Author Topic: Losing my Job before FI- How to Efficiently Transition to Software Engineer  (Read 1947 times)

Slowtraveler

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I currently have a job with great pay that lets me work remotely. The owners were going to sell in 4 years, which gave me time to FI, but now are wanting to retire earlier so they're looking to sell asap at a good price.

If they haven't sold within a year, I plan to return and help them with operations to push the business forward a few more years. Assuming they sell, I plan to do programming. I have 2 years of school left for a Software Engineering BS and a 3.8/9 gpa with lower division CS finished.

*Does anybody have any wisdom or experience obtaining a software engineering job?

From everything I've researched the main options are online courses, bootcamps, apprenticeships, building a GitHub portfolio then going for Junior Developer anywhere to get experience, and going back to school for 2 years while interning to finish a Software Engineering degree.

The last seems most likely to work but also take the most time, especially with such a short planned career. Maybe I'll love the job and decide to stay longer for some safety cushion/luxury spending.

*Also, does anybody know of any good resources on properly pricing a private business to sell? I want to make sure they get a good price. It seems 3-5 times owner earnings & profit including payroll taxes for them is the range to sell but so found no forums to ask in. I've read the Intelligent Investor, business valuation page on Wikipedia and lots on investing but private businesses are a different game than publicly traded ones.

Thank you. All attempts at constructive ideas are greatly appreciated.
« Last Edit: September 28, 2018, 08:50:07 AM by Slowtraveler »

bilmar

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Re: Losing my Job before FI- How to Efficiently Transition to Software Engineer
« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2018, 12:30:18 PM »
You don't say how old you are, where you are or when you plan to FIRE but as a former Engineer and manager here are some thoughts to chew on.

Don't expect 'Engineer' positions as a new grad. Software Engineer is a mid designation to me -  not entry level:
      Programmer -> Engineer -> Architect

I have interviewed over 100 applicants for SW positions and at least half of those interviews lasted under 5 mins because the applicants knew little about the skills listed on their resumes.   Briefly touching SQL, .NET, Java, C++ etc will not help you other than make your resume look good. Instead pick a language/skillset and become good at it. Make it a hobby too.

For small and medium businesses, experience beats education almost every time.  Few businesses want ' a software engineer' but instead are looking for experience that will help with a specific product or need.
So if you walk in  to a job  interview with a fresh degree that has touched on 5 languages, DB and web skills but no depth in any of them, I will probably choose the other guy who does not have a degree but can show me a finished product or two that he built for someone else and can demonstrate he knows and has successfully used the skills I need.


My advice, pick something(s) you like ( for me its Beaglebone SBC's Python, MongoDb and Asterisk VOIP).  Get good at your skillset by building working stuff for yourself then look for contract work in your specialty in places like freelancer.com.



Bill




jjcamembert

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In your position with 2 years of school done already I'd consider just finishing the degree. The money and time you're going to have to spend on bootcamps + building portfolio to compete against degree holders I think is going to be pretty close, but the degree will stand out more to many (but not all) employers.

As for getting the job it's really the same as any other field: try to stand out, know your stuff, and know people. Try to get an internship; if you're in school that should be fairly easy using their connections.

Don't worry too much about "collecting" languages, it doesn't really matter unless you want to work on something specific. Learn object-oriented programming really well, design patterns, test-driven development, and functional programming and you have most of the bases covered. Understand what's going on behind the scenes with data structures and algorithms.

Unfortunately (at least when I was in school), few of these were covered in depth in classes, so a lot may need to be picked up as you practice on your own.

Gone_Hiking

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I would agree with @bilmar and @jjcamembert.

Frst, consider finishing school; a degree is not a guarantee, but it helps get a foot in the door of an employer.  On-campus recruitment is hard to beat. 

Second, beef up on fundamentals and show that whatever is on your resume you actually can do.  Showing tons of languages and knowing just a few lines in each will not be helpful.  Knowing how to design partial classes and how to write a database query that will avoid generation of cartesian products during query execution will distinguish you form those who have fallen for the current hot language but who don't understand how this stuff works in the first place.

Good luck!

 

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