It was quite a while ago now, but I got into software from almost the exact same place you're in now: I'd been laid off in my previous career, and I needed a job really bad. I'd been hacking stuff on the side, and I used that as my resume. I found that Stack Overflow Jobs had a lot of remote options, as well as sites like We Work Remotely. It's worth applying to a handful of companies and writing a good cover letter just telling them your story and how excited you are to move into software. I think you'll be successful.
Best of luck!
I live in Tucson and am quite familiar with Raytheon (having been recruited and know numerous employees as they are the biggest employer here). They are not going to be hiring remote developers from Ireland. In all likelihood, they will not be hiring any remote developers anywhere, unless those people will be relocating to Tucson and being on premise once this calms down.
My completely naive/distant presumption of sites like these is that they are fundamentally incompatible with the security concessions inherent to remote work.
No way in hell anyone in Ireland is going to be doing US Gov't contracting work, unless they are on the US Embassy grounds.
Sorry. (Government contracting is exactly what the original recommendation describes..unglamorous but steady, FWIW)
https://stripe.com/jobs/search?t=engineering%2Cproduct-and-t...
Disclaimer: Just started at Stripe.
I'm really sorry to hear about your situation! I'm in Northern Ireland too and I'm lucky to be employed (for now) and WFH. All I can do is ask around for you if you drop me an e-mail!
Cheers,
Martijn
Fellow NI resident here
I can recommend joining the NI tech slack if you want, there's a jobs channel and plenty of other people who'd be willing to give you advice. https://nitech.herokuapp.com
all the best in the coming weeks and months for both you and your family
I've been a data entry clerk for the past twenty years, working for a major bookmaker in Northern Ireland. With the coronavirus pandemic hitting recently, many businesses have decided to lay off large numbers of staff. I've just become one of the unfortunate victims of one of these layoffs today, with a mortgage to pay, a wife and two young children to support.
I've also been programming, in my own time, over the past seven years or so, in Python 3, Javascript and PHP mainly. Over that time I've developed a number of tools that were used in my former place of employ, to scrape data from websites and automate the process of data entry. I've also built some online tools in Javascript and PHP for scraping/munging data. Most recently, until the coronavirus hit and unemployment loomed, I was working on a Mario/NES style level editor in HTML5 and a random tile generator for building platformer levels, while I learned C++ and wrote a platforming engine to develop a platform game for release on Steam.
I've placed a number of these tool in public repos on github. You can check them out at:
https://github.com/Zleet
I've also got a resume ready to go for anyone that's interested. What I'm looking for is any remote programming job that fits my skillset and will enable me to keep a roof over my family's head and food in the cupboard for the next few months.
I apologise for posting something like this here. I've been reading hacker news for years now. It's my favourite website. But, along with many other people right now, I'm in a pretty bad place and I've got several little people relying on me to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Be assured that any job offer right now would be gratefully accepted.
Cheers,
Miktor