[spicytunacone]

>Once I start telling people that “first and foremost I am a life long geek. No matter what my titles were in companies. I started programming in 6th grade in assembly language and I’ve been interested in technology ever since”.

Did you forget to finish this thought or can you expand on it? I'm guessing it softens people's view towards you?

>Usually you can get a job where you can get your foot in the door based on the “must haves” that also have “nice to have” requirements.

Sometimes those "nice to haves" feel like "must haves". I try and get projects out to demonstrate competency with a tool/platform/framework, but as the parent suggests it's an absolute time and effort sink (lately I've been trying to wrap my head around a specific k8s configuration I want on AWS). On occasion I'll mention what I'm learning in my first email if its relevant for their interests but I've never felt it mattered and it never gets brought up.

>I’ll learn just enough about the nice to have technology once I get my foot in the door

In this case is your foot in the door first getting into talks with the employer (so you're prepared to talk about it during e.g., negotiations) or is it landing the position? It sounds like the latter, but just making sure.

Thanks for all your posts in this thread. I've been trying to start my career and appreciate you sharing your experience.

[scarface74]

Did you forget to finish this thought or can you expand on it? I'm guessing it softens people's view towards you?

Some people maybe weary of hiring an older dev because they think that either we really want to be managers and are just accepting a dev role or that we are old and stuck in our ways and not willing to learn the latest technology.

I try to come off as someone who is just computer nerd who isn’t trying to move up to management or who doesn’t think these “kids” are dumb.

On occasion I'll mention what I'm learning in my first email if its relevant for their interests but I've never felt it mattered and it never gets brought up.

I don’t send out blind emails or submit resumes blindly. I have a network of local recruiters I’ve cultivated over the years. They usually put my resume at the top of the pile and push for me. I’ve done so many interviews on both the hiring side and the employment side and have usually been successful, the recruiters think of me as easy money. The recruiters also know salary ranges, the interview process, what you need to focus on etc and they can tell you what other people interviewing struggled with.

In this case is your foot in the door first getting into talks with the employer (so you're prepared to talk about it during e.g., negotiations) or is it landing the position? It sounds like the latter, but just making sure.

My first job out of college was a computer operator based on an internship I did the year before. I got in, got lucky that they needed a fairly complicated data entry system written and I was the only one who could program. It was C.

Next job was through a recruiter based on my knowledge of C. I knew the C standard in an out, spent a lot of time on comp.lang.c (Usenet).

The next company I went to almost a decade later wanted my VB6 experience of all things and they were transistioning to C# (where I wanted to be).

Next job wanted a backend c# developer who had experience with c# and Windows Mobile (the “must have”) and front end Jquery experience and MVC, Entity Framewo and unit testing (“the nice to have”)

Next job wanted someone all of those skills and the nice to haves were Bootstrap and Angular.

I didn’t have any of the “nice to have skills” at any of the jobs when I started.

Finally, I got a job as a first time dev lead based on the accumulated experience and a lot of reading (Clean Code, Domain Driven Design, Enterprise Architect Patterns, Gang of Four Design Patterns, anything by Martin Fowler).

That’s where I discover AWS and that helped me get my next job. I knew .Net, had some knowledge about AWS but hadn’t used it extensively.

So now I’m starting down the road of being an “AWS Consultant” more focused on the software/Devops side than the networking side (they are a dime a dozen) and at the same time I have a chance to fill in some other gaps like being at least a competent front end developer and Linux.

Thanks for all your posts in this thread. I've been trying to start my career and appreciate you sharing your experience. No problem,

I try to bring a non SV viewpoint to software development. But one thing I don’t have any experience with is being a “junior developer”. My first job was designing a system that was used by an entire new line of business for a company.

Now I do have experience with being an “expert beginner”.

https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th...

[james_s_tayler]

Wow. It's almost freaky what you describe as the path you have taken for your overall career... because I went and did a startup to scratch an itch and that didn't pan out so now I'm back to looking for work and in the process of zooming out and strategizing about how to get where I want to go I feel like the plan I've come up with is essentially a compressed version of that.

I really appreciate the responses here. Some very useful insights indeed!