This document provides career advice for programmers, including: 1. Managing your career by determining your requirements, implementing a plan to meet them, and iterating on your next steps. 2. Various ways to increase your visibility internally at companies through high profile projects, teaching others, and updating documentation. Externally through open source contributions, blogging, speaking at conferences. 3. Examples of different developers' career goals and paths, such as changing jobs for new domain experience or during economic downturns, and being recruited for evangelism roles.

1. #YOW13
Career Advice for Programmers
Trisha Gee, Java Developer @ MongoDB
@trisha_gee

2. About Me
1998 - 2000 Undergraduate @ Ford Motor Company
2001 Graduated
2001 - 2002 Web Engineer @ Common Purpose
2002 - 2004 Analyst Developer @ Ford Motor Company
2004 - 2005 Java / Web Developer @ Touch Clarity
2005 Business Engineer @ Credit card company
2006 - 2008 Principal Consultant @ Evolution / Detica
2008 Java Developer @ well known media firm
2009 - 2012 Java Developer @ LMAX Financial Exchange
2011 Principal Consultant @ ThoughtWorks
2012 - present Java Developer / Evangelist @ MongoDB Inc

3. Photo courtesy of @sufw

4. > What about you?

5. You Own Your Career

6. Manage Your Career

7. Manage Your Career
• Requirements: What do you want?

8. Manage Your Career
• Requirements: What do you want?
• Implementation: How do you get it?

9. Manage Your Career
• Requirements: What do you want?
• Implementation: How do you get it?
• Iterate: What’s next?

10. You Own Your Career

11. > What do you want?

12. Insert Picture/Table/Chart Here (but if picture doesn’t
have a background, be sure to remove gray
background, border, and shadow!)

16. Developer Wants Domain
Experience
5 years commercial Java
experience
Primarily web (JSP / Servlets)
HTML / CSS / JavaScript
Some exposure to “Agile”
Manufacturing, Education, Ad
Serving

18. What do you want?

19. > How do you get it?

20. http://www.flickr.com/photos/skuds/
Insert Picture/Table/Chart Here (but if picture doesn’t
have a background, be sure to remove gray
background, border, and shadow!)
Visibility

21. Internal Visibility
• High visibility project
• In house extra-curricular activities
• Brown bags/internal user groups
• Update the wiki
• The Pub

22. External Visibility

23. External Visibility
• Work for a well known company
• Publicly visible projects

24. External Visibility
• Work for a well known company
• Publicly visible projects
• StackOverflow
• Github / open source
• Blogging
• User Groups

25. External Visibility
• Work for a well known company
• Publicly visible projects
• StackOverflow
• Github / open source
• Blogging
• User Groups
• Conferences
• Write a book

26. Getting what you want

27. Senior Developer Wants
More
7 years Java
Front- and Back-end
Most recently Financial Markets
Waterfall & Agile
Some team lead experience

28. It’s all about the People

29. Experienced Consultant &
Blogger Given a Shove
10 years Java experience
Consultant & Developer
Range of domains
Readership on a tech blog
Leadership position in a London
User Group

30. Staying ahead of the curve

31. Staying ahead of the curve
• Conferences
• StackOverflow
• Google Reader. Oh, wait...
• Use Twitter for Good
• Mailing lists
• Join a User Group
• Book recommendations
• http://is.gd/stayingAhead

32. Remember
• Be Different
• Ask For Things
• Remember What’s Important

33. > What’s next?

34. When do you leave?

35. Finding your perfect match
• Job websites
• Recruitment agents
• Friends
• User groups
• Conferences
• Stalk your heroes

36. Your CV / résumé
• The reader is very busy
• Stand out
• You are more than a list of technologies
• http://is.gd/cvAdvice

37. Interviews
• Do your homework
• Interview them
• Be yourself
• http://is.gd/HireEd

38. Saying yes...

39. Ex-Consultant Needs a
Job
8 years Java experience
Mostly back-end
Financial Markets consultant
...during the credit crunch

40. ...or no

41. Apprentice Seeks
3 years Java experience
Web & some back-end
Mentor to experienced developers
cross-training into Java
Some exposure to Good Practice

42. What’s the worst that could happen?

43. What happened to those
developers?

44. What happened to those
developers?
• 5 years experience wanting new domain
knowledge?

45. What happened to those
developers?
• 5 years experience wanting new domain
knowledge?
• Changed job in 3 months

46. What happened to those
developers?
• 5 years experience wanting new domain
knowledge?
• Changed job in 3 months
• Consultant who needed a job?

47. What happened to those
developers?
• 5 years experience wanting new domain
knowledge?
• Changed job in 3 months
• Consultant who needed a job?
• Changed job in 3 months

48. What happened to those
developers?
• 5 years experience wanting new domain
knowledge?
• Changed job in 3 months
• Consultant who needed a job?
• Changed job in 3 months
• Java developer with 10 years experience?

49. What happened to those
developers?
• 5 years experience wanting new domain
knowledge?
• Changed job in 3 months
• Consultant who needed a job?
• Changed job in 3 months
• Java developer with 10 years experience?
• Recruited (twice) to do Evangelism

50. > In Summary?

51. 1. Do Your Homework

52. 2. Be Yourself

53. 3. Do Not Be Afraid

54. 4. It’s Up To You

55. #YOW13
@trisha_gee
trisha_gee@mongodb.com
Questions?

56. Choose your own adventure
• Investing
•
•
•
•
•
•
What do you
want?
Bootstrapping
Staying Technical
Switching Roles
Other Skills
Staying ahead of
the curve
•
•
Relocation
•
Being Different
Work / Life
Balance
• Staying Put • Moving On
•
•
Visibility (pt 1)
•
•
•
Getting promoted
Getting what you
want
Salary negotiation
When to leave?
•
•
Visibility (pt 2)
•
•
•
•
•
CVs / resumes
Finding your
perfect match
Interviews
Salary negotiation
Acceptance
What could
possibly go
wrong?

57. What did I miss?

58. Resources
• Conferences
• User Groups
• Books
• Mentors
• Blogs
• Stack Overflow
• Twitter

59. Bootstrapping
• Internships / sponsorship
• Third year project
• Pet projects / open source
• Make your CV special
• See: Moving On

60. Switching Roles

61. Staying Technical

62. Important Skills
• Research Skills
• Scientific Method
• Asking Questions
• Listening and Learning
• Interpersonal Skills
• English

63. What about...?
• Relocation
• Work / Life Balance
• Being Different

64. Getting Promoted
• See: Visibility Part 1
• Know the system
• Keep records
• Pick your friends wisely

65. Salary negotiation
(Part 1)

66. Salary negotiation
(Part 2)