

Ask HN: Looking for programming mentor in east bay area California - wturner

Hello, I'll make this brief.
I'm in my 30's and I have been programming for about a year and a half. I started with C++ and moved to writing with Javascript and web technologies. Thus far I have written an app that is a steel drum instrument emulator with audio effects (and a clean layout), developed a website that attracts about 2000 unique visitors a day and have worked on various small incremental projects.Books and Stack Overflow aren't moving me forward at this point and I need/want a mentor to work with.I have very little money but am willing to exchange labor,house cleaning,etc in exchange for your time. Contact wturner76[at]gmail<p>Thank you
======
shazebq
Try to find an entry level job or internship at a startup. Check out
www.startuply.com. Most importantly, keep trying, reading, working on
projects, etc. Also, join meetups in the bay area that specialize in your core
technologies like javscript and send an email to the meetup list regarding job
openings. Best of luck!

------
tagabek
It seems like your skills are sturdy enough to create viable products. Have
you thought about contract work or getting a job as an engineer? When I feel
like books/SO/etc. are not working for me, I tackle an existing idea that I
have.

~~~
wturner
I am looking for a mentor to help me learn what I need to know to compensate
for a lack of a computer science degree-based understanding of programming. I
still learn from Stack Overflow and books, but I am not rapidly growing from
them the way a mentor can lend with less effort. I've been trying to get work
for 5 years. I briefly worked for a start up started by a fortune 500 COO but
my time was spend on many things that I feel were/are wasteful - like weeding
through tons of confusing disorganized team emails ( I didn't get paid for
that). Plus it was on spec (they need to hit $40,000 revenue before I am to
get paid) and there were some other issues. My "accomplishments" while there
included styling a pop up widget, brute-force dissecting a JQuery plug in,
researched various problems/solutions for product promotion and doing HTML/CSS
work to reflect PSD files. Anyway, it all amounts to about $100 worth of work
($12/hr plus hours of "free" research) over the course of 4 months of
asking,waiting,doing and playing along. But in terms of getting a more robust
foundation for what I want to do - it won't happen tangled up in "busy work"
and without a mentor. Thanks for the feedback.

btw - I have an idea I'm working on . I always have an idea I'm working on.
That's just a given. :)

------
orangethirty
What you need to do is tak eon freelance projects. Working with real world
stuff with help you progress more than any mentor. Should be dead easy to get
work in the bay.

