

How did you find your first programming job? - cooler

I'm studying computer science and want to better prepare myself.  Just wondering how everyone here managed to find their first real progamming job.  Do I have to have a lot of experience to get a niche over others?  I have just been doing some small projects myself for fun ... nothing serious or professional.
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shanked
I had almost received my B.S. Management when I was offered a entry-level job
as a Requirements Analyst at an eight-person software company. At this point I
had probably written 1000 lines of code in my entire life (JavaScript/PHP,
mostly copying tutorials) and had no real intention of becoming a programmer.

After four months, I had become the longest tenured employee (besides the
owner, who was non-technical) after everyone else in the company quit. I had
no choice but to take the role of Lead Developer on a $170,000 project.
Needless to say, I learned to code ... and since then my interest in CS/SWE
has snowballed to the point I enrolled in a M.S. Comp Sci program.

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robflynn
My first web development job came as random luck. I received a phone call at
my high school via the school office. I headed to the office to see what the
call about and it was a local ISP begging me to come in and work for a week.
All of their techs were sick and they learned of me via one of the techs.

I did tech support with them for a week and ended up taking on a web site
project as well. A couple weeks later came another project... and another...
and then then two years later we had a good laugh when we realized that they
never hired me officially.

My first real programming gig came out of the blue as well. I had just
graduated high school in North Carolina and received an e-mail from a startup
in California. They had learned about me from my work on Gaim (now Pidgin) and
wanted to hire me.

Two weeks later I was driving across the country to start the job. I don't
even think there was an interview involved. I almost half expected to get
there and find an abandoned building.

That was many years ago. Sadly, I now find myself somewhat underemployed and
toying around with a few startup ideas while longing to move back to
California.

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bartonfink
I got my first internship through a standard corporate application with only 4
CS courses under my belt. I tend to interview well, and there was a lot of
interest in my resume because I was a returning student. Two of the three
people who interviewed me did the same thing, so that wound up being my "in".

I got my first real job through Monster.com, I'm sorry to say. I had just
moved to a new town and a company needed some help, so I went ahead and
applied. It wasn't a great gig, but I wasn't trying to be selective at the
time. I would not recommend using Monster.com and if I could go back in time
to slap myself I would. I still get occasional calls from recruiters for a
4-year old resume.

The best advice I can offer you is that, however you brand yourself on your
resume, tell the truth in an interview. Don't exaggerate or fabricate, and if
you get to the limits of your knowledge don't be afraid to say so. Think of it
as an extension of "underpromise and overdeliver". I never put anything on my
resume I'm not prepared to talk about for at least half an hour precisely to
avoid any hint that I'm making shit up as I go.

~~~
cooler
Thanks everybody for the great advice. Looks like networking makes things
easier. Not my favorite thing to do but I guess I have to suck it up. I am
more of a lone wolf ... like to do my own things ... I also like taking part
in programming competitions ... wondering if they help in resume ...

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cmontgomeryb
I don't know if this is common in the rest of the world, but many Universities
in the UK offer an industrial placement scheme, whereby each participating
student has to get a job (relevant to your degree) for a year of their course.
So in the 4 year course, the 3rd year is work experience.

I did that, which was fantastic experience (good coworkers, nice codebase to
work with and an interesting industry) and led to me being employed by the
same company upon leaving University. While interviewing for my next job, it
was often mentioned that I had 18 months more experience than others in my
position (recent-ish graduate), and they valued that much more highly than
they would one additional year of in-University education.

As for getting a job without a educational backing, it's all about proving
yourself. I have a friend who's co-worker had never been formally educated,
but was a senior developer at the firm. He had a solid portfolio and ran his
own small web development effort on the side. Code things, and show them to
prospective employers.

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shortlived
Get an internship, make connections with the IT department, with all of your
professors and any alumni you meet. I got a job offer from one of my
internships and an alumnus but ended up working at the company that did the
back office software for my college (a connection through people in that
department).

~~~
shortlived
One more story: my friend who went to business school (and got a business
degree) ended up getting a full time job with the IT department and is still
working there today. He started as an entry level programmer and is currently
a business analyst.

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duncanj
I got into eXtreme Programming during college around 1999. I put it on my
resume and dropped the name at various applications. I went around looking for
Smalltalk jobs and then got recruited by ThoughtWorks in 2000, probably
because I had the XP interest.

I recommend identifying what you want to do, find out who's doing it, and then
contacting people there directly until they bring you in. Knowing what I know
now, my approach of mostly sending out resumes and hoping for the best was not
optimal. I still don't know how to "network" but calling companies that are
doing cool things, or asking people on irc where they work and whether they
like it, things like that, are probably going to be sort of like networking.

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gawker
I found my first job through a job fair - but I had several internships before
that. Small projects are great to show that you have interest in programming
by default. It will definitely be worth something. But I reckon my internships
helped me quite a bit in getting them to talk to me. After that, it's a whole
bunch of technical questions, coding, etc.

Networks and job fairs are fairly useful. If you attend conferences or talks,
get to know the people there.

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bnycum
I was in my first year of college. In brief discussions with one of my
professors I mentioned I did PHP amongst other things. A few months later he
passed me in the hallway and asked would I meet with him about a project using
PHP, MySQL... traditional stack. Basically he saw my work in class plus saw I
did work outside of class to know I could handle it.

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Hovertruck
I was in high school, my brother was working at Webs.com (or Freewebs as it
was known back then.)

He asked me if I wanted to take over the template building process for them,
and I agreed. Started as a contractor and ended up working there full time for
almost three years straight out of high school.

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jkap
Complete luck. I managed to get an internship doing programming work with a
local design firm simply because I knew iOS development and they wanted
someone who did.

If I were you, I'd try contacting companies that are doing things to want to
do and sending them your resume. Persistence is key.

