Big 4 Discussion - April 29, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Big 4 Discussion - April 29, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - April 29, 2018
- How do I become a consulting dev
- how do you guys deal with complex problems at work that you do not know how to solve
- I got an internship, now what?
- Just got a job that seems like a great opportunity, but I'm nervous about what seems like a toxic discriminatory workplace and how to navigate it.
- What's it like going to a Fortune-500 company after having just programmed at small companies before?
- Do you call yourself an engineer?
- What exactly is the team lead's responsibility in engineering?
- Considering this M.S. in Applied Computer Science at Frostburg State, any opinions?
- How important is a smartphone in terms of working life?
- I am almost 45. I love programming and web dev. Do I have a chance of employment? In Idaho?
- Going back to old company after ~9 months at new job
- Offer with upcoming deadline vs promising developments with another company - thoughts?
- [FOSS] I made a chrome extension to help apply to jobs on AngelList
- Got into a target school, and I want as much money as I can get. What should I do to maximize my earning potential?
- I feel like I’m not smart enough for CS...
- How to get formally started?
- Need advice deciding on two data scientist jobs
- New Hire at Tech Company Wanting to Refer GF for Role at Same Company
- At what point do you take the salary in Valley over pursuing a MS?
- Newbies, or experienced people who have struggled in finding their first or next programming job: thoughts about applying outside the field at a company you like and then moving up to programming from the inside?
- Where to go from Principal Developer?
- At around how many years of experience are you expected to have deep knowledge in at least one area of software development?
- Are there any majors besides CS that can help me land a job in tech?
- Got an offer with a "we own anything you work on" clause. Should I run, or is this normal?
| Big 4 Discussion - April 29, 2018 Posted: 29 Apr 2018 12:07 AM PDT Please use this thread to have discussions about the Big 4 and questions related to the Big 4, such as which one offers the best doggy benefits, or how many companies are in the Big 4 really? Posts focusing solely on Big 4 created outside of this thread will probably be removed. Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk. This thread is posted each Sunday and Wednesday at midnight PST. Previous Big 4 Discussion threads can be found here. [link] [comments]  |
| Daily Chat Thread - April 29, 2018 Posted: 29 Apr 2018 12:07 AM PDT Please use this thread to chat, have casual discussions, and ask casual questions. Moderation will be light, but don't be a jerk. This thread is posted every day at midnight PST. Previous Daily Chat Threads can be found here. [link] [comments]  |
| How do I become a consulting dev Posted: 29 Apr 2018 07:56 AM PDT I am a dev in silicon valley with 20 years of experience in all the usual back-end stuff (java, c++, db, distributed crap, etc). After getting laid off two months back, I am actively interviewing for my next full-time gig. But having been laid off 4 times in last 20 years, I doubt it whether my next full-time gig would last for more than 3 to 5 years. I am wondering how I can gradually get into consulting dev work where I start doing projects on the side to make some extra income that will serve as an insurance policy against getting laid off in future and loosing all income or shore up my weak finances after a divorce a couple of years back. I have plenty of time on hands during weekends and evenings, so wondering how and where do I get these side gigs that I can do in weekends or evenings? [link] [comments]  |
| how do you guys deal with complex problems at work that you do not know how to solve Posted: 29 Apr 2018 09:44 AM PDT i work for a small company (around 12 employees, all of the devs are offshore due to labour cost reasons) I basically do BI (reporting) work for our clients (involves using various reporting tools, SQL, etc) I was a new grad when I accepted this position around 1.5years ago, I was under the impression that I would have a mentor at this job who I could go to for assistance (someone with more experience in the BI field, especially with these tools) but that was not the case, I am basically the lead for this role at the company up until now, the requests from clients have been easy or manageable to do (most of my learning has come from Google) but the company is doing a push to get more enterprise clients, so the clients are becoming more demanding and complex (in the sense that they want the solution - no ifs ands or buts) I am facing problems at work that simple googling will not solve, I also don't have much experience in the field, so I am not sure who to turn to since I am the lead for this role at the company currently my manager is not a technical person, his role is basically to be a liaison between clients and our dev team at the company, so I can't really go to him for help the other devs at the company are involved in the development of our SaaS application, so they do not have the BI domain knowledge [link] [comments]  |
| I got an internship, now what? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 11:07 AM PDT Obviously, one should be willing to work and learn, I am not too clueless about that. However, I always see people asking how to get an internship, I was one of them myself. I rarely see anything once you already land one. I finally got one, what advice will you give an incoming intern. I start in two weeks and honestly, I'm a little nervous as it is my very first internship(SWE) and I will be 2,000 + miles away from home. If you are a manager, would you expect that intern to touch base with you before the first day he/she starts? What kind of questions would you expect from an intern? How can an intern "prepare", or should he/she? Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2018 12:38 PM PDT FTP, usually a lurker, long post, poor formatting cuz phone, blah blah etc I'm just about to graduate college and I finally did it, I got a job that I'm not absolutely dreading! Sent out a shit ton of applications and nailed the interview. They are going to pay me a decent salary while training me and it's in a city that I love, or near one anyway. The problem is this company has gotten a bad reputation online for discriminating against American employees. They have been accused of passing them up when promotions are on the line, coworkers speaking a different language excluding English speakers from conversations, managers screaming at white people while Indian employees do nothing at all and get rave performance reviews, stuff like that. Basically if you're not American you have an automatic leg up and Americans are brought on to stay compliant with US laws/liaise with clients. Does anyone else have experience navigating this kind of workplace? I am a very hard worker and a quick learner, I'm just worried that no matter what I do my skin color will hold me back from succeeding there/having a pleasant experience while working there. I already plan on learning some of their language to know if they're insulting me at the very least, but I'm resentful that I need to do that at all, it's very rude to exclude others from a convo by speaking something they don't understand when we are in my home country that mostly speaks English (I know there's not an official language but come on, there's certainly an unofficial one). Even if the language was Spanish I would feel better about it since that is spoken so close to us and I feel like we should all know some Spanish by this point. But I digress, I'm just nervous about facing actual discrimination for the first time and wondering if there's anything I could do to minimize discomfort/make sure I don't get rolled over the whole time I'm there. Tl;dr just got a job with a company based in another country that gives preference to those employees and is really harsh to American ones, looking for advice on how to deal with that [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2018 12:29 PM PDT Did you find the transition easy? Hard? What did you find that you like, or found overwhelming? [link] [comments]  |
| Do you call yourself an engineer? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 05:09 PM PDT So this implies another question: do you think computer science / software engineering is science or engineering? I guess computer science is more focused on theoretical computing stuff but it is under engineering in my school. Frankly, I was a bit surprised hearing about software engineering because it sounds like a subset of computer science. Any thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| What exactly is the team lead's responsibility in engineering? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 05:58 PM PDT
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| Considering this M.S. in Applied Computer Science at Frostburg State, any opinions? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 04:08 PM PDT I am wondering if anyone can share some opinions/career outlook as related to this Master's in Applied Computer State from Frostburg State. I know the college isn't a top-tier institution, but it is an accredited state school, the tuition is very reasonable (and my company will pay 50%), and the curriculum looks very relevant to the kinds of skills I would like to develop. https://www.frostburg.edu/academics/majorminors/graduate/ms-applied-computer-science/index.php A bit of background on me, I have a bachelor's in IT, which is your typical CS-lite kind of degree. I can program a bit because I took a few programming classes java and web development classes. Since graduation I have worked as a business analyst where I write a lot of SQL, but I really would like to move more into being a software engineer. However, I feel like I am pegged as being more of an "IT guy" because of my degree, and I feel that some more formal/higher level classes will push me further to have the skills that a typical undergrad in CS major would already have. Any thoughts appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| How important is a smartphone in terms of working life? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 03:58 PM PDT As a student, my laptop and flip phone have been sufficient. In a few weeks I start an internship in a big city away from home. Is it really that important to have a smartphone? [link] [comments]  |
| I am almost 45. I love programming and web dev. Do I have a chance of employment? In Idaho? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 01:04 PM PDT Hi Reddit, Long time lurker, first post. I've been interested in a new career since 2010. I got into programming a few years ago, and love it. A couple of years ago I quit my social work job, moved to Idaho, near Boise, moved in with the parents, and started studying on my own. The first year I studied mostly Java, except I switched to Python for 3 months, then went back to Java. I know that moving around through languages is a mistake until you know what you're doing. About a year ago I started studying web development, and went to a bootcamp. Between some of my issues and the speed of learning (I spent about 3.5 weeks prior to camp learning about HTML, CSS & JS) at the bootcamp, I dropped out after about 3 - 4 weeks. I waited till the next class started, and same thing, except I made it through about 5 - 6 weeks. I gave up being a developer then, thinking that if I can't become a junior dev in 3 months, then I couldn't get hired anywhere. But I couldn't quit studying for long, after a few weeks I went back to it because I love it. I think I'll like the back end more, when I start studying that. I imagine that regardless of my future jobs, I want to continue to do this for fun. Maybe help some charity that can't afford to pay for a website by building one for them. I don't know. But I can't quit because I love it. I can't imagine not learning and coding. I would like to do it for a living. Even if I can only do it for a few years before they tell me to move on. But I have a lot of doubt about getting hired, because of my age. Plus I look older than I am because of grey hair. I don't care if I work with 20 year olds or 60 year olds. I don't care about the money, although being able to retire in my 60s would be nice. I have no issues being told what to do, I don't care if I need to learn a new framework every few months, I will be studying in my free time no matter what kind of job I do. Incidentally, I got about 24 credit hours in programming, networking, tech support etc in 2011 and 2012, all A's. My grades in college in my 20s were B's and C's. I liked psychology, but I wasn't really invested. My question would be, should I forget about working in this area due to age? Or should I go back to studying something like Java, and apply at companies that have been around for awhile? I've read a ton about this sort of thing on Reddit, HN, etc. but I'm at a loss as to whether I should work harder at studying to plan on a (maybe short) career or just to have fun with it because of age. I value the opinions I've read here. Don't worry about hurting my feelings, I just want all of your opinions. Thank you ahead of time and sorry this is so long. Edit: I don't have much on Github. I'm working on the portfolio as we speak. I realize that without that, I'll not get a job. Also my other job experience is social work. I appreciate the responses! And I know I've seen this post a million times already but I guess I feel that everyone's situation is a little bit different. [link] [comments]  |
| Going back to old company after ~9 months at new job Posted: 29 Apr 2018 12:07 PM PDT About 9 months ago I took a new job that I thought would be a nice career upgrade. The main draw was the chance to technically progress further than I could at my old org. It was also a pay raise (but not hugely so) and a better title, but the central thing was the experience of working on a dedicated team. However, after 9 months there, I've found that the organization is actually not as technically competent or has as interesting work as I was led to believe. Some of the people I was most impressed with during the interview process have left the company in the last few months, and culturally the fit is worse than I expected, becoming worse as more people leave my team. I'm not sure I see a very exciting path forward here anymore. Meanwhile, I left the old company (i had been working there ~3.5 years) on extremely good terms and it was a super tough decision at the time. The CEO personally told me to come back if I didn't like my new job, and that the type of work I was interested in would eventually be needed at the old org, he just couldn't say when exactly. Now it appears that is the case, and he's reached out to offer me a role back at my old company, to be one of the founding members of a new team they are creating there. Not only that, but he has provided evidence (and I have heard through ex-coworkers I am still friends with) that the tenor of the organization has shifted in a positive direction, removing some of my high-level complaints about how things were being run, as well as some of my fears about the long term success of the org. I'm a little torn on what to do. Leaving this new job so soon feels "wrong", particularly because a few people have left already and I would be kicking them when they're down. I am wary to have a 9 month stint on my resume. Does anyone have any advice on how this would be percieved? I'm also curious about how I should approach things from a salary/benefits perspective here. So far I have only had a single high level conversation with the CEO where I confirmed I was conditionally interested, but we didn't get super far into discussing those conditions. I am going to talk to people closer to the team this week, and I assume HR after that. Should I wait until HR to bring up anything about money? I went back, ideally I'd want a pay raise (at the very least a match) and a few assurances on how things would work on the new team. Not only that, but I know I fucked up a lot of the vesting benefits by leaving. Is asking to be "grandfathered" into my old benefits like I never left off the table? [link] [comments]  |
| Offer with upcoming deadline vs promising developments with another company - thoughts? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 09:16 AM PDT I'm about to graduate with a B.S. in CS from a non-tech/non-target state school. No internships, ~3.3 GPA. Anyway, I've been job hunting aggressively and have recently been getting several phone interviews and even got an offer. Some details about the offer: Consulting Company 'y' Salary is ~20-30% below market average and requires an x month training period in x location. I would be working where I want to live after training, but there is a clause in the contract that says they can move me anywhere. Contract does NOT say anything about having to repay training fees, but it does mention I would have to repay relocation fees if I quit/get fired(!) within a year. Overall the offer is mediocre. It's not an attractive position and there's at least a string or two attached. I would prefer to work with a non-consulting company. The benefits of company y is, well, it's an offer with semi-decent pay (if you're looking at average grad salary from my school). They are requesting an answer to their offer within the next several days. Software Company 'z' The other company, z, is more promising. The position is for a junior software engineer and it's with an actual software company. The phone interview went stunningly well. He said he was impressed and we had a really enjoyable conversation. I did have notes in front of me which is why I was able to answer ~8/10 questions instead of ~6/10, but I was able to give really thorough/enthusiastic answers. I'm not sure what the salary would be, but glassdoor indicates this place would offer anywhere from 5-20k more. This place is aware of my upcoming offer deadline so they sent me a code screen right after the phone interview which I completed over the weekend. Basically they are speeding everything up to try to get me in for what I assume would be an onsite technical interview. Something to note about this company is it seems like they have a pretty hefty onsite technical interview which I am unsure how I would perform with, as I am just an average CS grad. Here's the problem, the deadline for company y is so soon that company z would only have 2-3 days to review my code screen, get me in for an onsite interview, and get an offer in my hands (if all goes well). Like I said, they are aware of my deadline and have been speeding things up, but I have a hard time believing I would be able to get an offer in my hands before company y's deadline. Company y tried to get me to give them an answer only ~6 days after giving the offer. I requested an extension. I don't think I could ask for another extension. I could accept the offer and then turn it down if I end up getting company z's offer, but that would be really poor form and distasteful (what are the ramifications of doing this?). The other option would be to preemptively turn down company y's offer if I get the feeling company z is going to give me an offer. Are these my only options? Are there any better options? Thanks for reading [link] [comments]  |
| [FOSS] I made a chrome extension to help apply to jobs on AngelList Posted: 29 Apr 2018 07:55 AM PDT Here's what it looks like. So, I actually got my current androiddev job at a startup using this very extension and thought you guys might find it useful too. It simply lets you fill out a skeleton cover letter that then auto-fills into the AngelList job's application form making the whole process much easier and smoother. The idea is to combine the right amount of automation with personalization. I actually see a lot of job applications in my current position now and it is horribly obvious who is just spamming randomly and who actually took the time to figure out a company and consider whether the job is a right match for their skills. And the cover letter is pretty important too. I noticed it's almost always optional in most application forms, but now that I'm on the other side, the cover letter is really the first thing that an applicant is judged on.
My advice is that you can use this extension (or just make a template yourself) to fill out something about yourself and maybe a little "conclusion" but fill out the meat of the cover letter with
And that's about it. You can download the extension here (or get it on GitHub). Do let me know if you have any suggestions (or better yet, send a PR). Perhaps we can add more platforms? I'm not sure where all the cool kids are applying these days and I didn't have much luck with LinkedIn so I just focused on AngelList personally. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2018 08:12 PM PDT I'm not gonna front, I really love money. I don't care if my work is meaningful or impactful, I don't care if I have to grind, I don't care if I have to brown-nose. At the same time I like CS. I've kept reading people on this sub praising targets and I managed to squeeze myself into one. What can I do to make as much money as possible coming out of a Top 10 CS school without starting my own company? Is there anything you guys wish you had done during college that would have helped your career? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| I feel like I’m not smart enough for CS... Posted: 29 Apr 2018 12:29 PM PDT Im a 2nd year student studying CS and it's becoming quite challenging. I'm working on our final homework for the course about finding the shortest path in a maze .txt file and finding the shortest path to transform one word from another. I've been working on them all weekend and neither are complete. I get the concepts but knowing how to implement this is hard. Is it okay for things to be challenging? Does everyone experience this or is it just me? I only recently got interested in CS when I started college. I've had no programming experience before then. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2018 07:53 PM PDT I have been learning web development languages over the past year front end and back end (Python/Django). I have a math background so I eventually want to expand my Python knowledge to Data Science and such. However, I want to start getting practical or experience, even if it just a short contract job or a freelance gig. (I would almost preferably have that). Where do you look for these kinds of jobs? [link] [comments]  |
| Need advice deciding on two data scientist jobs Posted: 29 Apr 2018 10:06 AM PDT First, some background: I have a masters degree in human behavior heavily focused in quantitative methods, and have been doing data analysis and quant/qual research for about 4 years after college in the tech industry. 2 years ago I took it upon myself to learn "data science" from the ground up. Already having advanced knowledge of statistics, modeling, and research methods, the coding and technical aspects have been my biggest growth areas. I still have a lot to learn in terms of data engineering, but feel more than capable in ML/DL and, of course, traditional data analysis (DA). I finally got to job hunting and have two offers on the table: To a lot of folks, I'm sure this question is going to be silly, but essentially I am considering between two data scientist roles, one that pays 70k (Company A) and another that pays 120k (Company B) , both in California, not SV/SF. Company A: 70k/annually A non-profit organization where I would be working with data to help people in need. The role would require me to do database engineering (very minimal knowledge so far) as well as advanced research based tasks, data analysis, ML/DL for product development and business strategy. I was totally transparent during the interview process that I am not a data engineer, but I'm willing to learn if they're willing to teach me. They offered me the job and are open to teaching me the ropes in terms of database architecture and anything I don't know CS wise. 70k is the cap and they can't budge since they are a non-profit. Company B: 120k/annually An e-commerce start-up focused on apparel. The job is very much focused on BI and DA however they have mentioned wanting to do some forms of ML/DL in the future using behavioral data that they have not yet started collecting. My role would be to conduct general business analysis on KPI's using things like google analytics, and power BI. I would also have access to the back-end website data stored in a SQL database that has some behavioral data, for which I will be using Python for extraction and new customer segmentation via clustering. Further, I'd be responsible for the creation of a data collection strategy to capture new data for future use. The development team is offshore, as opposed to Company A which is in-house. I spoke about doing things like "Recommender systems" and they mentioned working with an external agency to produce that. Further, the role was initial a Data Scientist/Analyst role, for which I negotiated to simply be "Data Scientist". Moreover, I would be the first data scientist on the team, though there are plans to bring in more later. My Dilemma Company A appeals to me because I will learn a lot and the job focuses more on ML/DL type tasks, which I think will provide me with much needed experience in the future. Then again, I would be taking a 10k pay-cut from my last job, and missing out on the 50k being offered by Company B. I know it's not about money, but the difference is substantial in my case. On the other hand, Company B appears less organized in terms of their data infrastructure. They're ambitious, but it will be incumbent upon me to drive any type of ML/DL work, and I will be the only DS at the company for now. We would have no data engineers, so I would also likely need to learn how to do this on my own, which I can but will take some time. In terms of learning, I feel that I will learn less at Company B. Would love to hear everyone's advice. I want to make the best decision possible and not regret it. [link] [comments]  |
| New Hire at Tech Company Wanting to Refer GF for Role at Same Company Posted: 29 Apr 2018 07:31 PM PDT Hello, and thank you for your time in advance. I am a new hire engineer at a large tech company. I received my offer several months ago and I will begin working soon. This role has required my girlfriend and I to relocate. After 5 months of searching, she has yet to find an appropriate position in the region. There are positions at my company that we think she may be qualified for; would it be inappropriate for me to ask my recruiter to pass on her resume for these roles? Note: my recruiter works in engineering, whereas she is seeking a business role [link] [comments]  |
| At what point do you take the salary in Valley over pursuing a MS? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 07:18 PM PDT Hey guys. I've found myself at a fork in the road. I've done a lot of data science based coursework, as well as a heavy foray down the path of systems engineering. I'm starting my last year at University, and have a couple of options. Option A would be to research at my University for a sponsored Ph.D. in big data networking and systems, and have tuition paid for and a job as an RA. Option B would be to take a job offer with a good friend of mine that is several years my senior as a developer. He's finally moved to Valley and is looking for a big data software engineer for his team. The starting wage is competitive for a BS in valley, but we definitely won't have much disposable income if any at all. Obviously, either way I still want to pursue a MS and potentially a Ph.D. if the need ever arose. Should I decline and stick it out for a Ph.D.? Or should I consider working and completing my MS online? Life decisions; I'd really like to start working, but I don't want to stunt my future career growth. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2018 07:07 PM PDT Like taking a job in account management or customer service. Is this even a good choice to make most of the time? [link] [comments]  |
| Where to go from Principal Developer? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 07:02 PM PDT Recently got promoted to principal engineer at a F500 company (Financial company) at age 28. They pay is pretty good and the work interesting for the most part but now that I've reached principal level I have no idea where I should take my career going forward. Should I try to move into management, become a consultant, get my MBA... the list goes on and I have no idea what to pursue next. I'm curious as to what others did at this stage in their career. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2018 06:58 PM PDT I don't expect specific numbers, but more of a range. Or, taken another way, when do prospective employers start to assume you need to demonstrate deep knowledge in something, and consider you the "go to" guy for that topic? [link] [comments]  |
| Are there any majors besides CS that can help me land a job in tech? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 06:51 PM PDT Hey, I'm a Community college student, transferring to a 4-year university in the fall. I currently only have experience w basic web dev. and C++. I'm trying to eventually work in tech, ideally somewhere in CA/West coast. I've been admitted to UCSB, but their comp sci program doesn't take transfers. Could majoring in something like math and learning programming/doing side projects help me get into the industry? Alternatively, I could go to UT Dallas for CS, but I'm not sure if I would be able to get the same job opportunities [link] [comments]  |
| Got an offer with a "we own anything you work on" clause. Should I run, or is this normal? Posted: 29 Apr 2018 06:45 PM PDT https://i.imgur.com/pDAW6wX.png It's in California, so Labor Code § 2870 applies. But the issue here is, I'm being hired as an Android dev and I am planning creating an Android app in my spare time. The company's app is an instant messenger. I'm planning on making a media player. Not too much overlap, but enough for it to be concerning. Basically my question is, is this a red flag? Like, do most companies do this? And can they sue me for this? [link] [comments]  |
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