| When the dot com bubble was inflating it attracted a lot of people that were chasing the money that came with software jobs, or equity or promises of equity. I think that trend has happened again with the 0% interest rates and then the pandemic hiring craze a lot of tech and related companies went through. You pushed through a math refresh and excelled in a technical institute towards the goal of working in software. Also, getting a Masters degree is no joke - that's a lot of effort and likely takes getting accepted to two programs, pushing through all the work required, possibly doing presentations, etc. Looking ahead - your current job/contract isn't giving you opportunities to grow so you're doing the right thing by looking for something better. > worked in the post-secondary and non-profit sectors I think you should try using your background here in looking for that next software job - looking for non-profits or post-secondary companies that could use someone with your background but in a software development context. Maybe volunteer at a non-profit that interests you personally and see if they have IT or software related things they need help with. It might help bolster the resume to work for free and build up some experience. These usually are industries disregarded when it comes to technology. By post-secondary do you mean teaching? There's a lot of ed-tech companies out there or education related. Also learn to use AI in your coding efforts. I don't mean become a "prompt engineer", I mean AI is a tool and if you learn to add it to your tool belt and use it well, it can help you be a better software developer. Use it to help teach you things, then once you know them, ask it to do the work and then ask it to check its own work, it will find errors and is wrong. |
> You pushed through a math refresh and excelled in a technical institute towards the goal of working in software. Also, getting a Masters degree is no joke - that's a lot of effort and likely takes getting accepted to two programs, pushing through all the work required, possibly doing presentations, etc.
Thank you for the kind words. This is encouraging. It did take a lot of time and effort, and I'm proud of what I accomplished. I do hope this comes across to potential employers.
> Maybe volunteer at a non-profit that interests you personally and see if they have IT or software related things they need help with.
This is helpful advice. My favourite job was at the non-profit -- the work was meaningful and the people were great. My dream role would be to work for a non-profit, one ideally geared toward environment / ocean / clean energy causes, so I'll look at opportunities here.
> Also learn to use AI in your coding efforts.
I've definitely been taking advantage of this. I use Perplexity and Claude (paid), and they've proven to be valuable learning tools. I focus on using them as tutors, to help explain ideas and concepts, and resist using them to do the work for me.
This actually brings up another, somewhat related question. I graduated with someone who uses AI tools to do almost all his coding. He's created some really cool projects, but I'm not sure if he fully understands what he's made. Still, he's putting in the time and effort to create something, and I respect that.
I'm trying to limit how much AI does for me, but that means I work slower and have fewer projects. I'm not sure how to walk this line -- AI can certainly help to build things more quickly, but I also know, especially for juniors who don't know what they don't know, that this can lead to bad habits and gaps in knowledge. To what extent do I use AI? I'm still figuring that out...