than a politely worded post blowing smoke up a cocky young dev's rear end. This sounds like a Chuck Tingle book now.
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Feb 2, 2019 03:30
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Private Speech posted:I did summer internships as did almost everyone else on my course, but no work during term time. And everyone who did do work during term time dropped out later on, though that may depend on how difficult your course is. (this is for the UK but I imagine it applies to the US as well) Uni was 8 years ago. I think I can only do a masters with student finance at this point. So my options are bootcamps, self-teaching, degree apprenticeships and civil service fast streams? And I'd have to support myself with an unrelated wageslave job for the former two?
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Feb 2, 2019 03:33
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You want to do zero to dev? Every single time I've seen it happen, it's because the person can provide evidence of passion and curiosity. If you stick two candidates in front of me: - one has several certs and a year of boot camp while they didn't work and stayed in their parents' basement - the other used their nights and weekends to pick any tech stack and built a service that aggregates some data, chucks it into a database, has an API exposing the data, and then some sort of web app or other client. I'm probably going to hire the latter every time, and they're going to be awesome for 3 years or more. I can smell if you don't give a gently caress about becoming a better developer and just like money and a cushy job. Maybe you'll land on a lovely team and fit in if you're lucky. These are the devs that I see offshored, outsourced, automated, and laid off. Because while it's a seeker's market, and I also need to be realistic about the applicant pool - the fact of the matter is that I still see plenty of people that actually like coding and want to be awesome at it and they will beat you out and survive through any of the lovely market turns. SingleUseOnly posted:And I'd have to support myself with an unrelated wageslave job for the former two? Most of us that have been doing this for a long time didn't start with a cushy job. I worked retail for 7 years while going to school and figuring out my niche. It sucked, but now I get to sit here and tell people that it's actually possible and it's worth it.
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Feb 2, 2019 03:45
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You shouldn't take a helpdesk gig with the intent of turning it into a developer job but it'll probably a pay better and be considerably less miserable than retail if you need work in the short term
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Feb 2, 2019 03:48
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I retire from the military in a couple of years and have 20 years of experience in a field totally unrelated to programming. I am working towards a degree in "Software Development and Security" because I am not smart enough in math to finish a real computer science degree (and a can transfer a lot more credits to this major). So far I have a couple of Algorithm Design courses and a couple of Java programming courses under my belt with a smattering of Relational Database and Cloud Computing stuff. I plan on relocating to the PNW in or around Seattle or Portland area and have been eyeballing positions that would make me enough money to, combined with my retirement pay, live comfortably in the area. My fallback plan is using my security clearance to work something IT related on one of the military bases but I'd honestly prefer to stay in software development. My experience in the military has been logistics and I've loaded and moved lots of stuff via rail, truck, train, ship, and air all around the world. I'd considered trying to leverage that along with my role the last decade as what is effectively an office manager with other soft skills to try project management if I am not a strong enough candidate for a junior dev position. The problem is, I honestly have no idea what I am doing and there isn't a roadmap or anything that I can find that says "If you do these things you can work this type of job". I am twentyfour months out and I will finish my degree in 18 months. Can anyone give me advice or recommendations on steps to take to help me have a better shot at getting out of a field that I have no passion for? Hekk fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 2, 2019 05:01
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Amazon and Walmart are both very interested in people with logistics experience.
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Feb 2, 2019 05:05
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Nostalgia4Ass posted:The problem is, I honestly have no idea what I am doing and there isn't a roadmap or anything that I can find that says "If you do these things you can work this type of job". I am twentyfour months out and I will finish my degree in 18 months. Can anyone give me advice or recommendations on steps to take to help me have a better shot at getting out of a field that I have no passion for? To +1 ultrafilter - supply chain is super hot at a lot of places right now, especially retailers. To follow up on my earlier rant, find a way to show me that you're able to learn and excited to keep learning. Personal projects are great if you're into that kind of thing and can find the time. Even if it's an hour a week, it will be useful. My employer's big thing now is "body of work" instead of homework. If you have code that you wrote and can show us, that's great. Beyond that, if you want to get started on the things that I usually see people working on in their first five years: - get comfortable with functional programming aspects. no need to start talking about monads and monoids, but even just using map/flatMap/etc. on lists instead of iterating through a for loop - get comfortable with git in a ui, then slowly start trying to use it from the command line - get comfortable in your IDE of choice, probably some combination of Visual Studio, IntelliJ, and VS Code. Know some handy shortcuts and how to run/build/test/debug - get comfortable on the command line especially with tools like curl, sed, awk, grep, jq. Take a made up use case like "call github API and get a list of contributors for a repo, for each one generate a line of SQL to insert that user into a fake table in a fake db, spit each SQL statement as a line into a file". The people that can do this as needed on a team can sometimes be treated like wizards. - learn how to write unit tests for your code - read Clean Code and The Pragmatic Programmer. It won't all sink in, but that's OK.
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Feb 2, 2019 05:35
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Helicity posted:You want to do zero to dev? Every single time I've seen it happen, it's because the person can provide evidence of passion and curiosity. You are literally making a value judgement in the guise of "evidence of passion and curiosity" to select for people who don't have sick relatives or time commitments, like women with kids, where they can stay home and study but cannot take on a job and study afterwards to prove their "passion and curiosity" to you. Please don't be upset by this, but the science on hiring says you don't know what you are talking about. Please continue to post, as you do make hiring decisions and we all should see what we are up against in the hiring process, but also please consider not using subjective, arbitrary metrics for evaluating candidates.
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Feb 2, 2019 09:54
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SingleUseOnly posted:Were you guys working while studying or did you dedicate all your time to it? I was working full time alongside my studies. I dedicated almost all of my free time so I could get in 20 to 30 hours a week. I was incredibly lucky to get a job so quickly but it's definitely possible in the UK.
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Feb 2, 2019 11:53
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I thought I would chime in as one of the people who was in a similar position to SingleUseOnly and ended up getting a job fairly quickly. My situation was somewhat different in that I am Canadian and was freelancing at the time, but I also had basically no background in coding ( I used to be an architect) other than doing it a bit as a hobby every now and again. Someone else had suggested that Web Development would be a good entry point into getting a job as a developer, and that's exactly what I did. I found a course on Udemy that was called "From Zero to Mastery" and basically did it in my off-time when I wasn't working on contracts. Some weeks I never touched it because I was too busy, and some weeks I was able to put in 40 hours, and I believe I finished the whole thing in about 5 to 6 weeks. The course touched on HTML, CSS, Javascript, Git, HTTP, SQL, Node, and React, as well as some other small things with a large focus on JS. I agree that web dev is a decent entry point because it will involve learning Javascript, and JS is loving everywhere right now. My job isn't in web development at all, it's developing customizations for a huge, cloud-based accounting software suite, but all of the scripting is done in vanilla JS which I already knew from taking this course. I would say that I'm fairly lucky in getting a job as quickly as I did, but it was still quite a bit of effort. Once I finished the course I had one project in my portfolio which was created during the course, so I had to make a couple more to show off, and then I had to start applying all over the place and see if I could land a job. Finishing the course took around six weeks, building out my portfolio and landing a job took another six months or so. I think I finished the course in June, had my portfolio where I wanted it in November, and got my job offer on the 24th of December. I didn't apply to that many jobs because I live in a pretty small city and wasn't willing to relocate, but that was also a pain in the rear end, and I was doing it while I was building out my portfolio starting in August. This thread really helped me out, and I think if you're in here watching and reading what people are doing and asking for help on resumes and portfolios and the like that you'll be able to do it. My main advice would be to be realistic. You're not going to land your first job making 100k with no formal education or anything, but you can land a job, work at it for a bit, and then get enough experience to move on to greener pastures if that job doesn't cut it for you. It's also going to take some time and be frustrating, and you're going to apply for all kinds of jobs and hear nothing back for a LONG time most likely. Just know that that's the way it goes and don't lose hope. You just have to trick one person into giving you a shot and then you're off to the races. Also, since I'm here, I might as well update the thread on the new job. I started in early January and I love it so far! I don't make great money for a dev, but I really enjoy the work and they don't mind that I kept my freelancing gig, so I can supplement my pay with some extra cash on the side. I even get to take my dog to work on Mondays. I've only been doing it for a month, but I can see myself doing this for a long time. The team is cool, the office is close by, the boss is pretty chill, and I'm learning a completely new skill set working with financial software. So thanks again people who helped me along the way!
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Feb 2, 2019 15:02
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MickeyFinn posted:You are literally making a value judgement in the guise of "evidence of passion and curiosity" to select for people who don't have sick relatives or time commitments, like women with kids, where they can stay home and study but cannot take on a job and study afterwards to prove their "passion and curiosity" to you. Please don't be upset by this, but the science on hiring says you don't know what you are talking about. Please continue to post, as you do make hiring decisions and we all should see what we are up against in the hiring process, but also please consider not using subjective, arbitrary metrics for evaluating candidates. One paper shows that integrity, a work sample, and a structured interview provides the best metrics for a South Korean conglomerate where workers are cogs in a machine? A proper interview process is designed to be as objective as possible for legal reasons. Most places do these things, not just because they make sense, but they're defensible from a legal perspective. Unfortunately, I can't assess integrity of a stranger easily, new job seekers apparently hate homework and have too many sick relatives to code on their own time, and the structured interviews are already under attack for being too long and too rigid. I might also work for a company that values things like creativity and curiosity, which are already difficult enough to objectively quantify. edit: to be even more clear, I would *love* to only work off objective guidelines, but it's just not feasible in a real scenario. I won't/don't/can't start with subjective, arbitrary metrics but at some point a lot of hiring decisions come down to these things. My employer and I value the objective process, so just imagine how different it is with a smaller company or decision makers that don't feel the same way I do? Opinions like mine are seemingly in the minority from my perspective. Your post comes off as naive and contrarian, and (at face value) I *might* make the subjective assessment that you might be a pain in the rear end to work with. Of course then I'd have to justify that in an objective way so I hope you have more experience or a higher GPA than the person before you who was extremely pleasant. And for the record, it's easier (and legally safer) to just hard pass for a trivial objective reason than explain any of this in an honest way. luchadornado fucked around with this message at 15:28 on Feb 2, 2019 |
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Feb 2, 2019 15:16
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Please keep hiring this way so there is no chance I could end up working for you.
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Feb 2, 2019 15:42
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Jose Valasquez posted:Please keep hiring this way so there is no chance I could end up working for you. I'm super happy I don't work with any of you; there's too much slap-fighty bullshit on this page.
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Feb 2, 2019 16:57
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While I agree that "passion" is a pretty lovely way to hire people, that paper literally says that a general mental ability + work sample is one of the best hiring predictors. I'm not sure that's the strong counterargument you think it is against looking at someone's github projects. Let's not even get into the racist, sexist history of trying to objectively test "general mental ability"
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Feb 2, 2019 17:05
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