tryanother

interesting. i'm guessing from your spelling of "programmes" that you are not in the US - where are these programs you speak of? i'd be very interested in reading about them.

Yes, thank you. The white knight attitude can be very frustrating and give the opposite of the desired effect. We are an asset, not something to be saved from other fields.

Agreed. I am only one data point, but i have no degree and I am a female dev. We're out there.

This is an important point. While the industry isn't always super welcoming to women, that isn't the whole problem. Lots of women just have other interests. We'll probably see gender parity in IT when we see gender parity in nursing.

yes, you're right about a) and b).

the bottom line was that he didn't understand my code, and he thought i wasn't smart enough to write it.

So true. Best to stay clear of those kinds of people.

Thank you, I will take this advice to heart.

I think this is exactly what I will do. I've already completely excused myself from the politics and any interpersonal issues that come up. They are not relevant (and I work with one particularly abhorrent racist/bigot) so I just don't even engage.

This is good to know. I think a startup would be a great fit for me in many ways.

Thank you for the perspective. I take the requirements on job listings very literally and definitely underestimate what I have to offer. I will broaden my search. I am not in a tech hot spot, but also not in the middle of nowhere.

i am quickly adopting it as my general policy, too. i'm tired of the insecurity, neediness, and negativity that accompanies that mentality (along with the things you mentioned).

ugh, i would imagine not.

thank you for the link! if i had the experience you guys were looking for, i would absolutely go for it.

this is my first job in the industry, and i've only been there for less than 3 months. i'm afraid i won't be able to find another job with my experience.

ha - that's a good point. i hadn't thought of that.

thanks, i will definitely update my resume. i moved 800 miles for this job, so there's an extra layer of frustration there, too. i don't want it to have been for nothing.

i'm not sure if that would work with him, but i will give it some consideration.

Thank you for that feedback. These are the kinds of thing I can't learn on my own. There is absolutely no formal code review, much to my surprise; in fact, the closest thing to "process" here is to push to UAT as fast as humanly possible. I would love to work in an environment where I felt as though I were actually learning from my coworkers and from the process.

Thank you so much for this. I will start going to meet ups ASAP. I have worked so hard to get into this industry (I am almost completely self taught, no tech degree) and all I want is to work with passionate people who are inspired by my passion. I want to make awesome things and be better than I was yesterday. This current job is so disheartening.

That's what I am afraid of. I am very uncomfortable with the culture of conniving and suspicion that seems to be rampant here.

I only know his history in broad strokes. He has a "reputation," I just don't know the specifics. He hated the guy that I replaced - 3 months later and he is still publicly bad mouthing the guy. Very unprofessional, makes for a hostile work environment.

Yes, he is a dev. He thought I copied/pasted. He did not ask about licensing.

He also told me that "inner JavaScript classes" are inappropriate for enterprise code. I asked him to explain what he was talking about - he meant my object constructors. He said I could not create new java (yes, java) classes in my JavaScript code. ????

this is exactly my experience with the bootcamp i did. aside from some codecademy courses, i had no development background, but i got in based on an aptitude test (IQ test type stuff) and my ability to complete an assignment that assessed very basic java/OOP skills. once i got to class, the learning curve was steep (i was the only one without either a CS degree or prior development experience), and now that i am in the workforce, the learning curve is still steep.

i agree re: the personal learning plan - if you are going to do a bootcamp, don't rely on it to be enough. in addition to working full time, i spend between 15 and 20 hours a week studying, whether it be codeschool, OCW, or working my way through math textbooks.

i could talk your ear off about the corp culture that led to this situation, but i'll spare us both! we have no style guide. the code is not modular - everything is global. when i asked if i could at least encapsulate my own feature so that it wouldn't interfere with others' code, i was told no.

i think a lot of people in hiring positions (esp at legacy corporations) just don't understand what they should be looking for with a UI/UX person. you can't just wait for the first interviewee who uses a word you haven't heard yet and hire them. it's both a science and an art. hire accordingly.

i'm fighting the good fight - the ones i write are CSS tables. the rest, no.

i could have written this. our "designer"/self-professed "front end guru" does everything wrong. everything. i've had to teach her what javascript callbacks, closures, constructor functions, and hoisting are. she's rolling her own "front end framework" (table-based layouts with a few breakpoints thrown in) and separates the code into dozens (dozens) of different CSS and JS files. i'm also getting paid shit wages. but i basically spend 90% of my non-work, non-sleeping time learning and creating things so i can have a portfolio. i don't have a CS degree, so i am taking OCW courses and MOOCs to fill in my knowledge gaps. i'm going to start building an app for a friend soon so i can put something on my github. i cannot rely on my "real" work to provide me with a meaningful portfolio. i recommend you do the same.