Location: Bangalore, India
Remote : Yes
Willing to relocate: Yes but right now enrolled in a fellowship program
Technologies: Ruby on Rails, Javascript, Git, Linux, HTML/CSS
Resume: On Request
Email : In Profile
Github: https://github.com/santumahapatra
I am programming for the past 7 years, professionally for the last 3 years.
I have worked mainly in the ASP .NET and Java stack. I am in the process of moving out of them. I am looking for a junior to mid-level position as a full stack engineer working in Ruby on Rails or/and Javascript.
Open to contract/freelance work.
I also have extensive writing and documentation experience.
Hey, I have done the course multiple times. It is not cultish at all.
Even though some rules like not pointing the feet, segregation etc. look very rigid. But they make perfect sense as you understand the concept behind it all.
The rules are made so that there is as little disturbance as possible to your meditation practice. In an ideal meditation retreat of this kind, a person stays alone and meditates alone. So some rigid rules are made to help create such a condition.
The best thing what I liked was I did not have to believe in anything to start with. You benefit a lot if you practice the meditation and forget about understanding every piece of information.
I am in the same shoes like you. And asked the same question to someone. I felt like sharing my findings with you.
I am interested in learning game programming but have to make time. Currently I am off to a trip volunteering and would return on 13th June. I am also working on a startup idea.
But I know, I will make time for doing something if I really want it.
Most of your specific questions are answered on the internet.
It's education. If you want to stay 20 years in this industry, you have to invest in your education. Don't worry, just do it. Solving the problems would make you a better problem solver.
"I feel that most prospective employers don't really care about that, though."
That's right. Most prospective employers don't care. Don't work for them. If you have to, read my last answer.
"In otherwords, is SICP worthy of a CV bullet point."
Yes, really good developers would appreciate the effort. Employers won't care but the senior developer taking your technical interview may appreciate it.
"I should be focusing on more practical projects before looking for a first job."
Yes, you must do that. Nothing beats showing a perfectly operational website. And depending on the profile you are targeting it can be a Android game or Web game or scraper or anything. Don't worry your github profile yet. Once you start building stuff it will come alive.
You can also check out https://www.udacity.com/ for some practical courses. They are taught by awesome people and are free. All these courses focus on a project to teach you basics of computer science. And you get real world skills.
I have the opposite problem. I have too many ideas. I am getting development skills to turn some of them into reality.
You cannot judge ideas as good or bad, unless you test them out with the right target set.
Ideas can be bad if they are based on wrong assumptions and the only way to refute an assumption is to produce evidence contrary to it. And customer validation is the best step.
Some steps to come up with ideas (good or bad) :
1. Help people, try to find every opportunity to people. Most of my ideas present themselves as a solution to someone else's problem. Volunteer, help in office, help someone launch their biz using your development magic etc. etc.
There are just too many problems in the world. Check out http://www.founder2be.com/ . Maybe you can get some interesting problem.
2. Try to make a list of 10 ideas everyday, doesn't matter good or bad.
3.Some ideas are born out of desperation. An awesome Evernote client for Linux anyone? I am still hopeful. But sometimes you have no other choice but to scratch your own itch.
4. Start assigning yourself interesting stuff (that you actually have fun to do) rather than anyone else dictating your day.
This is the toughest part. You have to come up with ideas that are fun and/or interesting and/or meaningful to you.
Most of the time we are working on problems dictated by boss, customers, monetary pressures. Only when we are working to satisfy our creativity we will be satisfied.
It is difficult and can only happen if you are just trying something for fun or able to set the vision in your startup.
If you can align your goals with the vision of your organization, that would be awesome. But in most of the cases it is not so.
Anyways back to work, got to ramp up my development skills to contribute more to the world. All the best, Sir.
You are totally right on this. The world needs more wealth.
The problems of poverty or homelessness can be solved by acess to products at lower prices. We need more makers and hackers who can do that.
As we grow older, we like to conform to the societal ideals of whatever if safe and suppress our tendency to creative seek out solutions to problems by creating.
Are we creating the right kind of "WEALTH"?
This should be a question people (who are doing startups) should ask themselves.
IMHO, that is why socialist Governments providing education, healthcare, roads and security sound popular to some people. All these are part of wealth that are provided to citizens at low prices.
But in a capitalistic economy, it is left to individuals (entrepreneurs) to provide this services at competitive prices.
One way of looking to solve the problems of the poor and deprived people would be to provide them services of education, healthcare, housing etc. at ultra-competitive prices.
I know it is easier said than done. But it is something worth doing.
You can also post an email to me if you are feeling low.
Not for the sake of argumentation but I have a slightly different take on what you have written. So some points IMHO :
.."I have two aspiring github projects with growing communities."
Great, you are a better programmer than me. Please mentor me.
You can train fresh young programmers anywhere in the world. Teaching is a great morale booster and you will be changing lives of your students.
.."But I don't know how to capitalize on that."
Gotta learn it the hard way.
Building a business is a different skill set than programming. Try something, fail and try something else. You will learn it and get better at it. The more skilled you get, the better you will be.
.."I don’t want to work for typical internet businesses like a web framework, analytics startup, or a newspaper publisher. I don’t feel enthusiastic about selling advertisements or stuff that’s purely virtual."
I agree with you on finding a more meaningful job. But selling advertisements is great if you are advertising a good cause. Making a web framework like Wordpress powering millions of blogs is just awesome.
Again it is your personal choice but making someones life better is better than doing something. And doing something is better than doing nothing.
I was in the same place as yours 4 years back. I am out of college now with a full-time job and almost out of debt. Here's what had worked for me. It might not work for you.
You have real world skills like building a web app and have a part time job. I had none.
I was down with 6 courses with F grades and no idea what to do with my life. I was about to quit college. I knew I was going somewhere wrong with the notion of world I had.
I took a Vipassana course. The courses are of 10 days duration, independent of religious stuff and free of charge to all those who wish to do so. Here the link : http://www.dhamma.org/. It is like a gym for the mind. The more you do it, the more you increase your focus, willpower and awareness. It becomes easier to deal with problems in life with a strong mind. It also forces you to look at life directly rather than deluding yourself with self pity or fantasies.
It was hard for me to realize that :
1) I am dissatisfied only when I am not getting something that I want.
2) There is a price to pay for everything I want.
For me at that moment, the most important thing was to pass out of college since I had taken a loan to study there. I was really interested to know, what I was doing different than the guys who were the toppers with all 'A's.
One of the toppers told me, he really did 3 things :
1) Attended every class and took notes of almost everything.
2) Tried to understand everything told by the Professor during the lecture or the same day itself, paraphrashing the notes if required.
3) Teach other students the stuff before the exams.
(Most important since we retain 90% of the stuff we teach or apply straight away in case of programming)
I almost remember the day he told me this stuff. But did I implement it straight away? No I just could not. I could not come out of my old habits straight away. That semester I flunked in almost all of the courses.
But the next semester I decided to implement all the three from Day One. The first two were quite easy. I was really concerned about the last part.
I had reservations who would try to understand stuff from me. But I think I was repeating "Theory of Computation", just before the exams some student asked me to help with something. I asked him to come sometime in the night. I explained concepts to an audience of nine students who were taking the course. I passed that course easily.
The last two semesters were very easy after forming those habits and I easily passed all the previously flunked courses as well. I even had time to be a part of a band and teach Java programming to a group of fellow students.
I would not say the whole journey was easy. Forming new habits are difficult and it needs a lot of motivation. Regular Vipassana meditation helped. My mom helped me with all kinds of support - financial as well as emotional. Sometimes when I was really down, I reminded myself that she believed in me and no matter what happened I was going to be brave enough to survive college.
Again this is my story but it is you who has to try new stuff and habits to yourself to go from "where you are" to "where you want to be". It is your habits who make you are. You can change those habits. Other people have done so. So can you.
All the best from my side. Would really like to see you stuff making HN frontpage.
I am a intermediate programmer with just over one year experience.
Everywhere I read about the power of lisp and really want to use it. If it is so good why ain't it is used more?
It is very easy to get sites running using ASP .NET, wordpress, RoR or Django. I have worked on production sites using the first two. And personally tried on small projects on the last two.
* Full Stack Developer with Rails and Javascript Experience
* Programming for the past 7 years, professionally for 3 years
* Extensive writing and documentation experience
* Familiar with Agile and TDD processes
* Github - https://github.com/santumahapatra
* Email - In profile
Interested in full time or part time work.