Coding - minimum qualifications/starting salary?
Discussion
Hi All,
I'm considering a change of career and have started to learn the basics of coding (using code academy/Udemy).
If I wanted to pursue a career in coding (most likely back end) what are the sort of minimum qualifications I would need to find a job? And any idea of rough starting salary?
There must be people on here who have done similar
Ta
I'm considering a change of career and have started to learn the basics of coding (using code academy/Udemy).
If I wanted to pursue a career in coding (most likely back end) what are the sort of minimum qualifications I would need to find a job? And any idea of rough starting salary?
There must be people on here who have done similar
Ta
I am a hiring manager for a software company.
In terms of formal qualifications, not really. Some companies will insist on a degree. It becomes less and and less important as you move on in your career.
Getting your first job will mean you need to:
a) Get through the CV sift. You are up against a lot of other CV's. (Literally 100's) so you need to stand out.
If you're going through a recruiter, take their advice on how to tailor your CV. (Assuing they actually have a releationship with the client!) they will know what the client is looking for and what CV's are getting interviews.
A cover letter here may help, (espcially if you are applying direct) else i'll jsut see a CV with no relevent background and wonder why you applied for the role.
If you want to stand out, set up a good portfolio website and some decent projects on GitHub. They don't have to be 'work related'. I've spent plenty of time with candidates doing code walkthroughs of games they've written.
b) Pass a technical interview:
The format of these will vary wildly from company to company.
-Take home projects. (I don't like this, but some comapanies think they are entitled to 8+ hours of your time!!!)
-Code walkthroughs of projects you've worked on.
-Written/verbal technical question test.
-Solve a problem/whiteboard coding.
-Random trivia questions administered by the resident 'rockstar' which none of the candidates can answer.
Salary for an entry level role would be in the £25-35k range.
In terms of formal qualifications, not really. Some companies will insist on a degree. It becomes less and and less important as you move on in your career.
Getting your first job will mean you need to:
a) Get through the CV sift. You are up against a lot of other CV's. (Literally 100's) so you need to stand out.
If you're going through a recruiter, take their advice on how to tailor your CV. (Assuing they actually have a releationship with the client!) they will know what the client is looking for and what CV's are getting interviews.
A cover letter here may help, (espcially if you are applying direct) else i'll jsut see a CV with no relevent background and wonder why you applied for the role.
If you want to stand out, set up a good portfolio website and some decent projects on GitHub. They don't have to be 'work related'. I've spent plenty of time with candidates doing code walkthroughs of games they've written.
b) Pass a technical interview:
The format of these will vary wildly from company to company.
-Take home projects. (I don't like this, but some comapanies think they are entitled to 8+ hours of your time!!!)
-Code walkthroughs of projects you've worked on.
-Written/verbal technical question test.
-Solve a problem/whiteboard coding.
-Random trivia questions administered by the resident 'rockstar' which none of the candidates can answer.
Salary for an entry level role would be in the £25-35k range.
Many thanks for the reply! Very useful and very much appreciated!
Can I be a pain and ask where you would start?
Ideally I want to learn full stack development but am struggling to find an accredited course. There would appear to be numerous courses that offer certification upon completion but it's proving difficult to find any that are accredited. Or ultimately does that not matter?
Can I be a pain and ask where you would start?
Ideally I want to learn full stack development but am struggling to find an accredited course. There would appear to be numerous courses that offer certification upon completion but it's proving difficult to find any that are accredited. Or ultimately does that not matter?
Good advice above. One challenge I think you have is that if you don't have any coding background, then it is a big ask to find the right course, learn how to do it, and get a decent job at the end of it.
I would also say that asking where to start to be a full-stack developer is a rather difficult question to answer and the facetious response would be to "go back to age 10 and start coding then"........But given that isn't possible, one approach would be to get stuck in and start putting together a portfolio of things you have built as this will become the basis for your CV. In building things, you may well discover that one part of software is more appealing to you than another.
To start, I would build something (from scratch) that I can make use of. And I'd think of learning C and Python to begin with.
One idea:
Get yourself a Raspberry Pi or an arduino and decide you want it to measure something - your room temperature perhaps. Do that and get it to post some data somewhere via MQTT. Build a web app that can read the energy prices and the weather and plot some useful information or send you an SMS whenever something happens. For the web app side of things consider https://anvil.works/ as a simple way to get writing some python code.
Something like that should take you a week I reckon (as in 60 hrs) - come back when you have something and post a link to git with your code in it.
p.s. If you can't go away and do something like that and get super interested in the problem and how to solve it, then you won't make it as a software engineer
I would also say that asking where to start to be a full-stack developer is a rather difficult question to answer and the facetious response would be to "go back to age 10 and start coding then"........But given that isn't possible, one approach would be to get stuck in and start putting together a portfolio of things you have built as this will become the basis for your CV. In building things, you may well discover that one part of software is more appealing to you than another.
To start, I would build something (from scratch) that I can make use of. And I'd think of learning C and Python to begin with.
One idea:
Get yourself a Raspberry Pi or an arduino and decide you want it to measure something - your room temperature perhaps. Do that and get it to post some data somewhere via MQTT. Build a web app that can read the energy prices and the weather and plot some useful information or send you an SMS whenever something happens. For the web app side of things consider https://anvil.works/ as a simple way to get writing some python code.
Something like that should take you a week I reckon (as in 60 hrs) - come back when you have something and post a link to git with your code in it.
p.s. If you can't go away and do something like that and get super interested in the problem and how to solve it, then you won't make it as a software engineer
Edited by fat80b on Thursday 17th March 16:17
Again thank you for the reply, very useful and informative.
As far as courses go I think codeinstitue.net looks to be the best, they do a full stack course resulting in a level 5 qualification and a portfolio of work. It's University Credit Rated whereas the vast majority of courses are non accredited and you just receive a certificate of completion.
Obviously the above would just be a start and I would look to further myself/specialise once I've completed the course. However I would look to do so having already managed to get a job within the industry from the codeinstitute course.
Hopefully I am realistic regarding starting salary; I'm currently on £27k and would hope to get close to this with a starting salary?
I'm currently juggling redundancy, relocating, renting out my property, living between two locations and learning the basics of Html and CSS. I enjoy problem solving and has always liked the idea of a Raspberry Pi and creating my own programs and uses for one but currently don't have the time. I appreciate the offer and it's something I would hope to do once I have the time.
Cheers
As far as courses go I think codeinstitue.net looks to be the best, they do a full stack course resulting in a level 5 qualification and a portfolio of work. It's University Credit Rated whereas the vast majority of courses are non accredited and you just receive a certificate of completion.
Obviously the above would just be a start and I would look to further myself/specialise once I've completed the course. However I would look to do so having already managed to get a job within the industry from the codeinstitute course.
Hopefully I am realistic regarding starting salary; I'm currently on £27k and would hope to get close to this with a starting salary?
I'm currently juggling redundancy, relocating, renting out my property, living between two locations and learning the basics of Html and CSS. I enjoy problem solving and has always liked the idea of a Raspberry Pi and creating my own programs and uses for one but currently don't have the time. I appreciate the offer and it's something I would hope to do once I have the time.
Cheers
Just like to say you have been given some excellent advice above.
Getting motivated to pass a course is not the same as getting interested in coding and developing something.
Get stuck in and if after a month or two you have not developed a real fascination then it is probably not the career for you.
Getting motivated to pass a course is not the same as getting interested in coding and developing something.
Get stuck in and if after a month or two you have not developed a real fascination then it is probably not the career for you.
gamefreaks is right.
Once you're a bit more confident in your language of choice, try making some changes on an open-source project on GitHub. Look at bugs and propose pull requests with fixes. Start with small things (typos, documentation errors) to get comfortable with the process, and build up to larger changes. Participate in discussions, reviews, write tests, build up a busy GitHub profile and put it on your CV. It's not really that different to how you'll work for a commercial organisation, and shows good initiative that you've tried things out to see if the work is for you.
Once you're a bit more confident in your language of choice, try making some changes on an open-source project on GitHub. Look at bugs and propose pull requests with fixes. Start with small things (typos, documentation errors) to get comfortable with the process, and build up to larger changes. Participate in discussions, reviews, write tests, build up a busy GitHub profile and put it on your CV. It's not really that different to how you'll work for a commercial organisation, and shows good initiative that you've tried things out to see if the work is for you.
fat80b said:
One idea:
Get yourself a Raspberry Pi or an arduino and decide you want it to measure something - your room temperature perhaps. Do that and get it to post some data somewhere via MQTT. Build a web app that can read the energy prices and the weather and plot some useful information or send you an SMS whenever something happens. For the web app side of things consider https://anvil.works/ as a simple way to get writing some python code.
Something like that should take you a week I reckon (as in 60 hrs) - come back when you have something and post a link to git with your code in it.
p.s. If you can't go away and do something like that and get super interested in the problem and how to solve it, then you won't make it as a software engineer
Very much agree with this - what I do is fairly specialised in a language that's barely used outside our industry (medical statistics using SAS) and it's always the people who are interested in solving problems, finding new ways to do stuff, drilling down into a new options available, etc. that rise to the top of the programming pecking order.Get yourself a Raspberry Pi or an arduino and decide you want it to measure something - your room temperature perhaps. Do that and get it to post some data somewhere via MQTT. Build a web app that can read the energy prices and the weather and plot some useful information or send you an SMS whenever something happens. For the web app side of things consider https://anvil.works/ as a simple way to get writing some python code.
Something like that should take you a week I reckon (as in 60 hrs) - come back when you have something and post a link to git with your code in it.
p.s. If you can't go away and do something like that and get super interested in the problem and how to solve it, then you won't make it as a software engineer
If we recruit CompSci grads we always ask them to talk through some code, the language it's written in isn't important to us but being able to say more than "I copied it off the internet and don't know how it works" is always a plus!
I’ve hired lots of techies and there is one main of advice I’d give: be realistic and honest about your range and depth of skills. If you claim expertise in a wide range of languages, expect to be asked detailed questions about them. It will be obvious very quickly if the CV has been over egged.
It’s OK to not know everything, and it’s OK (well, great actually) to want to learn more, but great in one technology usually trumps mediocre at several.
It’s OK to not know everything, and it’s OK (well, great actually) to want to learn more, but great in one technology usually trumps mediocre at several.
Cabrony said:
I'm currently juggling redundancy, relocating, renting out my property, living between two locations and learning the basics of Html and CSS. I enjoy problem solving and has always liked the idea of a Raspberry Pi and creating my own programs and uses for one but currently don't have the time. I appreciate the offer and it's something I would hope to do once I have the time.
I'm in a different industry (analytics) but your response is a very similar response from those who say they really want to be an analyst and have a passion for the work ... but the reality is often that they do not. I appreciate you've a lot going on, I only raise this so you can ensure you're honest with yourself about a change in career path. In some ways, there has never been a better time to learn to build software.
All of the tools are free. There is a wealth of information on the internet. Open source is much more prevalent. Think of pretty much anything and there will be an open-source implementation that you can download and study.
On the other hand, software is much more complicated now. If you want to do full-stack then you’ll need:
Front end development: HTML, CSS, JS/TS, React/Vue/Blazor, REST API, GraphQL etc…
Backend Development: .Net/PHP/Node/Python/Ruby, OOP, Serverless/Docker, Security/Authentication frameworks, SQL Databases like Postgres and NoSQL stores like mongo/DynamoDB/Redis…
Cloud Infrastructure: AWS/Azure, build and deploy pipelines, horizonal scaling, high availability, CDN/Caching layers like Cloudflare/CloudFront. Gluing stuff together asynchronously with queues and notifications…
On top of that we have the software development management tools. Source Control/Git, unit/integration testing, package/dependency management, Ticket management/JIRA, monitoring tools like NewRelic, some understanding of data protection laws, GDPR etc, understanding of open-source licences and what you can use where.
As a result, I’m not sure there is a course you can do that will take you from 0 to developer ready to land a job. There’s just so much to learn and from my personal experience, the best way to learn this stuff is by building things. You have to actually go through the process.
I guess learning to code by doing a course is a bit like learning to weld by watching YouTube videos.
I’m not saying courses are a waste of time though, they can be a useful orientation to a language/tool/tech but they do need to be combined with practical exercise.
In terms of courses that will add weight to your CV, I’d go with a Microsoft or Amazon certification.
I’ve been doing software development for about 20 years now, it has provided me with uninterrupted, stable employment that pays enough for a comfortable life.
I genuinely still enjoy what I do for a living. I’ve met some great people through my work and made some really good friends.
It’s not a dead-end job. If you want a management path, you can go from lead/senior dev to Team/Department management which can take you to a CTO role or go the Architect route if you don’t want to manage people.
All of the tools are free. There is a wealth of information on the internet. Open source is much more prevalent. Think of pretty much anything and there will be an open-source implementation that you can download and study.
On the other hand, software is much more complicated now. If you want to do full-stack then you’ll need:
Front end development: HTML, CSS, JS/TS, React/Vue/Blazor, REST API, GraphQL etc…
Backend Development: .Net/PHP/Node/Python/Ruby, OOP, Serverless/Docker, Security/Authentication frameworks, SQL Databases like Postgres and NoSQL stores like mongo/DynamoDB/Redis…
Cloud Infrastructure: AWS/Azure, build and deploy pipelines, horizonal scaling, high availability, CDN/Caching layers like Cloudflare/CloudFront. Gluing stuff together asynchronously with queues and notifications…
On top of that we have the software development management tools. Source Control/Git, unit/integration testing, package/dependency management, Ticket management/JIRA, monitoring tools like NewRelic, some understanding of data protection laws, GDPR etc, understanding of open-source licences and what you can use where.
As a result, I’m not sure there is a course you can do that will take you from 0 to developer ready to land a job. There’s just so much to learn and from my personal experience, the best way to learn this stuff is by building things. You have to actually go through the process.
I guess learning to code by doing a course is a bit like learning to weld by watching YouTube videos.
I’m not saying courses are a waste of time though, they can be a useful orientation to a language/tool/tech but they do need to be combined with practical exercise.
In terms of courses that will add weight to your CV, I’d go with a Microsoft or Amazon certification.
CheesecakeRunner said:
As someone whose been in IT for 25 years and started as a coder...
Just don't bother, it's a s
t job. There's loads of other jobs in IT that don't involved permanently having to prove you know the latest and greatest thing, and getting shat on from a great height during ever project you work on.
It's fine if you have a complete passion for it, and have always done it, but otherwise it's just st.
I’m not going to disagree with you because I’m not you, but I’ll offer a counter-opinion…Just don't bother, it's a s
t job. There's loads of other jobs in IT that don't involved permanently having to prove you know the latest and greatest thing, and getting shat on from a great height during ever project you work on.It's fine if you have a complete passion for it, and have always done it, but otherwise it's just s
t.I’ve been doing software development for about 20 years now, it has provided me with uninterrupted, stable employment that pays enough for a comfortable life.
I genuinely still enjoy what I do for a living. I’ve met some great people through my work and made some really good friends.
It’s not a dead-end job. If you want a management path, you can go from lead/senior dev to Team/Department management which can take you to a CTO role or go the Architect route if you don’t want to manage people.
I'm a professional software engineer, I've been doing it about 16 years. I've worked in lots of environments but now I work for a big public sector organisation. I don't do hiring per se but I do a lot of people development & leadership.
My advice won't apply universally, it's quite tied to my personal experiences and who my current employer hires and how we approach things.
I feel like the industry used to be quite blinkered and restricted its hiring to young graduates fresh off a CS degree. But nowadays, not only is there is a skills shortage but views have shifted. Besides graduates and established engineers, we take on lots of apprentices (who aren't all young) and career-switchers. I've come to really value these people because they tend to have all the behavioural stuff figured out already, like how to operate effectively in a business, and just need to learn some very teachable technical and process skills.
So if you wanted to get employed, the door is certainly open these days, at least in certain places.
But not everyone enjoys software engineering. First we need to figure out if you've got an aptitude and affinity for the work, and it sounds like you're at a very early point where you're just exploring coding. That's fine but perhaps let this naturally grow a little before you seriously pursue it as a career. Ultimately you should be able to explain why you want to be a software engineer with a story that you genuinely believe.
Coding courses are good although they have their limits and you should be prepared to disregard much of your initial learnings as you grow and come to be surrounded by more experienced people (this is not confined to courses). Accelerated 'bootcamps' seem like a con, I am very skeptical of those. But the best thing is to start a personal project of genuine interest to you. It doesn't have to be novel in the world, you can reinvent the wheel, as long as it motivates you to learn and extend.
You've been given some on here already but I would basically ignore all advice on languages and technologies, other than when someone suggests some choice is not a suitable starter. Everyone always suggests what they personally know or did, often long ago, and it's hard to predict what might be specifically useful in your future. Language skills are quite transferable anyway so don't overthink it. Exactly relevant experience is not the goal right now - it's to understand if this is right for you.
Later on, in terms of certificates or completed work, I don't know, I don't think anyone has either a clear idea of certifications' value (outside of degrees) or the time to look through your GitHub in any detail. So it's not worth all that much as a specific token, necessarily. But - what you're looking for here is basically credibility, and being able to present some foundational knowledge so that it's clearly not day one for you. And all these things add to that. Again be self-aware that these early stage things don't make you competent or qualified, so don't fall into the trap of the over-confident self-taught programmer with them. You should be clear that you still have a lot to learn, to yourself and to others. It's just a start.
Summary: if you want a job, assuming the more enlightened employers, you should be able to show strong behavioural competencies, a genuine interest in the work, and some basis that shows that this isn't purely hypothetical.
IME, salary might be lower than your expectations for a while but not for very long if you progress. View it as significantly cheaper than a degree.
My advice won't apply universally, it's quite tied to my personal experiences and who my current employer hires and how we approach things.
I feel like the industry used to be quite blinkered and restricted its hiring to young graduates fresh off a CS degree. But nowadays, not only is there is a skills shortage but views have shifted. Besides graduates and established engineers, we take on lots of apprentices (who aren't all young) and career-switchers. I've come to really value these people because they tend to have all the behavioural stuff figured out already, like how to operate effectively in a business, and just need to learn some very teachable technical and process skills.
So if you wanted to get employed, the door is certainly open these days, at least in certain places.
But not everyone enjoys software engineering. First we need to figure out if you've got an aptitude and affinity for the work, and it sounds like you're at a very early point where you're just exploring coding. That's fine but perhaps let this naturally grow a little before you seriously pursue it as a career. Ultimately you should be able to explain why you want to be a software engineer with a story that you genuinely believe.
Coding courses are good although they have their limits and you should be prepared to disregard much of your initial learnings as you grow and come to be surrounded by more experienced people (this is not confined to courses). Accelerated 'bootcamps' seem like a con, I am very skeptical of those. But the best thing is to start a personal project of genuine interest to you. It doesn't have to be novel in the world, you can reinvent the wheel, as long as it motivates you to learn and extend.
You've been given some on here already but I would basically ignore all advice on languages and technologies, other than when someone suggests some choice is not a suitable starter. Everyone always suggests what they personally know or did, often long ago, and it's hard to predict what might be specifically useful in your future. Language skills are quite transferable anyway so don't overthink it. Exactly relevant experience is not the goal right now - it's to understand if this is right for you.
Later on, in terms of certificates or completed work, I don't know, I don't think anyone has either a clear idea of certifications' value (outside of degrees) or the time to look through your GitHub in any detail. So it's not worth all that much as a specific token, necessarily. But - what you're looking for here is basically credibility, and being able to present some foundational knowledge so that it's clearly not day one for you. And all these things add to that. Again be self-aware that these early stage things don't make you competent or qualified, so don't fall into the trap of the over-confident self-taught programmer with them. You should be clear that you still have a lot to learn, to yourself and to others. It's just a start.
Summary: if you want a job, assuming the more enlightened employers, you should be able to show strong behavioural competencies, a genuine interest in the work, and some basis that shows that this isn't purely hypothetical.
IME, salary might be lower than your expectations for a while but not for very long if you progress. View it as significantly cheaper than a degree.
What the two guys above have said is excellent advice. I've been running a small dev team in the motor industry for about ten years now, primarily MS stack - .NET (moved over to Core), SQL Server with a few Jetbrains solutions for CI/CD and issue tracking (TeamCity and YouTrack), so we're not absolutely bleeding-edge but probably more classic enterprise-level development. I can't really add much more to what you've been told already, but from a hiring perspective, certificates don't count for a great deal. I would always look for (in descending order) relevant industry experience first, then more general experience, then below that an active interest/hobby etc on the likes of GitHub or contributions to StackOverflow. Certificates you've got off your own back contribute to that 'active interest' part but I'd much rather you be able to talk with some enthusiasm about what you've been up to and what problems you fixed/cool stuff you built in your own time.
It's much easier to teach someone who has a keen interest.
Also don't blag. We will find you out. I had a guy once who got every single tech test question wrong and some of these were pretty simple OO concept questions which should have been bread-and-butter to someone of their claimed experience.
It's much easier to teach someone who has a keen interest.
Also don't blag. We will find you out. I had a guy once who got every single tech test question wrong and some of these were pretty simple OO concept questions which should have been bread-and-butter to someone of their claimed experience.
Tankrizzo said:
Also don't blag. We will find you out. I had a guy once who got every single tech test question wrong and some of these were pretty simple OO concept questions which should have been bread-and-butter to someone of their claimed experience.
Lots of people blag.There was a thread on Twitter where a company were horrified to discover that 8 out of 10 senior developers who applied for a role were not able to knock up a working fizz buzz solution in under an hour.
I would like to think they didn't complete it because they simply walked out in disgust when presented with it.
272BHP said:
Lots of people blag.
There was a thread on Twitter where a company were horrified to discover that 8 out of 10 senior developers who applied for a role were not able to knock up a working fizz buzz solution in under an hour.
I would like to think they didn't complete it because they simply walked out in disgust when presented with it.
Yeah, I don't actually go in for timed solution exams like that for my team and industry, as for our particular situation it's unrealistic and not representative of how you'll be asked to work in the team. I much prefer an open discussion around how as a developer you would approach a problem, who you might talk to in the business about it and what steps you'd go through to make it happen (we are in-house dev where each developer engages directly with the business about requirements with the assistance of a BA). We do couple that with technical concept questions to see if you understand the basics and more advanced stuff.There was a thread on Twitter where a company were horrified to discover that 8 out of 10 senior developers who applied for a role were not able to knock up a working fizz buzz solution in under an hour.
I would like to think they didn't complete it because they simply walked out in disgust when presented with it.
I know there are industries where the extreme time pressure approach probably makes sense though.
Edited by Tankrizzo on Saturday 19th March 12:40
CheesecakeRunner said:
As someone whose been in IT for 25 years and started as a coder...
Just don't bother, it's a st job. There's loads of other jobs in IT that don't involved permanently having to prove you know the latest and greatest thing, and getting shat on from a great height during ever project you work on.
It's fine if you have a complete passion for it, and have always done it, but otherwise it's just st.
Same here, also been in IT for 25 years and was a VB6 coder for 15 years. I 100% agree that unless you have a complete passion for it, it is sJust don't bother, it's a s
t job. There's loads of other jobs in IT that don't involved permanently having to prove you know the latest and greatest thing, and getting shat on from a great height during ever project you work on.It's fine if you have a complete passion for it, and have always done it, but otherwise it's just s
t.t. I am smart enough to work through other people's code so I essentially managed to blag it for 15 years by bug fixing/modifying existing code and working out how to 'borrow' good code and pass it off as my own. If you wanted me to write something new from scratch then I would definitely struggle. Luckily for me I ended up being asked to work on something else in IT and somehow ended up being Implementation Consultant. I still have to write code and SQL, but nowhere near to the level I used to and my previous programming experience gives me a massive advantage in this.
Then you get to work with coders who are obsessed about using the latest technologies and want to use everything that is bleeding edge and write things in a utterly complicated way that is impossible to follow and you end up having to work on their code and try and work out what on earth they were thinking.
Then you get to work on code written by people who have no idea what they are doing and have all their code in one massive routine with "ON ERROR RESUME NEXT" and don't have "OPTION EXPLICIT" switched on which means every variable is declared as a variant and it is a nightmare.
Or the people who don't understand that blank and NULL are not the same or think "SELECT * FROM TABLE" is valid SQL until it all falls over when someone adds a new column to the table.
gamefreaks said:
b) Pass a technical interview:
The format of these will vary wildly from company to company.
-Take home projects. (I don't like this, but some comapanies think they are entitled to 8+ hours of your time!!!)
-Code walkthroughs of projects you've worked on.
-Written/verbal technical question test.
-Solve a problem/whiteboard coding.
-Random trivia questions administered by the resident 'rockstar' which none of the candidates can answer.
Back in the early days I went for several jobs where I had a 30 minute interview with the head of IT, possibly a 30 minute aptitude test and then asked "can you start Monday?". The last few applications, it seems the process isThe format of these will vary wildly from company to company.
-Take home projects. (I don't like this, but some comapanies think they are entitled to 8+ hours of your time!!!)
-Code walkthroughs of projects you've worked on.
-Written/verbal technical question test.
-Solve a problem/whiteboard coding.
-Random trivia questions administered by the resident 'rockstar' which none of the candidates can answer.
1)Phone interview with someone in the IT department
2)Take home project/timed coding exercise. I had one for ASOS where I had to download some code and make changes to it. However I didn't have Visual Studio on my laptop so I ended up downloading that and spending hours trying to open the code which just errored. I gave up at this point as I thought there must be something wrong and I didn't want to the job that badly. I got a call from the agent a few days later and when I explained the issues I was having they replied "that is the test".
3)If you pass that you will then get an interview from HR, not sure why but anyway
4)Probably a final interview from someone senior before you are offered the job
I have also had interviews where I have been interviewed by the "rockstar" asking utterly niche technical questions that nobody starting out would ever be able to answer. I think a lot of this is to prove to themselves how clever they are and to make the candidates think they are not worthy to work with them.
What you've just described is one family of jobs/environments where code gets written, and it certainly exists far & wide beyond your own experiences. But it's not exactly representative of modern software engineering either.
I haven't heard or spoken the words "IT" in a work context for a long time (I almost never write SQL either). Personally I associate "IT" with a different set of functions required to support engineering - e.g. managing our software, hardware and networks, but it's easy to come off as dismissive here which I don't mean to be.
Basically there are a broad set of possibilities that someone who can write code can apply themselves to, from business analysis to developing products and ultimately managing people. I'm not trying to evangelise the industry - it has its problems and it's not for everyone - but I'm not sure your negative experiences really tell the OP all that much about what to expect.
I haven't heard or spoken the words "IT" in a work context for a long time (I almost never write SQL either). Personally I associate "IT" with a different set of functions required to support engineering - e.g. managing our software, hardware and networks, but it's easy to come off as dismissive here which I don't mean to be.
Basically there are a broad set of possibilities that someone who can write code can apply themselves to, from business analysis to developing products and ultimately managing people. I'm not trying to evangelise the industry - it has its problems and it's not for everyone - but I'm not sure your negative experiences really tell the OP all that much about what to expect.
Edited by trashbat on Saturday 19th March 15:31
Been a dev for the last 15 years.
There is a shortage of good staff these days and it can pay pretty well, but you'll have to commit to joining a career where you'll be constantly learning. It can be fun, equally it can be incredibly frustrating and you'll want to launch your computer out of the window. You may have to do on call - good fun trying to figure out why something isn't working at 3am (but you should get paid more for it).
On the whole I've enjoyed it. Worked for a few different companies over the years, been to a few countries / states I'd not had gone to otherwise. I'd definitely not recommend it though unless you really think you've got a good interest in it - you will end up having to learn things every day and it can be stressful at times.
On a different note, be really careful with coding academies. There's some slightly iffy ones out there. I'd maybe look at self study first and then look for a junior dev role if you enjoy it. What's your current background? Are there any synergies (e.g. thinking logically) to being a dev?
There is a shortage of good staff these days and it can pay pretty well, but you'll have to commit to joining a career where you'll be constantly learning. It can be fun, equally it can be incredibly frustrating and you'll want to launch your computer out of the window. You may have to do on call - good fun trying to figure out why something isn't working at 3am (but you should get paid more for it).
On the whole I've enjoyed it. Worked for a few different companies over the years, been to a few countries / states I'd not had gone to otherwise. I'd definitely not recommend it though unless you really think you've got a good interest in it - you will end up having to learn things every day and it can be stressful at times.
On a different note, be really careful with coding academies. There's some slightly iffy ones out there. I'd maybe look at self study first and then look for a junior dev role if you enjoy it. What's your current background? Are there any synergies (e.g. thinking logically) to being a dev?
Edited by Ynox on Friday 25th March 22:31
trashbat said:
What you've just described is one family of jobs/environments where code gets written, and it certainly exists far & wide beyond your own experiences. But it's not exactly representative of modern software engineering either.
I haven't heard or spoken the words "IT" in a work context for a long time (I almost never write SQL either). Personally I associate "IT" with a different set of functions required to support engineering - e.g. managing our software, hardware and networks, but it's easy to come off as dismissive here which I don't mean to be.
Basically there are a broad set of possibilities that someone who can write code can apply themselves to, from business analysis to developing products and ultimately managing people. I'm not trying to evangelise the industry - it has its problems and it's not for everyone - but I'm not sure your negative experiences really tell the OP all that much about what to expect.
'IT' are the people who dole out PCs and stuff to the clerical staff.I haven't heard or spoken the words "IT" in a work context for a long time (I almost never write SQL either). Personally I associate "IT" with a different set of functions required to support engineering - e.g. managing our software, hardware and networks, but it's easy to come off as dismissive here which I don't mean to be.
Basically there are a broad set of possibilities that someone who can write code can apply themselves to, from business analysis to developing products and ultimately managing people. I'm not trying to evangelise the industry - it has its problems and it's not for everyone - but I'm not sure your negative experiences really tell the OP all that much about what to expect.
Edited by trashbat on Saturday 19th March 15:31
I've worked with a lot of people who write software for a living, most of them have built a lot of experience in a certain industry, whether it's automotive or finance or space research, they know the application, not just the software. Others cross over into electronic hardware design. A couple of people I knew at college went on to do maths PhDs and drifted into analytical software work.
There's a whole world of interesting work out there, but it's not quick or easy to break into.
You'd be competing with a lot of established people and a lot of young cheap people and increasingly a lot of people in cheap countries, although one significant one beginning with 'U' is probably off the list now. A lot of these peeps are bloody clever and hard working too.
Also, a lot fo the industry is freelance, which isn't what it used to be.
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