[Baypiggies] Career Advice

[Steve Piercy - Web Site Builder]

The best time to interview for a new career is when you have a 
job.  If you don't get hired, you still have a job to fall back on.

But why limit yourself to a job?  Why not go down the path of 
entrepreneur and create your own career?  While working 
full-time, I moonlighted and started building up a client base 
as a freelance web application developer.  After doing that for 
a dozen years and building up a sufficient savings cushion, I 
launched my own business.  I set aside my fears of not having 
medical benefits, a retirement account or steady income and just 
went for it.

I reckoned the worst that could happen would be that I would 
have to get another job when my savings ran out.  I'm now 
approaching my third year in business for myself, and my only 
regret is that I didn't do it sooner.  I have greater 
flexibility with retirement savings and investment, health care 
is affordable, and although my income fluctuates on a monthly 
basis, it levels out on a semi-annual basis.  And I love what I 
do for a living.

Anyway, if you go the job route, in addition to what has already 
been stated:

* Teaching, training and generally showing that you like to help 
people to help themselves will take you very far.

* Go through a couple product development cycles as a project 
manager.  Show that you can lead and get things done.

* Carve out a niche.  What do you enjoy doing beside programming 
and geeking out?  Write an application that supports your 
interest and fills a niche.  Deploy it and release it.

Best of luck!

--steve


On 2/15/11 at 10:07 AM, bryceverdier at gmail.com (Bryce Verdier) pronounced:

>Hello Fellow Bay Piggies,
>
>I would really appreciate the help as I have an interesting 
>situation that I can't seem to figure out.
>
>My current job title is System Engineer. Although I do a fair 
>amount of script writing (in python) I am performing a Systems 
>Administrator job role. I took this job a little over a year 
>ago because I had experience as such before I went back to 
>school and I graduated during a pretty rough economy. I do not 
>regret taking this job as I've learned some pretty cool things. 
>However, I'm at the point where I realized I want my first 
>programming job and I would really like it to be a python based job.
>
>Somehow my resume looks good enough for me to get the 
>occasional programming interview. But this is where the problem 
>starts. While I do believe that scripting has helped me keep my 
>programming skills from going completely dull, I don't spend 
>forty plus hours a week doing it. Thus when I do enter an 
>interview, the interviewer is asking me questions that I 
>haven't seen or even thought about since I was in school. Or 
>asking me about the esoteric aspects of a language that I don't 
>get exposure to as scripting doesn't required them.
>
>I realize that the economy still isn't great and that most 
>companies aren't hiring junior level programmers right now, as 
>there are enough mid-level programmers unemployed and willing 
>to work for the same salary.
>
>My question for the group is, what can I do to position myself 
>better towards getting a junior developer job when those start 
>to open up again? Or what should I prioritize in my studying to 
>help me cross over from sys. admin. to developer? Are there any 
>jobs that you guys are aware of that a hybrid job between these 
>two roles that would help facilitate the cross over? I am aware 
>of the option to program for an open source project, but I'm 
>not sure which one. Though I am looking. ;)
>
>Thanks in advance for your time and any thoughts you may share,
>Bryce
>
>
>
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Steve Piercy               Web Site Builder               
Soquel, CA
<web at StevePiercy.com>                  <http://www.StevePiercy.com/>