Hi Phil,

I'm an atypical employer, but I'm an employer nonetheless: A few weeks 
back I posted on Craigslist for a Ruby consulting gig in NYC. This is 
the second time I've done this, and what strikes me is that the vast 
majority of emails I got were entirely worthless.

Beyond the spam resumes--literally, I got some emails from people 
claiming to be the perfect candidate for my investment bank, even 
though I actually work at an arts-non-profit--I got a lot of 
half-hearted, cover-your-ass type resumes that didn't give me any 
passion at all about the job.

If you want to get paid to write Ruby, you should understand that Ruby 
is not now, and it may never be, the mainstream. That's okay, 
statistically speaking, because there are millions of jobs in 
computing, and you only need one of them. But because of that minority 
position, you will be aiming for minority hirers.

People looking to hire in Ruby are much more likely to be risk-takers 
themselves. Where some managers are only trying to not get fired, the 
people hiring for Ruby jobs are more likely to be playing to win. And 
they are likely to respect and trust other people with similar 
attitudes. This is what I've looked for when I've scanned the 
applicants I've received, and it's served me well so far.

So, specifically: Don't be afraid to be passionate in your opinions, as 
long as you don't go so far as to be dogmatic about them. The middle 
manager hiring the 120th Java employee at his investment bank probably 
doesn't care about your opinions, but the founder of a four-person firm 
which uses Ruby does. He understands that if you use Ruby you enter an 
area where lots of change is happening all the time, and he will not 
care as much about your certifications as your sensibilities--because 
as the landscape changes in six months, it's your sensibilities that 
will help make decisions.

Of course, opinions should be founded on experience, and if you don't 
have a Ruby job, it's hard to get Ruby experience. So you should go out 
and get it on your own. User groups are one way to do this, free 
software projects are, too. Pick a pet project--by yourself or with 
others--and start building. If that's a web programming project, fine, 
but it doesn't have to be. It should be something you are excited 
about, though. So that when you get a job interview for a Ruby job, and 
your prospective employer asks you about your Ruby experience, you can 
say "Well we don't use Ruby at my current job, but in my spare time 
I've been doing such-and-such-a-program with Ruby, and trying out 
such-and-such-a-framework and it mostly helps, though it lacks 
such-and-such-a-feature but maybe that'll be taken care of when the 
next version comes out, which is supposed to be in about three months." 
That answer will come quite naturally if you've been engaged in a 
project you care about, as opposed to something you simply treat as 
homework.

Basically: Ruby employers want somebody who is not just experienced, 
but passionate as well. So figure out what exactly about Ruby makes you 
passionate, find a concrete way to turn that passion into experience, 
and go out and sell that passion and experience to somebody. 
Eventually, some employer will give you a chance.

Good luck!




On Mar 25, 2005, at 8:54 PM, Phil Tomson wrote:

>
> It's interesting to see all of the 'a' answers to the first question of
> the poll today (meaning that they are using Ruby all the time in their
> work).  This seems to be a marked change in the Ruby community since a
> year ago when the 'a' answer would have been much rarer.
>
> Can some of the folks who use Ruby 'all the time' at work offer advice 
> on
> how to find Ruby work/contracts?  I suspect 'Learn Rails' would top the
> list - but what about other areas besides web programming - is Ruby 
> making
> more inroads in those areas as well?
>
> How about those of us who have not done any web programming in the 
> past,
> but know Ruby - do we have an edge for the web programming (Rails) jobs
> as well, or is it better to have done web programming and no Ruby than
> the other way around?  Just curious.  I'm considering learning SQL and
> Rails and trying to get into web programming field so I can get paid to
> do Ruby programming again, but I've never done any web programming
> before (one of the last holdouts, I guess).
>
> Phil
>
>

Francis Hwang
http://fhwang.net/