Recommendations for a programmer transitioning from a college career to corporate?
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A friend of mine asked me to speak with a another friend of his, who's going through a difficult financial time right now. He's been working as a programmer for a local college for the past 10 years, but apparently, it doesn't pay very well and he's looking for advice on how to switch to a higher paying, corporate career. I think his biggest problem, is he's been doing this single career, inside a university, his whole life. He doesn't really even know where to begin. I'm going to speak with him tomorrow & I have some personal advice I can offer but was wondering if anyone can offer any additional advice or experiences I can pass over to him? Things like what are the best ways he can land a new programming career? What should he work on improving? Etc. I'm not sure yet which languages he's skilled in but I do know he needs to find a higher paying job sometime between now & the next 9 months (hint hint). With it being a college career though, my "guess", is that he's using Java. I'd appreciate any advice you can offer. He's a great guy whose just terrified about being not able to provide for his family right now, so I'd love to offer any advice I can. Thanks
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A friend of mine asked me to speak with a another friend of his, who's going through a difficult financial time right now. He's been working as a programmer for a local college for the past 10 years, but apparently, it doesn't pay very well and he's looking for advice on how to switch to a higher paying, corporate career. I think his biggest problem, is he's been doing this single career, inside a university, his whole life. He doesn't really even know where to begin. I'm going to speak with him tomorrow & I have some personal advice I can offer but was wondering if anyone can offer any additional advice or experiences I can pass over to him? Things like what are the best ways he can land a new programming career? What should he work on improving? Etc. I'm not sure yet which languages he's skilled in but I do know he needs to find a higher paying job sometime between now & the next 9 months (hint hint). With it being a college career though, my "guess", is that he's using Java. I'd appreciate any advice you can offer. He's a great guy whose just terrified about being not able to provide for his family right now, so I'd love to offer any advice I can. Thanks
He should probably be current in programming language skills (perhaps too current), but one of my pet peeves of academic people is that they teach coding in a way that you are writing a program from scratch, using perhaps some libraries but otherwise your own code, and always from a fresh start... "original authorship" The reality of programming in industry is that you are going to be part of a team working on code that is 10 years old, with a mix of good stuff and garbage that other people wrote, with their own coding style and suite of bugs. Most code in industry is maintenance. Average lines of code per day in college can exceed several hundred. Average code per day in industry is around 8 to 12. For aeronautics, aerospace and NASA lines per day is way less than 1.0. Also, when you are working on a 'real' program, there are a lot of other activities you do besides code.
Windows 8 is the resurrected version of Microsoft Bob. The only thing missing is the Fisher-Price logo. - Harvey
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A friend of mine asked me to speak with a another friend of his, who's going through a difficult financial time right now. He's been working as a programmer for a local college for the past 10 years, but apparently, it doesn't pay very well and he's looking for advice on how to switch to a higher paying, corporate career. I think his biggest problem, is he's been doing this single career, inside a university, his whole life. He doesn't really even know where to begin. I'm going to speak with him tomorrow & I have some personal advice I can offer but was wondering if anyone can offer any additional advice or experiences I can pass over to him? Things like what are the best ways he can land a new programming career? What should he work on improving? Etc. I'm not sure yet which languages he's skilled in but I do know he needs to find a higher paying job sometime between now & the next 9 months (hint hint). With it being a college career though, my "guess", is that he's using Java. I'd appreciate any advice you can offer. He's a great guy whose just terrified about being not able to provide for his family right now, so I'd love to offer any advice I can. Thanks
Ex-colleague of mine recently interviewed someone who let him know that the only reason he wanted to move jobs was because he wanted a better paid position to gain experience at that level. Clearly the implication was that once he had a couple of years under his belt he'd be off. He didn't get anywhere near a 2nd interview! Tell the friend to avoid this kind of slip-up ... he must demonstrate a reason that he wants to work for that company ... flatter them, lie about the reasons if necessary (not the skills) but never, never, never let on that you "need" the role. They need him. As he's worked in education he could push the "I can mentor and develop your junior staff so that you can save on recruitment costs" for example Round here ASP.NET is the "big thing" in recruitment at the moment but there are a lot of contracts going around the bigger corporates finally realising that they *do* need to do something with their legacy systems if they want them to work for Win7 and beyond ... something to consider for any "pitch" Also ... sounds corny I know, but get him involved with something like LinkedIn ... and connect to as many recruitment agents as possible (connection only ... I'm not suggesting blind dates here!)... bigger the network bigger the chance of spotting *that* job Good luck.
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He should probably be current in programming language skills (perhaps too current), but one of my pet peeves of academic people is that they teach coding in a way that you are writing a program from scratch, using perhaps some libraries but otherwise your own code, and always from a fresh start... "original authorship" The reality of programming in industry is that you are going to be part of a team working on code that is 10 years old, with a mix of good stuff and garbage that other people wrote, with their own coding style and suite of bugs. Most code in industry is maintenance. Average lines of code per day in college can exceed several hundred. Average code per day in industry is around 8 to 12. For aeronautics, aerospace and NASA lines per day is way less than 1.0. Also, when you are working on a 'real' program, there are a lot of other activities you do besides code.
Windows 8 is the resurrected version of Microsoft Bob. The only thing missing is the Fisher-Price logo. - Harvey
H.Brydon wrote:
Average lines of code per day in college can exceed several hundred. Average code per day in industry is around 8 to 12
Not if you're at a software publisher, or consulting. Then it's tappity tappity tap, click, facepalm for hour after hour. Followed and preceeded by documentation, naturally.
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He should probably be current in programming language skills (perhaps too current), but one of my pet peeves of academic people is that they teach coding in a way that you are writing a program from scratch, using perhaps some libraries but otherwise your own code, and always from a fresh start... "original authorship" The reality of programming in industry is that you are going to be part of a team working on code that is 10 years old, with a mix of good stuff and garbage that other people wrote, with their own coding style and suite of bugs. Most code in industry is maintenance. Average lines of code per day in college can exceed several hundred. Average code per day in industry is around 8 to 12. For aeronautics, aerospace and NASA lines per day is way less than 1.0. Also, when you are working on a 'real' program, there are a lot of other activities you do besides code.
Windows 8 is the resurrected version of Microsoft Bob. The only thing missing is the Fisher-Price logo. - Harvey
Sounds like my current work, it's painfully slow.... I might be able to speed up that in the future...
My programming get away... The Blog... DirectX for WinRT/C# since 2013! Taking over the world since 1371!
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A friend of mine asked me to speak with a another friend of his, who's going through a difficult financial time right now. He's been working as a programmer for a local college for the past 10 years, but apparently, it doesn't pay very well and he's looking for advice on how to switch to a higher paying, corporate career. I think his biggest problem, is he's been doing this single career, inside a university, his whole life. He doesn't really even know where to begin. I'm going to speak with him tomorrow & I have some personal advice I can offer but was wondering if anyone can offer any additional advice or experiences I can pass over to him? Things like what are the best ways he can land a new programming career? What should he work on improving? Etc. I'm not sure yet which languages he's skilled in but I do know he needs to find a higher paying job sometime between now & the next 9 months (hint hint). With it being a college career though, my "guess", is that he's using Java. I'd appreciate any advice you can offer. He's a great guy whose just terrified about being not able to provide for his family right now, so I'd love to offer any advice I can. Thanks
Without knowing something about friend-of-friend's specific career, and skill-set, in academia, I'd find it hard to evaluate "where he is" now, what he might be easily capable of "plugging-in to," and to what extent his current experience and competencies are in a very "narrow" range, or a "broad" one: to what extent he's "marketable" given what the marketplace is like today in software development. There are people in software dev roles in academia that do not teach, and have little contact with students (Sys Admins, etc.). The issues I see facing this person are: 1. self-confidence: a. in the psychological sense; b. in the sense of being eager and willing to retrain, if necessary; and, c. sense of this career move being a voluntary vs. involuntary choice. 2. information: does he understand what the job marketplace is like now given what may be constraints on his life, like he cannot relocate due to family commitments; can he realistically asses what likely impact his age (yes, for all practical purposes, for full-time employment on-site, age does make a difference) and other personal factors may have. 3. the context of his immediate life, particularly economic. In any case, I'd be concerned with trying to help the person distinguish: what they have a passion to do ... a fire in the belly for; what they want to do; what would be acceptable and tolerable new jobs; and, what they feel, and think, they must do. I'm sure that your just providing the person a "friendly ear," and asking open-ended questions, will be very helpful to help them sort through these things themselves, in their own way, and, imho, this person is fortunate to have the gift of your time, and attention, which is a very kind act on your part. bill
Google CEO, Erich Schmidt: "I keep asking for a product called Serendipity. This product would have access to everything ever written or recorded, know everything the user ever worked on and saved to his or her personal hard drive, and know a whole lot about the user's tastes, friends and predilections." 2004, USA Today interview
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Without knowing something about friend-of-friend's specific career, and skill-set, in academia, I'd find it hard to evaluate "where he is" now, what he might be easily capable of "plugging-in to," and to what extent his current experience and competencies are in a very "narrow" range, or a "broad" one: to what extent he's "marketable" given what the marketplace is like today in software development. There are people in software dev roles in academia that do not teach, and have little contact with students (Sys Admins, etc.). The issues I see facing this person are: 1. self-confidence: a. in the psychological sense; b. in the sense of being eager and willing to retrain, if necessary; and, c. sense of this career move being a voluntary vs. involuntary choice. 2. information: does he understand what the job marketplace is like now given what may be constraints on his life, like he cannot relocate due to family commitments; can he realistically asses what likely impact his age (yes, for all practical purposes, for full-time employment on-site, age does make a difference) and other personal factors may have. 3. the context of his immediate life, particularly economic. In any case, I'd be concerned with trying to help the person distinguish: what they have a passion to do ... a fire in the belly for; what they want to do; what would be acceptable and tolerable new jobs; and, what they feel, and think, they must do. I'm sure that your just providing the person a "friendly ear," and asking open-ended questions, will be very helpful to help them sort through these things themselves, in their own way, and, imho, this person is fortunate to have the gift of your time, and attention, which is a very kind act on your part. bill
Google CEO, Erich Schmidt: "I keep asking for a product called Serendipity. This product would have access to everything ever written or recorded, know everything the user ever worked on and saved to his or her personal hard drive, and know a whole lot about the user's tastes, friends and predilections." 2004, USA Today interview
"can he realistically asses what likely impact his age" one "s" can make a difference. I Always enjoy your responses Bill. You enhance the lounge
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
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"can he realistically asses what likely impact his age" one "s" can make a difference. I Always enjoy your responses Bill. You enhance the lounge
"Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read." Frank Zappa 1980
grralph1 wrote:
You enhance the lounge
Well, thankee kindly, Sir, for your considerate words, and please accept my apolojism for my spelling terror. A lizard's always happy to know he's on a rock that other lounge-lizards enjoy. bill
Google CEO, Erich Schmidt: "I keep asking for a product called Serendipity. This product would have access to everything ever written or recorded, know everything the user ever worked on and saved to his or her personal hard drive, and know a whole lot about the user's tastes, friends and predilections." 2004, USA Today interview
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He should probably be current in programming language skills (perhaps too current), but one of my pet peeves of academic people is that they teach coding in a way that you are writing a program from scratch, using perhaps some libraries but otherwise your own code, and always from a fresh start... "original authorship" The reality of programming in industry is that you are going to be part of a team working on code that is 10 years old, with a mix of good stuff and garbage that other people wrote, with their own coding style and suite of bugs. Most code in industry is maintenance. Average lines of code per day in college can exceed several hundred. Average code per day in industry is around 8 to 12. For aeronautics, aerospace and NASA lines per day is way less than 1.0. Also, when you are working on a 'real' program, there are a lot of other activities you do besides code.
Windows 8 is the resurrected version of Microsoft Bob. The only thing missing is the Fisher-Price logo. - Harvey
H.Brydon wrote:
but one of my pet peeves of academic people is that they teach coding in a way that you are writing a program from scratch, using perhaps some libraries but otherwise your own code, and always from a fresh start... "original authorship"
Nothing in the OP suggests that the person is a teacher/student - they are a programmer working for a school.