entering the job market

[foTONICS]

Hey guys/gals,

So one of my biggest interests upon going to school for electronics engineering (2 year diploma) was the microcontroller programming. I read, practice, and experiment it at home as a hobby as well. My question is how hard would it be to get a job as a hardware programmer?

I didn't go to university. Any advanced or special programming skills I learned from forums or online textbooks. So would I automatically be opted out of any sort of interview (would an employer even bother with my resume?) or is it possible to get hired based on experience or the skills I list on my resume even if I only have a 2 year technicians diploma?

brutal answers welcome :/

 

[(*steve*)]

The most brutal answer I can come up with is that you need to find prospective employers who look for aptitude and experience rather than on-paper qualifications. Then you need to make sure you have both the aptitude and the experience.

...Or get some on-paper qualifications.

Personally, I have found that if you target smaller employers then you are far more likely to be exposed to a wider range of tasks. If you can get employed as almost anything within the group that does what you're interested in, you may be able to show your interest and perhaps get some tasks which might lead to something better.

I don't think it would be a waste of time to look for related courses on (say) Edx. The results of these are not formal qualifications, but at the price they're *really* good. I would possibly start with 6.002x... (reading back, this would probably be no more than a review for you.)

 

[foTONICS]

Thanks a lot steve,

I will definitely look into these ideas. I just recently got a job but I feel like there is no room for advancement and I don't think I would have the opportunity to change duties

 

[GreenGiant]

Its not exactly microcontrollers and programming but I work for an automation company (massive freezers to store medical samples, we do the robotics to pull them).
There are software engineers for the high level stuff, but for each servo and stepper we have to program them, then for testing and things we use different software to tell the systems to do what we want, its really interesting stuff. I too love micro's (Arduino's are phenomenal) and I find this to be very close.

In short look for a "Systems Engineer/Technician" at the larger companies that do robotics/automation, or something like steve said for the smaller ones. That would be the best bet.