Interview Discussion - March 11, 2019 CS Career Questions |
- Interview Discussion - March 11, 2019
- Daily Chat Thread - March 11, 2019
- Leetcode style questions to ask in an adult film
- Has anyone attended the Nintendo Software Engineering & IT Invitational?
- What's the smallest pay raise that you would leave your current job for?
- How do you guys calculate total compensation?
- How to deal with conflict/disagreements in the work place? Especially in the non technical management vs technical development area?
- How to deal with negative feedback?
- Very frustrated with Coworker, really need advice
- Name and Shame: Thomson Reuters
- Quickest path to a remote job in tech?
- How to get a holier-than-thou architect to conform to development process
- Getting a masters degree in something OTHER than CS.
- Engineers that are 100% remote: how does your company do day-to-day work remotely?
- What sort of questions should I ask during team matching?
- How long have you been able to stretch out an offer deadline?
- I need help deciding between Investment Banking vs. Machine Learning Software Engineer?
- Am I totally missing out by not job hopping?
- Has anyone been to the DASH conference in NYC?
- Forced to move from a programming position to a pure hardware engineering position.
- Important Things to Know Before First SWE Job
- Any tips in how to handle conflict?
- What is the catch for CS Careers?
- How do I negotiate
- How bad is looking for a new job after 1 month of your current job?
- Contract to Hire as first job?
| Interview Discussion - March 11, 2019 Posted: 11 Mar 2019 12:07 AM PDT 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 - March 11, 2019 Posted: 11 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]  |
| Leetcode style questions to ask in an adult film Posted: 10 Mar 2019 10:48 PM PDT Not sure if this is the appropriate subreddit, but my friend and I were looking to make an adult film. The premise of the film will be that someone is giving a white board interview to another person. Does anyone have any ideas for some inappropriate leetcode questions, or just programming innuendos in general? I apologies if this is the wrong subreddit for this question, and I swear I am not trolling. Edit: Thanks for the overwhelmingly positive response! My friend was a little on the fence about doing this, but I sent her a link to this post and after seeing all your suggestions she is very excited to make the film (still couldn't get her on board with dp...but 3sum might be in the cards) Since we are both students, we probably won't have time to make the film until spring break or after the semester, but I will try to update all of you when it is done. [link] [comments]  |
| Has anyone attended the Nintendo Software Engineering & IT Invitational? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 03:41 PM PDT I was invited to this and it hosts a Mario Kart & Smash Bro's tourney and uses the time for meet and greet with their employees. If you have attended this, what were your thoughts? I'm not huge into Nintendo games, but it seems working there might be interesting. If you have worked at Nintendo, what was your experience like? [link] [comments]  |
| What's the smallest pay raise that you would leave your current job for? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 04:32 PM PDT I currently have a comfy job where
I recently got an offer from a small startup where they are offering to pay me slightly more, but I'm not very optimistic about long term salary growth and their benefits are worse than what I currently have. (No 401k match, less vacation days, no real work from home privileges). The plus side is that their work seems more interesting than what I currently do. I probably will not take the offer. So I guess my question for you guys is: what is the smallest raise (including misc benefits) that you need to leave a comfortable work environment? [link] [comments]  |
| How do you guys calculate total compensation? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 03:10 PM PDT I don't understand how people calculate total comp. Lets say, hypothetically, I get this SE offer: - Medium CoL area - Base annual salary: $100,000 - 300 RSU's, Vested over 4 years ($200 per share) - Bonus: $10,000 - Annual Incentive Plan: 5% Would total compensation be: 100,000 + (300 x 200)/4 + 10,000 + (100,000 * .05) = $130,000 ? Is this correct? Edit: They also offer 10,000 a year for educational expenses. Not sure if that should be considered as part of total comp or not. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Mar 2019 04:28 PM PDT Are there any good resources out there that discuss how to handle conflict and disagreements in the work place? My example is that I have strong armed non technical management that thinks everything they say is right... while the actual developers doing the dirty work says they're wrong. Management is forcing us to make terrible technical decisions because they are our management, we don't have a much of a say otherwise. I feel like I'm making the Challenger. How do you deal with this? It's like management wants to destroy their own product. [link] [comments]  |
| How to deal with negative feedback? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:36 PM PDT My technical feedback is superb. My manager has just devastated me with some terrible feedback on my personality. There was no sandwiching of good and bad in there, outside of my technical ability being the good. I don't believe everything my manager said was factual, and I disagree with a lot. As this is r/cscareerquestions, my question is: What is the best move for my career in terms of my next meeting with my manager? It seems like defending myself would be pointless. Telling someone they are misremembering a conversation or saying their feedback is wrong won't help. However, lying and saying I agree with all of it and will work to do A, B, and C to fix ... would be acting like a timid doormat, and make this persons accusations be confirmed. How should I react in interactions with the manager, and how should I do the best to improve myself? [link] [comments]  |
| Very frustrated with Coworker, really need advice Posted: 11 Mar 2019 11:26 AM PDT I'm sorry for the long story but I don't know where else to go and need to vent. I have been working at my department for several years and things have been fine up until a year ago when we got a new lead engineer assigned to our group. I'll be frank, the guy is not technically savvy despite having a solid resume and over 25 years of industry experience. I do not consider myself an expert yet but I know enough to debug other people's code, troubleshoot my own problems, and read documentation/follow procedures and I am always trying my best to learn more and improve myself. When the employee came around April of last year, despite being a junior engineer, it was my job to onboard him, show him the high level pipelines, walk him through the apps, scripts, and code that we run to do the job. There was a lot of stuff to get familiar with since it was a totally new system from his prev job so I knew it would be a struggle but a year has passed and I feel like he's not putting in any work or doesn't take this part of the job seriously. Very often when there is a data problem that needs to be investigated he will tell me to investigate the problem by saying my pipeline is broken despite having no problems for years. I will investigate and find the data source problem, walk him through the steps to find it, explain how to determine the root cause, and show him how to fix it. This is fine for the first few months but it has been 12 months and he's still doing this for the same issues. Normally he pulls me up on Skype and asks me if I'm free, and since all I'm doing is coding I tell him I have a few min, he then shares his screen shows his problem and eventually keeps going in circles with me trying to explain how to fix the issue until he shares control and asks me to do it. I've tried to politely ask him what steps he followed beforehand to solve the issue, what does he think the problem is, and what should the procedure be to investigate and fix, and he kind of deflects and doesn't reply. I feel like I am this guy's first line to fixing issues in our data model/code and he's not even troubleshooting himself. If he was my junior I'd have no problems with this but I had much higher expectations since he was supposed to be our lead with me second in command and I feel like enough time has passed that I can't excuse this behavior anymore. Today the same issue happened he pinged me on Skype on how to rebuild the test database from prod data and I pointed him to my doc that writes in verbatim the commands you need to type and the screen shots. He ended up not following the exact commands, he deleted all of the core and lib files from the test box so I had to reach out to the database team to restore the configs. I ccd our managers on it and the guy blew up on me over Skype saying he didn't like how I had been mentoring him, forcing him to try things himself and make errors and then ccing all of the managers for it. At this point I don't know if I'm being an asshole or if this guy deserves it but I'm just totally lost right now and so frustrated with work. I want to get the managers involved and somehow get them to deal with this guy, but I also don't want to burn bridges and make myself look like a bad teammate /hard to work with around the office. [link] [comments]  |
| Name and Shame: Thomson Reuters Posted: 11 Mar 2019 04:48 AM PDT Where do I even begin here? It was my second CS job out of college, so I started off without a lot of prior experience, but I had a little bit. I was in the New York office, working under a Project Manager at the same site as the CTO. So that was supposedly a big deal. The organization is struggling to adapt to cloud. They gave me some really stupid specs for things that we knew we couldn't fulfill, that were pushed through anyway because it was a political thing. Naturally, that project was not very successful and kept running on way past the deadline that they gave us. This was typical of work at Reuters. Decisions and timelines were dictated more for political than technical reasons. When projects would overrun, the CTO would inevitably respond by bringing in contractors. The contractors would usually promise the moon and deliver nothing. We would always inherit projects from them. Code was always "thrown over the wall" and then months down the road, we would discover that it slipped through QA and didn't work and didn't meet spec. Then we were left to fix the contractor shitcode. It took me a few years of frustration to realize that this is how everything happens at Reuters, and it is considered normal. Late night hours were commonplace as I came up against their stupid deadlines and had to fix this garbage contractor code. Finally, I got sick of this cycle and quit. I don't think anything we deployed ever really worked 100%. They wanted us to aim for 80%, but I often felt we were more like 10 - 20% Whenever I fronted any constructive criticism, all I got from management was a whole lot of verbal abuse and hand-waving, I suspect because they are self-conscious regarding their ineffective policies. Anyone thinking of working at Reuters- I strongly advise you- just don't do it. There are better places to work with better company culture. It's an awful organization to work for, and apathy is rampant. [link] [comments]  |
| Quickest path to a remote job in tech? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 08:02 PM PDT Developed a medical issue that requires me to work from home, no way around it. What's the most optimal/quickest path to land a remote job? I have around six months to a year to prepare, maybe a bit more if it'll assure me employment. I assume it's going to be the web development pathway but I'd love to hear opinions. [link] [comments]  |
| How to get a holier-than-thou architect to conform to development process Posted: 11 Mar 2019 04:24 PM PDT At work there is an architect. This architect has the freedom to bounce across teams. When the architect is on our team, they will do things in a way such that they can't be held accountable. They will not use Bitbucket forks and have no interest in doing so; they rewrite others history as their own when they merge. They don't use branches. They have a bash script which just does a git add *.* && git commit -m "No message" && git push origin master. They will not use infrastructure as code. They go into the AWS console and make their own resources via clicking around. We're expected to operationalize this. They refuse to do any type of pull request. Today they closed a ticket, and I asked if they were opening a pull request so we could easily see a diff of what they were working on. They freaked out at me and said it was not part of the agreement. I explained it's important that we keep up to date on what others are working on, to cross-train, and to ensure we're not introducing bugs. This seems like an elementary concept that he objects to, believing that PRs will slow him down as we nitpick. I've showed him actual PRs with no such nitpicking. I've talked to the team's manager about this. While I haven't explicitly said they don't like to be held accountable, these actions all point to that. Our manager seems supportive of my viewpoint, but at the end of the day, this architect does whatever the hell he wants. Some of this is being handled by the manager, and I'm collecting point-in-time documentation of his exploits for the worse case scenario. What can I do short-term to attempt change the architect's ways? It feels ridiculous, but perhaps like giving a child a haircut, I need to show him that these practices that the entire rest of the team follows will not hurt. [link] [comments]  |
| Getting a masters degree in something OTHER than CS. Posted: 11 Mar 2019 01:15 PM PDT Hey guys, I'm a fairly greenhorn CS major (graduated Spring 2018) and have been in a (fairly) dead end coding job since about 6 months before graduation (intern -> full time). I graduated from a top 10% ranked engineering school but didn't do well with a combination of laziness and personal issues. Overall though, I'm starting to realize that I'm more of a social person than just a computer scientist. Is there any benefit to me possibly pursuing a non-CS related degree in my free time? I was thinking finance or an MBA, but I don't know if it would help me or if I should just revisit my fundamentals and get good again? Or are there career options that I'm simply overlooking mostly because I am so engrained in looking for a job as a software developer? [link] [comments]  |
| Engineers that are 100% remote: how does your company do day-to-day work remotely? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 09:40 AM PDT I've been in industry for 18 years, but the majority of that has been in the typical office/cubicle setting. I've worked at large internationals and tiny startups, but I've never worked entirely remote. This appeals to me because I'm hoping to move to a smaller town to raise my kids and be closer to my family. If anyone has any info on how remote work actually works, I'd love to hear any success/horror stories. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| What sort of questions should I ask during team matching? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 05:38 AM PDT I'm currently going through team matching at Google, but not I'm not sure what kind of questions I should ask to determine if the team is a good fit. I mean, obviously, there's certain technologies that I'm more interested in than others, but what about the other factors? What questions will help me figure out promotion opportunities, team impact, work life balance, etc. And on a related note, does anyone have teams that they recommend in the New York office? [link] [comments]  |
| How long have you been able to stretch out an offer deadline? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 09:19 AM PDT I have a final round this week that very well could transform to a written offer by end of next week, lets call them company A. However, I have an onsite in early April from company B that will be higher pay, better benefits, better vacation policy and in general would enjoy the job much more. Problem is, I'm just shy of 1 year out of college and got laid off so I'm in a difficult spot to turn down a solid offer in hopes of a better one. [link] [comments]  |
| I need help deciding between Investment Banking vs. Machine Learning Software Engineer? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 12:19 PM PDT Hi all, I need some serious advice. I recently finished my first as an investment banking analyst at a boutique firm. I was recently offered a Machine Learning software engineer position at a pretty well-known Fintech company. This new job pays about the same as my current job, but I think the work is more interesting and I think there are more opportunities for growth in this field as opposed to IB. I did my undergraduate in computer science and a minor in applied mathematics, and have completed multiple AI/ML projects, and also have 2 gold medals on Kaggle. So I feel comfortable doing this new job. I was really excited to make the switch at first, but after speaking with some of my friends and family, they are all saying that I would be a mistake leaving IB for this position. So I need your advice/opinion. Here are my pros and cons for each job/career path: Investment Banking: Pros: -Predictable Career Path: Analyst --> Associate --> MBA --> Private Equity ---> Success/Wealth/Fame/Entrepreneurship? -Decent compensation once you progress up the ladder -Prestige associated with being in IB (not very important to me, but definitely important to others) Cons: -Extremely boring work at analyst/associate levels --> tons of secretarial/graphic design/paper work. -Very long work hours -Lots of travel (I really do not like travelling for work) -Very competitive industry --> progressing up the ladder requires a ton of time/luck/energy -Industry is very traditional/stagnant --> Banks are all investing in technology and many banks are trying to become tech companies. Investment Banking will always be a important division of banks, but clearly is not the area that is driving the most growth. Machine Learning Engineer/Data Science: Pros: -Growing industry --> lots of job opportunities -New technology --> opportunity to learn lots of cutting-edge stuff -Interesting Work (at least to me) --> I enjoy writing code/building models more than designing powerpoints or scheduling meetings -Better work/life balance than Investment Banking Cons: -No clear career path -Compensation does not increase in the same way as investment banking Let me know what you guys think. Any advice would be appreciated. [link] [comments]  |
| Am I totally missing out by not job hopping? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 07:55 PM PDT I'm looking for validation that I'm not crazy, because I've been told that my strategy is shitty. I live in a technically low cost area. I say technically because it's actually gotten quite expensive recently, but nowhere near SF or NYC. If you look it up, it'll say low cost. It's medium cost in reality. When I got hired 3.5 years ago (fresh out of college), my salary was at $45k. I took it anyway, zero negotiation, I knew I had no other options at the time in the area. I've gotten considerable raises since, some of which were clearly market adjustments. I'm now at $80k +$10k yearly bonus. I also work from home, and have a kid who doesn't go to daycare because of this. That's basically $10k a year of savings plus a flexible work schedule as long as I get things done, and I very much do. I consider this a win. I like my job, I like my bosses, I like the people I work with, and I like the flexibility. I'm great at my job. I have zero reason to leave. But I meet people--and I guess our area blew up a little bit in terms of tech jobs--who tell me I'm worth much more. I guess the higher cost of living has been catching up. Am I really naive to not look elsewhere to see what I can get, or does it make perfect sense to stay put? I can see staying with my company for years and years, but the more people I talk to, the more they make me doubt myself. [link] [comments]  |
| Has anyone been to the DASH conference in NYC? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 01:23 PM PDT Hey everyone, I've recently been keeping an eye out for conferences to attend in 2019 and one that popped up in my search was DASHcon hosted by data dog. It sounds pretty interesting and the sponsors from 2018 seem legit, but I'd like an unbiased opinion from someone that actually attended the conference. Anyone been? [link] [comments]  |
| Forced to move from a programming position to a pure hardware engineering position. Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:48 PM PDT So I work at a startup and near a couple of weeks ago my boss pulls me aside to explain some gaps of knowledge that I'm missing, mainly in hardware. Now, he pulls me aside again and says I've made good improvements on the hardware side, and is coming to realize that I can't do both. He says, "I think engineering is a much better fit for you", and has eliminated my software role in the company, but says he will revisit this in a couple of months. I asked if he will hire a new programmer to replace my role, and he says "no, we don't need one". He then decides to take me out for lunch and a couple of beers to make sure I am okay with the decision. Not quite sure what to do at this point. While I am coming to like hardware more, I really want to do programming. Thoughts? Should I leave and pursue a company with a strict software role? Or should I ride this wave out? [link] [comments]  |
| Important Things to Know Before First SWE Job Posted: 11 Mar 2019 03:00 PM PDT I'm a senior who recently secured my first SWE job. Not Big N, but pays well, and they have a stack ranking. What should I absolutely learn right now and during the summer to be able to walk into any team rather comfortably? [link] [comments]  |
| Any tips in how to handle conflict? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 03:00 PM PDT A coworker told-me that he believes that I'm a really good programmer regarding the tech part, but I might do better when handling problems (the personal side itself) as he believes that maybe because my age, experience, etc; I have a bit to learn there. I really have had a few issues with that, but it's not out of the norm to ask for a few tips on how to handle stressful situations, problems or conflicts. So... any tips? Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| What is the catch for CS Careers? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:45 PM PDT I always wondered. Every career has "catch" which is a drawback that repels people away from it. Teaching has low pay. Law is stressful, has long hours, no guarantees for job prospects unless you get into a good school. Medicine requires college, med school + residency and massive amounts of debt. However, each career has its pros which are the aspects that draw people into the career. I've always wondered what is the catch in software engineering and why isn't everyone and their grandma going into it? It just seems superior to all other professions right now when you factor in demand, work life balance, high pay, availability for remote work, stress, years of schooling, you can work in any city you want, doesn't require too much debt, you can wear whatever you want, opportunity to make "big money" for the ambitious, etc. I hate to admit this and I'm sure it is very disrespectful but every time I see ANY other career except software engineering, there is always some major unavoidable inconvenience (usually more than two) to which I think the solution is "learn to code, get into software engineering and you won't deal with this BS". A lot of people say things like "Software Engineering isn't easy! Not everyone can be a software engineer!" to which I always think "Life as a Software Engineer is a comparatively very easy life in America." There are aspects of software engineering that suck but jobs for the most part inherently suck and software engineering sucks the least. It doesn't even require too much math or even good grades. My suspicion is that there's a large disconnect between how non-technical people perceive software engineering and how it actually is and if people somehow experienced life as a software engineer for say a month, they would get spoiled as employees and leave their industries. What are your opinions? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:44 PM PDT I got my offer and it's a little lower than every where else that's interviewing. How do I negotiate with this company? [link] [comments]  |
| How bad is looking for a new job after 1 month of your current job? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:25 PM PDT |
| Contract to Hire as first job? Posted: 11 Mar 2019 06:22 PM PDT Hey guys, Just curious if anyone has any opinions on this. I just graduated in November and didn't have a job lined up cause I was honestly pretty silly (but also had to wait for my work visa). I now have an offer to do a 6-month contract as a full-stack developer at Facebook, with a "possibility of converting to full-time" at the end of the contract. This offer came to me much quicker than expected, and the pay is good, but I also have other other late stage interviews lined up. Because of my visa situation, I need to have a full-time job by the end of the year (i.e. not a contractor), so I guess I'm just wondering if having worked at Facebook as a contractor will make it easier for me to get a job in the future/at the end of the 6 months if I'm not able to convert the contract into a full time role. By that I mean, obviously if I was a full time FB employee, it'd look great on my resume and getting another job should be easy, but maybe not as much if I'm just a contractor? So does anyone have any advice/thoughts on if I should keep interviewing and accept a full-time offer at a less prestigious company if I get the chance, or take the contract offer for now and start applying for jobs again to get something lined up at the end of the contract (and obviously I'm going to try to convert the contract into a full time role regardless, but it's a little unclear what my chances/the possibilities of doing that is). Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
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