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Trisha Gee (@trisha_gee)

Developer & Technical Advocate, JetBrains

Career Advice for Programmers

Or: The Stuff that No-One Tells You

About Me• 1998 - 2000 Undergraduate @ Ford Motor Company

• 2001 Graduated (Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence)

• 2001 - 2002 Web Engineer @ Common Purpose

• 2002 - 2004 Analyst Developer @ Ford Motor Company

• 2004 - 2005 Java / Web Developer @ Touch Clarity

• 2005 Business Engineer @ Credit card company

• 2006 - 2008 Principal Consultant @ Evolution / Detica

• 2008 Java Developer @ well known media firm

• 2009 - 2012 Java Developer @ LMAX Financial Exchange

• 2011 Principal Consultant @ ThoughtWorks

• 2012 - 2014 Java Developer / Evangelist @ MongoDB Inc

• 2015… Developer Advocate @ JetBrains

https://flic.kr/p/FBQQ

• History – London was sort of shit in 2000

https://flic.kr/p/FBQQ

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What about you?

You Own Your Career

Manage Your Career

• Requirements: What do you want?

• Implementation: How do you get it?

• Iterate: What’s next?

You Own Your Career

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What do you want?

• Insert Picture/Table/Chart Here (but if picture doesn’t have a background, be sure to remove gray background, border, and shadow!)

Developer Seeks Next Step

5 years Java experience

JSP, Servlets, HTML, JavaScript

Usability & User Experience

Some exposure to “Agile”

Some team leading

Manufacturing, Education, Ad Serving

Outcome

Identify Your Values

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How do you get it?

Visibility

www.flickr.com/photos/skuds

Internal Visibility

• High visibility project

• In house extra-curricular activities

• Brown bags/internal user groups

• Update the wiki

• Introduce/manage a process/tech

• The Pub

External Visibility

• Work for a well known company

• Publicly visible projects

• StackOverflow

• Github / open source

• Blogging

• User Groups

• Conferences

• Write a book

Be Your Own Champion

Senior Developer Needs to Grow

7 years Java

Front- and Back-end

Most recently Financial Markets

Some team lead experience

Outcome

It’s all about the People

Experienced Consultant & Blogger Given a Shove

10 years Java experience

Consultant & Developer

Range of domains

Tech blogger

Leader in a London User Group

Outcome

Staying ahead of the curve

Staying ahead of the curve

• Conferences

• StackOverflow

• Google Reader. Oh, wait...

• Twitter

• Mailing lists

• Join a User Group. Or more than one.

• Hack days

• Books

• http://bit.ly/2qaIjTk (Staying Ahead of the Curve)

• http://bit.ly/buzz-pc (Becoming Fully Buzz Word Compliant)

Important Skills

• Research Skills

• Scientific Method

• Asking Questions

• Listening and Learning

• Interpersonal Skills

• English

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What’s next?

When do you leave?

Finding your perfect match

• Job websites

• Recruitment agents

• Friends

• User groups

• Conferences

• Stalk your heroes

• Sometimes, they find you.

Your CV / résumé

• The reader is very busy

• Stand out

• Get a native to check the language

• You are more than a list of technologies

• http://bit.ly/cvAdvice

Interviews

• Do your homework

• Interview them

• Be yourself

• http://bit.ly/hireEdu

Saying yes...

Ex-Consultant Needs a Job

8 years Java experience

Mostly back-end

Financial Markets consultant

...during the credit crunch

Outcome

...or no

Apprentice Seeks Mastery

3 years Java experience

JSP / Servlets, HTML, JavaScript

XML / XSLT

Mentor to experienced developers cross-training into Java

Some exposure to Good Practice

Outcome

What’s the worst that could happen?

What happened at the end of the story?

• 5 years experience wanting the Next New

Thing?• Changed job in 3 months

• Consultant who needed a job?• Changed job in 3 months

• Java developer with 10 years experience?• Now “famous” Java Champion

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In Summary

1. Do Your Homework

2. Be Yourself

3. Do Not Be Afraid

4. It’s Up To You

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@trisha_gee

What about...?

• Relocation

• Work / Life Balance

• Being Different