Resume Advice Thread - June 26, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Resume Advice Thread - June 26, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - June 26, 2018
- Developers that are in jobs mostly/just for the money... are you happy?
- Experienced Devs who worked at one of the big tech cos. What's next for you?
- Am I making a mistake?
- How do I start over?
- Would turning down a startup internship in my first summer of college be shooting myself in the foot?
- Whats so special about free laundry?
- Nearly 5 years as a SWE at big 4 companies and never finished my bachelor's degree. Trying to figure out how to get a bachelor's degree that will line up with my career aspirations
- Leaving college to pursue career?
- Software Engineering Student - Is starting as an IT Technical Support good?
- Making own programs at internship
- How do you size up your competition at a later stage in your career, esp. for joining big tech companies for the first time?
- Best way to gain big data/data analytics experience
- What auxiliary knowledge should I learn to become a a "proper" developer?
- Need a career change - very unhappy veterinarian
- Documenting software inside the corporate walls?
- Frustration with Internal Tools
- Currently teaching high school kids web development. How can I parlay this into an actual development role?
- 'Cheating' in the era of Tech Interviews
- Question about CS career paths
- Is this a good sign that I got the job or does it not mean anything?
- In the middle of my CS major. Would like to start working part time while I’m still in college
- What is the salary range for an employee at a smaller size tech consulting company?
- DE Shaw Information Session Invite
- Two months between graduation and work
- For those trying to learn DSA before prepping for jobs.
| Resume Advice Thread - June 26, 2018 Posted: 26 Jun 2018 12:12 AM PDT Please use this thread to ask for resume advice and critiques. You should read our Resume FAQ and implement any changes from that before you ask for more advice. Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk. Note on anonomyizing your resume: If you'd like your resume to remain anonymous, make sure you blank out or change all personally identifying information. Also be careful of using your own Google Docs account or DropBox account which can lead back to your personally identifying information. To make absolutely sure you're anonymous, we suggest posting on sites/accounts with no ties to you after thoroughly checking the contents of your resume. This thread is posted each Tuesday and Saturday at midnight PST. Previous Resume Advice Threads can be found here. [link] [comments]  |
| Daily Chat Thread - June 26, 2018 Posted: 26 Jun 2018 12:13 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]  |
| Developers that are in jobs mostly/just for the money... are you happy? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 11:08 AM PDT Hey friends! For those of y'all that are in positions where you're in it for the money, how are things? I've sort of reached a early life crisis, and would love to hear your thoughts. I graduated in 2016, worked as a backend Java developer for a year, and have since then been working in embedded software at a government contractor. I convinced myself that I HATED my Java job, that I hated working just to make a company richer, that I needed to do work to help the world... today, I'm thinking things weren't so bad. I want to help my family out, put my siblings through school, but to do that I need a job that makes more money. It looks like I've got these choices:
If you've made the choice to go for the money, how did things work out? Edit: grammar (I need coffee) [link] [comments]  |
| Experienced Devs who worked at one of the big tech cos. What's next for you? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 04:10 PM PDT Worked for five years at a couple of startups, moved to Amazon and worked in retail and alexa for about three years. Moving to Google next. For maybe five of the past seven years or so I was developing professionally, google has been a dream that was what I was chasing after and acted as somewhat of a forcing function to grow and learn. Built some cool stuff on the way (hobby operating systems, iOS controls, learnt ML, tried to do a couple of startups on the side etc.), so it wasn't always leetcode grinding. I still enjoy writing code and even when I'm just gluing libraries together, I still feel pretty good about my work. Long story short, I'm fairly passionate about writing code and even if I have enough money to retire, I'll probably not ditch programming as a profession to go start a brewery or something. But then the Google offer made me feel like I've achieved a local optima of some sort - there's always something new to learn and grow but I feel comfortable in saying throw a technical problem at me and I'm confident that I'll be able to build a clean solution for it in a reasonable amount of time. What next as a dev? Just incremental development and chasing the next promo? Will developer pay be this good five / ten / twenty years into the future? Just financial independence and retirement? I don't think I can go into consulting (non tech business people drive me nuts and I've worked with my share of those sorts during my five years outside Amazon). I can try to become an SDM and chase that career path but I have no idea if I'll be actually good at it. Startups? Sure, but your guaranteed pay off at Google is a lot higher than your startup succeeding and you as an engineer ending up with a big payout. I guess, this post is just an attempt to see if anyone else has been in my shoes and what they're doing now. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2018 11:00 AM PDT I graduated with a CS degree from a top university in 2017. Since then I've been working at a defense contractor. I've been here for almost a year and I am not really happy. I have yet to receive my security clearance, so I've been pretty much relegated to boring bug fixes and uninteresting features. I am also not enjoying the company culture. There is a lack of good leadership and collaboration between team members. The team structure is basically nonexistent. I am technically on a "team" but I hardly get to work with anyone on the team. Sometimes the team members aren't even working on the same project. I've been looking for new opportunities for the past two months. I've had a fair number of calls with recruiters and a few technical phone interviews, including Google. I've been rejected from every company I've had a technical phone interview with, even the ones I thought went okay. I am not really good at the technical interview questions. I've read CTCI and done some leetcode questions but I am still not really good at those. I know the fundamentals well, but I get nervous during interviews, especially phone interview. With my work situation and the barrage of rejections I've been getting, I am becoming very demotivated and depressed. My lease is going to end in July and I am planning to hand in my two weeks notice next week. For now I just want to move back home and look for a new job full time. I know that not having a job when looking for a new job makes me less desirable and hurts my chances of negotiating. Am I making a huge mistake by quitting before having another job lined up first? What can I do to improve my chances of getting a job within the next month or so? Thanks in advance for reading my rant and any advice or suggestions you may have for me. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2018 02:45 PM PDT I'm a little under four years into my career. I've basically been doing the programming equivalent of menial labor during that time (lots of bug fixing), but kept with it because it's been a way to pay off college while living close to my family. Now I want to move into something more challenging, but having four years of low-impact work makes me seem under-qualified for any other job. Is there a smart way to go about rebooting and landing a jr. engineering position as if I'd just graduated? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2018 01:57 AM PDT EDIT: Thanks for the quick responses, I accepted the offer! Hi, I just finished my first year in CS at a pretty good CS school (US) and received an internship offer to work at a startup (low pay, starts off remote but I may have the chance to move to SF with housing included). The job would be in nodejs/JavaScript, with some documentation involved. One of my concerns is that, since it's 8hrs/day remote it might be fairly work intense.. The thing is, I am not too interested in the work and was hoping to use the rest of this summer as an opportunity to work imo interesting side projects. I would also be studying for some placement tests that can net me class credit. For the fall, I will at least be a course assistant for a prominent class. Will I be shooting myself in the foot wrt future recruiting if I don't take up this opportunity? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Whats so special about free laundry? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 07:55 PM PDT I often see ads to work at places like google that also offers free benefits like food, massages and laundry. I understand food and massages, but what is so special about free laundry? Don't you have washing and drying machines at home. Isn't it a more pain in the ass to carry your laundry to work and do it there instead of the comfort of your own home? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2018 12:21 PM PDT Hi all, I searched through the wiki/past posts and couldn't find someone in a similar situation. Background: I ended up getting hired by one of the big 4 (generally considered the #1 place, if you get my drift) after my first year at college. I had enough credits from high school to be close to junior status, and was double majoring in engineering and computer science. 40 hrs a week of working plus overloading my schedule to take 20 credits per semester burned me out and my grades took a HUGE hit. I ended up dropping out of school before completing my junior credit requirements to focus on work. I worked at that company for almost 3 years and was feeling a bit burnt out so I decided to make the leap to another big 4 company; ended up being the best desicion I could have made and have been here for almost 2 years. Now that all of the background is out of the way, on to the actual question. While I love development work, I really want to shift my focus and move up the managerial ladder and one day be a fancy executive. To get there, I really want to get an MBA, even if it takes a few years. The issue is I don't even have a bachelor's degree yet and I'm not sure what the best route is to get it done as fast as I can. The problem I had when I was in school for CS/working full time was that I would get incredibly frustrated with my programming classes due to getting points taken off for not completing projects how we were "supposed to" (i.e. implementing a hashmap when we hadn't learned it in class yet). I worry that I will have similar frustrations going back to get a BS in CS, if not even more so since I've gained more experience. I've toyed around with the idea of getting a BA in CS instead (less credit hours) as well as possibly getting a degree in another subject matter, either one that I'm interested in (math) or something to help the MBA. The bottom line is that I want to get it done ASAP with minimal frustration. I'd love to hear people's thoughts and opinions on the matter, especially if someone's been through a similar situation! I know it's fairly unique since not many people get lucky like I did so anything helps! Thanks in advance! TL;DR: I was a lucky one who got hired by a big 4 while still very early into college, dropped out and five years later I want to go back while working and get SOME form of bachelor's degree to help my career. [link] [comments]  |
| Leaving college to pursue career? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 04:49 PM PDT Hi, BACKGROUND: Attended a bootcamp. I recently just accepted an offer for a contracting role as a SWE, and was wondering if I should dropout of Community College to pursue the experience which is a 1 1/2 years. I personally never had an interest in college, besides the CS courses ; but to get there I have to do a mountain of general Eds to even sign up for basic CS courses and to be honest my work ethic for education is quite bad, but when it comes to programming I change that attitude to be pretty on task and I exhibit a greater passion and drive, compared to taking a math course where I don't care if I get a 'C'. I am pretty young as well, and have no debts or anything. I was also thinking about working while taking some night classes, but I don't want to be so overwhelmed it affects my work. What would you do in this situation? [link] [comments]  |
| Software Engineering Student - Is starting as an IT Technical Support good? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 04:26 PM PDT Yeah well as the title says. It's an IT Technical Support job at a very good company. Is that a good way to start my career instead of Student Developer? Why or why not, thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Making own programs at internship Posted: 26 Jun 2018 11:33 AM PDT Since I'm not doing much at my internship at this big comp and i've just been coming up with ideas and making (ml related) programs kind of like personal projects but somewhat applicable to the company to demonstrate things/serve as prototypes for a bigger system in addition to doing the small amount of boring work I've been assigned (as I've finished the 'interesting' parts a while ago). Since these programs won't ever be used by the company and are just to demonstrate things would they sound bad/unprofessional if I put them on my resume? The work I've been assigned is really uninteresting (nothing 'exciting' to do and only boring work is brought up if I ask - not trying to sound arrogant but I don't want to do useless and mind numbing activities and would rather do interesting 'useless' things where I can actually learn something and I was kinda deceived by my manager in his promise for the 'exciting work' I asked about). Also I haven't seen my manager since May and he doesn't reply to my emails...all I have is regret for taking this "dev" internship over my ml offers b/c it was a well known company and the position was heavily exaggerated but I want to make the best of my situation. Prior, I have done 1 ML+1 engineering internship at gov/lesser known companies including nasa which is why I jumped on this dev internship b/c i thought backend dev would be nice to have but i've been shoved very minor frontend/automation tasks and usually nothing to do most of the day except leetcode and reddit which is why I started making the projects [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2018 04:00 PM PDT I'm experienced enough that I don't meet the qualifications for intern or entry-level jobs. But while I'm not seeking a lead or principal engineer job, I consider myself more mid-level going on the cusp of senior-level. Curiously enough there is very little information on what more experienced developers go through with entering the big 4 or other large tech companies, or the unicorns, and also it gets more difficult to gauge what kind of accomplishments experienced workers have that get them shortlisted. Not just little information here but everywhere I look on the internet. I have sent multiple applications to several large tech companies and get nothing in response. So I want to know how do I figure out what I'm up against? Currently my only option is to looking up random public LinkedIn profiles of people who have joined the big tech scene companies in their later years of work. And hoping to find some useful information about their past jobs and background. But it's usually like finding needles in a haystack. [link] [comments]  |
| Best way to gain big data/data analytics experience Posted: 26 Jun 2018 09:02 AM PDT Hey there-- Current college student looking to gain experience using data analytics software and related skills. My school doesn't offer any courses in it, but it's something I'm definitely interested in pursing as a future career; my issue is not knowing where or how to start learning. I attended a panel of hiring managers from big companies and they talked a lot about learning Hadoop before applying for jobs, so that is my (mostly arbitrary due to my lack of experience) starting point as something I'd like to learn. I've been looking into the different Microsoft certifications (MTA, MCSA, MCSE) and other courses online and in my area. For those with experience in this field, are the Microsoft certifications worth my time and money? I feel overwhelmed by the amount of material and different ways to go about learning this stuff, I'm worried I'm completely ignoring some other, better way of doing this. If online courses are my best bet, are there any specific companies people recommend? A lot of them are expensive, but I'm willing to pay if they're actually worth my time. Any help and advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| What auxiliary knowledge should I learn to become a a "proper" developer? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 01:48 PM PDT I did Electrical Engineering in university and barely passed the two mandatory programming courses that were required for my program. At that point I figured I was never going to do software development in my life. Fast forward 5 years, I graduate from EE and can't find a job in power systems. While searching for a job, I taught myself Android development and ended up getting a job as a Junior Android dev in a small company (only did one interview, so I was 1 for 1). I didn't go through any rigorous interview process that today's companies have now, I just knew a lot of the answers to the Android questions, bombed the OOP section of the interview and still somehow got the job. Fast forward a year and half, and I've learned quite a lot while on the job about Android and Web development. However, the work environment and pay I'm at isn't satisfying enough for me. I want to start looking for a new position, preferably in a more fun work environment with better pay. However, I'm dreading the interview process as I'm not at all geared for it. I want to get ahead of this problem and start studying in my off time to catch up to what a regular SE or CS graduate should know before applying for jobs. What would be a good direction for me to start studying to be a developer? Anybody have a condensed study plan that I should follow to get to my goal? Long post, appreciate the time you guys took to read this. Thanks in advance. [link] [comments]  |
| Need a career change - very unhappy veterinarian Posted: 26 Jun 2018 07:37 AM PDT I'm a veterinarian that's feeling very stuck in this career. The stress of seeing animals in pain, performing euthanasia on a daily basis, and dealing with crazy owners is too much. The pay is ok, but the benefits stink - no paid time off for example. It is fulfilling to be able to help animals, but the cons of the job are weighing me down heavily physically and emotionally. Is there a way I can enter the field of CS through online education? As far as pay, I do have $175k in vet school debt so I would need an entry level salary of at least $70k. And I doubt it, but would my medical background help in any way? [link] [comments]  |
| Documenting software inside the corporate walls? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 11:45 AM PDT In the open-software world, the quality and nature of documentation varies quite a lot, but in general people at the very least spend some time to make their code readable. Those that don't bother with documentation sometimes say that their code should be "self-documenting". Some projects I have read actually have what I would say self-documenting code. I am a firm believer that documentation does not hurt, and since it takes almost no time at all to write the documentation, why not do it? - - - - - - My current job is my first as a programmer. I have worked there for 3 years. I am the only one that EVER writes any documentation at all. I have talked with my co-workers about it numerous times. They have their arguments and I have mine. We always end up with just acknowledging that we have different views on the topic, and that we will just leave each other be. I can not step on my collegues toes, because I am going to spend a lot of time with these people, and we are essentially in the same boat together. But it really, really bothers me. - - - - - - The question: Behind closed doors, in hidden-away corporate repositories, is the praxis to just IGNORE writing the documentation*? If not, how widespread is it to just skip writing documentation*? I can imagen that this is a lot more common than in the open source world. Its a small community of people that don't step on each others toes, and there is not as much pride involved as in open source projects. You just do it for the money and then you go home, so its not that important to you - kindof. What do you think? * = With documentation I mainly mean javadoc and the C# XML documentation. And also - but to a lesser degree - also just free-floating comments in the middle of function bodies, README text-files in the project repositories or even some very high-level description about your program in some internal wiki. (maybe et.c.) [link] [comments]  |
| Frustration with Internal Tools Posted: 26 Jun 2018 08:25 PM PDT So I'm a current intern (out of 2nd year in college) at a pretty large software company, and I'm getting pretty worn down by all the hoops I have to jump through to work with the internal tools, many of which look pretty old. First I tried to requisition a server to do work with, and when that didn't immediately work, I just started studying about the code base that they have. Then I managed to get the server, and jumped through a few more setup hoops to get things working, only to find that my server had too old an OS for me to actually do my work. Since I can only use one server at a time, I then tried to update the OS (they have a tool to do this), which caused me to wait even longer and prompted more studying. That caused the server to crash, so ultimately I deleted it and tried to requisition a new one, only the page for requisitioning servers doesn't even have that feature now! So currently I'm waiting (again) for a new server, which is really super frustrating since I want to contribute something. For context, I actually think the team I'm on is really nice, even though most are fairly older than I am, and looking at the code base, college seems to have prepared me pretty well to do the work they've assigned me. I really want to do good work for them, and you can tell they are starting to get a little annoyed that I haven't done any real work yet. If only working with their tools weren't so damn frustrating! How do you guys deal with this frustration and/or find patience within yourselves? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 26 Jun 2018 04:31 PM PDT Landed a job teaching kids coding after over a year of applying, interviewing, networking, banging my head against the wall, etc. It's a contract gig that lasts a few months and I'm wondering how can I best present this to potential employers. I've talked to a few recruiters already and they've all seemed disinterested in it. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels in my current position seeing as I have no real interest in teaching and only took the role to get some form of development experience, but it feels like I made a mistake. Not sure where to take my career from here. [link] [comments]  |
| 'Cheating' in the era of Tech Interviews Posted: 26 Jun 2018 08:14 PM PDT This is a sort of interesting dilemma I've been thinking of over the past few years. I don't cheat in the various tech screenings I've come across but I've started wondering if I have been setting myself up for failure by not doing so. I'm a competent software developer and I have zero issues doing my work professionally, but due to anxiety and other issues a lot of these forced tests that companies require you to go through end up being absolute hell for me. And worse yet, I've noticed companies becoming more invasive with their interview process. Demanding that people record themselves with webcams to send off video to third-party companies for vetting purposes, asking you to install plugins and track your screen to ensure you're not looking things up. All of this before you even have a chance to talk to someone. At what point would it be considered unethical? How much is a company allowed to burden a potential employee before it becomes too much? Especially when companies can hold so much power in the first place. [link] [comments]  |
| Question about CS career paths Posted: 26 Jun 2018 02:07 PM PDT So let's say you are totally unbiased and have no preference over any of the CS career paths. You have no favorites among them, and you just need to pick one. You happen to have a little bit of experience in development, design, AND business/sales/marketing, so you have all the basic foundation for all of the roles. You can choose:
Which one would be the best position above to choose moving forward in terms of salary/growth/cutting-edge tech? [link] [comments]  |
| Is this a good sign that I got the job or does it not mean anything? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 11:17 AM PDT I just went on an onsite interview for a fortune 500 company. they paid for my expenses: flight, food, hotel. i thought the interview went pretty well. I think I could have done better but the behavioral and technical interviews were both pretty straight forward for the most part. After the interview, the hiring manager who happens to also be the product lead of the development team i would be working under gave me a tour of the office. He showed me his desk and where his team worked, he showed me the break room, and some other places. Then I left after that and asked when I would hear back. He told me hopefully by the end of this week. I don't think office tours necessarily equate to a job offer because maybe since it is a fortune 500 company they give a tour for all the candidates that are invited to the onsite. Idk thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| In the middle of my CS major. Would like to start working part time while I’m still in college Posted: 26 Jun 2018 08:01 PM PDT Are there any programming related jobs where I would only work on the weekends? [link] [comments]  |
| What is the salary range for an employee at a smaller size tech consulting company? Posted: 26 Jun 2018 07:58 PM PDT I've got a first meeting (not even technically an interview) with a small consulting company in Boston next week. I believe the company is roughly 20 people. From what I know they've been pretty successful and trying to grow heavily (they've hired at least 6 people in the past 2 months). I've got 2.5 years of web dev experience, largely in backend although some react, javascript etc. too. From looking at tech consulting careers on linkedin it seems like the common path is associate > staff > senior consultant. I'm not sure if I'd come in as an associate or staff consultant. Does anyone have a ballpark figure for salary/bonus for an associate/staff consultant in Boston (or similar city)? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| DE Shaw Information Session Invite Posted: 26 Jun 2018 04:13 PM PDT I received a message on Linkedin today from a recruiter at DE Shaw inviting me to an "evening get-together" during the summer. He says that they're "impressed with my record of achievement". Has anyone gotten something similar? Is this a legitimate thing that would be worth going to, or is it just something that they throw at everyone? [link] [comments]  |
| Two months between graduation and work Posted: 26 Jun 2018 07:55 PM PDT So I start work in about 3 weeks and haven't written a line of code for over a month because I have been traveling and kind of focusing on my hobbies since graduation. That said, I'm probably pretty rusty on just about everything related to my job. Do any of you have any experience with getting rusty and then starting your first job? Did you take any steps to try to get back up to speed before you started working? [link] [comments]  |
| For those trying to learn DSA before prepping for jobs. Posted: 26 Jun 2018 10:44 AM PDT Is this good enough https://leetcode.com/explore/learn/? Or do books do a better job? [link] [comments]  |
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