AllmightyOz wrote:
Alright, so I'm going to try and do some C++ stuff the next couple of weeks. I really have no idea where or how to start with this, but hopefully your tutorials will be of assistance. But Kylie, I've heard the myths about all the jobs going to India, or that jobs are increasingly hard to find in this field. In your experience though, how hard was it to get a decent paying job? How much on average do you or people you work with make in a year?
Another thing, math is not my forte. I get B's in math without trying, but I really dislike math. I'm more of a science/history person. Would disliking math lead to me disliking a career in this field?
Ok, the India thing... Yes a lot of jobs go to India (etc) but mostly certain sorts of job and frankly the ones I've been less interested in. A lot of the work is in the form of something that can be specified up to the hilt - "We want a program that does exactly this... it must have/do a,b,c.....x.,y,z" (boring) - Also it is becoming less common (I'm assuming US is like the UK for most part here) for several reasons: the prices are going up, if you fail to put something on the spec more money needed to change, often the effort needed to define/manage/test/argue/re-test/etc costs a huge amount of time/money, there have been several reports of contractors selling the code/IP to competitors, etc....
In my field, people need everything custom and everything yesterday: not something outsourcing can do, quiet stressfull but very rewarding
In the games industry (no personal experience - but I know people in it) the secrecy keeps out a lot of outsourcing and its more of a closed and close team effort: design, programming, artistic design, testing. Games are so big you may not get to feel as deeply involved because your one of so many, but again depends on size of company and your exact role.
OK money: yes there is still good money to be made (way more than a burger flipper - but way less than a stock broker) - but unlike the ads we get over here that suggest 'you will get xxxx minimum' its a big range because there are so many types of job. However that's a good thing, if your flexible an have the right attitude* the range of jobs for programming is huge, and just getting larger!
Maths: Ok I was supper cool with maths and (not that it'll mean much to you) did it do A-level (just below degree) and did both Maths, Advanced Maths and Physics. However for most programming jobs being a Maths wiz is not a huge requirement, but as you can imagine some of the graphical algorithms etc in games with be very maths based. Also you get B's so your ok at it you just sound like you don't enjoy it so not a big issues at all. (I sucked at English... it just means most my software faults are spelling
)
* Attitude: The main thing that helped me, and that I look for in the juniors I employ, is attitude. Yes you need some technical abilities, interest in what you do, knowledge, qualifications help, but its the attitude that determines the great (and better money and safe career) from the average or poor.
When it comes down to it once you know one programming language you should be able to deal with any (just slower).... some people still come out with "I've not been trained in that" or "I've always done it that way" way too much, the ones that succeed are more flexible and don't care if its: 'Public Sub myFunc(myvar As String)' or 'public void myFunc(string myvar)' or 'void myFunc(String* myvar)' (i.e. VB, C#, or C++) - some people treat it like its Russian (if you speak English) but different languages are more like English vs American English vs leet speak - if you engage your Brain and google (use help files) its not that difficult!
Hope thats helps!
Warning: high beer content may affect actual text compaired to what I mean to type!
