[Closed] A way into a programming career?

Can you compete with a graduate?

Honest answer, try seeing if there was a job that your current skill sets match that include programming.

Can you compete with a graduate?

Pay wise, probably. I am in a graduate position currently as have changed the industry sector I work in (due to moving to Edinburgh) but current job/career path is quickly losing its appeal.

My specialism is currently acoustics, noise, audio with some programming and some electronics experience

As an employer/more senior guy I would rather a better skilled grad than someone with a bit of this experience. If you can combine your current grad skills with something else then maybe.

As an employer/more senior guy I would rather a better skilled grad than someone with a bit of this experience.

However his background sounds like their an electronic engineerer, so if there was any maths required in the programming they'd probably be much better suited.

I've had a modest IT company for 25 years.. A degree was never a consideration when employing.. BUT.. the ex employees of mine who have gone on to be successful or make a packet have all (with one exception) been graduates.

have all (with one exception) been graduates.

Graduates of Computer Science?

Graduates of Computer Science?

Suprisingly.. no 😕

Well I'm a graduate with a BSc (Hons) and an MSc not in computer science so is there hope?! 🙂

I am very much out of touch but from what I understand a lot of the lower level programming is done offshore now in low cost countries. I would suggest focusing on higher level stuff / design / interacting with businesses/system users. It would seem ideal to try and leverage your work experience too.

[url= http://programming.meetup.com/cities/gb/u8/edinburgh/ ]Get to know some people locally[/url] ask them about companies, work, skills, experience.

I've benefited more from people knowing me than from just sitting in a room quietly writing a program.

Also, should you ever find yourself writing the word 'leverage' then either go and work in sales or read [url= http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/politics-and-the-english-language/ ]Politics and the English language[/url] 😈

Not many places will take on a "junior" developer as they would rather have someone who requires less training/support etc however positions do exist.

Good way in might be as application support / devops type role then move into programming?

To pick this up again, I've been thinking. At the last few companies I've worked at I've immediately seen the way that they process data and use software as being grossly inefficient, e.g. using Excel but manually calculating whether a value exceeds another value or manually copying values one by one from one piece of software to another where there is an ODBC import option instead. I've then suggested and implemented much more efficient ways of working.

I don't find this sort of thing complicated and actually find it bit strange people work the more inefficient way. Sorting out these issues hasn't been the main part of my role though, but think it is something I could build on in another role focusing on it. Any ideas what that job would be?

Well I think there is a change brewing in the industry (could be optimistic) I see more an more companies running IT apprenticeships / trainee schemes as they are unable to attract senior experienced candidates at, frankly, sensible salaries who have the right attitude.

Contractors work out expensive long term and there are often communication/quality/contractual issues with offshoring using third parties. Certainly a lot of smaller firms are all about team based agile development, which I've found works best with collocated motivated team players (which tend to be the fresh faced grads, or 1-2 year experienced guys) with a good all round tech lead / mentor in the mix.

We've hired 50 or so trainees in the last couple of years, and all but one has turned out to be successful productive developers (and testers). I was sceptical we would get such a high success rate, but the proof is there.

Start applying. Most of the schemes are aligned to the student calendar though, so begin in Sept/Oct though expect the applications earlier.

I was a law graduate and started on an IT grad programme with an insurance company 13 years ago or so, then left when we outsourced IT to an India firm. It's interesting to see it come full circle and now be in a company that is rebuilding its perm capability

EDIT - in answer to your last post do some research on business intelligence tools, some really good stuff out there which makes the excel number crunching stuff far far easier (if you are talking about reporting). Or I could read that as data transfer between systems, which is generally a sign of bad architecture / poor integration. Likely from the systems being built a different times, probably by different people/projects/companies, and the 'making it work together bit' being descoped or forgotten or badly designed. Which happens a lot.

I wouldn't do it myself. Programming is an awful job in many cases. Deadlines, long hours, chained to a desk, expected to learn the latest stuff in your own time (training budgets usually poor), not particularly well paid (for IT). I write short programs to get a job done and a bit of hobby stuff for fun, but I couldn't sit there doing it all day, every day for all the tea in china.

expected to learn the latest stuff in your own time

I expect everyone (myself included) to learn stuff on their own time. If it's vital to the company I'm happy to pay for training but if you're in a knowledge based role and expect me to constantly drip feed you every single thing, it won't go well.

TBH if you're prepared to start at the bottom from a salary PoV and are a GOOD developer then you'll do okay. If you're mediocre/a journeyman then it'll be hard to compete with newly minted grads or school leavers. I've never cared about uni transcripts as there's a lot of bad courses out there.

start at the bottom from a salary PoV

What would be a typical salary?

Copy/paste etc... I don't find this sort of thing complicated and actually find it bit strange people work the more inefficient way.

I find it amazing the amount of people who work with computers day-in, day-out who have no idea that the computer is there to do the work for you. It seems to go hand-in-hand with a lack of initiative.

when I led a development team I preferred grads / post-grads and second jobbers who could demonstrate a natural aptitude, rather than qualifications or specific experience. Variously I think I had an astrophysicist, an economist, a business management and a philosophy graduate (amongst others). All my team were expected to (and did) read up and keep up on external developments in their own time.

I don't think that's unusual. If you're able to compete with grads in terms of starting salaries etc and finance interests you then I can put you in touch with some decent agencies. But then I'm London (City) based so I suspect slightly out of your way...

(BTW - I have an arts degree, joined a grad program with an IT consultancy to get programming experience and then took it from there. Not sure whether that's an option - looking at the 'milk round' at the usual suspects to see whether you can get into a post-graduate training scheme)

peakyblinder - Member
....... I write short programs to get a job done

What line of work are you in?

I expect everyone (myself included) to learn stuff on their own time. If it's vital to the company I'm happy to pay for training but if you're in a knowledge based role and expect me to constantly drip feed you every single thing, it won't go well.

I don't expect you to drip feed me anything and I've had to learn everything in my job in my own time and at my own expense. But it's only fair to let someone know before they go down a career path what the reality is.

What line of work are you in?

I'm a freelance ethical hacker.

Any ideas what that job would be?

Data Scientist

What the degree is in doesn't necessarily matter - I can't remember what the best degree is supposed to be for producing good programmers but it isn't computer science.

A lot of people who do computer science will never be decent programmers.

Years ago Silicon Graphics took a bunch of criminally 'delinquent' teenagers from whatever institution they were in and taught them to program as an experiment, then gave a number of them jobs as they turned out to be decent at it.

Why programming? It's not clear that it's a great love of yours from what you describe. Whilst I'd not agree entirely with PeakyBlinders'

Programming is an awful job in many cases

I saw the words 'data scientist' in one response. If you've a strong stats/maths leaning with the ability to turn your Matlab skills to R or even SAS then that's one potential route. Although lots of 'data science' jobs aren't billed as such. You'll likely have a local R-users' group which will give you an idea of some of the opportunities around that might interest you.

If you're in Edinburgh, have you considered biotech? There's a partially-recognized need in some companies for diverse, mathematically-adept, business-savvy, computer-savvy folks to do various 'modelling', informatics, or 'business intelligence' work. Have a look around. Some companies require previous healthcare/research experience for some jobs. It can be worth having a call with the hiring manager if the field interests you.

If you're in Edinburgh, have you considered biotech? There's a partially-recognized need in some companies for diverse, mathematically-adept, business-savvy, computer-savvy folks to do various 'modelling', informatics, or 'business intelligence' work.

Other areas (given what you say above) would be to look more at the Process Management side of things (look for DevOps) and another key area is UX (user experience - which is the progression from being on the design side of web development).

It all depends on where you want to work really - do you want to head down the big corporate consulting route (high stress, good money), the more technical coding route or the more hipster web dev side of things?

I thought you needed a Data Science degree, or some experience working with Hadoop, or something relevant to processing large data volumes or computations to get into "Big Data"?

Even a DevOps role will need you to be familiar with some programming/operations stuff (Python/Go or Wintel/TCP/IP stuff). Not something you can just switch into on a whim!

I quite like programming, solving problems and the sense of satisfaction when you get something new working.

Like most careers, there are bad jobs and good jobs and good and parts of these.

I was a programmer for about 13 years after Uni (Computer Science), taught English for 9 years and now trying to get back into it. So far, with little success, no-one has replied to any of my job applications. Never mind, I'll keep going.

I wouldn't do it myself. Programming is an awful job in many cases. Deadlines, long hours, chained to a desk, expected to learn the latest stuff in your own time (training budgets usually poor), not particularly well paid (for IT).

Anything to do with operations, of a system or of a network, is way worse.

At least with programming you are creating something and your work is somewhat visible - running networks/systems is much more of a thankless task as not many people notice that you are doing a good job just because there haven't been any problems recently.

Most decent programmers welcome the chance to learn and work with new technologies, although the constant need to do so can get a bit boring.

At least with Microsoft the churn of technologies is a little less than it was, and most of the technologies are quite decent now which contrasts with having to keep learning poor frameworks. Although we can only hope that one day VB and VBA will be consigned to history...

And the pay is pretty also decent considering.

I suppose it depends on what type of organisation you work for. Many programmers in front-office type positions in banks work long hours and to deadlines, and are compensated for it, but they welcome the pressure.

Where the pressure becomes problematic is when it is coming down as a result of entrenched incompetence at higher levels within the organisation, such as insisting on trying to write production systems using things like Excel, and using terms like strategic and tactical solutions to try to disguise their stupid decisions.

i.e pressure to produce something worth-while is good, pressure to fight fires because of continual junk decisions from above is not.

If the OP has no problem with C++, then he is probably not going to have any problem with anything else.

One, probably slow, way might be to get involved with a significant open-source project, then start running a blog of your experiences/thoughts, then maybe start your own open-source project based on some nifty idea you have come up with along the way.

Get yourself known and rated on something like stack-overflow.

Then when you apply to places you have something to show and be assessed on.

Somewhere like microsoft might entertain such an application - a lot of their top programmers seem to have been brought in from open source projects - like NUnit for example. One could even get the impression that they are incapable of growing their own talent...

Anything to do with operations, of a system or of a network, is way worse.

Agree, you couldnt pay me to be a sys admin - i don't even like dev ops. There are loads of free courses on coursera for just about anything programming/data science related that could worth a go. If you have any good ideas and some time it could be worth creating a github account and making a project or two on there. Something that you can show employers, although that works both ways - if you write any poor code they'll be able to see that too..
I've had people send me emails about jobs off the back of my github and mine is pretty shocking tbf (all pretty old code)!

My specialism is currently acoustics, noise, audio with some programming and some electronics experience

http://www.linn.co.uk/careers ?

expected to learn the latest stuff in your own time

I think this is what sorts the wannabes from the real deal 🙂

been learning new stuff perpetually throughout my programming life 20+ years...

Still love programming ....

IF you have a engineering background don't aim to be a general programer. You will miss out to the kids who have programed since they were 10 and love computers. Use your maths / engineering skills to get into a engineering based programming job. Most "hardcore" programmers I know are not super up on the high end engineering.

Most coders I meet are pretty miserable. Although in fairness its usually during a debrief when I'm telling them how I emptied their databases of credit card details due to a mistake they made!

Most coders I meet are pretty miserable

I am struggling to think of any miserable ones I have worked with in nearly 30 years of programming.

There is one here who often looks miserable, but he is god fearing and thinks things like cancers are things imposed by god as punishments for being gay. I sent round a link to that spoof CERN April 1st release about finding The Force, and he replied that he couldn't understand why these people couldn't just accept God instead of continually looking for answers... We had to point out that it was a joke.

Your lot are probably miserable as they are working for you and you are paying them poorly and imposing stupid deadlines...

I got into it via being a mainframe operator 🙂

I think as already said if you go via support or help desk roles you should be able to slip into a programming role later....

VBs fine the problem is with vb programmers tbh...

Your lot are probably miserable as they are working for you and you are paying them poorly and imposing stupid deadlines...

wtf?

I don't employ any coders. I just deal with them from lots of companies all the time. The team leaders, dev managers etc are always chipper, at least while they are not under threat of being offshored. The code-miners are usually throwing CV's and bits of stolen source code to agents to wangle a better position elsewhere.

The coders I know who love what they are doing are mostly working on open source projects. I know some Microsoft and Google guys who really love their job. But jobbing code-miners in banks, insurance, bookmakers, game companies, retail etc are mostly a bit glum. You might not be, I'm just saying what I see. And it's only fair to give both sides of the story to the OP.

I'm not miserable ....but have met a fair few....

I got into it for the Porsches and rockstar lifestyle 🙂

I ride my bike to work every day and do something I love an get paid for it and I can get away with wearing shorts 9 months of the year....can life get any better...

can life get any better...

You could be commuting on an Airwheel?

Oh god no.....saw someone having to ride around in circles waiting to cross the road...looked a total tool on it 🙂

I got into it for the Porsches and rockstar lifestyle

Become a contractor then. A mate of mine does that. Not sure what he earns exactly but I do know he is the same age as me, writes very similar code, and currently owns four houses.

looked a total tool on it

Young guy went past me on an x8 yesterday, on the south side of the Thames near the globe. Seemed pretty smooth on it.

I've sent am email to the dept of transport to see what their opinion on them is.

They look fun to me, and you look less of a tool than people on those small scooters, and they don't look like fun at all. But just walking in suit trousers and trainers or walking shoes looks pretty toolish, anyway.

I write C# ASP.Net all day long and love it. It pays well, too. I'm very happy doing what I do after years of sales / customer service dead end jobs. These helped enormously though as they taught me communication skills. The old joke about 'How do you identify an extrovert programmer? They stare at YOUR shoes' has some truth in it!

All the tools you need for web dev are free and there are some good tutorials available for free - I'm entirely self taught and had a couple of lucky breaks. Go for it. You don't need a degree - I don't have one - just a willingness to learn and the ability to get on with people.

Go for it and good luck!

Don't you mean introvert?

And trouser length was a clue as well, although now some showing of the mankles is fashionable with the hip crowd.

No, the introverted programmer stares at his own shoes...

Become a contractor then. A mate of mine does that. Not sure what he earns exactly but I do know he is the same age as me, writes very similar code, and currently owns four houses.

I know some places where contractors are looking at somewhere between a £800 and £1200 day rate.

Become a contractor then. A mate of mine does that. Not sure what he earns exactly but I do know he is the same age as me, writes very similar code, and currently owns four houses.

I was but tbh it's not as good as it sounds ....it has ups and downs ...

currently is the operative word...seen it go boom when the Internet bubble burst the first time had about 9-10 months of enforced holiday 🙂

I'm Too old to bother contracting again just looking forward to retirement...But once you have some skills contracting is very good to gain more experience and gain the type of non programming soft skills of working in what can be a stressful environment....they don't always just throw money at you without a reason... 🙂

currently is the operative word...seen it go boom when the Internet bubble burst the first time had about 9-10 months of enforced holiday

Nah. He, like me, is a [i]real programmer[/i] (microprocessors and embedded system) not a web jockey with a bookmark to W3Schools 😉

There was a downturn when the gov messed about with contracting regulations but he just moved to Germany and then Switzerland for work then came back when it settled down.

Obviously it helps that he is single and child-free.

the type of non programming soft skill

I suspect this is the key thing that contractors have: they are not just coders but also good at selling themselves, negotiating and running it as a business.

Dmorts,

What sort of programming do you want to do?

PHP programmers are in abundance in the UK. Good PHP guys are not, but you'll struggle to show you are good without much experience. They typically work in a Web world where being on top of the latest javascript, cs, ajax, html stuff is just as important and the real measure is how quick can you bang out bug free code!
I don't really follow the asp market but it is probably similar.

There are still plenty of places using c++ for proper hard stuff, but you would be going in right at the bottom in a market full of really experienced people.

However you have two skill sets which I suspect are in Demand: an understanding of acoustic / physics (and I assume Dsp?) and electronics. Malab is commonly used as you know in these sort of areas, but it's often not suitable for translation beyond protype into production (closed libraries, system overhead etc). If you wanted to keep going down that line then python is probably more de rigour and could lead to various career routes. If you wanted to carve out a niche then possibly helping move your specialist Malab type code into something much lower level like C that can be run embedded would make sense. Beware pure c programmers all wear sandals with socks and are afraid of daylight... It may be wise to balance any c with modern stiff sstuff to avoid getting pigeon holed.

The other area you have skills in is VBA programming. This is pretty unsexy so most devs want to avoid it, but it's hard enough to scare off the average spreadsheet user. There is a market for freelancers doing this stuff, but also in some sme's where you might end up with all sorts of other it stuff. Getting into that is probably about knowing the company though (half the benefit will come from knowing what they are trying to achieve and seeing how to save Time). I'm not sure VBA is the best way to achieve 80% of the stuff it is used for and so you might find this is either incredibly frustrating or likely to get usurped by better approaches in the future - if you have broad experience you will be able to advise but most of what I see is devs steering people to the tool they always use.

What differentiates proper developers from amateur programmers is experience of developing in the real world, and as part of teams. So knowing how to use SVN or Git effectively, unit testing, qa processes and documentation, estimating time, making code that is robust and user friendly for the public not other geeks. If you can do those things you are already a developer.

My experience is some people get fed up coding after a while. They want to move into architecture, or design or business analysis etc. If you are going to invest a lot of time or money in redirecting your career you would want to make sure it was the right direction.

You can learn languages on code academy. Im not sure if you can Learn those tools the same way? I am not sure if you can become certificated in this stuff? If you can cheaply it would help an employer digesting your CV. a portfolio is always helpful but if you can't show professional work then involvement in community projects is good. Even better if you were one of the core team or original creator. That said a lot of junior projects will be working on someone elses project perhaps maintaining or extending code, so if you can show you have the ability to work without writing from scratch that is very helpful. The phrase I hate most is "might be quicker if I just rewrote it my way".

Generally I like my devs to know their way round Unix at least to an elementary level, but obviously some jobs will never need that. If that is likely and you don't have any real experience there are some very simple Unix certifications available which would bolster a CV.

In general a degree in comp Sci or even soft eng is not essential for programming jobs, and can even be a disadvantage.

I write a lot of VBA stuff in my job, mainly expert systems for other employees / customers to use. Personally I really like it, pays very well (although that's the money's in the expert bit rather than the coding bit) and very varied. If you're good at data analysis / data presentation you can do very well writing what is pretty simple stuff code wise. The skill is in making complex problems appear really simple using your tools, which is more UI / work flow design than pure SW design. I think the trick is finding a niche rather than just being a generic SW developer.

In general a degree in comp Sci or even soft eng is not essential for programming jobs, and can even be a disadvantage.

Not essential I agree with. But a disadvantage? How so?

Not essential I agree with. But a disadvantage? How so?

If I have three people in front of me with the same background, education, etc until one of them decides to go to uni for three years to study computing another studies something else but has a real enthusiasm for programming in their own time, or as a sideline to their degree and the third goes and gets a real entry level job (or even and admin role and quickly shows their it capabilities) and gets two or three years real life programming undercover belt, I'll take the last guy for routine work more often than not. The scientist with programing skills if the science is relevant (and since computer science appears to teach no real scientific rigour, that will be whenever there is science to do). The comp Sci grad only has an advantage if I need the real academic knowledge of computing - 90% of programming jobs don't. However the belief that this is what they are qualified for makes them hard work to manage in mainstream roles. Obviously I am talking in generalities but if all you have is a comp Sci or soft eng degree then someone who has 80% of your coding skill but has real work experience or other relevant knowledge has an advantage. If others are advantaged you are disadvantaged.

Interesting perspective poly, thanks.

My experience is different. I find a lot of self-taught enthusiast folk are often competent programmers but have trouble with fundamentals (e.g. The difference between the heap and the stack, what a pointer is, how to create common data structures, how to write common algorithms, polymorphism, inheritance, SOLID, what complexity means, commonly used patterns etc etc).

That said, we have a policy of only hiring senior engineers, so we rarely have contact with fresh-faced grads.

Graham, we can technical interview for those sorts of things. If you hire grads, even people who apparently did the same course you will see its not always certain that they have any understanding of those sort of issues, never mind their use in practice, although they will recognise the words.

Your approach of only hiring senior devs may not be a bad one, but I have found the juniors more open minded - the experienced guys are the ones who always want to do things their way. The better they are at the more abstract aspects of programming the worse they seem to be at the commercial realities! Yes I'd love to rewrite this four year old legacy code that we threw together as a proof of concept, using your great approach and I am sure it would be easier to maintain (until the next great revolution comes along), but it's used by ten people has been tested extensively and they just want one new feature so no we aren't going to invest in a three month project because it's better software engineering... Which is the same answer I gave him when he asked the same question three months ago... Sorry rant over!

That's what I found when I was a contractor, the employer was always more interested in me having a clear, maintainable coding style rather than being able to use the latest/less known techniques.

Maybe look into companies that write software in your specialism and see if they need testers. Bit boring, but you can show your coding skills by automating anything that can be automated and get in that way. Also work on open source stuff to get used to other people's code and stuff. If you really want to code and have the aptitude, go for it, it's a great profession with a huge skills shortage and no sign of slowing down.

I find a lot of self-taught enthusiast folk are often competent programmers but have trouble with fundamentals (e.g. The difference between the heap and the stack, what a pointer is, how to create common data structures, how to write common algorithms, polymorphism, inheritance, SOLID, what complexity means, commonly used patterns etc etc).

But most of those things, like SOLID principles, the pattern movement etc, did not come from academia but from 'the real world', based on what people had learnt from experience.

All of that stuff can just as well, and probably be better, learnt from the original books/papers than from some, probably mediocre, tutor at university.

Knuth for the algorithms if you want to go deep, Tanenbaum, Coplien, Gang of four, Gang of five, Schmidt, Martin Fowler, Plop books, Uncle Bob, etc.

A lot of cvs we see have all the buzz words on but depth of knowledge seems to often be very low nowadays - some of the the things they struggle with would have been patently obvious to them with a bit more low-level understanding of things like stacks and heaps.

until one of them decides to go to uni for three years to study computing

Big difference between Computing and Computer Science. You can do a whole Comp Sci degree without writing a line code if you really want to.

you can do a whole Comp Sci degree without writing a line code if you really want to.

Certainly not the case when I did it.

? where? 🙂

Plenty of folk are good at programming without the CS degree but it does give the basic grounding, principles, before you're loose on the outside world. The best compromise is some sort of 3rd year stint in industry, that taught me a heck of a lot about deadlines, code reviews, getting stuff done in a team that all years of lectures couldn't, and with a great bunch of folk as well (ICL Dalkeith).

Then, and latterly, some of the great programmers I worked with weren't CS graduates, they'd be plumbers, astrophysicists, but a good proportion were maths graduates or similar.

Still can't think of anything I'd rather do.

Hello! Thanks for the replies. I am revisiting this after being distracted for a few months (moved house, got married 🙂 ). I also had been following up a couple of opportunities with a local company. These were in my specialist area of acoustics and audio but appear to have frustratingly come to nothing.

I've talked to some mates who are in the tech world and on the fringes of programming. They're saying look at Java, also the biggest thing currently is mobile app development. Thoughts on that?

Beyond that, other areas that are growing are data analytics (e.g. big data) and adaptive design (e.g. making web apps fit lots of different devices). And of course, search engine optimisation (SEO).

Data analytics might be something I can get into, as it's something I have some experience of, data processing, finding trends etc.

It's all about deep AI now.

The kind that can replace expensive programmers with a vast datacentre somewhere with cheap energy, lots of cold water and low taxes.

EDIT: I'm only partly joking....

In terms of what areas to look at I'd say it falls to into two categories:
1). the stuff lots of companies use (C++, Java etc.) - good choice for finding a stable career
2). emerging technologies - good choice if you're looking at contracting

I work on the infrastructure side so can't advise on programming but without any real selling points on your CV I'd just look around locally for junior dev jobs and try and use it to get a year's experience and go on from there (could even look at IT volunteering or work placements, my first year in IT was on an NVQ placement scheme which I got £10 extra for a 40 hour week on top of income support - the experience was invaluable though).

On the contracting side I wish someone had told me how lucrative security cleared contracting can be when I was younger. It's hard to get into but if you end up somewhere they'll sponsor you for DV clearance then the world's your oyster. DV cleared contractors have much more job stability and also get the highest rates (we have people here doing junior level stuff on 3x my hourly rate and some have been here 10+ years, the problem is you can't find permanent DV cleared people to replace them)

Thanks!

Where's good to look for jobs? I remember I was looking on cwjobs years ago, got my first job after uni doing IT support for RBS through that. That was in 2006. Depressingly I worked out I'm on the same salary now as I was back then (worked out my hourly rate for current job). This really brought it home to me, quite a WTF am I doing moment. Not that it's all about money, more about it highlighting how my current employer values me.

Also where's good to go to start brushing up on coding?

Data analytics, really fashionable can you do it? What's your stats background?
Not trying to be negative but I work for a small consultancy and work across a lot of industries and spaces. People want either experexperience or raw talent. I consider myself lucky to get a job with a specialist interest in a niche field but see the data stuff flooded with cheap grads or cheap outsourcing

What's your stats background?

SW - Use of Matlab and Excel (inc. VBA)
Applications - Recent examples:
-Analysis of long term noise levels (measurement taken every 10 mins for up to 4 weeks at 4 different sites), correlating this with measured rainfall, wind speeds and wind direction over same period at the same sampling rate. Allocating the data points into specific periods, daytime, night-time, weekends. Automatically and manually excluding data points. The net result is a trend for each site that shows how the noise level varies with wind speed and direction.
-Measurement of a batch of electronic components (or entire products) various parameters, initially and then at specific points through an environmental testing process (heat/freezing/humidity/drop). I built this into a 3D table in Matlab (X - component ID, Y - component parameter, Z - stage of environment test). Then created routines to analyse/show trends.

Overall I tend to find that I 'over-engineer' analysis when compared to colleagues. This may take slightly longer to set-up initially but if someone asks for a slight change of parameters further down the line, I know I'm able to accommodate it a lot quicker and more easily.

It's hard to get into but if you end up somewhere they'll sponsor you for DV clearance then the world's your oyster.

It's actually pretty easy. The downside is they may want you to carry a gun and lie in a ditch for a few years before you get to go contracting around Aldershot!

Have a look at R. Free opensource stats program, pretty commonly used. A bit of programming knowledge needed. I'm sure there's tons of resources for it where you can teach yourself.

I'm a data analyst/business analyst (graduate) so only been in the role 10 months now. I mainly use SAS and Excel (VBA) for all of my analytical needs.

I did learn some SPSS at Uni as well but I don't rate it.

Have you tried contacting the noise teams in environmental consultancies?

Have you tried contacting the noise teams in environmental consultancies?

Guess where I work currently 😀

I've found that my technical ability is not valued in the sector. The need for in-depth knowledge of acoustics is not there. If you know how to logarithmically sum two numbers, you're at the right level. Everything is very simplistic.

[digression] Also [b]bigjim[/b] do you work for an environmental consultancy? Looks like you're Edinburgh based, like me. If so I wondered who? [/digression]

I might have found something:

[url= http://codeclan.com/ ]CodeClan[/url]

This is a Scottish government supported, 16 week course to take people with zero coding experience to job ready junior developers. It's intensive at 60+ hours a week. I went to their info evening yesterday, they seem like a competent setup.
So, it looks like what I'm looking for...... but here's the sting, it costs £4,500!

Thoughts?

Dmorts, I know the code clan guys. It's a serious option, the cost is a way to keep out people who aren't that serious. I am a little sceptical about how good they think they can make people in sixteen weeks, but based on the quality of some graduates we have seen recently if you have right mindset this could be a great way to get started. There is a chronic shortage of good talent in Edinburgh. BEWARE though it's not a fast track to riches. Employers will be looking to comedian as a source of affordable developers not yet another bunch of people looking to earn 50k+ three yrs after graduating, whilst actually doing less and less real work!

Thoughts?

do they have any industry links - ready to pick up their keen graduates ?

do they have any industry links - ready to pick up their keen graduates ?

Yes, this is part of their strategy. In fact the partner companies may even be contributing to the course costs... although I'm not 100% on that, as I overheard it from another conversation.

BEWARE though it's not a fast track to riches. Employers will be looking to comedian as a source of affordable developers not yet another bunch of people looking to earn 50k+ three yrs after graduating, whilst actually doing less and less real work!

I think I could stomach the costs (somehow!) if knew what the likely starting salary would be as a junior dev from this course?

the cost is a way to keep out people who aren't that serious

Well in addition to the £4.5k it's the living costs/loss of earnings for 4 months. So in total it could cost up to £10k, although obviously could be offset by scrimping. Unfortunately I have a mortgage to pay which isn't going to budge. If there was a part-time option it would be much more appealing

What does a part time masters in software engineering cost?

What does a part time masters in software engineering cost?

It's likely that a software engineering degree, especially a Masters, is not likely to teach you the vocational day to day skills* that the employers are looking for. You're going to need a bit of polishing and I've heard this from many people, not just the CodeClan guys

*E.g. working in an Agile environment, working with others, working with other people's code, version control

Long term the masters will probably serve you better as it looks better on your cv.

For this course I would want to know that I had a job with one of the partner companies.

Ideally you would want to interview with that company with a view to a job after the training to make sure the project is something you would want to do, you like the environment/people/culture and they like you, etc.