Career Advice – Software Developer

[T o m]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 29 December 2019 at 21:02

[deckster]

Long question, short response:

Finish your degree. Have more confidence in yourself.

For almost every developer job, the degree is a tick-box that you just have to have. OU is fine. After that, experience and references are the only currency that matters. If you have experience and can talk about things that you've done successfully, and have good references that show your skills and attitude, you will be ahead of 95% of graduates and a good proportion of so-called 'experienced' developers.

A little secret: the vast majority of software developers, just like every other job, are just about OK. A significant number of them are rubbish. A vanishing few are truly excellent. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that everybody else is a hot-shot, because by and large they aren't.

[SwissJonese]

deckster said:

For almost every developer job, the degree is a tick-box that you just have to have. OU is fine. After that, experience and references are the only currency that matters. If you have experience and can talk about things that you've done successfully, and have good references that show your skills and attitude, you will be ahead of 95% of graduates and a good proportion of so-called 'experienced' developers.

I don't agree with this at all. Most of the best developers I have met did not have a degree, most learnt coding on their own and applied it to their jobs. I do not have a degree and only twice has it stopped me, once for a job in Bermuda (more difficult to get a visa) and then with a large IT firm that I passed all their exams/interviews but they forgot to mention they don't hire people without degrees (company policy which they changed a year later).

However that said if you have already started doing the degree then there is no harm in completing it, especially for those companies that have these elitism entrance criteria.

These days when I recruit I look out for any relevant job specific qualifications/courses. I am also more interested in people that either go to IT events or are part of local IT meetups (shows they are keeping their knowledge relevant to the latest changes).

If you can code then you should be able to pick up any language.

[4x4Tyke]

deckster said:

A little secret: the vast majority of software developers, just like every other job, are just about OK. A significant number of them are rubbish. A vanishing few are truly excellent. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that everybody else is a hot-shot, because by and large they aren't.

Agree, when I recruit the main thing I'm look for is a good attitude, genuine interest and excited by challenges not daunted by them. Appropriate project skills can be taught, personal traits cannot.

Edited by 4x4Tyke on Monday 11th July 15:12

[deckster]

SwissJonese said:

deckster said:

For almost every developer job, the degree is a tick-box that you just have to have.

I don't agree with this at all. Most of the best developers I have met did not have a degree, most learnt coding on their own and applied it to their jobs.

My underlying point is the same as yours, I think: a degree is not relevant to the quality of developer. It's indisputable however that for that vast majority of jobs, particularly at the entry levels where you are less likely to have relevant experience to draw on, a degree is pretty much essential get through the initial CV-sift. Doesn't really matter what, how good, or where from - but it is a box that you, generally speaking, need to tick.

SwissJonese said:

These days when I recruit I look out for any relevant job specific qualifications/courses. I am also more interested in people that either go to IT events or are part of local IT meetups (shows they are keeping their knowledge relevant to the latest changes).

I don't agree with either of those. I am yet to see an industry qualification, outside of maybe CCNA or similar very technology-specific certifications, that are with the paper they are written on. Give me somebody with experience over a piece of paper any day.

On the latter point: I've been to a few local IT meetups, although admittedly not for a good few years now. I don't think I met a single person at any of them that I would like to have a pint with, let alone work with. It's certainly not something I'd look for on a CV of somebody I was looking to hire.

[Crush]

Can't offer advice but was interested in your experience of the computing & IT course with the OU?

I was thinking of starting it in October but was looking for real experience rather than the "we're awesomely super duper fantastic!" marketing spiel from the OU!

[boxst]

4x4Tyke said:

deckster said:

A little secret: the vast majority of software developers, just like every other job, are just about OK. A significant number of them are rubbish. A vanishing few are truly excellent. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that everybody else is a hot-shot, because by and large they aren't.

Agree, when I recruit the main thing I'm look for is a good attitude, genuine interest and excited by challenges not doubted by them. Appropriate project skills can be taught, personal traits cannot.

Yes. I used to teach programming and over the years the general level of student has gone down dramatically. The hobbyist and those who self learn were great, those who have done a recent computer degree are not very good. Wild generalisations of course, but those who just go through the ropes to get the qualification cannot seem to take that knowledge and apply it to the real world.

[944fan]

4x4Tyke said:

deckster said:

A little secret: the vast majority of software developers, just like every other job, are just about OK. A significant number of them are rubbish. A vanishing few are truly excellent. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that everybody else is a hot-shot, because by and large they aren't.

Agree, when I recruit the main thing I'm look for is a good attitude, genuine interest and excited by challenges not daunted by them. Appropriate project skills can be taught, personal traits cannot.

Edited by 4x4Tyke on Monday 11th July 15:12

Agree with both of these posts. I have been a developer for over 15 years and a manager for 5. In that time I have worked with lots and lots of developers. There are 3 who stand out to me as being proper st-hot. I rate myself as above average developer. Two of these were way above me, the other was very good but also had the perfect attitude.

The thing that joined all of them though, above their actual skill set was there willingness to get stuck in and their desire to learn.

I have always believed that you can either develop, or you can't. If you can then you can develop anything, in any language and will just pick it up. There are some who get by but they are not real developers.

OP - sounds like you are switched on and have the right attitude. A degree is a good thing to have but wont kick down doors for you. I don't have a degree, it has never held me back. I earn £75K+. That's not typical PH willy waving I am making the point that with the right attitude and skills you can go very far in the development world.

Your skill set sounds like it is not very transferable. So learn something new. There are plenty of jobs in Java, and .Net is huge. Mobile stuff is getting bigger by the day. Get a github and do some projects, show your skills and enthusiasm. Also apply for some of these jobs. As deckster says most developers aint that good, and some have a truly appalling attitude. A decent hiring manager should see your potential and want to train you up. There is a massive shortage of skills in development, and good developers are like unicorns.

As an aside I am interested in a propriety code that is only used in one company. Sounds mad!

[jammy_basturd]

What sort of development have you been doing so far?

[Flooble]

Presuming the current job is not overly taxing (it sounds as if you are not stretched) I would skip the OU course and just pick a project to do in the evening and weekend (or even ... ahem ... at work when no-one is looking ...)

I have similar experience to 944fan (though not quite the same pay!). I have interviewed some recent graduates who couldn't code to save their life. I have also interviewed some non-graduates who were miles ahead of the existing developers on the team. It is probably true that 90% of developers just get by. A lot do their bare minimum 9-5 and never even consider improving their skills - they are the ones still proudly writing procedural VB code or singing the praises of Delphi.

Look around you at the local software houses, find out what languages (and operating systems) they use. Then try to find an open source project in the same language/OS which is looking for volunteers to assist or (better, as a lot of open source projects are going to be a bit morale-destroying) go and do your own. You will make mistakes and may not write the most elegant code, but you will learn. A key thing for a developer is not giving up when things don't go your way, but to keep working a problem and seeking new approaches. Stackoverflow will answer a huge number of questions - just don't blindly copy and paste code from it.

Meetups and Developer events can be hit and miss ... possibly more miss than hit but you won't know unless you go to some. They are good way to find out what companies are around anyway - and if you have any social skills at all you will be able to discover an amazing amount simply by talking to people who will be surprised they are not being ignored.

[T o m]

Thanks all, lots of helpful replies which I'll try and cover.

Crush said:

Can't offer advice but was interested in your experience of the computing & IT course with the OU?

I was thinking of starting it in October but was looking for real experience rather than the "we're awesomely super duper fantastic!" marketing spiel from the OU!

I'm only 1 year in out of 4 but I would certainly recommend it, I have found the course material and activities interesting, much more so than my time at school. Like with everything you do get out what you put in and I'm sure I could have got similar marks skipping lots of the material, but I went in with the attitude I've enrolled to learn and not just to gain the degree at the end.

944fan said:

The thing that joined all of them though, above their actual skill set was there willingness to get stuck in and their desire to learn.

Your skill set sounds like it is not very transferable. So learn something new. There are plenty of jobs in Java, and .Net is huge. Mobile stuff is getting bigger by the day. Get a github and do some projects, show your skills and enthusiasm. Also apply for some of these jobs.

This is the sort of thing I'm sure most people have on their CV's, and part of reason for my long rambling post was to try and get across the point I feel this genuinely does apply to me. I have made a github account, so I just need something to show off now! Thanks for the useful advice, hopefully my CV ends up with someone with a similar attitude.

jammy_basturd said:

What sort of development have you been doing so far?

I'll PM you.

Flooble said:

Then try to find an open source project in the same language/OS which is looking for volunteers to assist or (better, as a lot of open source projects are going to be a bit morale-destroying) go and do your own.

Thank you, this is a route I'd like to take and hopefully start in a few weeks time.

[944fan]

T o m said:

Flooble said:

Then try to find an open source project in the same language/OS which is looking for volunteers to assist or (better, as a lot of open source projects are going to be a bit morale-destroying) go and do your own.

Thank you, this is a route I'd like to take and hopefully start in a few weeks time.

Where are you based? There was a place in Milton Keynes looking for volunteers to develop an iOS app. Now seeing their requirements an app was a bit overboard and probably a responsive website would suffice. I think they will struggle to find many people willing to develop and app for free and they are missing 50% of the market with targeting iOS only be ho hum.

Think they were called MK:Smart, maybe worth a look.

[Flooble]

You could try Just Eat for some developer interaction - they are quite good at "giving back" and have offices in Bristol

[T o m]

944fan said:

Where are you based? There was a place in Milton Keynes looking for volunteers to develop an iOS app. Now seeing their requirements an app was a bit overboard and probably a responsive website would suffice. I think they will struggle to find many people willing to develop and app for free and they are missing 50% of the market with targeting iOS only be ho hum.

Think they were called MK:Smart, maybe worth a look.

As Flooble says I'm currently working in Bristol. Is there a particular website where people offer/request free development work?

[jammy_basturd]

Have a look for some open source projects that you want to contribute to - even better if they're on GitHub. Then you can just fork the project, fix some bugs/develop some features, upload your changes to your GitHub account then create a pull request for those changes to be pulled into the main repo.

I'll reply to your PM this evening. Good on you though for doing all this off your own back.

[Flooble]

This is worthy: http://www.htbox.org/


But your priority is to be employable, which means finding something local. So my inclination would be to start here: https://github.com/justeat

[944fan]

T o m said:

944fan said:

Where are you based? There was a place in Milton Keynes looking for volunteers to develop an iOS app. Now seeing their requirements an app was a bit overboard and probably a responsive website would suffice. I think they will struggle to find many people willing to develop and app for free and they are missing 50% of the market with targeting iOS only be ho hum.

Think they were called MK:Smart, maybe worth a look.

As Flooble says I'm currently working in Bristol. Is there a particular website where people offer/request free development work?

I don't of any directly. I just saw that one on LinkedIn. I suspect if they are looking for people for free they will be advertising on places that don't charge for adverts. All though the main job boards only want a hundred quid or so for an ad.

[qska]

Soooo...

I started as a PHP dev, worked as one for 5-6 years, and then had to take a pay CUT to get a Junior .Net Dev role - I blagged my way into a small local company in Kent.
They gave me books on WebForms, I read them for a few weeks - and started working. To start with I didn't really know where to click in the Microsoft tooling, but quickly learned that (thanks Google

But staying there for a year was enough to then go into .Net contracting....

So the moral of the story is - it's not typing that's hard in Development.

It's the dev lifecycle, support, talking to people, getting requirements together - the knowledge of dev/test/uat/prod, source control and other gubbins that's more important.

Tech wise - it's one of the ONLY fields I know of that you can practice at home.

Get a domain name, download Visual Studio, knock a project together, and publish it. Link to it in your CV, get recruiters/companies access to the source code on request - and take it from there.

I'm now coaching a 49 year old guy, who used to work as a mechanic, then was a building maintenance operator.

He's learning .Net last October, doing a checking pretty much every day (I monitor his BitBucket account)

Now he's getting calls about .Net roles, getting some technical tests sent to him...

As long as you know what you want to do (.Net/Java/mobile?!) and keep going, and NOT GIVE UP, you'll get there in time.

You might need to accept a temporary pay cut for a year or two, but that's about it.

Good luck.

[T o m]

Thanks again for all the responses, my to-do list is getting long!

Flooble said:

This is worthy: http://www.htbox.org/


But your priority is to be employable, which means finding something local. So my inclination would be to start here: https://github.com/justeat

Just having a look at their entry level recruitment test which looks interesting, I'll have a go once I've finished my current exercises.

[qska]

T o m said:

Just having a look at their entry level recruitment test which looks interesting, I'll have a go once I've finished my current exercises.

I know Richard Campbell's podcast, and while the Humanitarian Toolbox is worthy, not sure it's a best way to get "in". More of a creative outlet for experienced devs, I'd think.

I'd suggest going with smaller, standalone things, so you get a feel of the platform first.