Interview Discussion - August 16, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - August 16, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - August 16, 2018
- Name and Shame: Teradata
- Name and Shame: Name and Shame: IBM
- Name and Shame: IBM
- Name and Shame? How about a new category- Rise and Shine: Lockheed Martin
- New Grad: 530 applications, 2 less than ideal offers, Keep Looking?
- I’m so burnt out
- It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.
- Office politics is setting me up to take a fall, how do I avoid this?
- What made you go into software development and did you regret your decision?
- What's it like being a developer in Germany?
- Should I respond to recruiters trying to fill positions I'm obviously unqualified for?
- Granting admin access to your computer... is this common?
- Looking to swtich to remote dev role.
- I’m about to get out of the AF after 6yrs and I want to pursue CS
- Returning back to the US, but having trouble finding a job while abroad.
- Internship Offer Advice
- First job out of college is DevOps, will this pave my career path?
- If you don't know what your future new hire will be doing on their first week, are you really ready to hire?
- Who can I put down as a reference on applications?
- Rushed my degree. Is this a good plan?
- Is a Teaching Assistant position worth it?
- Not a CS major per se, but I'm doing something similar and have a question about typing speed?
- Open Sourcing Some Code, Good or Bad?
- Recommended Books for Software Engineering?
| Interview Discussion - August 16, 2018 Posted: 16 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 16, 2018 Posted: 16 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]  |
| Posted: 16 Aug 2018 01:11 PM PDT I recently had an interview with Teradata at their office in Canada and after seeing the other Name and Shame post, I figured I'd share my terrible experience as well. The interview was with a development manager who is also the hiring manager at this office. He gave an introduction of the company and his team which was mostly just bragging about his career. He mentioned Teradata has offices worldwide including India and made a subtle racist joke about India (I am not of Indian descent but still). He proceeded to go over my resume. He asked me what my GPA was in school and was obsessed with academic prestige. He skipped over my past experience, saying it's "useless" because they do software development in a different area; I am not sure why he even bothered to call me to schedule this interview. Next, he asked me some general technical questions and to explain some of my projects. He interrupted several times, only to laugh at my answers, mock my work (saying it's all easy and simple) and brag about what they do. His entire speech was condescending throughout. Afterwards, he told me he is on the fence with me and gave me a coding question. Unlike him, I've made up my mind at this point and I did not bother to solve any further questions. This may be just one anecdotal experience but this interviewer is the only hiring manager at this office so I wanted to tell others here. [link] [comments]  |
| Name and Shame: Name and Shame: IBM Posted: 16 Aug 2018 09:43 AM PDT IBM's Interview ProcessIn response to: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/97qhdo/name_and_shame_ibm/ I went through IBM's New Grad Interview Process 2 years ago, so it's very possible some brilliant minds at IBM have since modified it into the terrible interview process where everyone should be fired especially those brilliant minds at IBM. The general interview process of IBM's New Grad consists:
Technical Screening Interview
My initial email had a human with a reply-to [name@us.ibm.com](mailto:name@us.ibm.com) email and gave me 15 business days? "Congratulations, NAME! You have made it through the initial screening process for the Entry Level Software Engineer. As part of our selection process, candidates will be invited to take our Coding Challenge. Within the next 1-2 days, you will be receiving an invite from Hirevue with a link to take the Coding Challenge. Please allow up to 2-3 hours for this evaluation. You will be given 15 business days to complete the Coding Challenge; however, we strongly encourage you to complete it as soon as possible and to ensure that you are considered for your choice of position and location. NOTE: The email from Hirevue will state you only have 3 days to complete. Please disregard the 3 days. As your dedicated Recruitment Partner, my role in this process is guide you, every step of the way, through the IBM interview and selection process. I am here to answer any questions you may have, prepare you for each stage of the interview process and guide you through your interview journey here at IBM. To prepare you for the Coding Challenge, I have prepared a summary of important information and what to expect in the next phase of the interview process."
I feel like it is a breach of privacy as well, but some companies are really trying to crack down on cheaters aka like the girl mentioned at the Finish Line. Amazon New Grad interview had a third-party interview proctoring company that made me use my webcam to show that my room was completely empty, including under my desk (that's where I usually keep my expert pair programmers). Then the assigned third-party proctor took control of my computer, closed all other programs and tabs, and viewed my screen and webcam during the entire coding challenge. I remember Amazon got a lot of negative feedback from blogs and news articles over this.
Yeah fuck Hirevue. I completely agree that recorded video responses with no human interaction are stupid.
I completely agree. I almost got stuck on the first coding challenge but luckily I remembered doing it from my CS 101 class. I believe people refer to it as the "Hello World" coding challenge? Seriously though, did they lower the difficulty? I got Leetcode Medium questions. Someone else I know got a DP question. Technical Phone Interview
This is the "Guru Interview". My interviewer was very interested and enthusiastic. He was in a conference room with no windows though, so maybe he didn't have the option to contemplate suicide. Yup mine also asked me a brain-teaser, which is annoying, but he provided enough hints that I figured out the solution. Then he had me code the brain-teaser and solution on an online collaborative coding site. When I talked to the other IBM candidates, they didn't have brain teasers so it may be up to the interviewer's discretion. Guide InterviewNot really an interview. The guide is a manager who asks you or presents you with list of job options: locations, roles, and organization. It's just a talk about your preferences and then they'll invite you to the Finish Line event. Finish LineOP missed the point of the Finish Line event. It is not an onsite interview. It is an event for IBM to sell them to you. It's basically a 3-day event of nice hotel, free meals/drinks, IBM presentations (count the number of times cognitive is said), networking, social activities, and 2-3 hours to work on a "solution" and a 3 minute presentation to "execs", and an "interview" where all you have to do is say you're interested in IBM. If you were invited to the Finish Line event, you are pretty much guaranteed an offer. IBMers at the event were joking that the only way you would not get an offer was if you murdered someone there. It's probably called "Finish Line" because that's where you are in the process, you are at the finish line and you just have to walk 2 steps to cross it.
Yes this is accurate. Though the "solution" was basically how would you use these IBM products together to solve a real life problem? Your team decides what they want to solve and which products to use. It took at max 2-3 hours of brainstorming ideas. We did zero coding and all we had to do was write/diagram our "product" on giant sticky note posters.
It was a 3 minute presentation with our giant sticky note posters where the only real requirement was that everyone on your team had to speak at least once. We presented how we would use these IBM products, but there was zero actual implementation/coding.
Yes it purposely does not have technical vetting. It's not an onsite interview. The technical vetting was the coding challenge and phone interview. I don't know what the single out people for early hiring part is though.
I guess the process did change since my Finish Line involved zero coding. I have no idea how this person was able to pass the coding challenge and phone interview without knowing how a for loop works. The fast-tracking to an offer is unusual since no offers are actually made at the event. All offers are 1-3 days after the event.
Of course you're going to end up with like two "Software Engineers" on a team, but no one is trying to backstab anyone since pretty much everyone gets offers. I don't know what OP did to their teammates or other teams. No one cared about what other teams were doing and no one was one-uping. No one really cared too much about working the "solution". We spent the allotted 2-3 hours time slot and that was it, spending the rest of the time enjoying our free trip.
All the IBM engineers I spoke with were happy with what they were working on. Also, IBM is purposely placing new grads with IBM's newer technologies such as Watson and Cloud. The Offer
TLDR: FAANG or go home. You can't complain that the interview process is too easy and then complain that the offer is too low especially compared to FAANG offers. Though, I know IBM's offers in other locations especially LCOL and MCOL are quite competitive. To summarize:
0/10, avoid OP's post if you can. Feels like it preys on desperate new grads and circle-jerking r/cscq's hate on IBM and love for Big N. Big N isn't everything in life. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Aug 2018 01:20 AM PDT IBM's (Terrible) Interview ProcessNow that I've finally landed a job for myself, I feel secure enough to go around and name and shame the places which offered a terrible interview experience. In this case, it's IBM. The general interview process of IBM consists of two, sometimes three parts:
Technical Screening InterviewBasically, you receive an email saying "congratulations! you're being considered for <x> position!" This is an automated email. There are no humans behind it, and there is a short deadline to actually complete the screen. If you need to extend the deadline for the screen, tough luck. If you need literally any accommodation, have fun. You won't be getting it. The screening interview requires:
which alone constitute a massive breach of privacy, in my opinion. The screening interview consists of a basic coding challenge and pre-recorded video questions to which you must give a response. Your response must be in video format - it cannot be written. After you are delivered a question via video, you are given about a minute to formulate your response and then are required to narrate it back staring into your webcam. This is the lamest method of interviewing that I have ever come across. There is no human interaction, so there are no body language/social cues to work off of when narrating your response. It can't really have mistakes and it has to be delivered straight with no interruptions. Then there are other trivially easy coding challenges which literally anyone could solve, but they also require a verbal explanation of what you did. This is a bit easier because you have had more time to parse through your solution. It's still lame to talk into your webcam like it's a real person. Whichever brilliant mind at IBM thought video questions and responses were a great idea should be fired. Now that I'm not a desperate CS student, I don't see myself ever applying to IBM ever again simply because of how humiliating the screening interview is. Technical Phone InterviewThe phone interview is fairly normal. You're greeted by a bored interviewer who sounds like he'd rather do nothing more than jump out of the nearest window. He asks some useless brain-teasers (who the fuck does this) and a simple coding challenge. They place quite a bit of weight on the brain teasers - take slightly longer than average to work through the brain teaser and they'll mention it in a negative light. Brain teasers are the worst and provide literally no value in an interview. Whichever brilliant mind thought of asking these during a phone screen (looking at you, Microsoft) should be fired. Finish LineThe IBM Finish Line event initially sounds fairly neat. You're flown in to one of their Finish Line locations in which you're treated a stay in relatively nice hotels. In the Finish Line event, you're randomly divided into different teams. At the kickoff dinner, you are presented with a problem statement and given 3 days to develop a solution. Your team consists of everything from prospective programmers to project managers to UI/UX designers. Meals are provided. During the event, IBM will take you on a tour of their nearby offices, focusing almost 90% of their time on Watson. In reality, only something like 10% of offers will be on Watson teams. At the end of the event, you are to present your product in front of a board of "executives" in a standard slide deck format. I have to give IBM props for the idea here. When executed correctly, the Finish Line event sounds like an amazing way to vet candidates and introduce students to the IBM culture. However, in practice, I find that this fails terribly. It fails because of two reasons: no technical vetting and politics. And also because IBM has a soul-sucking culture and I'm not sure why they would ever try to advocate it. Throughout the whole event, there is literally no one vetting the candidates from a technical point of view. Sure, they have "HR"/social-side employees stopping by at tables to judge the behavior of people and single out people for early hiring, but there is no one that is actually trying to make sure that you know what you're doing. And so often, candidates will cheat on the interview. A girl at my table downloaded Python libraries for detecting faces in videos and claimed it entirely as her own. When asked, she said with a straight face that she wrote it. Bitch, you don't even know Python. You had to ask me for help on what And finally, there's politics. Everyone's trying to backstab everyone. Even on your own team, someone is trying to one-up you. IBM makes sure that there are at least two people competing for the same position on each team which inevitably leads to this scenario. These two issues seemed to summarize IBM. In essence, the feeling I got is that the company culture couldn't give fewer shits about actually creating decent software or solving any meaningful technical challenges. It was all more about keeping up appearances as a "business." Business culture first, engineering second. This really rubbed me the wrong way. The Finish Line event is a solid way to network with both IBM employees and other interviewees. If you can make some friends, you have great contacts to get referrals to other companies. Most IBM engineers I spoke with hated what they were working on. It seems the vast majority of the engineers I spoke with were working on legacy end-of-life technologies with seemingly no way forward for career growth. Whichever brilliant mind thought of not having literally any technical vetting during the on-site event should be fired. The OfferFortunately, most people that attend the Finish Line get an offer. Unfortunately, the offer is shit. You're looking at $100k in Silicon Valley. $10k more if you're a grad student. No stock options and negligible raises. For comparison, the average new grad offer in Silicon Valley at a FAANG company here is $160k. If you play your cards right, you can negotiate this to $190k+. Whichever brilliant mind thought that $100k is reasonable compensation in this location should be fired. To summarize:
0/10, avoid this company if you can. Feels like it preys on desperate new grads. Aim higher. [link] [comments]  |
| Name and Shame? How about a new category- Rise and Shine: Lockheed Martin Posted: 16 Aug 2018 04:56 PM PDT With all the shit talking that is going on and is going to come, I thought I'd share my experience with a company that I like, why I like them, ect. Lockheed Martin (LM) is the largest defense contractor in the states. Yes, defense contractors get some hate but let me assure you, the engineering practices are very strong, at-least at LM, due to the severity of the systems they create. While the job itself requires a clearance, not all work itself does. Hence, you can work for quite some time while you wait for your clearance on an unclassified project. Those projects use modern tech (Node, Java8+, Docker, ect). Once you get a clearance, you're fair game for classified projects. Yes there is legacy, but having a clearance will nearly guarantee you a job due to its high demand. Pay/compensation isn't BigN worthy, but on-par with other local companies. Other benefits are average. The interview is fairly straight forward, onsite with some questions from various managers, white-boarding, java-based code test, then more interviews by managers. No fluff, no bs, straight forward and honest. The day to day is your average office job. While teams differ, there is a strong emphasis on code quality. Everything must have unit tests and will be reviewed heavily before your changes make it to master. I think the average unit test coverage is 96% with a target of 95%. Lots of people are available to help, mentorship, ect. LM has a policy of 'engineering buddies', so when you're new, you wont be left to your own devices and hang to learn their projects. This is even true if you transition to a new project/team with tech you have no experience with. One thing I never considered before I started was the lack of out-sourcing. Due to the nature of the work, it is barred from the industry because only American citizens can work on LM projects. This can be good or bad depending on your situation. Work-life balance couldn't get any better. One of the strongest pros for me taking this job was this. I average 160 hours a month, no more, no less. [link] [comments]  |
| New Grad: 530 applications, 2 less than ideal offers, Keep Looking? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 02:23 PM PDT Hi, I graduated in May and I've been job searching since last January. I haven't had much success with my job search. Out of 530 applications, I got 24 phone screens, 5 on-sites, and only 2 offers. I've got a 3.8 GPA from a directional state school (ex: Southeastern Boring State University), with one IT internship(not software engineering), and one personal project. I'm getting really, really tired of applying for jobs and I'm also running out of good companies to apply to. The offers I have are quite disappointing. However, I'm wondering if I should just take one of the offers and then job hop later on. + mean pro, - means con Offer 1: +73k in average COL city, +3k relocation package +Decent work-life balance -Defense Contractor -Requires Top Secret Clearance, Could take up to 2 years to get -I've already accepted this offer and was supposed to start (on non-classified work) last June but every month I get an email saying that they're pushing my start date back 1 month because they couldn't find unclassified work. There's no guarantee that I could start soon and I might have to wait 2 years for the clearance. I was getting frustrated by that so I kept applying for jobs even though I already accepted this offer. Offer 2: +Can start right away, no waiting for clearance +Work is quite interesting -65k in average COL city, no relocation package -Requires 25% travel(could be international but also could be middle-of-nowhere USA) -Requires going on site to customers, potentially dealing with angry clients. I am an introvert and I don't think I can handle this. -Have to be on-call 24/7 sometimes. -It's possible I have to work on holidays or overnights for onsite deployment -Only 2 weeks PTO to start -I've heard from employees that 12 hour work days can and do happen, though not frequently -EDIT: I would also like to mention that turnover rate is high for this position according to Glassdoor and indeed reviewers. 3rd option, Keep Looking: +Possibly get better offer -wasted potential income -May not get better offer, or may not get another offer at all. -Looks bad to have a long gap on resume TLDR: I have to wait up to 2 years to start for offer 1. I can take offer 2 with terrible work/life balance and travel requirements. Or I can keep looking and possibly get a better offer or no offer at all. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Aug 2018 01:30 PM PDT I've been a full time software developer for a little over 2 years now, and I'm just so burnt out. To be fair, I started feeling this way after the first several of months, after the initial excitement of being employed and getting paid wore off. Every now and then, I'll feel excitement about the code I'm writing or the problem I'm solving. I LOVE building POC's and getting something working quickly, and I like to think I'm fairly good at it. But I hate the fine-tuning, the process of getting things to production, the tedium of logs and unit tests, etc. I just get so bored and sad I can't bring myself to type or think one more line of code. My company is pretty good, I think. Fortune 100, good culture, good work-life balance. My manager is nice, and the leaders of the company (appear to) care, and promote personal career development and growth. My managers have all liked me and think I'm doing well, and I typically get "very strong" (above average) ratings on performance reviews. But I'm just so burnt out and tired. And I'm only 24. I don't know how I'll take another 40 years of this. Some days, like yesterday, I just sat around the whole day and started actually working at 5, for an hour and a half before I went home. I just literally can't even anymore. What do? [link] [comments]  |
| It is often easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. Posted: 16 Aug 2018 05:22 PM PDT The PM went on vacation starting today for a week which was no big deal as it was all planned out ahead of time. Anyways today, as the Tech Lead, I get a visit from a group of upper management asking why are requirements X/Y/Z not going to be implemented for this quarters public release and how long have I known about this. I guess the PM sent out an email early this morning telling them this was happening. I'm like we on the software team have known for over a month that it wasn't in the plans. I explained how I assumed the PM talked to all of them about it and got it all sorted out. I explained the schedule didn't allow for enough time and these things were punted as set by the PM. Anyways after some back and forth one of them said "forgiveness vs permission" and the others nodded in agreement and then left my area. While it was no skin off my back, I thought it was interesting how the PM approached this. I guess I always take the straight forward and get issues out there and known as soon as I recognize them. If we can not meet things I try to let the appropriate people know ASAP so proper steps can be taken. I get beaten down a lot because I say requests are not possible due to time or resources. My schedules are always realistic and I'm very up front. The PM seems to do the opposite which may be a better strategy? The PM has a good pedigree working at multiple Big N companies as a PM and been in the industry for 25+ years. I hear often how the PM's schedules are always very optimistic and how we never meet them. Some of them have asked me my opinion of schedules they get and I say it's possible if everything goes perfect, but it's not realistic in my view. I take a more pragmatic approach and just say what I believe the effort is to properly get things done. I never let on that we could hack it with a sub-par design and get it done faster, because I don't want to do that. So I do play some politics but it's more withholding options I don't want to do, but still giving options so it's like the other person made the decision. Anyways, have I been approaching things all wrong? Is forgiveness a better strategy than permission? [link] [comments]  |
| Office politics is setting me up to take a fall, how do I avoid this? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 02:58 PM PDT So here's the situation. I'm on a small team in a very large company (non tech fortune 500), we're essentially R&D for implementing new technology. There are 3 of us, one of these people "C" is the lead. C is semi-technical but doesn't understand code, he was recently placed in the team lead role (his background is as an artist). His direct report is "B" who is among the top 25 highest ranking people in the entire company. B has even less of an understanding of code, and also considers it to be a very simple and low ranking task... he sees it as roughly on par with an assembly line factory worker or ditch digger. B realizes we need more resources, but is unwilling to pay market, or even 1/2 market rate for additional programmers. He has a plan to essentially partner with a regional University, and get the University to assign the work we need as classwork for the students. This way he gets programming done but doesn't have to pay anyone (likely aside from offering the University a kickback). And he can scam the students by saying he's paying them in experience (yes, that is the exact phrase used). C is willing to go along with this. I have had numerous arguments at length that this won't work, and have explained why it won't work. I think C knows this won't work, but he's unwilling to tell his boss no because he's scared of getting fired if he doesn't deliver. As a result, they're looking at having me act as a manager/tech lead and somehow make this clusterfuck work. I'm just about positive that C is just trying to deflect blame for when this fails so that he can protect his job by sacrificing me. Does anyone more experienced in office politics have some advice for this situation? The only thing I honestly see is to start looking elsewhere. I could possibly present an alternative plan, but any alternative has to cost $0 as they're unwilling to spend any money on employees. [link] [comments]  |
| What made you go into software development and did you regret your decision? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 01:20 PM PDT Was it for the money? The lifestyle? The passion? Family? [link] [comments]  |
| What's it like being a developer in Germany? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 11:40 AM PDT Hi, I am currently a developer at one of the big four companies. I've been interested in moving to germany, and found out it would be easy to just transfer to a location there in my current company. Is anyone here a developer in germany? What's the company culture like? I'd likely end up in berlin or munich, and was wondering what you thought of the cities? I've been to munich but not berlin yet. If you work at an american company in germany, do they speak german or english? [link] [comments]  |
| Should I respond to recruiters trying to fill positions I'm obviously unqualified for? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 03:35 PM PDT I graduated a year and a half ago from a Programming Bootcamp and due to some complicated circumstances, started my job search about 2 months ago. I've gotten about a dozen emails from recruiters with job information, asking me to send them my resume and call them. Some of them I think I might be qualified for, but many I'm not. I'm also living in New Hampshire and am not really able to relocate right now; the jobs are all over the country. I've written out a form email going into a little more detail about my experience than is on my resume, as well as an explanation about my situation with regards to relocation. I modify this email slightly for each response to make sure I cover the bases they will likely ask about. If I don't feel qualified for a certain position (e.g. they want 10 years experience or a bachelor's degree) I will mention the reason why in this email. Should I respond to all the emails like this, and let the recruiters decide whether to call me back, or should I only respond to the ones where I think I have a shot at being hired? [link] [comments]  |
| Granting admin access to your computer... is this common? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 12:30 PM PDT I just read this in another thread about IBM:
And I first thought, I don't have a 2nd computer for this, and I don't want them to have this control. This could be a huge scam, any company can set things up and destroy your computer. I did click on something from Amazon, but I figured it was just a screen recorder or something. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking to swtich to remote dev role. Posted: 16 Aug 2018 03:23 PM PDT Hi, I got a role with a big N company after graduating with a bachelor's in computer science about 1.5 years ago. I want to make the transition to a role with another company that will allow me to work remote. I'm fine with taking a pay cut and feel like my resume is fairly strong and I interview well. Anyone who has done something similar, any tips or recommendations when looking? Has anyone worked with any reqruiters who scalp specifically for remote roles? (Are they any good?) Where should I start my hunt and what should I avoid? [link] [comments]  |
| I’m about to get out of the AF after 6yrs and I want to pursue CS Posted: 16 Aug 2018 01:42 PM PDT As the post says I wanna pursue the career and looking to use my GI bill to pay for the degree but I have no experience with it and I'm 26yrs old am I too old and/or do you need some kinda background with computers and code to pursue it thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Returning back to the US, but having trouble finding a job while abroad. Posted: 16 Aug 2018 08:17 AM PDT So I'm currently living in Asia, but I'll be returning home to the US (US citizen) within the next 2 months. In the meantime, I've been doing the applying to US jobs for about 3 months now and even gotten a few interviews, but ultimately I'm having trouble landing anything while living abroad. Has anyone ever had experience with this? Are there any suggestions on making the process easier? I've been applying to companies in the Midwest area primarily (the area of my hometown). Ideally, I'd like to find a job before actually returning, but in the event that I can't, whats the next best option? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Aug 2018 04:39 PM PDT Recently, I got an offer from Apple for a software engineering role on a team that does data infrastructure and analytics work. Unlike other teams at Apple, this team is small (< 10 people), so it seems like the engineers work on really interesting things. The offer expires in three weeks, but most companies haven't started recruiting yet, so I'm not sure whether I should accept the offer or reject it in hopes of getting something better. For some background, I'm an incoming third-year undergraduate student studying computer science. I have worked at Microsoft and Uber previously in software engineering roles. I'm looking to work in the areas of big data, machine learning, and data engineering, but in software engineering, not data science. I enjoy smaller teams, want to work on meaningful projects, and prioritize learning, but would prefer semi-established companies (not pre-seed startups, but unicorns are ok). Any advice would be appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| First job out of college is DevOps, will this pave my career path? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 09:04 AM PDT TLDR: I want to code So I graduated with a degree in Software Engineering and the job I landed was as a DevOps engineer. I didn't have any big passion in DevOps, it was just a take what I can get situation. I do enjoy my current position, but I am wondering if I am going to be stuck as a 'DevOps Engineer' for my career. The reason the above concerns me is that I enjoy programming. At my current position I do a lot of scripting which is why I like my job at the moment. However, I have my worries that future roles will not have as much scripting/programming involved. I really enjoy working with API's, writing an automation script, using code to solve a problem, etc. Is it simple enough to transition from a DevOps role to a SWE role to ensure I continue programming? Or will DevOps roles typically always include a large amount of scripting? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Aug 2018 02:03 PM PDT I thought it would be common sense to not begin interviewing until you know your team is on the same page about why the hire needs to be made and what you'll put them to do on the first week of work. But I see a lot of people here (usually juniors) who say they have not a clue on what they're supposed to be doing! I don't say that as in, they faced a technical problem and have to ask someone else to help them with it, but that they need to ask someone else to tell them what they should be doing at all. That sounds absurd. People getting hired and then get left in a vacuum with no assistance or even just no software set up for them, nothing to give them to do and they just waste days noodling around on Reddit or some other social website. That is just a waste of interviewing time for the company but I guess nobody cares about it in some places. [link] [comments]  |
| Who can I put down as a reference on applications? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 10:11 AM PDT I'm currently applying for software jobs but do not know who to put down as a reference. Backstory: I studied computer science for 4 years and received a bachelors degree certification this year. Throughout the years I was never really one to talk to professors and generally kept to myself, while every now and then emailing professors when requiring some help. I done okay throughout the degree however struggled with my final year project/dissertation. I completed an 80-page 15000 word dissertation on my topic but failed to complete the technical implementation of the project. Because of this, I am on the fence whether or not to ask my supervisor of the project (a professor) to be a reference for my applications. The fact that I haven't spoken to my supervisor since handing in my dissertation is also not helping my decision. Should I get in contact with them and ask them to be a reference, and if so, how would I go about doing so? Before university, I studied at college (UK) and received a qualification equivalent to a year 1 1st at university. I haven't spoken to the professors at college since leaving 4 years ago but was very friendly with them and spoke to them every day. Should I try get in contact with them as well? I have also been in employment for the last 4 years with a fast food restaurant. Should I ask a manager for a reference? Thanks for any help! Edit: I am asking because I assume employers will ask for references at some point during the interviewing process. [link] [comments]  |
| Rushed my degree. Is this a good plan? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 07:53 PM PDT Hello, Two years ago, I took Calc 2 alongside a few CS classes, and did poorly in Calc 2 (C). I then switched my degree to a BA, and took programming classes for the next 1 and a half years. I am close to finishing my BA (although my last hard class is one on algorithims and NP-problems). I find myself looking back at math problems and enjoying the process of solving them .I think if I had more time or, more likely, better study habits, I could have done the regular math sequence engineers do, which would open doors for me in AI and machine learning. My current plan is to finish my degree and work for a few years while practicing math in free time, with the goal of eventually redoing the classes. I understand they are all undergrad ones, though. Is that sound? [link] [comments]  |
| Is a Teaching Assistant position worth it? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 10:55 AM PDT I am being offered two teaching assistant positions at my University this term. Although, I will make a good amount of money, will it be worth the opportunity cost in time I will miss on working on side projects? I am thinking of taking both jobs and I think I can handle the workload. I already have 8 months of research/internship experience as a software developer. I am going into my third year. I am hoping to land a year long internship after this school year. Is it a good idea and what do recruiters think about Teaching Assistant positions? Is it good experience to have on a resume if I want to go into software development? Thanks in advance for the help! [link] [comments]  |
| Not a CS major per se, but I'm doing something similar and have a question about typing speed? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 07:36 PM PDT Is it crucial in programming?I've been trying to increase my speed lately, but I can't seem to progress past 70 words per minute. I'm scared that this may affect my job opportunities and wanted to know what you all think. [link] [comments]  |
| Open Sourcing Some Code, Good or Bad? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 07:35 PM PDT As I started writing this, I realized that I'm pretty sure (in my case) it is good, but I'm going to post this anyway in case anyone is going through the same issue, or in case I'm "HOLY SHIT DEAD WRONG WATCH OUT!" Open Sourcing your own code is an expensive decision. Not only have you made something you've come up with public, but you also have to maintain it for the public. There's no "Instant Win" for this. But, as I'm looking to advance my career, it occurs to me that starting a few small open source libraries might be useful. The one I'm working on currently is a String Sanitizer for going to databases. I wrote it both because I thought the Open Source of it might bring me attention, and also because I needed to code or I was going to lose my mind... Now that it's done (or nearly done), I'm starting to wonder if posting this on my Github is actually to my advantage. I'm wondering if the pay off from maintaining expensive public use code (I'll be using the MIT License out of personal preference for those who are curious), will come back to me in terms of recruiters trying to reach me, and companies wanting to hire me. I think the inherent answer is yes, they will like it. It'll prove that I'm advanced (to exactly my level) in my career without a second doubt because they can see what I'm working on. They know I'm not just a slick-talker, they know I can write code. All in all, it seems like a positive, which is why I'm probably going to go forward with it. If anyone can think of a reason why this would be BAD for my career, let me know. [link] [comments]  |
| Recommended Books for Software Engineering? Posted: 16 Aug 2018 07:21 PM PDT Hello everyone, I'm trying to make sure I don't lean too far into a r/csMajors like post, but I have a question I've been thinking about and I forgot there's a large community here I could ask. In short, in preparation for some SWE classes and largely to have a solid footing for internships, I was wondering if there were any books you guys would recommend I look at to better my skills. I feel really inadequate when I look at the companies offering internships, and feel like I just won't know what's happening, and want to try to ease this anxiety by reading in my free time some resources on the discipline, and/or just how to get better at it. I see quite a bit of books online, but wanted to know if there were any specific, possibly less known books that worked for you. I know I'm still a student, but I really just want to put my mind at ease and try to better myself in this area. [link] [comments]  |
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