InformationWeek Career Counsel

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June 23, 1998

I am a hardware engineer with more than 15 years of experience in the electronics industry. I have been in design, test and component engineering in the last 8 years or so. I am looking for a career change and seeking to find a job either in software development or software quality assurance, but there is a catch-22 that I am finding hard to break. On the one hand, most companies require directly related experience. On the other, one has to actually work to gain experience. I am willing to negotiate with a company that is willing to give me an opportunity. The question I have is whether there is a real chance for me; if so, what and how should I proceed?

Look for quality assurance or training-type roles in small or midsize startup companies that are deploying technology that would require complex thinking and would be able to use your engineering background. It's not realistic to think that you're going to be brought in on the software development side with the practical experience. But I see candidates hired on the QA side in training because companies realize that candidates with Java, C++, or Corba don't want to test or train--they want to develop. This kind of role would give you exposure to understanding those tools and technologies and provide you with an opportunity to roll into software development in a couple of years with testing experience.

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