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Getting a CS degree, experience, certs, etc. go a long way, and I'm sure there are those who manage to break in, but competition's still fierce. Difficult to get the phone interview when you're a newcomer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigDaveyL
Not to be nit picky but I have heard complaints that interviewers at most employers still don't look at github or count volunteer stuff. Instead they want you to go through their own interview process of "tell me about a linked list" for your run of the mill web dev job - instead of taking 15 minutes of reviewing someone's code and asking them some questions about it. It would make things much easier for the candidate because you're taking a bit of the pressure off and letting them talk about something they did. Also, it shows candidates that you're genuinely interested in them which basically sells you and your company to them.
I'm not trying to make excuses here, just relaying experiences of others.
I've had one place ask if I used Github. One regret was not following up on my "no" response. Specifically, are you looking for collaboration experience, or code samples? Can you just email someone samples of your code, or does it have to be through Github?
The Github, not necessarily true IMO, but I agree more with you on everything else. You can't count college programming, and some freelancing may not cut it either. It's gotta be directly with a company. I do wish I could walk into an in-person interview and they give me the chance to demonstrate coding abilities... give me sample code, ask me what it does, what if anything is wrong with it, etc.
One person I knew who seemed to be well off got her bachelors in Journalism, but then did a Masters in Comp Sci. It was entry level back last decade, so it probably wasn't as hard to get in vs. now. She ended up not only getting experience from that job, but also got her Sun Certified Java Programmer cert. Last but not least, she gets the diversity tie breaker being... well, even she doesn't know for sure. She told me she's truly a wide mix of races.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hazergore1198
Companies are desperate for good talent, and don't care how old people are. I know a programmer in his 50s who gets multiple job offers a week!
I've ran into several coworkers who get called up like that too. Problem is, many of are in remote areas like Utah, San Jose, Florida,..... pretty much all over the country. The ones that go for a couple of years aren't too bad, but those that are only 3 to 8 months, and you need to pay your own flight and hotel fees, AND some of them try to lowball you... they just get passed up.
Another issue is wages have gone down as well. I can't blame some companies as they need to remain profitable, but a common complain I've heard running into software devs is they never pay enough to keep you. Some of these guys consider themselves "elite" where they can look at any software engineering problem and be able to solve it.
When you get 20+ years of experience under your belt, you are even more valuable and can be a senior developer and make tons of money, you can go into project management, or you can be a contractor and charge $150+ per hour.
Doesn't have to take that long. I've got 14 years and was a project manager; just took a step down to be senior developer elsewhere because I wanted to be a little more technical and, well, hated my job. If you're good and prove yourself, after 10 years you will be doing pretty darn well.
I have worked with many developers who are in their late 50s - late 60s and are perfectly satisfied with being a senior developer; no interest in people management, project management, or technical lead/architect roles. These are usually the people with the most institutional knowledge who also know who to call in group A to fix problem B. They are worth their weight in gold
I have worked at consulting companies where we changed the client over $100 per hour (I made $35/hr even if I was the only dev on the project, while the owner pocketed the rest) just for basic (and I know now) amateur PHP/MySQL work.
Where do I sign up? I comb the job boards every day, have applied to over 500 development jobs and have never seen an opportunity like that.
If you have honestly applied to 500 jobs and not been hired then it is not the right career for you.
It doesn't help that the industry is dead in the water either. In good times there were plenty of opportunities for inexperienced people. Not so any more.
It doesn't help that the industry is dead in the water either. In good times there were plenty of opportunities for inexperienced people. Not so any more.
Software development industry is really hot in the US right now.
Software development industry is really hot in the US right now.
My hypothesis of software being dead is more consistent with threads like these appearing all the time where people can't claim they can't find jobs in software, Microsoft laying off 14k people, etc. So, if you would want to show otherwise you'd have to do considerably better than coming up with statements like 'software development is really hot in the US right now'.
Software development industry is really hot in the US right now.
It's only hot if you have direct experience in desired skills. Simply learning a technology and coding a couple of projects for a weekend and throwing it up on github isn't counted as "experience."
My hypothesis of software being dead is more consistent with threads like these appearing all the time where people can't claim they can't find jobs in software, Microsoft laying off 14k people, etc. So, if you would want to show otherwise you'd have to do considerably better than coming up with statements like 'software development is really hot in the US right now'.
I get contacted all the time for Ruby on Rails work because I have "teaching myself Ruby on Rails" on my resume and have a Ruby on Rails work up on Github.
I call these people back and 99% of the time it's "well, we're looking for someone with professional experience, not some basement hacker"
Getting a CS degree, experience, certs, etc. go a long way, and I'm sure there are those who manage to break in, but competition's still fierce. Difficult to get the phone interview when you're a newcomer.
I've had one place ask if I used Github. One regret was not following up on my "no" response. Specifically, are you looking for collaboration experience, or code samples? Can you just email someone samples of your code, or does it have to be through Github?
The Github, not necessarily true IMO, but I agree more with you on everything else. You can't count college programming, and some freelancing may not cut it either. It's gotta be directly with a company. I do wish I could walk into an in-person interview and they give me the chance to demonstrate coding abilities... give me sample code, ask me what it does, what if anything is wrong with it, etc.
One person I knew who seemed to be well off got her bachelors in Journalism, but then did a Masters in Comp Sci. It was entry level back last decade, so it probably wasn't as hard to get in vs. now. She ended up not only getting experience from that job, but also got her Sun Certified Java Programmer cert. Last but not least, she gets the diversity tie breaker being... well, even she doesn't know for sure. She told me she's truly a wide mix of races.
I've ran into several coworkers who get called up like that too. Problem is, many of are in remote areas like Utah, San Jose, Florida,..... pretty much all over the country. The ones that go for a couple of years aren't too bad, but those that are only 3 to 8 months, and you need to pay your own flight and hotel fees, AND some of them try to lowball you... they just get passed up.
Another issue is wages have gone down as well. I can't blame some companies as they need to remain profitable, but a common complain I've heard running into software devs is they never pay enough to keep you. Some of these guys consider themselves "elite" where they can look at any software engineering problem and be able to solve it.
I think you're missing the point on Github. Some companies and recruiters are ahead of the game with respect to github.
I think github (or services like like bitbucket) are desired because it shows the progression of your software, who committed, when were commits done, etc.
Certainly you can just email it to people but it's just as easy to put a link to your github in your resume.
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