Want to shape my career in JAVA . . .

[Prateesh Pandey]

Hi friends,

I am eight month old in IT industry and working with a top tier IT company. I have been woking on one strange EAI tool called Mercator for eight months.

The project is good but I am not interested to work on a "tool". This is not what i had dreamt before starting my career.

I have cleared SCJP & SWCD exams two years back. I always wanted to shape my career in JAVA technology.

My PM is not ready to release me from this project as nobody wish to work on this tool. I could not leave this company with only eight months experience in hand.

Workload is quite high and i don't get enough time to continue my JAVA studies.

What should I do to shape my career in JAVA? Please suggest . . .

[Rogerio Kioshi]

Originally posted by Prateesh Pandey:
Hi friends,

I am eight month old in IT industry and working with a top tier IT company. I have been woking on one strange EAI tool called Mercator for eight months.

The project is good but I am not interested to work on a "tool". This is not what i had dreamt before starting my career.

I have cleared SCJP & SWCD exams two years back. I always wanted to shape my career in JAVA technology.

My PM is not ready to release me from this project as nobody wish to work on this tool. I could not leave this company with only eight months experience in hand.

Workload is quite high and i don't get enough time to continue my JAVA studies.

What should I do to shape my career in JAVA? Please suggest . . .

I think there are pros and cons working with a technology which just some people know well:

Pros:
- You belong to a very small group that knows the technology. This makes you be more required by the compay.
- For being so restrictive, you can earn more money because they can't find no one to work with that.

Cons:
- If this company you work for fails, you fail too.
- You become isolated from other people, because the majority works with more popular technologies, as Java, .NET, etc.
- If you have some species of trouble about something, you don't have many people to help you (same case as isolation I've already said)
- Maybe one day you want to work with Java. If you stay at your current job you'll have nothing to put in your resume as experience.

[Theodore Casser]

There's also other options one can look into that don't entail leaving your current job. You could take some of your free time and dedicate it to some open source projects or perhaps writing free/shareware applications that use Java to further your knowledge.

I've oftentimes found that there's ways to expand one's knowledge and list of useful skills if one simply looks for the opportunities.

[Prateesh Pandey]

Rogerio Kioshi,
I am completely agree with you. I do feel isolated among my friends and it takes a lot to explain what I do.

Theodore Casser,
How's the idea to write assignment exam for SCEA to continue my JAVA/J2EE studies? Would it be helpful for me?

[Theodore Casser]

Originally posted by Prateesh Pandey:
How's the idea to write assignment exam for SCEA to continue my JAVA/J2EE studies? Would it be helpful for me?

I think that might be a wholly different question when push comes to shove. Whether or not the SCEA might help you depends on what direction you want to go - if you're more interested in software design and architecture or more interested in having your hands in the code...

[Harish Tiruvile]

Hi Theodore Casser ,

You could take some of your free time and dedicate it to some open source projects

Can you please let me know how to find Open source projects .

I am very much interested to contribute to java protocol related projects(especially SIP ) and value added services Parlay\OSA API .

Can you please give me some tips for finding open source projects .

[sudip narayan]

hi,
You are working on EAI tool which is very good. Typically you would earn twice of what a very good java or .net people earn if you work in EAI . EAI is also a vast and more interesting subject . You have a possibility of eventually becoming an EAI architect after a few years. what you are doing is very good .

regards