It operations to development

[tyler2016]

I currently work in IT operations, mostly with UNIX and Linux.  For a variety of reasons, I am burned out and tired of it. I would like to move to more of a development or programmers role. I have 7 or so years until FI, so waiting it out isn't what I want to do.

I have done lot of small programming projects with C, Python, C++, perl, and shell scripts at my current and previous job. I am comfortable with memory management, concurrency, input validation, and other good practices. I am so-so with Java, never built anything, but have read and troubleshot Java code. I haven't done much with SQL or any of the latest buzzword frameworks.

I don't have a lot of free time to contribute to or build my own  open source project, but could make some if necessary.

Any advice?

[PlainsWalker]

I made the move from implementations to development a few years ago. I've been happy with the change.

I earned a Computer Science degree in college and had originally wanted to be a programmer. Graduating into the Great Recession made job acquisition challenging. So I had settled for the implementations position when it was offered. When things picked up and they needed warm bodies in development I was in the hiring manager's office with bells on. Its like anything else if you show up on time, clean, sober, and ready to work you can beat the socks off 90% of the competition.

[tyler2016]

I don't have my CS BS. I have an associates in electronics and have taken most of the high level CS and math. Think algorithms, linear algebra, cryptography, languages, etc. A lot of the stuff I need is the gen ed stuff, I just never finished due to family obligations.

[Spork]

It's been several years, but I did essentially the opposite of what you're talking about:  I started in development and transitioned to Unix/Linux/Security. 

The path I took was to make the transition "in-house".  If you're in IT in an organization, you are bound to have a crapton of contacts in development.  Is there any way to hit them up and transfer intra-company?

I would think you might have experience.  I tend to think of unix admin as a bit of a software development job anyway.  I wrote a lot more code on the unix admin side than I ever wrote on the development side of things.  I was in telco and development occurred at a snail's pace and was often very unrewarding.  (We'd write an entire enormous software system that would be shelved by management and never be used.)  In IT, it was quick turnaround to get the job done. I suspect there are 20+ year old perl scripts I wrote that are still running.

[seattlecyclone]

I agree with Spork's suggestion to first seek out transfer opportunities within your existing company. Not sure what your college degree is in (or if you have one), but someone without a CS degree or experience in development is facing a bit of an uphill battle. You have to find that first job somewhere, and many employers won't even interview someone without the right pedigree. That's where an in-house transfer comes in: you might know some of the people already, and might be able to convince them to give you a shot. Once you have a couple years under your belt, getting into other companies becomes much easier.

[Dave1442397]

We have people in my department who used to work in Production Support, but are now developers. It works really well, because they have a better understanding of how the clients use the software than those of us who have never done night duty/support.

As stated before, if you have contacts on the development side, reach out to them and see if you can get in there, or at least make them aware that you want in if a position opens up.