Career advice, should I become a developer?

Hello everyone at VB Forums,

I just turned 30 and I have had a life altering idea. I have over 12 years of customer service and 4 years of Help Desk experience and am stuck in a rut as far as job advancement. So I decided it was time to advance my career and possibly make more money doing so.

I've decided to become a developer. I've started reading this book:

Visual Basic 2005 Step by Step
http://www.microsoft.com/MSPress/books/7653.aspx

and have gotten to Chapter 5. I'm learning a lot and it's very exciting, but I am well aware that it's just the tip of the iceberg.

I am here to ask for suggestions on what book or what direction I should go next. I really don't have an idea, I know that I probably don't want to do game programming. I kind of want to stick with Windows/Web programming and possibly branch out into other languages. Right now I just want to learn the basics. I just don't have a goal of where I want to be or what I want to do since this is so new to me.

I guess I shouldn't say that, my goal is to get a better paying job than Customer/Tech Support. I currently have the MCDST certification but it's done nothing for me job wise. I want a job programming.

I live in Washington state near Seattle so I would imagine my job prospects would be good here. I just need to know what book I should read next.

I apologize since I know that's not much to go on for suggestions but I hope someone out there has some ideas for me.

Thank you for reading my post.

Jason

Hey man, I know the situation well, at least in my neck of the woods.

In 1998, companies in my area (Detroit Michigan) were offering 30k+ if you knew how to change a hard drive and reload windows. Companies were hiring MCSE's for 100k+ a year and then believing them when they told their bosses that they needed 4 assistants to take care of 30 computers. Around 2002 or 2003, in addition to the damage 911 did to the economy, businesses woke up and tossed a TON of well trained, very experienced and well paid IT professionals out on their asses. Combine that with the glut of techs that were up and coming, and you create a very tough market for desktop support people.

In 99, I got a job building and fixing computers for 12.00 an hour, not bad for the time with no experience.

In 00, I took a position fixing laptops for a warranty company for 20.00 an hour, very good for the day.

In 03 I lost that job because of some very stupid business decisions by the company I worked for; they shut down the laptop division because they didn't get into doing board level repairs early enough.

2004 I took a job doing network and desktop repair and installation and got some good networking experience. You would be amazed at how much and how fast you can learn when you know almost nothing about networking and are sent to a jobsite with 2 servers, 20 desktops and just told to make it all work. I made about 13.00 an hour for the next 3 years doing that.

In 2005 I realized that there was no future in what I was doing. Computers themselves were getting cheaper and cheaper. It's almost to the point where taking a 1 year old computer in for a repair is a waste of money compared to buying a new one. Networking itself, at least on a small scale, kept getting easier and easier for the layperson to do. So, I went back to college to get a degree in electrical engineering.

In 2007 I’m now a senior in college and figure I have about a year and a half yet to graduate because I’m only going part time. I took a 30 hour a week part time job with a company that I had been doing contract network and desktop support for 3 years. I am now taking care of their network, their medical billing software, the programming guts behind their website, and I'm building custom apps using VB.net.

Now that you know where I’m coming from, where are you coming from? Have you done much with networking? Pulling cable, trouble shooting connection problems, WAN/LAN problems, DLS/cable connections, Routers/firewalls/VPN’s?

How about family? Wife/Kids, supportive family members who could help you out if you wanted to get into school?

The reason I ask is, the job ads I see lately are usually interested in a VAST skill set. If they have less then 30 computers, they want an IT guy that can do EVERYTHING. If you want to get into a large company, you are going to need to get a degree or some serious IT experience, there are just to many people out there have one or both of those already and in a depressed IT job market, companies able to get very skilled and experienced people for low money.

These are just my opinions based on my experience in the IT industry and what I have seen over the last 8 years in the detroit michigan area. I've been in the trenches and jumping from job to job as the situation changes.

Thanks for the reply KMDcomp.

I've been building my own computers (for personal use) since 1997, I've also been building them for family and friends. I did alot of home TCP/IP networking and even have IPX experience. Today I still build my own computers for all of my family and set up home networks.

I also set up and administer the network for my work. Granted it's a small office network consisting of mostly laptops, but we do have 2 servers.

In 2004 I worked for a call center as a Platform Technician Intern. I was a part of the technology department who supported 600 computers and several servers for 2 buildings. I didn't do this job for very long since it was only an internship but it did give me quite a bit of experience such as desktop support in an enterprise environment. Anything from imaging desktops to telephony support to server support. We were on call and carried pagers to respond to request for support if we couldn't go directly to the user.

I have a wide range of skills, desktop support, network administrator, however the majority of it is not in the workplace. That's what hurts me. I tried to get a job recently and even though I could have done the job with my eyes closed I didn't get it because I lacked on the job experience.

I have experience pulling cable, WAN/LAN problems, FiOS/Cable/DSL connection problems, a lot of experience with wireless networking, RAS/VPN, firewalls.

Unfortunately, like I said before I have nothing to back it up except my MCDST certification. I never went to college or anything like that. I do have a lot of customer service experience but that is turning out to hurt me the worst. Whenever I contact a headhunter or anything like that they always try to get me into call-center jobs which I would only do again if I were desperate.

Unfortunately at this time I just don't have the money or the ability to go to college. I'm married with 2 kids and one more on the way. I need to work during the day and at night to take care of everybody.

I just don't want to go through the rest of my life "just making it" in a job that's a dead-end.

Does anyone else have suggestions on what books or what direction I should take next?

C# is where the big money is in .NET. Its still a very tough job market out there as every job listing is wanting you to know about 10 programming languages and have 3+ years on programming experience. The pay is always listed as DOE which sucks because that means its 60K or less AFAIK. Usually if it pays welll it will list the pay rate or salary like 80-90K+. But these top level paying jobs demand allot of experience and knowledge/skills. Certs are great for getting your foot in the door but proving yourself on the job is all that will take you to that next level.

Having a MSDST is good but its focused on desktop support and not programming. My sugestion is to get a MS cert in programming if that is truely what you want to do.

The competition out there to get in is really tough but once you are in its allot easier to move around and up too.

Thank you for the response RobDog. I really appreciate it.

60k is a huge jump in pay from what I am making right now. If I can get higher than 38.5k I'll be happy.

If C# is where the money is at do you think it is wise to stop reading the book

Visual Basic 2005 Step by Step (currently in Chapter 6)

and start reading the

C# Step by Step book or should I finish the VB one first?

No, dont stop. The beauty of .NET is that once you leanrn one of its languages that knowledge will still apply for other of its languages. Only the syntax and other minor changes are needed but they are all common to the framework. Seeing how you are making good progress with it I wouldnt say to stop. Its still worthy or your time for reasons I mentioned earlier. Most entry level jobs here on the west coast are usually around35k - 40k. Im not sure about your area but if you use a job website search you can determine the pay levels and what most employeers are looking for.

Thank you RobDog. I live on the west coast as well (near Seattle) and the competition is a little stiff up here. I didn't see any entry level positions without requiring a BS in Computer Science (which I don't have). I'm still going to go for it though because I'm tired of being stuck in one type of job.

I'll finish this book then do the C# one afterwards. Hopefully that will help me along to getting my MCTS certification.

Thanks for all your replies, they were very helpful.

You may want to talk to a job placement agency. They can probably give you good advice and have something that you can get into. Just dont sign with the first placement agency as you will want to go with one that will work hard and have allot of jobs as once you sign with one agency you can not get a job from a company directly if the agency is promoting the position. Usually contract to hire is good as both you and the company get to test things out. If you work 50% or more of your required time they will more then likely hire you on permenantly as a direct employee.