How Not to Get a (Python) Job – a rant
At PyCon 2011, Brian Moloney (of Imaginary Landscape here in Chicago) gave a talk titled “How to Get A Python Job”. It wasn’t really so much about getting specifically a Python job as about how to land any job. It was the same sort of advice you can find in a lot places – hints on how (not) to apply, how (not) to present yourself, how (not) to interview, how (not) to impress interviewers, and so on. If you’re looking for a job, go watch it and take his advice very seriously.
I went to Brian’s talk because I had just found my own Python job and I was curious about his perspective. I had started my own job search with my fair share of negatives – the economy was in the toilet, I was over 50, I didn’t have much formal training, my experience (in private education) wasn’t exactly mainstream, etc. And yet within 3 months of sending out my first resumé I had a job, and even had to turn down other offers. Even as I settled into my new job, I was frequently contacted by recruiters looking for Python programming help. And yet, I’ve heard many people complaining quite vocally about how difficult it was (and is) to find programming jobs in general and Python jobs in particular.
As the IT director and lead developer at a startup trying to grow its tech staff, I’ve been heavily involved in searching for and interviewing developers. In that process I’ve seen people of all ages and backgrounds painfully ignore the basics of getting a job. So the idea behind this post is to put one more voice out there, sharing some of the things that make me not want to hire an applicant.
Here are the things that make crazy. Take from them what you will.
Not knowing the market. Several candidates have said, “it seems like no one is looking for Python people.” Say what? I get called regularly by recruiters looking for Python developers. We’ve been searching for a Python dev for months. Admittedly, the market is better for more experienced people and you might need to relocate, but even junior Python dev positions are going begging. Ask any recruiter, we’re a hot commodity. When someone tells me that no one is hiring for Python, that tells me one of two things… either that person doesn’t know the job market (at least around here), or they aren’t really a Python developer. In the first case, I’m a pretty firm believer that the responsibility for finding jobs lies with the job seeker and not having done research on the market it a bad sign. If you don’t care enough to do research to find your own career, why should I expect that you’ll have the initiative to solve problems and help our team move forward? And the alternative is worse – in a market where knowing how to spell the word “Python” (at least on a resumé) should get you at least a few calls, not getting any traction is a red flag.
Not knowing the craft. This is so obvious that it shouldn’t need saying… except for the fact that it needs saying. “If you’re applying for a Python programming job, you should know as much as you can about Python and programming.” That means a basic understanding of the language, some basic knowledge of programming, some familiarity with the common or hot tools and technologies, etc. Obviously the depth of that understanding will vary depending on your experience, and for junior positions, particularly, you’re not expected to know everything, but you still should have some idea of the field.
I’ve interviewed candidates who couldn’t tell me how they would approach a problem, or what libraries they would use (or even have used), who’ve never even heard of Django, and so on. I’m no fan of springing little programming puzzles on candidates, since to my mind that mostly tests the ability to solve little puzzles, and I don’t expect lengthy dissertations on advanced programming topics, but I do expect you to be able to know the basics of coding and Python syntax, to have at least a nodding familiarity with current technologies, and to be able to discuss the approaches, tools and pitfalls involved in some of the coding you’ve done.
And speaking of the coding you’ve done, particularly for junior developers, you may not have done that much professionally. However, if you haven’t done anything outside of classwork, I’m going to be pretty skeptical. There are tons of opportunities to get involved in open source projects, to create your own web site, to help with something for a business, a club, or even just scratch your own personal software “itch.” It doesn’t matter how big or how successful your projects were, what matters to me is that you’re interested enough to be in the game on your own time.
Not knowing us (and the job). It’s been said before, but if you don’t care enough to do some research and thinking about us and the position before you come in for an interview, why should we think you’ll care once you’re hired? You’ve got the job description, probably some names of people at the company, and the entire Internet as resources. Even if you don’t have absolutely all the information, you should be able to find out enough to ask questions and maybe even float trial solutions. Why do you do x? How do you deal with issue y? Have you ever thought of trying z to solve this problem? Even if you’re completely wrong about your assumptions, the very fact that you’re thinking about our business is very compelling. If you want to be really sneaky talk about how “we” might solve some of those problems together.
And speaking of sneaky (not really, since it’s clear if you’ve done it or not), if you know who you’ll be interviewing with, look the people up online. Google and LinkedIn are your friends here. At worst you’ll have a feeling of control during the interview and at best you can work in a comment or question relevant to the interviewer’s background, which is almost always good. I’m not going to support hiring you just because you looked at my LinkedIN profile, but it does tell me you cared enough to do some research, and that’s a good thing.
Not selling yourself. Don’t go into your shell – there is a job open and somehow you’ve gotten an interview. So take advantage of it! You may be an introvert, it may be hard to talk about yourself, or maybe you just don’t think you should have to “market” yourself. Whatever… but in this situation you’ve really got to go for it. Show us how interesting you are, how much you care about the work, how cool you think the job is, how much you would bring to the team. If we hire you, we’ll have to work with you every day, so why should we look forward to that? (In a business sense, of course – promising to keep everyone loose with dirty jokes is probably not be the way to go here.)
We can only hire a few people and we need to get a lot of stuff done. We have lots of problems crying out for solutions so we want someone who is eager to tackle those problems and has some chance of succeeding. As Joel Spolsky succently put it, “smart and gets things done.” You may not have the exact sklls to fix every problem at this moment, but that’s not the entire point – as a startup none of us had the exact skillset for this business when we started. But all of us were ready to dig in, we figured it out fast, and we got the job done. And that’s the sort of person we need.
Note: this is not the same as emphasizing how good this job would be for you. I understand that you want to move from that old job to a new, more interesting area. I applaud the fact that you just love to learn new things. I’m totally on board with how wonderful this opportunity would be for you… but we need to move and scrub a ton of data, polish the UI, analyze customer behavior, and keep thinking of new ways to stay ahead of the game. How are you going to help us do that?
Please feel free to ping me with comments or questions: comments are not automatically published, so if you have a question or comment, please feel free to leave a comment and indicate if you want it to remain private.
Edit: If you’re looking for Python jobs you might try the Python Job Board, which as it happens is where I found my current position, or the PyCoder’s Jobs site (I have no direct experience with this one, this is not meant to be an endorsement), which is dedicated to Python jobs and run by the same people who do the Python Weekly newsletter (which I do find very useful, actually.)
[edited to add company name and contact info]
Learn Python 
Where do I send my cv? 😉
Ah, good point. I suppose I could make figuring out the email address part of the qualification process… 😉
But if you or anyone else is up for it, the email address would be bruce.simmons<AT>zorotools.com (our recruiting lead) or vernon.ceder<AT>zorotools.com (me).
Vern:
Great rant. Everywhere I go clients tell me that there aren’t enough Python devs. We need to keep the supply coming, as Python usage is starting to climb!
Well your rant, may be an artefact correlated to the market, and behavioural bias :
Good developers will poorly sell themselves, and bad one will be all the more good at selling themselves that the incentive of even a regular job is very high in time of turmoil :
– people with poor skills tends to overestimates their skills, while people with good skills do the opposite (1) ;
– a good incentive attracts the cheaters (2). And, Geek is nowadays beautiful
So it generates a bias that will make good developers appear shy and clumsy, while bad or cheating or below average developers will oversell themselves.
«the morons dare everything, that’s how we recognize them» (Michel Audiard)
1 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect,
2 – http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=464542462
My .02€ ^_^
Those are certainly fair points. However, I would argue that it doesn’t speak to the phenomena I’m mostly ranting about – the failure of candidates to research the job market, the job, the company and how they might help out. I would hope there is no (and I haven’t seen any) behavioral bias the prevents good people from looking up the company and thinking about our problems before an interview… I would also argue that not having written any code that they can talk intelligently about is a feature of people with poor skills and cheaters, not good people.
Harmful bad coders in my experience have often written outstanding frameworks that works 80% of the time, over engineered and over-sold, they speak very well off. (zed shaw rant on RoR is a little extreme but instructive for example)
They also cheer complicated tools (IDE, complex managerial methods…) over getting things done (joel’s point).
My point is : github tells a more interesting story than the one mouthed by the candidates : does someone have respect for the users (docs, releases cycle, issues), does he understand the field he is interested in ? How does he interacts with fellow coder (push accepted, network) ?
I think IRL interviews are not discriminating on the praxis (how well one can do), but on the doxa (to make people know). And I suspect these two skills are exclusives. So my point, is the problem is not coders, but how your hiring process is not filtering efficiently.
You are suffering from a high demand, in conjunction with a very sparse offer (of good devs) amongst a wide offer that includes a lot of opportunists (HR on big incentive). (Noise/Signal Ratio is horrible). We obviously have too much noise on the market on both sides (recruiters and coders) !
Your rant is not about coders, it is about what your filtering process handles you to review.
Your process of hiring is a multiple stage filter, and obviously it raises too much false alarms. Don’t rant on the poor quality of the signal you filtered when you have too much false alarms. Rant on the filter you built, it is obviously not working, and try to imagine how you may improve it. 🙂
@sfjulie – With respect, while our filter certainly could be improved (and we are working on that) you make several assumptions about our hiring process (and the candidates I’ve seen) that simply are not true. In addition, I don’t believe that doxa and praxis are mutually exclusive – someone unable to communicate (except via their code and github) is useless to us, and the people that we have hired are clearly capable of both.
However, I’m not really interested in wrangling over the details… I think we just need to agree to disagree and end this sub-thread. 🙂
For someone just getting into the field, when you say ‘research the market’ , how would you go about doing that. Beyond searching Craigslist, Dice and Indeed with the keywords junior Python, what some other ways to research that perhaps ‘everyone’ but beginners know?
Actually that’s a very good point. And maybe it’s trickier than I thought, now that you mention it. My suggestion would be to look everywhere, but in particular LinkedIn is good for this. Make contact with recruiters and actually talk to them, ask them what’s going on, what’s in demand. I know, you may feel a bit dirty in the morning 😉 but I found that to be very useful. Good luck.
My problem when looking for Python jobs was not a hole in the market (although there are not many in my specific area), but entry expectations set really high by employers.
Your Zoro Tools listing, for example, states that you want someone who:
* You live by the Zen of Python and PEP-8 (Reasonable)
* your deep knowledge of Python and handling data as well as your working experience with Linux/UNIX and cloud based systems (Reasonable)
* shape the architecture and dataflow of a site with over 300,000 products and traffic that doubles every three months. (Intimidating, but reasonable)
* Your strong knowledge of User Interface design (Not unreasonable, but not every Python programmer does U/I)
* knowledge of HTML5/CSS3/jQuery (Essentially looking for someone with web experience)
* experience with Python / Java / SOAP / REST (Are you expecting someone with experience with ALL of this?)
* One band – one sound (Had to look it up 🙂 )
* experience with A/B testing (More U/I expectations)
* predictive modeling and analytics (not only U/I, but some intimidating math/science expectations)
This is actually not too bad, but some others demand even more from a “junior Python programmer.” I also see that you state “one or more” of these 4 key areas, which indicates you may not expect every skill from the candidate.
My advice to young developers would be: take a chance, even if you don’t have every skill, certification, or level of experience the job lists you can often times still land it.
My advice to employers: make it very obvious on your job listings what skills, certifications, and experience are *actually* required, and what you’re willing to work with.
Absolutely reasonable. And I’ve run across similar lists where no one could possibly have all of the qualifications listed, including in some cases 10 years of experience with a 5 year old technology… 😉
I know we have a pretty intimidating list of “requirements”, but in our case at least, I hope we are clear enough that we are *NOT* expecting to find them all in one package. What we are trying to do is actually widen our possibilities and encourage good people to apply as long as they can help us out in at least one of our pain areas. If we get a Python/Javascript web UI wizard, we’re flexible enough on our small team to have someone else hand over some of their UI work and take up the slack on the analytics side. Likewise, if we find someone who’s a genius at predictive modeling, we’d be happy to run with that and have others worry about the UI, etc. As to experience with Python/Java/SOAP/REST – having *experience* (as opposed to deep knowledge) with both SOAP and REST based API’s doesn’t strike me as that impossible, but we’d definitely be open to any interesting combination of languages and API’s.
When I first read this I found myself nodding in agreement most of the way through the article. However, previous posters have offered some unique perspectives I think you have discounted too quickly.
Our traditional view of the job market is that employees must sift through a lot of chaff to find any potential wheat. From your description of the situation though the opposite is also true. If there are a lot of companies out there looking for python devs and the good ones are few and far between then you need to innovate your process and do some leg work or you will be forced to hire mediocrity. The complaining about how difficult and unfair the process is seems to be the same on both sides of the coin.
How many times have your eyes glazed over when you read a cv that said “works well in a team or as an individual”. Matthias makes a very good point here. When your list of requirements is a long wish list that looks the same as every other offer chances are you are not going to overly motivate your potential employee.
Lastly, I think if you had of been involved in this sort of discussion a little while ago and we were talking about educating people to be prepared for the job market. The conversation would have been how teachers are very restricted in what they can teach and how they are measured in that teaching process. This restricts how a person is prepared for the job market when they leave education (and I do agree with that). However, a lot of what you are seeing now is a result of how that process creates people who are taught how to pass exams rather than learning how to learn.
Actually, I completely agree with what you and some of the other have mentioned.
Having been involved in education in one way or another for 30 years before I took this job, I’m pretty keenly aware of the limitations of our current system, particularly in regards to training people to think and learn. In addition, we ARE trying to innovate our hiring process – but that wasn’t the point of this post. I would also say that I didn’t intend to complain about any “unfairness” (I really don’t see any unfairness directed towards those hiring) or difficulty (t’s difficult, yes, but that’s the way it is). Mostly my post was fueled by frustration at dealing with candidates who, as someone else put it, “are sleepwalking through their own careers.”
liked the phrase “sleepwalking through their own careers” … 🙂
I had a lot of trouble with recruiters. They didn’t know what Python was or how to spell it. One told me that there wasn’t much demand for them in this area (Dallas, TX). I can understand why people are confused. I sure was. I know from my own blog that California, Chicaco, New York and the Dallas area are my biggest readers.
Anyway, if your company has any telecommuting opportunities, let me know. I’d apply now, but I’m stuck in a lease for another 10 months.
I definitely understand about recruiters – the confusion they introduce into the pipeline far exceeds their positive contributions in many cases.
I’d love to have you apply, but we’re not in a position to work with telecommuters yet, although it’s a logical, maybe even inevitable, evolution for us eventually.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread. But really, in the 21st century, with the abundance of communication tools, why such reluctance to hire telecommuters? You will have a better pick, and maybe even some money on office rent. I have a job at the moment, but when the time comes, I will not entertain any non-remote positions. {{Full stack web dev. Over 10 years of experience}}
Ah, this post just keeps on going! 😉
But to answer your question. At the time I wrote this 3 years ago the company I was with was a new start up. We were trying to figure out a lot of things and we felt that there was no substitute for the higher bandwidth of in person communication. Plus, we were so busy figuring out the business that we felt that we didn’t have time to figure out how to integrate remote workers. That may not have been the only possible decision, but that’s the one we made. The same company 3 years later is more mature and does in fact use remote workers. In fact I hired the first one something like a year and a half after this post.
Interesting advice. I’d have to say that it not only applies to “real world” jobs, but most of those tips are very relevant to applicants for graduate research assistantships an post-doctoral positions too. I can’t begin to tell you (well, maybe I could if you’d buy the beer) how many grad students and post docs I’ve encountered who have absolutely no curiosity about the subject at hand. Those are also the ones who usually show no creativity in problem solving. I guess that I’d have to add to your advice that if any of these tips are a problem or a burden for you as an applicant, then maybe you ought to consider a different field. Take care W.M.!
Hey, I hope someday we’ll get a chance for all that beer!
[…] the first Friday of June and I’ve read a bunch of new articles this week. From the Vern’s rant about getting Python jobs to a review of the web2py cookbook, there’s lots of fun things going on in Python land. Here […]
A Dice search in my area for python returns two results. Some places just have no demand for python devs.
Indeed, some places don’t have much demand. And a lot of companies (ours included) don’t always bother to list on services like Dice. But yes, if getting a Python job is the way you want to go, you may need consider relocating or working remotely – I’ve been contacted about remote Python jobs a number of times in the past year.
A fully-remote position may be the way to go in your case.
I’ve actually just recently launched a job board/aggregator only for remote Python jobs: https://www.remotepython.com/
I have a list of sites that I check, still not a lot of posts at the moment but a few jobs seem to pop up every week.
I’m a python programmer, but credit checks are limiting my ability to get a good job. I would send you a resume, if your company does not do that…
We do ask for some credit type information, but to my knowledge we don’t use that as a reason to reject people. At the moment, through some improbable stroke of luck (this post really didn’t have anything to do with it) we are fully staffed at the moment and won’t be hiring for a few months…
I currently have a Python/Django job (www.worldrat.com), I love it, problem is that I live in Peru, and have been looking for a better paid job, Python related, I have tried several telecommuting jobs and home-based, I got myself some interviews and managed myself to get a couple of pretty good offers, the problem is, they needed a US-based entity to invoice them. So lame for me, I would likely not get a decent Python Job in the near future.
Yes, that is unfortunate. I know that our company also has issues paying overseas contractors, so I’m not surprised. The world is not quite at the point of truly taking advantage of remote workers, so relocating to a “hot” market is often the best, and sometimes the only, way of taking advantage of the demand for Python coders.
don’t waste your time. i personally know half a dozen very qualified people that applied…she clearly ‘had no choice’ but to say they had no openings
Opinions may vary – I certainly don’t recall 6 “very well qualified” people in the past 6 months, although there were at least two who ended up finding positions more to their liking after we talked to them. And I’m afraid if you read this post as a guarantee that we would always be able to hire everyone who came along, regardless of visa status, etc, you will be in for disappointment. We actually are blessed at the moment to have all of our positions filled, and won’t be looking for more until some time in 2013. Sorry, but the point is to try everywhere…
Totally agree with this. It’s shocking how poorly some candidates come in unprepared for interviews. Often times this seems to be the case with folks sourced through recruiters – where the recruiter may not be relaying the correct information about the job to the candidate – and is more concerned about just getting someone on premise for the interview. I started a nice job board around Python which seems to attract good candidates – as it is so focused – http://www.pythonjobs.com. We’ve had good luck getting qualified candidates to employers.
With regard to “sneaky”, in the Navy the expression was “If you ain’t cheatin’ you ain’t tryin’.” It’s true.
A few years back I attended Pycon and I tweeted something like, “They are taking resume’s from the food service people.” The type of people who attend a conference on their own time are the type of people a lot of companies are looking for – essentially what the essay says. Interest in the platform and the problems presented in the job count.
I love this! As a college student that just started learning python, I am very inspired and I loved how honest this post is. Now I have a guide line on what should I know to get myself in the field! I will for sure apply when I am ready!
I’m brand spanking new. I’m 55, been driving trucks since 1980. Ever since I’ve owned a computer, I’ve loved learning about how they work and have never been afraid to explore unfamiliar territory.; reg, cfg files etc. I’ve made a few changes to a particular program that I used by learning on my own. Sparked by the desire for a change of occupation, I’ve been considering software development. Before I jump on board I want to make sure that I haven’t chose a sinking ship.
So far I’ve been asking many questions and using my binoculars to see what’s out there and what the future holds. My most recent maneuver was to check out a gigantic book from the local library called Learning Python by Mark Lutz. My biggest fear is investing a lot of time and finding out that my efforts have been in vain.
I recently heard of some woman who created an App called No More. It shuts your child’s phone off and leaves them no choice but to call home or 911. I have this vision of being able to create a program or app. I think that would be a rewarding change in my life. Any input would be appreciated.
No, I don’t think programming is a sinking ship by any means. The thing is, you have to keep current, keep learning, or your own set of programming skills will become obsolete – I’ve heard that story before. As far as starting at 55, you’re younger than I am, and as someone put it on Twitter, if you start now… in 5 years you’ll have more experience programming the many professional developers have today. So if you find it rewarding and are willing to keep learning aggressively, I’d say give it a try. 🙂
(and then buy my book to brush up on Python 3… 😉 )
Hi. I really need your advice. I’m 29. A girl. With educational background in economics (bachelor and master), also got master degree in compiter science last year (just 3 semesters of study and thesis). I really want to become a web developer, but things have become quite tricky.
On my last job interview for junior python developer position, the interviewer said that if I hadnt written 30k lines of code, I dont have programming skills and they cannot teach me in 3-4 months. He added that there are plenty of opportunities to code.
Well, I’m writing small programms and scripts to myself and also working on my web site on django. But it’s pretty hard for me to participate in open source project: I open it and dont know what to do and dont quite understand the code. I feel that I need a tutor that I can ask many stupid questions and who can review my code but none of my friends are programmers, so I have noone to ask for help.
Can you give me an advice how to become a better programmer so that I can be able to find a junior position?
Hi. I won’t lie to you – this is a hard problem. The sort of degree you have doesn’t always impress when it comes to getting hired. As to 30k lines of code, that’s just a number, and an excuse, not to bother with someone junior.
If you are writing code, you are doing the right thing. But it’s slow. And finding mentors is not as easy as it should be. However, to find ways to get over the issues with working on open source projects you might visit http://openhatch.org/ The Open Hatch people are dedicated to that, so that may get you started.
Good luck!
Look at openhatch.com,
Also a female friend of mine got a web job quickly after attending Hackbright Academy, which is a 10 week immersion course for women. You could check it out. http://www.hackbrightacademy.com/
Hello, I was wondering if you could respond to this and tell me what your thoughts are on the O’Reilly certificate program for various computer languages.
First of all, the disclaimer: I have worked on an O’Reilly book project. I know some of the people involved with the O’Reilly Python program. I don’t think that significantly affects my judgement, but it might.
I think that the O’Reilly programs are of good quality for what they are – you can use them to learn Python, and what you learn will be correct and good practice. And the certificate will prove that you completed the course and met the criteria. All that is good.
Since you’re asking in the context of this post, though, I’m assuming that your further question is, “will that certificate help me get a job?”
There I’m much more doubtful. At this point, in spite of gaining ground, I don’t think online courses have the weight of courses taken in person (right or wrong). And by themselves courses taken in person, even if they add up to a degree, aren’t the best assurance of getting a job. I’m pretty sure that most of us want to see people who’ve done something. Again, I want to see evidence that the person I hire will actually help us get our work done (and make my life easier).
So my reaction comes down to this – use the courses to learn the language(s), include the certificates on your profile (you earned them after all), but build a portfolio projects and coding work and anything else that shows you can help get things done.
Hope this helps.
I don’t know jack about Python. But I would eventually like to migrate from systems administration to Python development, in particular stack development and web application automation.
I started with Codecademy.
Do you have any other suggestions as far as learning resources go?
Further, after learning the basics, what are some ideas to get experience before the first interview? Odesk and elance comes to mind, but those places are saturated with experienced developers. I would rather offer my skill set for free just to get the experience.
The advice that I give is to look for open source projects to contribute to. There are projects in the space you are interested in – ansible, fabric, etc. where you can combine sys admin experience with learning Python. This is not a sure fire solution – a lot depends on the circumstances, the motivation, and even the luck of the person concerned. But if it were me, I’d look for things to do along those lines to build a portfolio. JMHO, of course.
Hi,
I got hired in a company as a freshers based upon my skills in Java and ‘c’. I only learned basic Python from Microsoft Visual Academy. They tried to ask me questions from it, basics but they are also not having a clear idea. It is also new in there firm so they may not be able to give me any proper training after joining. They are really interested to put me in this domain, but now I guess I have to figure out some way myself to at least know Python to some higher level, industrial/professional to be specific.
.
.
So what do you suggest, from where should I start now.
(Here’s a huge crunch for Python programmers in India and they want badly to put me in there.)
If they really want to support your move to Python, they may be willing to put you through an online course. I know that O’Reilly has some, as does Treehouse. You might also want to check for intermediate Python courses on Coursera, Udacity, and EdX.
If they’re not quite that keen, then there are lots of other online options as well. I’d suggest planning some objectives that meet their business needs and then look for courses that will help you get there.
So if I continue to fill my brain with learning this python language there’s a chance it could land me a job?
Rookie to the extreme here. I am just starting to read about programming and choose Python as my first language to study. But now I have read a number of times that basic knowledge about computer program is a must. is there a different language I should study first.
I think Python is a fine language to start with, and gain a basic knowledge of computer programming. To my mind, Python is a bit more consistent and predictable, at least once you gain some knowledge. The trick is that for beginners programming in any language can be a bit tough. So look for the simplest tutorials you can find, and if you start one and it seems completely impossible, don’t blame yourself, but move on and look for one that does seem to make sense. Feel free to get in touch if you’re having questions.
As an outsider here (I’m an old-school Fortran programmer, but a friend of Naomi’s), I’d say that there is no such thing as the ultimate “starter” programming language. BASIC was supposed to fulfill that role, but things have really changed since then. Whatever language you choose to learn will expose you to the basic logic of problem solving. Make no mistake about it, THAT is the important thing to learn! Computer languages are only different dialects of the same process that you need to solve the problem at hand!
Thank you so much for the feedback Naomi & Dave! I am sure I will be back with more questions at a later date. Take care!
Nice words! I’m 43, I was mainframe skilled programmer about 15 experience. And 8 months studying Python. I have to learn the very basic github(PR, fork), Flask, Django. I create a script in Python for geoprocessing company here in Brazil.But I’m still unemployee. The hiring process take so long, 3 or 4 interviews, tests. I didn’t gave up until a company hire. I’ll whatever it take to get a Python job.
Thanks for your perspective
Prazer em conhecê-lo! I do know that things are different in different countries, although I am amazed at how much activity there is in Python in Brazil. It’s such a strong community! I would certainly encourage you to continue to make connections with more people active in the community and go to the events – that’s also a great way to build a professional network. Were you at Python Brasil in Floripa? If you were, I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you!
But yes, staying with it and preparing yourself in every way you can is the best course. Boa sorte!
O prazer é todo meu!. Thanks for encourage words!. I’m in Python in Sorocaba, a city near by São Paulo. And 03/12 I’ll parcipate a speakerfight, talking about my first contact with Python “How to program in Python, without knowing Python”. I created a script to automatizate a task in a Software called Photoscan, that generates 3D models.
Thank you. Keep in touch!
This is a great thread. Dave Billesbach, your advice is priceless. It’s all the same. It doesn’t matter what language you use, at least when you are starting out. It’s all about learning how to approach the problem. Breaking it down until you slowly start winning.
Hello, I am great python developer and even most companies I have applied to give me that response. The only issue I have is most companies require natives of that country or very skilled developers incase of relocation or remote. I did not complete my campus studies since I felt I was being wasted in campus (outdated curriculum) and most of the software development languages, techniques and tools I have learnt by myself. What advice would you give someone in a situation like this.
Yes, the situation where you want to relocate and need visa support is much harder. The problem has at least two parts as I see it. First, sponsoring a worker for a visa is time-consuming and expensive for the company, so they want to be sure they’re getting value for that. Second, and tougher, is that as part of the visa application they (or you) will probably be required to provide documentation that you are well qualified for the position. That’s where your lack of paperwork can be a problem.
I’m not sure I have any good suggestions… are you able/willing to work remote? That may be a way to get started. Also you might want to consider using some of the freelance sites to get work that way. Neither of those are ideal, but they may be a start.
Very impressive. I am in IT industry from 6 years and was working as ETL developer. Recently got Australian PR and resigned from my job in India and came to Melbourne. Dont have job now and want to shift my career from ETL to Artificial Intelligence as it seems very interesting field and also on boom. I have no prior experiemce in any programming language but going to start with Python. Lets see how far i will reach in my new journey.