Tech jobs

[thrifty++]

I am thinking maybe at some point I would like to get involved in tech jobs. I am wondering how hard it is to get into work like programming, what would be required, and how long it takes to get a decent salary, decent being like $80k plus. Also how easy is it to be able to get remote jobs where you can undertake geo arbitrage. Seeing as there are LOADS of tech people on this site it seems like a good place to ask.

[JL13]

+ 1

And which discipline is best suited for either? Java? .net? C#? SQL? Ruby?

[anomie]

... how long it takes to get a decent salary, decent being like $80k plus.

In my case that never happened. 17 years on-and-off it work. Perhaps my reasons I never hit 80: going on and off, leaving for periods of time instead of building career; refusing management positions; talent and personality disposition maybe; deferring to spouse's career; wanting some work-life balance..

:: Searching for hot languages --> Learning to use google to answer this type of question might be a good first step for programmers-to-be. Or even this forum, I'm sure these questions have come up several times before.

RTFM is a phrase you had best get used to if you want to work in IT.

[anomie]

Remote Jobs

This is great resource I recently found. Lots of remote jobs there to give you an idea::

http://stackoverflow.com/jobs?allowsremote=true

[thrifty++]

... how long it takes to get a decent salary, decent being like $80k plus.

In my case that never happened. 17 years on-and-off it work. Perhaps my reasons I never hit 80: going on and off, leaving for periods of time instead of building career; refusing management positions; talent and personality disposition maybe; deferring to spouse's career; wanting some work-life balance..

:: Searching for hot languages --> Learning to use google to answer this type of question might be a good first step for programmers-to-be. Or even this forum, I'm sure these questions have come up several times before.

RTFM is a phrase you had best get used to if you want to work in IT.

Thanks Anomie. Gosh I cant wait that long. I'm thinking it would need to be at that level for me within a year. Unless it was cruisy or very interesting work I could do remotely and paid something ok.

[BRUTE]

brute isn't sure programming is a skill that can just be picked up. not because it is difficult, but because it is strange. almost all humans brute knows who aren't already programmers really hate programming. the exception are some physicists and mathematicians, and only those that don't care about the beauty or elegance of math, because programming is dirty.

it's just not something many people like.

if thrifty++ enjoys it, it shouldn't be too hard to make $80k straight out of college. especially in one of the tech hubs. beware that some of those have very high costs of living.

remote is definitely a possibility. technically programming might be one of the most geographically mobile professions out there, maybe behind writing. but many companies don't like it.

[thrifty++]

Yes true I don't even know whether I would like it. What draws me to it is that:
- it seems that you can be non conformist fairly easily;
- it seems to pay quite well quite quickly;
- it seems like a fairly peaceful introverted type job that you can just plod along as part of a team plugging code in;
- I tend to very much like people that do this type of work. Interesting introverted geeks that I am quite interested to engage with;
- it might suit my personality being INTJ/INFJ cross;
- it provides possibilities for remote work and work globally without too much restrictions - internationally transferrable skill without a regulatory body that says you have to re-train,

I would never go to university to train. No way I will spend money on skills. Only if I can teach myself or learn for free or be paid to learn.

Maybe web design is another option.

[bryan]

I'm not sure how easy it is to find a good remote job, and depends on what you mean by remote (like anywhere in the world? work from home a couple days a week?)

I work for a company that has most of it's employees in a couple other countries. One factor of them hiring me was them needing a presence and some boots on the ground near a couple different business partners. Completely work from home (they actually didn't even mention it in the job description), except the need to go meet with those partners occasionally, same day notice. After a few months of doing that, the meetings dropped off more and more to the point I was just doing regular old software engineering remotely. There's probably still a requirement for me to be in the area, but the risk of getting caught not being in the area is now really only if someone flies in from overseas and wants to meet with me that day.

So.. looking for some normal jobs online at companies who don't have offices near you (and in the letter to them mention you could do this work easily remotely or start a small satellite office up) or getting a normal job and start transitioning to remote after about a year would be my bet, versus hunting for remote jobs the traditional way on job boards etc.

- it seems that you can be non conformist fairly easily;
- it seems to pay quite well quite quickly;
- it seems like a fairly peaceful introverted type job that you can just plod along as part of a team plugging code in;
- it might suit my personality being INTJ/INFJ cross;
- it provides possibilities for remote work and work globally without too much restrictions - internationally transferrable skill without a regulatory body that says you have to re-train.

Yes, this seems to be true from what I can see. The pay usually gets a big bump after you've proven yourself in one job for a year or two and take a new more senior role at a new company.

[BRUTE]

web design really doesn't have the same pay in brute's experience, and it appeals to very different people, too. brute, like bryan, agrees that all thrifty++'s preconceptions are basically true.

brute recommends thrifty++ get SOME semi-accredited education, because it will make it much easier to get in the door. the classic option is a CS degree. newer options are coding bootcamps, but these are expensive. there are some self-educated humans in the industry, but they're a minority and they usually started coding as teenagers and have a decade of experience to show.

brute would recommend thrifty++ get a CS degree in a country where it's free or cheap, and then work in a country where the pay is high.

[thrifty++]

Thanks Brute. Dont think I would do a CS degree though. My opportunity cost income is too high. Earning $100k atm and it will keep going up. Just looking for freedom finding alternatives but no way hose am I going to do another bachelors degree. Thinking teach myself or maybe short cert course at worst but nothing extensive. If that makes it a barrier I would dump it.

[JL13]

@Thrifty

I'm in same boat as you. I think it's easy to take certification tests alone, and learn for free or semi-free on sites like udemy. I just started a Java tutorial there, but I'm second guessing whether this is the right way to start.

The biggest obstacle for me is that I really need an personal project to keep me interested and motivated to learn any of these.

[BRUTE]

ah! brute was not aware that thrifty++ already had some kind of degree. in that case, the CS degree is not as important, brute would think. thrifty++ can try some online tutorials, doing something he's interested in. brute would recommend ios/android if thrifty likes phones, there's many small app ideas and games one can make. if it's more web development, ruby is probably the easiest to learn. for heavy duty desktop applications, java.

[tonyedgecombe]

I would never go to university to train. No way I will spend money on skills. Only if I can teach myself or learn for free or be paid to learn.

Perhaps one way to enter the field would be to look for opportunities to automate tasks for your current employer. I've known a few people in the industry who moved sideways like that. Writing a few scripts to automate spreadsheets or something similar might tell you whether you are suited or not.

[Paganini]

I'm currently making my way through Udacity's iOS Developer Nanodegree. I recommend taking their courses for free and if you're later interested, paying for having your work graded and getting a certificate.

Programming jobs I think are difficult to get if you haven't spent a couple hundred hours learning different aspects of coding. More specifically you need to specialize in some field and feel very confident in your ability. Look at the Udacity Nanodegrees, they all focus on some specific skill. There's Mobile Development, Data Analysis, Recommender Systems, Web Development etc.

https://www.udacity.com

[thrifty++]

Awesome thanks Paganini

[vexed87]

This is something that I have looked into from time to time when my public sector job satisfaction starts to bottom out (it does frequently!).

Its hard to motivate yourself and juggle self-directed education on top of everything else there is to do in the day if you are happy plodding along in your present career. You need to be very motivated to put in the hours of practice required to develop the skills and confidence to find employment.

I have learned and re-learned the basics of python a few times over when I periodically started to get unhappy in my job, but becoming competent enough to find employment is another ball game. I echo advice of tonyedgecombe, if you can find a way to make it useful in your present career and have time to learn on the job, that's a real boon and will help you make sideways moves.

I used downtime in the office to learn basics on codeacademy when I knew no one was looking over my shoulder, not always possible though if there are others around you.

I have an aptitude for coding, but never seriously pursued it, something I regret now, especially when I hear about some of the starting salaries!I dabble in learning more from time to time as a cheap hobby pursuit. I have told myself in the past if I had a year or two of FU money I would quit if my job got too dull. I would then dedicate waking hours to learning coding, but it hasn't happened yet, mainly due to the opportunity cost and fear of being worse off and jobless, what if it takes longer to learn than I hoped, or I didn't like the career after all...

[drachma]

Its hard to motivate yourself and juggle self-directed education on top of everything else there is to do in the day if you are happy plodding along in your present career. You need to be very motivated to put in the hours of practice required to develop the skills and confidence to find employment.

I have learned and re-learned the basics of python a few times over when I periodically started to get unhappy in my job, but becoming competent enough to find employment is another ball game. I echo advice of tonyedgecombe, if you can find a way to make it useful in your present career and have time to learn on the job, that's a real boon and will help you make sideways moves.

I used downtime in the office to learn basics on codeacademy when I knew no one was looking over my shoulder, not always possible though if there are others around you.

Struggling with exactly this right now. Already have a technical career earning ~100k. Rather unhappy with it; right now I want location flexibility more than salary. I would take 50k for a 30-hour a week remote position doing the same work, but nobody wants that employee. I realized all technical jobs have the same BS, so why not take up software?

Pros:
1. software skills allow entrepreneurship with very little capital (build your own software / website / app and grow it into a company)
2. remote work is much more common than in my field
3. it is a brain-stimulating hobby that I can have for the rest of my life and take with me anywhere
4. either job is a way better work environment than any of the manual labor (construction/restoration) I would go back to.

Cons:
1. Difficult to see the value when I already don't really want a technical career in any field and plan to stop as soon as possible anyway
2. large time investment needed to learn an equivalent level of skill to my current career (currently have MS in engineering and the career to go with it).
3. learning that skill will probably stagnate skill development in current career; I only have so much brain capacity in a day.
4. neither technical job provides the physical workload/stimulation I need in a day, still have to get that outside of work

I think the advice of finding a way to build it into your existing job to learn skills and then moving laterally is probably the way to go about it.

The real problem is, I just don't seem to find any meaning in solving any of the problems in my workplace. And I don't think I would find that meaning in [Random Remote Software Job] either. Since I don't believe career change will actually fix the root cause, it's very difficult to put effort into it above and beyond my current job. Re: the burnout thread