How did you find your first (real) job?

Schism

Good morning folks, was just wondering to myself what it takes to be a good software developer?

Personally, currently, I think my level of programming is somewhat lacking not to mention the other skills involved. So how did you guys find your first programming job? Was it a breeze or hard work to keep up?

Ps I'm not doing a paper on this or anything, I'm genuinely interested, won't be long till I'm looking for something and I want to be as prepared as I can

Atomic Pineapple

Interested in any feedback on people who have jobs in Software development myself.

I've been finished college since May and have been looking for a job, have had 5 interviews and I'd like to try and figure out what I'm doing wrong in them as to not secure a job.

My own personal feeling is that there isn't actually that much requirement for graduates and big companies have there pick as everyone applies to there graduate programs such as IBM and smaller companies only seem to be taking graduates who have done there final year project on a particular technology or idea.

fasty

I graduated in 2003 and took a tech support job to gain some experience then moved around a few smaller software companies looking for an oportunity to move from support/admin/dba to development.

It wasn't easy, I had a rotten time when I finished college trying to get a graduate position because honestly my dev skills were lacking having done Engineering where there was much more than just software to think of. What I learned in college was how to pick things up quickly and solve problems, so after much pain answering phones and setting up servers and database admin I managed to move into software development.

Sposs

I'd recommend to any programmer who is looking for a job at the moment , especially graduates to not be sitting at home doing nothing , you should be building applications/sites - showing potential employers that you have initiative and actually enjoy what you do, that you don't just see it as a job, as from my experience those sort of programmers tend to get hired more.

- hosting and domains are cheap as anything these days, allowing you to stick whatever you do online, and you never know who might see

CuLT

fasty wrote: »

I graduated in 2003 and took a tech support job to gain some experience then moved around a few smaller software companies looking for an oportunity to move from support/admin/dba to development.

It wasn't easy, I had a rotten time when I finished college trying to get a graduate position because honestly my dev skills were lacking having done Engineering where there was much more than just software to think of. What I learned in college was how to pick things up quickly and solve problems, so after much pain answering phones and setting up servers and database admin I managed to move into software development.

This is actually a fairly similar story to my own, although I never actually graduated. Seems to be a relatively common one.

I had been doing tech support part time while at college, and eventually left the course and started spending more time doing development work in the company I was working for.
Did some small projects of my own and put them online, spent time answering questions in the Boards.ie web development forum, and generally spent my time improving my ability to code and learning about Linux/BSD.

Did my first proper phone interview, couldn't answer some of the questions, when it was over, I started looking up the answers to what I got wrong and made sure I'd never forget.

I also took a risk that could have had potentially very negative ramifications for someone with more baggage (financial, personal, etc.) A company with no previous employees, not much visible income, a job with a dubious future, some really hairy hours and lacking benefits (like healthcare, etc). Being young and living at home, my risk was reduced, although I still left my previous (secure and with a relatively guaranteed promotion tree) job for it. Girlfriend at the time ended up breaking up with me I spent so much time working.

Since starting to work for Boards.ie my knowledge has expanded massively, and I still don't know 10% of what I'd like to know. Although that 10% has been pretty static no matter how much I learn, as each new fragment of knowledge reveals more that I want to know.

I mean, I love coding. I love the whole technology behind making computers do shit. It's awesome. I have massive admiration for people who do stuff infinitely more complex and challenging than what I do (things like kernel development, etc.) The people who write the development tools that I'm just a user of. It's mind boggling how smart some of these people are and the people who have painstaking built each layer that allows me to do what I do.

I would strongly agree with Sposs. A green graduate is an unknown quantity, especially since it's possible to get through a lot of CS courses without actually being a competent coder. Coding needs to be the kind of thing you'd be doing in your spare time if you had nothing else to do, and obviously there needs to be hard evidence of this if you've no employment history in the field. Think about it from the employer's perspective. If you're lacking in some area of knowledge, make them understand that you'll burn your own spare time to learn it.

1. Code, read books, use places like stackoverflow, answer questions, ask questions (wherever).

2. If you're applying for a job, learn what they're looking for and tailor your C.V. to explain what you know that is relevant to the job. Apply for jobs that you have a relevant skillset in; there aren't a lot of companies in charity mode at the moment (ie, looking to take on someone who's going to be useless for 6 months while they learn the ropes).

3. If you don't have a relevant skillset, get it. (See 1.)

Atomic Pineapple

Sposs wrote: »

I'd recommend to any programmer who is looking for a job at the moment , especially graduates to not be sitting at home doing nothing , you should be building applications/sites - showing potential employers that you have initiative and actually enjoy what you do, that you don't just see it as a job, as from my experience those sort of programmers tend to get hired more.

- hosting and domains are cheap as anything these days, allowing you to stick whatever you do online, and you never know who might see

Thats what I'm currently doing is right, currently working on Android though which I'm not so sure on, it might be limiting as to what an employer is looking for?

Also looking into creating a "Web 2.0" application, we used Google Web toolkit to create a basic one in college.

My website on my project was actually spotted by someone looking for Android info and I'm meeting with him next week, so your right it does work.

But from someone in the business is working with newer technologies like Android and GWT a good idea or should I concentrate on making something thats been done before solidly? Like a website using JSP's or something?

Jiri

I would recomended the same: try to do some project in your favorite programming language.
For example I myself wanted to be C/C++ developer with embedded knowledge. So I bought development board from Olimex (with linux OS on it) and trying to develop small robot.
It helped me a lot, it is definitelly better than just learning any programming books and try some examples from the book.
This development helped me to get more practical skills.

Jiri

mark renton

I landed myself in a job by attending as work placement for a course. Was studying networking and ended up working as systems analyst. I have to say that aiming for a development job as a graduate with little experience may be a little optimistic, any developers i have met in last few years have at least 4/5 years experience

Herbal Deity

I'm only in my 3rd year of a CS degree, but I'm making sure that I get firsts in everything. I've succeeded so far. However, I had my first job interview last year, for an internship in a company that develops webapps. He started asking me questions like "What was the last project outside of college work that you undertook?", "What was the last book relating to computing outside your college course which you read?". Now, I don't really code as a hobby. I do college assignments very well, and sometimes play with linux and write some scripts, but wouldn't really do my own "projects" as such. Similarly, I don't regularly read books on computers that I'm not obliged to read.

I was rather stumped by these questions, and the interviewer didn't seem too impressed. Another guy in my class, who codes as a hobby, but does badly in exams and assignments went for an interview for the same position. Despite the fact that my academic record is much better than his (he had to repeat 3 exams to get into 3rd year), he was offered the internship over me. Now he turned it down, and I got offered it next (I turned it down also due to being offered a much more interesting research internship in the area of compilers), so my academic record wasn't completely overlooked, but it just goes to show that a lot counts on the impression you make on the interviewer, and perhaps it was just this guy, but enthusiasm for coding and doing one's own projects seems to make a very good impression.

Personally, I'm planning to go the PhD route, but were I a CS graduate looking for a job, I would certainly be constantly learning new languages/skills and doing my own projects in my spare time.

Atomic Pineapple

I have just experienced the same thing as Herbal,

My academic record is pretty good however because of a loss of a family member I've spent the time since I've graduated dealing with that and helping out around the house as much as I can, its left me with very little non academic projects to show.

I recently had two interviews with IBM both of which went extremely well, the best interviews I've had to date, I answered everything they asked, I was confident and they seemed impressed with me.

Unfortunately today I was told I didnt get the job and I asked for additional feedback, they simply said the fact I had no non academic projects or experience played against me and someone who did got the job.

NeverSayDie

I'd agree with the other posters' experiences - academic achievements don't mean much when you're interviewing for industry work. That's not to say they'll be ignored every time, just not a big factor relative to experience and your general understanding of software development, as demonstrated on the spot or through past projects and experience if you have any.

That's not to say academic stuff is of no use - firsts can be quite useful to get you into formal graduate programs with folks like IBM, or just as a general plus item when you don't have much else, and of course high degree grading is essential for postgrads, so it keeps your options open. They're just no where near as big a deal in industry as folks tend to think when they're still studying. You will generally need a degree to get in the door at all, but once that's done, the grades and exact details aren't usually of much interest. What will be of interest in the interview is (non-trivial) academic project work, personal project work, work experience, and professional/"real" industry experience, generally in that ascending order.

Even if you don't have development experience, if you can show in interview that you're interested in and enthusiastic about software development, and especially that you're interested to the extent that you've dabbled in the stuff on the side on your own initiative, that will help a good deal. From what I've seen, the general attitude is that fresh graduates can't develop software to any particularly useful degree, and will need fair bit of training (formal or otherwise, depending on the company) and time on the job before they're useful team members. With that in mind, the main thing they'll be looking at in interviews is your potential as a developer - ie, what they can build you up as. So anything that convinces the interviewer that you've got potential to be turned into a good engineer will help. Maybe you worked on some interesting project as part of your final year or a masters, maybe you've been involved in some open source project or even game modding, maybe you've written some bits and pieces of software or web apps on the side, etc. They're all good signs for an interviewer, they show someone who's into software development beyond just going to lectures and labs on the subject, and that's always a good indicator that someone will make a useful engineer. Hell, even talking about the latest tech developments, some book or blog article you read on a tech topic you're interested in, etc, will help towards convincing them you're good material. I've never met a good developer who wasn't an enthusiastic developer - this business really does require that you like it, if not love it. (That's not to say folks don't get sick of particular projects/jobs, etc etc, but if you don't have a passion for software development as a whole, you best hit the CAO or get good at lying).

Taking my own case - I'm a reasonably good engineer, but I wasn't much of a student; I messed up and graduated with a third class degree, which is pretty piss poor by anyone's standards. Didn't find much work when I graduated, ended up working as a night shift cleaner of all things, then shortly after was put in touch with someone needing a fairly substantial software system built (system to manage all the business a large hotel-type establishment, effectively). Worked on that part-time contract for a good while (18 months or so I think, including getting it up and then subsequent follow-on stuff). That experience helped a great deal, even if it wasn't commerical dev work (was working by myself). After that, ended up interviewing for and getting a developer role in a software company. The issue of what degree grade(s) I got was never mentioned once in that interview or any other I've done. Work experience during my degree, my final year project (some fanciful UI thing involving laser pointers for interaction) and the work I did on the side building the system after that, was all they were really interested in, background-wise.

Hmm, that turned into an awful wordy post. In short;
- experience is everything, get as much of it you can. If you can't get work experience, make your own. Work on side projects that interest you, any substantial academic projects you get, take them and run with them.
- attitude and approach is everything too. Find some area of development or problem that you're keen on, and explore it - read about it, do projects in it, etc. That'll produce the most useful and plausible experience.
- practise, practise, practise. That's how you get better at developing software.
- get the best degree you can regardless, it's always worth having.
- networking gets you jobs, at every level, even for graduates. Keep in touch with folks from your class, take every opportunity to meet professional IT folks, get involved in IT clubs in college, etc.

Hellm0

My first job in development more or less fell into my lap, a friend I knew from college (which I left early) got me an interview with a small shop and they more or less trained me in at a loss. That's not to say it was easy, I worked some pretty long days and made very little money (first year was 18k). When I started I knew some C and a good chunk of VB 6, which was handy considering I had to learn .NET. After the first year there I moved into web development briefly and put in a year developing content management systems. Then I switched to the dark side and became a consultant.

Were I starting out today, I would be in a very different market, but I would still aim for smaller companies. Not only are they more likely to be lenient on your lack of experience but you will gather invaluable experience from working with them. Smaller shops are flexible, usually exposing developers to the "full life cycle"; architecture discussions, requirements gathering, documentation, debugging, time management. There are so many skills which are not strictly related to coding, many of which are difficult to pick up when in a larger firm.

As others have said, showing an interest in the work helps. Bare in mind there are many different areas of software development, web development is a very different animal from the kind of work you would do in a trading firm.Try to identify the skills that are used in the industry you would like to work in. I work in .NET as I find it is a technology used in many different industries and settings. Some people prefer PHP and the whole LAMP model. Some prefer C++. Only lost souls like PERL.

But yeah, make a site, code up concept applications, try to identify what area of software suits you. It's a great job!

P.S. Make sure you know the meaning of the word "Polymorphism". Seemingly every interviewer asks this question.

Atomic Pineapple

I've got an interview next Wednesday but they've asked me for a portfolio on 1 project that I have done to show what I know.

I've two projects to chose from.

But I'm a bit stuck as to what to put in the portfolio? I mean I can easily make a portfolio of all my projects and outline what there about, what technologies I used and what skills I learned but what is the best way to do a portfolio on a single project?

I presume I should just disclose why I decided to do what I done in the project, what technologies I used, languages used, methodologies used, problems encountered and how I dealt with them, learning outcomes and project outcome

AARRRGH

draffodx wrote: »

Thats what I'm currently doing is right, currently working on Android though which I'm not so sure on, it might be limiting as to what an employer is looking for?

Also looking into creating a "Web 2.0" application, we used Google Web toolkit to create a basic one in college.

My website on my project was actually spotted by someone looking for Android info and I'm meeting with him next week, so your right it does work.

But from someone in the business is working with newer technologies like Android and GWT a good idea or should I concentrate on making something thats been done before solidly? Like a website using JSP's or something?

This is what I would do if I were you: target a business area rather than a technology.

For example, instead of focusing on learning how to develop something for Android, I would target a business area like CRM. This would involve developing modules for SugarCRM, SalesForce or SageCRM.

I would then make contact with a CRM company in Ireland (e.g. SageCRM) to see if they would hire me. The fact that you could show you have a genuine interest in CRM (really rare), understand CRM (really rare) and have developed modules for CRM applications... this would really, really help you get a job.

Civilian_Target

I started in the software industry by accident. I was doing a degree in Physics and I got a sutdent job in IBM-Lotus QA, intending to stay only for the summer. Over that summer, I automated some tests, and developed some tooling in PHP in my spare time at work. Rather than quitting, I said I would only be interested in staying if they could offer me a better job... I expected them to tell me to go home but instead they gave me that better job in software performance analysis.

The rest is history: consistently good performance led to consistently better positions, when I went back to college I finished with a joint degree in Computer Science and Physics and a partial scholarship to do a masters in England.

Now I work in the south of France programming travel reservation systems that deal with thousands of concurrent users.

Advice?
- Get into the field and get experience. Make sure you're coding correctly, don't cut corners -- even when it's quicker to do so, remember you're there to learn to do things right
- If you are producing something that someone is buying, it's more useful than a demo (unless it's one fricking amazing demo)
- If you can't get a job straight off, find someone who needs a piece of software and write it for them, ensuring they let you use it as a demo in your portfolio

Farls

I finished college with a CS Degree and couldn't get work having done a few interviews. Usually due to my poor results in non technical subjects that brought my overall grades down. :mad:

Anyway I done a FAS course, yes FAS course on mainframe languages like COBOL and JCL which involved some work experience. After the work experience I ended up getting an interview for work in Java dev as that is what I done in college and wanted to do. That was 4 years ago and I'm loving work since.

Its just about getting your foot in the door which is the hardest thing to do.

satchmo

I got a PhD and then moved to Canada... it was the PhD that got me the interview and then the job actually, I don't think I would've had much hope landing the job I have now without it as it was in a very relevant area (graphics & parallel processing).

Webmonkey

satchmo wrote: »

I got a PhD and then moved to Canada... it was the PhD that got me the interview and then the job actually, I don't think I would've had much hope landing the job I have now without it as it was in a very relevant area (graphics & parallel processing).

That's good to hear as I'm taking the same route!

satchmo

Best of luck! Feel free to hit me up with questions etc.

DrivingTestTips: Brian

Hi guys

I asked a question about getting a job when you self taught in programming and I was worried that i would have problems because I was self taught.

Reading the post here I think it is about experience rather than what you got from collage.
I was forced into programming because I was let down by a programmer (after giving him €9,000). He was a cowboy so I told him where to go and decided to learn it.

I want to work In programming because of what I have learned.

Can you get a job in this area when your self taught?

Thanks

Farls

BrianCon wrote: »

Hi guys

I asked a question about getting a job when you self taught in programming and I was worried that i would have problems because I was self taught.

Reading the post here I think it is about experience rather than what you got from collage.
I was forced into programming because I was let down by a programmer (after giving him €9,000). He was a cowboy so I told him where to go and decided to learn it.

I want to work In programming because of what I have learned.

Can you get a job in this area when your self taught?

Thanks

I would say it is possible yes but a LOT harder, a good degree/masters gets you the interview and experience gets you the job.

cornbb

For my first "real" job I caught a lucky break, I happened to be in the right place at the right time with just the right "niche" qualifications or experience to suit a position that happened to be available.

More recently, I was made redundant and it took a while to find something suitable. When I did, it was worth the wait. For anyone looking for work, whether a fresh graduate or out-of-work, I'd recommend "re-tooling" yourself or gaining experience in your own time. Design a website, write a mobile app, explore business opportunities, network with people etc.

Sposs

cornbb wrote: »

More recently, I was made redundant and it took a while to find something suitable. When I did, it was worth the wait. For anyone looking for work, whether a fresh graduate or out-of-work, I'd recommend "re-tooling" yourself or gaining experience in your own time. Design a website, write a mobile app, explore business opportunities, network with people etc.

I recommend even people in jobs to be constantly doing that, especially the networking part.

mcmoustache

I dropped out of college (FAM DCU), bummed around factories during the tiger, got tired of it and took the Software Developer course in Fas in Finglas.

It was well-run despite whatever Fás directors got up to. I got my Sun (java) and Microsoft (VB.Net) certs. Then there was work placement and they offered me a full-time job after the interview. I had a portfolio of silly projects and I think that helped. I've been in that same company for nearly 3 and a half years and it seems to be unaffected by the recession.

If you're out of work, do some projects to add the details to your CV. It doesn't matter what they are but I think employers feel more comfortable hiring somebody who can demonstrate something. They can't tell how good you'll be from your degree or course.

Evil Phil

mcmoustache wrote: »

I dropped out of college (FAM DCU), bummed around factories during the tiger, got tired of it and took the Software Developer course in Fas in Finglas.

Was that with Sandra? I ran the new version of that course while she was on leave.

Malice

So how did you guys find your first programming job? Was it a breeze or hard work to keep up?

I graduated in 2001 and was unable to find anyone willing to take me on. It was a frustrating chicken and egg situation. I couldn't get a job without getting experience and I couldn't get experience without, you know, getting a job. I ended up working in an unrelated area. A few years later I realised that if I didn't get my act together, I'd never get myself a programming job. At this point it was 2005 and so I spent a lot of time brushing up my skills. A lot of what was popular then either hadn't been invented (.NET) or had changed a lot (PHP) since I had looked at it before.

Happily I was able to land some weekend and evening work developing small web applications which allowed me to build up my CV and my skillset. Not long after that I applied for an ASP.NET developer position which was advertised in a local paper and I have been working as a developer ever since (though not in that job).

The hardest part of that first job was dealing with what I soon realised was a very badly-organised development environment. Substandard hardware and ancient and quirky version control tools were used. Standard version control tasks like getting the latest version of the source tree or seeing who changed a file and what change they made were very confusing for me. I recall that Microsoft Source Safe was used along with some other tool that I can't remember. Even with my limited experience of SVN at the time I still realised that things weren't right. In summary it was hard work but harder than it should have been.

mcmoustache

Evil Phil wrote: »

Was that with Sandra? I ran the new version of that course while she was on leave.

That's the one. It was en excellent course for those who were willing. It started my career and I haven't looked back since. A work colleague of mine also did that course a year before me.

Evil Phil

mcmoustache wrote: »

That's the one. It was en excellent course for those who were willing. It started my career and I haven't looked back since. A work colleague of mine also did that course a year before me.

I started out on a predecessor to that course in Loughlinstown 15 years ago

toiletduck

Just a quick question. When people are mentioning personal projects, what kinda apps did ye develop?

I mean I have little projects on the side (e.g. a program to scan a specific folder for movie files and write out the contents to a html file, extending it to make use of a GUI...) but nothing that I would consider 'big', more just handy bits and bobs. As well as curiosity, I suppose I'm also looking for inspiration

mark renton

If you like you could create a Calculator using swing java UI, just 4 operatives, im thinking + - * and % : and numbers 0-9 - would appreciate if it coud be done by 10th DEC

Webmonkey

john47832 wrote: »

If you like you could create a Calculator using swing java UI, just 4 operatives, im thinking + - * and % : and numbers 0-9 - would appreciate if it coud be done by 10th DEC

Because that's the date that an assignment is due? :rolleyes:

Easy one at that.