tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post3040341290503176370..comments2023-12-29T13:22:33.104-08:00Comments on JJinuxLand: I think I need some career advicejjinuxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03270879497119114175noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-11640019918758243662015-09-24T16:44:56.958-07:002015-09-24T16:44:56.958-07:00Dan, I agree. That worked out well for us at our s...Dan, I agree. That worked out well for us at our startup. You hired me to code a RoR app even though I had very little RoR experience. I ended up having to learn ActionScript to overhaul the Flash video player.jjinuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03270879497119114175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-69207664953994939672015-09-24T15:21:36.497-07:002015-09-24T15:21:36.497-07:00I think that any company that isn't willing to...I think that any company that isn't willing to look at the experience holistically as opposed to the language generalist/quick learner is putting themselves at a disadvantage.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-44084164086142306742015-09-07T16:07:19.008-07:002015-09-07T16:07:19.008-07:00Thanks, Alex! That's helpful. I think you'...Thanks, Alex! That's helpful. I think you're the third person to say that, so I'm convinced.jjinuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03270879497119114175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-76089011195151332712015-09-07T16:04:26.724-07:002015-09-07T16:04:26.724-07:00Nice to hear from you, Vicki! There are still a lo...Nice to hear from you, Vicki! There are still a lot of companies that need internal tools. My experience is that they tend to use Python these days, and they're often web apps. I've done that sort of work at multiple companies.<br /><br />I've always been pretty good at picking up new things to try to keep ahead of the curve. However, being familiar with a technology isn't sufficient these days. They want someone who's used it for multiple years. Since you can only do that for a few technologies at a time, it means you have to pick a specialty. For instance, even though I've used Ruby at several startups, since I'm not a full time Ruby developer, I'm probably not good enough to get a Ruby job. Times have changed.<br /><br />I'll be writing another blog post with a summary of what I've learned from everyone's comments.jjinuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03270879497119114175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-8828457313591469672015-09-07T13:42:12.816-07:002015-09-07T13:42:12.816-07:00Thank you everyone for all of your useful comments...Thank you everyone for all of your useful comments! I'm slowly digesting them. If you're facing a similar situation, you can checkout all the comments for yourself:<br /><br />Twitter conversation: https://twitter.com/jjinux/status/640341605732319237<br />G+ conversation: https://plus.google.com/+ShannonBehrens/posts/b7MrSeCNpfJ<br />Facebook conversation: https://www.facebook.com/jjinux/posts/10153486544006014jjinuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03270879497119114175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-16557800962872762822015-09-07T13:26:49.183-07:002015-09-07T13:26:49.183-07:00Here's a nice quote from a buddy, "I see ...Here's a nice quote from a buddy, "I see your post is getting useful comments ;-) Step 1: be Alex Martelli Step 2: get hired. Yay! Alex is pretty awesome." Agreed!jjinuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03270879497119114175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-13596107979721193592015-09-07T13:24:26.868-07:002015-09-07T13:24:26.868-07:00(Humorously) Thanks to all my friends Hy and Brand...(Humorously) Thanks to all my friends Hy and Brandon who took the time to read this post and then immediately texted me to point out that I misspelled principal ;)jjinuxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03270879497119114175noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-82228949563683513232015-09-06T00:11:38.712-07:002015-09-06T00:11:38.712-07:00I agree with Alex -- going in as a consultant is N...I agree with Alex -- going in as a consultant is NOT a dead end. I'm in my 60's and recently got back into programming (loving it!) after many years as a management consultant. I went in as a contractor and within a month and a half I was offered a full-time job. I chose to stay on as a consultant (been there over 18 months now) and everything still is working out. I could convert pretty much anytime if I wanted, but consulting works for me.<br /><br />I've learned a lot of languages in my day (not so many as you, but I'll bet you don't have IBM/360 assembler language in your list :=) and I do agree that folks want 'specialists" when they're hiring. So in my case, ruby, cucumber, rspec were the key skills that I use every day, but my knowledge of bash especially, plus git, html, javascript are a vital part of the mix.<br /><br />It definitely took me a while to get back into full-time programming -- bombed on some of the early outings but kept practicing like you're doing and then found what worked. You're so dang good it's only a matter of time before you find the right spot.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04562124576834662555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-82253970024657599792015-09-05T20:55:14.892-07:002015-09-05T20:55:14.892-07:00> It seems to me that once you become a consult...> It seems to me that once you become a consultant as an older programmer, it becomes very hard to get hired as a normal engineer at many companies. <br /><br />Not in my experience -- close to 50 years old, I was a successful consultant, yet Google was happy enough with me to extend a generous offer, including paying the costs for me and my wife to move half a world away from my native Italy to California, where I've been living since (and still happily working for Google -- as you, JJ, know, but, pointing it out for other readers).<br /><br />I don't think a few years as a consultant, startup founder, etc, can do any harm to your career, based on my experience...<br /><br /><br />Alex<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18192270096589353808noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11788780.post-62589338529868167452015-09-05T19:02:47.094-07:002015-09-05T19:02:47.094-07:00I understand the feeling.
I used to be able to sa...I understand the feeling.<br /><br />I used to be able to say I was a programmer. I liked being a programmer. I did shell, awk, C, and Perl programming. I wrote internal tools for whichever team I was in. I had three Bioinfo company jobs and a position as a utilities programmer for an OS distribution. I loved it. I want to work down the hall (or a quick email away) from my "customers"<br /><br />But then Perl 6 was announced, companies stopped using Perl 5, those that kept using it wanted Object Oriented module builders... and the WWW brought more web apps and different development and the number of companies looking for the kind of programming I liked doing dropped significantly. These days everyone is a JavaScript programmer. Feh.<br /><br />So, I slowly switched away from internal programming to internal docs.That's harder, unfortunately, because many managers think the writer should write everything. (Note to managers: if I was the subject matter expert, I'd be writing the code, not the docs. I'm the "turn your docs into readable English" expert.)<br /><br />Then I got a job doing wiki support. That was the best 5 years of my "career". But no other companies use that wiki, so I have all of this expertise and no one who wants it.<br /><br />Which is to say, in a round about way, that you're not alone. Good luck to you. Let us know what you figure out... at last for the near term.<br /><br />Vickihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05520201773777349145noreply@blogger.com