I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but if you’re not already proficient in Powershell, it’s a good skill set to have as well. Automation (i.e, cost savings) is a big deal in most companies. It’s pretty easy to pick up and there are a lot of free online resources.
My experience with PowerShell is minimal, unfortunately. I chalk that up to the bad experience I had with a SkillSets online course for Exchange Server. Once again, the emulator they used for the class was nearly unusable and made me avoid further exploration.
Funny, my work on IBM systems still requires a lot of command line usage. I figured that using PowerShell would be a variation on the same theme. I know - apples to oranges…
One thought is that you might be thinking of this all wrong. In addition to getting your skills up to date, you should start networking at companies you think you might be interested in working at. Start looking for people who work in areas you might want to work in and see if you can set up some 30 minute calls with them. It would give you a better idea of what companies in your area are actually looking for and by the time you are ready to start looking in a few months, you’ll have ideally already built up some relationships.
I’ve already begun putting out some feelers with people who used to work in my department who have successfully found IT positions in my local market. These were people who worked as programmers, so I’ve been picking their brains as to what skills have served them best in their new jobs. I’ll try to widen my scope a bit more to include other contacts who haven’t worked for my company to see if that gives me a little more insight.
Thanks again!
I was a COBOL programmer for years and decided to do a C++ CBT course. I found it completely baffling until I backed up and did a generic Object Oriented Design course and then it all clicked into place. I was also a DBA (DB2 on mainframes) for a while and those jobs seem to be pretty stable.
You sound like you’re heading in the right direction, doing all the right things. Just keep educating yourself and let the world know you are out there looking. With all the stories about companies only hiring recent grads and only caring about the technology du jour they actually are looking for well rounded experienced people with a proven work ethic. They just don’t advertise it much because most applicants will be disappointing in that regard. Those jobs largely come by word of mouth though, it takes a recommendation from a trusted connection to get in the door. I think you are taking the right steps to get you there. Best of luck with this.
Ha! I remember programming COBOL on a System/34 when I was a student back in 1983. Never ended up using it, but I did do JCL and RPG-II programming when I got my first “real” IT job.
When I did some contract work for the Navy later on, I did some mucking about with DBase-III and IV before landing at my current job.
Im both excited and apprehensive about getting back into programming. It’ll be interesting, that’s for sure…
Thanks for the words of encouragement, TriPolar. They’re much appreciated.
Another route to consider is starting in customer support for an enterprise software vendor. I’ve gone this route twice. Join as customer support, gain expertise on the product, then join the development team. The customers aren’t usually as clueless as those you get working the hell desk at a corporation.
Sounds like solid advice. There are some local development companies which have regular openings for customer support and training for their products. I’ll try to keep my eyes open for that as a possibility since I’ve got decent remote support experience with software that we had developed years ago for our sales staff – none of whom were very tech savvy. To be honest, I was never one to be afraid of dealing with end users.
Thanks!
All right, my two cents :
- It’s useful to have a foundation in conventional OOP, and Java and C# (which are similar to each other) are easier to learn than C++ and more widely applicable.
- Modern Web development requires some knowledge of JavaScript, and especially frameworks such as Node.js and React. This field changes rapidly, it may be difficult to find up-to-date courses. Java is not a stepping stone to JavaScript: the concepts and syntax are different, the similar names are a historical accident.
- Python has a wide range of applicability on many platforms, from basic scripting to writing full-fledged applications. It’s useful to at least have an idea of what it is and how it works. Beware that some practitioners of Python (Pythonistas) are into proselytizing, and that’s often perceptible in courses.
- If you’re not familiar with basic Unix/Linux concepts, I’d recommend an introductory course on the subject. You can install a Linux distribution (such as Ubuntu) in your lab, in addition to Windows. There are ways now to run Linux commands or even Linux itself inside Windows, but in this case I’d recommend running it in its own partition or VM.
Right now I’m prioritizing the study of Java and C# as my starting point, but I hope to have a clearer picture of what I’ll be looking at next in the following weeks and months. As I mentioned before, I believe that I was a good programmer years ago, so I’m hoping to recapture that thirst I used to have for learning new languages and writing code.
I might tinker a bit with Linux / Unix as you suggested. If I end up in more of an IT support position, I see that experience with Linux seems to pop up frequently.
Thanks for your two cents, Heracles!
Just a side note to anybody who’s been following this thread:
Right now my head is spinning with all of the things I would like to try learning, but I’m trying to temper that by being patient and not attempting to do it all at once. I’m still working for now, and my wife and I have some money set aside so we’ll be okay if I need to get a job that covers the basics for a while if need be. In the meantime, I’ll take this time to try learning something…
Anyway, I do genuinely appreciate all of the input you guys have given me thus far. You’ve put the thought in my head that maybe I can get back up to speed and continue to be productive for a few more years. If nothing else, maybe there might be someone else out there that might be in a similar situation who will read this thread and be motivated to take some classes and possibly get a better job as a result.
Thank you – and feel free to keep chiming in if you feel like it!
In the world of IT, the “jack of all trades” hat is very valuable, yet often uncompensated hat. We also tend to think of the tech discipline as a skill ladder of intelligence with developers at the top, but that’s not the case. What I’m saying is you don’t have to undervalue yourself and you shouldn’t.
One approach to monetizing that, as I did, is to specialize in the automation of the software lifecycle. These jobs are advertised as build engineers, or release engineers, or release managers. There’s also a ton of good grift to be had in the DevOps space (it claims to be a movement, but really it’s just the practice of automating builds, deployments, scaling, and monitoring).
I like this niche because most software products are pretty boring (ooh! sales conversions are up! who gives a shit). Yet wherever you go there’s a software shop with developers who need to be delivering faster, with better quality, but can’t be bothered to apply their programming skills to that problem. There’s some logic to that… if I hired a developer to make a widget-stamping app for $150K a year, then I expect her to make that app, not a Cadillac build system.
But the inverse logic is that the Cadillac build system can make all of your developers more productive for every release going forward. And these tools aren’t hard to build, it’s just that everybody wants to be the hot-shit developer who made millions developing the next Facebook. And the great thing is that these usually aren’t tools that need a lot of off-hours support (though you need to consciously engineer your tools and processes for that).
HMS_Irruncible,
Sounds like you’ve found a cool niche in which to apply your skills and maintain your value within your company. I can’t help but admire that. I think that you’re probably working several levels above what I would hope to accomplish by the time I reach retirement age, but I guess stranger things could happen.
I guess my immediate goal would be to become a part of a build team and then see where that takes me. Since our department has dwindled down from 7 employees to just 1 over the past 5 years, I definitely need to become reacquainted with collaborating with others on projects. I find the idea of becoming a “cog” in the machine a bit comforting, even though “cogs” can usually be easily replaced if need be.
If this sounds like I’m discounting your input, please don’t take it that way. I’ve had other people tell me that I undervalue myself and what I do, and perhaps they’re right. I think that I’ve got to prove it to myself by getting back into “learning” mode so I can build up my confidence a bit. If I can get back into software development, maybe I can eventually do as you’ve done and find my own niche to inhabit.
Thank you very much!
That is coming through in your posts. Of course you’d be a little nervous about moving into new areas but you seem to have a good long term track record, if you’ve managed to keep up with the IT world up to now you should do fine in the future. I’m sure you’ve seen a number of people drop off the map over the years because they couldn’t keep up yet you are still in the game Someone will recognize that.
PS in regards to my last reply to you, Heracles:
I just signed up for an online C# course at Udemy. I might begin that class in another month or so after I’ve made more progress in the Java course. That, and I wanted to lock down the $9.99 price they’re offering at the moment. Cheap, I know, but I can’t help thinking that I may be able to glean some value from it.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, TriPolar. It’s much appreciated!
I just wanted to put this out there for anybody else who might be in a situation similar to mine:
I don’t want to make this thread just about me.
There’s been a lot of useful information that’s been brought up in this thread and I think that it’s already given me a lot of points to consider. If you’ve got some questions about sprucing up your IT career, it looks like there are quite a few people here who are able to offer some valuable insights. Toss your questions in here and see where that takes us.
(Just felt that I should toss that last bit in since I’m a little weirded out that this is the longest thread that I’ve ever initiated in the 20+ years I’ve been here. Yay, me!)
Many people struggle with this, it’s not just you. It’s called “impostor syndrome”. Learning the coursework can help somewhat, but you can’t study your way out of it. At some point you just have to consciously accept that people do challenging things all the time, and there’s no reason it can’t be you.
“Imposter syndrome”, eh? I’ve heard the term before, but never applied it to myself. I think you may be right.
I get what you’re saying, and I know that the real test is applying what I learned outside of a “classroom”, so to speak. I’ve done it before, but never thought I’d have to do it again.
What an interesting year we’ve all had so far!
The real test is being able to pick up a skill you don’t have, deploying it in a productive capacity, and leaving it all behind when the project is over. The real skill is learning, because the tools in the pipeline are evolving every day.
If it sounds frustrating to hear that everything is a moving target, you need not be frustrated. Everybody struggles with it. I’ve spent 20+ years acquiring skills to solve various computing problems, and I routinely face situations where it’s not enough to solve the problem, you have to solve it using technology that is cool and buzzy. In that case, it’s a disadvantage to state that you’ve been doing this 20+ years and you could probably do it in an awk script from 1987, you just learn javascript and do it in node.js because that’s what everyone is comfortable with.