[indigochill]

With a bit of luck, you might also be able to angle in from some other position. I originally worked in customer support, found opportunities for automation, built a couple small tools on my own time, convinced management I was more efficient automating than doing support directly, and that snowballed. No engineering degree or prior portfolio to speak of. But I was also quite lucky and the company (and support department in particular) is constantly strapped for engineering talent.

[Reedx]

This works well at game companies. They're almost always starving for tools. Schedules/management tend not to make time for them, but devs love tools and they make a huge difference.

Get in via QA or support, make some tools. You'll probably be able to transition to engineering.

[Beltiras]

I'd advise against seeking gaming positions instead of going for more 'boring' sectors. There's cut-throat competition for any position in gaming while you have to scour the earth for boring things like Axapta specialists (meaning someone with sysadmin background + a little practical experience), Sharepoint site admins and other gruntwork. Opposite of sexy but a (usually) well paying job with options for consulting work.

I'm lucky enough not to have had to go that route but if I ever find myself long-term unemployed, that's my plan-B.

[philipps]

I work in the area of online learning and am curious to learn more about these “plan-B” jobs. Is there a whole range of software development jobs that the education sector isn’t preparing graduates for? And which might be easier to apply to, for developers with more unusual backgrounds or trajectories? Where do you think are the biggest gaps / the biggest unmet demand?

[kingludite]

Just a strange thought: Education will lag behind if its looking for waves of jobs. I think one can bet on a thing before it becomes the next newfangled hipster must have/employee not found error. Things might cowabunga if the instructor had the student hit the beach before the waves come? Maybe in 2020 there will be linux mobile devs sitting next to the ios and android devs? One could have anticipated that how many years ago?

[Beltiras]

There's no unmet demand. Nobody wants to work with boring tech unless given incentive. Sharepoint is kludgy once the site grows a bit. Almost anything else will be more elegant at it's job but the suits drank the koolaid so it has to suffer.

[Beltiras]

I should clarify what I mean. There is no unmet educational demand. Some tech things are decided not on merit but by PHBs. Still needs to be serviced.

[pts_]

What's the deal with Sharepoint? It's easy peasy and yet discussed as very lucrative.

[jedieaston]

Because Microsoft sells it as easy to admin and use, then people don’t know how to configure it to be productive. Eventually whatever they were doing won’t scale, and they have to ask a consultant to fix it.

Couple that with SharePoint not being great at its core competency (collaborative editing of MS office files, which ends in data being lost pretty much every time I’ve used it), and bingo, it isn’t usable for much of anything.