How you guys get into programming jobs? Thanks Heap :)

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  SimpleRoger on 17/09/2017 - 18:55

  +1

  Start learing online, search the language you want to learn, and there should be plenty of courses.

  • 

    GemtoGem on 17/09/2017 - 21:36

    Sure… now I don’t know which language should I choose

    True.. there are plenty of courses… I got free courses from Udemy cuz of this ozbargain community

    • 

      SimpleRoger on 17/09/2017 - 21:43

      +2

      Udemy isn't very good except for Web Dev Bootcamp, anyway think of what ur interested in? Is it making small computer projects or web applications or mobile appilcations, u just gotta think about it

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  Slippery Fish on 17/09/2017 - 19:16

  -4

  With good Engrish :)

  • 

    Ryanek on 17/09/2017 - 20:45

    +1

    What does this even mean? Are you making fun of op?

    • 

      Slippery Fish on 17/09/2017 - 20:47

      +1

      Nah was a comment because I'd just visited a website with the worst English lol. I only ever have a dig when people another me and the op hasn't so…

  • 

    Slippage on 18/09/2017 - 08:43

    +1

    Has nothing to do with it, we outsource alot of our dev work and it doesn't matter that they don't speak any English.

  • 

    iamw0man on 18/09/2017 - 08:44

    +1

    OP thanked the heap. He's already learning.

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  Donaldhump on 17/09/2017 - 19:23

  +1

  Graduate position / work for free for month to get experience, foot in the door.

  Find the language u like and Practice hard

  • 

    GemtoGem on 17/09/2017 - 21:43

    Sure… first I need to decide what I really wanna study and stick to it… thanks

    • 

      TheOneWhoGotAway on 18/09/2017 - 19:19

      Uncle's answer could be elaborated in more detail but my two cents would be he means find a language and make something which you can demon straight your ability.

      For me in the same boat, I'm basically just asking CS students which language I can make simple apps without fluffing about, basically, so I can use my limited time the most.

      For that reason, I'm getting into Javascript, hope to make some basic web apps.

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  enigma48 on 17/09/2017 - 19:45

  +4

  Uni / TAFE isn't a must to "learn" programming - there are tons of high quality, online, free courses that'll teach you quite a bit. See: EdX, Coursera, Open University, etc. Start with fundamental programming then work towards an area that interests you (application development, web dev, GUI/UX, backend/databases, etc)

  Once you have the knowledge: realise that you're at a disadvantage because A) the industry has a limited amount of jobs, and B) lots of people have spent 2-3 years at TAFE/Uni and have a piece of paper. If you have good communication skills, present yourself professionally, network/start making contacts now, accept an entry level job (tester, documentation, support) and continue learning then in a couple years you could consider starting to apply for programming jobs.

  Maybe if you need to be more financially independent right now try to find something that bridges both worlds: can you find a company needing an engineer who uses that software you already, but wants someone to learn a bit more programming? Or maybe a part-time engineer, and you use the rest of your week to learn programming?

  Don't assume after 2 years of self-study you'll land a programming job: many people don't. But it'll be a lot easier if you can get experience as support/testing/documentation and work towards being a programmer. And if you can tolerate staying in the engineering world, you may find it easier: there are thousands of programmers (competition for you) but very few have the skills of an engineer (therefore: you stand out). I can't stress the importance of good communication skills: I've worked with talented people that we had to let go because we couldn't put them anywhere near a customer or even other staff.

  Consider making short term plans (3-6 months) and separate longer term ones (2+ years). You've got a lot of learning to do! But you sound enthusiastic so remember to enjoy the ride.

  • 

    GemtoGem on 17/09/2017 - 21:40

    Super mega ultra informative… the way you said is true I should be sticking to it in order to get what I like… and yea I need to improve my communication skill too not only for programming but also for other things as well
    Thanks :)

  • 

    ely on 17/09/2017 - 22:53

    +1

    I studied computer science at university and work as a developer; most of what I studied is not really of much use to me as a developer, most of what I use I learned myself anyway (through personal interest on on the job). What it did do was get my foot in the door to those jobs :)

    There are plenty of dev jobs that won't expect a CS degree, just get some practical experience, maybe a short course, then try to pick up any sort of junior job you can find. You might not get paid a lot but once you start putting in 40 hours a week on real projects your skills will develop quickly and when you move on you'll be in a much better position.

    It probably doesn't matter too much what language(s) you learn, as once you learn one most of the fundamental concepts will be of benefit to you in others anyway.

    • 

      GemtoGem on 18/09/2017 - 09:18

      Thanks for your information :)

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  scotty on 17/09/2017 - 19:47

  +6

  A friend of mine who was an overseas student that did a master in telecommunication, graduated and managed to find a job in programming recently (Android & front end development in AngularJS, Bootstrap & a bit of backend). Took him a while though. From observation I found

  • Determination. He was determined NOT to find employment in hardware design / telecommunication field even when he has the degree. He wanted to do programming and nothing else.
  • Persistence. Took him a few months of preparing resume, going to many interviews, etc to finally land him a job. I've told him to "take any job" because he was on some bridging visa. However he persisted.
  • Hard working. He knew that he wasn't a CS grad so he spent a lot of time getting himself up to speed with the latest tech, and getting familiar with the companies he has interview with. Even after getting the front end dev job he would come back home at night and study the APIs til late.

  For programming jobs you do not really need to show that you understand everything, but you are willing and capable to learn anything thrown at you.

  For me I got my first programming intern job after submitting countless number of job applications (that was 20 years ago though). Every job after that is pretty much by referral, i.e. job finds you rather than finding a new job.

  • 

    GemtoGem on 17/09/2017 - 21:41

    Thanks for your comment.
    Your friend is so desperate for this job… Good to hear
    And again thanks

• 

  iamw0man on 18/09/2017 - 08:47

  +2

  An easier foot in the door can sometimes be through testing. There's a lot of code exposure and sometimes, in the cause of automation, you're writing your own to test as well. If you can get a testing job and continue studying code, you will have a strong foundation to move into development.

  • 

    GemtoGem on 18/09/2017 - 09:21

    Thanks for your information :)

    • 

      Slippage on 18/09/2017 - 10:22

      This is great advice!

• 

  kachao on 18/09/2017 - 09:12

  https://www.freecodecamp.org/ could be a good start to learn.

  • 

    GemtoGem on 18/09/2017 - 09:20

    Hey @sunnybal
    did you learn coding from that website?
    Thanks :)

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  Ryanek on 18/09/2017 - 09:28

  Expose yourself to as much code as possible, check out opensource projects and teach yourself how it works. I was fortunate to land a coding job on my last semester of uni and its never stopped being a learning experience.

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  Slippage on 18/09/2017 - 10:21

  This is my view, which won't line up with everyone elses.

  You say you've falling in love with AI and using the latest technology. Unless you are one of the special few, working directly for someone like Elon, that's not going to be your life as a programmer. A lot of programmers a will spend their time supporting old programs, on old OS's, run on old hardware and set to strict guidlines

  For example: my work station (laptop) is from 2011, and up until recently was runing XP and our servers were ruining Server 2003. Even as a developer, I have to jump threw hoops to get access to do anything "outside the box", with the box designed by someone who isn't familiar with what you do.

  I guess what i'm trying to say: don't expect a programming job to be what they typically make out on TV. some days it's more like this:

  Joanna: So, where do you work, Peter?
  Peter Gibbons: Initech.
  Joanna: In… yeah, what do you do there?
  Peter Gibbons: I sit in a cubicle and I update bank software for the 2000 switch.
  Joanna: What's that?
  Peter Gibbons: Well see, they wrote all this bank software, and, uh, to save space, they used two digits for the date instead of four. So, like, 98 instead of 1998? Uh, so I go through these thousands of lines of code and, uh… it doesn't really matter. I uh, I don't like my job, and, uh, I don't think I'm gonna go anymore.
  Joanna: You're just not gonna go?
  Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
  Joanna: Won't you get fired?
  Peter Gibbons: I don't know, but I really don't like it, and, uh, I'm not gonna go.
  Joanna: So you're gonna quit?
  Peter Gibbons: Nuh-uh. Not really. Uh… I'm just gonna stop going.
  Joanna: When did you decide all that?
  Peter Gibbons: About an hour ago.

  But In Saying that, I actually really enjoy what I do. My primary role is with a GIS and as most of our data comes from engineers/designers, I also get to work with a variety of CAD packages (AutoCAD, Microstation, PLS-CADD).

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  TheOneWhoGotAway on 18/09/2017 - 19:16

  Hey mate, I am like you basically except I'm graduating soon.
  For me the biggest thing is to really get stuck into programming and learning at home, while I am still studying etc. So it's hard to have to put effort into a full-time degree and have the energy to continue onwards.

  I guess start with 30mins a day, everyday and keep at it.

• 

  drewbytes on 18/09/2017 - 21:59

  I got a job as a programmer straight out of high school at 16. I was and am completely self taught. Doubt you could get away with that these days though. I've been programming now for over 30 years.

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  Quantumcat on 19/09/2017 - 09:56

  If you are partway through a computer science or IT related degree you can do an IT cadetship with the Australian government. You spend the remaining time doing pat time work/part time study and work at an APS 2 rate. After graduation you get bumped up to an APS 4 automatically. If you have already finished your degree you can instead do a graduate program, where you start at an APS 3 level and get bumped up to APS 5 automatically on completion. These programs can be useful, because you get to work in a few different areas and decide what one you like best after having some experience in all of them.

  You're not going to get a job without a degree, unless an employer is desperate and you have lots of demonstrable experience (e.g. GitHub contributions and your own repos and other portfolio type things). Just look at job ads on Seek and you will see. If you do get a toe in the door, it is going to be a very hard slog, and take many more years than the couple required to get a degree, to get a junior programmer job that you could walk into after having finished a degree. And even if you manage to get that junior programmer role, if you decide later you want to switch employers it is going to really hard without that bit of paper, even though you have experience.

  Oh and gaining experience outside a workplace or hobbyist team is a very, very slow way to do things. You have to continually look stuff up on StackOverflow and cobble stuff together so that it sort-of works. In the end your projects are like a dog's breakfast. Whereas, there are standard ways to put things together that you learn from being in a professional context. If you have that experience, something that took you 6 hours to get working could have taken half an hour, and be much more robust. Trying to learn programming at home for anything other than an enjoyable hobby is not likely to work, unless you have a really specific kind of mind and can dedicate yourself to it at the expense of all else (I think this is what drewbytes did). If you had this sort of mind, you probably would have been attracted to it as a child, and you would have ended up pursuing a programming career in the first instance.

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  avhornet on 20/09/2017 - 10:49

  plural sight courses