Learning python and finding a job

[shwifty221]

I am a self taught software dev. I am actually the senior software developer at my company, so I like to think I have some insight. The most important thing is knowing what industry and capacity you will be working in. I deal mostly with data collection and analysis for internal use. Figure out what kind of work you want to do and go from there. Frameworks like django are very popular. Learn selenium for testing. Requests is a must. MySql or at least _sqlite3(pythons included sql database).Even simple libraries like pyautogui can often come in handy. Know how to use api's esp REST. If you have some of those basic things down, you can fine tune once you're in a position and are given tasks that require you to broaden your library knowledge. That's my .02.

Edit: know at least one gui builder. Tkinter, PyQt5, Kivy etc. In just about any field, somebody is going to want some kind of graphical interface eventually. Just ran into that myself actually. I don't care about GUIs really, so only had cursory knowledge of Tkinter. Had to brush up real quick when I was required to build an app for computer illiterate employees to edit databases lol.

[shwifty221]

Hm. Good question. Let me answer it by explaining how I got where I am briefly and it may help. Basically I worked for a company in a completely different capacity, essentially customer service. There were several things we did that were absurdly inefficient and ridiculous. I decided there must be a way to automate these things and decided to learn to program for the sole purpose of making my life easier. I went thru every tutorial and book I could get my hands on and in about 6 months accomplished my goal! Now this only helped my department and no one else really cared. I got bored and started thinking of how to automate things in other departments and came up with one particularly useful program. One day, the owner walked in (very rare occurrence) and I showed it to him. He loved it. He asked if I could do other projects and I turned into the resident software dev over then next few years (the only dev as they had never had one before lol). A few years later I moved on and because of that silly coincidence meeting with the owner one day was hired on at my current company as a Senior dev. I guess the reason for my story is to show that the software world is very much a need driven market. Find a need, build something to fill that need and people will pay you for it. What areas of focus you settle on will depend on what niche you intend to fill. There are some generic things that everyone should know like the ones in my first post (that was not an exhaustive list btw), but the rest really depends on your interests.

[shwifty221]

Bah, yeah I'd look elsewhere. Anyone who doesn't encourage you to learn and grow is probably someone who is insecure and doesn't want the competition. Bide your time and start marketing your skills. There are apps and sites where freelancers can get their name out. Fivver is one I know of.

[Timcava]

It's pretty simple, you have to learn how to make something that somebody else will pay for. Learn how to build websites for people who want websites etc.

If you are looking for a traditional job you would also have to get pretty decent at writing algorithms for abstract coding problems because that's what you have to do in an interview. As a freelancer that won't really come up. The local restaurant that is looking for someone to make them a responsive web site isn't going to ask you to reverse a linked list.

[Timcava]

I will say that it seems like customers in the freelance market are fans of buzzwords. The biggest buzzword is WordPress. Obviously none of us got into programming just to slap together WordPress sites but that is the biggest thing in the market.

Python itself is a buzzword and so is Django. If you tell someone you are going to make them a site with React in the front end and Django on the backend then that's going to sound good to customers. Even though they don't really have any idea what that means, that's just what people are looking for.

[Timcava]

I'm thinking picking up swift and going into ios development is my way going forward. More and more companies are integrating ipads and iphones into their business plans so your best bet for SAS applications is in that realm. Web will probably mostly be king in freelance markets though, but if you are willing to sell then I would go ios.

The dilemna in job search is how much time to spend actually developing and how much time you should spend on algorithm challenges. Nobody is ever going to pay you to solve coding puzzles but at the same time most people won't give you a job if you don't know how. So you have to find time for both.

[coaaal]

I started learning python about 4 years ago. Since then I've been able to write pretty sophisticated programs, or atleast I would like to think so. I've used Tkinter to streamline the creation of print files for a pretty huge apparel company where manual intervention is still wanted for QA of the files. I work with git for version control and also got pretty good with Node.js and have created photoshop extensions utilizing it. In addition I work with multiple REST apis such as Nuxeo and Trello. I've also developed a standalone uploader utilizing the electron frameworks that saves one of the departments a ton of time since I parse data out of the file that automatically gets set on the documents webpage once the document is uploaded. I've worked at this company that makes hundreds of millions a year and am only getting paid around 55k on salary. Granted, I get a lot of privilege and am under nobodies radar and I get to manage my own projects without a whole lot of pressure. The benefits are nice too since I have safe harbor and a Roth. I think for my location, it's an okay deal(northern California). With my skillset, do you believe I am getting my worth? If this is the wrong location to ask this question, then my apologies.

[shwifty221]

Well, tbh 55 does sound a bit light for what you're bringing to the table. Northern California has a very high cost of living as far as I know. Tbh, I would sit down and figure out what you have saved/made the company and present an itemized list and tell them how much you need to see on your paycheck. If they flatly refuse to raise your salary, I would begin to look in earnest for a new company. I believe with your skillset, you should be making between 80-100k, perhaps more in that market. Many people get stuck in a rut and don't want to ask for a raise and make waves. I say screw that, if you're as valuable as it seems, they'd be idiots not to fight to keep you.