Entry Level Python Jobs

[JonathanB]

I am a self-taught Python programmer with a liberal arts degree (Cross-
cultural studies). I have been programming for several years now and
would like to get a job as a python programmer. Unfortunately most of
the job posts I have seen are for CS Majors or people with experience.

Is there a place I can look for job posts for entry level positions
requiring no experience? For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

 

[r]

I am a self-taught Python programmer with a liberal arts degree (Cross-
cultural studies). I have been programming for several years now and
would like to get a job as a python programmer. Unfortunately most of
the job posts I have seen are for CS Majors or people with experience.

Is there a place I can look for job posts for entry level positions
requiring no experience? For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

Have you thought about getting involved with the Python core
development. Not a paying position, but may lead you to some good
connections, and i can't think of a better place to prove yourself
than that ;-)

 

[Philip Semanchuk]

Have you thought about getting involved with the Python core
development. Not a paying position, but may lead you to some good
connections, and i can't think of a better place to prove yourself
than that ;-)

Or instead of diving into the Python core which might be pretty heavy
stuff, create some open source code -- a game, a calculator, a music
generator, an app to automatically download weather maps, etc.
Whatever tickles your fancy. If you're willing to stand on your merits
(and it sounds like you are), you can point people to where your code
is hosted and say, "I wrote that".

Anyway, it's something to do in between hitting refresh on http://www.python.org/community/jobs/

Good luck to you
Philip

 

[Ethan Furman]

Or instead of diving into the Python core which might be pretty heavy
stuff, create some open source code -- a game, a calculator, a music
generator, an app to automatically download weather maps, etc. Whatever
tickles your fancy. If you're willing to stand on your merits (and it
sounds like you are), you can point people to where your code is hosted
and say, "I wrote that".

Anyway, it's something to do in between hitting refresh on
http://www.python.org/community/jobs/

Good luck to you
Philip

Philip is right -- I would consider a non-CS major, but then you'd get
round-filed for the no experience. Write something, or better yet, a
few smallish somethings and a medium something, and then you can claim
experience.

~Ethan~

 

[Paul Rubin]

I am a self-taught Python programmer with a liberal arts degree (Cross-
cultural studies)....
Is there a place I can look for job posts for entry level positions
requiring no experience? For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

I think in the current economy there are not many entry level
positions requiring no experience, except for internships and that
sort of thing. Also there are some jobs which really do call for a CS
major or someone of equivalent background.

Often though, pure technical background doesn't matter as much as
inventiveness and the ability to make things happen, which is more a
matter of personality than training. I don't know what cross-cultural
studies is, but I could imagine assignments (e.g. internationalizing
the user interface of a program or web site) where someone with that
background could work out fine.

Basically I think for pure software development openings, you may be
difficult to place, but there's lots of other types of openings where
the primary task is something other than programming and yet
incidental amounts of programming are involved. For those, you'd have
a much better shot.

One thing that can certainly help is to have a portfolio of code
you've written for personal or academic projects or whatever. Where I
work we're in the process of interviewing a guy who is some kind of
artist, who has used Python in some pretty cool art projects. He has
a bunch of code on his web site that were very helpful in getting an
impression of his capabilities.

 

[JonathanB]

Ok, so what I'm hearing is "Get a code portfolio together and watch
the job board on python.org." Thanks for the advice!

I've been watching the python job board 3-4 times a week and I've been
working my way through the Project Euler problems in my free time. I
also have a trade generator that I wrote up to support a Traveller
game I was running a while back, but that code is old (the first non-
trivial program I ever wrote) and really fairly buggy. The user
interface is basically an infinite recursion that I sys.exit() out of
when I'm through, which means the code slows considerably as you do
more stuff in it because each trip back to the main menu is a
recursive call to the main() function. Hey, I was young and naive. I'm
working on cleaning it up right now. Any other tips?

 

[Aahz]

I am a self-taught Python programmer with a liberal arts degree (Cross-
cultural studies). I have been programming for several years now and
would like to get a job as a python programmer. Unfortunately most of
the job posts I have seen are for CS Majors or people with experience.

Is there a place I can look for job posts for entry level positions
requiring no experience? For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

You should also look into finding e.g. a tech support job at a company
using Python.

 

[Adam]

For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

I got my English Writing degree in 1990, and I have been a software
engineer ever since. Landing the first job was very difficult, but it
gave me the foundation of experience that allowed me to circumvent the
"CS-degree or equivalent" requirement on every job that I have had
since. If you do choose to pursue software development as a career,
you'll be shocked at how many of your fellow liberal arts degree
holders are doing the same.

It will be a hard road. You will have to overcome significant
obstacles. You will do boring, tedious work. You will find out what it
really means to pay one's dues. You will also, perchance, succeed and
find happiness in a fulfilling career.

I think that Python is an outstanding foundation for learning
programming, but I would advise you to branch out as quickly as
possible. I imagine that saying so won't endear me to anyone here, but
in good conscience, I have to recommend C# and the .NET framework; it
has lead me to continual and well-paying employment for many, many
years now. Also, put together an on-line portfolio of code, preferably
composed of complete and useful programs. Actually seeing well-
written, well-documented code can go a long way towards getting you in
the door for an interview.

 

[Tim Wintle]

I am a self-taught Python programmer with a liberal arts degree
(Cross-cultural studies). I have been programming for several years
now and would like to get a job as a python programmer. Unfortunately
most of the job posts I have seen are for CS Majors or people with
experience.

Is there a place I can look for job posts for entry level positions
requiring no experience? For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

Definately not without any experience - but "experience" doesn't have to
come from paid work - coding as a hobby in your free time is what's made
all the best developers I know.

Some things I personally would expect (and find more important than a CS
background) - in order of importance:


* Experience (e.g. open source / hobby projects / work) - several years
worth.

* Problem solving ability

* A good comprehension of C, machine code, or something where you have
to care about pointers/references.

* Basic maths skills.


Tim

 

[Paul Rubin]

Any other tips?

Learn some more languages besides Python. Python is good to know but
other languages present other ways of doing things. A skillful
programmer has a variety of techniques to draw from.

 

[Adam]

Any other tips?

I'm probably going to come off as very old school, but give yourself a
good and thorough education in data structures and algorithms. You
might never be called on to actually code a quick sort, merge sort,
heap sort, doubly-linked list or trie, but knowing what they are and
why they are important will fundamentally shape how you approach all
software problem solving.

There are a lot of good data structures and algorithms books that use
C, so that'd be a good approach to also adding a very important
language to your toolbelt.

 

[steve]

Hi Jonathan,

Ok, so what I'm hearing is "Get a code portfolio together and watch
the job board on python.org." Thanks for the advice!

I've been watching the python job board 3-4 times a week and I've been
working my way through the Project Euler problems in my free time. I
also have a trade generator that I wrote up to support a Traveller
game I was running a while back, but that code is old (the first non-
trivial program I ever wrote) and really fairly buggy. The user
interface is basically an infinite recursion that I sys.exit() out of
when I'm through, which means the code slows considerably as you do
more stuff in it because each trip back to the main menu is a
recursive call to the main() function. Hey, I was young and naive. I'm
working on cleaning it up right now. Any other tips?

- Keep an eye out for jobs which are not directly programming related -- things
like system administration (which might involve scripting), that's the way I
started.

- Bid for some projects at places like odesk.com, rentacoder.com,
getafreelancer.com etc. A lot of people here might be averse to the idea (and
they'd have good reasons for it too), but doing this will pay off in the long
run. You might get a feel of why people might be averse to the idea by reading
these:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001190.html
http://www.examiner.com/x-1652-Gadg...Guru-Elance-and-RentACoder--Are-they-worth-it

Basically, these kind of jobs might end up being more trouble than their worth.
However, I personally found that it is possible to build long term business
relationships, which you can then take external to these sites, quite quickly if
you are any good.

Here is a comparison chart in case you decide to go for it

http://thethriftygeek.com/2008/11/comparing-the-online-consulting-sites/

Wish you the best,
regards,
- steve

 

[steve]

Hi Jonathan,
[...snip...]

I feel stupid replying to my own post but just one more thing i thought about
mentioning but forgot to add:
- Look at your Liberal Arts major as an advantage. Every field has a 'computing
gap' that needs to be filled but cannot be done because they aren't any too many
good people who have the relevant cross-domain knowledge. For instance, one of
the reasons I think this month's sourceforge.net project of the month is really
great is because the lead dev. has a CS degree and is listed as being a medicine
student:
http://sourceforge.net/community/potm-200909/

So, look for these gaps in your domain which can be filled using your technical
knowledge.

again, ..

 

[Nitebirdz]

I am a self-taught Python programmer with a liberal arts degree (Cross-
cultural studies). I have been programming for several years now and
would like to get a job as a python programmer. Unfortunately most of
the job posts I have seen are for CS Majors or people with experience.

Is there a place I can look for job posts for entry level positions
requiring no experience? For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

I have a liberal arts degree and have been working in the field for
years now, not as a programmer but as a high-level technical support
engineer (doing core dump analysis and the like). While I opted for not
working as a programmer, other co-workers without a CompSci degree have
managed to do so without major problems.

It seems to me that most managers are willing to hire someone based on
his/her experience and proven knowledge, and not so much on the actual
degree you have. Obviously, this means you will need to get some
experience before moving into actual programming.

So, what would I recommend?

First of all, make sure you get your foot in the door. Apply for an
entry-level position at a company that works in the technology field,
even if it's doing technical support or writing documentation. Once you
are in, work hard, show an interest in learning programming skills, talk
to the developers in the company, survey people around and try to figure
out where there is a need that can be met with a not-yet-written
application and put it together yourself, then show it to your manager
and try to convince him/her to deploy it as an official tool for your
team. I've seen this work many times.

Second, search around for open source projects that may look interesting
to you, download the source code, study it, subscribe to their
development mailing list, check out standing bugs and see if you can fix
them. This is something you can definitely add to your resume.

 

[Michele Simionato]

I am a self-taught Python programmer with a liberal arts degree (Cross-
cultural studies). I have been programming for several years now and
would like to get a job as a python programmer. Unfortunately most of
the job posts I have seen are for CS Majors or people with experience.

Is there a place I can look for job posts for entry level positions
requiring no experience? For the hiring managers, if the job post said
"CS Major" in the requirements, would you consider a liberal arts
major at all?

Requiring a CS Major does not make sense. Sensible employers asks for
programmers
that know how to program, not for a piece of paper. For instance, at
work here
nobody has a CS degree, but still I would say that we have very
competent programmers.

You need a way to prove that you are a competent programmer.
Partecipating to
Open Source projects, writing articles about programming or having a
technical blog are ways to show your expertise. Here when we hire
people
we look at their posts in public newsgroups. I find the quality of the
posts a very good indicator of the quality of the perspective
employees.

 

[koranthala]

Hi Jonathan,
[...snip...]

I feel stupid replying to my own post but just one more thing i thought about
mentioning but forgot to add:
- Look at your Liberal Arts major as an advantage. Every field has a 'computing
gap' that needs to be filled but cannot be done because they aren't any too many
good people who have the relevant cross-domain knowledge. For instance, one of
the reasons I think this month's sourceforge.net project of the month is really
great is because the lead dev. has a CS degree and is listed as being a medicine
student:http://sourceforge.net/community/potm-200909/

So, look for these gaps in your domain which can be filled using your technical
knowledge.

again, ..

Wish you the best,
regards,
- steve

Also, I think topcoder.com is a good place for him. I have not used
them much, but their business plan -- of asking medium to difficult
questions every week, and contacting people who solves them with jobs
-- is quite sound.
Try that too.

 

[Zaphod]

On Thu, 03 Sep 2009 06:36:24 -0700, koranthala wrote:

Also, I think topcoder.com is a good place for him. I have not used them
much, but their business plan -- of asking medium to difficult questions
every week, and contacting people who solves them with jobs -- is quite
sound.
Try that too.

I got my first consulting job in a similar fashion. Local newspaper ad
said the first consultant who could answer their questions got the job.
I was the only one that responded correctly and despite my Biochem degree
was off doing my first commercial application (purchase order system for
a local Credit Union).