David Kelly, Junior Software Engineer

How many years have you been in IT?

About a year now

Did you do a degree, if so, which type and where?

I studied C Programming in Colaiste Ide and Software development in Dundalk IT

What was your 1^st job in IT?

The one I'm in at the moment, working as a software engineer/web developer

Would you recommend grads to travel after college or get work experience first?

 Its questionable really, I suppose its best to get a feel for what the IT industry is like straight away, Also its good to be able to come back after travelling and know what your in for and where to look. You may go to college, love a subject and find that its completely different in a professional setting and maybe want to move into another area of IT, this isn’t uncommon. I'd recommend that a graduate go into the industry for a year or so before travelling.

Have you worked abroad and if so, where and for how long?

Nothing in IT, I worked in a McDonalds in Germany for a while.  

What was your biggest career break and why?

 Definitely the job I am in at the moment, I got this job straight after leaving college and its given me an invaluable insight into the industry and the way things are done. Believe me working life in IT is almost nothing like college.

Describe your current role in brief.

 To be honest my role is more or less impossible to define, one day I might be doing database admin work the next I might be doing web admin work using IIS or apache, it varies. The mainstay of my work these days is web development using ASP.net, C# and VB.net, however if a certain aspect of functionality has to be done in lets say PHP or JavaScript then I learn what I need to and I do it. You'll find that a lot of the time as a beginner to the industry you'll be faced with requests from management and customers that will seem quite daunting or difficult, but just remember that your training in college was less about the languages and more about the ability to learn. Use it. 

Title:

Junior Software Engineer

Role:

Software Development and Web Development

Size of Company:

2 Fulltime Developers(including me) and the Technical Director

Report to:

Technical Director

Technologies regularly used:

C#, VB.NET, ASP, ASP.NET, SQL,PHP, MYSQL, JavaScript, XML, XSL

Are you currently on Permanent or Contract status.

I am currently a permanent member of staff

Which do you prefer in general and why?

Well to be honest I prefer to be a permanent member of staff for the moment, however in the long term what is most rewarding is contracts as you can work for whatever amount of time suits you and take a breather or improve your skillset in the time between contracts.

What trends do you see happening in the next 18 months - 3 years in your specific area of expertise.

I would like to become more proficient in the design aspects of development, this helps with productivity as a programmer and also lays the foundation for a future move into more senior roles and consulting.

What advice would you give to grads / what would you have done differently if you could “reel back the years” career wise.

I'm really quite happy with my career at this stage, its all gone pretty much as planned.

What areas of technology would you advise less experienced IT people to focus / get trained up in the coming years.

 Distributed languages such as Java and .NET are in demand currently, though it really depends on what kind of developer you want to be. If you want to develop for the web then look into things like java, JavaScript, .net and ASP.NET. A lot of companies these days will go for solutions in PHP with a MySQL database as its free and very fast.

 If you want to develop for windows or embedded programming then focus on .NET, C++ and to a degree Java(its not always used for web development after all).

The things you will need to know regardless are XML, XSL , SQL and T-SQL. Being familiar with databases and design concepts is almost as important as the code so be prepared to do a lot of research on these things.

Out of 10, are you happy in your choice of career in IT and if so why?

 7 – My job is challenging, though at the moment not really rewarding as I'm still establishing myself as a developer and don’t expect huge pay and benefits. The hours are long, ther’s a lot of pressure and people are not very forgiving of a lack of experience if (and when) you make mistakes. Its always tough at the bottom of the ladder but things do get better.

What is your favourite top 1-2 technical resource websites ?

http://www.codeproject.com/ - Absolutely invaluable

Top of Page