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Practical Experience As a Beginning Programmer?
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:18 AM
from the i-hear-google-needs-people dept.
from the i-hear-google-needs-people dept.
LuckyLefty01 writes "I'm 21, going to college, and working part time doing odd jobs like math tutoring. In the past nine months or so, I've discovered and taken to programming (so far mostly C/C++/Obj-C). I am now looking seriously at something in this area as an eventual full time job. Since I don't have much scheduled this coming summer, it would be great to try to get a job of some sort at a tech-related company in order to get some practical experience in the field. Even if I don't have the background to get a job involving actual programming, I think that the knowledge of how such a company works would be valuable. Fortunately, I live in the SF Bay Area, so there should be plenty of companies around. I'm flexible about what I'm going to be doing, and very willing to learn just about anything anybody cares to teach me. If there's some (or even quite a bit of) boring grunt work involved, I can do that too. What type of job would benefit an aspiring but inexperienced programmer the most? What methods might I use to find such a job?"
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GSOC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:GSOC (Score:4, Insightful)
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Bugzilla! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bugzilla! (Score:5, Insightful)
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truck (Score:5, Insightful)
You might want to pick a less worthy job for comparison....also, hard to *outsource* a truck mechanic job, yes?
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Re:Bugzilla! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:When one is reviewing CVs.... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Bugzilla! (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, I wouldn't look down on mechanics. Most of "them" are probably smarter than most of "us", if you really stop to think about it.
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Re: That's great, but is it practical? (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to learn version control systems, the community, what constitutes "easy", you have to learn the scale and meaning of each piece of the project, you have to learn communication and moreso, you have to know enough to actually fix things.
If you're just looking to learn, you've got plenty there. But using OSS projects to learn means a very high overhead and initial learning cost before you learn about coding or code design at all.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bugzilla! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Bugzilla! (Score:5, Informative)
The last 10 years of my resume has nothing BUT Open Source/Linux work, much of that working for big, non-OSS companies.
I just got a new job at a Fortune 500 financial firm in lower Manhattan spending my day building and debugging FLOSS applications for Linux and Solaris. Their criteria for hiring me was specifically because of my long-standing ties to the OSS community and my work on FLOSS for the last 14 years.
These companies do exist, and they DO value your OSS contributions, if you state them clearly and succinctly on your cv/resume.
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Re:Bugzilla! (Score:5, Insightful)
An excellent sign of a company you don't want to work for. If an interviewer ever said something to that effect, I would thank them for their time and leave.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hate to break it to you (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you have any monotonous tasks that you do on your computer that you think could be automated? Well then automate them! Even if it isn't very good, it will still familiarize you with the various languages and how computer programs work to solve various problems.
Learn everything! Also, move. (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I'm also living in New Jersey, the state of a million suburbs. New York and Philadelphia are just far enough over the border to cause massive congestion and high property values (and taxes, and cost of living). My advice: while San Francisco may be rife with software companies and others who need development expertise, you might do much better looking outside the money-guzzling city.
I feel a little bit like I just gave you old-man advice.
Experience doesnt have to be "Professional" (Score:3, Interesting)
The experience doesn't have to be in a company, most likely its going to be VERY difficult to get a job when you don't even really know the language yet. Be sure to get experience with the more difficult programming concepts in C++ such as templates, singletons, and auto-registration (if your compiler supports it).
C/C++/Obj-C (Score:4, Insightful)
Finding a job.... (Score:4, Insightful)
A temporary job that'll benefit you the most ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... will probably not involve C++ development.
There are a few reasons for that. The minor ones are that most C++ / ObjC projects are big enough that it's difficult to bring an experience programmer in to work on them for just a few weeks, let alone someone with no large project experience. Not impossible, by any means, but not something that a larger company is likely to do outside of a more formal (and longer term) sponsorship arrangement.
The big reasons are that the absolute _last_ thing you need either on your resume, or to enhance your skill set is a brief job coding. The basic coding is something that you should be picking up the basics of in college, rounding out a little with some personal coding (helping out with the countless open source projects out there, for instance) and won't really bring to fruition until you're doing it full time.
The skills you're less likely to pick up there, but which you can pick up in a shorter temporary project are things like QA, marketing, sales, system administration, maybe even customer support. So look at picking up a grunt work job in the field that's not directly touching code. QA and testing (for a real software company, not EA or anything in that field) is a gig you might well be able to pick up, and which would teach you more about good software design and good software project management in a painful 8 weeks than you'd learn in a year writing software. If you can do that in an early-stage startup, and see that business process too, at least from the sidelines, even better.
Heck, if you could wangle it, working as a gopher for one of the Sand Hill Rd VC firms would be one of the best introductions to a career in the software field, I think.
Re:A temporary job that'll benefit you the most .. (Score:5, Informative)
I see your point, but I sort of think if he wants to be a developer, he should do development. If anything offer to program at a very low rate as others have suggested. I've seen many people that want to code get stuck in QA for years. If he does take a QA job, he should definitely try to get access to the source code and try to write up much more detailed bugs than the other QA engineers and always be telling people he's interested in becoming a developer. This is definitely a delicate subject because the QA managers will probably not be happy with that. Also, I don't see this path with marketing/sales since it's really a different world and does not interact as much with development as QA or sys amdin. I have seen customer support folks move over to development on occasion too. But again, all of these take a lot of time and hard work, when if you have development skills, I'd suggest just being a developer right off the bat in any way possible (e.g. internship)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You need to be able to understand what your QA engineers are saying when they give you feedback. If you've never done it, its a lot harder to understand what they mean when they don't know the innards of how the software works.
A developer that understands Marketing/Sales can also understand how to help those areas without comprimising the application
Re:A temporary job that'll benefit you the most .. (Score:3, Interesting)
In hiring somebody with a CS degree but not lot of professional experience, there are three things I look for, in increasing order of importance:
Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll tell you, those things may help you learn your language or platform better but it will not help you be a better engineer. Unfortunately only time in the trenches does that. Being a good engineer fit for a job at a software company, you need to know how to work on a team, set and meet deadlines, write documentation, etc... all the stuff that you don't tend to get doing the informal stuff that everyone is likely to be talking about here.
An internship or entry level position doing continuation engineering or a junior/associate engineer is going to get you more useful experience than all that other stuff, assuming you actually do know how to write software.
Testing (Score:4, Insightful)
Testing has the added advantage of being a place where its low paid and turnover is high so its a good place to get started in IT.
Practical work involves APIs and patterns (Score:3, Interesting)
Before getting involved in an Open Source project ask yourself - and this is a difficult thing to ask - what it is going to be useful for and what kind of business might use it. Is that the kind of business you want to be in? If you don't know, do some research. Remember a valuable fact: contribution to, say, the Linux kernel is easy for anybody anywhere in the world, whereas writing code that extracts and condenses human knowledge and then turns it into a system is far easier where the relevant human beings live. If you live in the Bay Area, it should not be too hard to work out where the business opportunities lie, where automation might cut costs or have other benefits, and what Open Source projects might be relevant. Then choose one, learn it, and send your resume round to people who might be interested.
What I am describing is a lot of hard work, by the way. But you already knew that, if you wanted to succeed in programming, you were going to have to work hard.
You've got the right attitude (Score:3, Informative)
Bad firms have bad bosses, good firms have good bosses, etc. It's hard when you're inexperienced, but aim for the good firms: being a genius at a bad firm is just damaging to your health.
1. Inventory your skills: are you a programming god or just good? do you want to work long hours, or are just willing to? do you want to build relationships or just write code? does meeting clients excite you or seem a distraction? Answer honestly, and you've got a good cover letter.
2. Hit personal relationships. No hard sell needed, just point out you're looking for a summer job and ask the person to keep you in mind. Mention the points in 1, so he'll feel comfortable in making a recommendation (last thing I want is a person telling me he wants to write code, I refer him to a peer, and the applicant spends all summer trying to meet clients, etc.)
3. Do the usual sending resume stuff. It doesn't hurt and you might find a match.
4. Write code, build on-line relationships w/ other tech people, contribute to open source projects, etc. Sure, it's not a job, but it's better than nothing. I've hired a lot of people based on their OSS participation or academic work.
Forget open source projects... (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I think an actual job is a better route, because it'll put you in contact with more people who use the software, rather than implementing some feature request someone made possibly on another continent. Plus, you actually get PAID (which is important to anyone in College without rich parents). Actual job experience looks a LOT better to most employers than working on a random, often unheard of open-source project. Not to say open source stuff isn't good experience, I'm just not certain how many employers value it.
As to how, this may be obvious to you, but many Colleges and Universities have programs to connect students with companies. Those can be quite beneficial, and you usually get paid pretty decently compared to most student jobs. Have you not looked at the various job boards, talked to your instructors, etc?
I'd also recommend just looking internal to your University. Many departments have come to use the student programmers as a cheap workforce. Scientists often need someone to do some programming for them, though they may want you to program in something quite outdated, like FORTRAN. Departments have programming needs as well. I think one summer I had three different programming gigs.
Good attitude (Score:3, Insightful)
The other thing I will suggest is applying to many, many companies to start with. HR departments at companies are black holes in general, and it may take quite a few applications before you get anywhere.
I'm just coming off a longish job search myself, so I know how frustrating the process can be. Keep your chin up, and good luck!
Possibly volunteer work (Score:3, Insightful)
A small start-up, preferably in R&D (Score:3, Informative)
I suggest looking for an opportunity in a small start-up. Perhaps you don't want to associate with the proverbial two nerds in a garage, but you can learn much more in a small firm, that perhaps has a dozen people dividing all the work between them. You'll learn to do much more than programming, and working in a small firm is more fun. And besides, a small cash-strapped start-up is more likely to hire a college kid to do some coding, than a large established firm.
There may also be good opportunities in companies that aren't in the IT sector, but in research & development, for example a biotech company. Usually these companies don't have very strong IT departments (and again, you will learn more in a small team), and they will hire people on short term contracts to complete specific projects. Even a medium-sized biotech might not employ a single skilled C++ programmer on a permanent basis (the density of C/C++ programmers in this environment is around 0.3%), so they might be willing to hire you.
Or, if it interests you, look for small firms that develop hardware, such as instrumentation, robotics, or consumer electronics; or small engineering outfits that produce custom development and automation. There isn't that much C/C++ in a typical IT job these days, rather a lot of the work is now in web development, database applications, Java and .NET. But people who interact with hardware, especially if it's time-critical, still have a need for the level of detail and control that C can offer.
And probably it's best to work through an agency or consultancy firm. I don't know US practice, but on this side of the pond it IT directors who need and extra person on the team won't place adverts or look through job applications. Instead, they will send out a request to specialized agency or consultancy firm.
duh - be an intern (Score:5, Insightful)
2. You're in the bay area
You must simply become an intern. There are plenty of resources at every college for finding out about this and applying for an internship. I've been a SW developer for almost 10 years, and it really is the second best way to get a job as a developer. (the best way is to know someone)
Even though we're sliding into an economic downturn. Interns are so cheap (most get paid in the bay area, but not much) that companies look to them to shore up their need for employees in the rough times. Once you're done being an intern though, you will find it very hard to get a job unless you had some fantastic internships.
There is little demand for junior developers right now(if this was 1998-2000 you would have no problem), and it is going to get worse before it gets better.
Not sure why this had to be an Ask Slashdot.
I've got #3 figured out for you (Score:5, Funny)
2) ????
3) Get a Job
4) Profit.
I suspect step 3 might be recursive, though.
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Re:how to get a job 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:how to get a job 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I'll get modded down for posting an offtopic reply, but my message is very, very important to all /. users (except the 1% who are female): guys, stop this "girls hate me because I'm a geek" nonsense!
The two great loves of my life have been CompScis, and they are two of the greatest guys I ever met. They've helped me learn to program, take things apart with screwdrivers, read some great books, and have a much more interesting life. Geeks are great. The only problem comes when you take being a geek as an excuse not to wash, to dress like an asshat, and to forget your social skills.
To the original poster - don't listen to anyone who tells you a computer-related job will kill your love life. Expand your knowledge, be passionate about what you do, and anyone who (metaphorically) mods you down for it isn't worth knowing. Also remember to shower, and get some nice shirts :)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's some tips that will actually be useful. Men should dress for the kind of women they wish to a
Re:how to get a job 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
A woman's POV isn't worth much on what attracts women? Yeah, I can see that I made a big mistake there...
Who said a geek guy has to go out with a geek girl? My point is exactly not that. It's that "normal" girls won't find you unattractive because you're a geek, but they will find you unattractive if you don't wash and can't hold a conversation!
And if you really think I have a "large pool" of geek guys? You have to be kidding! You're all too convinced that women hate you to offer us more than a suspicious sneer ;)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Paradoxically, it isn't. There's a difference between what attracts a person and what that person believes to attract them. Psychology is like that. Oh, and it works for men too: I don't even pretend to understand why one woman is more attractive to me than the other, aside from the obvious aspects.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Preeeee-cisely.
You wanna meet for coffee sometime? ;)
Re:how to get a job 101 (Score:5, Funny)
I have feelings.
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Re:how to get a job 101 (Score:5, Funny)
Oh. You mean you're one of those small, weedy guys? Fine - don't wanna have coffee with you in that case.
**sulks**
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Re:how to get a job 101 (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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While you are no doubt correct that a geek profession is not an absolute barrier to a lovelife for a straight guy, there are several things to consider
1)If you become a coder, you will most likely not be meeting
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I take your points, but remember that most people are not in a band, don't fly jet fighters, and aren't independently wealthy. Most people work in stores, as road sweepers, janitors, office drones, whatever. And most of them can't (or shouldn't!) talk about the details of their work to girls - "So, today I sold a C667Ex6 model sofa with turned wood legs, and a G665ff54 model chest of drawers. Can I buy you a drink?". Compare that with "today I worked on a system that stops your plane from falling from the s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're very wrong. Look at dating sites - a lot of women's profiles are very honest that they're not looking for fat or ugly guys. Many of my female friends and I will openly scope out the good looking guys (and, yes, their trouser-bulges) in a bar even when we're around male friends. Yes, most of us, like most men, are keen to be with someone who we find physically attractive. But that's not necessarily going to be the standard handsome muscular guy. I've met guys who I thought were only average-a
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmmm... Well, I usually give guys my email address (I hate telephones), and if they don't offer theirs in return it usually means it isn't happening! But they may email - it's their decision. If you can find a good reason to ask for someone's email, that can be good - people feel less threatened giving out their email address rather than their phone number.
How to not let someone fall asleep while you're talking to them? Ask them questions - about themselves and their interests. And when they answer, fol
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How do I do this? I can't seem to find the "print linux kernel" button?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)