Best way to move into junior SWE from tech consulting?
Hey guys. I'll keep it short. I have a BA in Economics, MS in Taxation. Working at B4 accounting firm doing tax technology... basically VBA, PowerQuery, Alteryx, and a little C#. Discovered I love programming but not sure how to switch. I know C, C#, older versions of HTML, CSS, Git/GitHub, some basic MS SQL, familiar with VS for IDE. Have my own GitHub with one project so far. Learning Python now. Not sure when / how to switch since I get some programming in my job but it isn't that much. Thanks!
Start a consulting job. Reach out to consulting firms for contracting jobs. Gain experience and exposure. Work really hard and learn stuff. Do not worry too much about compensation at this point. Once you have established and feel confident, you can start applying to mid size companies. People are around for referrals.
What do you mean by “reach out to consulting firms for contracting jobs”? I thought consulting firms are the ones providing contract jobs for other companies?
Experience? I wouldn't give any good feedback on a consultant who came in knowing nothing. Junior = I gotta put a leash on you, spoon feed you and hold your hand. That's anti-consultant.
About 6 months. As an FYI, unless someone is a consultant long enough to be a manager or senior manager, which is very rare due to massive turnover, consultant is synonymous with "I don't know, but I'll find out." It's not like we get training on anything when we start. Consultants are just good at googling stuff and figuring it out as they go. Very few of them know a lot.
Lol. Maybe in your head. Or maybe we do things differently out east. I expect a professional.
Sorry, KPMG is your punishment for life. Keep working on open source projects and contributing to others' projects...find referrals...and apply.
Lookup apprentice programs. Many large companies run them. We just hired several great engineers all of whom came without traditional tech background but they totally rock it.
Apply