Hi everyone,

I was working as a Quality Engineer previously in 3 different companies within the Aerospace, Furniture and Solar industry. I am 37 years old now, with total of 13 years experience in manufacturing industry.

Even though this past journey was both enjoyable and challenging, I felt I was not doing enough to satisfy myself. I thought I have to do something that makes me keep learning new things in my life and adapt with new technology.

I resigned from my last post as senior QA engineer back in Feb 2021 with last drawn salary of RM 6,600. I was not looking to find a new job whatsoever. Just to take a break from the boring, toxic and stressful environment that I had. Just to have more time with my loved ones, my kids and my wife. I never intended to go back to the same field and since then I have been looking to equip myself with what I have passion with, blockchain and crypto.

Currently I am equipping myself by enrolling in Advanced Diploma in Blockchain Engineering. This is a 1 year program and expected to finish in Nov'22. Other than this, I am learning all the basics and necessary course in Software Development.

My questions:

1. Since my past experiences are irrelevant, what is the possible/expected salary should I aim?
2. Will the future employer consider me as a junior role or senior role?
3. What do you think about blockchain technology? In your opinion, is it the future or just a hype?
4. Any recommendation? What would you do if you were me? (going back to manufacturing is not an option).


Many thanks

Regards
Khairi

This ain't /k, go back to the troll cave.

To TS:

It's good that you are picking blockchain as your new industry. Try to pick up solidity along the way. It's high in demand right now. Populate tout GitHub with works and volunteer in projects while you are studying. Even junior solidity programmers can get 1.5 to 2k USD in a remote job.

Good luck!

Example:
https://twitter.com/JackNiewold/status/1529...nMFFW2hhhQ&s=19

Thanks for your advise. I have been learning solidity for about 2 months now. I enjoy it even its a bit tough to understand since I am new to programming world but I will thrive.
Do you know how can I get remote job like you mention? Is it freelancing?

There's quite a number of links in that Twitter thread. Can click in and see what they are looking for

I see, thanks ya

Better to spend time learning programming than specifically on blockchains. Since you have hands on experience in manufacturing, augment it with programming and process improvement and you can easily be a SuperStar. Very few have that blend of skill set.

This post has been edited by DoomCognition: May 26 2022, 01:00 PM

What makes you think you will get a programming job when there are so many youngsters who can think faster then you, cheaper then you and probably have much more motivation then you.

And you do not even have the advantage of having more experience then them.

This post has been edited by BrookLes: May 26 2022, 02:04 PM

IT Guy here

#1. Around 3.5k+ (for developer), maybe slightly higher now, 3.5k is my ex-company pay for a fresh grade 3 years back
#2. Junior for developer (not sure for QA, since u are QE previously not sure if that's similarity)
#3. Future and hype at the same time, future because blockchain do offer some unique characteristic that old school tech cant provide, hype because not everything need the blockchain manner, its over-applied in many aspect right now, just like .com bubble period imo
#4. Courses just give u basic understanding honestly, IT employer always prefer for engineer with hands on experience. If u could show them what u have done (e.g. Ur own initiative project, ur freelance project) it will be much more convincing, considering your age it will be very helpful.

This post has been edited by ragk: Jul 4 2022, 10:49 AM

Build up your profile with open source contribution since you have no previous work experience to show.

I'm impressed by your courage and take on new challenges.

Blockchain technique yet to recognise by the market. People intend to link it to CryptoCurrency which is highly speculated.

Technology continues changing and they are always a newer generation doing better than older generation.

In short, Blockchain - short term is good, long term still unclear.

Well, to answer your question you need to put yourself into the shoes of your employer. Would you, as an employer and hiring a software developer would you consider some without software developer experience (but with other unrelated experience) a senior or junior hire? Would you pay someone with no software development experience candidate similar to a junior or senior person in your company? How can the candidate with no experience in software develooment convince you?

Depends on how you package yourself in your cv, if you apply for senior position, focus on experience and not task. people management skill does not come from books. emphasize on processes, show that you know how company works.

Parking in this interesting thread.

Thanks guys for your your reply. I will take your inputs seriously. As of now, aside from the blockchain course, I have been learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Currently spending at least 4 hours daily learning the concepts while doing some projects. HTML and CSS are quite easy to grasp, but I think I need at least another 1 month to understand advanced JS before I start to learn React. Regularly added new repo on GitHub. My target at the end of this year, I will be able to build several FullStack web applications.

Good start! If you have your own working project in GitHub it definitely prove ur spirit to ur future employer, working GitHub project is far more convincing then a degree imo. Just to let u know Lowyat got a Codemasters section for programmer, u can drop ur question over there if u having any difficulty.

Just incase this topic is not in your list yet, u need to understand API (can learn at later stage of ur plan, or after). If u are planning to working as full front-end dev, its fine that u dont really know how 2 build an API, but u must know what it is.

This post has been edited by ragk: Jul 4 2022, 10:59 AM

Dear TS,

I feel you totally, because I am standing at the crossroad as well.

I am a Process engineer, 35, been Process engineer most of my career life working in plant and now have been 6 years with this engineering company for a manufacturing industry which is basically dead in Malaysia -- only servicing overseas company. In the beginning the job is wonder -- giving good money >10k for 3 years, a lot of travelling different project around the world, but everything ended since the MCO, they still paying me basic salary RM7k+, but I am so late to realize that hard skill I fight so hard to gain here is hardly applicable anywhere else, and there is absolutely no career progression in this company or this industry anymore - the industry is dead -- factories are closing down one after another.

I have no wife no kid, but what is more tough for me is during Covid time I work overseas and get infected Covid seriously, hospitalized, and I have injury as well. Left my health condition red light now and fighting hard to fully recover.

I want to change my career go into other more promising industry like chemical / oleochemical / O&G, probably I will be treated as Junior Exec, and the competition is tough enough. I do get some offer able to have another 20% pay raise in basic, but they are either contract job or in a totally irrelevant and niche industry that I have zero idea about.

Now I am trying hard to survey for jobs and going interview, I find that if I want to raise my chance in job seeking, polishing the resume is very important -- use correct keywords, tones, number metrics -- to fight against the ATS and get matched for the job. Cover letter is very important -- usually cover letter can at least attract attention of hiring manager. Connection is very important if for O&G because everyone can share information about job openings -- which I do not have.

I really wish you luck if you decided go into Blockchain technology. Why not take a leap of faith. Life is about how we fight at our lowest point. I wish you great journey ahead.

Worse is when the program you use is closed ecosystem, and you cant find any guide online. Involve in security enterprise software. Boss jump dump manual for me to figure out how to configure. Took me 3 days to do one task. After familiar with the task only took 10minutes to configure.

If you need quick cash there's always being a Grab driver/rider

Your past experiences will be extra advantage for you when applying for new job that's not direct relevant, personally think you should aim from slightly higher from Junior or Start of Senior salary range.
Unfortunately , most likely you will be in junior role. But still chance as senior with your past experience.
Blockchain technology, in my opinion it will be in the future still.

If you enter IT line u better forget about "more time with my loved ones, my kids and my wife."

A lot of IT projects have lousy PM who will over promise with their customers and push the work load to the programmers. Then the programmers have to work over the weekends and public holidays.

Agree with that, most of the PM just work without consideration of team member.

so, what's your progress so far?

So how is your luck with IT, TS?

So far, I had attended 2 front-end developer interviews. The first one back in Sep'22 and the second one is Today.

I just want to share what I have gone through. Maybe you guys can advise or take this as a guide if you are about to be interviewed as well.

1st Interview:

This is my 1st awkward experience interview process. The first stage, the interviewer call ALL candidates (around 15 pax) into a zoom meeting, at 7am in the morning, he introduced himself as the owner of the company (puchong). This is an app provider for medical practitioner in malaysia. And after that everyone of us has to introduce ourself and let us know our biggest accomplishment. It lasted around 2 hours.

Right after it, everyone has to provide below information through email. I guess he wanted to test whether we remember the discussion or not.

1. Summary of each candidate and interviewer, their name and role.
2. Why we should hire you?
3. Give your reference contacts.
4. Provide any evidence of your work/project such as website or github.
5. Payslip

I was able to passed the 1st stage and The 2nd stage is where they invite me for an online test. The Online test session duration is 2 hours and 45 minutes and will be done in zoom.
After enter the zoom, the instructor explain around 5 minutes, said that this is recorded and need to show video until end. Just after that she left.

Q1. SQL Test, jQuery, JS,
Q2. Problem Solving Question (this is where I wasted most of the time)
Q3. Backend and Front End Assessment Test (C# was asked )
Q4. IQ test
Q5. Personalities test
Q6. Typing test

I can't even finish all of these after 3 hours ! Because I was not expecting they will ask about backend and database as well since the JD only stated HTML, CSS, JS and React.
Also, Q2, Q4, Q5 and Q6 are not related to programming all. What is the intention here? Is this normal for front-end job?

2nd Interview

So today I just finished my 1st stage interview (I think), for around 2 hours. I got a call from a recruiter just after 1 day updated my jobstreet profile. I did not apply any jobs yet though.

The first half interview question is more on technical/theory part of the web dev such as react, css, html or even next.js (I can list down here if needed) plus with some behavorial question.

The second half part is the live coding, they give me CodeSandbox file with a boilerplate then I need to build a simple app calling an api from external server. I did some mistakes since there were some error on the post method. But I did ask question and provide explanation as to why I did what I did. And after 1 hour I was able to finish it properly.

The interview were very nice to me and really helpful, I really like this kind of team with good mindset.

This "blockchain technology" keyword is wide you know.....

As if like i'm saying , i have experiences in IT. IT is a broad word too.

Yup, understood. I plan to start off with web dev, so later on I would be able to pickup on the backend as well. And integrate the blockchain as the database.

IQ test and Personalities test are quite common, but first time i heard about typing test.
And usually the test I received during interview were usually require more than the time they given to complete, I usually just pick the hardest the question to prove my capability since it's quite impossible to complete.

I was also shocked there was a typing test. Maybe they require their dev to be a fast typing one. Anyway I did not get the offer, even they offer me I will have to think many times lol.

TS mind sharing the pathway you took to learn what you have learned so far?

Hey ts, hope this helps. Ever thought of trying web3 careers since they are closely related to blockchain? This website could help you. Some are even upfront with salary ranges.
https://web3.career/web3-jobs-malaysia

Try to find those that has Msia entity/covers Epf etc. One of those I know is Coingecko/Luno etc.

Have u got the job TS?

I've left programming long ago because doing the design of the system/web is hard for me.

Programming is a tough field.