professional for application development

There are 5 replies in this Thread. The last Post () by Huor.

    Hi guys.


    Soon I'm going to start the training to become a professional in application development / software engineering.
    The aptitude test I've passed already with exellent results.
    I would like you to let me know what experience you have, according to this profession.
    And I'm not talking about what you have read somewhere, or what you have heard from others. I really would apreciate it if you take it serious and not starting to make any jokes about or just flaming to give some stupid comments.


    This training is quite important for my future and was a major decission. So I want to pass it as good as I can and try to get any solid and meaningful information about it, so I can gather informations which are neccessary and helpful as well.
    If you got any solid sources which I could also use to learn, or you are willing to share some ideas how to get started in a quite good way, so let me know.


    I'm aware of the fact that I will have to study a lot and it wont become easy at all.
    According to the fact that as older someone gets as harder it is to learn "new" stuff, I might have a slightly disadvantage regarding to the younger "theoreticians" who did not leave school till they are 30.
    But on the other hand I can provide myself with real-work experience and also with life-experience which the most of those university-visitors can not give.



    Basic knowledge is already there, but Im surely not claiming to be perfect in it.

    AD


    The field that you are choosing to venture, is very broad and offers a multitude of career opportunities. I have contacts @ Terre Arme , Siemens, Nuvia, Freyssinet, CRM, Hubbard and a few more than are excellent and potential employers if you want to go down the road of doing development for global engineering firms. Terre Arme, Siemens, Nuvia & Freyssinet are global and all have locations in Germany, France and the UK. If you come to the States as you have planned, we have offices in Virginia, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, San Diego, Denver, Atlanta & Florida.


    There is a series on fast-track IT development, by Train-Signal. They have an entire suite of DVD's that are straight to the core of the program you wish to educate yourself on. If you can provide some information of where you want to be and with what kind of apps you want to work with, that would be helpful.

    Intel 2.8 Quad-Core / 8 gig OCZ gaming 1066 mhz DDR2 / BFG GTX 295 (x2) / 24" LCD 4000:1 Monitor/ Razer Copperhead / Lycera keyboard / M1 NIC , 1 Intel SSD ( OS) & 1 OCZ gaming SSD , 10k rpm Velociraptor.


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    Good luck .. and all my well wishes.


    I agree with Gunny, the field is huge, and there are a distinct (in my opinion) differecne between an application developer and a programmer/coder. (My asnwer here is from a self taught application developer, now running his own business, with develoeprs working for me, and we do development of Commercial and Custom software in Financial, Logistic, Engineering and Agricultural sectors)


    One of the major things I have found over the last 20+ years, know your subject matter (the area that you are going to do development in) Clients will expect you to know at least as much as they do, or even more of a specific area. You cannot produce results with an insurance underwriter if you don't know the insurance industry.


    Client know what they want, not what they need, and it's your job as an application developer to give them what they need, to satisfy what they want. (think about that for a while ) You also need to be able to negociate and be very diplomatic with clients...a skill you alread yposess, as I read your posts and interaction with you.

    You also need to know you 'tools of the trade' , and I am not talking about just programming languages (those are also important), but about Software Developement Lifecycle practices and techniques. The ability to do Case Studies, Feature and Function Analysis, Business Process Analysis, converting process specs to technical specs, etc .


    All of this comes with time and practice, and there is a difference in how you should approach this in theory, and how you approach it in practice.


    I would suggest that you do not try and learn this on your own, but make use of the services of a professional agency to teach this to you ( and preferably also be employed in the same field at the time)


    Working on projects with other team members also allows you to pick up a lot of good , and bad points of how things are done, so your 'age' (and life experience) should help you to be able to 'stand back' a bit from the immediate obvious.. and re-look at a situation from different angles and help you cater for more scenarions than someone that is not so experienced.


    If you have specific questions, feel free to ask.


    Obviously there is also vast differences in working as an application develoepr for a major corporation that specialises mostly on inhouse development , and a company that specialises in custom or commercial client software.


    Ultimately, it's a very rewarding career, and you will not be sorry to have chosen it


    Kind Regards


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    Windows 8.1 X64, AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black 3.4GHz, 16GB 1600 RAM, NVIDEA GeForce GXT 460

    Edited once, last by Riebens ().

    Sorry the translation for the profession might not have been the right one.
    Its technically called: Training in computer Sience, specializing in application development


    The training im going to take is held by an official training institute in Germany, which is specialized for grown person training, who already have a training completed and worked in a different job.
    In other words its they are specialized for persons who need to get a new orientation regarding their business career.


    I know Im not the youngest one anymore and a lot of young people are probably laughing at it, seeing a grown person starting to go to school again and learning a new business.
    Sure the advantage they have is, they are young and quite more capable according to tought stuff and studying new things.
    But hey.. Im not dumb at all :)


    The training contains all necessary informations concerning the market (business behaviour, buying/selling, analysis, law-restictions)
    system architecture, hardware, operating systems, installation and configuration
    commecial control
    program creation and program documentation
    testing methods
    legal status and structure of vocational training, labor and collective bargaining law
    Networks, services, Privacy and Copyright, System Maintenance, Interface concepts, customization and software maintenance
    custom application solutions
    and so on


    It's really way to much to post it all here, but I got the framework for the whole training already. And also the requirements which most of them I do have already as well.
    Surely Im not perfect but I'm still learning.


    About where I want to work after the training, Im not quite sure. To me it does not really matter, who the employer is as long the payment is ok ;)


    I would however have moved to America already but since the german education system is one of the best, regarding to the stuff they teach, I decided to take that possibility and move later.
    (Im not talking about the primary school education, but the business training is one of the most respected, ofc depending on the business you learn)


    So I decided to move in 3-4 years. (of course, a lot of things can happen in the meantime, but thats a goal I have set myself, so I have something to look forward to)

    AD: Being older and making a transition into a new career is not uncommon at all. I have one profession behind me, I own my own company and I work in Info tech at 42 yrs old. Another thing to consider too, most companie will hire mature candidates more often than young for the "life" experiences the 40+ yr old brings to the table. The work ethic of people 35 and older is substantially greater than those in the 20's.

    Intel 2.8 Quad-Core / 8 gig OCZ gaming 1066 mhz DDR2 / BFG GTX 295 (x2) / 24" LCD 4000:1 Monitor/ Razer Copperhead / Lycera keyboard / M1 NIC , 1 Intel SSD ( OS) & 1 OCZ gaming SSD , 10k rpm Velociraptor.


    Chars: [CFPD]. , [CFPD]G1 , G1.5, G2 , G2.5

    Home System: Tarsus


    Founder of the Crossfire Police Department, ( [CFPD] ) established 2005. The first Police Department established on Crossfire.

    Well first you should try to take the first lessons. Currently its hard to recommend any training if its not certain what kind of training you prefer, what you will like and what not. Coding must be learned by doing. Reading a book wont help to learn it properly. You just understand the basics - if you can understand them ;)


    As from my experience - all the life cycle things and software cycle things are theoretically well thought, but in all my profession they are rarely used properly. Good to know them for sure. I dont say they are useless - but future will show you if you need it and know by heart or if it was good just to have heard from it.
    The topics you listed are very wide spread - if you want to be specialist in all of them you need those 3-4 years i assume. Testing is a big point in software as well as knowing algorithms and ways to work around a problem to solve it. The more precious your preparation is the less you need to code, the less you need to care about the rest. To get to known every aspect will just be a matter for your growing experience by the time being.


    I would recommend to choose one of the bigger companies - there you eventually have the best conditions to develop whereas in smaller companies you can be very fast be bound to a specific job that you repeat and repeat until you get sick ;D

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