Big N Discussion - December 30, 2018 CS Career Questions |
- Big N Discussion - December 30, 2018
- Daily Chat Thread - December 30, 2018
- Feeling conflicted and helpless regarding an underperforming co-worker
- Older developer laid off. Really need some advice.
- What is a regular CS job like?
- Anyone have real numbers on compensation at hedge funds/prop shops?
- I have around $200-$250 I want to spend on something that will improve my chances of getting a job. I am a student with 3 semesters left. What would be a good way to use this money?
- How common are idea people led companies?
- Graduating Soon with a CS Degree and have some Questions about the Job Search
- Software engineer average salary by country
- How does career trajectory change when starting out as a data analyst/engineer compared to first becoming a software engineer?
- What are your personal pros and cons of working remotely, or of being a digital nomad?
- Do you always upload a cover letter when applying to jobs?
- Verdict on using other people's code when working on personal projects?
- What are the top reasons for underperformance at work?
- How common are "easy" jobs?
- What does it mean when someone works in "Product"?
- Are there CS jobs that aren't so engineering heavy?
- How Important Is It to Have a Technical Degree in the Industry?
- Full stack sw developer turn tech pm after a career break is wondering if it’s better to return back to being a full stack sw engineer.
- how to build a portfolio for webdev and how to get into this field ?
- Why is SWE presented as one of the top careers in Tech?
- Do you know any countries/cities that have CS job opportunities but at the same time low cost of living?
- Confused about CS internships
- Tex to Toronto
| Big N Discussion - December 30, 2018 Posted: 29 Dec 2018 11:06 PM PST Please use this thread to have discussions about the Big N and questions related to the Big N, such as which one offers the best doggy benefits, or how many companies are in the Big N really? Posts focusing solely on Big N created outside of this thread will probably be removed. There is a top-level comment for each generally recognized Big N company; please post under the appropriate one. There's also an "Other" option for flexibility's sake, if you want to discuss a company here that you feel is sufficiently Big N-like (e.g. Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, etc.). Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk. This thread is posted each Sunday and Wednesday at midnight PST. Previous Big N Discussion threads can be found here. [link] [comments]  |
| Daily Chat Thread - December 30, 2018 Posted: 29 Dec 2018 11:06 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]  |
| Feeling conflicted and helpless regarding an underperforming co-worker Posted: 30 Dec 2018 05:47 AM PST I've been on this team for 2.5 years. It was my first job after graduation. I got promoted to a senior developer last March. I'd say that I have the technical ability, but the thing that really landed me the (somewhat early) promotion is that the only senior developer on the team was the subject of this post. That is to say, he wasn't doing the job, so I stepped up and did the best I could, and our bosses saw that. But this post isn't about me. OtherSenior is a great guy. He's middle aged. He has a wonderful family who always comes first. He's very kind and genuine with everyone. The quality of his code is such that he gets a lot of negative feedback, but he never shows that he takes it personally. Our codebase used to be the definition of technical debt. There were no recognizable patterns anywhere. Every new feature added would break something else, and it took forever to add said features because of the minefield we were navigating. There were no unit tests. The code wasn't really testable at all. Duplicate logic everywhere. You get it. Bad code. He wrote a lot of that. In the last year and a half or so, things have gotten a lot better. I take credit for pushing everyone, but now five of our six developers are instrumental in our improvement. We push each other, stay active in code review, and don't back down on the quality of the code we're allowing into master. OtherSenior, though, doesn't get involved. He doesn't pay attention in meetings. He doesn't really look at other people's pull requests. He constantly has to be reminded to write tests. It seems like his only goal is to get his tasks closed. It doesn't even matter if the feature is really complete. If it matches the acceptance criteria and/or makes it through QA he's happy. I'm pretty sure he's in a performance improvement plan. It's understandable why he'd be focused on just closing his tasks. I probably would be too. But it's not actually making him a better developer. He constantly gets the same feedback in PR's. Unit tests. Separation of concerns. Unidirectional data flow. Codestyle. Idioms. Super high complexity. Unreadability. Inconsistent naming. "this will cause a crash for most of our users." "This code is unreachable." "This isn't actually testing anything." "This test will always fail." "This won't even compile." "CI failed 6 hours ago. Are you working on fixing the issues or should we close the pull request?" I feel like he hasn't given up, but he doesn't have the right perspective. He's too focused on immediate concerns (like literally just the function he's writing at that moment) to see a big picture. He does nothing to increase his knowledge or make things easier for himself in the long run. The entire team takes an extra close look at his pull requests because his code is typically difficult to read and he frequently PR's stuff which would introduce technical debt or stability or performance issues. It feels like we're ganging up on him but the things we comment on wouldn't be accepted from any developer. I'm not his boss, but I feel an obligation to help him because he can't lose his job. But on the other hand, I don't know how to help him and I doubt he'll ever really get better. I think I'm done rambling. Thank you for reading. Any words of wisdom from more experienced developers would be great. Thanks again. ~EDIT~ I guess let me be a bit more clear about the age thing. I graduated kind of recently but this is my second career. I'm in my late thirties. Our youngest team member is 33. So no, I don't think his age is the reason for his underperformance. I was simply trying to give some context. [link] [comments]  |
| Older developer laid off. Really need some advice. Posted: 30 Dec 2018 09:31 AM PST Burner account. Looking for positive advice from the wise members of this sub. Any help would be really appreciated. 46 yo web developer. I was laid off 4 months ago after 12 years at my company. Applied for 100+ jobs since the layoff, but haven't had any success. Been contacted by a couple recruiters who found my LinkedIn. They forwarded my resume to a couple employers, but no interest. Before I was laid off, I spend those 12 years working on a LAMP stack application that I built myself 12 years ago. The problem is that it's really, really old code. All procedural. No OOP. No frameworks. Some JS on the front end, but very little. A couple jQuery things and some really old vanilla JS. The front end is at least only a couple years old and responsive HTML and CSS. I consider myself a PHP developer but all the PHP developer jobs I see listed either ask for lots of OOP framework experience or CMS experience with Drupal or WordPress. I don't have any of those skills. I have also done a little bit of front end. JS, jQuery, responsive design. But not enough to say that I'm really very experienced and my skills with those are pretty out of date, too. I have managed other developers but not sure I could do that at a new job, since my skills are so out of date. I have managed projects, too. But I don't have any PM training or any experience with Agile or Scrum or any other modern PM methods. My plan from the start has been to find any job at all. Anywhere they might want to take me on with my current skillset. Then once I'm established there I will get to work on building the skill set back up. But I have had zero luck so far. I have worked all of my network contacts through LinkedIn, emails and sending my resume to everyone I can think of. I have talked to resume doctors and career counselors to get advice on the search. Still nothing. I'd be happy to take an entry level job if that were offered. But I don't know if anyone would hire a 40+ dev with my experience into an entry level job. I'm really worried that people reviewing my resume will just call me "overqualified" or think I'll ask for too much money or leave after 6 months for something better. Just kind of lost at this point and not sure what direction to go. Should I just keep applying for jobs hoping for just one place to be interested? Should I take a couple months off and get some new training? Maybe a boot camp? And how tough is it going to be trying to get a job at my age competing against younger candidates? Graduated with my CS degree 15 years ago at the top of my class. That seems so far away right now. Really stressed and feeling a little hopeless. Any helpful advice and comments are welcome. TL;DR - 46 yo LAMP stack developer laid off. Skills are very outdated. Where do I go from here? [link] [comments]  |
| What is a regular CS job like? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 12:44 PM PST Could someone basically describe what you do on a regular day at your job? People say it's mostly coding, but coding what? Does it take long to complete coding projects? Why would you need to work in a team? [link] [comments]  |
| Anyone have real numbers on compensation at hedge funds/prop shops? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 05:50 PM PST Anyone have real numbers on compensation at hedge funds/prop shops? I've read stories of 150k base salaries for new grads at Citadel, Hudson River Trading, and Bridgewater Associates. Is that standard? What about total compensation? The headhunter I'm working with says BW does 80/20 splits, but what about the others? Which, if any, top the companies on this list: https://www.levels.fyi/2018/ ? For reference:
Also would be helpful to know what one can expect in terms of % increases year to year. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2018 04:36 PM PST A few options I am considering -
Does anyone have any other suggestions or opinions on these options? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| How common are idea people led companies? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 12:44 PM PST This is the first not big n company I'm working for and I'm a bit flabbergasted. Tldr:
Is this a common among non big n companies? How do I avoid these companies? [link] [comments]  |
| Graduating Soon with a CS Degree and have some Questions about the Job Search Posted: 30 Dec 2018 09:58 AM PST I accidentally posted this in /r/cscareers when I meant to post it here, so I will just copy and paste my post from there. Hello all, I will be graduating this May with a bachelors degree in Computer Science. I had never done anything CS related before college although I have always had a strong interest in technology. These last four years I have immersed myself and have a solid foundation with python, java, C++, and some practice with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. The one thing that I lack however is practical experience as most of the assignments that we had to do in school were things that don't necessarily have practical uses in society. An example would be my final project for my Machine Learning class where I created a genetic algorithm to solve the traveling salesman problem. It is very cool and works well but I don't think many companies will be looking for someone to help them find the shortest path between a bunch of cities. I have never really built any apps, and I feel like when I compare myself to people who have been involved in CS for many years (like many of the people in my classes were) I fall far behind with practical knowledge. For example, I have never had the opportunity nor the need to use GitHub, which is something that I will need to teach myself near future. So, my questions are this: What are some of the most fundamental things that someone aspiring to work in the CS field must understand to get a job? What are some things that I can teach myself to give myself a huge leg up in searching for a job or that will make me desirable? What is something that I can do or learn that will enable me to create useful applications that I can show off to people? I get very anxious when I think about my post college prospects because I feel like I don't have a very specific career path that I want to follow. Everything that I have ever done that is CS related in college I thoroughly enjoyed and so there isn't one thing in specific that I really want to do more than others, however if I had to pick a subsection of CS it would be that of AI and ML. Any help that can be given would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for reading this wall of text. [link] [comments]  |
| Software engineer average salary by country Posted: 30 Dec 2018 04:04 PM PST From highest to lowest (all in USD) 1. USA $105 000
Why is there such a discrepancy between north America and europe/australia? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2018 09:16 AM PST I am most interested in database systems, and all the awesome things we can do with data as a whole. Will I be limiting myself if I take a first job as a data analyst or data engineer, if my end goal is to end up in data science or the like? [link] [comments]  |
| What are your personal pros and cons of working remotely, or of being a digital nomad? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 05:00 PM PST I've taken a look at remote work, and it seems very appealing. Surely there are drawbacks? [link] [comments]  |
| Do you always upload a cover letter when applying to jobs? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 12:26 PM PST I'm applying to internships now, and just wondering. [link] [comments]  |
| Verdict on using other people's code when working on personal projects? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 07:49 PM PST I'm working on a personal project that will eventually go on my github. It involves advanced functions in Java that go a little beyond what I know. I spent a day implementing my own solution to a problem, but found that ultimately it didn't work. I then found someone else's solution that works perfectly for what I need and is advanced beyond what I could figure out in the time I have or want to spend on the topic. What the verdict on doing this? There's a lot more I want to add that'll be of my own design, but there's no denying that this code is integral to the project (for the record, it creates a basic data value "map" of sorts that the base level of the project needs). I figure, why reinvent the wheel here? I have a basic understanding of what's going on anyway. That said, something doesn't feel right about deleting the code that I created and using someone else's, even if it's just for this one component of the project. What do you all think? [link] [comments]  |
| What are the top reasons for underperformance at work? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 07:31 PM PST |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2018 01:28 PM PST Reading this sub, you can find a fair number of people claiming they have easy, low-stress jobs. But you can also find a lot of people who seem very stressed by their jobs. Which is more common in this industry? Are most people working in stressful jobs? [link] [comments]  |
| What does it mean when someone works in "Product"? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 07:15 PM PST What does their job mean? Does it involve programming? I'm in my last year of school and definitely aiming for a career in CS so want to find out more. [link] [comments]  |
| Are there CS jobs that aren't so engineering heavy? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 06:05 PM PST I'm having a bit of a career crisis. I know that I want to work with technology and I enjoy coding in my free time. But I worry that software engineering is too technical for me to truly enjoy day after day. Are there any jobs where computer science and humanities/liberal arts intersect? Something more "well rounded" if you will? I've done a bit of thinking myself and came up with a few ideas that sit a little nicer with me, but maybe aren't the "dream job". Here they are: Frontend web development because I still would be writing code, but there's a visual design aspect to it that works the "right brain" too. Working for a progressive nonprofit like the ACLU would be cool too, but you have to wonder how that will really change the content of the job description, really only the company culture is changing. Teaching is really the only other thing I can think of, which could be very hit or miss. I'm not excited about being a school teacher or professor, but I might enjoy it if it was in just the right setting, maybe an advanced-level code camp. Thank you in advance for your help :) [link] [comments]  |
| How Important Is It to Have a Technical Degree in the Industry? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 05:58 PM PST I recently joined the tech industry as an entry-level QA analyst, but my education is entirely business. I have an Associates's, Bachelor's & Master's degree in Business Administration. To make a long story short, I chose the wrong path when I was younger. With that said, would it be difficult for me to get into more prestigious tech companies down the line if I don't have a technical degree? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2018 02:14 AM PST 32 year old female sw developer had to take a career break for caring for family. I kept in touch with the tech world ofcourse. When I was ready to re-enter the work force, I returned as a technical pm. I made this choice just because I was good at project management and talking to various people across the organization to get the job done. I worked hard on re-educating myself via online tutorials and certifications like CSM and CSPO and got a seemingly dream gig as a tech pm for one of the big 5s. But the hourly rate I got was undercut so bad by the consulting agency that it was extremely demotivating. I am thinking of ways, I could get back to higher paying gigs. Maybe enterprise companies; maybe startup, maybe as a full stack sw engineer. I am absolutely open-minded on this. During this time, I have also been trying to apply to various companies as a tech pm. Since My last gig was for one of the big 5s, I get lot of interest. So in lieu of a masters or exec MBA, I figured I could do a bootcamp to turn technical again and also to open doors to companies that could offer better opportunities. I am Ofcourse more interested in the ones offering job guaranteed and/or even tuition deferred. —full stack sw engineer (hack Reactor) —app developer (app academy) —Data Analytics(Métis, Springboard, UC Berkeley extension) —product school ( for becoming a FT product owner in an up and happening startup or newer companies) —cybersecurity bootcamp —gracehopper program The main concern few folks have mentioned that I am older and that this can make it harder to get hired as an engineer. Even if hired, they said I possibly can't keep up with the time that younger engineers with no familial responsibilities can put in. But to me it means that I may possibly get better opportunity to be remote and not having to be on 24/7; as a tech pm. I can even get trained in data analytics and get hired as a data analyst. I am Ok to work as a test automation engineer too. Or a security engineer or devOps. Just would like to get back to having better opportunities. And a more promising career. To most of my friends IRL, this seems like a step down but I am trying to increase my payscale and perhaps have atleast remote working opportunities. Tl;dr: Tech pm consultant wondering if it's better to convert into a full stack sw engineer for better opportunities in the Bay Area. [link] [comments]  |
| how to build a portfolio for webdev and how to get into this field ? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 11:50 AM PST ive been going to school for a webdev degree but i also ive been studying programming for about 6 months now trying to get down the basics and more out side of class anything i should pick up or put into my portfolio [link] [comments]  |
| Why is SWE presented as one of the top careers in Tech? Posted: 30 Dec 2018 05:28 PM PST What about other roles like: UX Designer, Product Manager, Business Analyst, IT/Networking Specialist, Security, System Admin, DevOps Why is Full-Stack SWE and SWE specifically targeted by the media as the "top dogs" of any Tech jobs? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2018 12:42 PM PST I am right now a student in a university in Greece for CS. But after I finish here, I'd love to go to another country because as you may know here the economy isn't going well ( There's like 30% unemployment and huge taxes). However, from a bit of research I did the cost of living in Greece is pretty low compared to other European countries. So do you know any "good" countries with great job opportunities without a big cost of living where I can maybe do a Masters, or simply find a job and live there permanently? Sorry if this question is a bit off for this subreddit but I really don't know where else to ask. EDIT: I speak only English and Greek at the moment, so a coutry where you can get a job if you know English and not any other language would be perfect. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2018 03:11 PM PST I am a sophomore at an an average university majoring in Computer Science. I was able to get a high GPA (around 3.9) and have been involved in several extracurricular activities, where I hold leadership positions. However, my raw programming skills are not too great and I basically have no side projects (the ones I have are basic). I am also an international student. My question is how much do companies care about technical skills and whether or not they care about soft skills and involvement in extracurricular activities. Just to give you context, I have applied to many internships and have mainly gotten rejections (not even make it to the interview stage). However, I recently got invited to take the interview for a company and successfully completed their programming challenge. However, I don't think my code is efficient or clean, which is why I'm doubtful. I am really hoping that the company considers my soft skills to make up for my average programming skills. Do you think companies want you to be really technically skilled for CS internships or do they mainly care about willingness to learn and hardwork? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 Dec 2018 03:06 PM PST Hello! I have 4 years of experience in the industry and I have been wanting to make this move north for awhile. I have done my research on the immigration process amd feel comfortable with the city after visiting. I have a few questions though for anyone who has moved outside the US: 1)how hard was it to fine a company to spnonser your Visa 2)what was there a big culture shock 3)did you have trouble renting or buying a home 4)can you describe your process making this transitionin Any information is welcome! [link] [comments]  |
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