Career Conundrum

[rjoy]

I earn 500-550 K and I am 33 years of age. I want to get an junior-intermediate developer(.NET) role but as I believe i have not had the needed exposure to be a senior.I have issues in that all interviews i am called in call me for a senior position. I am not ready for those and 2 assessments i have taken prove that but how do i get this post with out affecting my salary . Checking for posts for junior and intermediate there is the issue of the salary.I more than willing to move with the same pay structure. i want to move because due to outsourcing i now am in a role where I don't do any development.Not my choice.

 

[Batista]

How many years experience in dev do you have?

 

[halfmoonforever]

550k is quite a sum. You would need to see a paycut for that regardless if you want to move into junior/intermediate. currently earning that as a senior, no way in hell any company will pay you that as a junior/intermediate

 

[rjoy]

How many years experience in dev do you have?

Hi Batista

I have 10 years working IT and I would say as a developer 3 years if i were to consolidate that time.The problem is i have never had a developer focused role in my career e.g last one involved some junior DBA and system/infrastructure support functions along with application development

 

[rjoy]

to be exact its 520.This is frustrating me.The problem with my last job is that they said it was a development role and sure enough it started off that way then the development work quickly shrank.I am now so averse going to a corporate as they are guilty of this that i want to work for a dev shop .If I cut my salary I am throwing my years of work of moving it up and the age thing is worrying me. Had i been in my 20s i could take the hit but now its a problem.
The other thing is i have strong SQL skills but for any post i try they need SSAS and i have zero experience in that and saying i build a cube at home does not count it seems)-:

 

[skimread]

In that situation where you know development but don't practice it daily the best is to write a side project in the tech stack you want to get a job in. At least then you refresh your skills. If you don't do that and join a company you won't be on the same level as your peers.

 

[animal531]

That's a pickle.

Very roughly speaking, as a junior developer you're only going to be making 2/5 - 3/5's of that amount. The only option you have to keep making the same amount is to look for a job where you can perform either only your previous function, or to pair it along with the new development function.

It will be a lot harder to find a job in the 2nd category.

Alternatively, if you stay where you are you can spend your own time to skill up, until such time as you are skilled enough for a senior position.

Hopefully you're saving up a lot.

 

[rjoy]

In that situation where you know development but don't practice it daily the best is to write a side project in the tech stack you want to get a job in. At least then you refresh your skills. If you don't do that and join a company you won't be on the same level as your peers.

I do In fact I even did freelancing projects while still employed. Worked on them at night but it seems without being exposed to other developers and working with them i never grew at the rate i think one should have. I dream about being part of a Team dev where else any development role i have has always been a one man show

 

[rjoy]

Alternatively, if you stay where you are you can spend your own time to skill up, until such time as you are skilled enough for a senior position.

This i have thought but how say after a year do i tell prospective employees on my Cv that I am a potential candidate. Imagine the CV what have you been doing for the last year->Supporting servers(not even a at a senior level even).Sorry for my rant but i feel so screwed for something i have spent my entire career trying to achieve i.e. working a full developer role.

 

[Joker]

I would first skill up in my own time. Do some online courses, develop your own projects. Pick a language that's popular and has developer focused meetups. Go to those meetups and chat to other developers there making contacts. Show some enthusiasm and try see if you can work with any of them on any side-projects they have going. Keep doing this, get better at programming, and eventually one of those guys will have a position for you.

None of this will be easy.

 

[Surv0]

You will need to take a salary knock if you are wanting to 'learn' and better yourself through a new position.

 

[gkm]

If you do not have a CS degree, maybe also strongly consider doing that via Unisa.

 

[skimread]

It's a misnomer that if you leave company A at X salary that company B will believe that is your value. I think your problem is what many in the IT industry in SA is facing. It's hard to find a company where you can grow continuously in IT and not be forced out, into permanent maintenance mode or into people or client management positions. IMO this is a 100 times bigger challenge than any programming challenge you will ever face. There is not going to be an easy solution. You just have to find a way to make it happen.

 

[freddster]

I earn 500-550 K and I am 33 years of age. I want to get an junior-intermediate developer(.NET) role but as I believe i have not had the needed exposure to be a senior.I have issues in that all interviews i am called in call me for a senior position. I am not ready for those and 2 assessments i have taken prove that but how do i get this post with out affecting my salary . Checking for posts for junior and intermediate there is the issue of the salary.I more than willing to move with the same pay structure. i want to move because due to outsourcing i now am in a role where I don't do any development.Not my choice.

Don't do it. Are you perphaps in corporate looking to move to devshop environment. You'll never get near that salary for a .Net dev unless you are an expert with lots of experience. Don't waste your time and money.

 

[rorz0r]

I managed to make a similar move to what you want recently. I was consulting in financial services so the pay was good, age 30. Got over corporate and banks etc and was specifically looking for a dev position with C# being top of the list, but sadly 0 experience. I had a bit of unrelated integration (so not quite full on dev) experience and pretty strong SQL skills (but no Linq, also not SSAS). Also have a fair bit of web development experience on a personal/freelance level.

I was prepared to take a cut to about 50k as I was just that unhappy. Fortunately I was able to find a position that was a great fit (C#, focussed on internal/client facing web applications, startup company, good location, good team, etc.) and only took a tiny "round down" cut. I did go to another set of interviews with another company (C# dev, consulting to corporates/banks) which would have been a step in the right direction but that was unsuccessful with the recruiter telling me they wanted someone with more experience. I found it a bit odd as they didn't even ask me one thing related to C#/dev and I'm pretty sure the rest of the stuff went quite well.

The only advice I could give would be to graft really hard on some C# tutorials etc as well as try and get more familiar with more advanced topics. Consider making an app/site yourself, even if it's something that's been done before. I've found pluralsight to be quite cool. Then basically just keep looking, make sure you know your stuff even if from "books" and be straight with the prospective employers about the situation.

I've been in the new job 2 months now and I think I've hit the ground running, managed to sort out an existing project and optimise some things massively and it's in production now. Enjoying it a lot but realise every job has a "honeymoon" phase.

 

[Syzygy78]

I am a little older than you, late 30's now. A quick background, been involved in IT in some way, shape or form for +- 19 years. During this period I have been pretty much a "jack of all trades". I knew a little about a lot. +- 5 years ago I knew exactly where I wanted my career path to go. I began learning and focusing on being primarily a c# developer. The problems I faced were:

1) too old to be a junior
2) not much experience
3) no qualification

So I had to change all of the above. I did this by:

1) Never ever applying for junior positions and always insist that you are looking for an intermediate position.
2) Work very hard. You need to walk around with a personal dev laptop. Install visual studio, go through as many courses and books as possible. If you have free time, you should be on your laptop learning.
3) Get some kind of qualification /certification if you don't have already. I think a CS degree is best.

It sounds like a lot of work... and it is. However, I am now earning 6x more than what I was three years ago. It has been a very worthwhile journey.

Get into some sort of specialised software development if you can.

IMHO most c# web developers inevitably become jack of all trades and often times work more on front end than back end. How do I know? Because it is exactly what I have gone through. If you work with HTML, JS, Angular, Node, react, CSS, c#, MVC, .NET, SQL, MSSQL server, jQuery, Bootstrap, XML, PHP, wordpress etc for 10+ years... how much of an expert can you ever be at any of those technologies? One of my biggest career mistakes was being a "generalist" and not a "specialist".

 

[zippy]

Went through this many years ago. My advice is to not do C#. C#/.Net is flooded. Not just in SA, world wide. Focus on something more specialised.

I was lucky in that I could do that transition without leaving the employer. They funded my courses and the team I joined where brilliant. They guided me, putting me on my small things and stepping things up. Team leader was a brilliant tutor, despite being a Bulls fan Reviewed my code and gave positive feedback even when I screwed up.

I doubt I would have succeeded without that kind of support.

 

[freddster]

Went through this many years ago. My advice is to not do C#. C#/.Net is flooded. Not just in SA, world wide. Focus on something more specialised.

I was lucky in that I could do that transition without leaving the employer. They funded my courses and the team I joined where brilliant. They guided me, putting me on my small things and stepping things up. Team leader was a brilliant tutor, despite being a Bulls fan Reviewed my code and gave positive feedback even when I screwed up.

I doubt I would have succeeded without that kind of support.

Thats interesting. I get 3-5 calls a week for C# developers. But then again the scenario in post 16 comes to mind. But those calls are all for headhunting. Do you know devs. Yes I know. So there is a perceived shortage. But everyone wants all the skills and no one wants to develop. Then a collegue of mine went for interviews, C# - you have AB E, we're looking for C# ABC...what a stuff up.

 

[Syzygy78]

Went through this many years ago. My advice is to not do C#. C#/.Net is flooded. Not just in SA, world wide. Focus on something more specialised.

I was lucky in that I could do that transition without leaving the employer. They funded my courses and the team I joined where brilliant. They guided me, putting me on my small things and stepping things up. Team leader was a brilliant tutor, despite being a Bulls fan Reviewed my code and gave positive feedback even when I screwed up.

I doubt I would have succeeded without that kind of support.

IMO there is a big shortage of c# developers in SA. If you are half decent, you can get yourself a job tomorrow.

 

[Thor]

Just going to put it out there.

Save up, start your own thing on the side, you have the money for it.