DEAR PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER TOUCHERS -- FRIDAY RANT THREAD FOR March 15, 2019 CS Career Questions |
- DEAR PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER TOUCHERS -- FRIDAY RANT THREAD FOR March 15, 2019
- Daily Chat Thread - March 15, 2019
- Is it normal to just stare at complex code and be like, wtf?
- Am I justified in being annoyed that I have a small desk?
- The public's reaction to "contractor" job posted in the journalism field just made me realize how screwed over we can sometimes be in our field
- Anybody who LEFT the tech industry for a different field?
- Working on software I think is unethical?
- Has anyone here used autism hiring programs? If so, how did it go?
- good resource to practice java NON-PROGRAMMING questions?
- [US/MD] [Defense Contract Agency] HireRight Background Check w/ a non-conviction on my arrest record
- Lead told my manager that I don’t look him in the eyes
- Startup founders leaving the Bay Area?
- How does the role of data scientist and machine learning engineer compare?
- Does LinkedIn send a bat signal to recruiters or something?
- Which internship should I choose?
- Burnt out...
- What fields should I look into if I'm not into web development?
- How to transition into a professional Python software engineer/developer from Semicon/Manufacturing industry?
- To people who landed their first job out of college in the field they didn't really wanted to be in
- Seemingly bad options all around
- Independent Consultants: Recommend resources to get ramped up asap?
- Switching from QA to Product
- Tech recruiter messaged me for my availabilities and ghosted me
- I like writing documentation but I don't like writing actual code. Am I weird?
- Joined Dream company, but now I'm almost depressed.
- Junior Developer Nightmare
| DEAR PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER TOUCHERS -- FRIDAY RANT THREAD FOR March 15, 2019 Posted: 15 Mar 2019 12:07 AM PDT AND NOW FOR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT. THE BUILDS I LOVE, THE SCRIPTS I DROP, TO BE PART OF, THE APP, CAN'T STOP THIS IS THE RANT THREAD. IT IS FOR RANTS. CAPS LOCK ON, DOWNVOTES OFF, FEEL FREE TO BREAK RULE 2 IF SOMEONE LIKES SOMETHING THAT YOU DON'T BUT IF YOU POST SOME RACIST/HOMOPHOBIC/SEXIST BULLSHIT IT'LL BE GONE FASTER THAN A NEW MESSAGING APP AT GOOGLE. (RANTING BEGINS AT MIDNIGHT EVERY FRIDAY, BEST COAST TIME. PREVIOUS FRIDAY RANT THREADS CAN BE FOUND HERE.) [link] [comments]  |
| Daily Chat Thread - March 15, 2019 Posted: 15 Mar 2019 12:07 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]  |
| Is it normal to just stare at complex code and be like, wtf? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 08:24 AM PDT I always wonder if there are people that just look at the code and flow through it and understand it. Yes, after 4 years of working with it or if I built it, I can just blur my eyes and just by the pattern and colors of a code block, I know what it does. But man... when I go on a new project, I look at the code and I try to follow it, I pull out a f'n pen and paper and try to write it down, I get lost then I break into a cold sweat and feel I'm gonna one day be a homeless bum as i get lost in a sea of technology. One top of it, it seems every day a new framework comes out, a new cloud, a new library, a new language a new platform, etc. So now I gotta learn all that stuff. [link] [comments]  |
| Am I justified in being annoyed that I have a small desk? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 02:58 PM PDT (Note: That's DESK. dESk. Desk.) I'm a senior software engineer, almost 50 years old, been with a large company for the past eight years, earn a good salary. I don't ask for much and I don't get much - all I ask for is (1) feedback and (2) an environment where I can concentrate on my work. And I don't get feedback; my manager is always too busy to communicate with me unless it's to tell me I did something wrong (which is rare). I honestly don't know whether I'm rocking or sucking at my job, so as long as nobody's telling me to do things differently, I assume I'm adequate and I continue on. So that leaves the environment. I clung to my 6'x8' cubicle as long as I could, even while the rest of my team was being crammed into a small room together. But finally two months ago the word came down that everyone was being consolidated. So I lost my cube, and was given a 2'x4' desk shoulder-to-shoulder with my teammates (some are employees like me, some are contractors), facing the walls in the room. I'm finding it's really hard for me to deal with this. From a practical viewpoint, my 15" laptop, my 29" external display (as a second screen), my office telephone, my keyboard and mousepad, and a test mobile device all barely fit on this 2'x4' desk all at once. And I physically can't sit as far away from my display as I'd like to, so it's straining my eyes. (I'd prefer it to be just beyond arm's reach but the desk is too shallow.) All the extra stuff I had in my old cube, that let me spread out my work, that let me express my individuality - I had to bring all of that home. And beyond that, my morale has taken a big hit because I'm no longer out in the open where I'm visible and I can invite someone to put their laptop beside mine and pull up a chair and I can work through a problem with them; now I'm sequestered in a side room at the same kind of desk that the temps and the interns get. The room is always noisy with my teammates discussing things, and I have no privacy because anyone can watch over my shoulder at any time before I notice them there. I've started to look for other job opportunities in the company, but I've been told that this new open-office small-desk plan is now standard for everyone. I really don't understand how they expect people to get work done like this. I would speak up about it, but I don't want the higher-ups to think I'm a troublemaker. So, my question is: am I justified in feeling indignant at this? Am I allowed to feel like, at my age and seniority level, the least the company can do for me is to give me a more comfortable place to work? Or should I suck it up, accept that this is the way the corporate world is going and that other people don't have a problem with it, and keep my head down and do my work? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Mar 2019 02:14 PM PDT Recently there was a job posting in NYC for a "full-time freelance position" working in the journalism field (here is the full background for those interested). There was immediate backlash from Twitter due to the following reasons:
This posting was even reported to the department of labor and they are investigating. The posting was later edited to include benefits and so forth after the backlash. This got me thinking.... this type of behavior is oh so common in our industry and we never hear a peep about it. I have been a "contractor" twice in my career where I had no PTO/healthcare but the company set my hours and demanded I be in the office of my "contract would be terminated". Also doing multiple jobs is something we just accept in CS. Front end, back end, devops should be 3 jobs but now it's "full stack" and that's just accepted and not talked about often. Not to mention "full stack" is now expanding to include QA, DBA, and UX in some cases so we're talking formerly 6 jobs a decade or so ago that has been condensed into one. At any given moment you can find dozens of "contractor"/peratemp jobs in any American city like the one listed in that tweet. Where should the line be drawn? When did it become so common in CS to just "accept" that things like this exist? [link] [comments]  |
| Anybody who LEFT the tech industry for a different field? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 02:57 PM PDT Obviously these days everybody's interested in how to enter the tech industry, either as CS graduates or as a pivot from a completely different career. Most of us know a lot of folks from the latter category, who learned to code or do UX design on their own and enter the field a little later. I don't hear much about anybody who had a career in the tech industry and then left for something else. There are a lot of stories about tech people who leave to go travel the world, freelance, or live in the woods somewhere, but not so many about those who just changed careers entirely. Anybody out there who has? If so, what made you leave, and what did you pivot to? [link] [comments]  |
| Working on software I think is unethical? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 04:51 PM PDT Overall, I enjoy my job, my coworkers are great and the pay is good, but our main product is something I really take issue with. It's a tool that collects user data (screen info, number of clicks/scrolls/key presses) and displays it to their managers so they can see how productive their team has been, including a timeline of their day with every application they've used. I know that an employee is expected to do work and be productive, but I can't shake this feeling that this is creeping into big brother territory. It's affecting me so much that I've started practicing interview questions and stuff in anticipation of finding another job soon. Am I crazy in thinking that working on this is borderline unethical? [link] [comments]  |
| Has anyone here used autism hiring programs? If so, how did it go? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 10:53 AM PDT For instance, the Microsoft Autism Hiring Program: https://news.microsoft.com/stories/people/kyle-schwaneke.html [link] [comments]  |
| good resource to practice java NON-PROGRAMMING questions? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 06:59 PM PDT So I know of resources to practice java programming questions. But sometimes , especially consulting companies, ask questions about java that is stuff that some times I don't even find in my java programming class book. Like..."finally" keyword. Or compile vs run time stuff....or stuff about inherited methods that are static.... More "theory" questions Basically...stuff that I don't really find in my regular programming practices [link] [comments]  |
| [US/MD] [Defense Contract Agency] HireRight Background Check w/ a non-conviction on my arrest record Posted: 15 Mar 2019 05:52 PM PDT Hi everyone! I have been lurking on the page for some time, and now I have questions of my own. I have a pressing concern that involves a hiccup on my arrest record. I have recently accepted an offer with a Fortune 500 government contracting agency as a junior software testing engineer, I am also holding a security clearance from being a member of a service, so that is a process I do not have to undergo. However, I am afraid that this third party background investigation agency, HireRight, is going to consider my non-conviction of "theft of services" against this wonderful opportunity. In June, I was charged and cited with this criminal summary offense, but I was not fingerprinted nor arrested physically. I plead not guilty, and was found not guilty during the hearing. I have also made efforts to expunge the case, which got approved this week in the county court of common pleas (In PA). I have paperwork I could provide the agency to prove otherwise I have made steps in moving forward with this on my record, but I fear that they will use it against me. I want to know how others experience with HireRight has been if they were ever in a similar situation like mine, or if anyone has ever screened with HireRight in a similar role like mine, and how it went with them. I would hate for something that I was found innocent of committing coming back to haunt me, especially during this time of growth in my career starting fresh out of college. Any help or feedback is extremely appreciated. Thank you so much r/cscareerquestions! [link] [comments]  |
| Lead told my manager that I don’t look him in the eyes Posted: 15 Mar 2019 05:48 PM PDT The majority of the time my lead comes to me, I'm working on my computer - usually in deep thought. And when my lead comes up, he blah blah blahs about irrelevant stuff so I continue working while he talks. I still respond, but I continue working. In cases where there is actually something important, I have a tendency to zone out my eye focus into space to think more clearly. I also sometimes feel uncomfortable staring people in the eyes because of mild anxiety. I told my manager I will physically move my entire body to his direction every time he talks to me now and stare him directly in the eyes. But wtf is this? Am I allowed to be upset over this? Like what if I have some form of autism? [link] [comments]  |
| Startup founders leaving the Bay Area? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 07:29 AM PDT Interesting article. Good news for new grads that aren't enamored with NoCal and the ridiculously high COL. [link] [comments]  |
| How does the role of data scientist and machine learning engineer compare? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 04:17 PM PDT I'm currently a data scientist in an interdisciplinary group, so I do a bunch of different stuff. I write production code, train ML models, build data pipelines, and sometimes work with the software engineers on my team. When I look at the job description for ML engineers, it seems like there is a lot of overlap between my data science position and being an ML engineer. From my perspective, it seems like the only difference is what the company chooses to call the role. Can a data scientist be a machine learning engineer, and the other way around? [link] [comments]  |
| Does LinkedIn send a bat signal to recruiters or something? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 06:26 AM PDT In the past week, I've received messages (through LinkedIn, or refer to LinkedIn as their source) from 3 recruiters in 3 different companies. I didn't indicate that I'm looking for a job (I don't think??) and I'm not complaining, but is it just a coincidence then? Is it some sort of recruitment season or something? [link] [comments]  |
| Which internship should I choose? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 07:24 PM PDT Hello, I currently am in the position where I need to choose between allstate and Cisco for a software engineering summer internship for the summer after my junior year. This will probbaly be important because it effects my full time offer for after I graduate. I know allstate pays a high full time salary of around 81k in the Texas area I am in, not sure about Cisco but heard it's around 70k a lot lower in comparison. The Cisco internship I'm in pays roughly the same as allstate. Cisco seems to be a bigger more valuable brand name that can get me to a bigger company, but allstate is basically guaranteed full time for a much higher starting salary. What do you think I should choose I am very conflicted over this? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Mar 2019 07:23 PM PDT I am a QA guy with just shy of about 5 years of manual testing with just over a year of MySQL experience. What's the next step in my career? I enjoy working with data using MySQL but fear my math skills are nowhere near good enough to be a data analyst or the like. I've tinkered with learning python and ruby but neither really sticks with me. I search indeed and ziprecruiter about every night looking at different job postings and all of them want me to know endless programming languages, all kinds of frameworks for testing, on and on.... I'm lost, confused and just feel plain defeated. I need to get out of this rut for my mental health. Any insights or words of encouragement very much welcome! [link] [comments]  |
| What fields should I look into if I'm not into web development? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 07:22 PM PDT I really don't enjoy doing web development. Is there anything else I can try to see if computer science is still for me? I'm an undergraduate student studying at UC Irvine. I enjoy my cs coursework, but I was trying to make a side project, and I can't see myself making a web application as it really does not interest me. Are there any other fields that u could point me towards? Can i do side project for them? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Mar 2019 06:51 PM PDT Background:
Question:
Sorry if I am asking too much and feel free to make any replies you want, I am very open to criticism and I would be very happy to hear from everyone of you :) Do let me know if I am missing out any important details in my questions! Thank you so much and I really appreciate you reading my post! [link] [comments]  |
| To people who landed their first job out of college in the field they didn't really wanted to be in Posted: 15 Mar 2019 06:44 PM PDT To people who landed their first job out of college which wasn't their first preference - could be that they wanted to do dev but ended up landing a position as a QA engineer, or vice versa, but they took it since they didn't want to risk losing the opportunity you were given, how did you go about dealing with that situation? Did you actually end up liking the job or you did something on the side to help you make the switch down the lane? Or is it true that one should try to get the first job that's related to what they see themselves doing in a long run as it lays foundation for next possible jobs if you plan on switching the company, and big plus would be that you have a related experience under your belt? [link] [comments]  |
| Seemingly bad options all around Posted: 15 Mar 2019 06:39 PM PDT Currently in a toxic team at a large defense company and I'm trying to get out ASAP. My background is that I'm a Software Engineer with 2 YOE who enjoys focusing on web development backend work. My main language as of now is Python and it used to be Java (very rusty). I've got two offers on the table... One is in my same company and is a "software engineer" role that uses JavaFX (desktop development)... and they might transition me without my consent to an integration role that requires 0 programming. (just a feeling I have since they seem to have a strong need for integrators) The other offer is a Software Engineer in Test at a very renowned company in my area (mobile tech). This one is giving me way more pay. Job duties include developing test tools and test automation / framework with Python and CI with Jenkins. There is also occasional manual tests when needed. If I take the role within my company, I can still appear to be a Software Engineer as my title but I could potentially never write a single line of code if they move me into integration. I'd have to really straddle in and get my interview skills well ASAP(<3 months) to jump ship before I get rusty with development. But I'm sorta tired of my company because even after job hopping before, I end up in crappy positions. I'm leaning towards the Test Role and plan to stay for a year or two while I keep practicing my interviewing skills and personal projects to hopefully make it to FANG as a regular developer again. A new company sounds very refreshing compared to my current company. However, I keep reading horror stories about how if I ever take a test role I'm fucked for development. So now I'm debating on what to do. And time is of the essence, I don't have any time to get any more offers. I need a place to hold me over until I can make my next move because my current job is destroying my life. Can a test role really be that devastating to a career? If you only have these two options, what would be more appealing and why? IMO, I feel like nothing is appealing but due to my current circumstances, anything is better than what I currently have. [link] [comments]  |
| Independent Consultants: Recommend resources to get ramped up asap? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 06:29 PM PDT There is a gig I would like to present myself as an independent consultant. But have no idea how to begin. What are the legal/tax/professional steps I need to do to present myself as a weekly billed consultant to businesses? Is there a good resource where I can rigorously ramp up within a couple of days? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Mar 2019 05:50 PM PDT Hello friends!! I'm currently working as a QA at a startup for about a year now and have realized my true passion is product management. I graduated with a CS degree but I guess I never felt too confident with my coding abilities that's why I didn't pursue a job in development right after graduating. I just have a few questions for people who have made the switch or are current PMs. I feel like I should try to gain some development experience before making the switch to PM because one of the key stakeholders a PM has to communicate with/and convince are developers. Having a solid technical background can give me this advantage. I'm guessing not all PM positions require a strong technical background, some learn on the fly. Thoughts? If you've made the switch or have some advice please feel free to share. Thanks in advance :) [link] [comments]  |
| Tech recruiter messaged me for my availabilities and ghosted me Posted: 15 Mar 2019 11:51 AM PDT I received an email from the head of tech recruiting from a pretty well-known company several days ago asking for my availabilities. After I sent him my availabilities, he did not reply at all so I sent him another one 2 days after. His contact is on the email so I decided to call him instead. On the phone, he was extremely friendly and told me to send him another email and he would reply immediately. He ghosted me again!! I've always wanted to work in this company (media company) - my dream company. As weird as it sounds, my dream company is not the top tech ones - Google, FB, Amazon, etc. What should I do?? Is this normal?? [link] [comments]  |
| I like writing documentation but I don't like writing actual code. Am I weird? Posted: 15 Mar 2019 05:38 PM PDT I like explaining things, and documentation has always been a favorite of mine since the whole point of it is to explain something really complicated and hard to read by making a quick summary of what it does. I know that a lot of programmers hate writing documentation because of the whole "I just finished writing the thing and I spent hours trying to make it work, and now I have to go back and explain everything I did instead of moving on to the next thing?!" mentality, but I guess I'm the other way around since I always think of it as "I just spent the last couple hours melting my brain to get this to work... Now I can go back and write about what I did and feel like I accomplished something." Also, since this subreddit is dedicated to career questions, (and since I can't find a good Q&A subreddit for this question), is there any jobs available for me? [link] [comments]  |
| Joined Dream company, but now I'm almost depressed. Posted: 15 Mar 2019 01:50 PM PDT First, I know that I'll sound extremely entitled/whiny, but I need to vent off somewhere :(. I'm a fresh graduate, 3 months ago I passed interviews as a Software Engineer for a big company (big4) in city X, but once I was there they told me this city does not have headcount (not hiring), and offered me an SRE position in another city. (I still get to keep the Software Engineer title, and can transfer to another Dev teams after a year without interviews since I'm hired as SWE). I was caught up in "OMG it is X", and immediately accepted, I was very naive. The company is incredibly well known for it's strong SRE culture. I've been here for 4 months. I'm being depressed because of: - SRE work is cool, but I prefer & love writing code. I like writing/crafting a well written big chunk of code as opposed to script/1time tools, while SRE team here do SWE work, it's nothing compared to normal devs, more like 20-30%. I also prefer designing, and owning a feature, as opposed to work on it's reliability, or support it. SRE also needs you to be a generalist, while I like digging deep into issues, and knowing how everything work into exact details. I find myself almost lost. The first city (which I interviewed but did not get hired at) is a popular city with a lot of people I know there, and the office itself was amazing with tons of teams. The one I ended at is a small boring city with almost nothing going on, and I absolutely do not know anyone. The office is tiny, and has very little teams. I'm really starting to get depressed since work is not super exciting, and I've nothing to do. I can't make friends easily, and it's a struggle to find people here (I'm somehow awkward, not good socially). I keep telling myself wait for a year then transfer, but I need to get motivation to work harder, since if i don't prove myself, I most probably will be stuck here, or leave the company. I know that sounds whiny/ungrateful, but it's how I feel. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 15 Mar 2019 03:37 AM PDT I started my current job as a junior C# developer at a medium-sized company (though the tech department is only like 15 people) few weeks ago. In the interview I was described the project I was to work with, which sounded dreadfully difficult, but I thought alas, it's a junior developer position, so it can't be impossible. It's a healthcare related .NET software that interacts with multiple databases and clients. During the first day I felt like I was drowning in a sea of schematics for the project and got some well-needed breaks to setup my workstation. The next day was similar and our helpdesk was too busy to get me repository access before 4 pm. So on my third day I got the code open and was immediately asked to make some critical fixes and build a package for a client who's having some issues. Originally I was given one day and I was ready to kill myself, but somehow I managed it, but it took me two and a half days to make sure I didn't break anything in the process. Now I've been pretty much on my own looking through the bug and feature lists and seeing what could be done with them. No one in my office understands the code, the ins and outs of the project or C# or even Visual Studio in general. I have some experience thankfully, but this project is way above my current skill level. Not to mention I have no experience with servers and minimal knowledge of SQL (which seems more and more important in this project). You might be thinking to yourself how did the company ever get into this dire situation. Well, the company bought the software from an outside developer, they have pretty much relied on their support and some freelancers to get bugs fixed and features added. The company's mainly been doing some maintenance and the one in-house guy who had any real code experience with the project left the company about a month before I even started. His documentations are all over the place and he has no idea what punctuation or grammar means. Some of the documentation is from 2011, so I hope they're not relevant anymore. I just feel like there's no one who's got my back. My project manager is happy with my results so far, but I feel like I'm standing on a tightrope with a huge boulder on my shoulders. I can't even get the test environment to work properly, no one knows how to help, and the last guy's documentation is full of blanks and probably assumes I'm a senior developer with years of experience with all of these frameworks. My project manager doesn't do code (complex schematics, which I can't read well, are his thing), so I'm not sure if my message about not knowing anything is actually going through to him or not. He might think I'm joking, but I'm not. Any suggestions on what the hell I should do? Also feel free to laugh at my misery. [link] [comments]  |
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