Finished College

galwaylad1976

At the moment I am working as a level 3 IT Support Engineer but I have just completed a part time BSc in Computer Science and am just looking for advice on what my next steps are.

I am not in a position to take any graduate roles as I cannot afford to take such a drop in my salary but my goal is to get a position as junior software developer however any junior dev roles I have looked at require at least one years experience.

What would the best route to a dev role be - I was thinking of maybe going the software testing route - get a job as a software tester to get into a company and wait for a junior role to come available.

Can anyone offer any advice on what my next steps should be?

John_Mc

To be fair, you cannot simply skip starting as a graduate developer because that's exactly what you are. The average graduate software salary is about 30k in Dublin but I'm not sure what it is in Galway.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to the 2 year requirement on job specs. I'd suggest getting a github project(s) together which demonstrates your ability and gives you something to talk about in your interviews.

galwaylad1976

Thanks John, I haven't seen many graduate jobs where the advertised salary was 30k - but if I was to get that it would be workable.

Aswerty

galwaylad1976 wrote: »

Thanks John, I haven't seen many graduate jobs where the advertised salary was 30k - but if I was to get that it would be workable.

Focus on the multinationals because if 30k is workable they're your best bet. Fidelity Investment would be one to look at in Galway; I'd be surprised if they started grads under 30k and their graduate programme is supposed to be very good. I did an internship in Boston Scientific Galway and their equipment engineering department had some software engineers. So that's maybe another, less obvious, place to look at.

If you've been in Galway for years then work your personal network - friends, family, etc. You'll always know someone who knows someone working in the places you want to get your foot in the door. That network, if it exists, is a big advantage over your typical fresh faced graduate.

John_Mc

Aswerty wrote: »

Focus on the multinationals because if 30k is workable they're your best bet. Fidelity Investment would be one to look at in Galway; I'd be surprised if they started grads under 30k and their graduate programme is supposed to be very good. I did an internship in Boston Scientific Galway and their equipment engineering department had some software engineers. So that's maybe another, less obvious, place to look at.

If you've been in Galway for years then work your personal network - friends, family, etc. You'll always know someone who knows someone working in the places you want to get your foot in the door. That network, if it exists, is a big advantage over your typical fresh faced graduate.

Good suggestions there. I went to the undergraduate talk by Fidelity when I was in college and it looked like a good position. A friend of mine went with them and he seems to have done well out of it.

They have high standards though. The OP would definitely need to work on his portfolio of projects which illustrate a high standard and interest in programming.

galwaylad1976

Thanks guys for the replies, it has made me a bit more comfortable as I begin the job search.
I am actually living in Dublin now so there should be more opportunities.

I have 15+ years of IT experience ranging from desktop to server support, Networking and Virtualization skills. I am hoping they will all make me more appealing to employers.

Also the degree was completed while working full-time and juggling a young family. I see a lot of the job specs for graduate roles specify things like "the employee must be passionate about development". I hope this will also work in my favour.

One concern I have is my age - I'm no spring chicken at nearly 40. How common is it for people my age to be applying for graduate roles? Some people have said I am crazy changing fields at this point leaving a good salary and a good company but the way I look at it is I have another 30+ years (I hope) of work ahead of me and I may as well do something I find interesting.

a fat guy

-Absolutely ignore any year requirements on graduate positions. Some employers genuinely do not know what they're looking for. One place wanted someone who knew SOAP/REST (Java Web Services) so that they could build websites for their customers. No API shenanigans were going on, they just wanted someone who knew something really complicated so they could do something really simple. I actually brought this up in the interview, but declined the job, since they didn't seem to know what they were doing.

-If your IT experience includes working with server flavours of Linux/Windows (Ubuntu, Redhat, etc), then you have developer experience. When I was looking for an internship in college, Microsoft were specifically looking for students that had these skills. Your mentioning of Virtualization and Networking definitely hints that you do. These are all very good things! In smaller businesses, where each member of the team has to wear many hats, you'll need to know a lot about server distributions, networking and basically a bunch of other stuff that isn't directly related to writing code. It sounds like you have a lot of these skills already.

-The fact that you have any kind of full-time job experience is a huge boon. Unum were specifically looking for older students that returned to college like yourself at one stage. I wouldn't be surprised if they still were.

-Working full-time and completing a degree while also having a family is again, very good. It shows that you're capable of a lot.

-Your age will not be a problem, it will likely be an advantage. I have never heard of anyone not being hired because they're too old, but have heard the exact opposite (Unum example above, a friend of mine in his mid-forties was hired by them).

punk_one82

galwaylad1976 wrote: »

Thanks guys for the replies, it has made me a bit more comfortable as I begin the job search.
I am actually living in Dublin now so there should be more opportunities.

I have 15+ years of IT experience ranging from desktop to server support, Networking and Virtualization skills. I am hoping they will all make me more appealing to employers.

Also the degree was completed while working full-time and juggling a young family. I see a lot of the job specs for graduate roles specify things like "the employee must be passionate about development". I hope this will also work in my favour.

One concern I have is my age - I'm no spring chicken at nearly 40. How common is it for people my age to be applying for graduate roles? Some people have said I am crazy changing fields at this point leaving a good salary and a good company but the way I look at it is I have another 30+ years (I hope) of work ahead of me and I may as well do something I find interesting.

If you're looking for jobs in Dublin then there should be no problem going for a grad role if you're concerned about money. I started as a grad on 32k 2 years ago and that seemed to be fairly common among my friends who were also getting grad roles around Dublin. Your IT experience will definitely help and would be pretty valuable to any company you join. I was also working with a few grads who weren't just straight out of college but were in their 30s. It shouldn't be too much of a problem if you can show you want the job and can bring value. Good luck with the job hunt!