Jobs doing client-side .NET?
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I've been doing C++ my whole career, including my share of very low-level stuff (e.g. I used to work at Microsoft, where one product I worked on in the early '90s was the Visual C++ debugger). I still love C++, but I am also coming to absolutely adore C# and .NET -- they just make it so ridiculously easy to do cool stuff. I'm interested in finding a job doing client-side C#/.NET stuff using Windows Forms (server-side doesn't interest me much). I think probably in five years or so, after .NET has really taken hold, this will be easy to find; but for now, even if I could find ANY client-side .NET work, it would most likely be the kind of stuff that used to be done in VB, e.g. vertical-market software for filling out forms, accessing databases, etc. I'm more interested in working on the kind of stuff that's traditionally done in C++, such as shrinkwrap applications and tools. Is anyone out there aware of companies doing interesting work using client-side .NET? I'm in Burlingame CA, so I'm looking as far north as S.F. and as far south as Palo Alto. Any suggestions of web sites I should look at to try to find such companies? None turned up on hotjobs or Monster -- I want to take a different tack: Instead of going to job-search web sites and looking for .NET, I think maybe I should go to .NET web sites and search for jobs. E.g. I plan to check places like gotdotnet.com and msdn.microsoft.com to see if there are lists of companies working with .NET. Mike Morearty mike@morearty.com http://www.morearty.com
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I've been doing C++ my whole career, including my share of very low-level stuff (e.g. I used to work at Microsoft, where one product I worked on in the early '90s was the Visual C++ debugger). I still love C++, but I am also coming to absolutely adore C# and .NET -- they just make it so ridiculously easy to do cool stuff. I'm interested in finding a job doing client-side C#/.NET stuff using Windows Forms (server-side doesn't interest me much). I think probably in five years or so, after .NET has really taken hold, this will be easy to find; but for now, even if I could find ANY client-side .NET work, it would most likely be the kind of stuff that used to be done in VB, e.g. vertical-market software for filling out forms, accessing databases, etc. I'm more interested in working on the kind of stuff that's traditionally done in C++, such as shrinkwrap applications and tools. Is anyone out there aware of companies doing interesting work using client-side .NET? I'm in Burlingame CA, so I'm looking as far north as S.F. and as far south as Palo Alto. Any suggestions of web sites I should look at to try to find such companies? None turned up on hotjobs or Monster -- I want to take a different tack: Instead of going to job-search web sites and looking for .NET, I think maybe I should go to .NET web sites and search for jobs. E.g. I plan to check places like gotdotnet.com and msdn.microsoft.com to see if there are lists of companies working with .NET. Mike Morearty mike@morearty.com http://www.morearty.com
As you mentioned, I suspect the pickings will be slim on the job market for a while, due both to how new the product is and the current tight tech market. However, I think there was actually one possible solution embedded within your question. Mike Morearty wrote: I'm more interested in working on the kind of stuff that's traditionally done in C++, such as shrinkwrap applications and tools. Instead of looking for another 9 to 5, why not spend your spare time figuring out what types of shrinkwrap tools you could put together for .NET developers? Remember when VB first hit? People like Dan Appleman (Desaware) did well because he was early to market with VBX bolt ons, and it turned out to be a huge market. He's much better off than he would have been had he just looked for a job writing code in the (then) new VB environment. Anytime there's a paradigm shift in our development environment, there are opportunities to provide new tools to developers. While it may not be as obvious as the VBX market, I'll bet with your experience and a little creative thinking you could come up with some great shrink wrap products that you could, if nothing else, sell off your web site. If the tools are relevant & good and you're first to market, it might even make you enough to make your company your new 9 to 5. I mean, if you're spending your spare time coding in .NET now anyway, why not write something you can sell? Chistopher Duncan Author - The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress)