Interview Discussion - August 02, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - August 02, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - August 02, 2018
- Am I wrong in not wanting to help a teammate
- The "ghosting" in this industry is very deflating
- Offer Rescinded While on Call Giving Notice
- A Year Later: Anecdotes on the SDE Internship Hunt
- Need help negotiating pay after my internship
- Does anyone have any experience with pair programming? As in literally paired while you program.
- Are there CS unions, and are they worth joining?
- Is this ridiculous?
- How do I go from zero to freelance?
- Raleigh, NC Infosys housing suggestions
- Do any developers/SWE get randomly drug tested? Asking for a friend....
- Is React or Angular better to develop for CAREER skills that employers care about? I want to know what people in the industry value.
- Contacting recruiters from previous years
- How long did it take you to start doing coding challenges quickly?
- [Junior security Analyst] Did I accept too low of a salary?
- How bad of a predicament am I in? (Game programming Major)
- How do you properly handle a coworker that is constantly asking you questions without trying to answer them first themselves?
- Need some guidance on where I should take my young and pleb CS career
- Feeling stressed over my own performance in internship
- Question regarding work/career situation
- Whats the most fun you've ever had at your job?
- When does hiring season start again?
- Just got my first job in development as a QA! What should I Expect?!
- How important is it to you to make a positive impact on the world?
- Working as a contractor for the first time. No idea what's going on.
| Interview Discussion - August 02, 2018 Posted: 02 Aug 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 - August 02, 2018 Posted: 02 Aug 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]  |
| Am I wrong in not wanting to help a teammate Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:38 AM PDT I've been having an issue with a teammate on a project. She's a nice lady but any time she needs to solve a problem, she doesn't Google the issue and wants the problem answered for her by a teammate. Often it's a simple answer for me, but the frustrating thing is that these are very quick Google-able questions. In the beginning I would eagerly help her because I thought it was just a ramping up period on the project. But we're now a year in to the project and it keeps happening. Am I wrong for not wanting to help her anymore? Any time she comes to me with questions now, I am asking her questions about what she did to try and solve it. Thoughts? [link] [comments]  |
| The "ghosting" in this industry is very deflating Posted: 02 Aug 2018 01:51 PM PDT Like many on here, I've been looking for a job out of school for a while. I've sent out my fair share of applications, and have gone through various stages of interviews. One of the worst things I've encountered has been the ghosting by various companies' HR departments/recruiters. I get that if I file an application with some companies, they won't reply back to me, but I'm talking about when a recruiter actually reaches out to me personally (maybe they saw my application/resume, and like it). Sometimes, I even go through a series of one or more phone interviews. Then, all of a sudden, the communication just stops at that point, and you never hear from them again...No updates on your status, even with a courteous follow-up, and then that's it - you'll never hear from them again. This has happened to me from a wide range of companies, both big (big-N) and small, although it seems to happen more with big companies. When I send an initial application, I don't expect a response/denial, but once I've invested time into this process, I expect to be let known my status. Whether naive or not, I feel like this is a professional industry, and companies should really try to reflect better professionalism from their HR/recruiting teams. [link] [comments]  |
| Offer Rescinded While on Call Giving Notice Posted: 02 Aug 2018 08:30 AM PDT As the title states, I was near the end of my call giving notice to my current employer when I got an email from new employer rescinding their offer. Their reasons were that I had too many concerns. I was merely getting clarification on some language in the offer letter, and had asked about scenarios with their PTO policy while we were going through the employee handbook. Oh, and asking about the agreed upon salary increase not being in the offer letter. Has anyone had this happen to them? It seemed like an innocuous and responsible set of questions that I was asking. [link] [comments]  |
| A Year Later: Anecdotes on the SDE Internship Hunt Posted: 02 Aug 2018 08:55 AM PDT As I was combing through this morning's top r/cscareerquestions posts, I saw that today was my Reddit cake day. I remember creating this alternate account a year ago today: I was sitting in my cubicle at my Fortune 500 software engineering internship with little to no work to do, wondering where I'd be in a year. Long story short, I ended up with a handful of offers and was able to work at a Big N in the city of my dreams with work that interests and challenges me. I wanted to share a few thoughts on the SDE internship hunt, since we're now in August and the hiring process is starting to ramp up. Having gone through several interview loops at all kinds of companies last year, I feel I can give at least a few valuable nuggets of information to the sophomores and juniors in college looking for Summer 2019 internships. Words are ImportantPlain and simple, a huge component of the hiring process is based in communication. And, if you cannot communicate effectively, you will be passed over for other candidates. Use spell-check. Make sure you know what a run-on sentence is. Learn how to write a professional email. Figure out how to communicate what you need in a polite manner. Do not skip this. Networking is (Almost) EverythingYes, we've all heard this before – maybe from your university's career services, or maybe from your parents. The truth is, most people get jobs through connections or referrals. So, why are you trying to beat the odds by just shot-gunning your resume at hundreds of online applications? Understand that you can have a much higher success rate (getting past the resume screen) if you actually invest time into the following:
It really is that simple. FWIW, I had connections at >90% of the companies that I ended up interviewing with. Now, networking is not everything. You still need to pass those interviews. Be OpenSure, you want to be in San Francisco working at If you let tunnel vision for "top tech companies" get in the way of getting an offer, you could end up without a job. Internalize that reality. You can't be picky until you have offers in hand; only then do you have the luxury of leveraging offers against each other to get the best possible package for you. So, apply to jobs everywhere. SF, Boston, Seattle, NYC, Austin, Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago, and the list goes on and on. Practically every company out there today is hiring SDE interns, even the older Fortune 500 companies. So, if you don't have other offers, why should you feel entitled to being picky about where you work? Plus, I'll let you in on a little secret: once you have one offer, it becomes exponentially easier to get other offers. Think about what a recruiter thinks when he/she sees two candidates:
All other factors equal, I think we'd all place a little more trust in the candidate who's already proven to a company that he/she is qualified. And, this can lead to even more job offers in hand because you can now go to other companies and say "Hey, I have a job offer that's expiring in a few weeks. I'm still very interested in interviewing with your company, so is it possible to accelerate my interview process to accommodate this deadline?" Study for Technical InterviewsAt this point, if you haven't already read through CTCI and/or done >20 hours of LeetCode, you should consider yourself "behind" the majority of successful applicants. Most companies follow an SDE intern interview process of: Most SDE intern interview questions require you to solve a fairly simple problem that is, at its core, probably similar to stuff you'd see on LeetCode. But, you need to be able to optimize your solution and analyze its time complexity, talking about trade-offs along the way. So, I recommend spending a few weeks grinding on LeetCode. You should be able to do all of the easy problems before doing any technical phone interview, and if you're gunning for top companies then you should also be able to do a fair amount of the mediums. Final ThoughtsI could easily write another thousand words on this process, but I'll hold off for now. Feel free to ask me questions if you want to know about anything that I didn't touch on. I'm not trying to claim that I'm an expert or anything, but I feel as though I have a good handle on how the SDE internship hunt works. Best of luck! [link] [comments]  |
| Need help negotiating pay after my internship Posted: 02 Aug 2018 02:44 PM PDT Hi, all! I'm an undergraduate CS student, about to be heading into my senior year. I'm reaching the end of my software development internship with a medium-sized non-tech company in my hometown, and will be heading back to uni in 1.5 weeks. A coworker (my summer mentor) told me that she talked to our manager about keeping me on remotely as a contractor while I'm in school to work on a few projects I've been involved in over the summer. She anticipates that my manager will bring me in sometime next week for the offer. My question is, how much pay should I negotiate for a position like this (if I get the offer, of course)? I'm currently paid a bit below $20/hr; however, I feel that I've been extremely productive for them over the summer. This is my first internship, thus it has been my only professional experience in the field so far. I appreciate any input/tips. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Does anyone have any experience with pair programming? As in literally paired while you program. Posted: 02 Aug 2018 02:30 PM PDT tldr: How bad and obnoxious is literal pair programming? Hello r/cscareerquestions I have two competing job offers for senior level developer positions. Overall they both seem like good places to work. I am somewhat leaning towards one of the positions because it seems like it might be slightly better in a couple of ways. However, the position has one HUGE red flag in my eyes. The position I am slightly leaning towards practices "pair programming." By pair programming, I mean literally one computer with two mirrored monitors and two sets of keyboards and mice in which two developers take turns going back and forth working on something. I understand the importance of collaboration and working together, but there is a time and place for that. In my opinion, the implementation of pair programming practiced by one of the companies offering me a position seems like a horrible idea that is completely detached from reality. This setup really seems impractical and feels like a bad case of a "too many cooks in the kitchen" type situation. This type of arrangement seems like it would be very inefficient when it comes to productivity since two developers will potentially have the same output as one developer. It also seems impractical for many of the other activities involved in software development that aren't programming, things like research or documentation. I have to admit I feel somewhat hypocritical for saying this about pair programming because in most of my roles, I was always part of a group that was VERY understaffed and I would have loved to have had more developers to work with and to bounce ideas off of. All my concerns about pair programming aside, I am willing to give most things a try, within reason. The only problem is, in order for me to try this practice professionally, I would have to accept the offer. If it turns out I don't like it, then I may very well be stuck with a role I don't like. If anyone here has any experience with this type of work practice I would greatly appreciate hearing what your experience was like. I have a couple days before I need to officially make a decision since the weekend is coming up so I would like to take the feed back and experiences of others before I make an decisions. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| Are there CS unions, and are they worth joining? Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:18 AM PDT I tried searching around for this but came up mostly empty handed. Anyone have some experiences with this? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2018 01:54 PM PDT I received offers from multiple companies. From one company, I asked for about a 13.5% increase on salary (expecting to negotiate from there), yesterday they came back with another offer 2% above their original offer (lol) which I told them I accepted. Then they emailed me just now saying they can't meet my counter offer and are withdrawing their offer of employment. I don't know if there was some miscommunication, but I'd determined this was my best offer as far as career trajectory goes. If I can get them to reconsider, would it be worth it, or would you be sketched out by a company that conducts themselves in such a confusing way? They also extended me the offer based on basically no interview process in the first place, so I really don't know what they're doing lol. [link] [comments]  |
| How do I go from zero to freelance? Posted: 02 Aug 2018 05:38 PM PDT So I'm a student trying to find full-time work. The usual way it works for me so far is that, while I have energy, am a couple of semesters from a degree, GitHub commits, a fleshed out LinkedIn page, and what seems like enough to land me an entry-level role, I get told I don't have enough experience, even though I low-ball my price. The obvious problem here is that I can't really get experience without a job, and nobody will give me that job to get experience. I always do a postmortem after an interview to see if anything I did was wrong (which is why I know this), and the last guy told me that I should try freelance or volunteering to get experience. Volunteering seems a bit out of my price range; I'm a student, but I need money to support myself in the way a more-or-less paid for student doesn't. However, freelance looked enticing. I looked at it a while back, but it seemed out of my league. Looking at it again on UpWork, it's still out of my league, but in a way I can better identify: entry-level means entry to the platform, not the workforce, so if I were to try to do a freelance job, even if hired, it'd be as hard as real work, but without context or help. My goal is to get a real job, and freelance seems like the avenue, but what should I do to get there? [link] [comments]  |
| Raleigh, NC Infosys housing suggestions Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:51 PM PDT Starting at Infosys in Raleigh in a few weeks. Since I'm working where I'll be training, I wont get hotel so I need to find an apartment. Was wondering if any former Infosys people (or rather anyone who lives in the area) had any suggestions? Or if anyone is starting on August 27th in Raleigh, where are you planning on staying? I'm alone so studio or 1 bedroom is fine. I also have a car so distance from the hub or wake tech isnt really a big problem. Just a tad bit worried about safety. [link] [comments]  |
| Do any developers/SWE get randomly drug tested? Asking for a friend.... Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:22 PM PDT I'm an intern(7 months internship East coast), I did the initial drug screen and I passed. However I was wondering if any other developers get randomly drug tested. I work at a non government job, If that helps. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2018 06:54 PM PDT So I have past experience in Angular and was looking at doing personal projects to enhance my professional portfolio for my career as well as things that I am truly interested in. Is Angular or React the more popular tool and more desirable? For instance, one company I applied at (and didn't get in at) wanted to use react. I am very confident I could get a good handle on either, but I want to know what the EMPLOYERS WANT. [link] [comments]  |
| Contacting recruiters from previous years Posted: 02 Aug 2018 06:40 PM PDT Student in college right now, and I've gotten through some levels of interviews at some companies last year but didnt get through the interview process completely, meaning I didnt get an offer. Over the past year Ive improved my resume and become more qualified for their internship, would it be a bad idea to email the recruiter that was helping me out last year? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| How long did it take you to start doing coding challenges quickly? Posted: 02 Aug 2018 11:23 AM PDT I was just wondering about a rough time frame on being able to solve coding challenges (i.e. medium difficulty) on sites like HackerRank and Leetcode as well as interviews. I realize it varies based on how much time you put in each day and other factors but what would be your rough estimate? Edit: I understand this is very subjective so a better question is how long did it take YOU to get better at that? [link] [comments]  |
| [Junior security Analyst] Did I accept too low of a salary? Posted: 02 Aug 2018 01:20 PM PDT I'm a 22 year old rising CS student with no networking experience. I just accepted an entry level junior security analyst position at a medium (15-25 personnel) sized cyber security company. Ecstatic that I had been offered the job, I immediately accepted "starting at $10/hr" without putting much thought into it. Throughout college, I have been working labor jobs for between 12 and 15 per hour. I am leaving a job earning 13.50 an hour to get into the field. I am in Army ROTC and will be leaving likely between spring (when I commission as an officer) and fall of 2019 for my branch specific training (Ideally Cyber or Signal). My main questions arose when I found I would be working the same job as upper high school guys. I'm wondering if I restricted myself (and my pay) by accepting before understanding the scope of the position. My main goal of this job is to learn and gain experience. However, I do have bills to pay and don't want to stretch too thin between work, ROTC, and being a full time student. [link] [comments]  |
| How bad of a predicament am I in? (Game programming Major) Posted: 02 Aug 2018 04:25 PM PDT Graduated highschool in 2012, and was rushed into school without figuring what path i wanted to go in life. Struggled from major to major for 3 years until i figured I wanted to be a Game programmer and decided to pick one of the most expensive schools at the time since my college was being paid for for the next upcoming years. Fast forward 3 years ahead and Im finally a senior with only 7 classes left. But it started to dawn on me as I was looking for internships and potential entry level jobs. Everything is asking for a Computer Science major or something similar. I look at the curriculum for some CS majors at other colleges and while the fundamentals are somewhat the same as my schools', its way more indepth at others with a CS degree. Its sort of leaving me with a sense of "Im screwed!" since I have to compete against others with a better degree to be put on their resumes and with possibly better education then me. While it all comes down to problem solving and algorithms, it makes me feel as though I wont even be glanced at when they see "Bachelors of Arts in Game Programming". Has anyone else gone through this or can chime in on what I could do to become a more attractive job seeker with my upcoming degree? Even though Im going to school for Game programming I wish to seek a job as a Software developer if I cannot find a studio to work for or if something better comes along. There is also the option of swapping majors and going to a cheaper college, but with only 7 classes left to graduate and potentially being (22k dollars in debt), im in kind of a confused state of where to go with my education. Finish up or swap for something thatl be better in the end but also take longer to finish up. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:50 PM PDT I work on a really small sub team of two people handling front end work for the larger team. Someone newer to our team was assigned to my sub team to help with some of the work load. The problem is, every day for about a month now this person has been using about an hour of my time a day, sometimes randomly throughout the day, or sometimes all at once at the end of the day, or both. They ask questions that indicate that they are new to or unfamiliar with front end work, but they did it at their last job, so I'm not sure what they did. I thought maybe I just need to help them out and give them a head start to get the ball rolling. Over time the questions became greater, and indicated that they didn't really even try to look it up, or figure it out themselves. And my initial help didn't seem to stick with them or get them up to speed. A lot of my answers were essentially me plugging something into Google and reading off the first result. I tried answering the questions in a way that indicated maybe they should look it up by saying things like "it says here in the documentation that...", or "when I look this up it says that...". That did not seem to work. Sometimes they would ask me how to go about their entire task, which I would just briefly explain or tell them to look it up. Sometimes I really don't know how or the best way to do their task unless I sit down and start doing it myself. At which point them helping or doing the task is not really worth while. A lot of the questions they ask have similar code in our code base already for reference. I just get the indication they are really lacking in skills to teach themselves, or formulating questions that fill in their knowledge gap. They are about two weeks behind where they are supposed to be with their tasks, but I don't have time myself to help them out, because it would use up all my time either by me doing the task, or me spending all day making sure they can do the task. It's gotten to the point that them talking to me and asking questions completely stresses me out and I don't even want to talk to them and I become really dismissive. They use so much of my time that my first response is how I can get out of talking to them the fastest. Even if they have a decent question I just feel completely unmotivated to help them. I feel really bad, because if I didn't know things and someone else did I would like it for them to help me too. I like to think though that perhaps I would go about it though with me trying and looking things up myself and asking more directed questions about what I've tried and where I'm trying to go with my task. My coworker brought this up to my boss, and I ended up talking to my boss about it too because they are also doing this to my coworker. My boss is going to try to assign them tasks more aligned to what they can handle going forward. I'm just trying to think about what the best way to handle this kind of thing is? I'ts really bad for the person asking for help too because now they've kind of set themselves up for failure because me and my coworker have become really sort of dismissive towards them. [link] [comments]  |
| Need some guidance on where I should take my young and pleb CS career Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:49 PM PDT I just graduated with a CS degree and was able to land a job as a software developer at a decently well-known and public cloud company. I'll primarily be doing a lost of JS and C# things at work. It's my first software job so I'm really excited to say the least. I'd just like others' thoughts/opinions on where I can go after working at the company for 2 - 3 years. Ideally, I'd like to get a chance to apply for the major tech companies (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple etc...) as a software developer but I'm not entirely sure if that's still possible since I missed the boat to do internships at these companies during school and to get in as a new grad. I'm also interested applying for PM related roles (I did a minor in business alongside CS) at either these companies or some lit startup (100 - 200 people) working on products/services I think are useful! I really have no idea as to how to generally outline my career so any advice/thoughts would be cool! [link] [comments]  |
| Feeling stressed over my own performance in internship Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:38 PM PDT So I went out to lunch with a co-worker yesterday. Just me trying to network with those in my office before my internship ends. She starts a "conversation" about how the other intern in our office (there are only 2 of us total) isn't impressing some of our teammates She goes into a small rant of sorts about this intern, and I'm just sitting there awkwardly and low-key panicking about my own performance (just completed my sixth week here) and how my teammates see me. Why would she be telling me this stuff about the other intern anyways? That's what I don't understand. Should I be worried or am I just being irrational? [link] [comments]  |
| Question regarding work/career situation Posted: 02 Aug 2018 07:28 AM PDT Hello. So I'm in an odd situation with work right now. It's a long story, so I'll just get right into it. So earlier this month I was working as a contractor for a company as a developer. They started having issues and they let me out of my contract. I was basically let go. After about 4 days of searching however, I ended up getting another offer, this time for a "full time role" that paid comparable money and was remote. All sounds good right? Well, not exactly. Seeing that I was unemployed, I readily accepted the position. I came to their office which was out of town from me, and they told me about the client that I would be work with. This is a consulting firm, and they assign their consultants to clients. Well the client was someone I had already interviewed with in the past. when I interviewed with them in the past, they weren't interested. So this created a dilemma for not only my current company, but for me. Anyway there is usually only 1 client interview, and you are placed. Because of this situation, I've been asked to do repeated "screenings" from the client. Now I also interviewed with a different company during my very short job search. This was also for a remote position, but they weren't neatly as fast as this company I currently work for. However they did come back with an offer this week. And the situation looks like it's probably much better than what I'm dealing with now. So if you were me what would you do? I already feel that with my current company, if I were to get assigned to this client, my life would be miserable. I'd probably work under a microscope, and honestly the culture seems to really suck. The people who run the firm I work for are really cool, very mature, but this client just isn't great to me. so should I take the other option of this company that came back with an offer? I would feel bad about leaving this company I accepted an offer with just a few weeks ago. But I feel pretty tense about the situation. I would love to get some feedback and advice. [link] [comments]  |
| Whats the most fun you've ever had at your job? Posted: 02 Aug 2018 11:51 AM PDT This specifically has to be work related, like something while on the job, but your answer doesn't have to be apart of a task you were given or anything. [link] [comments]  |
| When does hiring season start again? Posted: 02 Aug 2018 03:34 PM PDT I'm looking for interviews for a full-time position once I graduate and I know some recruiters who told me to send them my resumes in the coming semester. I had already accepted an internship for this summer but they were kind enough to consider hiring me for a position when I graduate (May 2019). When does hiring season come in full-swing so I should email these recruiters? [link] [comments]  |
| Just got my first job in development as a QA! What should I Expect?! Posted: 02 Aug 2018 11:47 AM PDT Hey All! I'm new to reddit, so pardon me if this isn't the correct place to post this! I Recently graduated from a developer Trade school where I learned to be a full stack web developer. I learned C#, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and SQL. Working primarily in ASP.NET using Visual Studio 2015 CE. It's been about three months of searching for my first development gig and finally landed one as an Implementation QA Analyst. Now I've read that this isn't necessarily development but is on the right track to getting experience needed to be a developer. Problem is, I don't know what I'll be doing! My question is what should I expect?! What should I learn up on? I was given very vague information on the job description and what exactly I'll be doing. I've been watching videos and reading articles EVERYWHERE in preparation for my first day. Ultimately what it sounds like I'll be doing is testing the functionality of CMS websites for a client, advertising and other things related. I'm very curious what this process looks like. I really appreciate any feedback or advice! Thanks reddit. [link] [comments]  |
| How important is it to you to make a positive impact on the world? Posted: 02 Aug 2018 11:43 AM PDT Do you seek out jobs at companies that are actively trying to make the world a better place? For me, yes it's very important and I try to find companies that are genuinely trying to help people around the world live better lives rather than sell their data for ads or sell them shit they don't need. [link] [comments]  |
| Working as a contractor for the first time. No idea what's going on. Posted: 02 Aug 2018 03:24 PM PDT Got a last-minute offer the other day for contract work at a Big 4 for a short project. We've agreed on the rate, per diem, transportation/accommodations, etc. in writing, but they still haven't sent me anything for actually booking flight and hotel. Last I heard from them was yesterday saying they'd sent me the links soon. I need to be on a plane on Sunday. Is this normal? Am I being impatient? Should I wait a bit longer? I really need this job so I don't want to piss them off by pestering them, but then work starts so soon!
It's my first time doing something like this and I have no idea what to expect. (Also, any advice in general in regards to working as a contractor? I'm so nervous...) [link] [comments]  |
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