I developed an application, working fine and in a closed beta stage for last 1.5 years, it's been 3 years on development. Quite stable, full-featured and polished as well. It's a software for a certain market and can compete with other applications (only 5-10 decent applications exist in the same market). Simply put I believe in it and b...
Management of our business unit provided us with new goals to achieve: flexibility and quality. Our functional leaders (e.g Test lead, Java team lead etc) should transform these high level goals to something more specific that can be used to improve level of flexibility of individuals and teams and quality of products. Let's focus on the...
I've been using PHP ever since I got a job in web development (late last year). I currently have a desire to learn something new. I was considering Python. Has anyone else been in this state of mind, and what were their choices? Did they end up learning a new language, or did they rethink their PHP approach for a fresh breath of PHPnes...
I recently got a Business Intelligence programmer job offer, and I'm wondering what kind of job would that be and what are the potential career paths that it could lead to*. I had an interview where I asked that very question, and the interviewer went on talking about this exciting field combining design, development, database, and busi...
My 2-year anniversary with my current company is coming up. In the past, I've been a bit of a job-hopper (work somewhere between 1 and 2 years, then go to another company). I kind of like my project and team... so if I bomb in asking for this, it will cause me some hardship (if only mental/emotional). That said, I've worked very hard ...
In my experience, generally speaking, CS PhDs are used to work hard and put in many hours are more motivated than others professionally can analyze a problem effectively can communicate very well in presentations and reports Thus, what is the best reason not to hire a PhD on your development team? And how do you recognize this nega...
I'm at a crossroads. I'm not to far away from graduating with a 1st class BSc degree with honours in computer science. I basically have two options, I could go into a graduate training scheme at somewhere like Accenture or Microsoft etc etc or I can stay at University and study for a (very expensive) PHD. Any thoughts? edit: If a Unive...
My wife is likely being relocated to Atlanta next year for work. I'm trying to figure out a few things about the Atlanta market for Programmers, Software Engineers and Technical Leaders. Any insight would be helpful, but I also have a few specific questions: Is the market for .NET Professionals in good shape? Or hurting right now? A...
Architects have to have a big picture attitude. They need to focus on technology for long time. They need to be generalist. What does the developer community think about architects? Why are some people promoted to architect? Who is interested in becoming an architect? What actions do people take to reach that goal? ...
How many years of experience are required in order to pass from a junior to a senior level programmer? ...
After working for a long time within a large business as a self developed developer you can become very proficient at translating "geek speak" into "business speak". This tends to include spending an increasing amount of time in requirements gathering, specification, project management, best practice, management of other developers etc a...
I am stuck in a 9-5 cubicle/programming job. Is this how my career would end in 20 years from now? I am in my mid 40s and have been programming for about 15 years now. In the early days, I dreamt about opening my own consulting firm and hiring whole bunch of programmers to do great projects and make lot of money. Years later, I am earnin...
I'm about to pick one of these programmes. I've done prerequirements for both and really enjoyed them. By software engineering I mean designing, coding, testing, managing and all related stuff. Getting more advanced in what most undergraduates do. Databases narrow to relational databases, data mining, data warehousing, queries optimiz...
In brief: would you say a year long internship is better than a summer internship in software development in terms of career prospects? In detail: I'm in the UK studying the penultimate year of my Computer Science degree. I've recently been offered a summer internship at a large investment bank where I will get to work in the codebase o...
My employer has been making some adjustments to reduce and adjust expenditures. I was just *offered* an excellent position in a different business area. I was eager to accept the new position, because it should be challenging and interesting. Are other programmers experiencing the same thing, and does anyone have any advice for my first...
Whats the best way to enter into a coding career? Do you need formal education and degrees or just a good portfolio? What programming languages are needed? Should you know more, or should you be specialized? Do you even have to attend college or a University, can you enter into one right outside of High School? What are your thought...
I was watching something on TV the other day and sat in disbelief as someone said something to the effect of, "I wish we could round up all of the people who made mistakes and punish them." That statement floored me. Punishing malevolence is one thing (preferably by immediate dismissal), but punishing mistakes? How is one to learn? Doesn...
Is there an organization or association which a professional developer should get involved with? There are local .NET user groups, for example, but I'm thinking more about nationally/globally recognized groups which might help one's career or even personal development. Or perhaps even groups which simply provide industry discounts/perks ...
I have about seven years of commercial experience. I work for a company which can only be described as a post start-up. It's been going eight years but has a staff size less than ten. We have some cool projects with some really big companies in the UK and I do actually enjoy about 20% of the work. But ultimately I'm a maintenance progra...
I work for a small ERP software firm. There are 2 guys that have seniority over me. They make 3 times the salary I take home. Here's how they managed to get there: we have no documentation to speak of. They HOLD the business "know how" for the package. They don't share their knowledge with anyone. The only way I see my way out of thi...