Interview Discussion - April 19, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - April 19, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - April 19, 2018
- Am I being entitled for wanting to pull my application to a company that sends a coding challenge as a first step, before even speaking to a human?
- Get away from software development
- how much is going to a better university worth?
- Let's Have a Positive Thread. Post One Thing That You Thoroughly Enjoy About Your Job and/or Programming
- Self-teaching Discrete math before CS degree - Worth doing?
- AngelList's A-List?
- CS at Liberal Arts College
- New Grad Job & PIP, what to do?
- I just got my first job as a Software developer and next week I'll start on my first real project. Any tips and tricks / dos and don'ts ?
- Am I applying to the wrong jobs as a recent PhD in CS graduate?
- Data Structures and Algorithms Books
- Is a master’a in cs for me?
- How to handle "safety" job offers?
- 1,900 applications sent out as a college junior -- 1 phone screen that led to an offer. What is going on?
- Horribly anxious when it comes to contact with customer
- Mid to Big Tech workers, is it possible to deliver presents to you at work?
- New Grad No Offers
- Pivoting my career from marketing to front end development - a few questions
- Graduate job worry
- Rising college freshmen looking for fall internship – tips?
- management burnout and taking a break
- Have you ever quit your software job without having another one lined up?
- Take internship in another city, or not?
- I find coding boring, but it's my most valuable skill, how honest should I be with that? And how much time should I spend on putting together a portfolio?
- Messaged on LinkedIn yesterday afternoon, phone interview yesterday evening, real interview + job offer by noon today. Need some input on this fast-paced situation
| Interview Discussion - April 19, 2018 Posted: 19 Apr 2018 12:07 AM PDT Please use this thread to have discussions about interviews, interviewing, and interview prep. Posts focusing solely on interviews created outside of this thread will probably be removed. Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk. This thread is posted each Monday and Thursday at midnight PST. Previous Interview Discussion threads can be found here. [link] [comments]  |
| Daily Chat Thread - April 19, 2018 Posted: 19 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]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 01:28 PM PDT Junior dev, ~1.5 years exp, I'm looking for a new job right now and there is a very "prestigious" company that wants me to complete a 3 hour coding challenge before I have spoken to anyone. I don't want to invest those 3 hours before I've spoken to anyone, especially considering that this company rejects A LOT of people. I don't think its worth it. Am I being entitled for thinking this is annoying and not wanting to do this for a new job? If I had a phone screen first, or even a chat with a recruiter/HR employee, I would be more motivated. I did a few of these when I applied for internships and as a new grad, but after working for a while I have WAY less incentive and motivation to do them. [link] [comments]  |
| Get away from software development Posted: 19 Apr 2018 06:09 PM PDT Im going to graduate from Georgia Tech with a comp sci degree in less than a year. Im currently finishing up an internship doing mobile app development and realize that I hate this. I can't spend the next 30 years of my life getting some behind the scenes spaghetti to connect to some poorly documented api in order to make some mundane thing work. I originally got into CS because I liked the creative aspect of it. I liked making games on Roblox when I was 12ish, and I also really enjoyed a video game design class I took once. Ive also generally found homework assignments to be interesting, but any kind of software development I've had to do Ive despised. With video game development coding was just calculate projectile motion, damage calcuation, make this spaceship fly and shoot, etc. It was all clean, pure logic to make things work, as opposed to what im doing now which is make the Airwatch api talk to Xamarin.Forms, get some google api to talk to some other thing, etc. Do I have any other options? Can I get away with doing something other than programming some mundane shit and sitting in a cubicle? [link] [comments]  |
| how much is going to a better university worth? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 10:57 AM PDT still trying to decide where to go for school next year as a senior in high school. right now my options are to stay in state and go to university of illinois at chicago or go out of state to university of maryland. umd is about $50k per year while uic is about $25k, but i know umd has a much higher ranked program and are about to finish building a brand new computer science building, which is exciting. my parents will help out as much as possible, but ill have to take out loans regardless of where i go. would the extra $100k over the course of 4 years be beneficial in getting a good start to my career? edit: reading all the replies but i dont have time to respond to everyone right now, i appreciate the advice [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 02:06 PM PDT Everyone on here talks very negative about the industry. But what are some positive things about your career choice? I'm a student so I guess I'll say what I like about coding The satisfaction of solving a problem, no matter how easy/frustrating/hard/etc.. I just started working with GUI's and getting my program how I wanted it with all the features I wanted and all the things I learned through bugs and errors. The feeling of finishing it felt great. [link] [comments]  |
| Self-teaching Discrete math before CS degree - Worth doing? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 07:07 PM PDT From what I've gathered, it's important to learn discrete math as it would help me make more sense of various CS topics. The issue is in the program I'll be enrolling into in the fall, the prerequisites for discrete math cannot be met until at least the third semester and that is after algorithms/data structures usually. So I've been following a DM curriculum I found online from a college and so far I've loved it. I want to keep doing this. But I can't help but wonder if there could be other, more beneficial things I could be doing with my time, such as continuing to work on side projects, or study other stuff, albeit I've been in a bit of a "stuck" phase with coding and feel like I need to step away from programming for a little bit until I come up with new ideas. In short, as an incoming CS freshman, how much of an advantage do I have if I self-teach myself Discrete Math before the program? Or should I focus on other things? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 01:05 PM PDT Has anyone ever heard of/worked with AngelList's A-List? I'm a senior in undergrad graduating this June and got invited to it. It looks cool but I hardly could find any information about it anywhere, including on this subreddit ("a list" doesn't make for very good search terms lol). I'm interested in hearing people's experiences with it, and if it's worth doing as opposed to the regular sending out applications to companies. Also, I'm a bit afraid that if I started doing it, I'd begin getting bombarded by interviews that I may not be prepared for, and I may be better off waiting until I've really studied up on my interview material (data structures/algorithms/etc) (Posted about this in today's daily chat thread but didn't get many responses so I thought I'd make the question its own thread) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 03:32 AM PDT I really like the setting of small classes, however, a lot of people are suggesting that CS departments at LACs tend to not have breadth of courses. I plan to go in the industry right after graduation at this point. Moreover, does it matter for big tech firms if you're from elite schools just like in the finance industry? Or they value your skills more? [link] [comments]  |
| New Grad Job & PIP, what to do? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 07:56 PM PDT I'm keeping it short as possible (doubt explaining my story will help much, combinations of things happened): Just received a PIP 4 months in my job right out of college. Got taken by surprise since this was a jr role (at a startup) and I was still learning (not fast enough apparently). I've already started to search for new jobs, but I'm afraid of how this is going to affect future jobs. I already had a tough time getting in-person interviews because of my 2.82 GPA. So at this point, I'm not sure how to deal with this situation. Student loans kicking in in a month and a half and I need some advice. Should I quit? Ride it out? Should I include this short-term "job" in my resume, and if I do how/what do I explain to future employers? How do background checks work again, if i quit would it show up as me quitting? Do I even need to include this employer? I've had other work experience with internships and part-time jobs prior to my grad job. Thanks for all the feedback. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 09:42 AM PDT |
| Am I applying to the wrong jobs as a recent PhD in CS graduate? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 03:31 PM PDT I graduated with a PhD in CS around 3 months ago. I was in the computing theory research group at my university and the bulk of my research was done in the realm of computability and complexity theory. I'm somewhat uninterested in continuing down the path of academia so I made the decision to move into industry. While I was a bachelor's student I had two summer internships where I worked as a software engineer so software engineering isn't exactly new to me. I did my PhD at a top 50 CS program in the world (located in Europe) but I've since moved back to the US and I am staying with my parents in the New England area temporarily while I find a job. I've been applying to quite a few positions and I have had several onsite interviews now. Since my research was focused on computability and complexity theory the algorithm questions in the technical interviews have all been fairly straightforward to me and there hasn't been a single one that I have gotten wrong so far. However, I haven't been getting any offers. I'm wondering if I am just applying to the wrong jobs. I've been applying to new grad positions as I definitely don't have 3-5 years of experience and experience with all of the technologies listed for mid-level positions. Is it possible that I am overqualified for new grad positions given my background, or could it be something else? [link] [comments]  |
| Data Structures and Algorithms Books Posted: 19 Apr 2018 04:24 AM PDT Hello everyone, What books do you recommend for reviewing data structures and algorithms while looking into some interview questions? I know CTCI is a great book, what others are there? https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Programming-Interviews-Python-Insiders/dp/1537713949 Has anyone had any experience with this book? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 08:06 PM PDT I'm in my final year of my bachelors of math. So far I've gotten A's in all my theoretical math classes. I'd like to get a graduate degree in math but if the funding isn't there then I'd like a back up plan. Currently, I have a cs minor and I'm taking data structures and making a strong A in the class. In the fall, my last semester, I'm scheduled to take algorithms and another course called intro to artificial intelligence. I view cs as an opportunity to stay close to math but still be employable. Also, I do like the courses I've taken so far. However, my vision of a cs degree is one where I study Machine learning algorithms and more mathy things. I figure that If I get accepted to a good cs program then at worst I'll just have to take a compiler course of something like that. Does it sound like my transition to a computer science grad program would go smoothly? Will masters degree help me even if my bachelors was in another field? Is my vision of a cs grad program realistic? Do people who study machine learning have good employability chances? [link] [comments]  |
| How to handle "safety" job offers? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 07:05 PM PDT I'm in the process of working with a few companies through a recruiting agencies, mostly startups in the SF Bay Area and one of them is really exciting to me. I'm not sure how it'll pan out of course and if I'll even have the same level of enthusiasm after the on-site interview. However I have another on-site interview lined up locally (LA) with a company where I understand mostly what the pros and cons will be going in and I'm pretty sure I will land the job. I think the timing of my interviews is such that I'll get a job offer from the local company before even getting to interview with the startup, but I don't want to miss out on this opportunity to work on something that I find to be much more engaging. When and how do I bring up the topic of waiting on another job offer? I'd like to be transparent and ethical and not just like accept the local job offer and take it only if the startup doesn't pan out, but I do want something to fall back on if things don't work out. How would you handle the situation? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 03:08 PM PDT I've been applying to top companies cold turkey through their application portals. The only company that I got put through with was Adidas for a winter co-op where I was getting paid the equivalent of minimum wage and they weren't willing to pay for relocation to Germany so I didn't take it. The weird thing is that they are the only company that replied to me asking for an interview. I've rescaled my resume a ton since I sent out all of these applications, but what can/should I be doing to have a better success rate here? I feel like my resume is strong compared to many of my peers, especially at my university, however I seem to be the one without an internship going into senior year. Should I even bother applying to companies now that we are in April for a summer position? Do those even exist this close to the end of the semester? [link] [comments]  |
| Horribly anxious when it comes to contact with customer Posted: 19 Apr 2018 04:40 PM PDT Hi CSC. I've been building a REST API for a customer, where I've been in contact with one of their consultant developers who is building a client on their end. I've set up a rule in my Outlook to send all emails from him to a folder just for emails sent from him, and every time I open my emails, I feel anxious looking, if there's a notification indicating a new email from him. I don't understand why I feel this way. He's a nice enough guy. The contact has been a bit unpleasant in that I only briefly got to send a few emails back and forth agreeing on the interface before I got reprimanded by one of my managers, because the customer had complained that I was wasting too much of his expensive time. I've felt particularly anxious the past two weeks, because the customer was set to start testing the API this week. I'm taking time off for the first time in 1½ years, since I finished my degree(great planning right?), and feel pretty awful about the thought of coming back to potential questions or angry messages. I just logged in today, and saw that there was an email from him asking, if the test environment was working(they're supposed to test on production), because he was getting error messages back. I knew it was due to another developer deploying some changes, but something feels very wrong about it all. Is this common/uncommon? What does it mean? Do I have good reason to feel this way? [link] [comments]  |
| Mid to Big Tech workers, is it possible to deliver presents to you at work? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 07:13 AM PDT My girlfriend started a few weeks ago as a software engineer at a relatively large bay area tech company, and her birthday is coming up. I was considering using postmates or taskrabbit to deliver flowers or a cake large enough to share with her team. But, especially after the YouTube shooting, I'm not sure if it's possible to do. How does the surprise delivery process work? I can potentially email her team lead, a coworker she is close to, or her recruiter ahead of time, but I haven't met any of these people yet and do not want to make her look unprofessional. Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 06:41 PM PDT Hello if you are graduating in May, and have offers. What steps did you take towards achieving so? Thanks, curious on what steps made people successful and maybe others can learn from it. If you do not have an offer, maybe comment what improvements you are working towards? [link] [comments]  |
| Pivoting my career from marketing to front end development - a few questions Posted: 19 Apr 2018 07:24 AM PDT Hey all - 29 years old, been working in various degrees of marketing for the past 9 years. SEM, demand gen, ABM etc. at both agencies and in house - done a little bit of everything. Over the past few years I've been pretty unfulfilled with the work I'm doing. Thought it was maybe just the company I was working for, but I shook things up and started at a new company about two years ago, and I'm feeling more of the same. In the course of my career I've dabbled in intermediate HTML, CSS & basic Javascript, and it's something I enjoyed immensely. Exploring the possibility of going heads down on learning for the next few years and pivoting my career to front end work. A few questions for ya'll:
I think that's it for now - thanks in advance, all. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 05:51 PM PDT So basically I have a new job that I am about to start in a month or two. I applied for this job back in October and it's been a long drawn out process due to it being a government job. Things are finally underway and I will be moving soon to start. I also applied while I was at university and I have now graduated. During the past 6 months, I have had a new job (retail) that I worked for 40 hours/week. I haven't been programming like I used to back in University. I'll be honest, I've just been procrastinating it. My worry/question is, will I be screwed for this new job for taking a break of programming for the past 6 months? I know I can code, but I keep worrying that when I start working, I won't be up to scratch with everyone else and it will make my performance fall. Or maybe I'm just over worrying. [link] [comments]  |
| Rising college freshmen looking for fall internship – tips? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 05:27 PM PDT Incoming college student looking for fall SWE internship. Have past ML/DL research experience, and decent knowledge of DSA. I've cold emailed several people from diff. companies asking about fall internships with resume attached, should I keep on going? Have also done a few online applications, but I'm not exactly betting on those. Any suggestions/tips would be appreciated. Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| management burnout and taking a break Posted: 19 Apr 2018 09:35 AM PDT So, I had been a manager/director for several (15) years. Over the last couple of years the stress of the job and mostly laying people off just really got to me. I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want to be responsible for anyone but myself for a while. So, I took a job at the architect level at a consulting company (that I worked with before). I am providing strategy and guidance on customer projects. I am leading without managing. I'm feeling good right now. Has anyone taken a break like this before and gotten out of management? And then later resumed the management career path? [link] [comments]  |
| Have you ever quit your software job without having another one lined up? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 11:05 AM PDT What was your experience? Was it harder to get interviews? I am thinking of quitting my job because of the toxic environment but do not have another job lined up. Does it really matter? I do not have any financial concerns. [link] [comments]  |
| Take internship in another city, or not? Posted: 19 Apr 2018 02:48 PM PDT Currently, I have an internship offer in another higher-COL city for a retail company (similar to Walmart), but there's a few factors that are making me hesitate in accepting the offer.
However, the retail company's offer expires early next week, and I'm not sure if I should accept it, or decline it and hope that I get the government gig. Another thing is I'm not sure if it would be better on my resume if I have a private company listed, because right now I already have 1 previous government internship, so if I take another one then I'll have 2, and I'm not sure if that'll affect the chances of me breaking into the private industry later on. If anyone could give any advice, then that would be greatly appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 02:34 PM PDT For background, I have a CS degree, started at a small technology company straight out of college, and have stayed for 9 years. I generally like the job. My co-workers are decent, my commute is short, the hours are strictly 9 - 5, the pay & benefits are a little lower than average, but not if you calculate it as an hourly wage. I know nothing is 100%, but I have 99% job security. The only problem? The job is boring. I am a decent coder, and a responsible and hard worker. But even when working on complex and theoretically "interesting" projects, I find it tedious. I have tried to make it interesting. I've tried learning new languages and frameworks, I've tried being the lead programmer so I mentor the junior programmers, I've done front end with HTML/CSS/Javascript, I've also tried being the database administrator. I could do all of those adeptly, but I found all of them equally dull. Now you may think, why don't you pursue your passion, but none of them will make enough money for my financial obligations. Maybe when I was younger and only beholden to myself, I could've taken on a more interesting lower-paying job, but now I have a mortgage and am absolutely NOT willing to sell and downsize the house to take a chance on a more fun career. I am willing to take up to a 20% paycut because I could afford that, but not a 50% one since I would literally have to sell my house to afford to. One of my interests is knitting. I recently discovered a job for a full stack software engineer for an up-and-coming yarn and fabric store in my city. Seems perfect, right? I get to work at a company where I find the products interesting, AND take advantage of my marketable skills. But I've got three questions:
Any advice is appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 19 Apr 2018 04:32 PM PDT throwaway account for privacy. The title is pretty much the situation but there's a lot to unpack and I could use some input. I've been passively looking at jobs for a while but not actively pursuing it too heavily. Got a message yesterday from the CTO of a local company that's taking off asking for a quick chat. During the phone call he mentioned that his lead local dev was leaving to pursue a professorship and that the company wants someone to fill the spot "sooner rather than later." He said he'd like to talk further, we set up an in-person interview for today, and about 15 minutes after I left, he called me to offer me the job. Nothing during the interview felt rushed, they were very transparent about time-commitment and ramping-up expectations, and I was satisfied with their answers to all of my questions about work-life balance, expected travel, workplace culture, etc. Told him I'd like to have a formal, written offer and would need the weekend to mull things over. I'd love to take the job for the better pay, closer commute, more growth opportunities, but...
If they're truly stuck between a rock and a hard place, it stands to reason that I hold a decent amount of power in the negotiation, but it definitely doesn't feel that way. i greatly appreciate any feedback I can get. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
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