Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What's The Best Job For This Recent CS Grad?
One year away from graduating with a CS degree, an anonymous reader wants some insights from the Slashdot community:
[My] curriculum is rather broad, ranging from systems programming on a Raspberry Pi to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, C, Java, JPA, Python, Go, Node.js, software design patterns, basic network stuff (mostly Cisco) and various database technologies... I'm working already part-time as a system administrator for two small companies, but don't want to stay there forever because it's basically a dead-end position. Enjoying the job, though... With these skills under my belt, what career path should I pursue?
There's different positions as well as different fields, and the submission explains simply that "I'm looking for satisfying and rewarding work," adding that "pay is not that important." So leave your suggestions in the comments. What's the best job for this recent CS grad?
There's different positions as well as different fields, and the submission explains simply that "I'm looking for satisfying and rewarding work," adding that "pay is not that important." So leave your suggestions in the comments. What's the best job for this recent CS grad?
Security is a growth industry.
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
- SOCRATES by Plato
Ice Cream has no bones.
the submission explains simply that "I'm looking for satisfying and rewarding work,"
What people consider satisfying and rewarding is entirely subjective. What works for me, helping people without them realizing it was me, would leave most other people feeling unappreciated. The submitter is going to have to decide for him/her self what would they would find satisfying and rewarding.
Start at a big company. A big software company. After a while, start looking to leave there and go to a small company.
Why: If you start at a small company, you will confuse the freedom for chaos. You will not appreciate how easy it is to get things done. If you start at a big company, you will learn some big company processes. A few of them are good, most of them are bad, and you will probably have a very constrained job. Then move to a small company where you can actually do stuff.
A prof once put it this way: Work at a big company to learn stuff, then work at a small company to apply what you've learned.
I think the best way to answer the question would be to select some areas where you'd like to live and then spend some time searching for jobs in those areas.
I was searching for employment ~18 months ago, mostly in the Northeast USA. It definitely seemed like I was seeing a lot of jobs for embedded software developers. So many that I was toying with the idea of going back to school and acquiring some of the requisite skills.
Later on, with spouse, children mortgage repayments you won't necessarily want / be able to:
- Do some IT support for expeditions going to exotic locations
- Do some contracting someplace like the South Pole
- The oil exploration or production rigs pay well (although not as much as before)
- Cruise ships are pretty much nonstop partying; bring plenty of aspirins and condoms
- Holiday villages, ski resorts: see above
- Voluntary work, either at home or abroad. Can be very depressing but also rewarding
- Joing the military on a fixed-term deal
I've done a few of the above; provided amazing experiences (many good, some bad) and it'll make your CV stand out from the crowd too.
We don't know what you find interesting or challenging. you may not know either until you bounce through some place.
go find a company where you like the people; you've got the skill set that most companies are looking for. And figure out what you like. While happiness does in part come from not having a soul sucking job, having a not sucking job that pays enough to not have worries and be able to do the other things in life is just as important.
Despite what they tell you, a job is still just a means to make money to be able to afford to live. You can be paid to do that which you enjoy (shh, don't tell them) - and it is still a job. And before someone says "but but but" I am not saying take a job that sucks your soul out through your eye balls; I am saying I accept the fact that while I love cooking, and I also recognize that when I am done I have to clean the kitchen and if I don't clean the kitchen I suck as a person who shares that kitchen with others. Cleaning the kitchen is fun (and meaning it) said no one ever. (So as much as I do enjoy my job, it comes with some responsibilities that I have to suck it up, realize this is what I accept money for, and go do them. Much like everything in life. No parent ever said they love emptying the diaper pail either, but the end result has been worth it)
back to the first paragraph - a lot of us have bounced through companies and jobs. Our interests have changed. Our skill sets have changed. The job market has changed. When I started, the Web didn't exist. FORTRAN and C were king. I bounced through CAD/CAM, through two small startups (one still exists, and the other long since swallowed by another startup), to contracting, to a large financial company (where we're playing with Angular and such - you'd be surprised what Fortune 100 companies actually do - but also the job stability is through the roof and I have a kid about to start college, which ties back to I have a job to make the rest of life better)
Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to tie an onion to my belt and go yell at clouds. That last paragraph made me feel very old.
Plumbing, welding, electrician, A&P, etc. All jobs that are in high and constant demand, offer a chance for pretty good earning potential, and can't be offshored. Depending on which one you choose you even have the option of starting your own business down the line.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Can't be outsourced to H-1B's.
While this is true, you have to be careful that you don't let yourself get pigeon holed into old and obsolete technology. I was doing defense work when they shut down the shuttle program at Cape Canaveral and I tell you, I have never see so many resumes from brilliant people who had almost zero chance of finding a new job without brushing up their skills. A lot of them had been at NASA and the Cape for 20+ years and we interviewed them out of professional courtesy, and to help them brush up on their interview skills and point them in the right direction on skills that were useful. But even my company was a solid 10 years behind modern industry in so many different ways.
Exactly. You rattled off a bunch of technologies as if that determines your career path. Those are just skills, which change over time.
What do you want to do?
What do you like?
Those are the questions you need to answer. Perhaps the best advice is go see a career counselor to determine your career. It may have nothing to do with CS.