toexitthedonut

I've took what some people have referred to as "greedy path choices" in my career. Greedy as in an algorithm that favors the shortest route.

That doesn't set you up usually to find the best offer because you're thinking more reactively than proactively. And it adds a higher risk of ending up in a no-job or low paying job situation. But is it really possible to set yourself up for a good offer when you can't afford to be picky, when you have no income or money saved?

I've seen some people say that contract-to-hire jobs what incompetent programmers take, but I don't really see the connection between that and your programming ability. Nor how they have a lower bar for hiring than full-time or contract-only jobs. Are the words in CTH usually weasel words?

I prefer full-time only jobs but personally, I'd be willing to work a CTH job for a major tech company. If I get an offer for a CTH job I would treat it as a contract-only job (in the sense that I'd be contractor right at this moment) and therefore ask for contractor rates.

I live in a large Midwest city but jobs pertaining to this sector are scarce. My college degree is not strictly programming-related, but it relates partly to data viz. http://artandarthistory.uic.edu/bfa-new-media

I currently have a career in web development. I've dabbled a bit in D3.js years ago, for a project requiring some visualizing of data from an API but I'm curious to find out more on data visualization jobs to capitalize more on my degree.

(edit: I don't know why the URL in my post didn't become a link)

I often come across advice to have different resumes for different types of companies, and to continue making it up to date. As a living, breathing document, is it a good candidate for applying a VCS to? For instance branches for different resume types, but sharing common content. What are your thoughts on applying version control to your resume? I don't think this idea is an original one, but I don't see it mentioned much.

I attended college, but got a BFA in electronic media which 99% of the world doesn't know about or acknowledge, and a lot of the CS basics I have taught myself. So I consider myself in the self-taught group.

Nine years after doing web dev I'm considering opening my options for other areas of programming. Most of what I see in the bootcamp or self-taught route has been web dev or mobile dev. What are other areas that I could probably break into?