Anyone make as a java programmer?

[PhiberOptik]

Hey
I am sitting around here on my summer semester break. I am curious if anyone here is a java developer and actually makes good money at it?

Basically I would like to know what kind of stuff you do, where you work from, office, home, etc. I'm just curious I don't have access to any programmers that have time to answer my questions.

Thanks PO

EDIT:
Totally type in my title wrong sorry for the awkward wording :P

[Ezzaral]

I am curious if anyone here is a java developer and actually makes good money at it?

Yes and yes.Basically I would like to know what kind of stuff you do, where you work from, office, home, etc.I work in a small office with three other developers on an internal data analysis desktop application.

[PhiberOptik]

Are you contracted to do this application or is it a full time job? Why do you need three developers? Are you located in north america? Do you get paid salary? hourly?

(if you would rather now answer certain questions thats fine)

Why do you spend so much time on daniweb helping people like myself?

[Ezzaral]

It is a full-time job and the ongoing expansion of business lines, data acquisition technology, and customer requirements has kept four developers busy for over five years. It does not show any signs of abating soon.

>Why do you spend so much time on daniweb helping people like myself?
I enjoy it.

[PhiberOptik]

Cool, sounds rather interesting. I really appreciate you answering my questions. I wish I could just pick your brain all day. I have one more question for you.

A friend of mine who has a lot of programming experience told me that I should learn to write parsers using only regular expressions. I am very confused on what this means. He told me once I can do that I would use it alot.

Could you explain what he ment by a parser in regular expressions? Maybe an example too would help.

[Ezzaral]

A parser is an application that scans through text data and extracts certain pieces of information. Regular expressions are useful for that because they are extremely flexible in defining patterns for matching against that data and specifying what information is gathered when a match occurs.

You can read through a couple of tutorials on them here if you like:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/regex/index.html
http://www.regular-expressions.info/java.html

[BestJewSinceJC]

I'm an intern right now for a fairly large company - they gave me a job offer so I'll be working full time next year. I've been talking a lot to people at my company, and learning about a lot of technology currently used in industry, so I'd be glad to answer any questions you have about those types of things. Salary and benefits are very good, but they vary a lot from company to company. You'll find that companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Booz Allen Hamilton, etc are offering a lot of positions and great wages these days. IT is not suffering in the US economy like most fields. Oh, and yes, I'm a Java developer and I'm currently using Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform). I'm working for Booz Allen Hamilton (if you look it up it will say its a consulting firm - its actually difficult to summarize what BAH does without telling you about a lot of the projects, (info I don't know the vast majority of) but basically, BAH finds solutions to technical problems - how they can be improved - and implements those solutions. And interns (and full time employees) at BAH work from the office, but have a lot of leeway with hours and things. For example, a full time employee only has to average 40 hours a month, not necessarily 8 a day. And with permissions of a manager, employees can work from home temporarily. I know of some employees who work from home permanently but they aren't programmers so I couldn't say whether this is allowed or not - I would guess not (you have to have a lot of contact with your team to share and gain knowledge and meet project requirements). Hope that is helpful. One more thing -- if you want to work for a large company that does a lot of Department of Defense work or US government work, you might need a US security clearance.

[PhiberOptik]

Thats cool. I live in Canada. What can I expect in terms of salary/wages for internships in my later years of my degree. How much do you actually use from your university...what kind of university experience do you have?

[BestJewSinceJC]

What do you mean by experience... major? Next year I'll be a senior but when I got my internship, I was a Junior. The majority of programming I've done at school has been done in Java, but the courses have been fairly intense and focus on different things from class to class - in other words, they aren't Java classes, they are classes focused on specific things that use Java while learning those things. And what money you can expect really depends on what company you join and what your goals are. You can get an internship as a sophomore (do it!) and get the same wages as a junior in the same internship. I've seen internship wages ranging from $7-$20+ hourly. The big companies pay mostly around 17-25. I don't really know about smaller companies, I only really interviewed with a few big ones before getting and accepting an offer, at which point I stopped interviewing.

[PhiberOptik]

Ah thats really cool. I will be applying for internships next spring. Most of my courses are based on programming and math.

The projects you work on, what would be a typical task that you would be asked to do? Are the projects similar difficulty as to the ones you would be doing for classes?

[BestJewSinceJC]

Its hard to measure in terms of difficulty. Classes typically use a programming language whereas my internship, and probably most others, use enterprise programming tools. These tools are typically either about bringing multiple technologies (could be multiple languages) together in order to make a cohesive application or are about making coding easier by providing functionality for you without you having to do much coding.

example of some tools:
using MySQL as a database, SOAP: XML & JSON for middleware, front end/GUI could be done in Eclipse RCP or AJAX.

The only one I've got a decent amount of experience in is Eclipse RCP. I can definitely tell you that if you even know what terms like SOAP, SOA, Cloud computing, MVC, etc mean, that will make you look good in a lot of interviews that you would have. So to answer your question about difficultly, both class and my internship are challenging in different ways. My internship has been much more practical though. Nobody is going to ask you to write an entire standalone application in Java. Real work will usually involve servers, databases, possibly more than one user interface, and separate teams to bring it all together (for example on a three tier type architecture).

That's the best explanation I can give you right now, feel free to ask any more questions. Someone like Ezzaral might be better if you want to get more specific, but keep in mind it sounds like he works in a different environment than I will be working in.

[smoore]

Okay so I picked up computer science as a major late in my college career and plan on cramming a lot of classes in my senior year. My question is when I get out of college and have no experience outside of the classroom what can I expect/hope for as a job? Is an internship still possible for a period of time before I get a full time job? My passion for computers has only come out within the last two years so now that I am in the game a little late I fear that I might have missed some great opportunities.

Basically I guess my question is is what can I expect?

PS - I also will be graduating with a degree in psychology (double major) if everything goes as planned, dunno if that brings anything to the table but it seems helpful to know.

[BestJewSinceJC]

As far as I know, a psychology degree doesn't really help all that much in the computer industry. But the good news, if you're a US citizen, is that IT is not suffering in the US economy. Yes. . I think you can get an internship even though you are a senior. I don't think you will have trouble just because you started late. But like I said before, I'm an intern myself, not a hiring manager or anything. Just be confident and don't be shy in interviews. Good companies are interested in interns who are social, intelligent, and interested in learning. Not necessarily people who already know everything going into the job. Out of the interns at my work, only maybe 10% had a decent amount of experience with the tools we're using. Yeah, I'm decent at Java programming. . but I wasn't asked many programming language specific questions in my interviews. Questions are more about your strengths and weaknesses.