Software Developer advice for friend

[ModerateRepZero]

I know someone who's currently a software engineer but who wants to be a developer. What advice would you give for a college grad without a CS degree who wants to be a developer? Currently she's working for a major European bank, and apparently knows SQL, VBA, java. Also apparently trying to learn Ruby or another programming language in Coursera.

Other than telling her to (maybe) learn another programming language like C or C++ and get some sort of portfolio, I didn't offer her much advice since I'm not an IT person.

 

[BikeJunkie]

I'm not sure your question is clear: she's a software engineer but wants to be a developer? Not sure what those two terms mean to you and/or her, but they can mean different things to different people. At any rate, given her skill set, she sounds qualified to be a "developer."

Maybe it would help to tell us what she wants to do, rather than what title you think she wants.

 

[Merad]

"Software engineer" and "software developer" are usually almost synonymous jobs, and neither is related to IT. What does she actually do in her current job, and what does she want to do?

 

[ModerateRepZero]

it sounded like she's doing tech support and troubleshooting in her current role, and previously was QA lead. I'm guessing she wants to work on the actual software/coding aspect instead of tech support-related tasks.