Is it possible to get a temporary job to try programming as a career?

Question

I have been programming for years, starting with a simulation of ultrasound in Fortran on a PDP-11 (does anyone remember 64kb overlays?), then on to finite difference heat flow simulations of ultrafast laser pulses in C++, and now doing simulations of light reflecting of thin films (reflectometry) in Python. I have always enjoyed programming, especially scientific programming (I have a PhD in Material Science & Engineering). I'm the guy in the office who, when he hears people complaining about doing repetive work in Excel, says, hey, I bet I could write a macro to do that. And soon everyone in the office is using my new macro.

Sales are down at the company I work for. They are laying people off for 4 weeks at a time. I will be off the month of March.

Since I have always enjoyed programming, I would like to use this as an opportunity to try out programming as a career. Is it possible to get a programming job for 4 weeks? (I'm in northern NJ, and close enough to New York that I could commute, if that makes a difference). Are there temp jobs available in programming, especially scientific programming, that I could try? What job boards or agencies should I look for jobs like this?

Or is 4 weeks to short to do anything useful? Should I look at volunteering with one of the Python open source projects instead?

Thanks,

Curt

Answer 1

I would probably start applying for programming jobs, and hope to have something buttoned up in the month of March. It sounds like you have the aptitude to be a developer, so go for it. I don't see the value of "test-driving" programming as a career. You already stated you enjoy it and you are good at it. Get on board at a company where they can bring you up to speed on whatever technologies they are using, and dive in.

I would have reservations about staying on board at a company that is going through such turmoil.

Answer 2

Cannot speak for others, but I am not able to imagine myself hiring a programmer for just 4 weeks.

Answer 3

Given no professional experience, you're highly unlikely to find a 4-week contract, and four weeks isn't enough for you to know if you like the profession or not. Nor will anybody want to give you four weeks of any sort of on-the-job training when you're not staying into April.

If you just want to get in deeper, doing open source work is good. It'll give you a better feel for the profession and will give you something for your resume, should you decide to make the move later.

Answer 4

Try to join an open source project.

You'll get the picture and sharp the edge.