Big N Discussion - January 06, 2019 CS Career Questions |
- Big N Discussion - January 06, 2019
- Daily Chat Thread - January 06, 2019
- Wrote my first piece of code for my first development position and it felt amazing t
- My job search in a nutshell. (affected by government shutdown)
- How to deal with being forced to work after 5?
- Have any of you moved abroad temporarily/permanently in this industry?
- I think I'm burning out (half request for advice, half venting)
- First job out of college and I hate it. How long should I stick it out before switching?
- Imposter syndrome or time to go?
- Is stress a normal part of a cs career?
- London tech scene
- 5 years software consulting experience, on the hunt for something research oriented
- 3 months into my web dev career, I just started a new job, I have no idea what I'm doing, and I have no idea how to get comfortable with not knowing how to do my work in this web development career.
- How to concentrate and keep motivated in preparation?
- I have an offer expiring in 10 days. How do I go about approaching new companies and moving fast with them?
- How do you decide what field to go into?
- How can I improve my situation?
- Looking to change careers to CS. Just got accepted to Lambda school as well as OSU online CS. Which would be a better return for my time?
- Is this an excusable reason to leave a job early on?
- What type of raise should a solid performer expect each year?
- Associates In Simulation and Graphics Development, Almost 3 years out of school and can't seem the begin my career. Suggestions?
- Looking for a Highschool CS Project!
- Things to do in the process of job searching.
- Technical Apprentice
- Do I take this opportunity?
- How to start an open source contribution program for summer interns?
| Big N Discussion - January 06, 2019 Posted: 05 Jan 2019 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 - January 06, 2019 Posted: 05 Jan 2019 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]  |
| Wrote my first piece of code for my first development position and it felt amazing t Posted: 06 Jan 2019 06:19 PM PST I took a mediocre job out of college to avoid being unemployed. About a month ago I started a development position and on Friday I was given my first task. Admittedly it was some pretty basic code but it did exactly what the person needed. It was really gratifying - I'm finally writing code for a living! [link] [comments]  |
| My job search in a nutshell. (affected by government shutdown) Posted: 06 Jan 2019 10:20 AM PST Found a crappy job. Laid off after a few months. Found a better job. Laid off after a few months. No money saved up at this point. This time found something I can make a career of....... working on a DHS project. Government shutdown. Pretty sure employers think something is wrong with me at this point. So, what are the chances the government shutdown will make me lose my job offer? [link] [comments]  |
| How to deal with being forced to work after 5? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 04:35 PM PST I joined a mega corp, Fortune 50 company, where I thought it'd be chill. When I was being hired, I was told by the lead, "everyone decides how they want to work, and most people chill out by 4." Third day on the job, a Thursday, I was asked by the lead to work from 10pm-3am. This is in addition to working 9am-5 earlier. We ended doing a large deployment of my code. I honestly felt sick, frustrated, and nervous during the entire time. If this is the 1st week, 3rd day on the job, how bad will it get later? I don't get paid overtime. The entire team is 3 people. [link] [comments]  |
| Have any of you moved abroad temporarily/permanently in this industry? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 06:32 AM PST I'm still new in the industry (2 years ish) and absolutely love the job I'm in now, but I keep seeing these posts from primarly US reditors of making much, much more out of the gate in the US. I'm fairly well paid for my experience in my country, but it comes to about ~40K USD. Have any of you moved abroad, either temporarily or permanently, as a dev? Working in a place like the US for a few years seems like a more dependable alternative to contracting. [link] [comments]  |
| I think I'm burning out (half request for advice, half venting) Posted: 06 Jan 2019 06:03 PM PST I think I'm burning out from software engineering. I first got started programming on college. My CS classes were by far my favourite. I'd spend my spare time playing code golf, experimenting with weird language features, or occasionally doing craigslist contract work with friends. Later, after graduation, we continued to do fun things. We built a hackerspace in our city! We started a Ruby users group. Hosted continuing ed stuff. Eventually, I moved to the bay area to progress in my career. And now, almost a decade later, I think I'm starting to hate it. Coding isn't fun anymore. I don't know exactly what it is. Maybe it's just that the novelty is gone. I don't know. A few years ago, I would excitedly participate in all sorts of coding challenges online. Now it just seems pointless. And the coding I'm doing at work is not fun. It's never fun; it's always the same old same old, line-of-business web apps. My job isn't fun anymore. All I ever wanted to do was to program cool things. Nobody ever told me that programming is only 5-10% of being a programmer. The rest is Office Stuff, and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the frustrations of dealing with process and managers. Of trying to be Agile, instead of just getting things done. I'm tired of spending more time worrying about what the burndown chart will look like, than whether or not things are done. I'm tired of how alienated I feel. The tech industry moves too quickly for me to make any friends. I've worked at 8 or 9 places by now. The small companies either go bust or change into something I didn't sign up for. The big companies are chaotic, and turnover/internal transfers mean nobody sticks around too long. I never feel like part of the team anywhere. I'm tired of office politics. I'm tired of having to constantly be on guard for the sociopath on the team, who will throw us all under the bus just so s/he gets the promotion. I'm tired of having to spend more time trying to understand social dynamics than I spend trying to understand code dynamics. I'm tired of bad managers, both the ones who don't know how to manage, and the ones that are only concerned with getting their bonuses, instead of doing good work. I'm tired of having to keep my head down and my mouth shut whenever people want to make small talk. I don't care about politics; I'm not a citizen and can't vote here anyway. I'm so afraid of saying the wrong thing and drawing others' wrath, so I say nothing. This isn't helping with feeling like part of the team. I'm tired of the near-constant focus on social and cultural things, on virtue signalling, etc., while the actual software development gets ignored. I'm tired of the suffocating HR culture. The omnipresent fear of conflict that turns everything to passive-aggression. I'm tired of not being able to call out problems, politely and with constructive criticism, when I see them. I'm tired of people not calling _me_ out when they have problems with me. I'm tired of having managers giving me vague and ambiguous criticisms three months after something happens. I wish people would just _tell me_ when they have a problem with me, so I could fix it, instead of hiding behind bureaucracy. I'm tired of meaningless metrics and pointless performance indicators. I'm tired of goals that don't actually correlate with success, chosen because they're easily measured. I'm tired of the constant reviews and reporting, filled with fake feedback. I'm tired of all the appearance of accountability that lets everyone disavow responsibility for everything. All I wanted to do was write good code with good people, but it feels like there's a million different things I'm made to deal with that get in the way of that. So now I don't even want to write code anymore. It's not fun anymore. But I'm stuck doing this. I'm not a US citizen; I need to be a software engineer to stay here, and leaving means giving up the life I've built here. Besides, I don't know what else I'd do. I haven't won a startup lottery, I can't just stop working. And I have no idea how to even find a job that isn't doing this. Over Christmas I spent some time with family at their place out in the boonies, relatively far from civilization, and it was great. I got to go outside, I got to relax and ignore social media. Ignore the weird social dominance games of the office. It was great. It was a much better way to be. But then I came back, and now it's back to work, and every day since coming back, when I get to the office, all I can do is fantasize about just disappearing and never touching a computer again. What should I do, Reddit? How can I rediscover the passion that I started with? How can I deal with all the office BS? What gets you all through the day? Thanks in advance, and sorry if this is more negative than this subreddit is used to dealing with [link] [comments]  |
| First job out of college and I hate it. How long should I stick it out before switching? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 02:21 PM PST See title. One of my former colleagues is trying to get me to work at his company and it seems like a much better place to work. How long do I need to stay before it stops being a red flag to recruiters? I've been at this company for 7 months so far. I was planning on sticking it out for a year but this job is starting to take a toll on my mental health. I'm not gonna go into why I hate it at my current job because it's impossible to cover all the details in a single post. I can't switch teams, it's a startup. Let's focus on the numbers here. Also a follow-up question: would it be okay if I took some time off and rejoined the workforce later (say a few months to a year)? Or is that a no-no? [link] [comments]  |
| Imposter syndrome or time to go? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 12:24 PM PST Hi, throwaway because I'll be discussing some opinions about my current job here. The sum of my issues is I am currently unhappy with my job, and I have no idea if it's because I'm in the wrong career path, I'm just frustrated with not being good and need more time on the job, or if it's just imposter syndrome. How do you differentiate between these? I interned for several years as a software engineer, and I've been working full time for several years now. I've been at the same company but changed teams less than a year ago because I was unhappy with my manager. At least I thought that was the reason. My current team I enjoy working with and have a great manager, but I just don't feel any excitement with my work, and this is taking a huge hit on my productivity. I don't feel like I belong in this space because I don't feel like I'm improving quickly enough. I am notoriously hard on myself so it's difficult to get friends to take this seriously when I discuss it with them. If you have any insights or questions I'd really appreciate it. [link] [comments]  |
| Is stress a normal part of a cs career? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 05:44 PM PST I graduated last year and got a job at a large medical software company. The pay is great and I like the work that I do. The issue is that I feel like I'm stressed around 70-80% of the time. I find myself working from 9-7PM a lot. When the weekend comes around and I try to relax, the thought of work starts to gives me anxiety because I think of all the things I have to do next week and whether I'll be able to complete them on time. My performance reviews have been overwhelmingly positive so I don't think I'm bad at my job. I find some of my coworkers doing the same things as me. There's been numerous times where I get an email at 7 or 8pm that my coworker just finished a task and needs code review. I hoped that I would be working 8 hours a day and just completely separate my work from my personal time but I feel like my work is taking over my personal time. So does my company just suck or is this what a cs career is supposed to be? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2019 05:02 PM PST Hey, I recently applied to Buzzfeed in London and would like to know if anyone had any insights on the tech scene in Europe / London. I have somewhat considered working / moving abroad. It seems like a cool experience to be relatively close to some of the worlds best travel attractions. Thanks. [link] [comments]  |
| 5 years software consulting experience, on the hunt for something research oriented Posted: 06 Jan 2019 12:37 PM PST I've been at the same job since I graduated with a CS degree back in 2013, and honestly I don't have too much to complain about here. I'm an "implementation consultant" at a medium sized company spending about half the day in meetings or giving presentations and the other half of the day writing and reviewing VB.NET code and SQL scripts. The subject matter is more interesting than it sounds - I build tax revenue systems for state governments. I make a really good salary and the benefits are pretty darn good: 5 weeks of vacation, paid overtime, excellent healthcare, 401k with profit sharing (no match, unfortunately), and best of all, travel. I've lived in 6 different states across the US (currently in Nashville, TN) in the past 5 years and they make moving a breeze. I could retire here if I stuck it out another 10 or 15 years. It's perfect, right? I just feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over each time I move to a new location and start on a fresh project. I love writing code and solving problems, and I want to see where else my skills can take me. I've put a lot of effort into applying to schools to get a PhD over the past year. I studied really hard and got a good score on the GRE, but fizzled out when putting together applications because I couldn't really justify jumping in to a life of research when I've never really done it. This leads to my question to you all. What types of jobs or companies should I be looking for that will challenge me and allow me to contribute to something meaningful, while getting a tase of research to see if I really want to commit to getting a PhD in the future? I'm not sure what titles to look for other than "software developer," and I'm not really sure if that's even a step in the right direction. Are the Big 4 a good option for someone in my shoes, and would they provide me the with the research opportunities I'm looking for? What other companies or industries might I be overlooking in this type of career shift? Am I completely unqualified for such a shift? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2019 02:38 PM PST TL;DR: Recently homeless dude who has 3-months of "real world" web developer experience is now in a new position where I'm the sole frontend developer on a massive project with elegant code and I don't understand a damn thing because the codebase, syntax, and styling are all completely new to me. Looking for advice on how to manage my expectations and my employer's. Backstory I'm completely self-taught and I just absolutely suck at web development. From August 2017 to September 2018, I was homeless and jobless. I didn't have any marketable skills, so I taught myself HTML, CSS, and very basic JavaScript then jumped into React and Redux while I was sleeping in my 4-door sedan. After 11 months of self-teaching myself, I got my first job for a web development agency in September 2018. The agency was very poorly run. As a cost saving measure, they wouldn't hire senior developers. They undercut the market by only having junior developers to build client projects, and if junior devs couldn't cut it, they were pushed out. We all sucked, and I surprisingly, was less sucky than most people there...so I would help teach others what I knew. Oof! But I got my foot in the door. I was working 60-70 hours weeks, working every day to get my Jira tickets done. However, I wasn't really learning best practices, I was just getting things to "work" and then move on to the next feature. I wanted to learn from someone better than me...that shouldn't be too hard since I'm so new to the industry, right? Current Job I accepted a job offer in December 2018. I told them I was looking for mentorship above all else. Mentorship was more important to me than salary, and I was/am serious. They assured me that they have senior devs that will help me grow. Turns out, their senior devs are the backend engineers that don't know JavaScript or React. The senior frontend dev left the company for a new job in the city, and they are scrambling to get their frontend product working. The company is in small college town where there are only two known companies using React. Thus, I was probably the shiniest turd to apply...or perhaps the only turd that applied, and they took what they could get. Finding React devs to move here is super tough. To be clear, nobody at any of my past or current dev positions knew I learned to code while I was homeless. Thus, I didn't get hired out of pitty or anything like that. They are expecting big things from me, and I think they have grossly overestimated my skillset. I'm talking massively overestimated me. I'm lost, I don't have anyone to reach out to for help, I don't know what the hell to do. What I've Tried I started by just looking at the code base, trying to make sense of the project. I don't even know how to read the code. So, then I started researching Sagas this weekend. When doing that, then tutorial said I need to learn about iterators first. Then I went to iterators and they said I needed to understand Promises really well before iterators. Then when I got to promises they said I needed to know callbacks like the back of my hand before that. So, I went all the way back to callbacks and Promises, and now I'm just getting up to Sagas...but now it's Sunday night and I need to prepare meals for the week and whatnot before bed. I don't know exactly what I'm asking for, maybe it's nothing and maybe I'll get just that. Surely, I'm not alone in this experience of being super new to the web develop industry, and put into a seemingly impossible situation of reading someone else's code, expanding on that code, and make features for a product used by millions of people. Any advice on how anyone else has dealt with this, or how they think they would deal with it would be greatly appreciated. I've gotta make this work out. [link] [comments]  |
| How to concentrate and keep motivated in preparation? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 06:01 PM PST Im free whole day, but i find im productive less than 2 hour. I waste bulk of my time watching or browsing videos etc.. How can i maximize my time usage for interview prep [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2019 03:46 PM PST I have an offer that expires in 10 days. It's a good one but I'd like to consider more options. My experience is that applying online is usually very slow. How can I approach other companies and move fast with them? [link] [comments]  |
| How do you decide what field to go into? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 11:07 AM PST I'm studying CE and currently working in a co-op as a (hardware) design verification student, but I think that I will make the move to software eventually because I really enjoy programming and algorithms I was thinking about switching to real time embedded but hardware is starting to feel too 'dry' for me, and I don't like the fact that you're just writing in C, so no OOP or new and exciting languages... ML/security/web don't interest me, and I'm not that much familiar with other options... mobile sounds like it might be cool, but I can't shake the feeling that 99% of the apps are stupid and I wouldn't want to be developing something asinine (no offense to anyone, I'm not judging people who do that) Would love to hear your opinions / suggestions / counterpoints to my perception. How did you choose your field of expertise? [link] [comments]  |
| How can I improve my situation? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 05:53 PM PST I'm an international student, junior in a US state school, I've been applying to internships and have received only rejections or getting ghosted so far. My GPA is a 3.4 so I don't put it on there. Here's my resume: http://imgur.com/a/768CGW6 I'd really appreciate any tips on improving it or how I can word things better, etc.. I've applied on like indeed or LinkedIn or Glassdoor and such. I've also just started on angellist. My questions are: 1) Where else should I look for jobs, more specifically for international students. I stumbled upon techabroad and I'll start applying there too now. 2) should I be applying for jobs literally anywhere like other states or europe? Finally based on what you've read, is there anything obvious I'm missing that can help with finding internships? Im desperate for one but in the mean time I'm developing a webapp to add to my resume once it's functioning which will bump off the work experience. Thanks so much in advance! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2019 09:06 PM PST Some background info: I have a bachelors degree in Business Administration. Long story short, hated it, always wanted to do CS instead, trying to fix my mistake now. After a lot of research, living in a smaller city with no bootcamp options, I narrowed it down to: Oregon State University's Post Bacc Computer Science program, which I feel like I could finish in 2 years, it would set me back 28 grand, but would give me a CS degree in 2 years; Lambda School: Online web development/computer science bootcamp, after hours, which lasts 13 months. Their pay would be different, as it is a contract which I agree to pay 17% of my salary for 2 years as long as I get a job that uses the knowledge from Lambda and as long as it pays at least $50k/yr. Also worth mentioning there is a cap of $30k, so even if I got an extremely high salary, I would never pay over $30k during the 2 years. It's also worth mentioning that if I were to take the OSU route, I would have to rely 100% on student loans and financial aid, considering I do not have any money saved. I currently only have $3k in student loans from my previous degree. While I almost feel like OSU would be the better option, I would be finished with lambda in half the time and probably would be able to start working in the field sooner than if I went the OSU route, and also assuming Lambda has more of an incentive to get me working and help me find a job, since they don't get paid until I do. I've been hammering this idea of changing careers for the past year, and only now it's actually becoming a solid plan, but I still feel stuck and confused. It seems like the choices are very set in stone, and once I agree to one I pretty much have to follow it through. Everything is still very fresh to me, would anyone be able to help me? Which do you think would be more beneficial to start a career in CS? [link] [comments]  |
| Is this an excusable reason to leave a job early on? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 09:03 PM PST I got my first job out of college I'll be starting soon in DC. My Fiances mother is 60 with no job or savings and is now getting divorced. Fiances Mother will be moving with her family in either California or Arizona. My fiance is going to stay back so shes at least within driving range of her mother. This means if I want to be with my fiance I need to find a new job in California (pref) or Arizona. I have a TS clearance with my new job so I'm hoping that should make me desirable enough to find a new job quick. I'm just worried that my reasoning won't necessarily excuse me trying to leave the new job so quick. I have no desire to turn this into a long distance relationship so I'd ideally move as quickly as possible. How bad will this look to employers? [link] [comments]  |
| What type of raise should a solid performer expect each year? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 08:39 PM PST My current company is not even giving a large enough raise to cover cost of living increase each year. Raises are 1-2% max. It's poor and feels like I'm going in reverse. I'm thinking about looking because I'll never make more money where I'm at. What kind of raises should a solid performer who has many years of experience in this field expect? I do not work for a tech giant so that may make a difference. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2019 08:36 PM PST Three years ago I graduated for Texas State Technical School with an Associates in Games, Graphics, and Simulation Development. I have knowledge of C#, C++, and Java. In school, I was taught how to program basic graphics engines with OpenGL and DirectX, and since leaving have started teaching my self the "basics" of Vulcan. I have had worked in fast food and retail jobs over the last couple of years and have taught youth between the ages of 8 and 18 how to use unreal, Minecraft modding, and basic level design practices. Currently, I am a lead developer in a local indy team in my hometown but it's a dead end. I just, I don't know what to do anymore. I keep applying to jobs that fit my skills. I know many I'm competing against have their bachelors or even their masters, but surely there is something out there for people like me. I don't have the resources to continue my education, I need to start but don't know how. [link] [comments]  |
| Looking for a Highschool CS Project! Posted: 06 Jan 2019 08:28 PM PST Hey everyone, I'm a 15-year-old high school sophomore and I'm looking for a coding project I can work on for a month(s). I'm pretty decent with Java and I'm slowly learning Python. Do any of you have an Idea for something cool I can create? [link] [comments]  |
| Things to do in the process of job searching. Posted: 06 Jan 2019 08:27 PM PST Hey guys! So I'm in the process of a career change. I just finished my second bachelor's degree in computer science in december! Now I'm just on the job hunt. I've had one interview and did fairly well, made it to the fourth round. However, didnt end up landing the job. Now other than practicing problems what are some things I could be doing to help with my resume for companies to want me and also better my coding skills. Last, what are some recommended books I could read on the side also? Maybe books on interviewing, data structures, algorithms, etc? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2019 08:13 PM PST This is a role at Amazon, anyone familiar with it? I understand it's more of a learning type thing, but not quite sure what exactly to think. It seems there's limited info about it online. Doesn't seem like a full-on SWE role. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 06 Jan 2019 08:13 PM PST I'm really not sure where to post this so I'm going to try here. I'm a grad student in my last semester and received a call for an intern as a IP Network System Admin. I'm doing my masters in EE but a Computer Networking specialization (which is the same as doing it in the CS department, but my school has a networking spec in EE to give more students the opportunity to pick networking) Do I take this opportunity? I don't have a lot of alumni friends, but the company is a startup and is a long commute from where I live. As a Networking grad, should I only look at "Network Engineer/ Systems Engineer" roles? Any advice is appreciated! [link] [comments]  |
| How to start an open source contribution program for summer interns? Posted: 06 Jan 2019 02:12 PM PST Hi folks, My friend runs the summer internship program for a company, and wants to start a program where interns can spend one day a week contributing to open source software, or other charitable causes. They usually have 10-15 interns, for about 10 weeks. Mostly software engineers and a couple UI/UX. Any ideas on how to implement this so that there is some impact generated, and some form of accountability? [link] [comments]  |
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