Mcitp:sa

I've been looking into perhaps moving to the programming side of the house (obviously, not quickly) and in searching the job sites .net seems to be the largest demand in my area. Currently, I am on the helpdesk and do a ton of work on Windows servers (pretty much 50-50 2003 to 2008, though 2008 is edging ahead). My question is, would it be recommended that I get the SA before delving into the .net certification world? Thanks!

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JDMurray

The .NET certs suggest having two years of .NET programming experience under your belt before attempting. What programming experience do you currently have?

the_Grinch

I've taken Java, C++, and VB.net...

But in this case I can answer in a word: zero.

Basically I am starting from scratch. I can probably looking into courses at a local community college, but this would basically be a possible career change for me.

JDMurray

Can you move into programming at your present place of employment? It's unlikely that a junior programmer will start at making as much as you do now as a sysadmin, so it's nice to have a chance at moving into software engineering and keeping (at least) your current pay rate. Otherwise, you'll be competing with all the twenty-somethings just coming out of college with CS and CIS degrees.

the_Grinch

Unfortunately, we're strictly a support company so no programming. But I don't make too much so not to hard to match what I made. As always, thanks for the advice!

JDMurray

Take some classes, hang out with other people who are better programmers than you, and eventually volunteer some time to work on an Open Source project or two that you can put on your resume. Most of all, determine if you really like programming enough to do it 40-60 hours/week. Most programers are salaried and can be required to work a lot of overtime for no extra pay, so you gotta love what you do.