MG&TL
February 26th, 2012, 08:47 PM
I love doing things for free and open-source, but it's not going to pay any bills, sadly. I'd love to become a paid ubuntu developer, it's probably my dream career-get paid to contribute all day, do my own choice of development for free all night. I have read the canonical jobs page, but I couldn't get much real-world advice from it.
My question, really, is how to maximise my chances of getting this reward. :)
State of play so far:
-I'm 15, living in the UK.
-I'm doing well with my GCSEs, predicted A* in the maths-based stuff and sciences.
-Have a sixth form place, taking computer science as an A-level next year, along with maths, physics, and chemistry. (science is my backup plan)
-Learning code ASAP, covered C, C++, python and beginning on basic web-based languages now. TODO: finish learning the web-based langauges (might take a while), might look at assembly and java after that.
-Familiar with launchpad, and bazaar, by extension .
-Not so good on hardware.
-Been into computers a year now.
-Contributed to a few projects, nothing to get myself noticed in the throng though. Hope that will change shortly.
-Learning as much about Ubuntu and Linux in general, I mess about with as much as possible to see how it works. (and doesn't!).
-Addicted to running the development release.
-Likely not going to be able to afford university, although this is subject to change.
Questions:
-is university a must, or can it be worked around?
-How likely is my dream job?
-What else should/could I learn?
-I'm not "located in Asia"-is that a major problem?
-Anyone here actually employed by Canonical?
So can I have you older ones' advice as to what and where I should go? I would appreciate it. I have spent a while googling, but a lot isn't relevant; a lot costs a masses (the red hat exams, for one), and a lot is confusing and contradictory. Thanks.
For those of you not familiar with the british education system, we start at four years of age, have primary school from 4-11, secondary school from 11-16 (GCSE), sixth form from 16-18 (A-level), and then university.
My question, really, is how to maximise my chances of getting this reward. :)
State of play so far:
-I'm 15, living in the UK.
-I'm doing well with my GCSEs, predicted A* in the maths-based stuff and sciences.
-Have a sixth form place, taking computer science as an A-level next year, along with maths, physics, and chemistry. (science is my backup plan)
-Learning code ASAP, covered C, C++, python and beginning on basic web-based languages now. TODO: finish learning the web-based langauges (might take a while), might look at assembly and java after that.
-Familiar with launchpad, and bazaar, by extension .
-Not so good on hardware.
-Been into computers a year now.
-Contributed to a few projects, nothing to get myself noticed in the throng though. Hope that will change shortly.
-Learning as much about Ubuntu and Linux in general, I mess about with as much as possible to see how it works. (and doesn't!).
-Addicted to running the development release.
-Likely not going to be able to afford university, although this is subject to change.
Questions:
-is university a must, or can it be worked around?
-How likely is my dream job?
-What else should/could I learn?
-I'm not "located in Asia"-is that a major problem?
-Anyone here actually employed by Canonical?
So can I have you older ones' advice as to what and where I should go? I would appreciate it. I have spent a while googling, but a lot isn't relevant; a lot costs a masses (the red hat exams, for one), and a lot is confusing and contradictory. Thanks.
For those of you not familiar with the british education system, we start at four years of age, have primary school from 4-11, secondary school from 11-16 (GCSE), sixth form from 16-18 (A-level), and then university.