Move up from a Help Desk position to Programming?

Question

I've been working at a medium-sized company's as a PC Support Specialist for more than a year. I got this position since I needed a job and I was unable to find a position as a programmer without having a degree and without having 5+ years of experience in the programming field.

I worked as a web developer in the past for 2 years in my home country and i also did a few freelancing jobs in the past, but since I took this position as pc support i haven't done any "paid programming" in a while.

I was majoring in computer science but i had to drop out due to financial problems. I have continued studying and reading about programming in my spare time constantly.

While working here, i have made good friends with the Senior Enterprise Architect and have done a few programming assignments/tasks for him and he has told me I have talent and lots of future. The company only has 3 programmers, so i haven't really asked him if he could get me a position.

My questions are: does anyone think i have a chance of moving up into a junior programmer position in this company if i continue this way? or should i try to look for a job elsewhere?

and my other question is if there is any alternative career (hopefully shorter than 4 years) other than computer science that would enable me to work as a programmer in the US. It seems to me like the only choice is computer science? Back in my country, there are alternatives to taking computer science, such as analytic programmer and other careers that are 2 years long.

i know its a lot of questions and i should only be asking one question in the same post, but i think they are all related.

thanks in advance for your advise.

Answer 1

I say - don't be afraid to ask. Time and again I see people not advancing their careers just because they are afraid to ask. If you think that you are up to the challenge - go and tell your boss that. You can hint that you are willing to do this for a current pay for a while, that would probably help too. And then - if you succeed, don't be afraid to ask for the promotion either. Good luck :)

Answer 2

I started out much the same way -- tech support with the intention of moving into development. While I had a couple of tiny projects come up at the company overall the chance to move from support to development was pretty much non-existent as the company itself was transitioning to more of a support-oriented business and less in development. I ended up having to leave the company and make the same salary as a Jr. Programmer as I was making as a support rep in order to get my foot in the door. While there is always a chance you can move up where you're at you have a better chance of moving up by moving out.

I didn't have my degree finished when I moved over as a Jr. dev but I was close (about a year left). I stayed at that company for just under a year and then moved to another company as programmer. I have been at the second place for just under 4 years now and have moved up the ranks quickly.

The point I'm trying to make is that if you are willing to work HARD at it, you can accomplish anything. Get your degree, it'll make a difference in this field. Take some certification courses/tests if you can, those will help as well especially if you are hard pressed to actually get your degree for financial reasons.

Good luck!

Answer 3

It might be controversial, but I genuinely believe that enthusiasm is the most important attribute to have, as a programmer.

Enthusiasm and dedication allow rapid gain of experience, and, frankly, people who want to do what they're doing are universally better than people who don't.

If the SEA has become a friend, you should take him out for a drink and tell him that you want to be a programmer; either he'll be able to pull some strings, OR if he's been in the industry a while, he'll be able to help you find somewhere where you CAN cut your teeth as a coder!

Getting a degree in CS is extremely useful, because it will give you a solid grounding in the theoretical aspects of the field; although you can certainly learn by self-study, or perhaps take a middle-route and study evening courses, or some such?

At the end of the day, aptitude and enthusiasm are serious rivals to experience.

Answer 4

That really depends on the company. If you believe they are really open to moving people in the organization from one IT position to another then I would start asking if there are tasks you can do for the programming group. Of course speak to your boss and explain your desire and see if your manager and the programming manager are willing to help you take this path. That's actually what happened for one of our team member's. At the least speak to the other team members and ask them what would impress them enough to know you are serious and should be looked at when the chance arises.

You could for example try to work on an open source project....

If you think the chances are slim then I would look to move on if you are really serious.

As for other avenues. There are tech college's out there that offer associate degrees and even some community colleges. I am also seeing many colleges out there offering certificates that are based on 2-4 classes.

Good Luck!

Answer 5

We hire student programmers out of our Help Desk as often as we hire CS students. I'd approach your boss and the manager of the programming group to see if there is the possibility of doing some small programming tasks as part of your work. I know that in our shop we'd love to have people who are good programmers come on board in a way that allows us the ability to evaluate their talent without much risk. Most companies probably find it easier to replace help desk employees than find good programmers even in a bad economy so I would think it would be a win-win situation for everyone. It can't hurt (much) to ask as long as you present it as you being interested and are willing to take no for an answer.

Once you get some experience as a programmer, if you are good, other people will hire you.

Answer 6

I will tell you that Help Desk experience has very little value when it comes to programming. If you are hired on as a developer it will be because the Architect has seen your talents as a developer. Can you get a job this way? Sure. Stranger things have happened. I don't see the harm in asking. I'm not sure what you're making but it doesn't seem like adding on a junior developer to a team of 3 would be that difficult to sell to management.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways to get junior positions. At least here in California there is plenty of opportunity for skilled developers. One company I'm doing work for is looking to hire but hasn't managed to find any thus far. There are lots out there, but they already have jobs, even in this economy. Take a look at college job boards and craig's list. I see entry level positions posted all the time.

Answer 7

For what it's worth, I moved into a developer position with no formal schooling by proving my skills while I was in a helpdesk position.

Keeping things short, the basic strategy was to find out what kind of development our company did (at the time either RPG, VB6, or classic ASP), learn it, and demonstrate that I was competent with it by using the skills to benefit the company. (focus on providing better service or saving labor by automating routine tasks.)

It really depends on the culture of the company, but the best advice I can give will apply to any company worth sticking with. Don't focus on how you can better yourself or your position. Ask how you can better your department or your company. That's what gets noticed, not your technical aptitude. you need to have the technical aptitude, but the technical aptitude is not what will make your supervisor (or the supervisor you want to work for if you'd be switching departments) want to give you a chance.

In the meantime, if you are lucky enough to do development as a "in between calls" type of thing, you get the benefit of being able to take the time to improve without the pressure of being expected to be perfect. Enjoy it.

Answer 8

If you have spare time, practice coding on your own. Work on small projects, look at open source. Just get some "real world" experience writing and debugging code on your own -- you don't have to do it in a class. I work in the game industry and there are A LOT of programmers in this industry that are "self-taught" and are great programmers even without a college degree. On the other hand, we have some college graduates who sound good on paper but don't do nearly as well with "real world" problems.

Answer 9

My suggestion if the direct route doesn't work would be to consider one of two other routes to being a programmer:

1) Tester - Being a Quality Analyst can use some of the skills you may already be building by working at the Help Desk in identifying problems. This also gets you closer to the code so that it may be easier to move here and then into being someone that fixes the bugs rather than merely find the bugs and voila you're programming.

2) System Administrator - Being a Sysadmin, you'd help keep the current systems running, some of which you may have used from your Help Desk position. Shifting from here to development is something discussed here on serverfault.com for another way to go.

Answer 10

Talk to your manager about your career goals and see if they can provide you with some training to move up to a programmer position. Most companies would be glad to help you, since it is better to help someone move to a better position within their company than to move to a better position in some other company. In the meantime, they keep you on as a happy camper in your current position.