Interview Discussion - November 12, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - November 12, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - November 12, 2018
- Ageism in tech? I didn't believe it at first, but now am wondering. What do you think?
- As a new grad, would I be better off in a startup or a big company?
- How to salvage a very hard whiteboard question?
- Is entry level job market over crowded?
- Name and Shame: Webinate
- When is it the right time to switch?
- Accept the offer or continue looking?
- Is the Udacity Machine Learning Engineering Nano Degree Worth the $$ to fill in gaps and make the transition to ML Eng?
- Just found a listing for my job title at my company, and it’s significantly higher than my salary.
- Is Jumpstart useless?
- Negotiating raise with new AWS certification - how much is it worth?
- A question regarding visible tattoos
- Etsy vs. Sumo Logic vs. Akuna Capital for Internship?
- do big companies send hirevue coding challenges to everyone that literally apply?
- Dealing with mistakes at work
- I'm a senior CS major and I'm struggling to finish my degree, seriously considering taking what I can and dropping out. How valuable for getting a good job is completing the degree, and is it worth all the time and stress I'm going through?
- Internship or summer classes?
- Trying to break into Tech Marketing from Corporate Marketing.
- What’s the difference between an architect, an engineer, and a developer in the cloud?
- What do you tell recruiters that you don't have time right now?
- 10 Years in Software Development in One Stack - Any Way to Switch? Advice?
- SXSW Conference
- Could someone please explain what the role 'site reliability engineer' is?
- JP Morgan University Grad Software Engineering Program
| Interview Discussion - November 12, 2018 Posted: 11 Nov 2018 11:07 PM PST 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 - November 12, 2018 Posted: 11 Nov 2018 11:07 PM PST 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]  |
| Ageism in tech? I didn't believe it at first, but now am wondering. What do you think? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 09:40 AM PST I have 25 years experience programming, mostly web development, but other types as well, such as desktop and mobile. I've been looking for a job since earlier this year, for months, and have barely gotten a response. I landed one job, but they rescinded when I asked a question about the contract (a question about IP but they didn't even want to hear it, they rescinded before having a discussion with me, saying the contract is not negotiable). Other than that, callbacks after submitting my resume have been rare, and one offer in 7 months is not a good ratio, considering the hundreds or more resumes I've put out there. I tweaked my resume, changing its format, shortening it, lengthening it, placing elements in different places, etc. I included things I've added to my skillset recently, such as React and Python. More things in my portfolio, more projects in Github, blasting the resume to anyone and everyone, and also being more selective when that didn't work. The past week, I've gotten more responses. I have an interview Tuesday, and have two more that could be set up soon. So what changed? I removed 10 years experience from my resume, which was a full time job where I started as a developer and became CTO. And I previously tested that position with different titles, downplaying it or emphasizing it. That was hard to remove, but I wanted to test whether it made a difference. I also removed anything else that would reveal my age, such as education dates. This is all I changed, outside of some minor formatting. And I've already seemingly gotten more response. I will admit this is not scientific, but anecdotal. I didn't apply to the same places who rejected my previous resume. I'd also have to do a more detailed analysis of how many responses I got and how quickly after I removed my age from consideration. But I do feel like there's more interest. I was getting up and checking my email and getting almost nothing. This morning I got up to a response for something I'm pretty sure I can get, although not ideal, but it's something. This also happened last week. I'm becoming convinced the removal of my previous work actually helped. If I continue to get more of a response, great, I can possibly get a job. But will this get easier or harder as I age from 50 years old to 60 years old? My feeling is, it's time to get out. I've been in management, and I've been a coder, and I want to code. But what worked in my 20s, 30s, and 40s to get a job has changed, and I've changed with it the best I could, and it's gotten progressively harder. This industry has an ageism problem, and not enough people are talking about it. EDIT: I forgot to mention I have lowered my rate by a great deal as a test as well. Under 75k. It did not help. [link] [comments]  |
| As a new grad, would I be better off in a startup or a big company? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 08:13 PM PST So I just got an offer to be a software engineer at NASDAQ and a no-name startup (though it has about a 100 people working there). I'm really having trouble choosing between the two. The pay is pretty much the same. But I love the startup's vibe and really liked the team members I'll be working with. They're using C#/.NET and provides cloud services to businesses. Also they said they'll mentor me and seem to have a good graduate program. NASDAQ seems to be using slightly older tech based on C++/Java, more focused on low-latency systems for trading, etc. I'm not too sure if they have a good enough graduate program. So here's my question. Wouldn't a household name like NASDAQ in my resume be more beneficial than a random startup? Is there any reason why I need to consider the startup? [link] [comments]  |
| How to salvage a very hard whiteboard question? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 10:53 AM PST Say on a whiteboard interview you are given a question you have no idea how to approach. You are so clueless you cannot even come up with a brute force solution. Is there any way to salvage such a scenario? What do you normally do when you're stumped on such a question? [link] [comments]  |
| Is entry level job market over crowded? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 02:42 PM PST Any actual recruiters here who can comment with some hard data - to settle a debate - as to whether the entry level / first time job market for software developers is saturated or not. Secondarily, what percentage of candidates come either self taught or bootcamp; and how do those candidates generally compare to a more traditional college grad? EDIT Thank you all for the replies. Except for the people who downvoted... why? Seriously. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Nov 2018 08:23 PM PST This pertains specifically to the company that is in Florida since there are about two or three other small companies that have this same name (seemingly it would be a popular choice for this field of work). Basically, they take advantage of their workers as much as possible. How they do that might vary from person to person but here's my experience. I actually got referred to the founder of the company by someone else on Reddit, who is just a second hand connection to this guy. Company founder was looking for more contractors to work for him and he was interested in my experience. The company is a web agency that mostly hires remote contractors. We had just one phone interview that lasted about an hour, no take-home test or rigorous technical questions or exercises. He seemed convinced to hire me, we agreed upon the rate I settled on for some $X an hour. As with my previous contract jobs I always charge per clock hour of work and that's how I thought he'd be basing the agreement on. The following Monday he sent me an email with an NDA attached and instructions on how to get set up. He has client projects already on the pipeline and I was assigned to one. I log into GitLab with my new credentials to look it over. I submitted the signed NDA then looked at the tasks available on Gitlab and so far this seems pretty normal for a remote job. I got to chat with one of the senior devs who was also working on that project. Immediately I noticed the tasks had a set number of hours written next to it. "Fix bug A - 4 hrs", "Implement some new search feature - 6 hrs", stuff like that. I PM'ed the business owner about this. he said, that's just how much I should be billing for the client. And he also followed up with an email saying, you are required to only bill for the amount stated on the tasks, or the time it took you to finish the tasks, whichever is shorter. In addition to that, self-training, research and other related work is not considered billable work time. Aside from that he expects me to be online for chat 9 through 5 even though I am allowed to work when I want to. I don't know if this is "on call" but either way, this wasn't discussed over the phone and neither was the stuff about tasks having predetermined hourly estimates by their lead developer. I asked him to produce a contract because I won't work without one, founder said they don't do written agreements. So I also asked the senior dev about it and he said not to worry because he's been working for half a year and he has not been given a written contract either. And I'm thinking, is this really all right with him? Without a written contract, you have no way of doing anything about it if that happens, other than walk out and say good bye to the work you've done and money you've earned. Apart from that, their notion of wanting to pay you only what their lead determines he would need is outrageous. After all I should be setting the estimates for my own work. I'm not paid the rate of a senior developer, and that is because I'm not as fast, and also because this was using a framework I've never used before. But with these hourly estimates what they want is the speed of a senior programmer at the rate of a junior programmer. I only did two tasks before I decided to hold off if the founder wasn't going to renegotiate or present a signable entity. On Wednesday he told me he was terminating my contract because I did not appear on chat at the expected hours, and was nagging him about terms of pay. But setting terms in writing is some basic company 101 stuff. I don't know if he's just used to such informality but it wasn't working for me. In particular, I shouldn't have let them get away with that "senior programmer estimates" BS. But if they refuse to even entertain the idea, or if they refuse to come to reasonable terms with you, it wasn't surprising that they refuse to pay me for the few hours of work I did do. I didn't completely dodge a bullet- because I lost time with them- but it could have been much worse. [link] [comments]  |
| When is it the right time to switch? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 04:47 PM PST I'm at a bit of a crossroads now, and I'm trying to weigh up my options. I'm approaching 18 months at this job now, and it's been pretty good. The money is good, my team is awesome and we're all super friendly with each other. In terms of environment, working hours etc, absolutely no issues. My only qualms is the work itself. I guess just due to the nature of the business, there isn't always development tasks. Anything that I am given, I pump out very quickly. I know my manager is very pleased with this, but I also end up with a lot of DevOps type tasks which I kinda hate. I guess today just really had me thinking. I could easily stay at this company longer, chill and have it pretty decent, but I don't feel like I've progressed as much as I would've liked. I have a BS and MS from some top schools and my resume is pretty strong. Recruiters from big companies are contacting me all the time on LinkedIn, but I guess I suffer from a bit of impostor syndrome (or not) in that I don't think I could make it in those companies. I've never been super quick at picking stuff up, but I've always done well academically as I work hard when it comes to it (even though I come across lazy). I guess my question is, would you guys give up a super chill job, with good money, to search for more of a challenge elsewhere? There's definitely more money out there, but I'd never be able to live it down if I moved and then worst case scenario it didn't end up working out. I've already told recruiters from a few prop trading shops I'm not interested in moving yet, I guess I'm just scared about what the future could hold. [link] [comments]  |
| Accept the offer or continue looking? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 01:09 PM PST So I am facing a difficult dilemma. About a month ago I started applying for a new grad position for Summer 2019, I wasn't sure where I wanted to be yet at that moment so I basically shortlisted three major cities and started from there. I have about 4-5 different interviews lined up and have received my first offer two weeks ago. The salary is right and the job is interesting enough, however, It would require me to move across the country. While the job offer is good, it is not perfect, as I prefer to stay in my current city. I was hoping to wait for other offers before deciding, as so, I asked for an extension of the deadline, but the extension was refused and I only have ... 48 hours now to accept or decline the offer. Should I continue searching and hope for a better offer? Or should I just accept the offer? On one hand, I really dislike interviewing and would rather get this over with, I am also afraid that I might not be able to pass any other interview, a lot of friends and relatives were unemployed/underemployed after college and I felt that I am very lucky to receive an offer. On the other, I will be interviewing with my dream company on Wednesday and I might regret it if I just accept a good enough offer. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2018 08:04 PM PST So to preface this I already have implemented a few ml/dl research papers, deployed a few pipelines and production ready models and have generally done some fun things with ML so I have some experience here not a total novice. The more I think about my career in CS the more I think I'd like to transition over to an ML engineer and want to begin to take what I've done fill in any gaps I may have and do that transition I was wondering if it would be worth it to put the money down on this Nano Degree to that purpose. https://www.udacity.com/course/machine-learning-engineer-nanodegree--nd009t [link] [comments]  |
| Just found a listing for my job title at my company, and it’s significantly higher than my salary. Posted: 12 Nov 2018 08:47 PM PST So I work at a company and everyone tells me my salary is lower than it should be. For a bit of background, I started at 75k. I asked for a raise and they agreed. They put me at 100k and told me "after evaluating it, this is what we see as your value as a developer". This happened around a year ago. Haven't received any raise/bonus since. Anyway I was looking around today for some salary ranges as a point of reference, when I actually saw my company come up with a listing for a job lower rank than my own, but same team and same department. What was strange is the listings lowest end of compensation was still 10k higher than mine, with the upper end of the listing being some 50k higher than mine. I'm not sure what to do about this but I feel pretty insulted that I've been here for years and I feel pretty cheated. What's the best option forward? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2018 06:27 PM PST I'm a senior at a target school with past internship experience. I've gotten 15+ interviews, with about half of them at Big-Ns, so I feel like I'm a pretty qualified "early talent professional". However, I've been on the Jumpstart platform for over two months and literally nobody has reached out to me. Even the head PR person who you have a default chat with has ignored me. Is this platform useless? Am I not using it right? I keep seeing posts on LinkedIn about them partnering with companies but nobody's ever reached out to me. I'm just pretty confused. [link] [comments]  |
| Negotiating raise with new AWS certification - how much is it worth? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 07:56 PM PST I am a senior software engineer at a company that fully relies on AWS services for its cloud infrastructure. I'm fairly new to the industry and secured the position without much exposure to AWS. This is a contract-to-hire position and my contract is ending soon, so I am looking to negotiate a higher hourly rate based on my performance and this new certification (AWS certified developer - associate level). I have essentially no experience with negotiation, but I would like to do my best with this opportunity, so I am wondering what strategies I might employ and how much I can reasonably expect to increase my current salary. I don't know what factors employers/managers consider when deciding to approve a salary increase, so any insight into this process would be much appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| A question regarding visible tattoos Posted: 12 Nov 2018 03:18 PM PST I'm currently a student studying my first year in CS and I intend on getting a (non offensive) tattoo on the top of my hand. Wondering if anyone could give me their opinions on the matter. Are visible tattoos frowned upon for someone looking to work in the IT or programming area? [link] [comments]  |
| Etsy vs. Sumo Logic vs. Akuna Capital for Internship? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 01:35 PM PST Do you have any insights about any of these companies for a Software Engineering internship? Which one should I choose? Also, which one would be the best in terms of reputation/later opportunities? [link] [comments]  |
| do big companies send hirevue coding challenges to everyone that literally apply? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 01:05 PM PST i just got like a hirevue invitation from Sabre but i went to check the application that i sent and i dont even have the preferred skills (like Java, React, etc. and i never mentioned any of those in my resume) they are looking for. what sucks is that they only gave me 3 days from the day i received the invitation to do it. i also got a hirevue invitation from JP Morgan like last month, which i thought was also too good to be true especially when i consider myself to be a below-average to average applicant. i have no work experience and two basic projects. what i would like to know is do big companies just send hirevue to everyone that literally apply to their company? if that's the case should i even bother doing it since im just like a number to them? did anyone here applied to sabre or jpmorgan and NOT get a hirevue invitation? both were for a SWE intern position [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2018 05:08 PM PST I've been at my first job for 6mo and am just starting to be handed real work. Last week, I messed up filling out a form which delayed a process from being released. The form permissions you to flip a pointer in production. It is my first time filling out the form alone but I had been walked through it about a month ago so no excuses for these mistakes. I freaked out but added the missing info in the form and tried to calm myself down. I was super stressed to the point that I couldn't sleep that night. Nobody made a big deal about it because the entire work flow is delayed by another component. The release was rescheduled. Today was my chance to fix that mistake and execute the form to release the program. Turns out I added the wrong information to the form and I was not able to release the process again. I thought I knew what I was doing with this form when I fixed the form the first time. I got help this time to fix the form. Now I'm pretty distraught because I made 2 small mistakes on this form within a week and the code is still not in production. I have to face my boss and team lead tomorrow and say I screwed up the form again. Now I'm just embarrassed that I have messed this up 2x because the cardinal rule of making mistakes is to not do them twice. I'm upset that I'm probably overreacting to the point of shaking as I type this. Sorry for the pity session. Tl;dr I screwed up at work 2x and I don't know how to manage this sense of failure. How do you handle making mistakes at work? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2018 02:37 PM PST I've searched the subreddit and found a couple similar questions, but they aren't exactly the same situation. This has nothing to do with the difficulty of the material, as I have a 3.8 GPA and usually end up helping others to understand the material and complete assignments. The issue is everything else. The CS department at my university is so impacted that no one can ever get into classes. Both the class and the wait list are full the moment enrollment is available. It's a joke at this point between CS majors. There simply isn't enough professors and TAs to teach everyone. Most classes are only offered every other semester, making the problems even worse. If you miss signing up for a course you need, you're stuck for a whole year until it finally becomes available again. Better hope you get it next time. The general education is killing me. I like some of the courses, I've learned some cool stuff, but it's just a time sink and significant source of stress at this point. Granted, I only need ~6 more units of GE courses (go figure, they're orders of magnitude easier to get into than the CS courses, as I need at least 3 times as many units of CS courses to graduate). Perhaps the worst part is that I haven't used university to its fullest. People say university is great for networking, but I've made no effort in that regard other than (hopefully) making a good impression on professors and some minor club involvement. I also haven't taken any internships, and aside from my formal education, only have some personal projects to show employers. I would like to finish my degree to have something more than "in progress" on my resume, but I feel pretty hopeless about even getting into the courses I need to meet the graduation requirements, and any time and effort I would put into GE courses could be better used on self teaching and personal projects. TL;DR It's nearly impossible to get into CS courses. I'll try talking to someone in the department about how to get into more courses, but I will need at the very least an extra year to complete my degree. I just feel like this is taking far too long for far too little benefit to my career, and far too much detriment to my health from stress. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2018 04:46 PM PST I have seen a lot of posts about having multiple internships being important but I feel my case is a little different and would like some clarity. I already have a Bachelors in Management and am starting school back up in the spring to get a CS BA and a CIS BS. I'll have two summers total before I graduate again and I am planning to get an internship the 2nd summer. To speed up graduation, I'm planning on taking summer classes instead of a 2nd internship. Are the summer classes a good idea since I will have only taken the first CS class and I don't know exactly what I want to do for a career anyways? Plus a 2nd internship would extend graduation even more. [link] [comments]  |
| Trying to break into Tech Marketing from Corporate Marketing. Posted: 12 Nov 2018 07:42 PM PST Hi guys, I'm new to this sub-reddit and I was just wondering can any of you guys give me any advice on how to break into the Tech industry in NYC ( Google, Amazon, etc)? Here's a little bit of information about me. -I received my Bachelor's degree in Marketing with a double Minor in African American Studies and Entrepreneurship & Innovation ( I graduated Cum Laude) -The University I went to isn't prestigious at all but it's a known name in NYC ( 250+ companies recruit here). * Sidenote: The only Tech companies that recruit here are -IBM, -Accenture Consulting, -Bloomberg ( if you want to count them), -CA Technologies, - Banking Firms Software divisions ( Citi, Goldman, Barclays), - and Other small tech companies. -My first internship was for SONY records ( Urban Marketing division) -I now currently work for the N.B.A ( it's corporate Headquarters) as a marketing associate. -I know how to code a little bit ( willing to learn more) and the math needed to learn other coding languages wouldn't be a problem since I'm great at math. In conclusion, What I'm trying to figure out is how can I make the transition to a company like Google, Amazon, Facebook in NYC (on the Marketing Tech side)? Will I have to learn how to Code on a significant scale? Should I go back to Business School (I thought about Howard, Baruch, Syracuse or The University of Rochester) and get my MBA or masters in Marketing?
TLDR: I worked Corporate Marketing and I'm trying to transition to Tech Marketing in NYC. All help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! [link] [comments]  |
| What’s the difference between an architect, an engineer, and a developer in the cloud? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 07:46 AM PST I'm still new to the field of cloud, and all these positions seem super similar. Can someone explain some of the differences? Maybe toss in some DevOps explanation as well? This is mostly in the AWS world I am wondering about. Thanks all! [link] [comments]  |
| What do you tell recruiters that you don't have time right now? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 07:39 PM PST I've been 'lucky' in that I tend to get called a lot for phone interviews and in-person interviews when I put myself out there (i.e. mostly remaining active in LinkedIn and keeping my profile/resume up to date and apply to jobs when it sounds interesting). I try to take most of the calls I get just to at least hear about the opportunities and to try to practice my interview skills (which I honestly think isn't up to par, but that's a different question I'd ask at a later post).
It's end of the year and I honestly wasn't expecting to hear much from recruiters but they have been calling and messaging me so I have been replying. My work tends to be pretty slow so I usually have a lot of time to take these calls but the past 2 weeks have become extremely busy and stressful, which I like because I get bored if it's dead.
So anyways, I have a couple of recruiters that want to schedule a call to have initial phone interviews with their clients and I just want to tell them that basically, it's not a good time anymore. I don't know how to word it in such a way that will let them know basically 'hey, can you call me next year at Q1 if there are opps then because I'm super busy right now?' I don't want them to write me off, but I mean if they do anyway, there's not much I can do about it. Help?
TL;DR: Don't want to piss off recruiters so how do I politely say 'no time, call me next year please?'
Edit: ugh formatting sorry
Edit #2: getting downvoted? my bad, is this not the right place to post this? should i put in r/careerguidance? [link] [comments]  |
| 10 Years in Software Development in One Stack - Any Way to Switch? Advice? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 07:17 PM PST Hello Redditors! It's kind of hard to post here for me, but I don't really have any other way of gathering feedback. Recent months in my career were rough - big project, pressure, challenges and being relied on with everything. I think I reached a tipping point where I can no longer stay in the same place. This time however I was thinking about switching to a completely new stack. I have something around ten years of experience in software development. Naturally throughout the years I learnt a lot of technologies, but I mostly specialize in one language. I contribute to big open source projects, I feel like a fish in the ocean while working with Linux and databases are not scary to me (unless we're talking Oracle). I hate being right, but everywhere I arrive I tend to change a lot of things, convince people to switch technologies and tools, modernize the stack etc. and quickly from developer I start to be a mix of architect/devops/PM/all other c.... I will like to really start in a new stack, new language, on different platform - just to cut myself from all that. I don't want to go to a bootcamp and listen what an `if` statement is, I would rather go and work as an advanced junior, however this is problematic. Everyone looks at me like I'm full of bs, since obviously nobody want to just change after years of experience (and I was told that even). What will you recommend? p.s. Even though I'm an active contributor, today I'm posting from throw-away account, since I really don't want to be identified. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Nov 2018 07:15 PM PST Has anyone been to this conference and can attest to opportunities networking with companies and receiving offers. [link] [comments]  |
| Could someone please explain what the role 'site reliability engineer' is? Posted: 12 Nov 2018 03:48 AM PST Hi all, Could someone with experience please explain the responsibilities of a 'site reliability engineer' position and where does it fit in Software Development? Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| JP Morgan University Grad Software Engineering Program Posted: 12 Nov 2018 12:54 PM PST I recently got an offer from JP Morgan for their software engineering program in Houston and am interested in hearing if anyone else has any experience going through this program. What was it like? Did you feel as though you learned transferable skills if you were to change jobs? What kind of problems did you work on? Did you return after completion of the program? [link] [comments]  |
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