Anyone with a career in programming/anything with computers

Can you please answers these questions for a informational interview I have to do.

1. What is your career and how long have you been working on this career?

2. Please describe a typical day in your career.

3. What is your favorite part of your career?

4. What is your least favorite part of your career?

5. What surprised you the most when you started working in this field?

6. If you were a college student again, what would you do differently to prepare you for this career?

7. What are the key personal characteristics for success in this career?

8. What skills do I need to develop to prepare me for this field that I may not be taught in the college classroom?

9. Is it worth it?

 

1.
Part-Time Software Consultant

2.
Two years.

3.
Read code, assess existing systems and processes that are in place.
Write code, write tests, cleanup/fix old code, integrate old and new systems.
Discuss problems/solutions/projects/improvements with whoever I am consulting for at the company (CEO/manager/etc).
Talk to employees who interact with the existing/new software systems.

4.
The person assigning projects or coming up with ideas often has very little idea about how a system is implemented so requirements they set are not always realistic or specified in the right manner.

5.
It amazes me how much bad and untested custom software is used at companies. Usually happens because they hire an independent developer/consultant who works carelessly and as long as the final product "works" no one is the wiser until months or years later.

6.
Post-secondary education is all about assignments where you write code from scratch all the time and almost never modify existing implementations. This is far from how things are in the real world.

7.
Problem solving, Independent, Honest, Reliable, Flexible

8.
Become more independent and a better problem solver. If school is spoon feeding you everything then use other methods to improve in these regards. (e.g. http://projecteuler.net)

9.
I would say yes for the most part. The money can be quite good if you have a set of skills that are not all too common or you are good at almost everything and can pick up new things quickly. Also can sometimes offer the flexibility of working from home and/or picking your own hours depending upon the client. Working for multiple companies can make it more interesting and also might help develop more skills faster.

 

Awesome man, thanks.

 

How much do you make per year?

 

At the moment I am just part-time while in school but I typically get around 18-25$/hour depending on the client and type of work involved. If you use that range of rates and think about it as being full time it comes out to somewhere in the area of 37,000-52,000 per year.

 

Can you please answers these questions for a informational interview I have to do.

1. What is your career and how long have you been working on this career?
Defensive Architecture / Pen Testing.

2. Please describe a typical day in your career.
Dealing with inexperienced morons, paperwork, actually doing my job, then more paperwork. Then I have to shit out a PDF of the paperwork. Then I go home, turn on some music, and work on a project.

3. What is your favorite part of your career?
My paycheck.

4. What is your least favorite part of your career?
Windows "Admins".

5. What surprised you the most when you started working in this field?
Windows Server.

6. If you were a college student again, what would you do differently to prepare you for this career?
Ugh, go back before college, I would have learned unix at a much earlier age.

7. What are the key personal characteristics for success in this career?
Low tolerance, dedication.

8. What skills do I need to develop to prepare me for this field that I may not be taught in the college classroom?
http://www.freebsd.org Programming, Math, OS infrastructure/Design.

9. Is it worth it?
It's a lifestyle choice, you tell me. Is learning to ride a skateboard worth it? Or would you give it up when it becomes difficult or time consuming. It's really hard to say, it's something you do because you enjoy it, you find it fun, otherwise I don't see it being you're career in the first place. Mc'Donald's is always hiring. ;D