Interview Discussion - August 20, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - August 20, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - August 20, 2018
- Any stories of getting a cs job with no work experience, no internship and an MS in CS
- Do you procrastinate at work?
- Vacation tips for those with just 2 weeks
- I did very well in school, but am not faring well in my job. Tips?
- Anyone here have terrible recall memory but were able to find success in this field?
- Company asking for SSN along with coding test. Let them have it?
- What are some great technologies to learn for 2018/2019?
- How to ask for a full time offer?
- I got a job offer, what can I do to make sure I quit my company gracefully?
- How to get a job in a different city
- Should I leave my job just after 8 months?
- Searching for remote jobs -- lots of spam/startups/low-quality recruiters
- T-mobile Technical Phone Screen insight?
- Recruiter got back to me but relocation assistance is not available
- Is it worth it to take an operating system class if I want to be a web developer / mobile developer (with React Native)?
- Best Tech Companies to work for that don't ask for students GPA. Canada
- Having second thoughts about uni (UK)
- How do you set yourself apart when you're new, self taught and job hunting?
- Going from mid-level engineer to manager (bypassing senior role)
- Any ideas on what type of side projects to work on if I’m not interested in web dev or mobile dev?
- When learning something new, how do you approach it?
- PSA: FAANG does not require you to work >40 hours a week
- Will it help or hurt to be focused on data engineering as an undergrad?
- New dev, started my own business, how do I continue to improve?
| Interview Discussion - August 20, 2018 Posted: 20 Aug 2018 12:08 AM PDT Please use this thread to have discussions about interviews, interviewing, and interview prep. Posts focusing solely on interviews created outside of this thread will probably be removed. Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk. This thread is posted each Monday and Thursday at midnight PST. Previous Interview Discussion threads can be found here. [link] [comments]  |
| Daily Chat Thread - August 20, 2018 Posted: 20 Aug 2018 12:08 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]  |
| Any stories of getting a cs job with no work experience, no internship and an MS in CS Posted: 20 Aug 2018 06:15 AM PDT I am kinda in the same boat , starting to apply for jobs. I would love to hear some stories or experiences of people to went down this road before me. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Aug 2018 09:17 AM PDT How much time out of the 8 work hours do you spend doing something not relevant to you job duties(browsing internet, reddit, watching YouTube etc.)? [link] [comments]  |
| Vacation tips for those with just 2 weeks Posted: 20 Aug 2018 11:10 AM PDT Just a heads up that you should be taking vacation. Only have 2 weeks? No problem. Worried about your commits or sprint work? Make sure your leadership knows in advance. Worried about bugs or features you haven't fixed? They will still be there when you get back. Schedule Thursday through Tuesday to give yourself a week and a shortened week to get back to. If you can work from home the wednesday before you leave, even better to get your head cleared out and making sure all of your projects are covered. Remove email off your phone along with Slack and any other tools that you will use. If there is an emergency people can call you. [link] [comments]  |
| I did very well in school, but am not faring well in my job. Tips? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 03:35 PM PDT tl;dr
So in school, I had 80s - 90s in my programming courses (I think my highest was about a 92% or so). I have no trouble going off on my own, and writing my own apps. In fact, I have gone so far as to write my own API for a forum using Ruby w/ sinatra for the back-end, and mechanize to scrape data. I'm even working on a side project w/ django and python, where I'll go ahead and write some more APIs, using flask for the back-end, and beautifulsoup for scraping data... which is coming to me rather easily. I'm learning about virtual environments, etc... and this is very interesting. However... I am finding that, in industry, I am a very slow coder. So slow, in fact, that my team lead rated me as falling just short of their expectations. There have been a number of instances where I encounter a problem, only to just go completely blank. Today I spent eight hours trying to figure out a SQL statement (though I finally did it when the lightbulb went off), and I felt alright about that... but I still couldn't help but feel like a complete moron. Two other colleagues, both whom have been there for the same amount of time as myself, can code and figure things out much faster, despite receiving about the same marks as me in school. To illustrate this: on Jira, they have 18 bug fixes ready for testing. I only have eight. Though, I did spend Friday testing the shit out of the site, getting a TON of other errors, and documented them... so that may be why. But, I digress. I remember at one point I sat down and spent like an hour on a bug, only to have the other guy solve it in like 15 minutes because I just... couldn't figure it out. I was stressed, anxious, and just couldn't seem to be able to solve it. I am still having trouble with their product, despite being there since April (four months already). The other guys have gotten smashing reviews, and I am still lagging behind, submitting code riddled with bugs, and am... feeling burnt out. I'll admit, I don't feel happy in that workplace. At all. I want to, but it's like I just... can't. It's like a square peg in a round hole. Is it my career choice? I love programming in my spare time. I don't have much trouble with it, but at work... it's like everything just shuts down. I just can't fucking think. There is SOOOOOO much pressure to get things done by a deadline. I feel depressed. I feel anxious. I don't feel like I fit in with my team. I feel like the cancer of the team, if anything. I feel like I am going to get let go after my six month probation, because I just can't seem to fit/improve my programming skills. I've already received a negative performance review--2 for problem solving, 2 for communication, 2 for reliability. I've tried to improve on all of those accounts, but I've received no feedback whatsoever about whether I've improved, despite the fact that I've asked the team lead about any improvements like three times over the past month. He just keeps saying "We'll let you know come review time. I haven't really thought about it." <-- Wouldn't it be fucking better for me to make improvements along the way instead of waiting until it's possibly too late? How do I know if I am improving if you don't fucking tell me? I need money. I need a job. I need to know. They all have nicknames for one another, have inside jokes... and I just can't seem to make myself fit, no matter how hard I try. I try to crack a joke which would make most other people I know laugh, and I am greeted with a sarcastic remark, or awkward silence. They make a similar joke, and everybody's busting their guts, and I just... don't find it nearly as funny. And I feel awkward for not finding it funny, so I just put on a fake smile. I also find it tiresome to go in every day, only to hear them prattling on about Magic: The Gathering the entire day. One of my former instructors even commented that he thinks I have what it takes to be a very good coder, but it doesn't seem like my team leads think so. How do I improve with things like problem solving, etc? How do I improve, overall, as a programmer in industry? What are some tips, besides coding in my spare time (which I do, occasionally)? [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone here have terrible recall memory but were able to find success in this field? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 04:49 AM PDT |
| Company asking for SSN along with coding test. Let them have it? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 03:30 PM PDT Hi everyone! So last week this company replied to me and told me to complete the coding test and the personal information application. In the application, there is a section I have to provide my SSN. I completed he coding test but not the application. And I thought might as well just give it up. Today, they got back to me and told me to finish the application. Does this mean they wanted to move me to the next process? But I'm still a bit sketchy about this. I mean, no one ever asked me my SSN before getting hired. What do you guys think? Is it sketchy to you? Would you give it to them if you are in my condition? Any advice or thoughts are welcomed. Thanks in advance!! [link] [comments]  |
| What are some great technologies to learn for 2018/2019? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 12:15 PM PDT What are some of the hottest technologies to learn for 2018/2019 for any kind of Tech person (even outside of Engineering)? [link] [comments]  |
| How to ask for a full time offer? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 08:29 AM PDT Any advice on how to approach my manager about a full time entry level position? Currently interning, finishing my junior year this fall at university. [link] [comments]  |
| I got a job offer, what can I do to make sure I quit my company gracefully? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 01:03 PM PDT I have been offered a position with a new company, which is better in all aspects compared to the old one. I need some advice on what to do with my current situation. I have just started my career as a software developer for a tech consulting company since April 2018. Fresh out of college, I had almost no experience in software dev, especially for the role I was hired for. That was not a problem since the company is willing to train me. Currently, I have been employed by this company for about 5 months but have 0 work experience. I will tell you what happened next. After completing my 2-month training, I was on bench for two whole months. That was totally unexpected since I was told that they have identified a client for me, and I seemed to be the perfect fit for that account. I was active in reaching out to my managers (yup, I had to work with 3 managers at that time). They still paid me and even notified that I will be eligible for bonus. However, I felt that I lost my value as a developer everyday. I was confused and desperate. As a result, I decided to start looking for a new job and managed to secure one offer with a better company. At this point, I was so ready to move on and only had to wait for background check to clear before submitting my resignation. All of a sudden, the tech consulting company decided to call me to start coming to the client office. I did so since they are still paying me. Coming into the office, my manager told me to be patient because the onboarding process will be slow since they never had to onboard an inexperienced developer before. It has been three days since I started coming into the office yet no progress has been made on the onboarding process. All I have done is reviewing my notes from the training. I kept reaching out to multiple employees and my manager to show them I am proactive at this and I am trying my best to stay on track regardless of being ignored many times. There usually are no responses to my email. When I called my manager, he said he was on it and was silent afterwards. The reason I am pushing this still because I do not want to leave bad reference in this company in case I might need one in the future. I am feeling like turning in my resignation now because I don't want to waste anyone's time to onboard me. I also do not enjoy inefficiency in my company's management. On the other hands, my intuition tells me to stay because the new job offer is not set in stone. I cannot burn the bridge with my current employer in case anything wrong happen with the background check. Sorry for the long post and thank you for keeping your interest to this point. I would appreciate suggestions and tips from you guys. [link] [comments]  |
| How to get a job in a different city Posted: 20 Aug 2018 06:40 AM PDT I live in a location which is thousands of miles away from the rest of the US and I feel like people see my resume and discard it for not being in San Fran, LA, nyc or Boston etc. how do you even do onsite interviews if it requires you to take PTO from your current job and take a 6 hour flight? Anyone have experience interviewing for a job that's very far away? Plus ads often say LOCALS ONLY [link] [comments]  |
| Should I leave my job just after 8 months? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:59 PM PDT In Feb of this year, I joined a very large and reputable fintech as a full time SW Engineer after spending 3 months with them in an internship last summer. The company is great, and I loved the work that I was given. Until after it had been all taken away. I joined as a general SW Engineer, but my passion was in front-end. Therefore, before I joined, I tried my best to clarify that I would like a front-end role, and luckily, the company was in need of UI engineers. However, just after 2 months, the company went through a re-org and re-structuring of their products and all of the front-end work had been given to a different site. After that, it just kind of turned sh*tty. I fought my way to find front-end work, and was assigned into a distributed UI team that consists of members mostly from the other office + me and a few people in other offices. I had no stability. After my first project was canceled, I basically sat at my computer for a month and a half while the management tried to figure out what I could work on. The new team allowed me to work on a UI project until it was completely scrapped just a month ago due to a strategic change... Now I'm ramping up again on a different application with different set-up... For 8 months, I probably spent a quarter to half of the time ramping up on new things and work that had been wasted. I ramp up, start working, and it gets canceled. Continuously. After the new re-org, it looks like there won't be any real front-end work for me unless I join a remote/distributed team, and in those teams, it feels like I can't truly connect with the teammates, which makes it hard to look for mentors or find opportunities for growth. Initially my mind was kind of set on leaving. I started interviewing, and it had been going great. But since this is my first job, I am starting to think that this may not be a good reason to leave. So I have a few questions.. Questions: Is this type of thing normal at a large company? Am I just being a baby or is it just that the management at my company is indecisive? How it will look when I leave the job just 8 months after I joined? Is this just bad practice? Will I be blacklisted? Is this a big problem? Will I look like a job hopper? What can I do to not burn bridges that I cross? Is it even a good decision to leave this company? Is it normal for these types of things to happen? TL;DR After joining company in Feb, Every project I have worked on has been canceled time after time. I'm a front end engineer, but opportunities for work in this domain seems to be limited. [link] [comments]  |
| Searching for remote jobs -- lots of spam/startups/low-quality recruiters Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:38 PM PDT I'm searching for a new job -- ideally remote as I'll be relocating in the next year or three (depends on spouse graduating and their job search). So I'd like a remote job. I had been kind of casually looking and applying at cool places from Stack Overflow Jobs, with a few bites but haven't gotten any offers. I recently updated my LinkedIn and started searching there, but good god the postings are atrocious. Seems like 50% of the time it's a staffing/recruiting company post. The posting is vague, there are misspellings, etc. So I skip those, and contact the more professional looking ones. Only to get on a call and waste 20 mins describing my background and the recruiter making no mention of the role advertised, just saying "OK, I'll keep you on file for any roles, thanks, bye!" The other ones are startups that have really janky ideas and are offering what seem like inflated salaries. Anyway, am I missing something or are there are lot of bait-and-switch postings out there? Plus LinkedIn's "remote" search option (in the location box) seems to not be dedicated to filtering out a "remote" field in the postings as it pulls up posting that say "no remote option". Or the person posting the job is an idiot. I've just started applying to actual companies on LinkedIn and haven't heard from any of them so no comment there, but just finding those is difficult. Lots of chaff. Some background:
*Side note for discussion: I am now the lead on my project, as the former (co-)lead left (and doubled his salary). I asked for a raise as now I'm leading 3 other devs, running standups, grooming, etc., and am the only one who can do releases (devs are contractors). I got blown off, to put it mildly: "Well we have a hiring freeze. Oh, and that means a promotion freeze. And your project is low-stress. The other teams work harder. Maybe next cycle [year] we'll talk." I never wanted to be lead, and for the pay (90k, used to have ~15% bonus but that's going away), it's totally not worth it. It took us 4 months to find developers that weren't complete morons (mostly due to the contracting company we have to use...). [link] [comments]  |
| T-mobile Technical Phone Screen insight? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:38 PM PDT What can I expect from a technical phone screen at T-mobile? What kind of coding questions/technical questions can I expect? Thank you [link] [comments]  |
| Recruiter got back to me but relocation assistance is not available Posted: 20 Aug 2018 08:57 AM PDT I applied for a job and recruiter got back to me but relocation is not available. What do I do? How can ask her if they could consider me for other positions at a specific location? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:19 PM PDT Hello guys, Throughout college I did not know which area of Computer Science I wanted to go to. I took all the required classes learning C++ and Python mostly. I also took a Cyber Security and Database class. I did not enjoy the database class much. I enjoyed writing queries with SQL but I hated the theoretical database design part. Recently I discovered that web dev is what I like the most. I just love how one can create something in the web and the entire humanity can have access to it. With C++ and Python that is not as possible as with Javascript. I am graduating this year and I am still a newby in Javascript. I want to just take just classes that help me become a web/ mobile developer (with React Native). Should I do not waste my time taking Operating Systems since my Javascript skills need tons of improvement? [link] [comments]  |
| Best Tech Companies to work for that don't ask for students GPA. Canada Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:18 PM PDT Hello, Internship wise I have done well and my most recent term was at Shopify. I am considering where I want to apply for my next Internship. Now my GPA is bad enough that it instantly dismisses me as an option for any company that checks it. So what are some great companies that understand that GPA doesn't matter? I am looking for a company that is on equal tier or above than Shopify. Any options you have to add would be great! I want to keep progressing and growing my career and I really hope I can do that without my GPA getting in the way [link] [comments]  |
| Having second thoughts about uni (UK) Posted: 20 Aug 2018 04:14 AM PDT I'm due to start university in around a month to study a 4 year Masters course in Computer Science. It's a "Top 10" university but I'm really starting to question if it will be worth it, the starting salary for this seems to be around £25-£27k which I feel like after 4 years of working without a degree it would be pretty easy to be on anyway. The debt, amount of time studying instead of earning a salary is just really making me have some doubts. What would really help if somebody who has been through the UK system could give me some advice and input. Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| How do you set yourself apart when you're new, self taught and job hunting? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:11 PM PDT According to Stack Overflow's 2018 developer survey, 87% of professional developers are self taught (although there are overlaps in their numbers). According to a recruiter I spoke to (who referenced basic supply and demand), there are far too many self taught randoms out there. Therefore, those people are unwanted by companies. That said, how are these unwanted candidates the clear majority? [link] [comments]  |
| Going from mid-level engineer to manager (bypassing senior role) Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:02 PM PDT I'm a mid-level software engineer. I don't see myself being a senior software engineer. I mean, I could do it, but it would be a huge challenge for to get there. I'm not that great as a programmer. What I'd really love to do is become an engineering manager. I truly think I'd excel at it. I have a little bit of somewhat relevant experience, but no direct experience as a manager. The normal path is mid -> sr. -> manager. It's even codified in our company "ladder." But I want to bypass the senior role completely and go straight to manager or jr. manager. Anyone think it's possible? Ideas on how to make that happen? Then there's the very practical considerations of how to deal with being underneath sr. developers and then suddenly being promoted above them. [link] [comments]  |
| Any ideas on what type of side projects to work on if I’m not interested in web dev or mobile dev? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 02:57 PM PDT I'm interested in data engineering, but I'm not sure how to display my interest through side projects. I was thinking about making a web crawler using python and beautifulsoup and then visualizing the data. Any advice? [link] [comments]  |
| When learning something new, how do you approach it? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 10:52 AM PDT Let's say you're learning React for the first time. Do you dive in, do a coursera course, tutorials etc? [link] [comments]  |
| PSA: FAANG does not require you to work >40 hours a week Posted: 19 Aug 2018 10:07 PM PDT I've been seeing this perception that FAANG requires people to work 60 hours a week and therefore the high pay isn't worth the effort of grinding through the interview process. But FAANG has had the best work life balance I've seen. Most people in my office work between 35-40 hours a week. Sure, I've seen workaholic employees, but it definitely does not seem like a requirement for success at FAANG. I think this is in part due to the fact that FAANG teams are often (not always) more "well-oiled" and do not require overtime as often. I, as well as my manager, have been working 9-5 with no issue. Not sure where the perception of "FAANG employees work 12 hours a day" is coming from. edit: sure, this varies by team, but what I've generally seen is that most teams in most orgs happily do 9-5ish [link] [comments]  |
| Will it help or hurt to be focused on data engineering as an undergrad? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 05:39 PM PDT I'm interested in data engineering and noticed most internships are for web/mobile dev. There are a few data engineering interns but they are fewer. I noticed most of my peers also happen to focus on web/mobile dev and have side projects for them. This got me thinking maybe it'll help for me to stand out if I focus on data engineering and make side projects related to that. Is this true? I'm still a freshman undergrad so I have time to specialize. Would it help or hurt me to make my resume focused on data engineering? [link] [comments]  |
| New dev, started my own business, how do I continue to improve? Posted: 20 Aug 2018 11:23 AM PDT I don't know if this is the appropriate place for this, but I've been lurking on this subreddit for a long time and I feel like there are a lot of smart people here who might have some helpful advice. I'll try to keep this as succinct as possible. A couple years ago I became disenchanted with my career and decided to focus full time on development (came from a product/campaign strategy, marketing, UX background). Always been a hobby developer for fun, building simple stuff with HTML/CSS, light Javascript/jQuery, light PHP and MySQL (Wordpress-related stuff), but never decided to make it my career before. Not sure why. Anyway, an opportunity arose to build a platform to fill a niche/solve a problem in the latest industry I'm working in. The details aren't that important, but it involved building a completely custom crowdfunding/e-commerce style platform. I enlisted a friend who's an experienced dev to come onboard to help, since at the time I didn't have the skills to build it. Over the past 2 years I've been coding and learning practically full-time, primarily using the MERN stack and building as many things as possible (I've built innumerable toy apps and a few small-to-medium size production apps on the side for companies). I'm currently at the point where I'm comfortable implementing full-fledged features on our platform, working with the full stack. The original plan was to use this opportunity to get some real experience building and shipping a product, see where it goes, but ultimately get a "real" dev job at an established company with a team of devs so I could continue learning and progressing as a dev. So, the dilemma. While we were building our platform, we were able to secure some funding and we eventually launched. The business is making money -- not a crazy amount, and currently the company is still young and we're focused on not burning our runway, so my base salary at the moment is $70k + profit sharing. I live in San Diego and reports seem to suggest $100k is average here for full stack developers. In a lot of ways, the situation is great in that it's not super high stress, I have a good amount of free time for hobbies (I'm continuing to spend a lot of my free time coding side projects, though). However, I'm 34 and am serious about continuing my career as a dev. I'm worried about stagnating if I stay in my current situation. I've learned a lot from my friend, but I recognize how valuable it is to learn from other devs with different approaches, experience, etc. I also recognize how valuable it is to be tossed into the fire when starting a new role at a more established company. We've discussed bringing a couple more engineers onboard, so perhaps this could fill that gap. I guess I'm just curious if anyone has been in a similar situation and if you guys have any suggestions on how I can continue to seriously progress as a dev. I've thought about spending more time contributing to open source projects as a way to maybe expand my experience and work with different people. My biggest fear would be getting comfortable doing what I'm doing now and then a few years down the line I haven't progressed as much as I could have. And of course, there's the money factor. At the moment I'm not interested in maximizing my earning potential by shooting for a Big N or something, but I would like for my salary to stay competitive for the area I'm living in. This ended up longer than I anticipated, so I apologize for that. And I hope this doesn't come off as some humble-brag bullshit. If it does, please downvote it to oblivion. Thank you for your insight, I appreciate it. Cheers. [link] [comments]  |
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