I'm getting more and more dissatisfied with my job. It's my first job and I've been doing it for 11 years now (I'm 32 by the way). When I started in the company there were 15 of us and now there are 50. I'd like to swich jobs to proper software development but I have a few concerns regarding my experience in the field.
What I have been doing so far:
- system administration (server, workstation, DB, network infrastructure, everything basically)
- programming applications for internal use and also some small bits for our customers (<= 10000 lines of code)
- customer support for both my coworkers and our customers (IT and non-IT related)
- managing two more people
- writing user manuals
- performing measurement equipment calibration (our primary field of work)
- writing applications for government tenders
- some graphics design
- writing patent applications
- doing some minor work in electronics
- doing marketing work
- cleaning cars
- showeling snow
- ...
Beside all that I've always been the person that would come and install OS, clean viruses and doing maintenance work for all my relatives and friends. My education is somewhere between high scool and college. I don't actually know how two years of mechatronics that grant non bachelor degree after high school would translate to UK or US education system. Perhaps junior college?
To elaborate on my experience. I know something in every stated field above but with limited depth. And I'm self taught on all of the above. For example I know how to set up and maintain a small active directory but that is it. I know basics of MS SQL Server maintenance and can write moderately complex SQL sentences. I know how basic security policies and Windows Server maintenance. I know rudimentaries of Linus server administration. I know how to program a working application but I know that it probably isn't coded to very high standards (I'm always trynig to improve though). I know how to design a very small system but struggle with a bigger one. And most of all I with struggle maintaining all my developed applications at once since every few months there are changes to our quality management manual (we hold a couple of ISO standards) which reflect in everything I develop. I also have very limited experience working in teams and no experience working on larger projects.
Some of my problems right now probably originate in the fact that I never had proper supervision and mentorship and that I'm not exactly good at organizing stuff.
Programming languages (rated 1 to 5):
- Delphi (4) - current
- Visual Basic 6 and VBA (4)
- SQL (3)
- Java (2) - current
- C# (1)
- C++ (1)
- php (1)
- html (1)
IDEs:
- Embarcadero RAD studio (4)
- MS Visual Studio (2)
- Eclipse (2)
- Netbeans (1)
Databases:
- MS SQL Server (2)
- MS Access (4)
Other software experience worth mentioning (or not):
- Corel Draw and ProtoPaint (2)
- Adobe Photoshop (2)
- Autodesk Inventor (2)
- MS Office (3)
Software development concepts:
Here I'm struggling on what to write and would be happy about anyone proposing something. Since as I mentioned earlier I am self taught I have trouble in that field. I know for example how to prevent SQL injection, what recursion is, OOP and so on but I've never really took a dive into any of it. And it is quite hard to asses security level of your application without proper assesment from more experienced person.
Otherwise I'm good at math, speak two foreign languages (English, German) and some might describe me as a mild geek. I also have a tendency to grasp concepts quickly.
One might say that my confidence levels right now are not exactly high taking into consideration current job market in Slovenia

I'm aware that a lot of things written here don't belong on a CV but any insight from you on how to proced with my job search in software development field would be extremely helpful.