# Willing to take a pay cut to work with ruby **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 8, 2007, 10:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/willing-to-take-a-pay-cut-to-work-with-ruby/84871 "2007-02-08T10:06:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 10:06am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/willing-to-take-a-pay-cut-to-work-with-ruby/84871/1 "2007-02-08T10:06:46Z")
Hi there, Would you consider taking on an experienced software developer as a junior ruby developer? I have 15 years good software development experience and I have good software disciplines, instincts and principles, but my main language experience is java. Will, I just cannot do java any more. If I see another User.java with getName() and getId() and getAddress() etc I will go mad. I am hungry to get stuck into something different, to learn a new way. All of my recent roles have been ‘senior’ this or ‘senior’ that, but I am willing to be ‘junior’ whatever if it means I can do ruby work with good people and learn something and get the excitement back into my work. I’m willing to take a pay cut. I’m willing to work anywhere. I’m willing to work on any problem domain. So if you have an opening for good ruby work with good ruby people and you’re open to an ‘experienced ruby newbie’ please email me at me ::at:: mikehogan dot net and we can have a chat. I’ve stuck my CV up here to add a bit more background - http:// [www.mikehogan.net/cv2.pdf](http://www.mikehogan.net/cv2.pdf) Thanks very much Mike ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2007, 10:54am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/willing-to-take-a-pay-cut-to-work-with-ruby/84871/2 "2007-02-08T10:54:50Z")
On 2/8/07, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Would you consider taking on an experienced software developer as a > junior ruby developer? Well theres lots of places that will hire good talent for cheap. But never sell yourself short. > I have 15 years good software development experience and I have good > software disciplines, instincts and principles, but my main language > experience is java. Will, I just cannot do java any more. If I see > another User.java with getName() and getId() and getAddress() etc I > will go mad. Well if thats all it takes to push your stress button, I hope I never see you when you are faced with maintaining some of the J2ee stuff: Y’know write 3 xml files and 4 class files so that you can access a table in a database. But be forced to write unit tests for them all! Yay! And even worse, sit through a meeting where somebody justifies that this is actually a good design. The main problem with being a Java developer is that it consumes your career and you cannot keep your developer skills up to date. Then it infects your way of thinking, and you become closed to better alternatives. At least I was lucky enough to stay in the Plain Old Java world and never got any of that EJB rubbish stuck to the heel of my boot. Ruby got dumped on me when we were between projects, and another team needed some test automation, so I got into WATIR. To say I had something of an epiphany is an understatement. Its nice to be able to be ambitious about my programming projects again. > I am hungry to get stuck into something different, to > learn a new way. Learn a new way. But do it on your own time. Build up your Ruby skills while you work with your current job, and on your own time. Make that career change when you have actual experience with Ruby/Rails or whatever. > All of my recent roles have been ‘senior’ this or ‘senior’ that, but I > am willing to be ‘junior’ whatever if it means I can do ruby work with > good people and learn something and get the excitement back into my > work. I’m willing to take a pay cut. Dude, word of advice. Don’t knock $20-30 Grand off your salary for a ‘mentored’ position, when you can drop $200 on some great Ruby books, join a Ruby U. Group, pay a bit more for some Ruby training if you can find it, get to any local Ruby Conferences and network, make some of your own Ruby projects (Rails stuff makes for great portfolios) and maybe contribute to some Ruby projects that would need an experienced developer. If you are lucky, you will be able to apply some of this to your current job, though not on the critical path. But important projects always need development and test tools, and QA staff are always more open to new ways of getting their job done better (like test automation). For the technology fascists, Rails is the enemy at the gates, the web technology that threatens to undermine several years of j2ee career investment. But Test and script automation with WATIR, Selenium etc. is the enemy within that will open the gates from the inside for a bloodless coup. (hmm prosaic… maybe I should get back to work) When your boss starts to use ActiveRecord scripts to populate the J2ee DB with sales demo data, he will start to wonder why the project plan has 5 months assigned for equivalent work. When the testers start putting their own tool chains together, and commenting that the output of certain projects isn’t ‘test-friendly’ enough…well you know the war is won. You are a step away from using Rails where it is the proper solution, and from creating Rails/Java/JRuby hybrids. regards, Richard. ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 4:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/willing-to-take-a-pay-cut-to-work-with-ruby/84871/3 "2007-02-09T04:41:47Z")
On Feb 8, 1:01 am, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid wrote: > I’m willing to take a pay cut. I’m willing to work anywhere. > I’m willing to work on any problem domain. > > So if you have an opening for good ruby work with good ruby people and > you’re open to an ‘experienced ruby newbie’ please email me at > me ::at:: mikehogan dot net and we can have a chat. My recommendation would be to take a 100% pay cut and contribute some time to a Ruby-based open source project. Not only do you get a chance to work on your Ruby skills by contributing to a real project, you’ll also have no problem showing your work to potential employers. Find a project that interests you on RubyForge ([http://rubyforge.org](http://rubyforge.org)) and find out what you can do to help. – Regards, John W. ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 4:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/willing-to-take-a-pay-cut-to-work-with-ruby/84871/4 "2007-02-09T04:45:47Z")
On Feb 8, 7:38 pm, “John W.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > My recommendation would be to take a 100% pay cut and contribute some > time to a Ruby-based open source project. I hope it was obvious that I meant to say you should do so in your spare time. Most of us probably can’t afford to quit our paying jobs and work on open source for free. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/u/4bbf92/32.png) [@unknown](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/unknown)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2007, 10:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/willing-to-take-a-pay-cut-to-work-with-ruby/84871/5 "2007-02-09T22:21:44Z")
This is absolutely the wrong way to do it. What you need to do is take that seniority and leverage it. I actually had to deal with this myself years ago, because during the dot-com bubble I was overpromoted and made a “senior” Perl developer after using Perl for only a few years. You don’t want to go from senior to junior – all you’ll get is disrespectful recruiters and potential employers who’ll think there must be something wrong with you. Absolutely avoid that route. Instead, just take what you knew about Java that made you senior there and do something in Ruby that a newbie couldn’t do even **with** more experience than you. You have to figure, most n00bs in any language make the same mistakes, they may vary by syntax and idiom but there’s still a lot of wheels you won’t have to reinvent. The understanding of internals and the thinking habits you have give you the ability to do some things inexperienced developers can’t. So find a way to apply that. You mentioned you’re willing to take a pay cut, work anywhere, on anything. So if you’re willing to do all these things, you’ll probably be willing to work some freelance consulting on the side or contribute to an open source project. That’s your in. Find consulting or an open source project and then make a contribution a n00b couldn’t make. Do something interesting with Ruby and you have it on your resume – along with the other stuff that you already have. – Giles B. [http://www.gilesgoatboy.org](http://www.gilesgoatboy.org) > **[Giles Bowkett](http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com)** > > half-disavowed old blog. new blog at gilesbowkett.com [http://gilesgoatboy.blogspot.com](http://gilesgoatboy.blogspot.com)