Career Confusion [closed]

Question

For someone who has not worked anywhere in Java Technology except learning just the core concepts in his Masters (MCA) and Graduation (BCA, bachelor degree course):

1. Is it possible to get job anywhere in Java technology? Considering he/she has not studied it in regular college and not First Class throughout except BCA, MCA (in case of Indian or international companies).

2. How will he/she get his/her dream job (in the Java field) and what are the prospects for his/her career life?

3. If the knowledge he received in his grad/univ is not enough, than what more should he do to make this his specialty before getting started for the search job or to increase job offers?

All kinds of suggestions are welcome. And thanks very much for kind suggestions.

Answer 1

Is it possible to get a job anywhere in Java?

Yes it's definitely possible to get a job almost anywhere with Java. However this is completely subjective. Where I live (Australia) there are many skilled people (inc immigrants from india) who work in the Java field, salary is dependent usually on the company, industry, experience and location.

How do you get your dream job?

I think you have realised now that achieving an BCA/MCA is not enough to walk straight into your $100k dream job with a nice office. Contrary to what universities would like students to believe.

Set realistic goals

Realising that you need to start at the bottom is the first step of reaching any goal.

Create a realistic career progressions

The second step is experience, this is sometimes a paradox. Companies want people with experience, yet they don't give opportunities to gain said experience. Find a company which is offering Graduate to Junior level postions, you will not receive much pay for these postions. However the experience gained is worth its weight in gold.

With your current level of qualifications I would expect that you should be able to quickly adapt to learning the soft skills necessary for a Mid Level postion within 2 years (optimistically).

Don't stagnate

The worst thing you can do is settle for a position that doesn't challenge you.

Companies love to keep a hold of smart employees, the problem is that they either don't recognise or reward gain in knowledge or skill. If the company that you work for can no longer challenge you in your current position and they don't have any higher level positions available. Then you should consider jumping ship to a job which you will be challenged (ie from a Junior to Mid Level developer). Be totally honest with your new employer if you have no current skills in a particular framework. But you have demonstrated at your previous job that you have learnt new technologies or frameworks rapidly.

Universities can't teach you real world Software Engineering/Craftsmanship

Unfortunately software engineering and software craftsmanship is something that universities can't teach you properly. It is also something that you have to actively learn yourself by experience. An apt analagy would be: I can write you a letter telling you how to ride a bicycle, and draw a diagram. However this does not teach you how to ride.

I've written a couple of blog posts about these two topics.

• What is Software Engineering
• Software Craftsmanship

The software craftsmanship post is a work in progress, I will be posting updates on how to apply these techniques. Until then you should use it as a stepping stone to research the links provided on each of the "Tools" presented to fill in gaps in your knowledge.

Where do you currently stand on the competency matrix?

Here is a fantastic resource for evaluating your current skills (regardless of language or framework). Challenging yourself to improve your ranking on this competency matrix will help you become more competent and well rounded developer.

• Programmer competency matrix

Answer 2

The language really doesn't matter. It's the patterns and software practices behind the language that makes you experienced. If you're a decent programmer, you can do a decent job in any language. There will be things you need to learn if you're switching from say, assembly to python, or visa-versa, or webDev to server optimization, but learning how to solve problems IS our job. Still, I don't think you're going to land your dream job without the skill set they want. Everyone should know developers take a while to get up to speed, but there's an upper limit people are willing to put up with.

As for what you can do? Go code up something in the language and field you're interested in. Nothing is stopping you. One last point, don't delay the job-hunt for this. Hunt for that awesome job now and forever. There's no reason to delay. If you don't have the requirements, apply anyway. The worst that could happen is they say no. For now.

Answer 3

Considering the fact that you are going to hit an Indian job market , i would suggest you following .

If You have recently completed your MCA (2011) , you should go for advance school , such as Cdac http://www.cdac.in, centers such as pune and Bangalore are considered very good and most of major It recruiters visit this school .It would take your six-eight months but you would be an different person when you walk out.

Alternatively, If you are living in tier-2 cities , try to move in major cities such as Bangalore , pune , Hyderabad.there , you will get an high level overview of , how to hit the market and what should be the best strategy.

I know how hard it is , to get a job in IT Industry in India when your GPA's are not favoring you , but don't think about , you cant do any thing for that matter , can you ? My suggestion is to go for Cdac and give your best shot.

Answer 4

Yes, I believe you can get a job in Java technology even without experience in Java (I'm trying to do this now....), but not easily. It depends what you have experience in and what the job is looking for.

Just starting out? A job in anything will be hard, but here the specific language often does not matter as a learning curve is expected and also pay is much lower at this level.

Have experience? This is harder because a lot of places want plug and play solutions. On the West coast (both Seattle and San Francisco) I noticed many jobs are written as x years in an object oriented language (sometimes with y years in a scripting language, etc..) so it is easier. But even there I also see some jobs with the generic Object Oriented requirements and then a specific 1/2 years in Java/C#/etc.. On the East Coast they write the jobs super specific x years in Java, Y years in Hibernate, z years in Struts/Spring MVC/Whatever, etc. so it is harder...... I often get contacted for jobs that I do not match that well, so I think exceptions are often made, but you are at the mercy of the specific recruiters/hr department.....

Often the hiring manager/other team members will take you if they see you can learn and they feel you are a "fit" for the job. Most HR/recruiters do not know how to judge technical competence as they are not technology experts, so if they say 5 years of java, 5 years of spring, 5 years of hibernate and you do not have it, your resume will be tossed. So really it helps if you know someone to have an in to bypass HR. Still it depends on the company. Small companies are often more flexible than larger ones. But there will be cases where you know every technology in the job except for 1 (not even a major one) and they will toss you.

If you have any domain specific expertise that could help too. E.g. you are a risk management expert and you were making tools in another language. They might view the risk management as more important and harder to learn than Java. Or any experience with another object oriented language might help. Still many of these strategies won't work until you get in front of someone technically competent to hire you.

The Java Certification may or may not help in your area. You need to ask around. In my area the Java Certification doesn't really do anything to help you.... But in some areas supposedly it makes a difference, especially for someone just starting out. Although the certification may help you to answer Java interview questions better and help implicitly. Most Java questions I have gotten have been easy (difference between class/interface, etc.) so the certification is not necessary. Definitely make sure you are familiar with the core language (not so much the libraries, if not visit http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/).

Answer 5

1. I'd say no considering there are some jobs that may require years of experience using Java that this person likely isn't qualified to do. There are quite likely many different choices for entry-level positions though depending on the background of the person there could be a few other possibilities. For example, if someone worked with mostly Microsoft .Net technologies and went for those degrees and was exposed to Java in that fashion this person may be seen quite differently than someone that never programmed before getting his Bachelor and Masters.

2. What is the dream job though? If the person doesn't know what it is or how to articulate it then this becomes much harder than someone that knows they want to start a company and become the next big tech giant like Facebook or Google. With such limited background on the question, I'd argue that it depends a great deal on where someone is geographically, socially, economically, and intellectually. The prospects are rather varied as I'd imagine some may burn out and others do rather well.

3. The knowledge likely isn't going to be enough because networking can often be quite handy in getting jobs and understanding what kind of dynamics exist in job searching along with other things that may not be taught in school about closing a deal or understanding the structures of companies. Companies often do the least work to find someone for a job which may mean that someone with connections may have an easier time finding a job in some cases. Course this also presumes that the person wants this kind of job and understands how well it works for that person.