Software Development and Programming Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

Cereal_Bowl_Assassin

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How do you like working for the gov?

I'm not going to lie, its a great gig. Let me rephrase myself, I'm not a actual full time government employee buy I'm contracted out to them and have all of the perks besides the benefits.

Basically I work on maintaining and optimizing the infrastructure for several branches of the government. Its for anything health related. However I'm restricted on what I can do for certain things and there are a bunch of hoops to go through to access their infra.

Also for confidentiality reasons a lot of times I can't have a regular zoom meeting. So there is a lot of planned and last minute use traveling as well just for a meeting but they make that its worth it and all expenses are paid
 
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I'm not going to lie that its a great gig. Let me rephrase myself, I'm not a actual full time government employee buy I'm contracted out to them and have all of the perks besides the benefits.

Basically I work on maintaining and optimizing the infrastructure for several branches of the government. Its for anything health related. However I'm restricted on what I can do for certain things and there are a bunch of hoops to go through to access their infra.

Also for confidentiality reasons a lot of times I can't have a regular zoom meeting. So there is a lot of planned and last minute use traveling as well just for a meeting but they make that its worth it and all expenses are paid




Can I msg you about this?
 

Obreh Winfrey

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My answer would be to search this thread, bro. There are lots of folks in here who ran into this same issue. In fact, @Obreh Winfrey went through this if I'm not mistaken.
Slight difference in that I walked out as CS rather than CE, so I had programming knowledge in hand. @Numpsay if you don't know a language, then finding a Udemy course on something like Java or C++ is the first step. After you're comfortable, it's a matter of doing Leet Code (or similar website) problems. You want to make sure you're going into technical interviews prepared. Try to tackle a side project - it could even be some random ass "Build X using some language" tutorial. That should keep you entertained because programming problems quickly become a drag. Put that project up on GitHub or GitLab and use it as an opportunity to learn how to use Git and version control. You can add all of this stuff to your resume as you're going along.

Meanwhile, hit applications hard. I was doing at least 10 per day, Monday through Friday, applying nationally. College grad programs are your friend, and I encourage you to apply directly through the company websites rather than quick applications through LinkedIn or Indeed. It gets your info in their system and you could come up in one of their searches. IF you're getting emails from companies (direct, not 3rd party agencies), follow up on those. You could be fortunate enough to skip a step or two in the process - you're basically skipping the ATS screening and that gives you a foothold. Don't be scared to apply to stuff you don't look qualified for (obviously don't apply for something looking for 10 years of experience). Let it be their problem to screen you out, not yours. Think outside the norm when applying to companies. FANG can be career defining, but you can find roles with places like Wal-Mart, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Visa, JP Morgan, etc. It doesn't have to be a tech company, and pay isn't usually far behind.

I know it's tough, but just keep at it. Persistence is key. Took me 6 months with no legit experience, just resume fluffing. Took others I graduated with even longer, and they had work experience to point to. You can get it done.
 

Numpsay

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Slight difference in that I walked out as CS rather than CE, so I had programming knowledge in hand. @Numpsay if you don't know a language, then finding a Udemy course on something like Java or C++ is the first step. After you're comfortable, it's a matter of doing Leet Code (or similar website) problems. You want to make sure you're going into technical interviews prepared. Try to tackle a side project - it could even be some random ass "Build X using some language" tutorial. That should keep you entertained because programming problems quickly become a drag. Put that project up on GitHub or GitLab and use it as an opportunity to learn how to use Git and version control. You can add all of this stuff to your resume as you're going along.

Meanwhile, hit applications hard. I was doing at least 10 per day, Monday through Friday, applying nationally. College grad programs are your friend, and I encourage you to apply directly through the company websites rather than quick applications through LinkedIn or Indeed. It gets your info in their system and you could come up in one of their searches. IF you're getting emails from companies (direct, not 3rd party agencies), follow up on those. You could be fortunate enough to skip a step or two in the process - you're basically skipping the ATS screening and that gives you a foothold. Don't be scared to apply to stuff you don't look qualified for (obviously don't apply for something looking for 10 years of experience). Let it be their problem to screen you out, not yours. Think outside the norm when applying to companies. FANG can be career defining, but you can find roles with places like Wal-Mart, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Visa, JP Morgan, etc. It doesn't have to be a tech company, and pay isn't usually far behind.

I know it's tough, but just keep at it. Persistence is key. Took me 6 months with no legit experience, just resume fluffing. Took others I graduated with even longer, and they had work experience to point to. You can get it done.


Thanks bro!
 

TV

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For someone who is relatively a beginner, is it possible to study two languages at the same time and grasp both?
 

Rev Leon Lonnie Love

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For someone who is relatively a beginner, is it possible to study two languages at the same time and grasp both?
It is, but that requires more work than necessary. The core concepts are the same so just pick one and learn it well. Afterwards you can pick up basics of any new language in a week/month depending on how much time u invest.
 

Dr. Acula

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For someone who is relatively a beginner, is it possible to study two languages at the same time and grasp both?
Yeah. But one, I would focus on two languages that are very similar to do this like c and c++ and/or c#. Two, I don't know about your learning process but if I'm learning something brand new to me, I would find it too distracting to try and focus on two different ways of learning it at once. I can easily see trying to learn Java and maybe C at the same time and getting confused on syntax usage and also more intricate details that are important for a specific language (i.e. Garbage collection is important in C but you don't have to care about it in Java).

To answer your question more succiently, I would say yeah it's doable but imo I wouldn't recommend it. I would tackle one at a time and move on to the second one once I get comfortable enough with the first.
 

BiggWebb79

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Man I swore this company I was contracted to was gonna higher me after creating these sites for these exhibition shows, but they ended up hiring someone from another country than hiring me smh. That's alright as long as I got my foot in the door, got some experience to put on my resume I'm good. How long after some y'all got your first gig did it take to find your next one?
 

Obreh Winfrey

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Man I swore this company I was contracted to was gonna higher me after creating these sites for these exhibition shows, but they ended up hiring someone from another country than hiring me smh. That's alright as long as I got my foot in the door, got some experience to put on my resume I'm good. How long after some y'all got your first gig did it take to find your next one?
I'm still looking
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But that's mostly due to lack of preparation. If you're ready for the technical then you're fine. If you're not seeing much interest, you may need to take a good look at your resume and refine it.
 
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