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For Those Who Wish to be Programmers?
Ryan asks: "I've been stuck in a helpdesk position at 3 different companies for the past 5 years. What I really would like to be doing is programming. At each job, I would write small programs or dynamic web pages in PHP with a MySQL backend, a few small Linux utilities for automating jobs and small Win32 programs, all written in C. Sure, these programs were popular with my fellow coworkers, my boss liked them, but my primary function there is to answer phones, and programming is secondary. I can not transfer to the 'programming department' because its located in another state, nor would I think that department would welcome me, only because I would be coming from a helpdesk. My programming is self-taught, and I don't have a diploma from a university. I'm 25, and have a family, night school is out of the question.
The market here (Danbury,-Connecticut) is dry, and HR wouldn't even look at my resume with out a degree. I know someone out there must have been in the same situation and some how gotten their foot in the door. What did you do? Any suggestions?" I'm sure there many on Slashdot who have been in this situation. If you wouldn't mind sharing your experiences on this matter, it would be appreciated. Share the ups and downs of your decisions and in particular, please answer the question: If you had to do it all over again, would you make the same decisions? Those interested in this topic may also wish to check out the the last article that touches on this subject.
I know it won't be easy to do but you're going to have to make a sacrifice somewhere, which probably means you'll have to take a cut in pay and take a very entry level programming position or go back to school (even though you said you couldn't due to family considerations). I went through a similar transition a couple of years ago when I left the printing industry and took a 35% pay cut just so I could do some simple NT administration and VBA programming. I was paying my way through college at the time so that pay cut really hurt. About six months before graduation I managed to land a part-time position with a consulting company who specializes in Java/Unix development (my focus/interest) which after graduation turned into a well paying full time position.
Short term sacrifice for long term gain.