Ask HN:Could you give me some advice on how to get started in San Francisco?

[DenverGuy]

Hi HN,

Here's the gist. I'm graduating soon, moving to San Fransisco, and would like to start a career in programming. I'm a bit lost as to how to get off to a good start in the industry. So I was hoping I could get a bit of advice from you guys.

My Background

I'm 25, and will be graduating with a BS in Applied Math. My language of choice is C, although I'm just as proficient with C++ and Python. At the moment, I'm living in Colorado, but plan to move to San Francisco at the end of this semester upon graduation. From what I've heard and seen, the stretch of land between San Francisco and San Jose is the mecca of technology. I'm super excited.

The problem is that I don't really know where to start. When I look at most of the job ads on DICE, I see requests for very specific skills. While I have some experience in these areas (say, posix threads), I'm an expert in none. I started programming over 10 years ago, but I don't have any solid completed projects to show for it.

Is it possible for a guy like me to get hired without any previous working experience in the industry? I have a very strong math background, and am well versed in Algorithms and proper software design. But like I said, I don't really have anything to show for it.

My main concern is making sure that I work somewhere interesting. I want to tackle interesting problems that actually mean something. I don't want to be a digital plumber that fixes bugs in an enterprise CRM system. Obviously though, I'll take what I can get just starting out.

What advice would you guys have for someone just starting out in the software development world?

Thanks for the help.

[alain94040]

Go to meetups, meet plenty of programmers like you, talk to them. You will uncover the hidden face of recruiting: the real jobs are not advertised.

Worst case: join a pre-funding startup for a little while. I know a million projects who need coders (or visit my site: http://fairsoftware.net/publicProjects). That will take care of your experience within 3 to 6 months, tops.

[10ren → alain94040]

"What Colour is Your Parachute" (great book btw) also says this (that most jobs aren't advertised). I've also noticed it in my work places. Sometimes there's a government mandated ad, but they already know who they'd like to hire.

[idlewords]

Pick a project, any project, and work on it. If you aren't inspired to do your own thing, find some open source tool or library that you really fancy, and do some scut work on it. Fix bugs, write tests, help with documentation.

The Bay Area dev scene is a relatively small world, and once you get to know some of the local nerds you'll find the rest comes easily. It's the first step that is a challenge, and I find nothing beats having a public project to point at, so that people meeting you for the first time can easily figure out where to place you in their mental rolodex.

[DenverGuy]

Thank you all very much for your replies. I hadn't even thought of networking at conferences. I'll definitely put that in the plans.

Also, like idlewords said, I'll join a small open source project and see if I can contribute in some meaningful way.