I found a job before I moved. I simply searched for jobs in Bend and was lucky enough to find an advertised job on indeed.com that matched my skills.
The benefit of finding a job beforehand is you may receive a relocation package to help with the move. I think your current living situation is only a hindrance if you're unable to travel for an interview.
I have to agree. The work/life balance here is amazing. There are start-ups and bigger enterprise-sized tech companies (Sony!) There is also a decent amount of tech jobs available right now.
I have a few text files at work that I keep track of things. I treat it more as a reference file/personal FAQ file, some notes are verbose and some are terse. When I am learning on a side project I keep my notes in Google docs. I take the time to format those notes better so I can study them easily. Google Docs has history and warns you when you delete a file. What do you use versioning for? I correct my notes when I discover they are wrong, and if we release a new version of the product, I just record the new behaviour in addition to the old behaviour (along with dates, build numbers etc)
Have you discussed your workload issues with your boss? Is it possible to ask for more a bigger team or push back on the amount of work expected?
That might easier and faster than finding a new job, especially since you like everything else about the company.
Good luck either way!
I've had surprisingly good luck on craigslist, I find both small and large companies post on craigslist. Networking, as everyone else has mentioned, is definitely the easiest approach and usually produces good quality leads.
Knitting? It can be cheap (as opposed to stained glass which I didn't know was expensive?!) and knitting groups are very friendly, social, helpful, and encouraging. I think you will always find people doing activities better than you, but all the knitters/crocheters I've ever met are willing to stop and explain things to beginners, or at the very least commiserate over mistakes. Despite the old-lady stereotype, all the knitting groups in different cities I've attended have been all ages and all abilities.
In general, it depends on what type of testing and what technologies you are using. For performance testing and other testing that requires large data sets, I prefer to have a "golden" copy of a database that is simply restored to the testing environment as needed. For smaller integration tests the database is usually seeded dynamically, I've seen it done through fixtures/bootstrapping (Django, Grails, and other frameworks support this) or through SDK calls in custom code (using your own code base to populate the database).
Are you also trying to seed your production environment?
I agreee your first rule about fear is the biggest for me. I find it much easier to learn when I'm not worried about 'its taking me too long', 'I'm not learning the right stuff', 'I need to study more'. When I'm scared of learning and failing I don't make the time.
Also, I find learning with other people keeps me motivated and pushes me past the fear. Right now my employer does lunch+learns once or twice a month. I'm more committed because I don't want to appear lazy at work and its more fun when you can talk to other people who are also learning and struggling on the same material.
There are HIPAA certified cloud servers out there. I think the bigger problem is having tight security when integrating. It is considered safer to integrate behind a firewall (on an intranet) than worry about how to pass data between cloud-based software and locally hosted 3rd party databases/software
I learned Javascript from a desktop app background. I started by just reading the Javascript docs. Memorizing the available functions, and then I focused on learning how to write things javascripty.
Personally I find learning more rewarding when I move faster, so I dove into frameworks first instead of learning the low-level javascript (prototypical inheritance, etc).
Yup, I understand when someone just suffers with the problem instead of fixing it, its a bit frustrating to watch them work inefficiently. I always find someone else's reasoning interesting. Sometimes it is no desire to learn but other times its lack of free time to fix a non-critical issue, no apparent business value (fun task vs fast but ugly task), or they are afraid of how their solution is going to be judged.
I've usually worked with people who encourage and support resourcefulness. Especially on smaller teams when developers have a wide range of responsibilities, you're frequently working in areas you have little experience in. Everyone on the team team understands that the ability to cope with unusal problems should be rewarded.
How are you relating complacency and lack of ability to resourcefulness? I think resourcefulness is more of a mindset (or a soft skill), I don't think it is related to lack of technical abilities.
I don't think they came back 'disappointing' and I don't think they are worried about PR. I think the cost of extracting is not worth it with the current price and current political risk (a moratorium? higher fees? etc)
Travel to northern Canada (North West Territories, Nunavut) before the planet warms up too much. See the northern lights, go kayaking, go on wildlife tours (polar bears!, narwhales!), etc. I know someone who lucked out on a tour and ended up being the only person in the tour. Flights are incredibly expensive so it would use up some of your money. Donate the left over money to charity :)
Software Engineers are covered by TN visas though, under the 'Engineers' category. That might be easier for you instead of 'Computer Analyst'. You need a degree and a job offer (where the title is Software Engineer). I think most large software companies in the US will happily hire TN visa people. Also large companies usually have immigration lawyers on tab which makes the visa process much more reliable.
I agree, or at least that is my perception. As a female dev I'm always more worried about a false positive, being hired for a job I'm not suitable for because of the diversity factor. I have found women sometimes get further in the interview process because they are given more second chances. My advice is use your female name.
I strongly agree with the work-life balance. When the add explicitly states where the office is, the expected the work hours, the number of holiday days, the career development support, etc I'm much more excited to apply. There is nothing worse than applying to a job that is going to be a transit commute to the middle of nowhere. Also when they offer things like relocation support and visa lawyers, its pretty wonderful.
The best interviews have been interviews where I have been warned ahead of time what to expect. Ie in the phone screening interview I was given an informal hint that I should add unit tests to my programming task (the next step of the interview process). Or the time I was told that my in-person interview would include a hello-world with a certain IDE and a certain language (which I had no previous experience in). I felt comfortable because I knew what to expect and I could prepare ahead of time. I think it also showed I was listening and I was willing to learn new things.
I need somewhere between 7-8 hours of sleep. I don't drink coffee and I exercise 3 times a week.
I find sleep matters more in the long run. I can function on 6 hours, but after a few months I'm burned out and I end up catching whatever cold/flu is going around.
Finished: Where I Belong, Alan Doyle.
Light Christmas reading written by the lead singer of Great Big Sea. I recommend it to anyone who grew up in a small town!
Reading: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, Martin Fowler
So far so good. The first bit is overview, good contrasting examples of when to use what pattern. I've slowed down now that I've hit the actual patterns.
Planning: Clean Code, Robert Martin.
Recommended by a coworker.
I think some times it can be your co-workers. Write a script for the service team to automate some manual task, talk to QA about something they always have to manually setup - skunk work projects are a great way of delighting your co-workers.
I totally agree with the idea of having a style guide. How do you educate non-technical people (customers) on style guides? Style guides seem technical in nature so I'm not too sure how to succinctly explain to a customer that UI/UX decisions should be based around guidelines instead of "what feels good"
I took a job where I was the 4th employee at a start-up. The biggest selling point was they were willing to hire me despite my lack of web-dev experience. Coming from a .NET background, I had never used PHP until my interview. The interview involved setting up a MVC application and my interviewers were able to answer my technical questions succinctly. I realized they would be great people to learn from. I think the most important thing about hiring first employees is making sure everyone works well together.
I found the company thru craigslist, I'm not too sure if that applies to all cities, but Vancouver developer jobs show up regularly on CL.
"A glance" is a good way to express it. I don't really care what I see, I would just like a quick gauge of how well-kept their code is. I think looking at the small things like frequency of comments, variable naming, parameter checking, etc would be a good basic indication of their style.
How do you stop patient's from deleting health information they deem 'not important' or 'too embarrassing'? I think it is important that health professionals keep their own records of patient health.
Although, I do agree software in hospitals is NOT user friendly!
I think SCM tracks history a lot better than an inbox. Even when I am coding by myself, I like using source control so I can easily remember what I did two days ago. Also having a history makes it easier to remove buggy features or re-add features if business requirements change. Instead of searching through an inbox folder, just view the history of a single file.