Comments on: Your First Developer Job

By: Alex Mueller

Alex Mueller — Fri, 09 May 2008 22:19:25 +0000

Great article. To add to the other comments, speak with a mentor and establish some goals. If this is your first job out of college, do not consider pay as the deciding factor. Consider the environment and what you can potentially glean from mentorship. If faced with the decision of employer A for $X and employer B for $X $4,000 extra, don’t settle for extra pay if the lower paying employer provides a more conducive environment to achieving your goals. Be patient and pay your dues upfront.

By: Matthew Botos

Matthew Botos — Thu, 08 May 2008 17:42:03 +0000

I’d second looking for smaller companies/projects/team where you’ll get to see the entire system and software development lifecycle. Moving around within a big company is good to a point, though you really have to change companies or work on outside projects (ie. open source) to understand different cultures and methodologies. Finally, be wary of any job that quelches your desire to expand with the phrase, “we just hired you to be a programmer”.

By: wright

wright — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:22:43 +0000

Interesting that you should bring up this topic, as I just got done teaching a class and one of my students was a co-worker from my days at Micron 10 years ago. She had made a career out of her job a Micron, working there 17 years before she got laid off last year. Her skills are now very dated and she is finding it very difficult to find a job somewhere else. Her comment was without the current skill set no one wants to hire an older developer when they can hire someone with just out of school as they lake the same skills are cheaper and usually willing to work harder.

My point is that I think it’s always good to try and maintains some set of current skills as you never know when you may be required to rely on them to get a job. The software industry isn’t like other jobs because everything changes so often that if you don’t have some marketable skill you had best make yourself indispensable so you don’t find yourself out of work and unable to get a new job.

By: Chris Brandsma

Chris Brandsma — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:37:42 +0000

If at all possible look for a technology company with other developers. Do not take a job where you are going to be the only developer there.

That said, my first job out of college was working for a small technology company, 3 developers and the owner/boss. The boss was a complete egomaniac. 70 year old curmudgeon who’s only joy was yelling at everyone in the office at least once every day. Try to avoid that job.

Another job possibility you could look into, Support Engineer. With this job you will be forced to learn a lot of code written in a lot of systems. Plus, it will give you excellent experience with how users/customers work with software (not like you do).

Finally, for the first 6-10 years, don’t stay with the same job for more than 5 years. It is fine if you move around in the same company to very different job with different groups, but don’t say in the same position in the same company.