[LRUG] [JOBS] Junior Ruby Dev (Advice?)

[Garry Shutler]

It sounds like you have a lot of experience, just not in Ruby. Whilst you
may not have much commercial experience in Ruby, you do have experience in
developing and maintaining software over time, working in a team, etc. The
challenges there are pretty much the same regardless of language so you
shouldn't think of yourself as starting from the ground floor.

Sure, it might take you a few months to crank out Ruby as fast as someone
with more Ruby experience, but you may well be making better decisions to
make up for that. Hopefully some pairing and/or code review will help you
get up to speed with Ruby quicker than that.

Perhaps look at places with a mixed/polyglot stack. If they have two or
more languages in play they'll understand how your general experience can
help regardless of language. If they've got some C# in there that may help
to land the position and you can use that as a stepping stone towards a
full-time Ruby position within their company or at another one a few years
down the line.

I know Zopa are hiring and have a mix of Ruby and C# (I used to work there)
http://www.zopa.com/working-at-zopa/jobs/software-developer as an example.
I have an inkling that Lending Club have a similar mix but are only
advertising for Ruby at the moment
https://www.fundingcircle.com/blog/jobs/senior-application-developer-rubyrailsfloss-full-time/

Hope that helps.

Garry

*Garry Shutler*
@gshutler <http://twitter.com/gshutler>
gshutler.com

On 19 June 2015 at 10:52, Kevin Fullerton <lrug at kenwa-solutions.co.uk>
wrote:

> On a similar (slightly related) note, what are the best options for those
> of us that have more commitments and more experience outside of Ruby who
> would like to move into a more Ruby based role?
>
> Case in point, I've been working as a developer mainly in Microsoft
> technologies (started out with VB3, moved with VB through to VB6 until .NET
> and have done primarily C# since) and have a wealth of experience doing
> development, support around many more niche products (Windows thick-client
> CRM apps for example) and wife + children means after work I don't get the
> chance I'd necessarily require to build an impressive portfolio of
> Ruby/Rails projects on GitHub to show what level I'm at in that regard.
>
> I've started applying for Ruby based jobs but the fear I have is due to my
> length of service/speciality so far commercially, any job I go for which is
> primarily Ruby based is going to either a) have a wealth of people who do
> have commercial Ruby experience and so pass me over or b) be offering a
> salary far below what I currently earn as I'd need to go in at a more
> junior level (which if it was just me I would have no issues with to get a
> chance to learn and prove the skills I have, however I have a wife +
> children to support as well)
>
> Cheers!
>
> Kevin
>
> Case in p
>
> On 2015-06-18 22:33, amscott at openmailbox.org wrote:
>
>> Dear LRUG,
>>
>> A few months ago I posted here looking for job postings for a Junior
>> developer role. As a result of the replies, I ended up having a few
>> interviews with a few good companies, who liked me, thought I had
>> potential, but were dissuaded by my lack of commercial experience.
>>
>> Those companies told me reapply in due course once I had the
>> prerequisite experience. Having worked on a startup of my own, and
>> having an 80 hour a week work ethic, I felt obviously that I would be
>> able to make up the shortfall caused by this.
>>
>> Basically what I'm asking is are there any roles for people without
>> commercial experience, but who are prepared to put the work in? My
>> Github shows that I am industrious and don't necessarily need my hand
>> held to the same extent as others. Any advice on this front would be
>> much appreciated.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Andrew
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>
> --
> --
>
> Kevin Fullerton
>
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