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Programming As A Career

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Joost

Joost

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Any tips on starting programming as a career?

Programming seems like a career with good pay, opportunity of work remote and depending on the specialization, do nothing most of the time (no stress).

Anyone here who could share some information?

I know you can learn a lot from LinkedIn Learning (former Lynda.com).
- which programming language to choose?
- how to apply for a job after you gained knowledge and feel ready to start an entry-level position?
- which ones are the least demanding of your time that pays decently?
- which ones are the easiest to get a remote job?

I’m 40yo, have a stable career but I’m looking for one where I can work remote, making US pay.
 
Joost said:
Any tips on starting programming as a career?

Programming seems like a career with good pay, opportunity of work remote and depending on the specialization, do nothing most of the time (no stress).

Anyone here who could share some information?

I know you can learn a lot from LinkedIn Learning (former Lynda.com).
- which programming language to choose?
- how to apply for a job after you gained knowledge and feel ready to start an entry-level position?
- which ones are the least demanding of your time that pays decently?
- which ones are the easiest to get a remote job?

I’m 40yo, have a stable career but I’m looking for one where I can work remote, making US pay.
Click to expand...
Here's some advice I've gotten from older men who are successful in the industry:

- Just look up different programming language names in job boards and learn whichever one there are more job postings for in your area. Or go with fairly niche languages that certain industries look for, like COBOL.

- If you don't already know programming or don't have a cert that proves you do, it's always a good first step to get a customer support job. Call center, helpdesk, that sort of thing. The reason being the fact that companies which offer such jobs almost always have some sort of program to help employees become programmers or IT or whatever. They can, for example, offer free courses and certs, or give you financial aid for your education. Once you get a cert or whatever, usually the company will offer you tech jobs within the company rather than wait for you to leave and go work in tech at some other company.

- Customer support jobs shouldn't be hard to get remote. Be aware though, that these companies are often obsessed with monitoring their employees' every action, so if they give you a remote job but don't provide a company computer and instead want you to work from your own machine, they *will* ask you to install corporate spyware. Maybe learn how to use something like Qubes OS if you don't want the IT guys snooping around and discovering that you frequent this mildly countersemitic Christian forum.
 
If you are new to programming and don't have an university computer science background, you are most likely going to be going into web development. I would suggest Javascript as your first language. Even if you end up doing using another major language like Java or C# you most likely will have to work with Javascript at some point so might as well learn it now.

Build a web application and then use that as your selling point when you do interviews. I don't want to get into too much details about what to build or how to do it since there's lots of tutorial out there that will give you way more detail than can be conveyed in a forum post, but what I would strongly suggest is that you make sure the app you build is able to pull information from a database and then display it to a page. You'll need to learn how to set up a database and do some basic queries. Databases are another thing you are almost certain to be working with as any sort of developer so you should be learning that as well.

Also make sure you learn about APIs and how to make calls to them to retrieve, edit or post information. Your app should be able to do API calls and then display on a page the information that is returned from the call. There's different standards on how the information you send and receive is going to be formatted but you likely will be working with JSON. Study up on that as well.
 
I think its worth considering the kind of things that appeal to you. You can go the route of handling data and being a backend person, or be more involved in the visual, interactive side of things. If you don't like spreadsheets and are more of a visual person it would be better for you to learn HTML, CSS and Javascript then progress to something like React js.

Start making things and learning, put your best stuff on Github and start building a portfolio. Not everything has to be a fully realised, actual project. You could just build fake webpages with placeholder content to show you can create a good, responsive user experience. If you do go down the frontend route responsive is the key word. When I started to learn web development everyone used desktop computers and I still have this in mind, but actually the majority of people use their phones to access the Internet, so don't do the mobile stuff as an afterthought. People hiring will want someone who knows about responsive sites and can implement it well.
 
When this comes up, you inevitably get people replying with - it's over, man. Saturation. People are outsourcing to Indians for $300 per month.

I don't think that's the case. I know a guy who graduated from a boot-camp (6 months, intensive) at the end of 2019. Early the next year he was on $40k / year.

Getting in somewhere people you can learn from is key. You will learn far more being paid to learn in a job, than you will in any form of education.

People can outsource to India for peanuts and get the same back. Outsourcing to competent people in India is not that much cheaper than in the West. And many companies use programmers in EE for the same quality for less. But even programmers in EE can be very well paid.

Question is what is your aptitude? Do you have an analytical mind? Or are you more or an artist or something else? And what is your IQ. My guess is those who make good money are all 115+.

The best area to specialise in is databases. It's a blind spot. Most programmers know how to work with databases, but not at a high level. I've spent days figuring out advanced DB queries that a pro could probably have sorted in an hour. And you are talking days for 20-50 lines of code. If you see job boards you will find that DB guys get paid the most, due to lack of specialisation in the field. It seems to be the lowest input for the most reward. Much of it will revolve around figuring out who to perform queries quickly, but there can also be a lot of advanced multi-dimensional stuff that will make your head hurt. But you should have that with programming too.

I would look at also setting up a pet project. See this:

 
Lawrence87 said:
I think its worth considering the kind of things that appeal to you. You can go the route of handling data and being a backend person, or be more involved in the visual, interactive side of things. If you don't like spreadsheets and are more of a visual person it would be better for you to learn HTML, CSS and Javascript then progress to something like React js.

Start making things and learning, put your best stuff on Github and start building a portfolio. Not everything has to be a fully realised, actual project. You could just build fake webpages with placeholder content to show you can create a good, responsive user experience. If you do go down the frontend route responsive is the key word. When I started to learn web development everyone used desktop computers and I still have this in mind, but actually the majority of people use their phones to access the Internet, so don't do the mobile stuff as an afterthought. People hiring will want someone who knows about responsive sites and can implement it well.
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I would suggest the website/app that a person builds in order to show off his skills for an interview not just use static hard-coded place holder content but something that is being pulled from somewhere else. If it's not from a database it should at least be from some API. There's lots of APIs online where you can pull data from since many big companies like Yelp will actually make a lot of their data available via an API. If you want to work something that's not as big and overwhelming, you can use this: https://ghibli.rest/docs/#/ Even if you want to specialize mostly on front-end UI/UX type stuff I think it's good to show you at least know the basics of working with a backend.
 
Search for fully remote job postings on places like indeed and see which skills actually land remote jobs now versus non-remote.
You can go into automation testing, its easier form of programming that is half testing. Automation QAs write code, mostly just scripts not applications, they write code that tests other code. This is less skilled form of programming but it often pays no less than straight programming because you have to understand the testing part as well. Different languages are used, depends on employer, Python, javascript, got to analyze job postings. Not sure how much fully remote opportunity is in this field now, though. Another option is cybersecurity, but again need to check fully remote options.

Coding is being heavily outsourced, but even inside US companies there is heavy competition with Indians on H1 visas. Things get ugly, doesn't matter remote or not. I have a computer science university degree and years of experience, won't touch this profession with a ten foot pole now. A lot of these jobs expect you to work much more than 40 hours a week and sometimes constantly on call. Lots of age and white discrimination. There are no entry level jobs in this field other than mostly unpaid internships, entry level is 2 years of experience now. You can make up the experience but you need a reference to do that, someone they can call, and some actual skills. Lots of companies will ask you for your tax forms from your past job now, though, they hire background check corporations for that, but not like they have any way to verify what you gave then is a real thing. Your best bet would be looking for an internship once you get some skills. Many go bootcamp route, it may help to get a foot in the door, bootcamp may offer initial placement.

They sure want to see your apps portfolio but at the company interview you will be grilled on puzzles and coding like a holiday chicken. I had 8-10 hour interviews as a norm, the longest was total may be 20 hours combined 3 day interview. Some jerk comes in and grills you on tricky questions, gives coding tasks, then next, and next, 6 people easily. Other professions do not have this nonsense If I see a shooting star my wish is to never deal with this BS again. I came to conclude T. Kazinski was right on the money about tech and yeah I went to top school. I live off the grid often under harsh conditions and moving to remote location in Russia just to never deal with this BS again. Flipping homes is a better profession.
 
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Here is an interesting (short) article titled "Advice for new software devs who've read all those other advice essays":
buttondown.email

Advice for new software devs who've read all those other advice essays

From a person who really shouldn't be giving others advice.
buttondown.email buttondown.email

And here is the comment section of the forum post where I originally found the link to the article:

Advice for new software devs who've read all those other advice essays | Lobsters

lobste.rs lobste.rs

A few words about lobste.rs. It's not really a forum aimed at beginners, but it's full of highly technical and experienced people and you will come across many interesting points of view and bits of advice. When you come across a topic later on that you would like to know more about, you might want to try and use the "Search" function to look through the posts there. It is also not a bad idea to check the front page every once in a while to keep up with what is happening within the industry.

However, keep in mind that despite the posters' technical brilliance their beliefs are very likely drastically different from your own (and mine), so proceed with caution.

I am hesitant to offer more concrete advice myself. It's a very broad field and there is no "one size fits all" answer.

You will have to figure out which areas interest you and then go from there.
 
jaguarcat said:
Search for fully remote job postings on places like indeed and see which skills actually land remote jobs now versus non-remote.
You can go into automation testing, its easier form of programming that is half testing. Automation QAs write code, mostly just scripts not applications, they write code that tests other code. This is less skilled form of programming but it often pays no less than straight programming because you have to understand the testing part as well. Different languages are used, depends on employer, Python, javascript, got to analyze job postings. Not sure how much fully remote opportunity is in this field now, though. Another option is cybersecurity, but again need to check fully remote options.

Coding is being heavily outsourced, but even inside US companies there is heavy competition with Indians on H1 visas. Things get ugly, doesn't matter remote or not. I have a computer science university degree and years of experience, won't touch this profession with a ten foot pole now. A lot of these jobs expect you to work much more than 40 hours a week and sometimes constantly on call. Lots of age and white discrimination. There are no entry level jobs in this field other than mostly unpaid internships, entry level is 2 years of experience now. You can make up the experience but you need a reference to do that, someone they can call, and some actual skills. Lots of companies will ask you for your tax forms from your past job now, though, they hire background check corporations for that, but not like they have any way to verify what you gave then is a real thing. Your best bet would be looking for an internship once you get some skills. Many go bootcamp route, it may help to get a foot in the door, bootcamp may offer initial placement.

They sure want to see your apps portfolio but at the company interview you will be grilled on puzzles and coding like a holiday chicken. I had 8-10 hour interviews as a norm, the longest was total may be 20 hours combined 3 day interview. Some jerk comes in and grills you on tricky questions, gives coding tasks, then next, and next, 6 people easily. Other professions do not have this nonsense If I see a shooting star my wish is to never deal with this BS again. I came to conclude T. Kazinski was right on the money about tech and yeah I went to top school. I live off the grid often under harsh conditions and moving to remote location in Russia just to never deal with this BS again. Flipping homes is a better profession.
Click to expand...

I was writing software years ago, doing contract work (Windows + Linux Development, Back-End Development, C#, Golang, SQL, etc.) Burned myself out and left the profession altogether.

Today I work with my hands outside in the elements; it has been much better for my mind and my body, thank the Lord.

In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps. Pro 16:9.
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Think about US Southern border and all the illegals that are coming in. This is roughly what US tech looks like in terms of Indians. They got their bodyshops that can make visas for anyone, also confirm fake references, experience and even education. If you want to work outside the US for US pay/company ask yourself why would they pay someone who is remote and overseas US pay if they can hire someone in India etc. Companies are cracking down hard on full remote now. The whole point of paying US pay is to get one sitting in the US, paying big mortgage, office lease, partonizing shops and feeding all kinds of US leeches. There can also be security issues with someone fully remote overseas. So do lots of research on job postings , what actually lands fully remote positions. If you want to freelance web development instead of company work you would have to do your own marketing which can be a full time job
 
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Man the market has gone so different from the RVF Python thread times. If I'd start now, I'd become data engineer if you are good with maths.

Just dont tell the indians.
 
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