Interview Discussion - April 23, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - April 23, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - April 23, 2018
- AMA - I just got an offer from my dream company after switching careers from the restaurant industry
- Working at IBM?
- Getting lunch with a senior engineer, what are some interesting questions to ask him?
- where are the entry level jobs? have they been replaced with 'new grad' roles? what do you do if you're not a student?
- 3 Years into first job, stuck, bored, depressed
- Incoming college freshman looking for good online courses/books on Discrete Math
- How to leverage 2 or 3 similar offers (in terms of compensation) to negotiate for a higher salary?
- How have you combatted burnout at work?
- Advice from CS Engineers with families?
- Easy job vs Career Growth
- Questions to ask on a first day?
- Does Twitch (or its parent company I cant name) contact your current employer during the application process?
- When should I start applying for fulltime if I graduate December?
- Do you have a story about being particularly productive for a short period?
- Question About First Internship Offer
- Imposter syndrome or actually a bad programmer
- How difficult are opportunities in the Seattle area?
- Did you ever work at a job you feel like you settled for?
- Best ways to prepare for an internship or first job in the field?
- What do you think of Make School?
- Which career path to follow
- With a year of experience, will revature services put me ahead or set me back?
- New Grad positions?
- I live in rural PA, and am wondering if I will have to move?
| Interview Discussion - April 23, 2018 Posted: 23 Apr 2018 12:08 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 23, 2018 Posted: 23 Apr 2018 12:09 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]  |
| AMA - I just got an offer from my dream company after switching careers from the restaurant industry Posted: 23 Apr 2018 08:54 AM PDT TLDR: I'm 29 and dropped out of college after failing out of a large state school. I went into the restaurant industry with massive student debt and decided to go back to school for CS. I just received an offer from a Big 4 in a great location, and I'm graduating in May. Background: I went into the service industry with 50k in student loans when I was 21-22. Reality hit me pretty hard that I couldn't afford to live on my 9/hr cooking job. I worked 2 jobs for a year and a half to pay off my old school to get my transcripts and transferred to a community college. I spent 2 years at a CC and another 2 at a pretty mediocre state school. I managed to land an internship at a big company with an office in my area last summer, and basically begged my manager to let me stay on this year as an unofficial co-op while I finish my degree. I applied to a bunch of unicorns and large software companies this spring, and I actually heard back from a Big 4. I did an online coding assessment and 5 interviews. The process took about 3 months. I had no idea how well I was doing, but I just received my offer last week! It was a long process from deciding to go back to school, and actually finishing and getting a great offer (6 years from when I first decided I wanted to go for CS). I'm in a great spot now, and I want to say thanks to this sub for helping me get ready for my interviews. AMA! Edit: thanks for all the support - hope my story inspired someone feeling discouraged. I lurked this subreddit for years, and I'm going to keep coming back because this shit is really helpful. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2018 11:55 AM PDT Has anyone here worked at IBM as a New Grad? What team were you on and what did you do? Did you enjoy it? [link] [comments]  |
| Getting lunch with a senior engineer, what are some interesting questions to ask him? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 05:52 PM PDT I set up a lunch with a very senior engineer at my company in a few days. We're going to be meeting and having a quick 45 minute lunch together. I'm looking to learn more about him and the company. I want to know a bit more about his career and how he got there. However, I don't want it to end up being a boring lunch where I just ask cookie-cutter questions. My goal for the lunch is to build a connection and to get some tips/motivation for my own personal growth. Is there anything interesting I can ask or do in order to make the most out of this meeting? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2018 11:01 AM PDT basically the title. I'm having an awful time finding a job. The main issue seems to be that there are seemingly no entry level software engineer positions here in the bay area. What does exist is a slew of new grad roles, which explicitly ask for upcoming graduation year and gpa. Yes, I apply to those only to not hear back, just like applying to regular roles. how can I break into this industry? also: I've had my resume professionally reviewed as well as on the bi-weekly threads here. I have a math degree from berkeley. I've been programming in my previous career for over a decade, but it was in service of a non-technical product. You would think I could get interviews, at least get passed the HR screen with just my degree, but this is not the case. [link] [comments]  |
| 3 Years into first job, stuck, bored, depressed Posted: 23 Apr 2018 05:26 PM PDT Title says it all really, i'm 3 years into my first job out of school graduated with a BS in CS. I had a 1 year internship at a different company before this job. I do web dev, Java, JavaScript (jQuery, Bootstrap etc). I'm forced to use a proprietary tool (it's literally our product) to build code through a GUI that is painful. It hurts me. Thing is the company has been amazing too me, the people are awesome and most of the time there is great work life balance. I am 3 years in and I feel that i've explored most of the stack. The only pieces that I feel rusty on are the large wafts of Java libraries both ours and third party that our platform runs on. I know a bit about spring, hibernate and basic MVC. The job itself literally almost never requires me to write Java code, 50% of my day is JavaScript land, 25% is screaming at the computer while I put together code painfully using our web based GUI and the other 25% is meetings, dealing with BS clients and styling. I feel my professional skills have waned over the last year or so, I find myself no longer feeling proficient with data structures because I have to use them so infrequently. A lot of my days are spent putting out fires on one of the 6 other projects I have to help support along side the 2 i'm actually doing development on. Why do I stay you ask? Well....... 1.5 years ago today I went into my boss' office and told them i'm moving to another state. I had no job lined up and had enough $ in the bank to not care for another 6 months. I planned on literally just being unemployed in the new state for the first 6 months until I found a job. They extended me the opportunity to work from home full time until I "Transitioned". Well the transition never happened and here I am. At this point I have been going through literal depression and been seeing a therapist for the past 3 months, it has been getting better but I dread doing work...even from home...especially from home. I hate where I live, because that's where I work and i'm forced to be there, I have gained weight, become unhealthy. I have also gotten promoted again and over the past 1.5 years gotten a 10%, 15% and another 10% raise. I do not make 6 figures, I do not feel as though i'm rich by any means, I am actually living paycheck to paycheck right now but i'm not poor. I'm in the 75k range which for my area is decent. I fantasize about quitting on a weekly basis, but i'm having trouble gaining enough confidence to even persue new jobs. I have had several phone interviews, some with invitations to onsite. I have also not answered phone interviews and haven't gone to either of the two on site interviews (one was a company I found out had horrible glassdoor reviews about work life balance, the other I just flaked.) I know that I need to find a new job, but doing what? Actual Java web app development? Man some of these projects i've worked on are so legacy that I now hate spring, I hate hibernate. IDK what to do. Other than Java the only major language I have lots of experience in is C++ and it's all from my college projects (4 years of C++ no real work experience). I did a little personal project in python for fun and another Java web app using brand new versions of spring and hibernate to prove to myself I could do it. I sometimes wonder if this field is not for me, but I grew up with one major obsession (computers, software, games, LAN parties, building PCs etc). Computers and software have been a part of my life since I built my first terrible website and shitty gaming rig at 15. That horrible mess of css and straight HTML code with JS libraries I knew nothing about is what got me into wanting to program, and now I find myself hating web development. After 5 years of school to get the degree and 4 years of work experience.... i'm burnt out and my passion is gone. I don't even know why i'm writing this really, hoping someone has been through this and can give me some advice I guess. [link] [comments]  |
| Incoming college freshman looking for good online courses/books on Discrete Math Posted: 23 Apr 2018 07:28 PM PDT While I'm learning programming on my own, I also want to improve my math skills as much as possible before getting to college. I heard that discrete math is one of the most important aspects of math that I would have to use a lot in the future. Which books/online courses on discrete math would you recommend for a beginner, HS student? [link] [comments]  |
| How to leverage 2 or 3 similar offers (in terms of compensation) to negotiate for a higher salary? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 05:47 PM PDT How can I use two (pending three) similar compensating offers to get a higher salary. It seems like people usually ask for a match from another offer paying much more? However, these offers are pretty similar (maybe 2-4k at most in difference) and the one I want the most is already offering the highest. Is there a way to leverage the fact that I did get these offers for a higher salary? [link] [comments]  |
| How have you combatted burnout at work? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 06:49 PM PDT I am burning out at my current job - my first full time position since graduating in May of 2017. I know I am because there are 10 major signs for when someone is burning out: exhaustion, lack of motivation, pessimism, cognitive problems, slipping job performance, interpersonal problems outside of work, not taking care of yourself, thinking about work not at work, overall decreased happiness, and health problems. I check 9/10 of those signs off on my list so I figured I need to do something about this problem. Articles list lots of suggestions, but I want to hear from people who have actually experienced this. How and when did you know you must take action to fix that, and what were some of the solutions you tried that worked to help you recover from that burn out? What are some tips and items you would recommend being more aware of moving forward? I appreciate your sharing your experiences! [link] [comments]  |
| Advice from CS Engineers with families? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 06:09 PM PDT Hi all, I'm looking for some career advice from any young / mid level engineers who just started a family Background: I just had a baby with my wife who is a doctor. Her job is NOT flexible since she just started out at a very good hospital and will have to stay that way unfortunately. Me - I'm a mid level software engineer at a Fortune 500 company for the past 4 years, making an average 110k a year. Not going to move up anytime soon cause politics. Not happy but the work life balance is extremely good and they are very pro family (I.e. kid sick? Take day off) so it's very flexible. We just had a baby and putting him in daycare by my flexible schedule allows me to drop him off and pick him up as well as get to him if he needs So now... I just got an offer at Amazon as a consultant. It's big money, probably twice what I'm making now. It will require me to travel a lot and won't be as flexible. I haven't taken the offer yet - I'm not sure what to do at this point. Anyone in the situation have any advice? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2018 10:37 AM PDT I left my first job after a year because it was very difficult but I learned a lot and most importantly, it was stuff I wanted to learn. I am now at a second job that is easy but I am learning very little and what I do learn is not something Im interested in nor do I think it'll help in the path I want to take my career. I want to quit for another job where I can learn more. I feel like Im being an indecisive idiot who can't understand that the grass is not greener on the other side and appreciate what I already have. I have an easy, although frustrating at times, 9-5 job that pays well with a 10 min walking commute. I think a lot of it has to do with not wanting to stagnate or be a "bad" developer and being young means my career is something I want to strongly focus on right now. What is your opinion on having an easy job vs one that provides more learning opportunities (relevant tech stack, projects, etc)? [link] [comments]  |
| Questions to ask on a first day? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 04:15 AM PDT I'm starting work as an intern at a large company using .NET. What are some good questions I should ask on the first day? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2018 07:33 PM PDT I was filling out an application for twitch/River (you know who), and it seems like they might contact my current employer? The exact wording is:
Anyone have an idea? I'm pretty sure my current job would not appreciate getting contacted from River.. [link] [comments]  |
| When should I start applying for fulltime if I graduate December? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 02:25 PM PDT |
| Do you have a story about being particularly productive for a short period? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 08:06 AM PDT I'm exploring the subject of Productivity Sprints. In my 35 years of software engineering, I've experienced these sprints where I get something really amazing done. I want to explore the stories of others and look for some patterns. Maybe these are just statistical outliers. Or maybe there is a pattern that we can use to reproduce those bursts on-demand. My experiences: I am not bragging here. These are the top 5% of my productivity. My average is nowhere near this. But I want to hear from YOU about YOUR top 5%. 1. I wrote a small program that let our company's desktop software "talk" to server side subscription service and essentially turn our desktop software into a Software As A Service (Saas). It used a variety of tricky technology. I wrote it in about 30-50 hours (including all testing). It has performed flawlessly for 8+ years. That programming effort created extraordinary value.
My hypothesis at to the factors in these successes:
[link] [comments]  |
| Question About First Internship Offer Posted: 23 Apr 2018 01:39 PM PDT Hi there! I just got my first summer internship offer after 400+ applications! What a journey. Just had a few questions.
Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Imposter syndrome or actually a bad programmer Posted: 23 Apr 2018 12:48 AM PDT Hey all, I'm not sure if this has been asked before (sorry if it has) but I'm currently finishing up my third year of college getting my BS in CS. I've been pretty down on myself lately with a lot of anxiety about my future. I can't tell if my skills are good enough for the "real world" I look at some of the kids in my program and get really discouraged about my skills and then I look on this sub and feel like I'm not ready for a job. I don't think my algorithm knowledge is very strong. A little back ground, I have a 3.5 major GPA(3.3 overall) at a small state school, I have a couple of project apps but they are nothing to special, i have participated in one hackathon this year, im also the CS club president for my school(jobs probably dont care about that but i just did it to gain a good relationship with one of my prfessors) I didn't hear back from any internships I applied for, although I am currently working with two other classmates on a web application for my school's library. I'm also terrible at interviews I get really nervous and my brain goes blank (one of my classes had a mock whiteboarding that you had to do infront of the class, which I did horrible) I feel like I'm just a terrible program and that I'm not going to do well in this field. Is this a normal feeling, or a sign that I'm not going to do well? Did anyone else feel this way? Again, sorry if this is a redundant question. I'm also thinking about seeing a therapist for this because my anxiety gets pretty bad at times. [link] [comments]  |
| How difficult are opportunities in the Seattle area? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 12:08 PM PDT I was recently accepted into Georgia Tech's OMCS. I have a non- CS undergrad (bioengineering) and bootcamp experience in Java and Python. Im from the bay area but I would like to move to Seattle. So far the job search from just the bootcamp alone has been difficult. I suspect its probably due to 1) Not being able to apply to internships 2) Being a bootcamp grad 3) applying while in bootcamp [link] [comments]  |
| Did you ever work at a job you feel like you settled for? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 02:38 PM PDT Hi all, I'm graduating soon and after applying to nearly 45 different companies, big ones and small ones alike, I basically only got one competitive offer from a company that I consider to be just alright. It really bums me out, because I got to final round interviews for so many amazing places, and right now I feel like I've settled, because school and life doesn't afford me the time to continue interviewing at the moment. How do you deal with this feeling? [link] [comments]  |
| Best ways to prepare for an internship or first job in the field? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 04:48 PM PDT I'm currently working on a Bachelor's degree in CS and soon I'll have to get an internship or my first job, but the thought of it worries me. At this point, I'm pretty much done with all the classes that teach code in terms of the popular programming languages, and basically the only ones I've learned are C++, and a bit of C#. I just don't feel like I'm ready for a job. If I walked into a building and my boss told me "Okay we need a program that can do blah blah blah"... I'd be lost. I've never written any code I would consider complex. Only labs for my school work. So what can I do to make myself better? What are the best online resources for someone who isn't a beginner? Best books to read? Exercises I can do to practice and improve or projects I can work on? I always wanted to make a video game, that's my dream really, but again, I don't feel ready for a task like that. Sorry if this post doesn't belong here or something but I'd love any advice. [link] [comments]  |
| What do you think of Make School? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 07:55 PM PDT Here's the link: https://www.makeschool.com/ It's a two year college who's alumni supposedly have an average starting salary of 95K and work at companies like Google, Apple, etc etc. It's not accredited though... What are your opinions on it? Their "tuition" pay back plan is also pretty interesting; they take a portion of your salary for the first few years of your new job as payment(no tuition paid upfront). What have you heard about this school? Is it reputable? IMO, it seems too good to be true. As a junior in high school, should I be legitimately considering Make School? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2018 07:37 PM PDT I am leaving my first job out of college after a year and wondering if I should stick with web development (what I've done for the past few years) because I have some good experience with modern frameworks, or if I should treat my job search as a fresh start and look for any position (big data, analytics, software engineering, ai, computer vision, etc.). Did you follow down the same road throughout your whole career or did you jump around to completely different fields? To be more specific I am a full stack developer with experience in a bunch of the more modern frameworks (react, node, angular) and I think I would feel weird working on an older technology (C++, C#, Java). [link] [comments]  |
| With a year of experience, will revature services put me ahead or set me back? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 07:09 PM PDT I'm a college senior that's currently job hunting and I've been considering revature services. They're offering a boot camp where I get paid minimum wage to train for 12 weeks and then take on a mandatory two year contract (or else pay a $20k fee) where I will be paid $45k-$55k a year. Based on independent research, I'm convinced that it's not a scam and that for some people it's a great opportunity. I have two internships down and I'd say with my projects included, I have about a year's worth of professional experience. I'm wondering if the boot camp + the 2 years experience through revature would get me ahead in my career path. I know I'd be getting underpaid but I would also learn many valuable skills (based on the curriculum people have posted and discussed online). I know with time, I could also learn these skills by myself but I don't know how long it'll take and I wonder if it would be better to learn these things with people who are experienced at training people. I feel that if I go through revature, I will have enough skills and experience to get almost any job I want afterward. That being said, I'm completely unsure. I don't know if it's actually a dumb idea and whether I would be much more productive going another way. Any advice would be much appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 23 Apr 2018 11:36 AM PDT Is there a comprehensive list of new grad positions? As I'm sure you all know, many recruiters choose to mark roles titles "Senior Software Engineer" as Entry Level whether it be on LinkedIn or another platform. I'm trying to find New Grad or at least "real" Entry Level positions, so I was hoping one of you has some tips! [link] [comments]  |
| I live in rural PA, and am wondering if I will have to move? Posted: 23 Apr 2018 08:22 AM PDT As the title says, I live in rural PA, and I am close to graduating I don't see many software engineering jobs near where I live other then Armstrong, and some fairly small businesses. I was wondering if I should relocate to somewhere that has more jobs, like just out of philly, or New York(I really don't want to live in the city). Any help would be appreciated? [link] [comments]  |
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