IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

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moontayle

moontayle

Golden Squire
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For your sanity I would as well.

In an unreleated topic:

I learned today that a couple of images we use as part of our news shows don't have an alpha channel, despite being PNGs. No, they just transform the white pixels they need to be transparent within the Bitmap object before displaying them.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
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Another benefit is 9x80 hours, so you get every other friday off. It's something small but I imagine it does a lot for work-life balance.

Can't work remotely which is no surprise, but at 20 minutes away who cares.

Also everyone that interviewed me had been there 20+ years. There must be something keeping people there.. is it the lack of having to work?
 
Vinen

Vinen

God is dead
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497
Noodleface said:
Another benefit is 9x80 hours, so you get every other friday off. It's something small but I imagine it does a lot for work-life balance.

Can't work remotely which is no surprise, but at 20 minutes away who cares.

Also everyone that interviewed me had been there 20+ years. There must be something keeping people there.. is it the lack of having to work?
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
alavaz

alavaz

Trakanon Raider
2,004
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Sounding like I'm going to get a couple of offers for DoD contracts. GD for sure and maybe one from BAE. Which means moving from WA to NC but man the drop in cost of living will be nice. Might miss a couple of mini van raids.
 
Warrian

Warrian

╰⋃╯ლ(´ڡ`ლ)
141
29
I know a few people who work over at Raytheon. Most of what everyone has said so far is true (older tech, older people who have been there forever, etc.) but it also depends on what contract you're put on. You could be put on a contract that Raytheon just won that's starting from scratch developing some kind of new technology... or... you could be put on a contact that has to do with something that has been around since the 80's and still requires floppy disks. You just never know when it comes to this type of work. I got out of this industry a few years back because of the stress of having to deal with contract recompetes. Years ago, contracts usually spanned out for 5 years but then congress or someone decided to make most of the contracts last for only 3 years. And to top it off, some of these defense contractors burn through their 3 year contract in 2 years where they then have to beg for more money. That's right around the time they start letting people go due to funding reasons.
 
Vinen

Vinen

God is dead
2,791
497
Warrian said:
I know a few people who work over at Raytheon. Most of what everyone has said so far is true (older tech, older people who have been there forever, etc.) but it also depends on what contract you're put on. You could be put on a contract that Raytheon just won that's starting from scratch developing some kind of new technology... or... you could be put on a contact that has to do with something that has been around since the 80's and still requires floppy disks. You just never know when it comes to this type of work. I got out of this industry a few years back because of the stress of having to deal with contract recompetes. Years ago, contracts usually spanned out for 5 years but then congress or someone decided to make most of the contracts last for only 3 years. And to top it off, some of these defense contractors burn through their 3 year contract in 2 years where they then have to beg for more money. That's right around the time they start letting people go due to funding reasons.
Click to expand...

The reason people stay at Raytheon for the entire career is that they are unemployable at anywhere but another Defense Contractor (and even that's questionable).

The real concern for these long time people are the next round of layoffs. If they happen you are pretty fucked if you have been working in that industry for years. Your skills are decades out of date and are not applicable anywhere else. You also become accustomed to being lazy as fuck as the work env. is process laden and everything takes months to do.

Promotions are not merit based and are pretty much years of service in the vast majority of cases.
 
alavaz

alavaz

Trakanon Raider
2,004
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The last time I had a contractor gig with DoD I went through a recompete and of course the company I worked for lost the contract. The new company coming in though pretty much hired everyone who wanted to stick around and gave us raises to boot. I'm sure that's pretty atypical, but I'll be working on Ft. Bragg this go around which is like the largest military base in the world so I'm pretty confident that once I have my clearance back I can never be unemployed.
 
T

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
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How do I stop this forum from spamming my email. I unchecked the alert and send email thing but a_skeleton_03s ugly face is still gracing my inbox.
 
Ao-

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<WoW Guild Officer>
7,879
507
Tenks said:
How do I stop this forum from spamming my email. I unchecked the alert and send email thing but a_skeleton_03s ugly face is still gracing my inbox.
Click to expand...
Change your preferences so that your watched threads don't send emails...
 
T

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
I think I forgot to hit save changes. What kind of Web 1.0 bullshit platform is this?!
 
A

a_skeleton_03

<Banned>
29,948
29,763
alavaz said:
The last time I had a contractor gig with DoD I went through a recompete and of course the company I worked for lost the contract. The new company coming in though pretty much hired everyone who wanted to stick around and gave us raises to boot. I'm sure that's pretty atypical, but I'll be working on Ft. Bragg this go around which is like the largest military base in the world so I'm pretty confident that once I have my clearance back I can never be unemployed.
Click to expand...
I work at Bragg. The new company picking up all the same people is actually pretty standard.
 
Enzee

Enzee

Trakanon Raider
2,197
715
So, I'm considering going back to school in some capacity for a career change. I made a mistake in my early 20's of giving up on an IT career after going to a specialty high school for it, and now I really regret it.

What would you guys suggest is the best/fastest way to go about getting into administrative work (IT and/or network). Getting accreditation like N+, MCSE, etc.. ?

I just need enough to get my foot in the door, I've always been good at figuring anything out that I'm confident I can do the job once I'm in. Hell, half the IT guys I know just google everything they don't already know how to do on a day to day basis.
 
Ao-

Ao-

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
<WoW Guild Officer>
7,879
507
Enzee said:
So, I'm considering going back to school in some capacity for a career change. I made a mistake in my early 20's of giving up on an IT career after going to a specialty high school for it, and now I really regret it.

What would you guys suggest is the best/fastest way to go about getting into administrative work (IT and/or network). Getting accreditation like N+, MCSE, etc.. ?

I just need enough to get my foot in the door, I've always been good at figuring anything out that I'm confident I can do the job once I'm in. Hell, half the IT guys I know just google everything they don't already know how to do on a day to day basis.
Click to expand...
While it's not speeding up, most of the administrative jobs are getting outsources or H1-B'ed out. If you can specialize on something it might get better, but knowledge work (rather than administrative) is where the focus is at.
 
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