The number of messages I’ve seen off late on LinkedIn (and elsewhere) related to folks looking for work (either starting recently, or in many cases – for quite a while) absolutely breaks my heart, and I am sure it breaks yours too.

As a consultant, I find myself in that position rather frequently but I’ve done this for a long time now, so I can (almost) say that I am used to it as that’s pretty much the nature of the beast when it comes to consulting (so you really sign up for that lifestyle as a consultant).

On the contrary, if you are a W2 (aka, permanent) employee, you aren’t necessarily expecting to be in this position (and certainly not as frequently) so it is understandable that one’s mindset is not oriented to being (perennially) in the “looking” state

While I hope everyone finds the job they are looking for and, more importantly, in their field/career of choice, it is possible that some of you may entertain thoughts of switching to the (and may I dare say, beautiful) world of Software Development.

I use the word development loosely but what I really mean by that is pretty much everything that falls anywhere in the space between “I have an idea” to “Our product is now in Production!”. Having done this for longer than I might be willing to admit, I would like to believe I can help, even if in the tiniest ways possible.

I am not a recruiter so I can’t directly help you find your next job but I am more than happy to take an hour of my week to guide you or teach you so you do land that next software (related) job.

And how do I propose to do it? I am not certain I’ve a concrete, or definitive answer, and certainly not one that is tried and tested but, as they say, we live and learn and more importantly, need to start somewhere.

So, what I am hoping to do is set up weekly 1-hour Brown Bag sessions over Zoom. We need 2 sets of people to make this happen.

1. First – a group of people who’ve experience in different areas of Software Development willing to contribute an hour of their time every week, or when possible.
2. Second – folks who can benefit from these sessions.
3. Last but not least, I am happy to take the additional responsibility of moderating this, and making them happen consistently.

If we can help even 1 person land a job (and hopefully, a job to their liking), I would consider this effort a grand success!

Send me a direct message if you would like to contribute, or benefit from these sessions (and needless to mention, they aren’t mutually exclusive, so we are all going to both learn and benefit at the same time).