Moving from IT Support to Software Dev work?

Raiser

Hi All,

I'm just looking for some advice. After 8+ years of stuck-in-a-rut IT Support work [~5yrs on a nice couldn't leave contract] could I ever possibly move over to Software Development work? Firstly because I'm job-hunting now and would like a change of role and secondly because the role I get mightn't exactly be stellar......

I have a first class honours IT Degree and I would like to think that I have the resources/aptitude to pick just about anything up if I am prepared to work hard and give it my best shot.....

So what I am wondering is:

• Who would possibly ever consider employing somebody with no Software Dev experience [professionally] - Or is this even possible/likely/hopeless?
  
  
• Am I possibly looking at trying to land a Grad type position and putting up with crap wages for a time until I am actually sought after by employers? [If so ~how long ?!?]
  
  
• Finally, what area/skillset/language(s) should I be targeting now in order to land a job in the short term & ensure that I remain employable long term etc.? I'm based in Limerick and cannot relocate if that makes any difference.

All advice, thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated folks......

Cheers,

Paul

ntlbell

I'll be flippant...

Learn to code...

apply for work with examples of it..

sorted.

is_that_so

Agree with NTLBell. Sounds to me like you are more keen to get out of what you are in. What do YOU want to develop? Take a look at what you think you might want to develop in and learn one language really well. Maybe there is scope where you work? I am guessing that your IT degree offered some insight into development so dig up those old notes. I am also guessing that there were a couple of languages in there, probably something like C/Java so you should at least have some foundation. Best of luck.

AARRRGH

Raiser wrote: »

• Who would possibly ever consider employing somebody with no Software Dev experience [professionally] - Or is this even possible/likely/hopeless?

I don't know many companies willing to do this.

If I were you, I'd go the PHP/Web route (as companies hiring PHP staff are generally more forgiving!)

Make a few kick ass websites to impress them.

Raiser wrote: »

• Am I possibly looking at trying to land a Grad type position and putting up with crap wages for a time until I am actually sought after by employers? [If so ~how long ?!?]

I don't know if companies would be willing to hire someone with your experience for a grad role. Ask them and see, I suppose...

Raiser wrote: »

• Finally, what area/skillset/language(s) should I be targeting now in order to land a job in the short term & ensure that I remain employable long term etc.? I'm based in Limerick and cannot relocate if that makes any difference.

Lots of jobs in Java. Professional PHP people are hard to get.

Personally I'm going the low level C route. No one wants to do that **** anymore, so I'm happy to become skilled in it...

dazberry

I know people who have done this - but they have either done it within the company they are on - or have had other skills that sweeten the package - for instance QA skills. All the people were pretty junior at that point.

Unfortunately the thing about IT dev (and probably IT in general) is that companies want skills, and those skills are somewhat demonstrated thru' experience. There is definitely a good case for hands on experience in real world projects - of course with anything people have a great ability to embelish things so mileage will generally vary.

Definitely if you're interested start looking at either Java or C#/dotNet, and get some idea what you like and where you want to go. You might be lucky (and I'm very cynical after 14 years) but I wouldn't hold out too much hope I'm afraid.

Best of luck!

D.

Eoin

I switched from a sysadmin to a development role about 7 or 8 years ago. I was lucky enough because it was within the same company, and it was at the height of the dotcom era when anyone who could write two lines of HTML was sought after.

A good start would be to see if you can develop any apps where you are at the moment that would help you learn the coding side of things, and that would benefit the support team.

For instance, do you have a help-desk ticket logging system in place / knowledge base / inventory management system? I am sure these are all available as open source at the moment, so you can either look at tweaking an existing one, or just writing a simple one from scratch and building on it as you get the hang of it.

I started off by writing an intranet site for the tech support department, and then helped with the requirements for a ticket logging system, and it started from there.

An intermediate step could be moving to a software support role. You'll still get to use your support experience, but the emphasis would be on coding issues.

onemorechance

I would say that your experience and your honours degree would be a great help. You may need to apply for jobs for grads or those with little or no experience. I think that your experience could get you better wages. As for learning programming, I would pick Java for example. I am just out of college and got work because I did my final project for the company. You would be all set if you did the Sun Certified Java Programmer exam. I just studied Sam's Java 6 in 21 Days and it was excellent. If you studied that book, you would be fairly set with Java. I also bought the Sirrea/Bates book, to study specifically for SCJP exam. I would say that if you got both these books, did well in the exam, your years of experience and honours degree you could land nearly any Java software development role going. I think it's all about the interview and if you can do a good one of them, you would be fairly set.

yop

The exact same setup as Eoin (you my clone Eoin ), back at the peak of the dot.com boom.
Had 5 years sys admin, tech support etc, then managed to wrangle myself a development project, internal to Dell where I was at the time. Got 6 months under my belt then got a developers job and been at it since.
You probably need to get a course or 2 done.
Get yourself a project, no matter what size and learn a language based on this, do a little system for someone.
Then see how you get on.

delop

Just remember to stay away for agencies, they will not help you try to discourage you and maybe even sabatoage you.

Start brushing up on your code and write some stuff for the opensource Linux community to see if you can handle it, or hate it...

If you feel really strong, have a look at symbian, very specialized but you will pick up a job np...

ifah

op - what is it about IT support that you hate ? Maybe it's just the type of role you've been working in that's wrong for you - there IT support arena is vast and IMO will be the more secure part of the IT industry in years to come - remember it's relatively easy to off-shore development work but most companies only feel comfortable having their support staff local.

outline what you've done for the past few years and i'll try point you in some directions.

amen

I don't mean to be negative but yes you can prob get a job as a developer but on you current salary ? not a hope

basically as you have no development experience you are looking for a job as a graduate and the wages that go with it

how long would you be stuck on graduate wages? the same length of time a graduate would be stuck on them