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Would leaving a coding job for a teacher job typecast me from future coding work

by thejacenxpress on 12/11/13, 12:02 AM with 6 comments

I've been talking with a recruiter about a potential instructor role at a private company (not a college/university). It's great pay and 3 months vacation...which sounds like fun because I'd really enjoy teaching and learning new things. However, if I'd leave there 2-3 years later for a coding job, I'm worried the 2-3 of teaching years would be looked upon as 'non-coding' time, even with working on side projects. I'm curious to anyones thoughts. Thanks

  • by gypsy_dave on 12/11/13, 12:57 AM

    My experience tell me:

    * The Company name/brand can do as much to typecast you as the position. Eg, Dave's Zert Manufacturing vs Trendy Bay Co

    * 'Instructor' can simply be a high-end gradient of many different roles. It doesn't necessarily say 'non-coder'. A senior architect can be understood to be an instructor of sorts. How this is all documented on a resume is fairly flexible.

    * Academic teaching time would definitely typecast you negatively as a programmer, but not so much with System Administration experience. I'd avoid it unless you are headed into Academia. I don't have any very specific examples of this other than the perception I had of various co-workers who had come from university jobs. They had detectable institutionalization.

    My general advice would be to have a clear picture of where you want to end up and do your best to have each link in the chain moving you in the same direction. It's easy to justify getting sidetracked by relationships, geography, and economic considerations.

    I'll end with a useless caveat about subjective answers. Everything obviously depends on the specifics of the company and job.

  • by zellio on 12/11/13, 12:09 AM

    I can only speak for my personal preference but if you could show good works for that period of time I don't see it being an issue. Use the few years and huge vacation to contribute to major open source projects, stay current and keep coding. I don't see why it should be an issue. It shows flexibility, aptitude, and a drive to better the self.

  • by arisAlexis on 12/11/13, 9:47 AM

    I was a coder but i got a job as an ms office teacher for 10 years. I was still coding for fun but that didn't help when I started searching for a job. I wasn't a coder anymore.