Job as a programmer when I'm not trained?

spaniel

Hi all,
I was just wondering what it takes to get a job as a programmer and was hoping to get some help deciding if it would be a good career path to take!
I graduated last year with a degree in financial maths and very little programming experience (a tiny bit of C, maple and matlab-don't even know if matlab counts?!).
I currently work at a large bank as business analyst and my job requires me to use SQL and Brio constantly but only in a very basic form (as in case statements and different types of joins are about as complicated as it gets). I also just completed a project using SAS which I now think I have an internediate grasp of.
I think I'm pretty good at it (my boss says I have a natural aptitude :rolleyes: ) so I was thinking of doing a the Graduate Diploma in IT in DCU (2 year part-time).
Basically I'd just like to know if this would make me good enough to get a job in programming and if the employment prospects are any good. I currently earn €29k so would like to earn more than that when I start if possible but is that wishful thinking?
Also, how do you advance your career? Become a better and more highly paid programmer? Or become a manager and manage other people programming?
Sorry I know I must sound completely ignorant but I have no experience of this industry at all and I'd just like to know what I'm getting into before I spend all the time and effort!
Thanks for reading this far anyway and any help any-one can give would be greatly appreciated!

DublinDilbert

spaniel wrote: »

Hi all,
I was just wondering what it takes to get a job as a programmer and was hoping to get some help deciding if it would be a good career path to take!
I graduated last year with a degree in financial maths and very little programming experience (a tiny bit of C, maple and matlab-don't even know if matlab counts?!).
I currently work at a large bank as business analyst and my job requires me to use SQL and Brio constantly but only in a very basic form (as in case statements and different types of joins are about as complicated as it gets). I also just completed a project using SAS which I now think I have an internediate grasp of.
I think I'm pretty good at it (my boss says I have a natural aptitude :rolleyes: ) so I was thinking of doing a the Graduate Diploma in IT in DCU (2 year part-time).
Basically I'd just like to know if this would make me good enough to get a job in programming and if the employment prospects are any good. I currently earn €29k so would like to earn more than that when I start if possible but is that wishful thinking?
Also, how do you advance your career? Become a better and more highly paid programmer? Or become a manager and manage other people programming?
Sorry I know I must sound completely ignorant but I have no experience of this industry at all and I'd just like to know what I'm getting into before I spend all the time and effort!
Thanks for reading this far anyway and any help any-one can give would be greatly appreciated!

Sounds like it would complement your current experience...

Just cause you do the course doesn't mean you'll end up working as a coder, you might end up leading a team in a few years time, and your understanding of software development will be quite valuable...

BostonB

You don't need any qualifications to work as a programmer it just makes it easier to get interviews etc. Once you've a couple of projects under your belt most places just look at your experience.

That said having qualifications is a very good idea for many reasons.

smcelhinney

Im very much a believer in self-teaching when it comes to programming. You will probably have gained a grasp of different methodologies by now, and certainly, in this day and age, understanding object-oriented programming is invaluable.

If you spend a bit of time understanding the basics of programming, and then dipping your toe in several different pools to see which one you like, you'll gain a lot of valuable experience in a short space of time.

The formal learning isnt to everyones liking, but if this is what helps you get focussed, then by all means, do this. But not at the expense of hands-on experience, and keeping abreast of emerging programming technologies. Its very important to stay ahead of the game.

Best of luck in your programming career, it can be very disheartening at times and frustrating, but there's absolutely nothing as rewarding as compiling and running a large piece of scalable, error-free code.. ;-)

nialo

And you dont want to be a programmer. you want to be a developer. programmer is a very limited skill. developer looks at all aspects of creating, designing a program. programmer just writes it.

Evil Phil

I would say do the diploma and use your current job to get as much experience as you can. 2 years experience, degree in Maths and Grad. Dip in Software Development is a good job candidate in my book. I've worked with lots of devs who studied maths.

TinCool

I'd recommend the DCU Post Grad. I did the full time 1 year course there after I finished my Business Degree. Well, that was 10 years ago now (man, just typing that makes me feel old) but I'm sure the course is still very rewarding. It was the best decision I made and got my foot in the door in to an IT career back in 1999.

I'm working full time doing in house application development for a Telecoms Company for the past two years and I love my job. I had very little "Development" experience when I moved careers (was doing heavy duty Tier 2 Support work in a very large multi national prior to that. Great pay but very long hours).

There is nothing worse than waking up in the morning and thinking f$"^ing work. Liking your job and getting job satisfaction from it is most important in my opinion, for a happy life, if you're career minded individual that is. If you feel that you want to get in to Development work, by all means do the 2 year part time course and keep up your current job. Try to get more involved in the SQL end of things (that's where my expertise lies). Look at writing stored procedures to make your work life easier etc etc. As someone else said, 2+ years work experience in a Financial and a Post Grad in IT under your belt is a great starting point in to an IT career.

Good luck with whatever you go with.

spaniel

Thanks for all the replies, especially TinCool, I haven't spoken to any-one whose done the course so it's good to know that it's worthwhile!
To be honest I don't actually know what a Software Developer does as opposed to a Programmer but I'll definately look further into it!
At the moment I just know that I get far more satisfaction from writing an efficient code that runs perfectly (i'm so sad!) then from any other part of my job!
Regarding the SQL unfortunately there's no need for me to use advanced SQL as most of my work just involves testing scorecards and the like!

ronivek

There tends to be a little bit of confusion and disagreement in terms of defining terms like programmer and software developer etc. but I would generally define them as follows;

Programmer: One who is proficient at implementing some functionality in a given programming language; usually conforming to a fairly specific set of specifications. Generally spends the majority of their time writing and testing code.

Software Developer: One who is proficient at both designing and implementing some functionality in a given programming language or set of technologies; usually given only very vague specifications. Generally spends a significant amount of time doing design and integration work along with writing and testing code.

In general however I don't believe you can really define a role by its title; as the industry seems to play very fast and loose with job titles these days. As an example I work with about a hundred engineers but if more than a half-dozen of them actually spend time consistently and consciously using good engineering practices I'd be very surprised.

BostonB

Forget the titles. Your defined by the work you do. Thats all that matters.

petergfiffin

I've worked with a lot of programmers/developers/software engineers (I've been called different things depending on who I'm working with) and surprisingly few did their primary degree in IT, most did some sort of post-grad in IT and that's how they got into it. I would say that having a degree in financial maths would be a huge advantage but it definitely sounds like you need to move areas if at all possible to give you some hands on development experience on actually writing code and more importantly thinking like a programmer (which it sounds like you already do )