[conspire] I am the very model of a Scary Devil Monastery

Wed Nov 1 15:11:07 PDT 2023

Serious answer for the bay area: leetcode.

https://leetcode.com/explore/interview/

While it won't help you get to the interview stage, I've only had one interview in the last 15 years that didn't touch on at least a leetcode easy problem in some way. So you won't get past the interview stage without at least moderate knowledge of common easy problems.

Because there is still a relative glut of candidates, that's the reality of weeding out, unfortunately.

Also, if you can brush up your Cobol, you may find that registering with a contract agency could get you in just on that. Even the lowest contract rates I found (quick ziprecruiter search) are likely more than you're making now (though Cobol contracts do not pay well, alas).

Contracts are where they value long-term experience and are sometimes willing to take risks because it's not a long-term commitment. The downside is it's not a long-term commitment.

-- 
  Deirdre Saoirse Moen
  deirdre at deirdre.net

On Wed, Nov 1, 2023, at 3:01 PM, Elise Scher wrote:
> If I might ask please, how might I get a job in tech, after my teaching 
> contract is over in June? Way back when, I was a computer programmer 
> analyst on legacy systems. Mostly in cobol. For over 16 years.
> I appreciate any info.
> I am currently a moderate to severe special education teacher. Part of 
> what I do is change diapers.
>
> Respectfully,
> Elise Scher
>
> On Wed, Nov 1, 2023 at 2:49 PM Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
>> Nick Moffitt said on Wed, 1 Nov 2023 11:47:35 +0000
>> 
>> >Well now, I just ended a good long run as a SysAdmin/GSA/SRE/whatever
>> >they're calling it this week at a major Linux company.
>> >
>> >I've literally never held another job during the nearly 18 years I've
>> >lived in the UK, and this is my very first P45 of my entire life.
>> >
>> >On advice of counsel, they have many fine qualities and I wish them
>> >well.
>> >
>> >So what's good in the free software world these days?
>> 
>> Everything! Free software is a wishing well. But first:
>> What is a P45? The only P45 I've ever heard of is the Kahr P45 pistol,
>> and I doubt you meant that.
>> 
>> Here are some of my perennial free software favorites:
>> 
>> * Vim
>> * VimOutliner
>> * Bluefish (for HTML creation)
>> * Python
>> * C (and NOT C++ !)
>> * Runit (init system the djb way)
>> * All the GNU utilities
>> * Inkscape
>> * Dovecot
>> * Fetchmail
>> * Procmail
>> * Linux and BSD
>> * The Void Linux distribution
>> * dmenu
>> * UMENU
>> * LXDE, LXQt, and Openbox
>> * ctwm
>> * dash for scripts, bash for interactive
>> * HTML5 plus CSS
>> * Javascript (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
>> * 
>> 
>> As you can see, a lot of my favorites were around before you went to the
>> UK. As Rick can tell you, I'm a retro-grouch greybeard stuck in the
>> past afraid of change curmudgeon and I like it that way :-)
>> 
>> Here are some of the things that have impressed me lately:
>> 
>> * Qutebrowser
>> * Harbour language 
>> * Nginx
>> * Unbound/NSD
>> 
>> There are a lot of new computer languages such as Haskell, Go and Rust.
>> These are extremely promising languages, but they don't match my
>> skillset because I'm much better with smaller instruction sets, and
>> also I'm currently not that good with functional programming. I've
>> investigated them, and you should too, because a lot of people are
>> having great success with them.
>> 
>> There are zillions of new web frameworks. I tried Rails for awhile in
>> 2004: Not a fan. Python has Django, Flask and Bottle. Bottle is the
>> simplest, and it's pretty good, but I've had limited need to create web
>> apps. Perl has one too, but in my opinion Python, Lua and even Ruby
>> have surpassed Perl. Perl was great when it had no competition, but
>> those days are gone.
>> 
>> From what I hear, knowledge of the whole virtual
>> machines/containers/mass-deployers (Ansible, Chef, Jenkins, etc) is
>> necessary for jobs and contracts in today's software industry.
>> 
>> Some relatively new softwares I think suck include systemd, pulseaudio,
>> dbus, and Gnome3.
>> 
>> SteveT
>> 
>> Steve Litt 
>> 
>> Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21
>> 
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