I wouldn't walk into an interview preaching against anything if that's what you're thinking. And I didn't say I was comfortable in this environment, I said I was outspoken once comfortable in an environment. This is an online forum, wether I'm outspoken here or not doesn't count, I'm actually very humble in person, but I don't expect Mr.Assumptions to assume that.

Thanks again. I understand what you're saying in that I shouldn't walk into that interview thinking I'm hot shit, which I'm quite aware I'm not. I just said I was confident in my abilities, to LEARN, if you really needed that extra part in my op. I do feel I've come a long way already for someone who never touched a single line of code two years ago, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.

And this is the attitude to have. Bravo. I realize this is an internet forum and all but if you want respectful answers conduct yourself in that way. We've got off on the wrong foot so I'll stop chastising you and let you ask questions.

Yeah I had ONLY questions about the industry, I just tried to give a background on what I was up against and how I felt about myself instead of saying "Hey guys! I'm off to work in a few months, any advice?" "Yeah, don't suck!" Know what I mean? I might've come off as arrogant and whatnot, but I'm really not and always take time to listen to what someone else has to say. Can we please stop narrowing the perceptions of me based off my comment on Java? I want some real life experiences from others who can give me solid advice, like you have, not "lol kid you're arrogant and don't know shit" kind of deal. I do know shit, I don't know it all, and never will, and will always keep working on building my repertoire of "shit" that I know.

what are you short term goals and what are your long term goals?

Some people want to stay with a single company many years. if this is you, then you need to look at the company's growth and potential career advancement. Developers very often have two paths 20 years from now: stay technical or move to management. some companies (texas instruments comes to mind, though im sure google/facebook/ms/etc as well) have a lot of room to promote technical people. other companies only promote you a few times (software engineer -> senior software engineer -> team lead) then you top out and have to move to management (architect, team manager, department head, director, VP, etc). the problem with moving to management is they usually dont just give you a title. someone has to leave (retire, quit, promoted) to make room for you. this can be difficult to achieve in medium-sized companies that aren't growing, whereas it can be much easier for smaller companies that keep growing. not to mention a lot of people are developers because they like writing code and dont want to be managers.

if your goal is just to build some work experience or get your feet wet then change jobs, then long-term planning is irrelevant. since you seem to hate java (and this is the only comment i'll make on the matter), you might not wanna pick the java job. the other consulting job might offer you more diversity if you do something completely different every 6 months to a year. would also be useful if the government-contract gets you government clearances.

as for the QA, you have to be cautious. some QAs are technical testers who write scripts and other automated testing. on the other hand, some QAs spend all their time doing manual testing which i find tedious/boring.

Yeah I would honestly not bother with QA jobs. They are going to be incredibly boring on the automation and test scripting side and completely unhelpful with regards to real CS skill building on the manual testing side.

Do you have any interest in game development? That's a career path that requires absolute devotion and lots of work. It's hard work to break into and it will work you to death with long hours, relatively poor pay for the hours worked and very low job stability even in the short term.

Thanks for the response, and another thanks for ignoring my Java comment.
As for goals, I'm not looking to get rich by any means, just to support an eventual family as these are more important goals to me than a career would ever be, though I need one to support the next. I've always had some interest in management, so it's certainly a possibility. I don't personally enjoy jumping from job to job, so I figure one of the consulting firms would allow me the best of both worlds, and the option I was tilting more towards.



As much as I enjoy game development and find it very interesting, I don't see myself doing it as a career tbh. Knowing I spent my whole life creating fake enjoyment for others (my point of view) would just kill me eventually I think. Though I wasn't aware this was the reality for game programmers, since a good one, you'd think, would be prized in a company doing exactly this? I imagine being established in a company like Blizzard for example, would be a pretty safe bet, you'd think? (NOT my goal btw)
Thanks again!

One piece of advice. While having a passion for the product you are creating is always a plus, it would be better to disassociate the job away from what you are building and focus more on the tools and technologies you will be exposed to. What you are building, in the grand scheme of things, is irrelevant. How you are building it is the cool part.

Take me for example. I work for a company that in a nutshell writes banking software. You use my software. I guarantee it. Now, on the face of it, what I am building may not be so exciting. But what I do, to me, is. I develop integration services for all of our products, so each request to our different products can be routed through whichever channel the end-user is using. That shit, to me, is cool. I am a .NET developer(surprise, I am not a Java dev lol). I work with WCF services, but in the process of migrating towards a REST environment. The technology and concepts I deploy in my day to day work keeps me invigorated, and at the end of the day that is all that matters.

Yeah I hear that, otherwise I'd pretty much hate my course altogether I think, as I constantly nagged at my teachers throughout my time there to "give us something useful to make!". I agree it's more important to know how it was made over why it was made, as the "why it was made" can be irrelevant from one day to the next, but knowledge stays.
Thanks for the advice!

It should really be said there are two kinds of paths programmers take today, they either stick with an enterprise job and work up the chain (go into management if that's your interest) or they are contractors doing work for 6 months to at the most 3 years at a time. It depends on the person really. I've met those who have done contract work at IBM as well as Google and even startups and they love the change and moving around.

Personally I enjoy the feeling of job security, but I guess with a big enough resume that's enough job security for most in this field.

@op what you'll learn it's not what you learned in college that will interest them it's how quickly you adapt to new environments and what you build as well as the re-usability of your code and how well you maintain it. Interviewers from my experience love to hear what you do in your off time because if a lot of what you do is programming anyway then you're not only a good fit for them but they're a good fit for you. And that's what's important.

Game programming pays the best, it's the funnest, and all your friends will be jelly.