Interview Discussion - June 14, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - June 14, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - June 14, 2018
- "grep" is one of the most important tools you will ever use in your CS career. What are other programming lessons that are never taught in books or classes?
- Haven't heard from boss in 6 weeks.
- Feeling depressed and worthless because I cannot pass technical portion
- Where do people even find internships?
- Is this a toxic workplace?
- Is hiring of new grads particularly slow this time of year?
- Where is the money at?
- Why is there such a culture of self-deprecation in software engineering?
- Managers and styles
- Manager vetoing my offer
- New "Senior" Engineer Looking for Learning Materials
- Stay in IT or switch to CS?
- Tech Companies, Latex/PDFs, and ATS's
- How tough is it to get a decent tech job in Orange County, CA? I just graduated and I don't have too much extracurriculars. No internship experience either.
- Being promoted mid year, won't get salary increase until beginning of next year. Is this normal?
- Getting out of programming, need help transitioning into another tech role.
- The Rain Forest company in Tempe, AZ
- Technical Support (current) or Software Engineer
- How did your job fare during the recession?
- I want to go back to my old company. Would it be a bad idea to ask different people for referrals to different positions?
- Glassdoor says "software engineers" make more than "software developers." How do I become a software engineer?
- Torn between current job and a new one
- How accurate are AngelList salary ranges?
- Should I quit my internship?
- How does the job requisition approval process work for hiring interns?
| Interview Discussion - June 14, 2018 Posted: 14 Jun 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 - June 14, 2018 Posted: 14 Jun 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: 14 Jun 2018 06:31 PM PDT When looking up a codebase, you can import it into an IDE that lets you jump to function/variable declarations, find out each call site of a function, etc. Or you can set up a tool like cscope. Though often, it will be too much hassle, or the IDE wont import correctly, the project may simply be too big and unweildly, or in a new weird language. In all kinds of situations, grep will come to your rescue as you try to figure out what does these weird function calls do, or who are the people calling this super cryptic function because maybe that will explain a little. Sometimes, you may just get a codebase with zero clue where is the part you are interested in. In which case you can just start grepping for random keywords until you locate the correct module. For example, if you are looking for the GLSL shaders in a game code maybe you can just grep for "gl_FragColor". It will find the shaders regardless of file extension, embedded in a C or Java file, etc. Of course no programming book mentions "grep". Or how to read code in general. So, what are other useful tips that you must figure out yourself, or learn from someone, but are never taught in books or classes? [link] [comments]  |
| Haven't heard from boss in 6 weeks. Posted: 14 Jun 2018 01:36 PM PDT I work remotely for a small startup, and my boss (the CEO) has been sort of MIA. He asked me to look in to creating a new feature for our product, but his description was extremely vague, so I sent him an email asking for some clarification on a few things and received no response. I went ahead and just started hacking something together, sent him the mock up along with some documentation and the same clarifying questions, and still didn't receive anything. He has asked me for hours at the end of each pay period (we report our own hours), and I've definitely gotten paid, but that's just about the extent of the interactions we've had over the last 6 weeks. This is super bizarre, so I'm not sure what to do. I can't keep working on this feature without at least a little bit more context, as I have no idea how this is going to be used or how he wants it to fit in with the rest of the application. We have no project manager, and I'm the only developer in the company, so there are no other projects officially lined up or anyone to work with, so I'm just kinda twiddling my thumbs here (not really, I've just been working on other things that are of unknown priority). I know I desperately have to leave this job, and I'm trying to find something new, but what should I be doing in the meantime? Should I just keep working on random stuff until I get some direction or a new job? Does anyone else have experience with this? Is this just normal? [link] [comments]  |
| Feeling depressed and worthless because I cannot pass technical portion Posted: 13 Jun 2018 08:58 PM PDT I am a "software developer".. or at least I think I am. I have almost been at my first and only company for 4 years now. I fail at technical phone screens. I can't even get to the onsite interview, which I imagine will be much harder than the phone screen. I have the confidence that if I get a job without the interview, I can succeed and ramp up and learn quickly. Unfortunately the interview game isn't like that anymore compared to 4 years ago, where I was just asked conceptual questions and not solving an DS&A problem through coderpad. I cannot even do leetcode easy problems unless they are super trivial. Many of the leetcode easy problems I haven't been able to figure out any kind of solution without looking at someone else's solution. Sometimes it's gotten to the point of where I've just memorized what I've written previously depending on the question(such as Two Sum, merge two binary trees, etc).. You get my point. I took an my algorithms class and data structures class during school. I get the concepts of the data structures. If you told me any type of data structure I can draw out what it does. I understand what a binary search does or linear search or quick sort does if you told me to draw it out on a whiteboard.. I just seem like I suck ass at coding them or I just can't apply them to leetcode problems. It's really been getting to me and I don't really have anyone to talk to about this. I've gotten depressed because of it and it's been effecting what I'm doing on a day to day basis at work. I can't really study during work because I'm a core member of the team I'm currently on, but the pay is shitty and I'm doing the work meant for 2-3 people. It's a dead end job and I think it's time for a new opportunity, but I keep failing. For reference, I make 88k and I live in the SF Bay Area. I don't really know what I'm asking for, maybe for someone to tell me straight in the face what the hell I need to hear and advice on what I should do and how to attack this sort of thing. Also sorry to anymore who thinks I'm crying. I just don't really have a father figure in my life or friends that are any engineers who can relate to this edit: I just want to say thank you to all who have replied [link] [comments]  |
| Where do people even find internships? Posted: 14 Jun 2018 09:00 AM PDT Currently a Senior enrolled in college. I went to not one, but two career fairs tailored towards "hiring tech talent", and it seems like everyone wants senior developers. After asking around and talking with the people at the booths, all I was able to get was a "we'll put your resume in the system and contact you if something comes up". How does one even find an internship in the first place? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 06:23 PM PDT I have been at my current workplace (first job) for about 8 months, and I've been feeling anxious the last few days. I am wondering if my workplace is toxic, and since I am still a fairly young dev, I wanted to make sure I'm not imagining things. Here are some examples of what happened in the last 2 months :
So there you go. I don't really know what to make of it. I never get any positive feedback and it's starting to become quite a downer. Is there anything I can do to handle this kind of work environment better? [link] [comments]  |
| Is hiring of new grads particularly slow this time of year? Posted: 14 Jun 2018 12:55 PM PDT Hello, I recently finished undergrad with a degree in Electrical Engineering. I want to get a job working on kernel / OS stuff. I am currently looking to get a job in the Bay Area. I have sent out lots of resumes. Some companies responded saying they would not consider me further, but want to contact me in the future and sometimes invited me to connect with them on LinkedIn. I interpret this response as, "your resume isn't garbage and you seem like you could be competent." I assume the companies will blow me off, and if they don't, great! I have also done those job tests on HackerRank. I never get 100% perfect and at most miss only a single test case on one of the five questions each time. I think it's good enough to prove I am competent which is what they are testing. I haven't heard back from those companies though. No flat out rejection, but also no "let's move forward." I've bombed HackerRank tests in the past and usually get the rejection E-Mail next day. Is hiring of new grads particularly slow this time of year? If it is slow, should I just focus my energy on something else? I love reading engineering textbooks and learning new shit. I am truly fascinated by the inner-workings of operating systems, and I was thinking of just putting lots of time into understanding Linux and FreeBSD and filling my GitHub with experimental modifications of them, have fun watching shit burst into flames and when it doesn't include benchmarks on how the modifications effect the system. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 07:24 PM PDT Let's say I could go down either a programming route or a networking/Cisco route, which one after 5 of experience of working in a large city in a Western nation, would eventually lead to the highest salary? Whether it be a permanent role, contracting or freelancing, let's also exclude becoming a CTO etc [link] [comments]  |
| Why is there such a culture of self-deprecation in software engineering? Posted: 14 Jun 2018 06:50 PM PDT In other professions like law they seem to at least respect each other. But in development people try to say stuff like "99% of programmers can't do fizzbuzz." They ask interview candidates to spend their weekend doing take-home coding challenges, as if they have nothing better to do. They ask you to go through 5-6 rounds of interviews. Even when you pass interviews and work at companies known for rigorous interviews, they still tell you to do phone interviews, asking you to find the nth fibonacci number. Why does this happen and can we fix this? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 06:28 PM PDT Hey hey r/cscareerquestions. I've been primarily in the developer consulting business for the last 6 years and my last two short job stints within the past year had really really bad communicate managers. Lack of feedback when requested, lack of commitment on 1-on-1s, micromanaging, overall lack of communication, etc. What are some great questions in interviews that can help weed out if I'm about to join as poorly managed team and/or project? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 04:08 PM PDT TLDR: I nailed the interview and the team wants to hire me but I am being turned down by a manager because I don't know Node even though they knew that the whole time. I know someone who works at TechCorp (not real name). One day I sent him a message asking for a referral. He was more than willing to help out. He said that his team at TechCorp uses language X (I want to keep details slim) but there are few that use some other languages. I told him I did all of my school assignments (graduated 3 yrs ago) in X but have only used it sparingly in a professional setting. He said that's fine, they just hired 3 or 4 people on their team to use X and the new hires didn't have any X experience. He said that his team was done hiring but there are two other teams looking to hire: one for a senior developer in X and the other for a Node developer. I said I have no experience using Node and haven't used X very recently but I am more than willing to learn. He said that should be fine so I applied with his referral. After an HR screen, a take home assignment (in X), and an essay about myself (essentially a cover letter), I did a video conference with my contact's team. They asked me a bunch of questions about my experience and background. There was a guy who seemed pretty unimpressed and gave stand-offish vibes but overall, it went well. Later, I got a call from the recruiter who asked how the call went. I said it pretty well but that it felt like they were looking for someone with different background. She said not worry about it and that the team thought I should come onsite. A bit later I did the onsite. The first interview was with a team that uses X. I felt like I did pretty well but they were looking for someone more experienced and with more knowledge of X. We went out for an uneventful lunch next. After lunch, I met with a team that uses Node. They gave me a problem and they said to not worry about finishing it ontime because no one ever does. It was a tricky problem but I was able to think and talk through it with them. I described an algorithm that I believed would work and walked though a couple of examples using it. Then I started implementing it in Node. I'm not really familiar with Node but I have used Javascript in school and in an internship. They were super helpful when I wasn't familiar how to do something in Node. I was able to implement the solution in about 5-10 mins while talking through my thought process with them. Honestly, it could not have gone better. The team seemed impressed and said they had never seen anyone approach the problem that way before let alone finish it. We had extra time and we were able to chat and I felt like they were a fun group. It sounded like some of the team didn't have a background in Node either and had learned it for the position. Anyway, there were a couple of additional interviews that day where I talked about my background and my previous experiences. Overall, I felt like I aced it. Everyone seemed excited about having me around and I felt like I really hit it off with the Node team. I was called the next day and told that there was a team that was interested in me and they would like to go out to lunch and talk about the team. We scheduled it a couple days later. I went to the lunch and met with the whole team (there were some people I hadn't met at the onsite). It was a lot of fun. They asked me about my experience, my hobbies and a bit about what I'm working on currently. I was asked how much frontend work I do and I said none at all. (I realize now I should have said that I have done it before in school and in an internship). During the lunch they told me some more about their team and I was more sold the more they talked. One thing that really sold me was that they work from home half of the time. I got a call almost a week later. The recruiter asked how the lunch with the team went. I said it was great and I enjoyed it a lot. She said "It sounds like the team isn't quite what you were looking for." At this point, I was thinking "What is she talking about?" I told her "Actually, I thought it was a great match. I loved getting to know the team and I think I would be a great team to work on!" She continued to say something about me being a better match for a different position and that they wanted to wait for a position in X to open up to consider me for. She said that they would know more in a few weeks. That was pretty much the end of it. I was completely shocked. It seemed like such a great team and it seemed like they wanted me too. I remember at the lunch the team using phrases like "when you're here..." and "you're gonna like it here". Meanwhile, my contact had reached out and asked if I heard back. I told him they got back to me and it seems like I wasn't what they were looking for. He looked into it and said and the team really wanted to hire me but a manager has veto power and he decided that I wasn't a good fit since I didn't know Node. My contact appologized profusely saying how stupid it is that they wasted my time and that he had told them at the beginning that I have Node experience. Right now I am so annoyed and frustrated. They had my resume and I told them multiple times that I didn't know Node and yet they continued with the process. Worst of all, I had met with that manager at the onsite and at the lunch with the team. Why did they do the lunch if I didn't have the qualifications?! I'm also annoyed at myself because whenever they asked me if I have experience in Node, I always said no. I realize now that I shouldn't have sold myself short and have said something like, "I have worked with Javascript in the past, and I'm willing dive back in." (For some reason my brain didn't make the connection with frontend Javascript and Node.) It's also frustrating because it would probably just take a couple of weeks to learn Node enough to start being productive. I'm sure the start date would be at least 2 weeks away. I could be up to speed by the time I started anyway. I just wish I could talk with them and explain. Honestly, I would rather be on the Node team I had talked with and got excited for, than some X position that might open up. I don't want to go through another interview if a position does open up because I already went through the whole process. (and technically passed!) Is there some way I could explain to them that I'm willing to learn and that I do have some experience in Javascript so the transition wouldn't be that hard? Edit: Okay, taking a step back, I can see I am being silly. I'll just move on and chalk this up to the usual unfair interview bureaucracy. I likely don't know the real reason anyway. [link] [comments]  |
| New "Senior" Engineer Looking for Learning Materials Posted: 14 Jun 2018 12:20 PM PDT Hey all, Does anyone have any recommendations for books/blogs/videos to read/watch about being a senior engineer/technical leader? Background: I'm a 27 y/o engineer at a company with 500+ technical people (engineers, dbas, etc.) with about 5 years of professional experience. Through hard-work and a series of unfortunate/fortunate people leaving my team, I've become the senior engineer on a team of 10 engineers (most others have 1-2 years experience). Having a bit of impostor syndrome lately even though I think I'm a good developer. I love reading and am looking for info on being a good leader/engineer (not a manager). I've already read a lot soft-technical books (not exhaustive list by any means):
Thanks, Brendan [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 03:55 PM PDT I have a degree in History, and am now 25. I have recently decided to get started on a career seriously and start making a lot of money. I currently work at a Help Desk position for an MSP, and I had been planning to try to go the IT career route toward net/sysadmin. I'm 6 months in and am starting to reconsider despite being promoted and rapidly increasing my IT skillset. I am skilled at and enjoy programming, and am very intelligent and have a strong technical understanding of hardware and software, but I am an amateur at programming and don't have a technical degree. Two questions: 1) Is CS/software development a lucrative career financially compared to IT? What does starting salary look like and how long would it take to get to 6 figures, to give me an idea. I'm in the WNY region and probably tied in this general area for several years. AND 2) Do I have a shot to get into a programming/development position (if I spend several months studying hardcore) without a technical/CS degree or would I need to go back to school? Because looking at what appears to be entry level CS positions in my area they pay pretty well (60k+) compared to my current IT position (30k). [link] [comments]  |
| Tech Companies, Latex/PDFs, and ATS's Posted: 14 Jun 2018 03:47 PM PDT Say you're trying to apply as a future new grad to companies like the search engine one, the social media one, Snapchat, etc. Is it problematic to submit pdfs (specifically compiled from latex) because ATS's won't parse them properly, or is this less of an issue in this context? What if you include basic graphics like logos? Thanks for the help. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 05:00 PM PDT I just graduated with a BA in Computer Systems. I have small school projects as my extracurriculars. No internships though. Not much extracurriculars in general. It sounds like these days you need to answer complex white board problems and need all these polished projects and internships that I don't have. I just don't wanna spend much time unemployed out of school building my resume up just for a shot at something. It feels like a gamble. There's no guarantee that if I intentionally don't work for 4 months to study and build something that I'll be handed a job after. I just want to start working in a career job ASAP. But are those high standards Silicon Valley only? What's the difficulty for companies in Orange County? I live in the Inland Empire, about 30min away, and I'm not looking to move far right now. Honestly I just want a decent full time job for now. I'm not looking for an ambitious company and a project I'm super passionate about to work on. I'll save looking for that for when I have work experience. Like I'll take a job with a starting salary of $55-65k with benefits. Is that reasonable? What should I be expecting for applying to jobs and companies in Orange County? Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Being promoted mid year, won't get salary increase until beginning of next year. Is this normal? Posted: 14 Jun 2018 08:22 PM PDT I was told that I'm on track to become a senior engineer mid year and I'll start taking on all responsibilities of a senior engineer such as conducting interviews, but my salary won't go up until early next year because that's when the whole company does pay raises. Is this a fairly normal and fair thing for a company to do? [link] [comments]  |
| Getting out of programming, need help transitioning into another tech role. Posted: 14 Jun 2018 08:20 PM PDT I have come to the realization that I don't want to be a developer anymore. I graduated from a bootcamp a few years ago and worked as a junior developer for a couple of years (also teaching kids programming during the summer). I joined a startup as the CTO a year ago and did some web development/hiring/project and product management as well as filled all the gaps and am pretty burnt out from working 10-20 hour days. I've realized my personality doesn't match being a programmer. I can't handle continually writing errors and things not working/breaking and am unable to get away from my code. Even when I walk away/take a break I'll continually overthink everything or run it as a sub-process in the back of my mind while doing something else and get stressed. I've looked into netsec/pentesting/white hat hacking and it's interesting but I wonder if I'll run into the same levels of stress? Or if there's something else I can transition into, I'm completely lost. Looked into product management and there's nothing out here in Hawaii and don't know if I qualify for these remote positions I'm looking into. [link] [comments]  |
| The Rain Forest company in Tempe, AZ Posted: 14 Jun 2018 08:07 PM PDT Just wondering what its like working at Amazon in Tempe, AZ. How's the interview process and overall culture in the offices there? [link] [comments]  |
| Technical Support (current) or Software Engineer Posted: 14 Jun 2018 08:03 PM PDT I have been working for a large software company for almost 2 years doing application support. I recently was offered to be a software engineer for a defense contractor writing code. Would this be considered a "good" career move? Will having the title "Software Engineer" on my resume help me for the future? What would be next steps after application support? Just looking for any positive or negatives. [link] [comments]  |
| How did your job fare during the recession? Posted: 14 Jun 2018 07:49 PM PDT Did your pay change, were there any layoffs in the CS department, etc. This is regarding the recession in 2008. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 01:08 PM PDT I was able to get a referral from a former manager, who still works at my old company, to a position within their department, although not working directly under them. My old boss switched departments within the company since I've left, and I don't really know the people in their new department. Hopefully, my old boss said nice things about me to the hiring mamager. To be honest, though, I haven't been having good luck with interviews, and I'm also pretty desperate to leave my current job. I've had a few recent interviews not end up in job offers, and I am wondering if the same thing might happen this time. As possible back ups, I have a few other former colleagues that still work at my old company and would probably be okay referring me for other open positions I've seen online, different from the one I was talking about above. Would it be a bad idea to ask different people from my old company to refer me to different positions? Would it feel like i'm screwing them over? If I do it, should I mention to them I've also asked other people for referrals? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 11:34 AM PDT I don't really even know if the work I do on a daily basis is "development" or "engineering." For reference, my degree is in computer science. [link] [comments]  |
| Torn between current job and a new one Posted: 14 Jun 2018 01:07 PM PDT Hey guys, I would really need some input on my current situation. I am currently doing my internship at a huge tech company, I have been there for 9 months now. I am pretty good at my job and have been recognized by management several times, got to do a few huge projects as well. My everyday tasks are the same as anyone else's in the same (full-time) position. My only issue is, that after 9 months I am still just an intern, I didn't get a raise or job offer, although I was told several times that after I finish university there would be a place for me full-time, but that's next year in January at best (I have one more semester) and they expressed that they do not see it happening before because of budget cuts and lack of headcount. My only chance for anything sooner would be if someone from the same position leave the company, they said they would hire me instantly. I started to look for new opportunities and found a promising position at another big tech company meanwhile. I did interviews there, and today I got an offer for a full-time position. The salary would be about 10-15% more than the current one and I still can do school in parallel. Also this place would pay me per month as opposed to per hour. It is a bit more strict workplace regarding everything else than my current one, but that's fine. The problem is that I am really torn between what to do, because I really-REALLY like working at my current place, love my colleagues but I feel like being just an intern there is not really helping my career goals and management is not doing everything in their power to accelerate my full-time offer. So the question is: Should I discuss with my manager (with whom I am on really good terms) that I got a job offer and considering it? Should I just hold on for a couple of few months and wait or should I accept the job offer I got? [link] [comments]  |
| How accurate are AngelList salary ranges? Posted: 14 Jun 2018 06:56 PM PDT I'm wondering if anyone else has found AngelList salary ranges to be honest and accurate. Are they generally reliable estimates? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 14 Jun 2018 03:09 PM PDT I wanted to stay for an extra four months to get a bit more experience and say that I worked somewhere consecutively for over a year. However I strongly hate working here now, and I'm thinking that my time would be better spent on my own (working on my portfolio) until school starts again in September. I took a drastic decrease in pay because my internship is no longer subsidised by the government (the subsidy stops after a year), and I don't think I stand a chance at getting offered full time. My manager doesn't seem to respect me and I'm sometimes getting assignments not related to programming. I'm worried that quitting will prevent me from getting a reference from my manager, but this coop is starting to take a real toll on my mental health and I'm beginning to think that I should just leave. [link] [comments]  |
| How does the job requisition approval process work for hiring interns? Posted: 14 Jun 2018 06:55 PM PDT Especially in BigNs. If a manager fills one out, how likely is that to get approved? [link] [comments]  |
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