| This is probably a long shot - and I'm sure you'll see quite a few posts like this over the coming weeks - but I'm going to swallow my pride and ask nonetheless. I've been a data entry clerk for the past twenty years, working for a major bookmaker in Northern Ireland. With the coronavirus pandemic hitting recently, many businesses have decided to lay off large numbers of staff. I've just become one of the unfortunate victims of one of these layoffs today, with a mortgage to pay, a wife and two young children to support. I've also been programming, in my own time, over the past seven years or so, in Python 3, Javascript and PHP mainly. Over that time I've developed a number of tools that were used in my former place of employ, to scrape data from websites and automate the process of data entry. I've also built some online tools in Javascript and PHP for scraping/munging data. Most recently, until the coronavirus hit and unemployment loomed, I was working on a Mario/NES style level editor in HTML5 and a random tile generator for building platformer levels, while I learned C++ and wrote a platforming engine to develop a platform game for release on Steam. I've placed a number of these tool in public repos on github. You can check them out at: https://github.com/Zleet I've also got a resume ready to go for anyone that's interested. What I'm looking for is any remote programming job that fits my skillset and will enable me to keep a roof over my family's head and food in the cupboard for the next few months. I apologise for posting something like this here. I've been reading hacker news for years now. It's my favourite website. But, along with many other people right now, I'm in a pretty bad place and I've got several little people relying on me to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Be assured that any job offer right now would be gratefully accepted. Cheers, Miktor |
It was quite a while ago now, but I got into software from almost the exact same place you're in now: I'd been laid off in my previous career, and I needed a job really bad. I'd been hacking stuff on the side, and I used that as my resume. I found that Stack Overflow Jobs had a lot of remote options, as well as sites like We Work Remotely. It's worth applying to a handful of companies and writing a good cover letter just telling them your story and how excited you are to move into software. I think you'll be successful.
Best of luck!