Many of us started out in non-development jobs and worked our way into full time coding. Tech support jobs are ok but I would focus more on QA jobs. This might allow you to do some automated testing using clojure/clojurescript and given that test code isn't given the scrutiny that dev code goes through, you might be able to justify clojure to mgmt.
I started out in Product Support - a role between dev and the rest of the organization - these positions are usually only found in a very large tech organizations with a physical product (our company invented automated attendant voicemail.) As a product support engineer, I managed alpha and beta trials, wrote documentation, tested features, gave feedback to engineering, etc. This might be something you could try. A third alternative is to do contract programming/consulting. This might be a harder sell but often can get you around geographical restrictions. Travel might be involved... Good luck! Alan On Tuesday, July 22, 2014 6:03:13 PM UTC-7, VaedaStrike wrote: > > TL;DR - Got as close to a dream job as I could have wanted, after 6 months > lost it. Now, with only experience in Clojure and Scala, and seemingly > stuck in Utah, not sure what's the best next course of action. > > I'm putting this out there because of all the good experiences I've had > over the years with people in the Clojure community. I very much value what > you all have done and do. As best I can tell you're the salt of the earth. > > I'm a rather newly minted programmer. Six months on the job. > > I claim Clojure as my first language simply because I never saw my initial > tryst with VB.NET and Visual Studio as being much more than tinkering/not > really understanding. > > It's kind of a long and convoluted story as to how I got here, I can share > it if anyone's interested, but for now let's just say that my 6 years of > trying to learn Clojure in my spare time landed me my first official > programming gig ... learning Scala. > > Being a bit tied to Utah (fiscally and family-wise at the moment) this > seemed to be the best chance I had at starting my professional programming > career on as close to my terms as possible, so I took it. > > I still like Clojure better than Scala (though I've learned a lot using > Scala), but these last six months programming in a professional environment > has cemented for me that I absolutely love programming. Being able to work > in a code repository of functional, industry oriented code and doing real > stuff that made a difference, I'll just say I never thought work could be > so enjoyable, nor that I'd ever have the chance to work with so many smart > and good people. > > Unfortunately, as an outgrowth of my newness, company politics and a > change in team management I was told to look for a job elsewhere. > > I got right to work and applied to everything that looked anything close > to what I then had. > > I was amazed, the first four I applied to all responded well. And as a > plus they all were either using, or experimenting with either Clojure or > Scala. > > Unfortunately, as unexpected as the job loss was for myself, it hit my > wife even harder, we've not had an easy time our first 4 years of marriage > on the economic side of things and emotionally she was rather paralyzed by > this news. This combined in an unfortunate way with the fact that all four > places quickly responded to me and, also in a difficult way, with a few > decisions in how to approach the coding challenges I was given. In short, I > was not terribly impressive for any of the four companies. Ironically the > one company where I felt I did the worst has been the most understanding > and is willing to give me a second chance after I take a couple of > challenges they've given me. > > The problem I'm looking for help with is to know how to approach this in > the best way that keeps me bringing in food for and keeping a roof over > the head of my wife and son, all this hopefully without sidelining my > career goals, to the extent that that's possible. > > While I can't go and do a hard ruling out of anything, the whole > relocation idea to where jobs are would be an insanely tough sell. I'm not > sure if anyone would take on a remote worker as green as myself. And here, > where I'm at in Utah, is hardly full of companies ready to take some guy > who has 6 months of Scala experience and only self-taught (and what most > would consider 'hobby' experience) with Clojure. Aside from the fact that > very few even know what those languages are is the fact that since I've > been so focused on functional programming I'm really hard pressed to show > people what I know and what I can do. And then finding someone willing to > take a chance on me. > > I'd like to avoid the tech support jobs I've had before as they would both > pay substantially less AND they would be significant distractions on the > time for me to move forward and learn. I just feel like I'm on the cusp of > being a very productive and capable programmer and, at the same time, like > it's all trying to get away from me. I'm trying to learn and apply what I > know in the time between applying for work and handling all the other > miscellany connected with that and keeping my little family going. And > while I can't rule out school I'm having a hard time justifying it in my > mind when I feel like I'm so close to being a very capable programmer. > > I've really studied a great deal on a significant number of things, > everything from Relational database theory to things like REST and HATEOAS > as well as having used a little of Instaparse a previous job (one of the > big helps in getting the Scala job). Most recently I've been dabbling in Om > and Pedestal in my own time, I've also gotten my hands wet with a bit of > CSS & SASS. And, while not entirely connected to coding, I grew up around > Illustrator and Photoshop and am very conversant in Graphic Design (but > most of my experience is for printed mediums). > > Any advice or suggestions? > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
