[lord vader]

I would like to do programming for a job but wandering if there are job oppertunities as a programmer?

[Kristoff]

nope, none, nada, zilch.

See the thread on education level and pay, then go become a plumber. You'll be much happier and make more money.

[djohnson]

Originally posted by Kristoff:
nope, none, nada, zilch.

See the thread on education level and pay, then go become a plumber. You'll be much happier and make more money.

He is just kidding. Of course there are many very nice jobs programming. Noone take this as racial, but do you happen to be a young white male? If so, good luck! You will need it!!!

[techtrucker]

I've searched on and off for the past few years (while doing windows dev work). A lot depends on where you're located, but yeah, the pickings are slim...

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by djohnson:
He is just kidding. Of course there are many very nice jobs programming. Noone take this as racial, but do you happen to be a young white male? If so, good luck! You will need it!!!

worse than in the rest of the world of jobs? is this one of those places that to be successful if you're white and male you have to be EXCEPTIONALLY good and/or apply at places that do not have many there? or just go into business for yourself?

nick

ps yes, kristoff, i still have hope for working in this field, though i sadly expect that it will be with windows.

[ideasculptor]

I don't know about mac programming jobs, but there are plenty of programmer jobs out there. There are also plenty of mediocre programmers out there. If you are an excellent programmer, you won't have problems finding work. As someone fresh out of school, however, it can be difficult to work your way into a position that will give you the experience necessary to be an excellent programmer. It is NOT possible to come out of school as an excellent programmer. I've interviewed folks with Ph.D's who couldn't program their way out of a paper bag because they don't have any real world coding experience.

7-8 years ago, when I was fresh on the market, jobs were easy to come by, and good salaries were even available. Now, i suspect you'll have to put in some time at low pay in order to build your resume, much like most other professional jobs. If you can tolerate a couple of years of less than ideal work, and you use it as an opportunity to better your skills, rather than just griping about it and putting the minimal amount of work necessary in, you'll come out the other side with some great references, an interesting resume, and the opportunity to do what you want to do. Pursue some open source side project while you are at it, to increase the diveristy of your experience and show that you are a self starter.

The days of waltzing out of school with a BS in CS and grabbing a $60K per year job with your own office are over. But then, they were artificial to begin with. Most of those folks are the worst programmers I work with today.

--sam

[ideasculptor]

Incidentally, the most important thing when looking for an entry level job is to find a job where you will be working directly with someone who is both smarter than you and who has more experience than you. You'll see something new every day and will be a better programmer for it. Taking a job where you'll sit in a cubicle all day implementing functions specified by someone else won't get you anywhere.

--sam

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
Incidentally, the most important thing when looking for an entry level job is to find a job where you will be working directly with someone who is both smarter than you and who has more experience than you. You'll see something new every day and will be a better programmer for it. Taking a job where you'll sit in a cubicle all day implementing functions specified by someone else won't get you anywhere.

That's great advice. And it reminds me that I gotta get out of this corporation I'm working for. It's a lot easier to find a good programmer at a small company.

[flanders]

In my (somewhat recent) job hunting experience, there are programming positions, but most won't be around for long and the pay is steadily going down. The java market is overcrowded and the windows market is mostly VB and/or ASP with an occasional C++ job here and there. Some C#, but it's not as popular. Why doesn't anyone use J#, anyway?

Being a Mac (Java, WO, Cocoa, Obj-C) developer myself (currently with a job but the week ain't over yet) I wish there were more to choose from but it's probably going to come down to a windows dev position, a DBA/Unix admin spot or a switch out of technology for me. Two of which will almost certainly require relocation on my part. Sadly, most of the software developers I know of are being let go or sent to a project where they have to submit to mainframe torture all over again.

[ideasculptor]

What's wrong with the 3/4 of the software development industry that is devoted to building low volume, high margin, high performance Unix applications?

There are countless engineers writing software which gets shipped with custom hardware like file servers, web servers, routers, switches, etc. There's the game industry, the animation industry, the medical devices industry, and yes, the internet services industry, which still offers plenty of employment opporunities, which seem to be increasing in number recently. I'm looking for a senior java engineer right now, and my company has recently hired 3 or 4 engineers with experience in java or perl/python. A lot of the most interesting software engineering happens in high performance embedded applications, where every piece of efficiency amd memory counts. Anyone can write most desktop apps in java. It takes real engineering talent and experience to build a high performance distributed system that must guarantee 99.999% uptime. Then there are the research oriented segments like bioinformatics, encryption and security, etc.

Take a shitty, entry level job at a company that makes interesting software (like Apple, for instance. There's a ton of interesting software coming out of Apple right now) and work your way up. I hear complaints about job availability all the time, but I'm still getting weekly emails from industry recruiters asking if I'm available because of a resume I posted on Monster.com 3 years ago. It is obviously not easy for someone with limited experience. I've turned away more than a few inexperienced engineers myself. which is why I say you should take what you can get for a couple of years and make sure you get really good at whatever it is you do. Build a reputation and you'll never be hurting for work. Given the small size of the mac marketshare and the prevalence of free and shareware software available for the platform, concentrating your skillset in mac specific technologies is possibly not the best career move, unless you want to live in Cupertino and the surrounding areas, anyway (adobe, apple, microsoft and many of the other major mac developers are there). If you must write software for OS X, write unix-based software rather than Cocoa desktop apps. It will serve you better in the long run.

--sam

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
<snip> Pursue some open source side project while you are at it, to increase the diveristy of your experience and show that you are a self starter.

</snip>--sam

unless it is something that you start up yourself, how do you keep track of changes/additions/fixes you have done? and if you do keep track of what you do, do you also keep record of the before and after to show that what you did really helped out? sorry for the questions, but i am trying to figure out how to avoid some of the less-than-desirable jobs you were talking about by the time i graduate in ~18-24 months and have thought about something with open source (if i can find something i think i can help with) but unsure how to approach this when the time comes for the ever fun job interview. :/

thanks,
nick

[ideasculptor]

In general, in an interview, I'm not looking for documentary proof of the bullet points on your resume. I'll grill you pretty hard about anything I consider to be significant, and it will become readily apparent whether you actually know what you are talking about or are BSing me. A few lines in the resume mentioning the projects or subcomponents you were responsible for is sufficient to get me asking the necessary questions. I might ask you to whiteboard design changes you made/considered, ask you what you learned, what mistakes you made, etc.

The same goes for any job you might have on your resume. It is the rare project that is handled entirely by one engineer, so I always have to delve into exactly what it was on each listed project that the candidate was responsible for. The more professional you sound answering those questions, the more likely you are to be considered for a position. And have opinions. Don't constantly defer to the interviewer or hedge your bets when talking about decisions you made. Sometimes decisions don't turn out ot be ideal choices, but we usually have good reasons for making them, regardless of the outcome. Talk about those reasons and the outcome of the decision.

To a pretty significant extent, unless I'm looking to fill a particular hole in a development team, I'm far more interested in a candidate's POTENTIAL than their prior experience. I try to get a feel for how much you like to learn new things, how good you are at it, how intuitive you are about extending new ideas. If you score well on those points, and you have the bare minimum of work experience that I don't think I'm going to be wasting a ton of time teaching the basics, then I won't send you packing purely because of inexperience. That said, should an identical candidate with lots of experience showup, they'll probably get the nod over the inexperienced candidate unless they are asking too much for compensation. And no, we most definitely aren't in the business of ripping off inexperienced engineers. Most of my team are fairly junior engineers, several fresh out of college and one without any programming experience other than html/javascript, and all of them make more than 60K, some of them quite a bit more. At the same time, I overdid it on the junior teammember count this time around, so now I'm looking for another senior java person to help with some of the mentoring around here. I only have so much time for showing other people how to do stuff.

By the way, my education consists of an AA in music and a couple of years pursuing a BS in CS before dropping out of school to work in 1996. I make well over six figures and have never once felt that my lack of credentials holds me back. My timing was really fortunate, admittedly, and I made some lucky/skillful career moves over the years, but it is certainly possible to have a great career in CS today. I don't feel like my job or career is threatened at all, and yes, I still write code on a daily basis. I also am usually learning some new technology at any given moment. I always have a stack of new technical books by my bed. If you aren't continuing to pursue your education, your career will definitely be short lived. Computer technology moves too quickly for someone who doesn't stay on top of the latest and greatest to be successful. Again, having some skill in choosing which technologies to pursue is definitely a benefit, and that kind of decisionmaking definitely gets better with experience.

Lastly, I hate to sound like a grown up (I'm only 31, after all), but learn to communicate well via email and other written documentation. I don't correct every typo, but in general, in all my communication, whether in an online forum, business email, perssonal email, or techincal document, I write in complete sentences with correct punctuation, correct spelling, and good grammar. Poor communication skills will kill a career every time. I won't hire a candidate who can't communicate well, and I don't like working with other engineers who are lazy on that score, either, mostly because I usually wind up having to compensate for their lousy work.

</soapbox>

--sam

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
<snip>Lastly, I hate to sound like a grown up (I'm only 31, after all), but learn to communicate well via email and other written documentation. I don't correct every typo, but in general, in all my communication, whether in an online forum, business email, perssonal email, or techincal document, I write in complete sentences with correct punctuation, correct spelling, and good grammar. Poor communication skills will kill a career every time. I won't hire a candidate who can't communicate well, and I don't like working with other engineers who are lazy on that score, either, mostly because I usually wind up having to compensate for their lousy work.

</soapbox></snip>

--sam

so, is that to anyone specific? or just in general? and is that due to that there is some possibility, however remote, that someoneyou interview with at some point may recognize you from that forum/discussion/etc?

smile and thanks for the ideas to think about.

[CincyGamer]

do you live in Cincinnati? I am looking for some guys to start a software business with especially Mac based.

[CincyGamer]

i dont believe that poster to make so much money at 31 as a programmer. *Bush voice from debate * " Sounds like one of those exxaggerrrrations. "

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by CincyGamer:
do you live in Cincinnati? I am looking for some guys to start a software business with especially Mac based.

who you asking? zanyterp (me) or ideasculptor?

[ideasculptor]

Originally posted by zanyterp:
so, is that to anyone specific? or just in general? and is that due to that there is some possibility, however remote, that someoneyou interview with at some point may recognize you from that forum/discussion/etc?

smile and thanks for the ideas to think about.

Not to anyone specific. It just seems like there are a lot of folks still in school or just recently graduated who are despairing about their job prospects who could use some advice from someone who has been there not so long ago, and who is in the position of interviewing and hiring people like you. I don't think anyone would recognize me, not that I'm trying to hide my identity. I'm happy to tell anyone who asks who I am or where I work, although not in a public forum. Some things, I prefer to keep out of the search engines and spam lists

Generally, if I don't hire someone, I try to tell them why (unless they might be offended), in order to help them out at their next interview, so I have nothing to hide from anyone I have or will interview.

Bear in mind, folks, that contrary to old fashioned economic indicators used by govt economists, which I, personally, feel are perhaps not as accurate a gauge of economic health as they once were, the economy is floundering at present. Unemployment is still quite high, and most of the jobs which have been created so far are service industry jobs, not white-collar tech jobs that require high levels of education. At the same time, I've seen a definite trend in a positive direction, so while things might be crappy in the job market now, I don't think they will stay that way permanently. I don't like to get political, but our president's economic policies are not exactly helping right now. A dramatically weakening dollar doesn't hurt when it comes to salary equivalence with 'engineers' overseas, but it also makes foreign consumer goods more expensive. Anyone who has had to manage or support an outsourced development group knows well that there are limits to how much labour you can outsource, and what kinds of tasks you can give to foreign developers. The entirety of the tech industry is not going to be outsourced. I can promise you that. The crappy work that no one here really wants to spend time doing will be, which, in the long term, will be a good thing.

This will certainly make it more difficult for new CS grads to get started in the industry (and will probably necessitate a change in CS curricula, since current grads just don't have the necessary experience to jump straight into mid-level and higher work, in my experience), as you guys are experiencing. As the tech industry recuperates, things will get easier for you guys, and in 3-4 years, you'll be experienced enough to stop fretting about employment status so much. You may still find yourself unemployed upon occasion, as the days of 25 year job stability are long gone, but like me, you won't be in a position where you need to worry that the next job will never arrive.

--sam

[ideasculptor]

Originally posted by CincyGamer:
i dont believe that poster to make so much money at 31 as a programmer. *Bush voice from debate * " Sounds like one of those exxaggerrrrations. "

Not an exaggeration at all. I, too, took a pay hit as the tech industry dissolved. I took a voluntary layoff in 2002, and was definitely surprised at the difficulty I had finding a job. I had never before failed to get any job I had applied for. I got some offers that were so low that I couldn't accept the job (google - $45K below market), and even got turned down by a couple of places. The job I finally took was at $12K less than my previous job. A couple months into that one, I took another $12K pay cut in order to take what I thought would be a dream job (major animation studio), but was disappointed by the work I was doing, so I moved to a startup company which had been pursuing me for quite some time, which resulted in a $14K pay raise. I spent some time there, but was enticed to a company in a part of the state that I prefer to live, where I was finally able to negotiate a salary at the rate I was making 3 years ago, doing work that I really like to do. It hasn't been easy, because generally, as your salary goes up, so do your expenses, so spending close to 3 years at a reduced salary hasn't been easy (and completely ate up my 401K savings, mostly because I got married in there somewhere, which wasn't cheap), but I survived. I was also forced to educate myself on a number of technologies of which I was either ignorant or out of touch.

I'm not going to deny this, because it is an important part of my story: I am damn good at what I do, and I do everything in my power to make sure that I remain at the top of my game. I'm a little bit arrogant (but not too much, I hope) about my skills, because I think it is warranted, and that helps in the job negotiations, where I come across as knowledgable and confident. I also work incredibly hard. If making the schedule means I have to work 14-16 hours per day, 7 days per week, then that's how many hours I work, at least for short 3-4 month stretches ar a time. I'm just coming off a 2.5 month period where I didn't work less than 85 hours in any one of those weeks, usually topping 100/week. When I say I will deliver, I do everything in my power to deliver, and bosses and investors totally appreciate that. As such, my bonus for delivering the product on schedule is likely to be more than many of you guys appear to be making right now, but I've worked my ass off for it, and even with half my salary on the line as a bonus, my compensation won't even be equal to time and a half for all the overtime hours I worked (and no, the bonus isn't factored into my salary when I say I make over 6 figures. On the other hand, where my company is located, $100K is probably equivalent to $60K or so in Ohio, so you have to take that into account. The MEDIAN home in my town costs $970,000, so even with my salary, I can't even come close to affording to buy a house here.)

That said, I went to a mid level school (UCSB) and failed to graduate, which is proof of just how much this industry is merit based, rather than obsessed with credentials, which works to the advantage of anyone who is able to excel.

--sam

[saddino]

Originally posted by CincyGamer:
i dont believe that poster to make so much money at 31 as a programmer. *Bush voice from debate * " Sounds like one of those exxaggerrrrations. "

Actually, it's not that unusual -- especially in some markets (e.g. CA, DC, NoVA). I started making 6 figures when I was 28 as a contractor for a company in San Diego. I and the other senior developers all had ample experience designing and developing commercial Mac applications (C/C++/PowerPlant), and I've found that a lot of companies are willing to pay for that type of background. Of course, that was during the bubble. These days it takes a bit more work to find a high paying contract or full-time position, but it's certainly possible -- especially if you have 8-10 years experience.

[CincyGamer]

I stand corrected then.. I am in Ohio and the average amount seems to be around $60K per year in our group. I need to move to a better market. I had a contract thru KForce for Lexis Nexis (Big/desirable company in Dayton) and was paid $58K for a Java Developer position.
KForce negiotiate with LN, so it wasnt me.

The market is terrible here (Cincinnati) for software jobs. We had a good company SDRC, Structural Dynamics Research Corportation that make the software iDEAS but they are no more. That was the place all the geeks wanted to work. But now there is a large IT market here with Proctor and Gamble, Krogers, Fifth Third Bank and the large municipal utility companies.

I need to develop skills that are not so common place and show what I can do. I havent done that yet. I hope to get on with Apple doing software development not IT, but that is a long shot.

Sorry for the rude comment earlier. I just dont know any programmers here that make in the "mid 100Ks" but youre right it could be the same as abut $85K here which I do know some people that make that much.

[djohnson]

I wish I made 60k... Of course I wish there was a market for jobs where I live now. If someone in the Dallas area is looking for a Software Engineer with actual practical experience, email me or shoot me a PM!

[ideasculptor]

Sadly, I just went to one of those cost of living calculators (plug "cost of living calculator" into google) and my salary where I live is the same as $70K in Cincinnati.

So much for being well paid.

--sam

[wadesworld]

One of the more interesting programmer jobs I've seen was a guy in a programming class I took.

He worked at a pretty small company that made grain silos. He developed a Cocoa app that allowed their technical sales engineers to go out and sit with a customer and design a grain silo in realtime. You could change the shape, the flow rate for the exit point, and a lot of other grain-silo stuff I didn't understand. It used OpenGL to render the final result.

That application became the cornerstone of their business. It gave them a competitive advantage over other manufacturers.

My point is, just because you're in a PC job at a small company, doesn't mean you couldn't create an application that could change a part of the company's business and thereby create your own Mac programming job.

Obviously, for that to be successful, it would have to do something significantly different from what they can do on a PC.

Wade

Originally posted by wadesworld:

Obviously, for that to be successful, it would have to do something significantly different from what they can do on a PC.

That's a good point. If you can't find a Mac programming job, create your own. I'm working on it in my spare time, and work fulltime in a QA job to pay the bills until my own work can pay for itself.

[itai195]

ideasculptor -- you live in the Bay Area I'm guessing? That does it, there is no hope for me here

I have to admit that your point about credentials is interesting, but I just cannot fathom that an MIT grad would be put through the same kind of grilling I've had to endure at some interviews. And it's not as if I went to a horrible school. I did happen to end up getting a pretty good job after graduating, and am currently earning my masters in the [perhaps naive] hope that having an advanced degree will decrease the the technical grilling at interviews that I so despise. Big surprise, I tend to do really well in interviews that ask more about my personal attitude, work ethic, grouping skills, etc. I am a good programmer, devoted and willing to put a lot of effort into my work, but I'm sorry if I don't know the detailed inner workings of the OSX graphics subsystem.

As far as Mac development goes -- I've always thought it would be more fun to independently develop some shareware. Probably wouldn't work as a full-time job unless you had a real hit on your hands, but it could be a source of some nice additional income.

[ideasculptor]

Originally posted by itai195:
I have to admit that your point about credentials is interesting, but I just cannot fathom that an MIT grad would be put through the same kind of grilling I've had to endure at some interviews.

No, I live in Santa Barbara. The median house price in the bay area is quite a bit lower (less than $600K, I believe) than the $970K we have down here, just because there is a lot more variety. I lived for many years in the Bay Area, but it's a piece of cake to live there compared to SB, where interesting tech jobs are next to impossible to come by, and if you find one, they want to screw you on the salary.

As for how MIT grads get interviewed, I've worked at some of the biggest and some of the hippest companies in the bay area (Cisco, Akamai, PDI/Dreamworks), and without exception, we gave the same interview to every candidate, and they were tough, many hour interviews, sometimes split across several days. I don't care how good your resume is, unless I've got a number of personal references from people that I trust, I am going to put you through the wringer. Part of it is that I want to see how good of a coder you are, but I also want to know how you perform under pressure. I usually try to make a point of asking questions about things that the candidate is not familiar with, and then coach them through it in order to see how well they learn and think outside the box. I usually ask them to do a written quiz, too, although it is pretty easy (borrowed from an interview I was put through a few years ago). It often lets me separate out the useless candidates in the first 10-15 minutes. You'd be amazed at the number of 'engineers' who go on about how hard my simple little quiz is, and then are surprised when i show them the door as soon as they give up on it. Actually, Dreamworks interviews were pretty casual, group internviews, which was definitely a symptom of the problems that caused me to leave.

I've found that one of the differences between a company that is good to work for and one that isn't is how hard the interview is. Hard interview means good company, because it means that the team has a higher average talent level which tends to make them more cohesive and entertaining.

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
Not to anyone specific. It just seems like there are a lot of folks still in school or just recently graduated who are despairing about their job prospects who could use some advice from someone who has been there not so long ago, and who is in the position of interviewing and hiring people like you. I don't think anyone would recognize me, not that I'm trying to hide my identity. I'm happy to tell anyone who asks who I am or where I work, although not in a public forum. Some things, I prefer to keep out of the search engines and spam lists
--sam

i meant that is part of the reason you suggest using correct capitalization and other punctuation in online forums, et cetera, is that depending on where and with whom someone interviews with, that if they see a person with a habit/personality to type in a certain manner that it could be bad news/make them look less of a likely candidate if the online identity is found out? (ie in the manner that i myself tend to type on forums of varied nature)

[ideasculptor]

Originally posted by zanyterp:
i meant that is part of the reason you suggest using correct capitalization and other punctuation in online forums, et cetera, is that depending on where and with whom someone interviews with, that if they see a person with a habit/personality to type in a certain manner that it could be bad news/make them look less of a likely candidate if the online identity is found out? (ie in the manner that i myself tend to type on forums of varied nature)

No. I think you should type grammatically in forums because it polishes the same skills that you will use in the workplace. The more you write, the better you will write, so why waste the opportunity to practice. Besides, I can't stand reading poorly punctuated or unpunctuated text, and when people start getting into text message abbreviations (u, ur, 4, etc), I just tune out and skip over it. Too much effort to parse. I could care less what an employee does or says outside of work. It is none of my business. But I know that someone who always strives to write well, in whatever style, will be the better writer in the long term (barring those with exceptional writing talent, anyway).

It is the same reason I don't write sloppy code when cranking out a one-off script. It only takes a few minutes more to break things up into readable functions and add some relevant comments, which is, at least, good practice, and at best, useful when it turns out that you are going to reuse the script, or even more critically, let someone else use it.

--sam

[smeger]

Originally posted by zanyterp:
i meant that is part of the reason you suggest using correct capitalization and other punctuation in online forums, et cetera, is that depending on where and with whom someone interviews with, that if they see a person with a habit/personality to type in a certain manner that it could be bad news/make them look less of a likely candidate if the online identity is found out? (ie in the manner that i myself tend to type on forums of varied nature)

I find that writing grammatically correct sentences is a good external indicator of a disciplined, "over-achieving" mind. What you write says quite a bit about who you are. Sure, everyone screws up grammar periodically, but striving to get it correct tells the other person that you're willing to work to get things right, not just good enough.

[itai195]

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
I've found that one of the differences between a company that is good to work for and one that isn't is how hard the interview is. Hard interview means good company, because it means that the team has a higher average talent level which tends to make them more cohesive and entertaining.

I agree, but for the record I have no problem with programming questions or abstract thought problems. What I abhor are questions that rely on rote memory, like details of Unix system calls and commands, that anyone could answer by RTFM. Knowing all the options for nslookup and sed does not make someone a quality programmer.

[ideasculptor]

Originally posted by itai195:
I agree, but for the record I have no problem with programming questions or abstract thought problems. What I abhor are questions that rely on rote memory, like details of Unix system calls and commands, that anyone could answer by RTFM. Knowing all the options for nslookup and sed does not make someone a quality programmer.

very true. If they are asking questions like that, you probably don't want to work there, especially because it likely means that the engineering lead is just the guy with the most api's memorized.

[jcadam]

I'm about to hit the (civilian) job market in about 18 months. I'm a little bit worried, since I am not fresh out of college, I'll be 26 years old.
I spent most of my teenage years messing around with computer programming/IT/etc, so I of course majored in CS when I entered college at 18.
I took an Army ROTC scholarship to pay my tuition, meaning after I graduated I became the Army's indentured slave for 4 years working as a Signal Corps (communications branch) officer. Chose signal because it was supposed to be the 'technical' field of the Army, but the enlisted folks are the technicians and I've just been a manager.

So, my education has been CS, but my actual job experience has been in the managerial/leadership area. I still love CS, and programming still remains a hobby (when I have time for it, with the 12-16 hour days I work), but I know my skills aren't as 'sharp' as when I graduated. A little frustrating, since I know I'd rather be working in a more technical job.
Ugh, I plan on leaving the Army when my 4 year obligation is up in June '06, but I'm worried about being able to get adequate salary, since I will essentially be an 'entry-level' programmer (I'm in my mid-twenties with a family, and I'm about to buy a dang minivan).

[wadesworld]

Originally posted by jcadam:
So, my education has been CS, but my actual job experience has been in the managerial/leadership area. I still love CS, and programming still remains a hobby (when I have time for it, with the 12-16 hour days I work), but I know my skills aren't as 'sharp' as when I graduated. A little frustrating, since I know I'd rather be working in a more technical job.
Ugh, I plan on leaving the Army when my 4 year obligation is up in June '06, but I'm worried about being able to get adequate salary, since I will essentially be an 'entry-level' programmer (I'm in my mid-twenties with a family, and I'm about to buy a dang minivan).

First, your skills sound pretty good to me. You won't get a job as a senior programmer, but you may not be as entry-level as you think, particularly if the job is focused on more than just coding.

But if I may, let me offer some unsolicited advice. Don't buy the minivan. A car payment for a $30,000 minivan is the LAST thing you need when your job prospects are uncertain. Make do with what you have, or buy a $5,000 beater that will get the job done and for which you can pay cash.

Spend the rest of the time in the military socking away as much money money as you can and getting rid of any debt you can. Debt is the thing that makes you accept a higher-paying job you hate so that you can up with all the payments, rather than taking the lower paying job you love and will make you a better husband/father/person.

Wade

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
very true. If they are asking questions like that, you probably don't want to work there, especially because it likely means that the engineering lead is just the guy with the most api's memorized.

which probably, but not certainly, means that s/he is not necessarily good at the job but "plays the right cards?"

[Kristoff]

You mean kisses ass...

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by Kristoff:
You mean kisses ass...

yeah, but i did not want to offend anybody and afraid that might. . . .though you did put it so succinctly.

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
Not to anyone specific. It just seems like there are a lot of folks still in school or just recently graduated who are despairing about their job prospects who could use some advice from someone who has been there not so long ago, and who is in the position of interviewing and hiring people like you. I don't think anyone would recognize me, not that I'm trying to hide my identity. I'm happy to tell anyone who asks who I am or where I work, although not in a public forum. Some things, I prefer to keep out of the search engines and spam lists

Generally, if I don't hire someone, I try to tell them why (unless they might be offended), in order to help them out at their next interview, so I have nothing to hide from anyone I have or will interview.

Bear in mind, folks, that contrary to old fashioned economic indicators used by govt economists, which I, personally, feel are perhaps not as accurate a gauge of economic health as they once were, the economy is floundering at present. Unemployment is still quite high, and most of the jobs which have been created so far are service industry jobs, not white-collar tech jobs that require high levels of education. At the same time, I've seen a definite trend in a positive direction, so while things might be crappy in the job market now, I don't think they will stay that way permanently. I don't like to get political, but our president's economic policies are not exactly helping right now. A dramatically weakening dollar doesn't hurt when it comes to salary equivalence with 'engineers' overseas, but it also makes foreign consumer goods more expensive. Anyone who has had to manage or support an outsourced development group knows well that there are limits to how much labour you can outsource, and what kinds of tasks you can give to foreign developers. The entirety of the tech industry is not going to be outsourced. I can promise you that. The crappy work that no one here really wants to spend time doing will be, which, in the long term, will be a good thing.

This will certainly make it more difficult for new CS grads to get started in the industry (and will probably necessitate a change in CS curricula, since current grads just don't have the necessary experience to jump straight into mid-level and higher work, in my experience), as you guys are experiencing. As the tech industry recuperates, things will get easier for you guys, and in 3-4 years, you'll be experienced enough to stop fretting about employment status so much. You may still find yourself unemployed upon occasion, as the days of 25 year job stability are long gone, but like me, you won't be in a position where you need to worry that the next job will never arrive.

--sam

if you don't mind me asking, what would you suggest to someone changing from a vastly different career field in which the skills, etc used on a current job have no match in CS/IT/etc, but the skillset has been developed at school (and hopefully through other projects) ???

thanks

[ideasculptor]

Originally posted by zanyterp:
if you don't mind me asking, what would you suggest to someone changing from a vastly different career field in which the skills, etc used on a current job have no match in CS/IT/etc, but the skillset has been developed at school (and hopefully through other projects) ???

thanks

If you have career experience, but not in CS, but your CS skills are there, I think your best bet is to get really good at writing cover letters and customising your resume. if you can get in to an interview, you should have an OK time selling yourself, but it will be harder to get in the front door. If you get good at writing a cover letter that explains, succinctly and eloquently, the dichotomy between your resume and the position being applied for, you should still have a shot. You aren't going to waltz in as a senior engineer, but I wouldn't think it is an insurmountable obstacle, either.

Let's put it this way: If forced to choose between a new CS grad, and a new CS grad with a couple of years of professional experience in another field, I'm probably going to choose the experienced guy, all other things being equal, and if his references check out. But unless I'm hiring a technical program manager or something, your experience elsewhere doesn't get you much seniority. You'll have to prove your self technically on the job, just like a new grad would.

--sam

[ideasculptor]

Detrius, your PM box is full!

[Basilisk]

what would you suggest to someone changing from a vastly different career field in which the skills, etc used on a current job have no match in CS/IT/etc

Working QA or upper tier tech support (like enterprise-class support) is an excellent intro to the industry. While the job pool is smaller overall, the competition for the positions is usually less fierce. There are considerably fewer super-senior QA folks out there because they tend to get pulled into development or management roles later in their careers.

When I started my career not very long ago it was prior to the "we'll-hire-anyone" boom of the late 90's. What we tended to see in candidates (at a small all-Mac shop) were a lot of folks who wanted to code straight out of school, with minimal prior experience.

Although some of these new grads had the project credibility to be hired straight into dev jobs, most did not. Frequently the next step was to offer a QA position with a minimum commitment of 1 year as QA before they would even be considered for a dev position. A surprising (to me at least) number of candidates turned us down. Obviously I don't know what happened to all those folks who rejected the job, but I can speak to the other side of the equation, folks who took the jobs.

The folks I worked with in QA and support didn't all go into development, but most did and they did so by showing a real track record at the important thing, success at delivering a shipping product. "Real artists ship" is a real attitude in the industry. Plus, almost all of us agree (very much including me) that we are much better at our jobs because of the QA experience.

So when you're considering your career options, don't forget that there is a world of development "services" out there (QA, DevTest, Configuration Management, Build, Release Engineering). Most can be careers in their own right, but they are also frequently good slots for junior folks to enter and start building their experience.

Alex

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by Basilisk:
Working QA or upper tier tech support (like enterprise-class support) is an excellent intro to the industry. While the job pool is smaller overall, the competition for the positions is usually less fierce. There are considerably fewer super-senior QA folks out there because they tend to get pulled into development or management roles later in their careers.

When I started my career not very long ago it was prior to the "we'll-hire-anyone" boom of the late 90's. What we tended to see in candidates (at a small all-Mac shop) were a lot of folks who wanted to code straight out of school, with minimal prior experience.

Although some of these new grads had the project credibility to be hired straight into dev jobs, most did not. Frequently the next step was to offer a QA position with a minimum commitment of 1 year as QA before they would even be considered for a dev position. A surprising (to me at least) number of candidates turned us down. Obviously I don't know what happened to all those folks who rejected the job, but I can speak to the other side of the equation, folks who took the jobs.

The folks I worked with in QA and support didn't all go into development, but most did and they did so by showing a real track record at the important thing, success at delivering a shipping product. "Real artists ship" is a real attitude in the industry. Plus, almost all of us agree (very much including me) that we are much better at our jobs because of the QA experience.

So when you're considering your career options, don't forget that there is a world of development "services" out there (QA, DevTest, Configuration Management, Build, Release Engineering). Most can be careers in their own right, but they are also frequently good slots for junior folks to enter and start building their experience.

Alex

what exactly would QA stand for? i am guessing it is quality assurance (or similar) but thought i would ask. what exactly does a QA person do? and skills req'd to do the job well?

[geordan]

Originally posted by zanyterp:
what exactly would QA stand for? i am guessing it is quality assurance (or similar) but thought i would ask. what exactly does a QA person do? and skills req'd to do the job well?

I'd also like to hear what is involved in the QA role. I'm sure it varies from company to company somewhat so stories of your specific responsibilities and what you did to get youself promoted to more of a "programming" job would be great. Thanks.

[ideasculptor]

QA stands for quality assurance, and depending upon the company, involves a range of skills. In some dev environments, the QA folks are responsible only for running tests that were written by the dev crew, tracking performance in those tests, and reporting results to the dev crew.

At the other, much more useful extreme, the QA folks are experienced engineers who write and maintain a sophisticated test framework to exercise the codebase, and then develop tests that exercise the codebase to an extraordinary degree, really pushing its limits and throwing corner cases at it. A good QA engineer, who actually likes working in QA and doesn't just want to do something else as soon as possible is an incredibly rare find, and even though QA entry salaries aren't enormous, someone with a proven track record in QA in combination with real coding skills can command a salary every bit as high as a dev engineer.

Generally, the QA folks will find web development and database experience a plus, even if the product doesn't use those technologies, since being able to automatically track and report progress, and let the clueless executive types access that info easily is definitely part of the job description. System administration skills are also very useful, since a test environment often involves keeping a custom system up and running, and IT departmen often don't support test environments due to their instability. QA often is integral to the release process, documenting what is necessary to install and run the software on a real system.

Usually, most companies settle for QA engineers who have good shell scripting experience, for automating the running and tracking of tests written by the dev crew, but they often are incapable of creative testing, which adds to the load on the dev crew, who suffer productivity-wise, instead. QA is usually system testing. Individual developers SHOULD be responsible for unit testing each component, so that QA is mostly about integration testing. For example, a unit test may test whether a network component can adequately download a document over http. Another unit test might test an XML parser for correct parsing. QA would test the final browser which both downloads, parses, and then renders and XML document.

Incidentally, I'm looking for a good QA engineer with Java, perl, Mysql, and linux/unix experience in Santa Barbara, CA.

--sam

[zanyterp]

Originally posted by ideasculptor:
QA stands for quality assurance, and depending upon the company, involves a range of skills. In some dev environments, the QA folks are responsible only for running tests that were written by the dev crew, tracking performance in those tests, and reporting results to the dev crew.

At the other, much more useful extreme, the QA folks are experienced engineers who write and maintain a sophisticated test framework to exercise the codebase, and then develop tests that exercise the codebase to an extraordinary degree, really pushing its limits and throwing corner cases at it. A good QA engineer, who actually likes working in QA and doesn't just want to do something else as soon as possible is an incredibly rare find, and even though QA entry salaries aren't enormous, someone with a proven track record in QA in combination with real coding skills can command a salary every bit as high as a dev engineer.

Generally, the QA folks will find web development and database experience a plus, even if the product doesn't use those technologies, since being able to automatically track and report progress, and let the clueless executive types access that info easily is definitely part of the job description. System administration skills are also very useful, since a test environment often involves keeping a custom system up and running, and IT departmen often don't support test environments due to their instability. QA often is integral to the release process, documenting what is necessary to install and run the software on a real system.

Usually, most companies settle for QA engineers who have good shell scripting experience, for automating the running and tracking of tests written by the dev crew, but they often are incapable of creative testing, which adds to the load on the dev crew, who suffer productivity-wise, instead. QA is usually system testing. Individual developers SHOULD be responsible for unit testing each component, so that QA is mostly about integration testing. For example, a unit test may test whether a network component can adequately download a document over http. Another unit test might test an XML parser for correct parsing. QA would test the final browser which both downloads, parses, and then renders and XML document.

Incidentally, I'm looking for a good QA engineer with Java, perl, Mysql, and linux/unix experience in Santa Barbara, CA.

--sam

how does one become good at QA? just time and attempting things by one's self? . . . and hope there is some of it taught in classes at school?

Can I PM you with some other questions?

thanks,
nick

[lord vader]

Thanks for all the replies. I am only sixteen though. So i was hoping for advice more on the lines of what i should learn right now.

Thanks