Sure, I'd much prefer 1-1 sessions rather than a group meetup. Don't get me wrong -- the meetups are great, and it's fun to meet new people. But you don't get to dig into much of anything.
I'm in SD (live in PtLoma, work downtown) and am down for a cup of coffee or lunch. Can do during the week if it's close to downtown, otherwise I'm sure we can figure something out. Email is in my profile.
I studied Religious Studies in college, but have always loved coding (started with Basic, Pascal, C, into others) in my free time.
One of my favorite jobs early on was where the lead of the department took the time to teach the department perl. It helped frame some of the basics of web-app development for me, and ultimately helped to pave the way to exploring other technologies.
Having since moved to the bay area, I feel like this sentiment is shared, but hardly practiced. I've interviewed at a few startups, and can answer the typical fizz-buzz-baz problem. However, I feel like that potential is overlooked for someone that can hit the ground running. (Granted, there's probably a slew of other reasons for not getting an offer).
Overall, would love to be mentored and am pursuing such a relationship now with my current employer.
Sometimes I get some pretty bad headaches from staring so intently at the screen. I've found that taking breaks every few hours or so, going outside, taking a breath of fresh air, and then staring at something in the distance helps. Not only do I feel rejuvenated from being outside, but it also helps to relieve the eye strain.
I'm not from an EE background, but I would imagine that the questions I like to ask would also apply to you to help gauge a possible employer.
1) What's your day like?
2) What would you say are some of the biggest challenges you face today?
3) ( Maybe this is more IT oriented ) How does work come in? by Project? Ticketing system?
So far, my experience with odesk.com has been pretty positive. I haven't used it for hiring programmers, but I do see many profiles there you can peruse.
"Systems engineers often have to depend on intuition to locate the source of trouble. Excellent engineers can't explain why they are good, it's very similar to chess."
A quote that hit close to home for me is one by Calvin Coolidge (I think I read in a comment here on another thread):
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race"
That would have been me, although I attributed it to Ray Kroc (McDonalds) and was corrected.
I came to this thread to simply say "persistence", and had a wry smile seeing this at the top.
Of all the thousands of pithy statements I've read over the years, that one has stuck around and served me well for over two decades, probably three now.
That's a great quote! It ties nicely with others of the same theme. One of my other favorites is:
"There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose." -- Elbert Hubbard
Still getting started, something that I had always "ignored" (not necessarily scared me) was using my own day-job money to hire someone. I always figured, "make a logo? Sure, I can do that." As an aspiring hacker, I was always certain I could learn that skill enough to do something productive.
Then I hit a brickwall in my current project. I found a problem that I could not overcome with internet savvy-ness. The only solution I could come up with was to try and hire someone to do it.
Needless to say--and saving the learnings from my experience into a different post--it was a great experience, almost addictive. I just set up a contract with one of the online freelance websites, and waited for the end result to come in.
