I really want a job as computer programmer

Cromulent

Cromulent

Cromulent

Soldato
Joined
1 Nov 2007
Posts
6,342
Location
England
So my dream job is a computer programmer. I have been programming for some years and can program in the following languages:

C
Python
C++ (I'd say I was intermediate in this language rather than advanced)
JavaScript (also intermediate)

I could easily also teach myself similar languages like Java and C#.

I'm mainly a Unix developer having done most of my work on Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD and OpenBSD although I'd quite like to get better at Windows programming. I've done quite a lot of backend website work working with the PostgreSQL database system and some frontend stuff although I'm not a designer. I've also done network programming using BSD sockets using both TCP and UDP networking protocols.

Furthermore I am experienced in Linux server administration and have done it for about 6 years having used it both on servers and on the desktop at various times.

What I'd really like to know is what I can do to improve my chances of getting a programming job. I've had a few telephone interviews and one face to face interview but I also have some medical issues which to cut a long story short would mean that working from home would be preferable but I could cope with working in an office. I live near London in Surrey.

Any help on what I should learn next or what I should do would be really appreciated :).
 
AHarvey;30484275 said:
You don't say what your current job is so not sure how much of this will be relevant.
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I've been running a couple of Limited companies but neither have worked out unfortunately hence the desire for a job. In those roles I've done everything from accounting to legal requirements to programming to advertising and marketing. Basically everything to do with running a business really. They have both been me on my own.

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll check out some job boards and see how I get on. I'll also update my LinkedIn profile.

I was thinking of using the MIT open courseware found here:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/

to do a computer science degree (even though I won't actually get a qualification) just so I can improve my skills.

I'm really only looking for a junior position.
 
Thank you all for your replies :). It was really helpful. I'll try and pick something that I want to specialise it. I might try and find an open source project and start contributing to it and see where that leads me. If I have something concrete to put on my CV that would be good. All my previous projects haven't really been written with outside eyes in mind which in hindsight was a mistake.

I'll also check out the job boards as well. Thank you for the link to the remote workers stuff that is really helpful.
 
dowie;30494529 said:
Did you not get feedback from the failed interviews?

There is almost always work to be found for good developers. Working on open source projects is probably a good idea. Linking to your GitHub on your CV/LinkedIn account is worthwhile.
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Yeah I got some feedback. They were really impressed with what I had managed to teach myself but I wasn't quite good enough and I cocked up because the code that I sent them had a bug in it which wasn't great. But they seemed pretty happy. My nurse told me to tell them about my medical condition which they said was a bit weird so that was another mistake. It was with the Financial Times so it was a serious job not with some small fry company.

Overall I think my knowledge is at a good place. I just need to have a portfolio with some working code and some experience of working in a group using things like Git or Mercurial which I haven't got because I do everything on my own.

I think my main problem is confidence. Because I am self taught I have no idea how I stack up to people who have done a 3 year comp sci degree or a maths degree. I know there are some major areas that my knowledge is lacking mainly around maths so I'm concentrating hard on that at the moment. I also need to revise data structures and algorithms.

One area I'd love to specialise in would be artificial intelligence so things like genetic algorithms and neural networks and stuff. I might start trying to concentrate on the maths for that side of things as well.
 
a66as said:
Do you really need to learn all that maths to get a job as a software developer? i thought it was only for game development
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For some programming jobs you certainly need maths. Machine learning is what I want to get into and you'll need it for that. You also need it if you are interested in operating system development and network stack development. So yeah I certainly need to improve my maths skills.

If you are just making websites though it is unlikely you'll need any maths. So like with anything it really depends on what you want to do hence my interest in improving my maths skills :).
 
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