Ask HN: How do I get out of megacorp IT and get back to hacking?

1 points by ilbe 12y ago ↗ HN

So I pretty much bombed an interview at a fun, young tech company. I've been programming in Java at a megacorp changing 1 line of code or so per month for almost 2 years. For comparison, many "programmers" here don't even know how to program.

I knew I needed to get out. They asked me things like, what's not guaranteed in a HashMap? I answered "order." Good, now what are a couple other implementations of Map, what's different, and how have you used them. I of course haven't used them in this environment.

So, I go on HN and start reading about your guys fun with Scala and Go, remembering my M.S. CS courses on the topics, and start realizing I'm missing out on all the fun.

My question is, anyone else in this position? Anyone made a change successfully? Any advice on getting back to a more developer-friendly environment?

2 comments

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vineet 12y ago ↗

Lots of thoughts, but basically find the fun in coding.

Build Apps in Android, they are also Java based. Try coding challenges, www.hackermeter.com was just launched and they seem cool. Play with new frameworks - things like Play Framework are interesting. And try taking online courses (like the Scala Udacity course).

It will take you some time to dig yourself out of your situation, but you should be able to do it.

Sparverius 12y ago ↗

Do you program during your weekends or evenings? You might want to find some Git projects and contribute to them. It might even be worth taking a sabbatical.