Thanks for the kind words about my book. I’m glad you liked it so much. You may also want to follow my blog at http://petdance.com/
I don’t think your change from ME to programming needs to be a daunting change. It’s less of a hurdle than changing from, say, English teacher.
I think there may be value in taking a non-programming job as a step to programming. More than the position that you take, I’d look at the company at which you apply. Look for a company where there are likely to be future programming possibilities that interest you, rather than just the job that is most similar to programming. Most companies would rather hire from within, so getting a position at a company that does work that interests you is the best way to get to be doing the work that interests you as well.
Make sure you explain in any cover letters that you say you’re looking to make a career change, and explain what you’ve done to prepare yourself for it. You already know from the book that you always write a cover letter when applying, and that it’s always personalized to the job for which you’re applying. In your case, explain that you’re looking to make a change, and that New Company Inc is a company that you’ve long admired, and that the entry level programming position sounds like a great way to make an impact and show the world what you can do. Without some explanation in the cover letter, I’m likely to see the lack of programming experience and conclude that you’re just trying to get any job possible.
Then the flip side to that is you have to be able to back it up. If you get called in for an interview, the first thing I’m going to ask you is “tell me why you want to change to programming, and what programming have you done?” You need a good, non-negative answer for the first, and you have to have a solid portfolio of code that you’ve written. That code should also be the type of code you’d like to be writing. If you would like to write web apps, then code for a smartphone game isn’t going to be as effective as a web-based address book app with a RESTful interface.
I hope this helps, and I welcome more questions in this thread.
Thanks,
Andy