I need some advice regarding my career. I have been working for a major it company in a unix based support project. I have not learnt much in the 2 years except for basics in unix. I am really worried about my career thinking about what would happen next.
I always wanted to be a developer but i landed in a support job and ruined 2 years of my life.
What are the areas that i should concentrate to get a good job in unix? can you please tell me which positions will be there on unix side other than a developer?
yes.. it was just more than basics.
Did installs(rdisting files and sql installs).
FTP activities.
Space monitoring on unix servers.
researching in the logs(transaction).
Which Database Engine(s) do you know ?
Which Operating System(s) do you know?
Though I have just asked these questions, this is purely to gauge your current position.
In practice commercial products come and go, but the basic skills are portable. Just be prepared to convert.
I was once an acknowledged expert in Borland DBase II under MUCCP/M which was built on much experience with IDMS/X under VME/B. Strangely nobody has mentioned any of these product for a few years (lol), but the basic DBA skills were portable to Oracle on any platform.
Administration and internetworking are areas that you could focus on, there continue to be openings in those areas. Do you have unix or linux at home and can delve into some of the examples and projects circulating the internet?
@Thread-O/P: If you want a career in software development, from what i read here you are in the wrong job. Get yourself training in a set of languages interesting you (but at any rate include C in this set, it will teach you invaluable things about computers and their programs) and also get training in the art of algorithmically solving problems. The books i can recommend wholeheartedly for the latter part are the TAOCP (The Art of Computer Programming, Donald Knuth) and Robert Sedgewicks "Algorithms in C". Both phantastic books, which will be accompanying your developer career until its end. Knuth is in fact still teaching me something new every time i open one of the volumes of his book.
@methyl
I have worked on Oracle and DB2 database engines. Operating system is AIX.
@figaro
Thanks for the advice. yes, i have ubuntu installed in my laptop.I can dig into projects and understand the concepts but iam looking for a developer job right now.
@bakunin
I know that iam in the wrong job but iam not able to get a new job for my experience in the field. My profile/ resume suggests that iam currently doing a support job and people are under estimating me. They are not at all interested in my capabilities and the interview is going in the negative direction of proving me wrong.
I have good foundation in C and java and i have done numerous projects on them.(including IBM TGMC contest twice). I have confidance in programing any kind of requirement but just the people not at all interested in my resume.
That is fine. I just think that your mileage will increase massively if you have the portfolio of application development projects to back that up, even if it is volunteering / open source work.
Is it only me or do others too sense some sort of slight contradiction here?
If you have experience you can say so, if you don't - you don't. But maybe the problem is not with your experience, but your presentation of it. It might help to go over your resume with some senior person because maybe what is lacking is not the experience itself, just the way it is advertised.
Then again, maybe your experience is not as strong as it should be (i don't know you therefore i take any possibility into account). There are companies specializing in hiring newcomers without experience at very low rates (from my experience with staff from there Accenture, for instance, is one of them - their consultants always were the hard-working, young, well-educated but lacking any hand-on experience of the things they were talking about type). Grit your teeth, get experience there (and be prepared to be underpaid at an appalling rate) and get a new job after getting the experience.
Totally off-topic. @bakunin
It was indeed Ashton-Tate at the time. Ashton-Tate were bought by Borland in 1991. Completely forgot that. Had much correspondence with Borland about licences.
