Career change: programming / IT questions

denverpilot said:
I have not found this to be true in the slightest. The most obvious example is Apache. I would put $20 that every Fortune 500 company runs it or something written by the Apache Foundation. Even if they don't know it.

Another would be BIND. You can guarantee everyone who uses the Internet is served something by a BIND server, every single day.

"Open source" doesn't equate to "unprofessionally written".

I'm no RMS, I believe there's a time and a place for keeping some of your source code to yourself, but there's plenty of things that are way better written in the open-source world than the closed, too. And vice-versa.

If a company judges code by its license alone, it's about as dumb as throwing out candidates without certain social checkboxes without even reading their resume'. Sure, you'll find someone to match the requirement, and miss some incredibly talented people you need along the way. Same with software.

A dollars and cents example: HP pays something close to seven figures to their top Linux exec and he oversees a whole division of the company. They wouldn't keep it if they weren't making enough money plus profit on top of it to pay all those folk.

If the only people you're meeting in IT are actually convincing you that there's no use of open-source in their companies there's either someone hiding it from them, they're clueless, or you're not touching a very big subset of "IT" on a regular basis.

Even back when I worked at an all Sun shop, everyone used OpenSSH on them. Solaris' SSH left way too much to be desired until they felt that squeeze for a number of years. IBM? Massive Linux consultancy and hardware sales. Oracle? Has their own Linux distro based off of RedHat's. Apple? OSX may be spawned of BSD, but the toolset is largely from the open-source world.

Look a little harder. Read the mail headers from Office 365 sometime. That's enlightening. Even Microsoft themselves, arguably the biggest company with a business need to avoid open-source, continued their Hotmail habit, and frontended O365 initial mail delivery with BSD and postfix, last I checked.
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If you do a strings command and grep for Berkeley in standard windows commands, like FTP. You'll find it often, I believe a lot of their networking code was lifted from BSD also.

Perhaps open source was the wrong phrase.people with ticker symbols want other people with ticker symbols to blame when the **** hits the fan.

I won't name names but a large corp in America issues it's developers bare bones eclipse and tomcat for development. They then deploy these apps to one of many very expensive weblogic or websphere servers running on AiX and oracle. When I suggested that most of these apps were very simple, not resource intensive and not mission critical. And, given that they were developed against tomcat. That it would be worth considering moving them to JBoss, Linux and since most were hibernate based, porting to Postgres or MySQL. They looked at me like I was an alien. I then said, ok, well, if you're going to spend several hundred thousand a year on these servers, why not use them? Give the developer guys local copies of development servers (which are free) and provide them with an IDE that supports the extra functionality. Not interested. Oh well, I moved on.
 
I've made a respectable living off open source technology. I don't always pick an open source solution but it's damn rare that I don't. I will pick commercial proprietary solutions when they make sense, but in our business it's incredibly rare. I've never been fired.

My first move at my current employer 7 years ago was to phase out everything that said IBM on it. That is a decision nobody regrets.
 
Fwiw, both my office manager and one of our technicians are former IT folks. One of the parents at my kids school is a recovering network admin and is going to school for respiratory therapy. In my little world I see more people going from IT into the medical field than the other way around.
 
weilke said:
Fwiw, both my office manager and one of our technicians are former IT folks. One of the parents at my kids school is a recovering network admin and is going to school for respiratory therapy. In my little world I see more people going from IT into the medical field than the other way around.
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Not everyone that wants to become good in IT and software development actually become good. Anyone barely competent and up can get a job.
 
I don't want to hijack this thread, but I have to to respectfully disagree with the statement
nobody ever got fired for going with IBM. Open SOurce is a 4 letter world in the corporate world
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.

Just about every 'smart' device you can buy these days is running Open Source software. IBM itself is a huge user and supporter of Open Source.

Open source is the wave of the future, it's pretty easy to be fired for locking your company into proprietary software these days.
 
JimNtexas said:
I don't want to hijack this thread, but I have to to respectfully disagree with the statement .

Just about every 'smart' device you can buy these days is running Open Source software. IBM itself is a huge user and supporter of Open Source.

Open source is the wave of the future, it's pretty easy to be fired for locking your company into proprietary software these days.
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you won't catch JBoss running enterprise software at many fortune 500 companies. "Jimmy was our best programmer and custom built an open source version of JBoss to meet our needs. Unfortunately, He….." will never be said by an old guy in a suit explaining why 300,000 customer's credit card numbers were stolen.

"IBM's fault" keeps the stockholders happy.

Anything that has an open source alternative, won't be locking you in.
 
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bartmc said:
you won't catch JBoss running enterprise software at many fortune 500 companies. "Jimmy was our best programmer and custom built an open source version of JBoss to meet our needs" will never be said by an old guy in a suit explaining why 300,000 customer's credit card numbers were stolen.

"IBM's fault" keeps the stockholders happy.
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There are few fortune 500 businesses that aren't heavily dependent on open source technology.

Small and medium business still run the show and you'll be setting yourself up at a serious disadvantage if you don't utilize open source where appropriate. The decisions that a fortune 500 company makes are not the decisions small and medium business should be making.

As to credit card number security numbers are flowing through open source technologies at even the largest companies. If someone is encrypting something there is a strong chance they're using openssl regardless of what application server they're using.

I run the technology side of a credit card processing and storage gateway. I consider close source technology to be a security risk and will not allow a credit card number to pass through anything we can't code review and support ourselves.
 
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jesse said:
There are few fortune 500 businesses that aren't heavily dependent on open source technology.

Small and medium business still run the show and you'll be setting yourself up at a serious disadvantage if you don't utilize open source where appropriate. The decisions that a fortune 500 company makes are not the decisions small and medium business should be making.
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I started out hacking on the Linux kernel, a few years before it went modular, it was pretty much required to compile your own kernel and tweak it to make it work with your particular choice of hardware because not all the supported code would fit in memory (something like 2.5MB IIRC). I contributed to the SANE project (by begging Mustek to give us the assembly code for their parallel port scanner drivers) and helped build in some cross platform compatibility into the PosgreSQL libraries (with limited success). I replaced SCO Unix with Linux and replaced Informix with PostgreSQL at one of the larger transportation companies in America (This is where I wrote the compatibility libraries around libpq). Preaching to the choir. I'm not saying that OSS isn't the best thing since squeezed butter and sliced bread.

I'm just saying that corporate suits in america do very little to maximize value in their software choices. They'd rather have someone else to blame when something goes wrong. "Server crashed, Oracle's fault". That is where RedHat has EXCELLED. They give corporate america a throat to choke. As Red Hat has shown 2 billion per year in sales for something you can download for free.

Even at a medium sized business I worked on contract for, for a year. They were very uneasy about not paying anyone for the database. I had more than one meeting with C something Os and explained the OSS model to them. They still didn't like it.
 
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bartmc said:
I started out hacking on the Linux kernel, a few years before it went modular, it was pretty much required to compile your own kernel and tweak it to make it work with your particular choice of hardware because not all the supported code would fit in memory (something like 2.5MB IIRC). I contributed to the SANE project (by begging Mustek to give us the assembly code for their parallel port scanner drivers) and helped build in some cross platform compatibility into the PosgreSQL libraries (with limited success). I replaced SCO Unix with Linux and replaced Informix with PostgreSQL at one of the larger transportation companies in America (This is where I wrote the compatibility libraries around libpq). Preaching to the choir. I'm not saying that OSS isn't the best thing since squeezed butter and sliced bread.

I'm just saying that corporate suits in america do very little to maximize value in their software choices. They'd rather have someone else to blame when something goes wrong. "Server crashed, Oracle's fault". That is where RedHat has EXCELLED. They give corporate america a throat to choke. As Red Hat has shown 2 billion per year in sales for something you can download for free.

Even at a medium sized business I worked on contract for, for a year. They were very uneasy about not paying anyone for the database. I had more than one meeting with C something Os and explained the OSS model to them. They still didn't like it.
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I agree there are certainly companies out there like that. But they're not all of them. There are companies of all sizes that heavily embrace OSS software. The key is using it where it makes sense. An all or nothing strategy in either direction isn't likely to be the most effective one.
 
bartmc said:
I started out hacking on the Linux kernel, a few years before it went modular, it was pretty much required to compile your own kernel and tweak it to make it work with your particular choice of hardware because not all the supported code would fit in memory (something like 2.5MB IIRC). I contributed to the SANE project (by begging Mustek to give us the assembly code for their parallel port scanner drivers) and helped build in some cross platform compatibility into the PosgreSQL libraries (with limited success). I replaced SCO Unix with Linux and replaced Informix with PostgreSQL at one of the larger transportation companies in America (This is where I wrote the compatibility libraries around libpq). Preaching to the choir. I'm not saying that OSS isn't the best thing since squeezed butter and sliced bread.



I'm just saying that corporate suits in america do very little to maximize value in their software choices. They'd rather have someone else to blame when something goes wrong. "Server crashed, Oracle's fault". That is where RedHat has EXCELLED. They give corporate america a throat to choke. As Red Hat has shown 2 billion per year in sales for something you can download for free.



Even at a medium sized business I worked on contract for, for a year. They were very uneasy about not paying anyone for the database. I had more than one meeting with C something Os and explained the OSS model to them. They still didn't like it.
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Just stop at "corporate suits in America do very little to maximize value" in IT in general and you've got it. They have no frakkkng idea what they're doing, most of them. The few that get it, hire CTOs that don't get advice from free magazines.

RedHat: I have a boss who believes that. I shared with him that I've never contacted an OS vendor in almost 20 years, nor would I expect to. Plenty of ways to mitigate OS level risks that don't include ransom money on an annual basis. He also got his ass handed to him with the first machine he "mandated" be RedHat over CentOS by the business group's VP who knew better and e-mailed him a flat refusal to spend money annually on the OS.

Most database screw ups are in the database design, and business continuity decisions surrounding the database. Doesn't really matter which engine is used. Organizations make the same mistakes like putting critical operations and non-critical reporting functions in the same DB all the time. Since they're embarrassing to these so-called "tech leaders", you don't see war stories about it in "CIO magazine".

How you use technology is 90% of the battle, not the technology itself, in most cases. Paying annually for something you can get for free when you have no idea how it makes or saves your company money, is usually the root cause of IT over-spending and general stupidity.
 
Real money in IT is earned by using what you know. Get a job working for a medical software company that sells the kind of software or firmware you would have used. Start out as a qa tester or subject matter expert on the development side, fix bugs and help design software, and once you do development for a few years either see if you can take on more responsibility or change jobs for a large pay increase (provided you don't sign a prohibitive noncompete to begin with).

Software development folks who don't have other skills aren't worth nearly as much as software developers who know a lot about an unrelated field. The unrelated field can be almost ANYTHING.

If you have some money to invest, find some college grads and see if you can enter the software sales or service business. I hear there is a pretty penny to be made in insurance aggregation and billing nowadays.
 
ChrisK said:
Software development folks who don't have other skills aren't worth nearly as much as software developers who know a lot about an unrelated field. The unrelated field can be almost ANYTHING.

If you have some money to invest, find some college grads and see if you can enter the software sales or service business. I hear there is a pretty penny to be made in insurance aggregation and billing nowadays.
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Hmmm. Tell me more. Just wondering, for my own purposes. In another life, I was on a CS track. Now in insurance. :goofy:
 
docmirror said:
Network admin, Unix admin, VM-ware architecture, security admin, and some highly specific device driver coding is about all that's left in the US because the hardware still sits in the corp headquarters, and won't be sent offshore for security reasons. So - basically from a high perspective, the sustaining engineering is about all that's left in the US.
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I've never had trouble finding embedded systems work although I have a hardware as well as software background which is a big benefit in that role. Embedded software design is rarely outsourced for two reasons. One is IP security. More often than not, the software in a product contains most of the value and letting it out of the country is a big risk for any company that develops it. The other is that embedded development requires product hardware (and often custom test hardware) and if that's being developed in-country there's no easy way to develop the software elsewhere.
 
gismo said:
I've never had trouble finding embedded systems work (...).
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I slaved on embedded work while I was on H-1B and had no other options, but moved on as soon as I got Green Card. It was much too hard to get ahead doing board bring-ups and maintainig firmware, and I felt expendable. Also, the impact of the work is far too limited, even if you hit a big volume seller like a leading tablet. The pressure to ship barely working crap was overwhelming, too. So I was quite happy to exit. Nowadays whenever a recruiter calls, I tell them that I'm too old for embedded.
 
zaitcev said:
I slaved on embedded work while I was on H-1B and had no other options, but moved on as soon as I got Green Card. It was much too hard to get ahead doing board bring-ups and maintainig firmware, and I felt expendable. Also, the impact of the work is far too limited, even if you hit a big volume seller like a leading tablet. The pressure to ship barely working crap was overwhelming, too. So I was quite happy to exit. Nowadays whenever a recruiter calls, I tell them that I'm too old for embedded.
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Well, I'm probably too old as well as I've already retired once. But I'm back at it working for a friend and designing motor controllers. I've had the most fun with programmable logic from the very first MMI PLAs to the latest SoC FPGAs but there's no need for that where I'm at now.

In any case, my point was that embedded is less likely to suffer from outsourced competition than some other software work, not that it's the most fun or rewarding.
 
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gismo said:
I've never had trouble finding embedded systems work although I have a hardware as well as software background which is a big benefit in that role. Embedded software design is rarely outsourced for two reasons. One is IP security. More often than not, the software in a product contains most of the value and letting it out of the country is a big risk for any company that develops it. The other is that embedded development requires product hardware (and often custom test hardware) and if that's being developed in-country there's no easy way to develop the software elsewhere.
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IP Security is *completely* outsourced these days. The days of the Security Department actually doing security are over.

They spend 90% of their time responding to auditors who drive the entire process now.

(I've been considering a move into Security Auditing. Boring and monotonous in some ways, but very lucrative. Especially if you're in the combined auditor/recommendation role/business relationship.)

At the end of the day, the Security folks just want to earn it keep certifications.

Real system security happens at the admin level where the admins either have discipline and a reasonable procedure they created or follow, or there isn't enough size to maintain a Security department and the admins are doing both jobs. Tidy, conventional, non-insane admin and software release practices do 90% of the job or more.

It's exceedingly rare for a Security person to have time between quarterly audits to do any white hat hacking on the company's systems, and frankly, only about 20% of Security professionals are any good at it.
 
I have been working in IT infrastructure for 15 years now and it has done well for me. I have specialized in Citrix related technologies as of late and more specifically VDI and that seems to be moving forward. I manage a group today and I will say, finding good IT people in Omaha at any level is rough...

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!


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Since OP has lots of healthcare experience I'd look into software companies developing apps for that industry, like iPad chart apps for clinicians, or HIPPA compliance services. That sort of thing.

Re OpenSource utilization in large corps, you are unlikely to find any where all they use is either OpenSource or other, but usually a mix. For instance they might be using Oracle database and implement business logic in PL/SQL, but use an OpenSource API for generating PDF reports, OpenSource network analysis tools, etc. The risk analysts might want a place to go for problem resolution, and for that there is often a supported version.
 
jetedrick said:
Il I manage a group today and I will say, finding good IT people in Omaha at any level is rough...

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!


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Even tougher in Lincoln.
 
I thought I'd just chime in on this for whatever it's worth.

When I was a kid, my dad bought me a computer not really knowing what to do with it just that it was the new thing that every kid was going to have to learn. I played games on it... but this was back in the old MS-DOS days so you actually had to learn a little bit to do it. Over time I got really good with it, became the go-to computer expert in school, started tinkering and experimenting and today I still am doing that.

So, naturally, when I went to college I majored in Computer Science which as it turns out really just teaches you some fundamental principals and programming- if you want to actually learn how to diagnose and repair a PC, look elsewhere. At least half of my classmates I'm fairly sure couldn't do this.

I enjoyed learning how to write programs because I love learning how things work and how to do things like that. After college I was hired right away by a big retail company to do in-house programming. This was in 2008 btw right when the economy was supposed to be in the toilet. At first it was fun- here I was in my field and I was one of the real professionals. Within a few months I was pretty proficient and from then on the only real challenge was making sense of the mess of undocumented, poorly planned, buggy spaghetti code that we had to work with. There was little variation in what I did every day and lots of administrative BS to put up with as they kept trying to implement poorly thought out documentation and accountability procedures that we seemed to learn then abandon about every 6 months.

The stress, the boredom, and the fact I had other factors going on outside of work that they wouldn't give me the time off to deal with started eating me up. I felt like I was rotting from the inside out, came home grumpy every day after work, etc. I was always the introverted type which is why it was so surprising that I was becoming desperate for human contact... nobody really talked to each other and our managers would go weeks without communicating face to face, just emails. I sniffed around for other jobs but never really found much... only occasionally stuff in Chicago or St Paul areas which wouldn't be compatible with my wife's line or work or our lifestyle.

Then at the end of 2012 I got lucky and inherited a huge rental property that brought me enough income I could afford to quit. I vowed to hang on a bit longer... and I did. Just long enough to have enough saved to buy my own airplane. I left and have not looked back. Even if I was offered a 250k salary I don't think I could go back. Currently awaiting results of an interview I had last week for a part time tech support job.... for extra avgas money.

The point I guess without me having posted half my life's story is that programming can be incredibly boring and not terribly rewarding. Some places it probably isn't so bad but I wouldn't want to do it again and I still love tech stuff.
 
zaitcev said:
The traditional joke about outsourcing goes like this:

"Chinese:

Me: do X, Y and Z
Them: ok
Me, week later: how goes it?
Them: did you mean X is Z and Y is not?
Me: what?!

Indian:

Me: do X, Y, Z
Them: thank you Sir and have a wonderful day
Me, week later: how goes it?
Them: beautiful
Me: did you finish X?
Them: we are analyzing it

Russian:

Me: do X, Y, Z
Them: why do X, when you can do N?
Me: customer wants it that way
Them: tell the customer he is stupid; here, take N"

It is funny because it's very true.
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Heh, yeah. And the Russian was probably right, but that never makes it any easier to convince them to do what the customer asked for!
 
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