I was told the same thing. That Indians and Pakistanis already took most of the jobs
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Advice Millwright to Software Developer
- Thread starter Muis95
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I was told the same thing. That Indians and Pakistanis already took most of the jobs
It's the truth though, regarding the IT saturation in the market. If you want to make money in that field, you have to specialise.
Agent67
Honorary Master
My parents also couldn't afford to send me to Uni, so I know how you feel.
It's true sometimes, but it honestly depends on what you want to do/specialize in IT wise.
See, this is a typical example of peer/social pressure forcing you to do something you don't want to do.
(Quoted from Wikipedia):
hjst45
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I'm a first year Millwright apprentice (we do mechanical and electrical maintenance/troubleshooting) I'm 25. When I finished school I didn't really know what to do as a career and there was no funds for university anyway and all my friends were going into the trades so went to TVET college and got certs in mechanical engineering. With millwrighting I can get to a stage where I specialize in PLC programming(programmable Logic Controllers) or I can study further and become a Mechanical/Electrical/Electronic Engineer but becoming an engineer doesn't really interest me and PLC programming while more leaning on the tech side of things I'll have to spend my life in factories.
My pay isn't bad and I'm able to start paying for better education part-time. I'm specifically interested in software development and had a look at getting a Comp sci degree from UNISA. The only problem is I don't think I'll really have the time for that this early in my apprenticeship as I have to go back to TVET to get my electrical certs that will take about 1 year.
My apprenticeship will take about 3-4 years do you guys have any advice on how to pivot my career in that direction. I have heard of Mech/Electrical Engineers become software developers and going the engineering route is the natural path after getting a trade but engineering seems tedious to me.
My plan so far is to do the CS50: Introduction to Computer Science course which is free and I can do it on my own time so it won't interfere with electrical certs and see if I actually enjoy software development and then in year 3 - 4 start on my Comp Sci degree or maybe I should just get my Electrical Engineering degree which will be easier in my working conditions since it's inline with what I'm doing now.
Here is the CS50 course just to get my feet wet.
CS50: Introduction to Computer Science
An introduction to the intellectual enterprises of computer science and the art of programming.online-learning.harvard.edu
PLC ain't all that bad. As someone that studied BEng Mechatronics, I can assure you that it won't make any difference having a degree or not. I do however think it comes with lots and lots of stress and the inability to escape your job: always on call, working 7 days a week is normal, no stability in your schedule etc.
However, you get to level up much quicker than in software, there is a higher demand (you can be pretty mediocre and still have a job), you'll learn a lot more varied skills that would allow you to become a project manager, or manager for any industry in general after a few years, ability to travel anywhere in the world and earn serious $$. There are even times when you need to do support and production gets cancelled after and hour or two and you still get paid for the full day.
But, its a notorious industry and you really need to be ballsy to succeed. If you don't see yourself as a hands-on person and prefer a comfortable desk job with normalish hours and not having to deal with angry people all the time, my advice is to jump ship immediately. Sure, you can go over to software after a while, but you will be miserable until then. Did I mention the part about using a factory toilet?
charlieharper
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Muis95
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Very insightful take me being a millwright(electromechanician) your degree is basically the much upgraded version and would be logical next step if I keep this career. Just to get some clarity you are basically a fulltime PLC programmer or what is the total scope of what you do?PLC ain't all that bad. As someone that studied BEng Mechatronics, I can assure you that it won't make any difference having a degree or not. I do however think it comes with lots and lots of stress and the inability to escape your job: always on call, working 7 days a week is normal, no stability in your schedule etc.
However, you get to level up much quicker than in software, there is a higher demand (you can be pretty mediocre and still have a job), you'll learn a lot more varied skills that would allow you to become a project manager, or manager for any industry in general after a few years, ability to travel anywhere in the world and earn serious $$. There are even times when you need to do support and production gets cancelled after and hour or two and you still get paid for the full day.
But, its a notorious industry and you really need to be ballsy to succeed. If you don't see yourself as a hands-on person and prefer a comfortable desk job with normalish hours and not having to deal with angry people all the time, my advice is to jump ship immediately. Sure, you can go over to software after a while, but you will be miserable until then. Did I mention the part about using a factory toilet?
I'm definitely not project manager or any manager material for that matter it doesn't fit my personality, I prefer having my task and getting it done so I'm pretty much just a workerbee type of guy. Is there any roles that would fit someone like that in what you do ?
Muis95
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Definitely, that's why I thought completing the trade and then pivoting my career towards software developing would be a good idea but I wasn't sure how or what type of developing would be a good fit for that so I posted on here.
Play with Arduino. apply your trade to the Bord and program accordingly. It's kidds stuff.
Muis95
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Yes this pretty much answers my question in that respect. I have read a lot on how artisans/engineers make good programmers in respect to hardware/electrical systems but wasn't really sure how I would go about going from a millwright to that other then becoming a PLC programmer for factories.
Muis95
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Will do, I bought my arduino before I even started this position with the idea of somehow working towards more fulltime programming role and have been playing around with it since then just don't have a specific goal to work towards so just mindlessly learning to program it.
MillWright is Electromechanical. Meaning PLC or input controlled machines. Automation is your Forte. I started in 2003 but did not get far. The place closed down 6 months later.
PM me your location. I have some people on whatsapp that helps and mocks around.
Have you used them before?
A little Project for the weekend.
When you have 2 LED's in parallel, Connected Anode to Cathode.
1: How do you switch either led on using only one Digital pin on the Arduino.
2: How do you switch both off. Using same layout. (No cheating).
Electrical drawing with correct component calculations, And brief explanation on how the Sketch should look.
I dare you.
When you have 2 LED's in parallel, Connected Anode to Cathode.
1: How do you switch either led on using only one Digital pin on the Arduino.
2: How do you switch both off. Using same layout. (No cheating).
Electrical drawing with correct component calculations, And brief explanation on how the Sketch should look.
I dare you.
What happened? Mind sharing?
Sure, don't mind.
After the initial contact with the forum member (After me posting a similar thread to the OP) ; he invited me to go have an informal chat with him at their offices. After that I was tasked with building something to show them in two weeks time.
I had zero prior programming experience but I knew this is what I wanted to do and had a door slightly open for me. So I spent two weeks with little sleep, building a small iOS application. It wasn't very good.
Come demo time to the CEO and CTO - I showed them what I did. Demo was a failure, app was hardly functional - did some very basic things. Laptop didn't connect to projector properly. So some glitches...
At the end I thought I was done.
But no, they were impressed. It was enough to get my foot in - I had an offer on the table for a bit more than what I was currently earning right after the demo. My mind was blown. Here I had an offer on the table to do something I have never done, that pays more than something I had been doing for 7yrs prior.
Deal was that I spend 6 month learning and up-skilling. Failing that, I would be out of a job. I decided it was worth the gamble and took their offer.
6 month later they gave me an perm offer, this another 25% increase. Now I had to rebuild their whole iOS app from the ground up.
6yrs later I was the Mobile Lead for their mobile division.
Since then I left and joined another company and the future still looks bright.
So yeah, without that one person seeing that I had passion for what I wanted to do and taking a chance... I would be in a very different place now and my salary would not have grown by more than 500% in 8yrs.
Its why I always say, if you got a passion for something and can do it as a job, do that!
charlieharper
Expert Member
I can relate with @Priapus.
I had an idea for a web app startup right after University, where I studied economics.
I've always been pretty good with computers and in high school I already taught my self a 'little' bit of C# and Python, but those skills were basically dormant for 4 years so I had to very much relearn development / coding for the sake of building out my idea... I was determined to take this chance (much to my family's disgust) instead of going traditional corporate route.
It was 2016 and I had to decide what tools to use for building my app. I contemplated between Python/Django and Ruby on Rails. At that time, these full stack frameworks were huge... Tried both for a few days, ended up sticking with Django, despite Ruby on Rails being the favourite at that time.
I found an amazing YouTube channel that explained the foundations really well and from there onwards, I just googled every single thing till I had a functioning web app.
Today Django is still my server side framework of choice, but I'm also very capable of dealing with PHP, Rails, NodeJS, ReactJS, React Native and a touch of Swift, Laravel and VueJS.
Took about 6 months of building to launch and about another 6 months later to conclude that the startup failed miserably, I had no business model, didn't make a cent, time to move on. Lol. A bootstrapped business should at least cover the server costs (like $5 to $10 per month) within the first month or two to validate the idea and then decide whether I'm going further or not... At that time, I had no idea what I was doing.
But because of all the coding skills I learnt building the app, new to the industry, I realised I have my first portfolio project. I built out another few small side projects for my portfolio, which soon turned into contracting / freelancing and it extended to the point where most of my clients right now are in the EU, US and Singapore.
Pre-covid it allowed me to live around South East Asia while working remotely which is really cool especially if you're single and in your 20s/30s/40s.
For now, I wouldn't be doing anything else work wise.. I love coding and love making ideas come to life, getting paid (fairly well) to do it is a bonus. It covers all bills and managed to rack up a fair bit of savings.
I'm still getting experience every single day and learn something new, every single day, which adds to the excitement of being a developer.
Long term goal of course is still to have my own bootstrapped SaaS startup somewhere along the tune of success, but that will only happen when I get enough experience and an idea arises that can solve a problem not only for me, but potentially hundreds other people willing to pay $20 per month to help them solve scaleable problems.
So for now, I'm just grinding away whilst keeping my eyes peeled for opportunities.
I had an idea for a web app startup right after University, where I studied economics.
I've always been pretty good with computers and in high school I already taught my self a 'little' bit of C# and Python, but those skills were basically dormant for 4 years so I had to very much relearn development / coding for the sake of building out my idea... I was determined to take this chance (much to my family's disgust) instead of going traditional corporate route.
It was 2016 and I had to decide what tools to use for building my app. I contemplated between Python/Django and Ruby on Rails. At that time, these full stack frameworks were huge... Tried both for a few days, ended up sticking with Django, despite Ruby on Rails being the favourite at that time.
I found an amazing YouTube channel that explained the foundations really well and from there onwards, I just googled every single thing till I had a functioning web app.
Today Django is still my server side framework of choice, but I'm also very capable of dealing with PHP, Rails, NodeJS, ReactJS, React Native and a touch of Swift, Laravel and VueJS.
Took about 6 months of building to launch and about another 6 months later to conclude that the startup failed miserably, I had no business model, didn't make a cent, time to move on. Lol. A bootstrapped business should at least cover the server costs (like $5 to $10 per month) within the first month or two to validate the idea and then decide whether I'm going further or not... At that time, I had no idea what I was doing.
But because of all the coding skills I learnt building the app, new to the industry, I realised I have my first portfolio project. I built out another few small side projects for my portfolio, which soon turned into contracting / freelancing and it extended to the point where most of my clients right now are in the EU, US and Singapore.
Pre-covid it allowed me to live around South East Asia while working remotely which is really cool especially if you're single and in your 20s/30s/40s.
For now, I wouldn't be doing anything else work wise.. I love coding and love making ideas come to life, getting paid (fairly well) to do it is a bonus. It covers all bills and managed to rack up a fair bit of savings.
I'm still getting experience every single day and learn something new, every single day, which adds to the excitement of being a developer.
Long term goal of course is still to have my own bootstrapped SaaS startup somewhere along the tune of success, but that will only happen when I get enough experience and an idea arises that can solve a problem not only for me, but potentially hundreds other people willing to pay $20 per month to help them solve scaleable problems.
So for now, I'm just grinding away whilst keeping my eyes peeled for opportunities.
I say stay where you are. There is a large, and growing shortage of artisans. Worldwide.
I've been a software developer for 20 years now. It becomes boring... Right now the pay and job prospects are good, but at the rate youngsters are coming onboard, I'm not so confident about the future.
I've been a software developer for 20 years now. It becomes boring... Right now the pay and job prospects are good, but at the rate youngsters are coming onboard, I'm not so confident about the future.
Pretty much this. The bidorbuy iOS app I built is used by a lot of people today. I'm proud of how it turned out and helped end users shop and sell on that platform from their pocket.
The continual learning, developing and finding new opportunities is what keeps me happy in this industry.
Circle of life, really. I see new young mobile developers enter the field all the time and that is a good thing to me. We need more developers and we need more people coding. Sometimes those youngsters, with their fresh ideas, lack of experience, ask me questions that change my view on things or I learn something from them at times. Equally exciting stuff.