am i suited to a career in computer programming?

ChRoMe

The Corinthian wrote: »

Programming, IT in general or any other industry; I suspect you're going to find it very difficult to find any job that allows for that level of social hermitage.

Maybe tree surgeon would be better?

SalteeDog

Tom407 wrote: »

Realistically, how many years before a manager's job / project managers job might be on the cards? (obviously loads of factors to consider here.... ballpark? min-max?)

Lots of developers have no interest in becoming people or project managers. If you display strong organisational and leadership skills (and depending on the organisation are able to navigate the internal politics successfully) you could easily move into such a role after a couple of years. Be real careful what you wish for though.

ChRoMe

SalteeDog wrote: »

Lots of developers have no interest in becoming people or project managers. If you display strong organisational and leadership skills (and depending on the organisation are able to navigate the internal politics successfully) you could easily move into such a role after a couple of years. Be real careful what you wish for though.

Project manager and a technical team lead are two distinct jobs. You appear to be confusing them.

BostonB

ChRoMe wrote: »

Project manager and a technical team lead are two distinct jobs. You appear to be confusing them.

Not ideal, but its hardly uncommon that people have more than one role.

Was the query specific to technical lead?

ChRoMe

BostonB wrote: »

Not ideal, but its hardly uncommon that people have more than one role.

Was the query specific to technical lead?

PM and technical lead, they are (or at least should!) be mutually exclusive.

I assumed that the manager role was more relating to technical lead, however on rereading, that may have been foolish.

Tom407

stevenmu wrote: »

One of the big problems with developers fresh out of college is that they might be technically very good, but they often have very little business sense/acumen. Depending on what you have been doing up to now, you could very possibly leverage it to your advantage.

If you have experience of working in teams, can demonstrate good communication skills and practices, or better yet have some management/team lead experience, that can be a plus. If you have experience of business analysis, creating and/or documenting processes, that can be really useful. If you have customer facing experience, again that's very helpful, especially if it covers anything like requirements gathering and/or solution design. Lastly, if you have any particular domain experience, e.g. if you worked in the financial industry, or the medical industry, or were a travelling salesman, then that would give you a huge leg up if you were applying to companies that target those markets.

I was in business to business sales so lots of experience dealing with clients. Have some management experience too. None of it IT related so good to know general business acumen will still be helpful.

ChRoMe wrote: »

PM and technical lead, they are (or at least should!) be mutually exclusive.

I assumed that the manager role was more relating to technical lead, however on rereading, that may have been foolish.

Wasn't really asking about either role specifically, just generally moving up the ladder to more senior positions.

Tiernanism93

Hi, I currently am working through a three year course in Web Development and Creative Media Design, I have just finished my 2nd year , but always hated programming until this year when it finally clicked with me, unfortunately i dont have that module next year , but what I am trying to say is maybe give the Web side of things a shot , you can be creative as you like , you really dont have to touch much code, especially with Photoshop and Illustrator now, I would suggest getting a trial version of Dreamweaver and Photoshop , and try developing and designing some basic websites , try do a Portfolio website for yourself even.
Anyway best of luck

SalteeDog

ChRoMe wrote: »

Project manager and a technical team lead are two distinct jobs. You appear to be confusing them.

No I'm not. I know they are very different jobs which require different skills and abilities. I hope the poster isn't confusing them.

In any case the (obvious) point is that management is a different kettle of fish to straight development. Tech team leads, project managers and straightforward managers (with hiring/firing responsibilities) all carry their own particular piles of grief. Most devs I know have no interest in management although to be fair (and perhaps this is where you are coming from) many wouldn't snub their nose at a Tech lead role as long as they get to stay close enough to the code and avoid unpleasant/soul destroying HR type stuff.

don corleone

Hey everyone

Sorry for bumping up an old thread but have a quick question.

I am an electronics engineering student, in the 4th year of a part time L8 degree. I am working in the semi conductor industry as a technician at the moment. Thing is the part I enjoy more than anything in this degree and my previous one (Electrical Automation) is the programming. Both degrees required learning C. I have not been exposed to any other languages yet only C for programming a PIC and for programming operating systems. What I would really like is a job working in programming but do I have enough experience of programming yet to know this?
Or can electronic engineers easily find work in a programming job?

Cheers

Tar.Aldarion

I am an electronic/computer engineer that codes. It's certainly a help and not a hindrance, and I work with embedded systems too which you will have experience in compared to pure CS. I find I know how hardware works better than those people who haven't been working at it for years! Most my course are programming so it's definitely a fine thing to do. All you have to do is code some more, you sound like you like it and if you like it, you'll keep liking it imo. It's the satisfaction when its working and solving problems for me, great fun, never boring and the work you do changes a lot. Maybe try your hand at some other languages and see how you fare? I personally love python.
http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/
http://www.codecademy.com/en/tracks/python

Perhaps expand on your C knowledge too? Maybe think about what you would like to do and look at some programming languages anyway. You sound more interested in it than I was in college and I love it as a job.

Aswerty

I also came from an Engineering background, mechatronic engineering to be precise, which is actually less relevant in the software world than electronic engineering. I did a taught Masters in Telecommunication Engineering and selected as many programming based modules that I could to try and bridge the gap between my education and what I wanted to do; which was software development.

I got some push back from industry when I was looking for my first job, they told me I was better suited to embedded development than software at the application level. To be fair they were right but at the time there wasn't much entry level embedded work going. My point is that I wasn't considered as suitable as your typical computer science graduate for some jobs. On the flip side someone coming from an engineering background has an edge when you're working on systems where the domain is engineering oriented. For example my first employer was in the Instrumentation business and my second employer was in the Energy Management business. Both companies valued my understanding of electrical and physical systems as well as software systems.

One thing I find about programming as an engineer is that there is no concept of best practice. It's just a case of getting something working, once output is as expected the software is done. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the craft of programming isn't really highlighted in an elec/mech engineering course. Though to be fair I don't know if computer science courses are any better in this aspects but I sure hope they are.

yes there

Is it hardware or software programming that you like? Came from same background as yourself recently and I had options to do either. I chose software because it looks like its better paid, more options, more jobs, more diverse and most importantly it excited me more. If you can program well in C or a HDL then learning other languages will be no problem.

I've been told a few times programmers with a knowledge of caching, drivers, page management, pipelining along with the nuts and bolts basic programming knowledge could set you apart from CS grads. Know how to code and understand the fundamental search algorithms, space and time complexity etc. Armed with that you should walk into a programming job.

don corleone

Thanks for the replys people

As said above, for me its the buzz of getting something working that attracts me to it. I don't mind the challenging aspect that can become a bit frustrating and drag on for hours as I know there is a sensible solution waiting on me to find it.

Initially my experience was programming a micro-controller to control a robot to do some simple tasks, i.e change direction/speed up when it picked up a signal from a sensor. Now what Im doing is a bit different. I am learning about operating systems, priority based tasks etc.. which I also like. To me its more or less the same as before, take the same approach to problem solving by using what you already know or in particular looking back at other code you have written and taking what you need from that for the new task.

I was thinking of applying for a masters programme in DIT in Software Development as I don't have the necessary experience or degree to get into a job without that.
So basically my best bet would be to look for entry level programming jobs for engineering companies or something like that?

Thanks for the info guys, am a little more positive now after reading through them