Resume Advice Thread - October 16, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Resume Advice Thread - October 16, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - October 16, 2018
- An internship search visualized
- Some job posts online are only intended for internal candidates.
- Americans that have moved to Canada, was it worth it?
- How perfect do you need to be during phone/technical screen?
- Got rejected from internship after sending my transcript and they said they wanted stronger grades in certain CS classes. I got a C in Data Structures but have B and above for most classes and I have side projects.
- About to go to a career fair on my school campus. I'm a freshman and unlikely to get an internship today. but what questions should I be asking to ready myself for next year or next time?
- Question: Unemployed folks looking for a job for 3+ months
- What are your career plans?
- What is the job ACTUALLY like? Very curious to hear from you
- Comparing offers
- Web developer / designer for 5 years. Not feeling motivated. Looking for advice.
- Why are ping pong tables so important?
- After watching the company i work for grow from 4 people in a cramped room, to ~500 people i feel i no longer have a place. What should i be doing?
- (UPDATE) 2 Internship Offers... How to negotiate?
- Stripe Phone Screen
- Should I retake my data structures class even though I understand the concepts quite well but got a C? It’s been a year since I took it.
- Take an Engineering Manager job or an IC job?
- Please talk me out of going into "Foreign language localization QA/Development support" for a game studio
- What's the recruiting timeline for experienced hires?
- Internship without knowing a language?
- Applied to big company's subsidiary, sent code challenge. Subsidiary auto-rejected separately - should I do the code challenge?
- Working with non-profit/social impact groups
- Saint Louis Job market for new developers good or bad?
- Overwhelmed senior engineer
| Resume Advice Thread - October 16, 2018 Posted: 16 Oct 2018 12:06 AM PDT Please use this thread to ask for resume advice and critiques. You should read our Resume FAQ and implement any changes from that before you ask for more advice. Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk. Note on anonomyizing your resume: If you'd like your resume to remain anonymous, make sure you blank out or change all personally identifying information. Also be careful of using your own Google Docs account or DropBox account which can lead back to your personally identifying information. To make absolutely sure you're anonymous, we suggest posting on sites/accounts with no ties to you after thoroughly checking the contents of your resume. This thread is posted each Tuesday and Saturday at midnight PST. Previous Resume Advice Threads can be found here. [link] [comments]  |
| Daily Chat Thread - October 16, 2018 Posted: 16 Oct 2018 12:06 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]  |
| An internship search visualized Posted: 16 Oct 2018 03:15 PM PDT I posted this in /r/csmajors, and figured some people here might be interested as well. I recently signed an offer for summer 2019, and kept track of my applications along the way. See my results in this ugly Sankey diagram. Some notes:
I spewed applications for a while to every software engineering internship that popped up in my Indeed email alert. I probably would have had similar results in terms of moving forward in the process with a more focused search. Good luck to everyone in their job search! [link] [comments]  |
| Some job posts online are only intended for internal candidates. Posted: 16 Oct 2018 04:34 AM PDT Just wanted to come here and let people here who are overwhelmed with applying to jobs online know that some job posts are only meant for internal candidates, or consultant candidates that are transitioning to full time employee. If I had known this, I wouldn't be so harsh on my self last year when I was applying to jobs and ultimately getting rejecting or not hearing back. It doesn't help that you don't know which are only meant for that purpose, but it's still good reassurance for my mental health for the next time I'm applying to jobs. The reason I know this is because I'm currently contingent worker transitioning to full time salaried employee and I had to apply to a job that HR put on their online job site to be eligible for the FT position, which I found Indeed picked up too since it's for everyone to see. [link] [comments]  |
| Americans that have moved to Canada, was it worth it? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 05:42 AM PDT Why did you move and did you have to take a severe pay cut? Would you say that your quality of life is better there? [link] [comments]  |
| How perfect do you need to be during phone/technical screen? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 03:47 PM PDT I am primarily concerned with Jr., Entry, level I interviews, but feel free to comment on any experience level. One thing that stresses me out the most in prep of a phone/technical screen is not knowing how to answer a question. If you respond with a "I don't know", etc. on 1 or more questions, are you doomed? FWIW, I always make it known that I am a new grad/ first job and when I flat out don't know an answer to a question I 1) Try to relate it to something I do know, but may not answer question directly, and 2) Fess up and be honest in where I lack knowledge. Are there other recommended steps to make your way out of an "I don't know" situation? In general, what grade or percentage do you think you did on the various screenings, and did that grade or percentage result in a next round or an end to the process? Also, I've encountered "rate your self in X" questions a couple of time. I err on the side of caution most times, but is it better to over estimate yourself in the hopes of seeming confident? Any comment helps, thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 12:42 PM PDT Is this common? I sent my unofficial transcript so they don't see a grade getting overrided when retaken. The classes where I got a C were a foundations of computer science (logic and philosophy class), data structures, and Systems Programming. I got rejected for one of these and it's likely data structure. My overall grade, however, is a 3.5. This company (auto owners) was pretty cool with me but I didn't even make it past the first round of interviews haha. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 12:39 PM PDT Seattle University freshman. Electrical engineer major and CS minor. What questions should I be asking to the internships to be ready for next time. [link] [comments]  |
| Question: Unemployed folks looking for a job for 3+ months Posted: 16 Oct 2018 04:07 PM PDT How do you guys manage this? Are you mainly just studying for interviews, or doing side projects on the side aswell. I did not get a full time offer from my internship, and have been looking for a job for ~2 months. At the beginning it was easy, but i am at a stage where I am starting to lose hope. And its really bringing me and my mind into a depressive state. I feel as if I have accomplished nothing in the past 2 months, aka wasting my life away. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 05:24 AM PDT I recently started my second job after three years at my first job. I feel like this job is going to open a lot of doors for me because I can put a big name on my resume and work on cutting edge research problems. Possibly get some publications under my belt. I'm starting to think about the impact of this and what I want to do next in like two or three years. I'm thinking about trying my hand at some finance companies in NYC. I'm also thinking about Switzerland and Zurich. I interviewed for a job there when I was looking for my second job and although I didn't get an offer I'm thinking about trying again in a few years. What are your plans? [link] [comments]  |
| What is the job ACTUALLY like? Very curious to hear from you Posted: 16 Oct 2018 03:31 PM PDT I'm a CS freshman and I hear instructors talk about CS career fields in an abstract way ("we solve problems, we find solutions, we use creativity to answer questions", etc) and I guess I'm more curious of what you actually do in a normal day? I know this differs wildly based on different industries and jobs but what is a normal day for a computer programmer or other CS based career? How do you deal with knowing so many different programming languages? Do you work at home or in an office? Does your company treat you well? Do you get to travel for work? I'm super curious about your job! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 02:16 PM PDT Hi all, I recently got two offers for full-time SWE and I'm not sure which one is better to go with. One is Oracle and the other is Servicenow, a medium-sized tech company. Both of these jobs would be in the bay area, and they're roughly the same in terms of compensation + benefits. I was previously leaning towards Oracle because it's a better name on my resume, but I've heard they're old and bureaucratic, and that it's hard to learn a lot while you're there. On the other hand, servicenow is growing rapidly, so it seems like there would be lots of learning opportunities, though I've heard I'd be working mostly with Java and I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to work with cutting edge tech to the degree that I've always wanted. Also, I feel like servicenow is is a relatively unknown company name, and I don't want that to hinder my job search if I decide to look for new companies down the line. I'm worried I won't get as many interviews down the line just because people really know what to make of servicenow. Does anyone have input on this situation? and if anyone happens to work / has worked at either company, I'd appreciate any advice! [link] [comments]  |
| Web developer / designer for 5 years. Not feeling motivated. Looking for advice. Posted: 16 Oct 2018 05:44 PM PDT Throwaway as my co-workers / bosses use Reddit. Been developing custom WordPress themes (just the front-end) and static sites with HTML, Sass, jQuery and some vanilla JS as of late. For about 6ish years now. Been learning vanilla JS recently, as I see it in pretty much every job post. I know, I haven't been using it for years now - cause I didn't have to. Just built basic informational / marketing websites. Our company just recently hired a new hire-up, who plans to train us all up on..
I'm **just** getting my feet wet with vanilla JS. Been taking a Udemy course, I've built a little trivia game in vanilla JS, and trying to learn Vue now. Before he came I was starting to learn Vue, but now I guess I have to go and learn React instead... Here's why I'm feeling de-motivated: (This is a bit of a rant.. I apologize in advance).
The one good thing is, he said he's hiring more devs to alleviate the workload, and then we can train up. I'm assuming that means we'll be learning at work. As you can tell, I'm just demotivated. I don't even want to learn React, let alone continuing getting deep into vanilla JS because I don't think I'm smart enough. I'm just doing it because in order to stay employable.. I have to. So from not caring about bleeding edge stuff, not wanting to learn on my own time / rather keep that at work, to putting out constant fires at work and working unpaid over time (it's legal here), and front-end just being an overwhelming shit show in general.. I'm in low spirits. I just go in, expect a PM / QA person to bitch to me because of something not working and holy-shit-fix-everything-right-now-because-its-the-end-of-the-world, every single day. What advice do you guys have? [link] [comments]  |
| Why are ping pong tables so important? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 07:05 PM PDT I have been in the job search for a month now, close to a hundred applications. For small/medium companies, the benefits often go something like this - What? Is ping pong table really a deal maker/breaker for us? Personally, I prefer traditional office spaces and ping pong has no acceptance in that. You come to office to work, you can ping pong after work. But my preference aside, ping pong still seems like an oddly over-rated and misplaced benefit when it goes along with pay and insurance and such stuff. Has anyone ever accepted/denied a job because they didn't have ping pong? When did this ping pong trend catch up, for so many companies to list it in their "benefits"? Edit This is not a raging rant or anything, I'm not being edgy. It's honestly just hilarious to me that ping pong is listed beside life-saving benefit like 401K or insurance. :-P Just trying to get people's opinions on the matter and understand how/why this trend started. Cheers! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 02:55 AM PDT Doing this on a throwaway from obvious reasons. I joined FooBar Inc, right when i was fresh out of university 6 years ago, we were basically 4 people in a very cramped hackspace, and i have watched us grow to around 500 with around a 100+ strong dev team. But over the last 6 months i just feel like i have no place anymore, and it is beyond frustrating. My title right now is `Lead Solutions Architect`, according to our HR tool the only two people above me is our CTO, and CEO. I see both of those people once in a blue moon, and when they are here i feel my only purpose is for them to bounce ideas off me. Which i don't mind. But when i say "sure i can do that", they immediately tell me "don't worry we have a team for that!". Over the last few years i have watched my ownership of almost everything evaporate into almost nothing, the only thing i know i still have ownership over is a bunch of legacy stuff that has been preserved for enterprise clients. Which there hasn't been any work on any of that in months. Everyday i am dragged into countless meetings where i don't know how half the people are, even worse is that half the time i don't even know what it is about. Lately i have been asking if they need me for this and the answer is almost always "no". Every time i have brought this up with our CTO, i keep being told stuff like "You have a budget!, i don't need to assign you stuff you should create your own work!". Great every single thing i have started to try to take ownership over i am hit with so much stupid red tape it hurts. I make a proposal only to have any manager who toes i might step on refuse it because they don't have time to work any minor amount of work they need to do into their sprint. I have made 3 proposals over the last year, only watch them wither and die in proposal hell. My most recent proposal i decided to just do it, and ignore the red tape. Only to basically piss off every manager who was even remotely related to this feature, now the odds are all my work is going to sit in limbo forever. I am paid a stupidly high amount for someone who's sole purpose lately seems to be sit in my hands.I just don't understand what i should be doing. Has anyone been in this kind of position before? [link] [comments]  |
| (UPDATE) 2 Internship Offers... How to negotiate? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 11:19 AM PDT Thanks everyone for the advice! I ended up emailing Company B and got my hourly increased to $30/hr from $25/hr! A lot of people said to not do it, but to anyone else wondering if they should negotiate, I'd say be professional/polite and go for it. The worst they can say is no. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 01:37 PM PDT Hi guys, a couple of days ago I got invited to a phone screening by Stripe. What's your experience with it? What kind of stuff do they ask for in the phone screening? The interview is only 45 minutes long. Also looking for advice regarding the onsite. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 06:26 PM PDT I made a post about how I got rejected from a company and it was because my grade in certain cs classes (most likely data structures) was bad. I have a 3.5 GPA but this class in particular I got a C in. I'm 2 semesters away from being done and I'm wondering if I should just retake it for the sake of the grade and not being put out by companies. I have a great understanding of time complexities and data structures during and mostly after when I worked on my own projects and studied these data structures. What do you guys think? [link] [comments]  |
| Take an Engineering Manager job or an IC job? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 06:07 PM PDT Hi cscareerquestions, Long time lurker, first time writer. I value a lot of the information I have been reading on here, so I wanted to gauge the opinions about an (admittedly good) predicament I am in. For context, I am around three years into my engineering career after having run a startup. I have a few opportunities on the table right now, ranging from Senior/Lead Engineer to Engineering Manager. Offers are currently at mid size companies, and not at the FAAANG level right now (I staggered those interviews to come later). The EM role I was offered has a TC of 220K, with the rest of the offers likely hovering around 160-180K base. None are publicly traded currently, so no heavy RSUs offered. My predicament is this: I am interested in the EM role, but am worried that it will make pursuing an IC or EM role at a top-tier company more difficult in the future. This is something that I would like to do, but it is a healthy offer and a good upgrade from my last TC. I also don't have the financial runway to see out all of the onsites (9) and tech screens (11) that I have remaining. If you were in my position, would you be concerned about switching from EM back to IC in the future? Would you optimize for salary, or optimize for the opportunity that best develops your technical skills? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 05:56 PM PDT I am a recent grad still looking around for a programming job after getting my offer retracted at the last second. My financial situation is getting dire and I feel like shit for staying home all day. I found a QA position as a "temporary assignment" at a reputable and well known game studio. I would like to work in the game industry as a programmer, but I've been blown off by many saying I lack experience. To remedy that, I applied to many software companies, but most of them told me I should just apply to game companies instead. I know QA is the bottom of the totem pole and the pay is about minimum wage, but at this point I feel like I should start at the bottom and go from there. I have one more software dev interview coming up, but I feel like the chances are slim. I love the game studio I am currently interviewing for the QA position, but I see many people claiming it will kill my career as a programmer. [link] [comments]  |
| What's the recruiting timeline for experienced hires? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 05:19 PM PDT Is there a peak/off-peak cycle as there is for intern and new grad positions, and is it different for big n vs non-big n companies? [link] [comments]  |
| Internship without knowing a language? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 02:17 PM PDT Hi! Some context: I am a 27 YO returning to college and this is my first semester back. I had nearly completed a BA in an unrelated field but got caught up working full time and realized i hated my current career. Went back this semester and pretty much knocking out my math prereqs before I can take my first CS class. That probably won't be until either Summer or Fall 2019. I was looking up some internships and most require at least knowing a language but I came across one internship locally that's looking for a part timer for about 20hrs. They don't list knowing a language as a requirement and their duties or responsibilities include some general QA stuff but also list using mathematical models to measure outcomes and consequences and some stuff like that. I have begun teaching myself some C# in my spare time as my first language but not really anywhere proficient with it as Im still learning it, but I was wondering if I should give it a shot and try applying towards this internship? If so, are there any non coding skills I might be able to put in my resume to look attractive to the employer? Should I just give up looking for a CS internship until I take some CS courses/learn a language first? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 16 Oct 2018 07:45 PM PDT I applied to a subsidiary of Amazon, and was sent a 2-hr coding challenge. A day or two later (before I got the chance to touch the code challenge) the subsidiary sent me an automated rejection, from their specific company's HR (independently and completely separate from Amazon). What happens if I do or don't do the original Amazon code challenge? Will not doing it invalidate me from applying to any of the all encompassing company's positions for the next 6 months? Will doing it and then not passing it invalidate me from applying to any of the all encompassing company's positions for the next 6 months? [link] [comments]  |
| Working with non-profit/social impact groups Posted: 16 Oct 2018 07:40 PM PDT I am CS junior, and lately I've been feeling like I want to take some time off school (3 months or so) and use whatever software engineering skills I have for a position that would go towards a project that makes social impact. Preferably for a non-profit organisation. However, I've been finding it really difficult to find such positions. Any positions you folks are aware of? Any ideas on where to look? I don't have any preference for location and don't mind unpaid positions. [link] [comments]  |
| Saint Louis Job market for new developers good or bad? Posted: 16 Oct 2018 01:36 PM PDT I have a degree. (the degree content was literally bullshit. I was literally told by the director of the program that the semester I enrolled was the 'guinea pigs' of the program. It was highly underdeveloped and the teachers could not teach. It was like they brought in some old rambling homeless man in to teach the core classes). I graduated in 2016 and I'm still struggling with finding some place. I made tons of mistakes since I was in school (didn't apply for internships, the content of the core courses were bullshit and the tecahers couldn't teach, so I spent most of my time bitching at upper faculty only to get ignored). I also didn't build up a real portfolio. I did projects here and there and read books to help myself understand concepts, but I don't have a real portfolio. Just small projects that show I understand concepts. It's been two years. I held a support job for SharePoint last summer but couldn't hack it because I absolutely hated SharePoint. This Spring after working minimum wages jobs on and off I FINALLY scored a job as a new developer. I was so freaking excited and stoked. The only problem was that it was in Delphi 7 and SQL, which was probably the most use to me. I was brought on to learn from the ground up, they knew I had zero XP. I had the best boss/leader I'd ever had. They gave me a chance, and as I had been convinced of, I learn way better in a real world environment than I ever could on my own or through books. Unfortunately, last month, only 4 months in, they cut me loose. "Budget cuts". It was because the parent company kept buying up competition left and right and didn't have a solid plan to onboard anyone. They decided they couldn't keep me at $45k while they consistently were making hundreds of thousands of dollars every day (They literally sent out an email at the end of the day with sales totals). I was contracted so I had nothing to fall back on. What's worse is that I had a major medical operation done only two days before I got this news, so now I have some crippling medical debt that I have no way to pay at the moment. It has devastated me. It was a really shitty move on their part to not tell me before I threw money down for the medical procedure. I've been trying to persevere, but I can not get any hits. I've had one interview but because I was working in an old language like Delphi, they passed on me. I'm running out of what little I had saved up and I have no idea what to do. I want to work on interesting problems. I don't want to get stuck in some corporate job where all I'm doing is adding to the bottom line for the company. I want to build and contribute to interesting shit. Is it that I just lack experience because I have too little to show, skill-wise, or is it because I live in Saint Louis where the job market for new devs is just trash? Sure, the jobs exist but every single posting they want you to have 30 years experience as a junior dev. I want to bad to move to another city because prospects look way better than in this city. I really don't know if it's a case of 'the grass is always greener' or if it is worth the risk. I'm stuck and don't know how to proceed. I turn 30 in two weeks and have nothing in my life. My mistakes have caught up with me and the walls are closing in. I'm willing to learn anything and halfway willing to be undercut on salary jsut so I can get some sort of income. Before anyone says it, Launch code has not been helpful and Revature looks like a scam. As you can see, i'm pretty upset and my thoughts are scattered, I apologize if the post is scattered and unintelligible. I just needed to get my thoughts out and hope that somebody can help either put me at ease or give me some advice. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Oct 2018 09:30 PM PDT I recently just took a new job as a senior engineer at a company that I really like. The team is great, the problems are new and challenging, and the culture is a really good fit for me. Problem is that I feel dwarfed by the talent of my co-workers. I have 12 years experience doing this stuff but I feel like people here could run circles around me. It's likely just imposter syndrome but it's getting to me, and I feel like someone is going to figure out soon that I have no idea what I'm doing. Please help me feel better by sharing a positive story of when you felt overwhelmed / under-qualified, but everything somehow worked out in the end. [link] [comments]  |
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