7 ms·

these comments are always discouraging to me. i work in a different field (sysadmin), and i've been struggling to get a job programming. am i that bad at prog

• FreedomFiber 12y ago
  None of the languages you listed are technically programming languages (I guess PowerShell could be considered one, but it's more for automation rather than programming actual applications). Maybe you're using the wrong terminology during your interviews.
  • mmcru 12y ago
    oh definitely, i meant that i knew the basics of python, ruby, and javascript, as well as the other technologies (non-programming languages, as you said).
• bovermyer 12y ago
  Soft skills are more important than tech skills, especially at entry level. It usually becomes pretty apparent in the interview whether someone is capable of problem solving or not; the interviews conducted for my department are purely to see if the candidate is a cultural fit. We don't even do technical interviews, though occasionally we'll do a code challenge to separate two very close candidates. My point here is that you should take a look at your personal presentation and see if there's anything you can tweak to improve your interview performance.
• Widow 12y ago
  Full disclosure, I just graduated and really don't know anything of value yet BUT imho building things that are functional and working outside of your dev environment should have more of an influence on your job prospects than the stupid coding exercises.
• yarper 12y ago
  Do you have a good github account? Most (decent) employers will probably take this in lieu of a technical interview. You have to remember that its not just them testing you - it's you testing them. As a newbie coder you want to be in a good team where you can learn good practices from solid performers. I mean put it this way - if you were in a team and everyone was at a low skill level, do you think you'd get a good time of things from sales/marketing/all the other stakeholders?
  • mmcru 12y ago
    i do have a github, but i don't think i would call it "good": https://github.com/mmcru?tab=repositories https://github.com/mmcru?tab=repositories i can definitely improve it, and that is something i have been working on. thanks for the advice though; i really appreciate it. i agree with you that ideally i would be working under some more senior programmers to improve my skills.
    • ejstronge 12y ago
      I just took a look - I noticed you've got a couple of websites in your list of repositories. Why not host some of these on a personal website? Also, adding a README could help people understand what the scope and goal of each project is (and also help them figure out how to use it/test it).
    • yarper 12y ago
      I also took a look at your contributions - looks a bit spotty! https://github.com/mmcru https://github.com/mmcru No activity in the last month? Something I personally would pick up on.
      • mmcru 12y ago
        you're definitely right. unfortunately i've been busy with a move and learning angular, which was new to me, so i haven't had much new code. i plan on adding more this week. thanks for your advice =]
• Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  Entry level can be pretty different. They're looking at potential rather than ability and things can be competitive (depending on the specific skills or organisation). I'm really thinking about programmers with 5 - 10 years of experience who still struggle to reason their way out of a wet paper bag or produce anything but the most obvious and narrowly scoped solution to problems.
• IgorPartola 12y ago
  Don't feel bad. The thing is that "good enough to get a job + that's a low bar" means that the people end up way over their heads and usually don't work out. I have interviewed lots of people. Some needed jobs badly. They came in, knowing HTML/CSS + enough jQuery to make a pretty web page, and were applying for a systems architect position. We obviously rejected them, but lots of companies cannot tell between truly qualified people and those that are not. This works both ways: lots of unqualified/underqualified people get hired and then you hear stories like "you won't believe what my co-worker did", but it also means that qualified candidates do get passed up. Basically, don't get discouraged, and don't worry about others getting jobs. Just keep getting better at what you do, and most importantly work on projects that you can show off. I found that these where the best way to get noticed/get hired.
• ssalenik 12y ago
  What is your background? I know that for a lot of corporate type gigs HR is really more concerned with whats on your CV than what your actual skills are. For many, a good GPA in a programming related program will get you an interview and the rest is soft skills. So, I feel like if your background isn't directly programming related then you really have to look for smaller companies/startups or via recommendations.
• 3pt14159 12y ago
  Start by always using the correct spelling, grammar, and capitalization. Get a senior developer to look over your code samples and give you feedback, then make sure to have a project out there that people can see and you can link to.
• nogridbag 12y ago
  Since you don't have a background in software, I would suggest specializing in the language/framework/utility of the day - something like Angular, React, etc. You will have a leg up on the vast majority of developers (the ones who don't read HN). I work for a small startup in the NYC metro area and of course I agree with the parent post. We have a fairly terrible interviewing process. Candidates are phone screened by our non-technical manager and are usually selected for interviews based on domain experience. Nearly all of the people I'm forced to interview have the same background (bachelors in India, sole language is Java, 5-20 years experience in finance industry most coming from big banks Citigroup, BoA, etc). My interview process consists of an onsite coding problem, which is of course controversial. But when none of the people you interview have a github account (some have not even heard of github) or have any sample work, I believe it's important. The vast majority of the candidates sadly cannot create a List and populate it with integers in their language of choice.
  • mmcru 12y ago
    thanks a lot for your post. input from active professionals is invaluable to me. i've actually been working on learning angular for the past few weeks. i've stopped updating my github in that time since i'm just doing basic stuff, but once i finish some more tutorials and documentation i plan on building an angular project to display on my github. are there any particular features that would really catch your eye as someone who hires programmers? any suggestions regarding the coding interview problem? i see http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-... recommended a lot.
    • Bahamut 12y ago
      I wouldn't worry too much about coding interview questions, especially if you're looking to just enter the profession. The most important aspects are showing a willingness to learn and an ability to think critically about problems.
      • nogridbag 12y ago
• Igglyboo 12y ago
  I wouldn't take it too seriously. At the risk of sounding pretentious, the skill level of developers on HN and proggit seem to be much higher than average. For every guy who writes a sweet project in meteor and shows it off to everyone there are 1000 Enterprise Java programmers who do it as a 9-5 and scoff at the idea of hobby programming. If you're passionate and put forth an effort to keep a relevant skill set you're already doing better than most imho.
• 3minus1 12y ago
  Not having experience is a huge barrier to clear. When trying to get my first job I only had a minor in CS. I had 13 interviews before I got a job, and I had to continually revise my resume. Don't give up. Focus on breadth vs. depth in terms of jobs and knowledge. And don't worry about minimum years experience requirements on job postings. You can get a job that is for someone with 3-5 years experience; they just won't pay you as much.
• lazyant 12y ago
  An option is to market yourself as "DevOps" engineer, seriously.
• Nursie 12y ago
  The problem is that paper experience is not actually a good indicator of anything, but lack of it will keep you out of a job. Recently I've been working with a team of 3 other engineers. 2 Were average if a touch lazy. The third had ~30 years experience on paper. He was without a doubt the most incurious, unproductive, useless programmer I've ever encountered. He must have committed less than 1% of the new code over the last 10 months and most of that was wrong. He was a net drain on team productivity. However the rest of us delivered and now he gets to put another successful project on his resume and look to a recruiter/HR person like he's a useful, productive guy. Where someone like you who likely has some raw talent and just needs some battle-hardening... you may find getting a foot in the door quite hard. I don't really know how to solve this.
  • Nursie 12y ago
    2 more things. Firstly, I suppose one solution would have been for management to pay attention to the atmosphere.on the team and do some sort of productivity assessments on their staff. Secondly - to get a start somewhere good I would (if you don't have a tech degree or experience) show some interest in the topic and an ability to be a self-starter. Do a couple of coursera/udacity courses. Stick up a webapp or try to get started with android development or something. Doesn't even have to be exactly aligned with where you want to be, just show some ability, intent and interest.
    • Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
      Accurately measuring productivity of programmers in a way which doesn't negatively distort performance... Crack that and you'll not need to program, you'll be rich.
• VLM 12y ago
  Getting past HR is a totally different and unrelated skillset from the craft of programming.