I'm a computer nerd. I've been one since I first started playing with the Duke Nukem 3d level editor prompting me to get a book on C++ and start learning programming. I've always had an interest in computers when I got out of the military I landed a job putting them together for a company at pretty modest pay.
5 years into that job the owner found out I like to program, now I hadn't been doing a ton of it but I messed around with lua and javascript a bit. HTML of course. Anyway he had me start developing for his cloud service using server side javascript on a platform he maintained. I gained a lot of experience over the next 5 years in a mish mash of different areas. I made several web applications using our cloud, created a windows service in c# so our cloud could interface with our video servers, learned how to compile OpenWRT with custom configurations, even modified the bluez files to get it working how we wanted. I designed a back end for SoCs using LUA to interface with the web, tied in third party APIs for an internet music service, integrated Amazon Alexa into our cloud platform using. I taught myself Node.js to test it all at home, even set up a mongoDB database and Oauth2 using mongoose and passport.
So while I've had experience in a lot of different things and have a knack for just figuring stuff out, well it's time I need to consider how to turn this into a professional career. Our company got purchased by a larger one so I had to find new employment. I was making 17.50 an hour here, pretty modest pay compared to a lot of developer salaries, and I was extremely close to landing a position for 70k a year as a node developer. However I was very transparent about my lack of experience coding with a team, and that I was completely self taught. They decided my skills were too junior and I ended up getting a different job through a friend at a slight pay raise. I'll be working with two other programmers on a lot of proprietary systems for a medical company.
So I'm looking forward, I certainly don't want to be stuck at 20/hr for the rest of my life. I'm 32 and not getting any younger, and coming so close to getting a position for nearly double what I've been making for a while has really got me thinking about how to pursue some certifications that could land me a professional career.
The AWS certifications are certainly intriguing to me, however I question the ability to land a job with that certification alone. I have no experience managing an AWS server outside of a simple lambda function I created for Alexa, and I can't see how I could get experience in a position like that. I'm looking for any advice on ways to pursue a professional career, what certifications are worth pursuing, and how feasible it would be to land a high paying position given my career history. Any advice, stories, whatever would be greatly appreciated.
5 years into that job the owner found out I like to program, now I hadn't been doing a ton of it but I messed around with lua and javascript a bit. HTML of course. Anyway he had me start developing for his cloud service using server side javascript on a platform he maintained. I gained a lot of experience over the next 5 years in a mish mash of different areas. I made several web applications using our cloud, created a windows service in c# so our cloud could interface with our video servers, learned how to compile OpenWRT with custom configurations, even modified the bluez files to get it working how we wanted. I designed a back end for SoCs using LUA to interface with the web, tied in third party APIs for an internet music service, integrated Amazon Alexa into our cloud platform using. I taught myself Node.js to test it all at home, even set up a mongoDB database and Oauth2 using mongoose and passport.
So while I've had experience in a lot of different things and have a knack for just figuring stuff out, well it's time I need to consider how to turn this into a professional career. Our company got purchased by a larger one so I had to find new employment. I was making 17.50 an hour here, pretty modest pay compared to a lot of developer salaries, and I was extremely close to landing a position for 70k a year as a node developer. However I was very transparent about my lack of experience coding with a team, and that I was completely self taught. They decided my skills were too junior and I ended up getting a different job through a friend at a slight pay raise. I'll be working with two other programmers on a lot of proprietary systems for a medical company.
So I'm looking forward, I certainly don't want to be stuck at 20/hr for the rest of my life. I'm 32 and not getting any younger, and coming so close to getting a position for nearly double what I've been making for a while has really got me thinking about how to pursue some certifications that could land me a professional career.
The AWS certifications are certainly intriguing to me, however I question the ability to land a job with that certification alone. I have no experience managing an AWS server outside of a simple lambda function I created for Alexa, and I can't see how I could get experience in a position like that. I'm looking for any advice on ways to pursue a professional career, what certifications are worth pursuing, and how feasible it would be to land a high paying position given my career history. Any advice, stories, whatever would be greatly appreciated.
