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Budding programmer looking for some advice.

by Vin Venture
8 replies
Hey!

If this is too off-topic/belongs somewhere else, apologies in advance. Soo.. I'm a student, currently nearing the end of my third term ( second year ) studying computer science at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. If you're not Canadian or a Vancouverite that probably doesn't mean much, so let me elaborate a bit. BCIT is a polytechnic college and is arguably one of if not the top schools in Canada for focused and applied technical and trades learning. I don't have any control over my schedule and my program in particular is intense - I'm usually at school 12-16 hrs a day 6-7 days a week ( this term at least ). If I were to graduate with a 2 year diploma the skills I leave with would be in line with a 4 year degree from most universities, though I do plan on going straight into a degree program.

Anyway, onto the point of this thread. I'm currently broke and doing everything I can do avoid a student loan to keep my head above water. I've managed to set aside enough to pay my way through a full 4 years, but with no income I'll have to dip into that to you know, feed myself and keep a roof over my head, ultimately leading to a loan to finish my education.

I've dabbled in internet marketing and the like in the past, with some decent success and ultimately decided it's just not for me. I'm not a big people person so going out and trying to sell myself doesn't come easy, but I have and am continuing to build skills that I know are in demand. I don't have time to go get a full or even part time job somewhere, and ultimately I would prefer to work for myself. But for now I'm really just looking for some contract work to avoid years of dept/homelessness/starvation!

Therein lies my problem. My past work experience has been so different than what I intend to do for the rest of my life that I don't really know where to start. I've tried getting some gigs on freelancer but it's really hard to compete with people who are just as skilled ( if not far more ) who are also willing to work for a fraction of the cost I need to. The "Wanted - Members Looking To Hire You" forum here seems to have changed a bit in the last few years and evolved into more of a "Hey review my product for a free copy of my product" forum. While I do plan on posting something in the "Warriors for Hire" forum I don't want to sit idly by and hope someone decides comes to me with work over the many others looking for the same.

A brief list of my technical areas of knowledge:

- PHP ( web and mobile is my current second year option at school )
- Android development
- Java
- C/C++

If anyone has been in my shoes or has any advice at all on what you think I can/should do - it would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,

Vin.
#advice #budding #programmer
  • Profile picture of the author Adrianhenry
    I was in a very similar position to you a few years ago although I was studying electronic engineering I had a solid coding background and pursued it as a hobby anyway so I knew a lot about various languages. Anyway, I too needed some cash and figured that my programming skills could probably help me but I didnt have a clue how to get hired.

    I started out by doing some trivial html, css and php work on fiverr. Simple tasks that would take no more than 20mins to complete just to start building a reputation. Soon it snowballed from there and I had people asking me to build them entire websites with complex backend functionality etc Obviously for that you charge more than a single gig but I have found that as long as you are upfront on your page saying that if the work is worth more than $5 you are going to charge them more people are more than willing to pay the extra as they know you are going to provide a good service. It all comes down to trust.

    Anyway after a while the workload became too much for me on top of my studies and I had to scale it all back. I ended up then just doing some private work for a few clients and sticking on fiverr but writing articles instead of doing programming. Writing articles is is HIGH demand on fiverr and if you are anyway half decent with english you will be able to get articles out quickly that are to the satisfaction of the customer. After all they are only paying you $5 so they arent expecting the best articles ever.

    I have got a bit side tracked there but my point is just put yourself out there initially maybe for slightly less than you want to work for simply to build a reputation. If you have a good reputation and some respect you can start to charge more and people will pay it because as the old adage goes "better the devil you know" and they know that they can rely on your work to be solid!

    Good luck with this and your studies!
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  • Profile picture of the author Vin Venture
    Thanks for the advice Adrian!

    I hadn't even considered doing anything on Fiver... Do you have any examples of the type of gigs you started doing there? I definitely understand the importance of building a reputation - as my PHP instructor says, if you doing solid work, people will start coming to you. He also suggested doing some volunteer work to build a portfolio quickly, which I like the idea of but the only free time I currently have now I need to spend on trying to make a little bit of change.
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  • Profile picture of the author mlepisto
    I wouldn't have though of Fiverr for programming. That's a good trick.

    I use the Freelance sites but finding a good programmer that is easy to communicate with is challenging. I have found decent freelancers on Craigslist so I would suggest looking there and responding to ads in an intelligent manner.

    Have a portfolio! Show people what you have done, and specifically what you did for the project not just the web site link. Did you build the entire site? Did you design it? Chop the PSD to HTML/CSS, or build some custom feature or database?

    Don't limit yourself to just your own CL either. I've hired people anywhere in the US that have responded unless I just wanted a local.

    As a local you can meet them face to face so you and they both can build trust.

    If you PM me your contact details, your time availability and $ rate, I may be able to ask some clients to see if anyone needs extra help. I usually have a couple that are looking for an extra side project.
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    • Profile picture of the author Vin Venture
      Thanks for the advice mlepisto!

      I've looked around craigslist a bit, though only locally - I'll definitely expand my search. I'm also in the process of building a portfolio, but for the moment it's primarily school projects ( some of which are for real clients ).

      I've also sent you a PM .
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      • Profile picture of the author AdwordsMogul
        How good are you?

        With your current schedule, how many hours can you realistically spend coding and still deliver high quality code?
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        • Profile picture of the author kilgore
          I'm not sure if it'll work in Canada or for someone still in school, but if you've got good tech chops, you could put your resume on Dice.com. Last time I did that, I got 20+ calls/emails per day from various recruiters trying to get me to apply for their jobs and even now, I still get 10 or so emails a week from various recruiters -- and I'm not at all looking for work. It's a sellers market for quality developers. Of course the key word is quality. Crappy developers are a dime a dozen.
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  • Profile picture of the author carlaxel
    Hi Vin,
    Why not make your own apps?
    Usually companies that look for e.g. Android programmers expect you to have 1-2 apps in Play.
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    • Profile picture of the author Vin Venture
      Originally Posted by AdwordsMogul View Post

      How good are you?

      With your current schedule, how many hours can you realistically spend coding and still deliver high quality code?
      That's a tough question to answer, I haven't really had a chance to put my learning to the test outside of school. I'm certainly not the BEST, but I'm far from the worst... and the fact that I'm still in the program is indication that I'm doing something right. Out of the 150 some students that started at the same time as me, there's only about 70 left who haven't failed or dropped out. I'd like to consider myself resourceful enough to get most things done.

      Right now my schedule is insane, finals are in 2 weeks. This term though I have 40 hours of lecture/labs scheduled each week - with an average of 20 hrs a week of homework, assignments, projects and studying to do on top of it. I've been told this term is the hardest though so I suspect my course load will be a bit lighter next term. Without certainty I'd say I could squeeze in 5-10 hrs of side work a week.

      Originally Posted by kilgore View Post

      I'm not sure if it'll work in Canada or for someone still in school, but if you've got good tech chops, you could put your resume on Dice.com. Last time I did that, I got 20+ calls/emails per day from various recruiters trying to get me to apply for their jobs and even now, I still get 10 or so emails a week from various recruiters -- and I'm not at all looking for work. It's a sellers market for quality developers. Of course the key word is quality. Crappy developers are a dime a dozen.
      I've never even heard of Dice, though it sounds like a great place to find a tech job! With more than 2 years of school to go I'm not really in a position to start working full time. I'll definitely keep it in mind for the future though, thanks .

      Originally Posted by carlaxel View Post

      Hi Vin,
      Why not make your own apps?
      Usually companies that look for e.g. Android programmers expect you to have 1-2 apps in Play.
      One my projects is actually an Android app ( for my android course, go figure ) and we'll be releasing it to the store within the next week or two. I've also got a couple side apps in the works or on paper - unfortunately these don't guarantee $$. I definitely understand the importance of building a portfolio, as it will make getting work of any kind that much easier, but that's currently overshadowed by the importance of keeping food in my belly and paying rent!
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