Hello and advice please

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Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to say Hi and try and pick your brains.

I am looking at getting (back) into programming so I asked computeach to come and visit me last night and was a bit shocked at the cost of the training and therefore decided to do some further research and found this wonderful forum where it seems to be of the opinion that self learning is the best (and obviously the cheapest) method as long as I am willing to put the effort in.

The problem that I have is that I do have some experience in programming but no proof of it - At uni (I have a degree in electrical and electronic engineering, which included some programming courses) I learnt some c++ and found that I could quite easily understand the programming (got a 74% for the final year C++ course) also for my placement year I worked for siemens and developed a website and also did some standalone (i.e. non web based) PERL programming both of these were self taught. However when I left uni I did not follow the programming route, I have gone more into hardware and now work as a product development engineer for a consumer electronics company, I now realise 5 years after leaving uni that this is not the correct route for me and would like to start the programming again.

Computeach suggested that I follow the C# MCAD route, which I liked the sound of but wanted to check with you guys if this was a good course to follow?

Also, looking at the job market, every company requires experience, as I mentioned above I do have experience but not in a commercial market. Do you think that this is enough to get a job as a software developer or are there any other things that I can do in addition to the MCAD (or other similar cert)to benifit/improve my chance of getting employment.

Thanks in advance for your time in answering my query

Mark

 

Hi there and elcome

 

Hi and welcome to CF!

The first thing I'd suggest is to get some of the rust out (<grin>) and pick up some programming yourself. Both Microsoft and GCC compilers for C++ are available for free, and so is Perl.

After a gap you get less fluent with a language, but you should be able to get back to where you were fairly easily.

As regards getting a job in the field - that's harder, and if you tried you probably find a noticeable drop in salary to start with!

What I would suggest, given your current job, is to look at the processes you deal with, and try and come up with some sort of automation for them that you could code up. This would be far better than trying some make-believe project at home!

This would also allow you to claim experience for when you decide to move jobs.

Harry.

 

Welcome to CF!

 

Your skills would be highly sort after in the embedded arena, where an appreciation of both hardware and software is required. Finding a job with a larger programming bias should not be difficult for someone with an electronics engineering background. Theres a lot of work in mobile telecoms, plus the rest of the embedded market as well as automation amougst others.

I would have thought with your background you'd probably be able to teach the computeach instructor more than they can teach you. Harrys advice is good, just download the software and pick up a couple of books.

Best of luck!

 

Welcome to the forums…

I was thinking in the same direction as dmarsh. Your Electronics Eng background would allow you to realign your career focus towards programming – if you’re able to pick up the knowledge and material. Probably means the transition won’t be easy, but if you’re up for the challenge, it may be worth while.