Freelance System Operations/DevOps Engineer from Belgium. Mostly working AWS and Kubernetes. Also have some experience with Python, and learning some Golang when I find the time.
When I left school, I started working as a Lotus Notes developer, and administrator afterwards. I switched jobs quite a few times, but I always stayed in the Lotus/IBM world as this had become my area of expertise. I wasn't the most sexy or modern technology, but it paid quite well as people with this kind of expertise were hard to find.
A few years go, I got tired of working with Lotus technology (mostly in a sysops-role). IMHO this technology is way overdue its experiation date, and I got frustrated that I didn't get the chance with more "sexy" technologies. I was applying for other jobs but I never got hired as I didn't had the required experience with new technologies (I was trying to get into the cloud-computing areas).
I took quite a drastic and impulsive decision: I quit my job. I started doing AWS courses on my own time and money, and earned my AWS certifications. I decided to give freelancing a try, and went scouting for cloud/AWS projects.
The first 2 years were hard. I had my certifications, and despite the fact that I had a lot of experience with sysops in general, companies were reluctant to hire my due to lack of AWS experience. So I "under-priced" myself a bit, and luckily I managed to get a few projects and prove hands-on that I knew this stuff.
I'm now freelancing for almost 4 years (I'm 39 now), and I'm happy with what I'm doing now and I no longer need to "under-price" myself.
This way of performing a career-change is not for everyone. If you want to go this route, my advice is:
Being 5 months without a project as a freelancer (which means no income) is stressful. Very stressful! I spent nights calculating how long I could keep this up without losing all my money.
No matter how many certifications you have, or think how good you are, companies want production experience. Hobby projects are nice, but are almost never a factor in hiring you (unless you are straight out of school).
If you lack this production experience, money is your only mean to bargain. Like I said, I was forced to work for a cheap daily rate the first 2 years, and that helped my score projects, and get more hands-on experience.
For most jobs, showing 2 years experience is more than enough. If you are going for an architect role, I would say 5 years.
Still, I do not regret my decision and I would never go back. So far my freelance experience is going great. The first 5 months however, were the one of the most stressful months in my life. I'm not sure I would be so impulsive again.
Good advices. It's true companies are dumb shy at recruting programmers with no experiences that's understandable. When I had my own company in the past I had helped people find job by recruting them for getting some experiences in it then they were recruitable after that :)
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I have a similar story:
When I left school, I started working as a Lotus Notes developer, and administrator afterwards. I switched jobs quite a few times, but I always stayed in the Lotus/IBM world as this had become my area of expertise. I wasn't the most sexy or modern technology, but it paid quite well as people with this kind of expertise were hard to find.
A few years go, I got tired of working with Lotus technology (mostly in a sysops-role). IMHO this technology is way overdue its experiation date, and I got frustrated that I didn't get the chance with more "sexy" technologies. I was applying for other jobs but I never got hired as I didn't had the required experience with new technologies (I was trying to get into the cloud-computing areas).
I took quite a drastic and impulsive decision: I quit my job. I started doing AWS courses on my own time and money, and earned my AWS certifications. I decided to give freelancing a try, and went scouting for cloud/AWS projects.
The first 2 years were hard. I had my certifications, and despite the fact that I had a lot of experience with sysops in general, companies were reluctant to hire my due to lack of AWS experience. So I "under-priced" myself a bit, and luckily I managed to get a few projects and prove hands-on that I knew this stuff.
I'm now freelancing for almost 4 years (I'm 39 now), and I'm happy with what I'm doing now and I no longer need to "under-price" myself.
This way of performing a career-change is not for everyone. If you want to go this route, my advice is:
Still, I do not regret my decision and I would never go back. So far my freelance experience is going great. The first 5 months however, were the one of the most stressful months in my life. I'm not sure I would be so impulsive again.
Good advices. It's true companies are dumb shy at recruting programmers with no experiences that's understandable. When I had my own company in the past I had helped people find job by recruting them for getting some experiences in it then they were recruitable after that :)