How to get an IT job?

[fiby41]

Any engineering degree and the willingness to do competitive programming is required just to get seen here. Even trainees are expected to stay late at work. After that its just like college tests where they make you sit on a bench to learn new technologies until a project comes along on which you can jump upon. Many years later you could be allowed to move towards non programming jobs.

It gets often mentioned that a large portion of the people here work in the IT sector. Would anyone like to advise how to get one's foot in the door?

[Stahlmann]

it seems you know the answer, because you provided it in the first paragraph .

communication (especially in the internet) is interesting thing

____

this was recommended in the end of 2018 (on some EE programming forum) as list detailing project which enable you to get internship in java:

Make a REST app in spring that:

it will be made in a "clean" spring and not in a boot, in this way you will stand out from the background of hundreds of wanna-be programmers who pat spring boot without understanding what is going on inside.

embrace the basics of spring security - login, registration, remembering, CSRF, password hashing, e.g. bcrypt, break down roles e.g. client, manager, admin virtually no one can do it

embrace the basic validation, e.g. e-mail no longer exists in the database when registering, whether products are available in the store, whether all fields are filled in correctly

embrace the connection to the database, e.g. MySQL or MongoDB, it would be nice to do it in SpringData using JpaRepository

create some CRM, library, store, anything, something more complex than hello world, let there be a dozen entities not just users, roles, products, ...

apply some factory or observer design patterns
some basics of asynchronity / multhithreading, e.g. @Schedule

for this unit and integration tests are necessary
built preferably in hail or maven

a project to be done in a month or two, when you apply it guarantees that the response will be considerable

[Lemur]

There is usually always demand for 'help desk' IT. Expect grueling hours, non-stop 'tickets', and ungrateful customers. OTOH, this is a surefire to get a foot in the door as you can get 'experience' on the resume; in your off-time, one needs to work on certifications and show they can be creative via GitHub or something of that nature.

If I was going from scratch, I would go through SalesForce training. In demand, pays well...I think even in some places they were doing free programs to try to take out-of-luck blue collar workers or something of that nature into free jobs training.

[AnalyticalEngine]

IT is a pretty big field. Do you know which branch of IT you want to get into? How much coding experience do you have? My suggestions for what to do will be different if you want to do support vs QA vs development.

[macg]

If you do not know specifically what in IT you want, and don't have much related experience/education, then I would second the Help Desk suggestion. And while there, learn basic programming / scripting. This can be used pretty much anywhere in IT - even in Help Desk jobs, scripting out procedures saves time/money. It also shows that you are a "go-getter" type of person.

I would also say if you are looking for a job that is normal (or short) hours, no on-call, etc .... most IT is not for you lol, at least in my experience.

[Scott 2]

I question if the advice you'll get on a US centric forum works for the IT job market in India.

I've observed IT workers in the US who have made an effort to reduce their accent and adopt American culture do much better here. Maybe that is a way to "hack" the system in India, beyond technical competency? Jobs tend to be about who you know and is willing to advocate for you, rather than pure skill.

[fiby41]

Do you know which branch of IT you want to get into?

Text classification and then doing analysis on it but it would come under "Data Analysis." There was a post here on how domain knowledge, statistics and programming are required for it.

How much coding experience do you have?

I remember installing python in 2010 but couldn't do much with it as the whole discussion of version 3 being backwards incompatible with 2 went over my head. Made some progress just short of installing modules in 2013 on LearnStreat until it closed down. But I tried to mug up the C++ programs in the syllabus so the answer to your question would be "not much."

But I'm trying to remedy that by wading through hackerrank hackerearth and codechef perhaps acquiring a taste for "programming as a sport" along the way.

Either way I should takeup Stahlmann's suggestion and do a project. Thanks Lemur and macg for the reality check.

[flying_pan]

Nah, you don't need a degree for programming, but you do need willingness to learn programming. System administrating is pretty much dead, it is DevOps now and much closer to programming, at least more proficiency in scripting is required.

Anyway, your goal is not to learn everything, but some specific things IN DETAIL. This is there most people fail: they learn basics, and are able to provide some results, but you need to be better. So learn your programming language (meaning read its specification), your libraries of choice and so on, and then apply only to specific position where all of it is required.

You need to avoid big "bodyshops", where they just sell you as a person to big companies, you need something smaller, where you can get more mentorship and people care more about what they are doing. When you will apply, you need to show that you are capable and enthusiastic, relevant GitHub projects are a great way to do so (it will also show you know some git).

IT requires a lot of upfront efforts, and first 1–2 years are tough, but after that you can relax.

[flying_pan]

Text classification and then doing analysis on it but it would come under "Data Analysis." There was a post here on how domain knowledge, statistics and programming are required for it.

I remember installing python in 2010 but couldn't do much with it as the whole discussion of version 3 being backwards incompatible with 2 went over my head. Made some progress just short of installing modules in 2013 on LearnStreat until it closed down. But I tried to mug up the C++ programs in the syllabus so the answer to your question would be "not much."

But I'm trying to remedy that by wading through hackerrank hackerearth and codechef perhaps acquiring a taste for "programming as a sport" along the way.

Either way I should takeup Stahlmann's suggestion and do a project. Thanks Lemur and macg for the reality check.

For data analysis indeed, you need statistics, database knowledge (not so how it works rather how to make efficient queries) and some programming. Python is probably the best, and should be enough for starters.

> But I'm trying to remedy that by wading through hackerrank hackerearth and codechef perhaps acquiring a taste for "programming as a sport" along the way.

I think these sites are good for practicing, but not so great for learning. I'd recommend a book, some online course, or try something like https://github.com/gregmalcolm/python_koans for learning syntax.

[Matt3121]

Looks like you are in India so I can't comment much on the process there.

But I'd start on something like upwork.com, pick out small tasks once you feel confident in your ability with some technology (HTML/CSS is the easiest). Work for very cheap and just expand over time.

[Stahlmann]

btw, lady who worked in local StateStreet branch (btw^2 there's somebody complaing on thelayoff.com that Polish people can't do shit , as friends from this poster lost jobs in NY/NJ) that Indians are getting pay deductions for mistakes in their work (it's a bit harder to do in upper 2nd world countries as Poland).

so my comrade don't go to work, join me in our international labour struggle in times of unrestricted information and capital flows, but restricted borders!