career advice!

[Wilson Wilson]

If you wanna be a programmer it sounds like there’s no decision. Go for your dreams and don’t look back anything else is fluffing or shiit

With programming yeah just learn a popular language employers are after (Python is one and easy to learn for beginners) then open a GitHub account and contribute to a few open source projects here and there, experiment with your own scripts and throw a few of those up there when they're all working too, write a decent readme to explain what it does and how, and basically go from there and start putting it on your CV.

What I'm doing right now is getting certified as a cloud architect, paid for by my employer, because my boss's boss is pushing to get me a promotion into the cloud department.

You can be forgiven for not knowing what the fuck "cloud architect" means... basically what it means is setting up, maintaining, and troubleshooting hypervisors, VMs, and the stacks running on top of them. Mostly it's about understanding the underlying hypervisors because that's complex shit. But basically for example a lot of cloud services use the Xen hypervisor on their servers, deploy Linux as a VM many many times on each server, and one of those VM's is your "server." You pay a different price usually for how much compute power is allocated to your VM and how much traffic goes to and from it. All regular consumer grade web hosts do this. At the enterprise level they tend to focus more on pay-as-you-go compute power and bandwidth (this is the AWS model the rest of the industry are playing catch up with) and a big company will usually rent at least one whole physical server but run it the same way because it's efficient (instead of say three servers you can have one server with three VM's each acting as if they're separate machines). So I'm learning it on a much bigger scale, like how the kind of cloud services Netflix use to run everything they do.

Anyway what it really means is £70k starting salary that's what it really fucking means. Watch the guy in his early 20's who flunked out of uni make £70k while the peeps who graduated uni and slyly judge him suddenly decide they wanna be mates again because that mentally ill druggie dropout is almost on six figures already while their history degree is worth precisely fuck all in the real world and their salaries as teachers, the only actual job you can get with a degree like that - and what a stressful, hard working, extremely underpaid job it is - are less than what I'm already making right now while they train me. But that's just a coincidence of course nah nah they just wanna catch up and see how I'm doing yeah... cuz we were so close before yeah yeah yeah... one day they just happened to be like how is Wilson doing ain't spoken to him for a long time... nothing to do with the fact he just got a house in London and drives a Merc...

People are funny sometimes. I understand computers better than people but the people are funnier. Well you did what the system told you to do, you obeyed your parents and the state. So how did that druggie retard do better than you when he ain't even got a £30k piece of paper? Everyone told me I needed a £30k piece of paper to get a job!

To quote NF: "I could go to college, get in debt like everybody else / Graduate and prolly get a job that doesn't pay the bills / That don't make a lot of sense to me, forget the Happy Meals."

NF is sick tho for real.

Sorry this comment is odd and went off on a tangent I know I been on a weird vibe today. Kinda depressed recently. Still happy to be coming up. Still finding it funny how fake people are. Take your mask off for once. Come on I'll take off mine first. You need some help? I'll introduce you to my mate her name is Mandy.

 

[Jabberwocky]

fucking hell. i have been making a living off my programming skills for over 10 years and earn nowhere near £70k. honestly fuck academia.

i've literally applied to a job that might get me something more reasonable than the post doc salary pittance i'm getting right now, but i won't get the job. i'm already gutted that i won't get it and haven't even been rejected yet. in fact i won't get rejected. it says in their application receipt email that they only get in touch with you if they want to take your application further.

 

[CFC]

honestly fuck academia.

the post doc salary pittance

I'm so sorry you've been caught up in academic slavery. If there was any sector more distorted and in need of salary reform I'm not sure which...

 

[dopamimetic]

Once in another life I was a so-called 'computer freak'. Photoshop, C, Linux, PHP, MySQL, Delphi etc. all self-taught, wrote my own lil operating system for example, and made good money as a teen by programming web sites, repairing and re-selling hardware etc. The reselling part isn't so lucrative anymore but modern languages like Python are easy to learn. Just that I have no single paper at all, no references, nothing. Currently living from minimum money as 'mentally disabled'.

Do you think it's still possible to find a job opportunity off which I could live with my 33 years when preparing some projects as references or by whatever way? I'm not sure whether I could manage full time, this is additionally complicating.

 

[Shady's Fox]

Once in another life I was a so-called 'computer freak'. Photoshop, C, Linux, PHP, MySQL, Delphi etc. all self-taught, wrote my own lil operating system for example, and made good money as a teen by programming web sites, repairing and re-selling hardware etc. The reselling part isn't so lucrative anymore but modern languages like Python are easy to learn. Just that I have no single paper at all, no references, nothing. Currently living from minimum money as 'mentally disabled'.

Do you think it's still possible to find a job opportunity off which I could live with my 33 years when preparing some projects as references or by whatever way? I'm not sure whether I could manage full time, this is additionally complicating.

Hackers are pretty wealthy, you have the chance to work with the Gov and in 2 yrs you will have enough money to buy a ticket to Moon.

 

[uncguy1997]

fuck me £600! i shoulda charged more, was always worried i'd get less people interested though. plus lets face it i was a half dead skeleton i can't honestly believe people were prepared to pay what they were.

so, no one wants any actual career advice then?

anyone want to tell me what job i could get that is interesting, well paid, and doesn't require me to relocate to cambridge? i wanna stick broadly in data analysis for scientific purposes, but developing novel methodologies not just running other people's code. medical imaging is one thing i've thought of but most of it requires a machine learning background, which i don't have.

it sounds like you've answered your own question @chinup. if you are already a programmer then i'm not sure what other jobs out there are more lucrative. of course if you stick with being a data scientist then you're writing your own queries etc. but you will always be "running other people's code" due to it typically being an analysis of someone else's database. i personally feel that data science in a vacuum may be a bit boring. if medical imaging is what you want to pursue, then i would advise you to learn front end programming, esp. javascript, maybe backbone, and react if you have not already yet done so. btw it's funny to read the career development paths of fellow cheeky drug users haha. it kind of gives me hope for the world we live c:

 

[Jabberwocky]

@uncguy1997 i know there is always some aspect of running other people's code. i'm not planning to write an operting system from scratch. i just mean developing my own algorithms and implementing them rather than running, for example, the same RNASeq pipeline for different samples over and over.

@dopamimetic you certainly can find opportunities, it may be difficult at the start if you've been away for a while. get some projects up on github using newer technologies and see what happens. you may do better looking for contract work if you don't want full time- it would still likely be full time hours but for short periods and very lucrtive.

heard nothing about the single job i've found to apply for since february yet. the hope and swift realisation i won't get it broke me. my friend works for the company so gave me a recommendation through their internal system with a glowing review so hopefully that will help.

i put 'Python' into a search for jobs located in my city on stackoverflow and there were 0 hits. lol.

 

[Coffeeshroom]

A lot of work in the mining sector in Africa

 

[dopamimetic]

A lot of work in the mining sector in Africa

Aren't they pretty notorious for poor working conditions?

@chinup, thanks doesn't sound too bad. Definitely need to work on some projects, I've seen so many people barely knowing the language they are working in let alone things like user interface etc.. but always think it's my bias.

 

[Coffeeshroom]

@dopamimetic not really. If you gonna be working for shady/dodgy company then yes but every mining company i have worked for it was up to standard. It's just the places that the mining companies are situated in africa that can make working conditions dangerous in the aspect of local wars and such. But if you can get work in namibia in mining sector with HSE qualifications then you will be set. A lot of HSE jobs or career paths here in S.A. specifically too.

 

[Safrolette]

Anyway what it really means is £70k starting salary that's what it really fucking means. Watch the guy in his early 20's who flunked out of uni make £70k... one day they just happened to be like how is Wilson doing ain't spoken to him for a long time... nothing to do with the fact he just got a house in London and drives a Merc...

Wow, that's impressive, congrats (y)

 

[Jabberwocky]

ohmyfucking god every interaction with my boss is making me worse. can one of you guys not just employ me?

 

[Jabberwocky]

right guys, i have made it through the initial screen of an amazing job at a household name company, like one of the tech giants you put on your CV and are made for life. so, i won't get the job but still its stressing me out. if i were offered it, it would be stupid to say no. they took ages to come backc to me cos they got so many applicants, so its an achievement just to get this far.

specifically what is stressing me out is that, i initially applied cos a friend who works for them said that remote working would be a possibility, but it looks like that's not the case. the location is a short train ride away from my old junkie stomping ground and i don't like the idea of that level of proximity. i would probably have to move to this place anyway, as its where most of the jobs that make use of my skills are based.

if i knew i was actively choosing between my career and my recovery, it would be easy. i'd have to pick my recovery. but its not, how do i know if i can handle living away from my support network (though my sister would also be a short train ride away) and relatively close to a place i strongly associate with using?

 

[mokele]

shady, cos we were discussing it in EADD, so it made sense to put one here. i didn't even know there was one in LAVA to be fair, and think a culturally european one is probably more appropriate, cos the culture of work is vastly different in Asia and the Americas.

Wilson I don't even know what that thing you mentioned is - but i googled how much money you can make off it and its max about a weekends worth of crack per month. so its gotta be adultwork for the other 30 days. no street work if you don't want to be found in pieces in the local park, as happened less than a mile from where i lived in leeds. honestly though getting addcited to crack is a bad career move. none of these are good jobs (keeping it on topic lol).

Well,you offered it and its been on my Mind since i left Frankfurt. How do you sex workers on Crack manage to satisfy a old, sweaty guy while crashing from Crack???? Must be hell pure! I remember african women in Frankfurt on Crack offering blow jobs without condoms for 5 €,just to get that next rock. Or here, sex workers taking a taxi to the open market for a 20 of white. But then, ive never understood how one can fiend so bad for coke. Yes, i get the intense desire to redose, but the comedowns, the comedowns

 

[Jabberwocky]

to be able to do sex work, most people have a history of atrocious sexual abuse so theyhave already built not caring what happens to your body up as a defense mechanism. heroin really helps with caring even less.

the way to avoid a crack comedown is to just never stop smoking. you end up psychotic and it gets pretty scary after a few days without sleeping, but when you finally crash you sleep for 48 hours and are thus unconscious for the bad bit of the comedown. then you just have to get some money quick. that's the hard bit cos obviously you're rattling badly as well and selling your body in that state is fucking awful.

also if someone had booked an hour i'd usually sneak off for a pipe half way through if i could to keep myself going.

to be fair, by the time i knew i was headed to rehab, i wasn't remotely looking forward to not using drugs anymore, but i was really looking forward to not having to do that any more. it makes you feel dirty and loses all novelty pretty quick.

i never understood how people could fiend so badly for coke either, before i got addicted to crack i'd kept my addiction purely to downers. i'd though i was immune to getting addicted to crack cos a couple of times a month i'd get a couple of rocks with my dark, did that for years. then i started smoking it daily when i got post viral fatigue, spiralled down pretty fast from there to an at least an 8th a day habit.

 

[Forever Changes]

^ did you decide to go for that job, Chinup?

 

[Jabberwocky]

god FC have gone for whatever jobs have come up and am still looking, they always really like me but also interviewed someone else with more direct experience.

 

[TheInvisibleStoner]

Once in another life I was a so-called 'computer freak'. Photoshop, C, Linux, PHP, MySQL, Delphi etc. all self-taught, wrote my own lil operating system for example, and made good money as a teen by programming web sites, repairing and re-selling hardware etc. The reselling part isn't so lucrative anymore but modern languages like Python are easy to learn. Just that I have no single paper at all, no references, nothing. Currently living from minimum money as 'mentally disabled'.

Do you think it's still possible to find a job opportunity off which I could live with my 33 years when preparing some projects as references or by whatever way? I'm not sure whether I could manage full time, this is additionally complicating.

Yes. !00%. Its hard to break in. Had mad skills but didn't get my first job for like 5 years since well had a blank resume. Dropped out of high school, but did go to college for a bit, however never finished. I do not put any of that on my resume. However lol I have interviewed at least 50 people in my life, I never once looked at their college. I never even took their resume seriously. Perhaps their career progression, time per job, and what they claimed to have done so I have material to interview. As long as you know what you are talking about, you will get a job. The IT industry is packed with people that don't have degrees. A degree does help. But once you get your 1st job nobody will give a shit about what school you did or didn't go to.

You have the advantage now, though in 2020. Make sure you have a github and work on a few projects with others. Or fork your own. THIS will be your reference. Make sure you make a good cover letter too. They will interview and grill the shit out of you, but if they think you are good, you will get an offer. Make take you 100 times, just keep trying. And keep making commits to github. When I see a persons github blank I throw their resume in the garbage. However if its lit up green, he will be interviewed (and you must master git so you are getting a free skill). But first build your background a tad. Linux, python, networking. And yes, knowing mysql will be good, but you will have to learn all of SQL. I started with mysql too. Once you understand how databases work, easy to learn a new one.

In the meantime, you can build a computer right? And understand some basic networking? Look for a job in a data center. You may get one right away.

You can get certs also. https://acloudguru.com Probably the best lessons I have seen even if you want to just learn a bit. Getting those AWS certs will look good.

Good luck!

 

[F.U.B.A.R.]

 

[G_Chem]

Show the fuck up, mostly sober. So many well paying careers ask not much more than that. Unfortunately many people can’t do one or the other. I can’t tell you how many jobs and praise from clients I’ve gotten just by showing up on time every day. Be punctual.

Also don’t take stimulants to increase work productivity. It’s a slippery slope that always goes bad. I learned this really young thankfully when I was 16 and would snort cocaine on job that would eat up everything I earned.

Find a way to make sure you don’t burn out and can work sustainably. I watch guys crash and burn all the time in the trades. I’ve yet to meet someone in my trade that doesn’t use stimulants, and most do in all construction trades.

Eat healthy, exercise, keep up on your body and mind.

-GC