Advice On Getting A Software Job

You should clarify whether "mid six figures" is meant to mean "about $150,000", "about $550,000", "about $316,228", or something else. (In case it's not obvious: those figures are, respectively, the arithmetic mean of 100k and 200k, the arithmetic mean of 100k and 1M, and the geometric mean of 100k and 1M.)

My guess is that for ordinary senior software people, the first (and smallest) of those is the most appropriate, but that for successful Wall Street quants, one of the others might be nearer the mark. (But I am not an expert on software developers' salaries and would be happy to be corrected.)

I also have the impression that if you want to earn six figures as an ordinary software developer (as opposed to in management, as an entrepreneur, etc.) then you really want to be in Silicon Valley or New York, rather than just "in a big city". Again, I am not a salary expert.

(My own background: I do maths and software and a bit of physics in the UK. I have no management responsibilities. I'm about 40. I will not state my exact salary, but if you assume low six figures (in dollars) you will not be far off.)

The paragraph about googling when you find errors might be improved by adding a pointer to Stack Overflow.

Employers offering low salaries plus equities are unlikely to be a good idea, but I don't think they're usually scams.

I'm an open source driver developer, and I've been involved in the hiring process for our driver team. From my experience in hiring: Participating in any open source project you're interested in is the best way to recommend yourself as a candidate. We get to totally skip the resume[1] and the write-some-code-on-the-whiteboard BS, because we've already googled you and looked through the actual patches you've made and how you interacted with other developers on the projects you've tried to work with. The interview process then becomes "let me tell you about our group and what it's like and some things we might be interested in you working on."

[1] (actually, a bachelor's degree in something is required. CS does not score bonus points)

you’ll discover that a majority of programming is debugging – discovering errors

FWIW, this is not my experience. By leaning heavily on the compiler and making liberal use of assertions, I am able to reduce the total amount of time spent debugging to a small fraction of my total effort.

Most of my programming time is spent cycling through designs. I come up with a new design and it takes a while to flesh it out. Then, often, it turns out the design is fatally flawed in a way that was not obvious at the outset. So all the time it took to implement the design was wasted.

I did this, starting with a Semitic Philology PhD and a math BA, and next to no knowledge of programming.

Don’t work for anyone who offers you a full-time job without a decent salary (generally, at least $50,000) because you’ll be “paid in equity”.

I strongly agree, but on the other hand, my "trick" to breakthrough was to offer a friend, who was trying to do a startup, that I would program part-time in exchange for deferred hourly rate, to be paid if and when the venture turned a profit.

I didn't actually expect the startup to take off, and it didn't, but the deal was real. It gave me experience and a genuine referee, it allowed me to get experience with freedom to work independently and for only a few hours a week, and it allowed me to go into subsequent pay negotiations from the base of a very high per-hour rate.

It helps to go into this during a bubble.

I already know how to program (Python, C/C++, web dev, Matlab). I'm a physics undergrad and I intend to remain one, but I'd like either a part-time gig or a short-term one (about a month). Advice?

Any advice for software developers that are in a rut? Basically, I have been working my first post-college job the last 3.5 years or so, but honestly what I do is pretty basic web app stuff.

I really want to get into a job where I have a lot more responsibility and more interesting work, but I feel like I have shot myself in the foot by working at such an easy (but decent paying) job for so long.

I am very interested in pretty much all programming related topics and study them for fun, but having not built any super awesome software makes me feel inadequate.

Honestly, I should probably just apply to some places and see if I can get a better job, but for some reason I am afraid I will just get turned down.

Practicing programming isn’t like studying for a test – anything that requires flash cards or lots of memorization is likely a waste of time. “The best way to learn to program is by doing it.” Don’t memorize; build.

There's a long and well-written article here written by a man who believes using Anki (with flash cards & lots of memorization) is a superior way to learn programming. He claims that using this method "any intelligent and disciplined reader can achieve proficiency in a given field of programming (e.g. web applications, iPhone applications) in less than 12 months."

Note that he also advocates learning by doing ("pick a project") so the two approaches are NOT mutually exclusive.

Saw this on Hacker News; it looks pretty good: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4410805

Any particular reason you recommend Debian over Ubuntu?

If I want to become a system administrator instead of a programmer, which of these advises would still apply? Also, is it feasible to become a system administrator if I don't have a bachelor's in a related area of study?

I recommend to all those programmers and scripters et al read that ESR page ("How To Become A Hacker").

You can do much, but the more skills and powers you have, then the bigger responsibility you have to make choice -- to whom you will work for? With great skills its no point to work in commercial software industry or in military assignments -- becouse the first is fixing problem over again and over, second job is destruction. Logically taking -- if the engineer education is only to build bombs then I wish that it should not exist at all, it should be used instead to more peaceful projects and programs.

"2. No problem should ever have to be solved twice." Remember that rule. But thats exactly what computer and commercial software industry does -- fixes the same problem more than twice. In other words - your energy are wasted, gentlemen. Just to go to grab those jobs are quite blind and yes, meaningless. Do you really want to do something which is meant just for sale and that they will be outdated after some years? The only one who gets satisfaction is only sales department, but no customer, and neither You. There are many other ways to get food and cover while still feeling that you make something which is meaningful.

Many perhaps will go to this job becouse being blinded by salary number but missing the whole point -- those men who work on this area arent motivated only by salary, but becouse its fun. Salary numbers are high only becouse there arent so much specialists on the market. As there will be more who can do the required job, salaries will go low. Also in this field self-learning is most important thing.

There are several negative factors about commercial programming jobs: debuging (90% of the time goes for debuging instead of developing new features), missing or too old documentation and lots of PHBs. I remember that my energy was quite wasted becouse I was put on someones project without documentation to fix bugs. And all that low software was becouse of very low programming moral.

Also, when I program or build something then I want to make it last for years, be compatible, and have small requirements. These were not in company's interests, they set very strict limits.

Well, I had once such workplace where I worked 15 hours in a day and just becouse I liked. But not anymore.

Also 20 years ago programming was considered as a form of art, but now what a heck if I cant even choose how I will place the table to feel more comfortable... I quit. That company as all other similar ones dont exist anymore in such form or any longer.

"In this clip, from June 1995, Jobs says the difference between using good hardware can be a 2:1 difference for a company. But the difference between a company with superb programmers vs. average ones is 25:1, he says, adding, "That's probably … certainly the secret to my success. It's that we've gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people.""

http://www.fastcompany.com/1836987/steve-jobs-the-payoff-of-a-great-employee

This productivity speedup is the key observation. Learn the basics from coursera or whatever and then really internalize the idea that your personal productivity varies in orders of magnitude and learn to arrange your environment to avoid diminishing returns. After you have the ability to do this and you can communicate to nontechnical people, finding work is no problem.

Don’t work for anyone who offers you a full-time job without a decent salary (generally, at least $50,000) because you’ll be “paid in equity”.

I was young and took a job for some $30K per year. Great workplace, terrible pay. Stayed for three years; ended up without any equity. I'd go back in a heartbeat if I could get the same compensation I'm getting now.