Active Duty Veteran Transitioning to Civilian. Need advice on Programming Jobs in DC/MD/VA (credit)

[Success81]

I am an active duty vet in IT. I have 300 days left in the Navy and have 10 credits left to achieve my "Information Systems Undergrad Degree". I want to get into programming and get a job in this area.

Current Plan: My plan is to finish the Info Sys degree within the next 4 months and use my educational benefits to finish a "Computer Science" degree from the same college. I then want to go apply to programming jobs once I finish as a contractor.

Questions: What languages should I focus on learning? Do you have any advice on this plan? Are there any resources I can use to learn more? Around how much do programmers in this area make contracting?

Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.

[Fundman]

The DOD/intelligence contractors are hiring IT folks nonstop. If you already have a security clearance you should have no problem getting a job from Booz Allen, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, CACI, or SAIC. For the contractors, having the security clearance is more important than your actual skills.

[PK12]

Originally Posted by Fundman

The DOD/intelligence contractors are hiring IT folks nonstop. If you already have a security clearance you should have no problem getting a job from Booz Allen, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, CACI, or SAIC. For the contractors, having the security clearance is more important than your actual skills.

Agreed but it sounds like the OP is already performing in a IT role in the military so that makes his case even stronger.

OP,

I would start out by searching jobs at the following site -http://www.clearancejobs.com/

as well use Linkedin to look up recruiters at the firms mentioned by Fundman.

Wish you all the best!

[Opacy]

I'd focus on learning (or beefing up your knowledge in) either Java or C#. Those seem to be the most popular languages in the government contracting scene.

[Success81]

Thank you for your advice.