Java and career

[Andrew]

Hello, I am currently studying for a Computer Science degree and I am
looking for a career in java programming at the end. What is the job market
like at the moment for java positions? Are there plently of jobs avaliable?

I have 6 months experience which has been gained from two 3 month work based
placements. Would this be enough experience or might this not be an
essential factor which employers would look for?

Hope somone can help.

Andrew

[Alex Warren]

Post by Andrew
Hello, I am currently studying for a Computer Science degree and I am
looking for a career in java programming at the end. What is the job market
like at the moment for java positions? Are there plently of jobs avaliable?

I think you should be a little less restricted in your career ambitions. I've
recently started working for LogicaCMG and if all I wanted to do (or could do)
was program Java I'd have a hard time finding projects to work on.

I also get the feeling that if all I ever wanted to do was programming, I'd have
to live in India.


Alex

[Chris Higham]

Post by Alex Warren

Post by Andrew
Hello, I am currently studying for a Computer Science degree and I am
looking for a career in java programming at the end. What is the job market
like at the moment for java positions? Are there plently of jobs avaliable?

I think you should be a little less restricted in your career ambitions. I've
recently started working for LogicaCMG and if all I wanted to do (or could do)
was program Java I'd have a hard time finding projects to work on.
I also get the feeling that if all I ever wanted to do was programming, I'd have
to live in India.

Hey Alex - how are you finding Logica? They keep offering me interviews
but I've accepted with Accenture. Which part are you working in?

[Alex Warren]

Post by Chris Higham

Post by Alex Warren
I think you should be a little less restricted in your career ambitions. I've
recently started working for LogicaCMG and if all I wanted to do (or could do)
was program Java I'd have a hard time finding projects to work on.

Hey Alex - how are you finding Logica? They keep offering me interviews
but I've accepted with Accenture. Which part are you working in?

It's pretty good at the moment. *Keep* offering you interviews?

Accenture will pay you better but I get the impression they're less flexible.

I work for IDT (Industry, Distribution and Transport).


Alex

[Chris Higham]

Post by Alex Warren

Post by Chris Higham

Post by Alex Warren
I think you should be a little less restricted in your career ambitions. I've
recently started working for LogicaCMG and if all I wanted to do (or could do)
was program Java I'd have a hard time finding projects to work on.

Hey Alex - how are you finding Logica? They keep offering me interviews
but I've accepted with Accenture. Which part are you working in?

It's pretty good at the moment. *Keep* offering you interviews?
Accenture will pay you better but I get the impression they're less flexible.
I work for IDT (Industry, Distribution and Transport).

They offered me an interview, I told them I had a job thanks but their
system doesn't seem to have recorded this fact (despite me telling them
again) and keeps asking me to come to interviews!

I get the impression LogicaCMG is more hands on than consultancy at
accenture but I won't really know that until I start.

Have you ended up in London or just outside? I remember the location of
some of their offices being a factor that put me off a bit.

Chris.

[Alex Warren]

Post by Chris Higham
I get the impression LogicaCMG is more hands on than consultancy at
accenture but I won't really know that until I start.

I think that's probably right. There's no long training period - after the
induction you start doing real work, and there are no "rotations" or other such
silliness.

Post by Chris Higham
Have you ended up in London or just outside? I remember the location of
some of their offices being a factor that put me off a bit.

My "base office" is Leatherhead which is just south-west of London, off the M25.
I live in Acton so it's a slight pain to get to. However I've actually spent
most of my time in the London offices, and I think my base office is going to
get changed to the main London office anyway. But if I get work on a client site
I could end up working anywhere. You are allowed to exercise choice though, so
you wouldn't get forced to work somewhere you didn't want to.


Alex

[Imran Ghory]

Post by Chris Higham
Hey Alex - how are you finding Logica? They keep offering me interviews
but I've accepted with Accenture. Which part are you working in?

my commiserations, I wouldn't work for Accenture if they paid me twice
what my current job does. Apparently it's full of idiots who couldn't
program to save their lives (if you're doing management stuff it might
be ok) I've heard bad stuff about them from virtually everyone
(clients, competitors, employees). I'm not saying that they give you
crap pay/holidays or anything (it's probably the same at a lot of
mega-consultancies but Accenture just has a higher profile), just that
there's no way I'd do it.


re the job front in general a lot of companies are having trouble
finding good CS graduates, especially consultancies, a while back I
got a call from Detica which went something like this "(1) can you do
an interview this week (2) can you start next week ?"

Imran

[Mr Power]

Post by Imran Ghory

Post by Chris Higham
Hey Alex - how are you finding Logica? They keep offering me interviews
but I've accepted with Accenture. Which part are you working in?

my commiserations, I wouldn't work for Accenture if they paid me twice
what my current job does. Apparently it's full of idiots who couldn't
program to save their lives

The same could be said of many companies.

Post by Imran Ghory
(if you're doing management stuff it might
be ok) I've heard bad stuff about them from virtually everyone
(clients, competitors, employees).

What I find amazing is how successfully they've managed to rebrand
themselves, from a company being associated with the Enron fraud,
to a company that people now think is prestigous and desirable to work for.

Post by Imran Ghory
I'm not saying that they give you
crap pay/holidays or anything (it's probably the same at a lot of
mega-consultancies but Accenture just has a higher profile), just that
there's no way I'd do it.
re the job front in general a lot of companies are having trouble
finding good CS graduates, especially consultancies, a while back I
got a call from Detica which went something like this "(1) can you do
an interview this week (2) can you start next week ?"

And what did you say?

[Imran Ghory]

Post by Mr Power

Post by Imran Ghory

Post by Chris Higham
Hey Alex - how are you finding Logica? They keep offering me interviews
but I've accepted with Accenture. Which part are you working in?

my commiserations, I wouldn't work for Accenture if they paid me twice
what my current job does. Apparently it's full of idiots who couldn't
program to save their lives

The same could be said of many companies.

Yes, but most of them don't pretend to be technology consultancies :-)

Post by Mr Power
What I find amazing is how successfully they've managed to rebrand
themselves, from a company being associated with the Enron fraud,
to a company that people now think is prestigous and desirable to work for.

Not at Bristol - from what I've seen none of the CS people who went to
Accenture presentation decided to work for them, although several got
offers.

(anyway I think you're getting confused the accountancy firm of
Andersen seperated from AC ages before the enron scandal)

Post by Mr Power
And what did you say?

No, as I'd been made the offer for my current job several hours before
detica called me.

[Mr Power]

Post by Imran Ghory

Post by Mr Power
The same could be said of many companies.

Yes, but most of them don't pretend to be technology consultancies :-)

How is it pretending if they're consistently
winning the big lucrative government contracts?

Post by Imran Ghory

Post by Mr Power
What I find amazing is how successfully they've managed to rebrand
themselves, from a company being associated with the Enron fraud,
to a company that people now think is prestigous and desirable to work for.

Not at Bristol - from what I've seen none of the CS people who went to
Accenture presentation decided to work for them, although several got
offers.

Was the presentation that bad, or does their terrible
reputation precede them?

Post by Imran Ghory
(anyway I think you're getting confused the accountancy firm of
Andersen seperated from AC ages before the enron scandal)

I think you're getting confused about what I said,
I said associated, not involved with, (that has never been proven).

You don't think it's a tad coincidental that their name change
became effective just as the Anderson name became mud
as a result of the Enron mess?

[Matthew Huntbach]

Post by Andrew
Hello, I am currently studying for a Computer Science degree and I am
looking for a career in java programming at the end. What is the job market
like at the moment for java positions? Are there plently of jobs avaliable?
I have 6 months experience which has been gained from two 3 month work based
placements. Would this be enough experience or might this not be an
essential factor which employers would look for?
Hope somone can help.

A search in http://www.jobserve.co.uk/ on "Java" gave over 3000 jobs.
Try putting "java jobs uk" into Google for more links.

As has already been said, you need to think beyond purely programming
in Java as a career, but a search like this shows Java skills are in
demand even at this time when the IT jobs market is still rather
depressed (but there is now clear evidence it's picking up).

Getting your first job as a new graduate is difficult - it's
frustrating to see it's almost standard to ask for at least two years'
experience. However work placement experience can be helpful at least
to show the working world isn't entirely alien to you.

Matthew Huntbach

[sunil panchal]

Post by Andrew
Hello, I am currently studying for a Computer Science degree and I am
looking for a career in java programming at the end. What is the job market
like at the moment for java positions? Are there plently of jobs avaliable?

at the mo i'm trying to find myself something in software testing but
keeping my eyes open for anything else i feel i could potentially get to
grips with for a career (e.g. java)... my experience from recent jobhunting
is that there are plenty of grad opportunities for java positions. but then
i also expect the competition for those positions to be really high too,
lots of compsci grads around these days.

Post by Andrew
I have 6 months experience which has been gained from two 3 month work based
placements. Would this be enough experience or might this not be an
essential factor which employers would look for?

most of the grad level jobs ask for 1 years experience... which if you had a
sandwich year could be doable but for most graduates could be tricky.
certainly for me, i have about 5 months experience only. i have been keeping
my eyes open for those positions which count experience as desirable rather
than a necessity, which are much much thinner on the ground but there ARE
opportunities. certainly more than some other industries for which i am
grateful! some folk i know are having a right 'mare trying to get a job
after uni.

so if you want to maximise your chances and be more of a chooser than a
begger then yeah, definitely get more experience. i wish i had more!

good luck,
sunil

[Andy Tucker]

Post by Andrew
Hello, I am currently studying for a Computer Science degree and I am
looking for a career in java programming at the end. What is the job market
like at the moment for java positions? Are there plently of jobs avaliable?
I have 6 months experience which has been gained from two 3 month work based
placements. Would this be enough experience or might this not be an
essential factor which employers would look for?

Most companies seem to be making a shift towards Java in some way or form,
particularly with the recent rise in web services. I work for Jaguar, and
the web services team are in the process of moving from Perl-based solutions
to Java/J2EE based stuff. Admittedly though Java is only a small percentage
of what we do, because there's FAR more to do in a software development
position than churning out code...

As Matthew said though, there's plenty of Java jobs out there if oyu look
hard enough. My previous job was as a Java programmer for Derby university -
I was taken on with no commercial experience of development and the salary
was 19k, which isn't bad at all for a first programming position.

Andy