Ask HN: How to get relevant dev experience white being unable to switch? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to get relevant dev experience white being unable to switch?

6 pointsUnhppyCnsltnt6 comments

I graduated in a CS-related field about a year ago and have been working in a non-IT role as a consultant/project manager on digital transformation projects. What sounded like an exciting topic to work on for past me turned out to be an endless journey of crafting powerpoint presentations and fighting corporate bureaucracy (and loosing!). It has now come to the point where I hate standing up in the morning and going to work because I know that I will spend the majority of my day on things I would consider to be meaningless by any scale.

Last week I happened to find a Golang book I got as a present a few years ago and decided to work through it. While doing so I re-discovered much of the joy I had when working on programming related projects back in university. I am now at the point where I am considering working further to be able to switch my career at some point.

Problem is, I am pretty much locked in my current job. I moved places, my partner switched companies and I have other financial obligations that don't allow me to sacrifice signifiant amounts of my salary. The city I live in also does not have a lot of other potential companies to work for. The remote alternatives I found are either US only (I'm in Germany) or require 1-2 years of relevant experience which I obviously don't have.

This leaves me wondering, are there any good alternatives to gather the relevant experience that are also respected by employers or am I really out of luck here?

Projects. Build (non-trivial) things and put them online. Write about them or make a video. It takes a while to build up a collection of these projects, so start now. But, when interviewing in the future, point to your list of projects to demonstrate that you are so committed to coding that you do it for fun, and you will be surprised at the interest that companies will have in you. You might even find some freelance gigs to give you more experience.

This strategy worked for me many times!

What would you recommend as non trivial projects? Do you mean trying to clone some existing service with a given toolset or should I try to come up with something (somewhat) original?

In my opinion, the best project is one that meets your specific need.

In other words, you don't want to say "I can copy someone else's work", but rather "I can have an idea and then build it myself", which is a much more desirable skill. It also usually indicates that you know the tool/language/service well enough that you can create something original and not just follow a script or tutorial.

I can give you a million ideas (really!) but you need to come up with something that resonates with you, personally.

As an example, I will tell you the project that I'm finishing up, and the project that I'm doing next. And I already have a good job... I just like building things and solving my own problems!

I just finished designing, building, and installing a LED light fixture for my kitchen that integrates with my smart switches and Home Assistant. I'm editing the video for it now and will post it on YouTube soon.

My next project is to create a digital audio mixer that my home automation can control via ZigBee. Reason: no commercial offerings do what I want done with separate and overlapping zones.

You might look at this and say "but none of that sounds interesting to me!", or "I'm wanting to work on different technologies!" That's great! You shouldn't try to copy me! Scratch your own itch and explore your own interests! And tell us about it here when you do something cool!

It sounds like you're going to either have to sacrifice time or money.

If you're not able to sacrifice money from your career, then you're going to have to learn on your own in your spare time, work on some websites and projects, and become a developer. Your social life might suffer in the short-term though.

"Last week I happened to find a Golang book"

which book?

"Introducing Go" by Caleb Doxsey. It covers the absolute basics of the language and does a pretty good job at that.

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