Advice on starting an I.T career

JHeaton said:
Cool :)

I'm mostly learning in my own time, which is slow-going at the moment, although I've just been given a couple of projects to do at work. The downside to that is it's using VB and I'm not really keen on it, having spent my time learning Perl, Java and C# at home >.<

Thanks for that :)
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Whilst all developers will have a pet language, most will be platform agnostic. Well, the good developers will be at least.

Though we all hate nasty languages like VB6. :)

EDIT:
Also to add, Developers never stop learning. Software Development is a constantly evolving skill, and to be completely frank, very difficult to stay up-to-date. Currently emergent themes are TDD (Test Driven Design), BDD (Behaviour Driven Design) and DDD (Domain Driven Design) for "best practices" as well as Agile (and child-frameworks like Scrum) Lean and Kanban.
 
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I've branched into IT management now which I find more interesting and pays a lot more than the techy stuff (which I've not understood as some pd the techy stuff is not easy)
 
You guys make IT sound like a really rubbish place to start off in, but very good in sorting the wheat from the chaff as to where you end up.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Whilst all developers will have a pet language, most will be platform agnostic. Well, the good developers will be at least.

Though we all hate nasty languages like VB6. :)

EDIT:
Also to add, Developers never stop learning. Software Development is a constantly evolving skill, and to be completely frank, very difficult to stay up-to-date. Currently emergent themes are TDD (Test Driven Design), BDD (Behaviour Driven Design) and DDD (Domain Driven Design) for "best practices" as well as Agile (and child-frameworks like Scrum) Lean and Kanban.
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To be fair, it's the only one I've had a problem with. I just haven't had chance to learn that many yet. The only other ones I've touched are C and Pascal at college. I'd like to feel comfortable using one language before I start messing with others, though. Just can't decide whether Java or C# would be better to go with right now.

I'll look in to the things you mentioned. Should provide me with plenty of reading :p
 
I wouldn't worry too much about learning BDD, Agile an the rest until you are more familiar with developing in general. They are more to do with managing your development time than they are actually doing development. TDD on the other hand is very much right in there with how you develop software. :)
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Personally I took the long road. I started an apprenticeship in Developing IT for EDS, which had the odd bit of development work in, but in my own time self-taught er.. myself by garnering information from the web (forums, tutorial sites) and books from authors like The Gang Of Four, Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, etc. and eventually dabbling into a bit of freelance work. Then once I was satisfied I had enough programming experience under my belt, I applied for development roles.

I'd like to point out that it would be worthwhile learning very advantageous development habits like TDD from the get-go. Basically, lots of reading and trying things out :)
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Similar story to me.

Graduate Developer with an IT Consultancy
Then worked as an application support/developer type role at BP
Then moved into Investment Banking as a developer
Then moved into Asset management as a developer when the IB hours/workload/stress started to kill me and my relationship with my wife.
Then (two years ago) moved into a Hedge Fund as a developer.

Currently I do a bit of management as well, Scrum master/tech lead, that sort of thing. I'm now on approximately 10x my starting salary.

I don't consider myself a particularly gifted coder, nor do I consider any of the roles I have landed as lucky or via "networking" - last role I got was from a random recruitment agent contacting me via LinkedIn - I am also fortunate to work with some incredibly bright and motivated developers whom I am constantly learning from.

I do work hard though, honest.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
I'm thinking of making the leap from developer to Scrum Master soon. How are you finding it?
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It's pretty interesting, and I enjoy it a lot!

Obviously the official role of a Scrum Master is just a guardian of the Scrum Process. But I find I end up combining that with a tech lead role quite effectively. Running sprint/release planning sessions, cherry picking the interesting stories in sprint, that sort of thing.

I still consider myself a developer, just with a few extra things to do each day.
 
But, yes, abusing my "authoritah" aside, it's an incredibly rewarding role to have.

You do need support from management - it's incredibly difficult to "do agile" without everyone else "getting it". And also development practices have to be addressed. BDD and TDD help with both of those, and very quickly along comes DDD and ORM technologies (we use nHibernate), together with some sort of CI and build automation process.

75%+ of my job revolves around code and systems management rather than coding itself, although I try and pair up with developers as often as I can (which removes the need for a peer review of code).

A bit off topic, but I think it's a good example of where IT can lead you and change direction if you keep learning and improving, changing and growing. If you stand still you go backwards. etc!
 
I'll admit ive not read this thread properly at all, but did search for the terms. Aside from a technical view, i'd definatly look into customer service/management courses/qualifications such as ITIL and Prince2.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
I wouldn't worry too much about learning BDD, Agile an the rest until you are more familiar with developing in general. They are more to do with managing your development time than they are actually doing development. TDD on the other hand is very much right in there with how you develop software. :)
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Thank you. If I ever make the career change, I'll buy you a pint :p
 
I did a computing based degree at university and went into systems administration. I personally think both kinds of education (degree and professional certifications) have their merits in any kind of IT job.

However, some have different kinds of influences. Someone trying to get into programming for example, would benefit highly from having some kind of computer science degree. From that, they get a thorough understanding of fundamental computing aspects, programming, memory management, systems architecture etc..

When it comes to Support/Sysadmin it does help having a degree as any degree shows your capacity for learning a particular subject, managing workload etc.

My advice is, you have two ways of going about this, both are legitimate.

First is you go straight into a first line support role, my experience with these is they mainly focus on your personality, the way you approach problems etc, rather than if you know how to do xyz on Windows Server/Unix Server.

Once in a first line role you will then get exposed to all kinds of technologies. Providing you display a willingness to learn, you'll be given more responsibility and possibly branch out into other technologies, exposing you to more to the back-end infrastructure. Once you get to this stage, you should start to think about taking some certifications like the MCITP.

I personally do not recommend someone taking any MCP/MCITP certifications when they have no experience/exposure to those technologies, with the exception of the Microsoft Certified Desktop Support cert. Too many people take a MCSE/MCITP with no real world server experience and then expect to land a 3rd line support job.

Outside of MS certifications you can look into vendor-neutral certifications such as the A+ and Network+, these will be helpful in you securing your first IT role.

The second way is to go to uni, either a regular one or the OU and take some courses, then you can apply for graduate level IT positions.

Either are valid approaches in my opinion, and I've read/seen people from both those approaches progress in their career.

When it comes to preparing for certification exams I'd personally buy the reading material and go through it in my own time rather than going to a training centre etc. I suspect that self-teaching yourself these kind of subjects in your own time looks good on a CV, proves your dedication to working in IT.

Most importantly, I wish you luck.
 
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I was wondering about this one as well... and I found my answer. :) So let me tell you about it. UNI is all about reading and studying stuff which you will use... maybe 20% of... just like reading this thread :D To some it's a waste of time [especially if they're low on that one], to others it's the only way. I like my hands on work ;)
Thus, I'm off to dl some flash related tutorials xD

But to you, harryc05, [and others] :) I wish best of luck with anything you chose.
 
I'm 34 and recently got a new IT job after the recession caused by last company to shed jobs and i took volutary redundancy after 17 years.

During that time though I had several roles, started off as a computer operator and finished up in server support.

My new job is a 1st line IT engineer but i'm rellay enjoying it as i am much busier than i was in my last role and its different and interesting work and the people/users are really helpful and nice.

My advice having been in industry a long time would be to do as much quals as you can (a levels or a degree are useful for younger inexperienced people and MCSEs for more experienced people) and then start at the bottom i.e. helpdesk 1st line. If you have motivation and drive you will progress through the ranks. its geting that first job thats important and the hardest part. once our in you can move around as i have done a few times :)

I hear what others are saying about being sick of working in IT but i meet people who work at the checkouts because they were sick of their career and i don't know how they can take such a soul destroying job! :confused:
 
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