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    Resume Advice Thread - April 09, 2019 CS Career Questions

    April 09, 2019

    Resume Advice Thread - April 09, 2019 CS Career Questions

    Resume Advice Thread - April 09, 2019

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 12:07 AM PDT

    Please use this thread to ask for resume advice and critiques. You should read our Resume FAQ and implement any changes from that before you ask for more advice.

    Abide by the rules, don't be a jerk.

    Note on anonomyizing your resume: If you'd like your resume to remain anonymous, make sure you blank out or change all personally identifying information. Also be careful of using your own Google Docs account or DropBox account which can lead back to your personally identifying information. To make absolutely sure you're anonymous, we suggest posting on sites/accounts with no ties to you after thoroughly checking the contents of your resume.

    This thread is posted each Tuesday and Saturday at midnight PST. Previous Resume Advice Threads can be found here.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    Daily Chat Thread - April 09, 2019

    Posted: 09 Apr 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.

    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    The company screwed up and now they're paying me more.

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 05:46 AM PDT

    I just landed a Data Analytics internship with a very large multinational corporation that you all would know. I'm ecstatic about the opportunity, it feels very surreal to finally be working with such an awesome group and in the field I've been dreaming about!

    The cherry on the cake is when I was given a verbal offer last week, they quoted the salary for the starting pay for this position and not the internship salary. In the written offer they chose to honor this mistake and pay me the starting salary during my internship.

    I cannot believe the amount of luck I have had in this situation and will do everything I can to make the most of this incredible opportunity.

    submitted by /u/data-punk
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    Lessons from my 5-month job search (TL;DR - great offer from pre-IPO company)

    Posted: 08 Apr 2019 10:45 PM PDT

    I wanted to share things I learned from my most recent job search. It took much longer than expected (About 5 months start to finish) and I faced many rejections, but the end result greatly exceeded my expectations: An offer from a well-known pre-IPO company that was a huge upgrade in total compensation, brand-name recognition, title, and tech stack. Some of the following will probably be obvious to you, but some of this was new information to me. I'm an experienced dev and some of this might only apply to people already in industry, but some of it is applicable to new grads/non-traditional backgrounds.

    About me

    • BS in CS from a state university, definitely not an Ivy-league grad.
    • 5 years of industry experience, some shit-tier companies and some decent brand names, nothing at the Big N level.
    • Multiple technical internships before I graduated
    • Young white male in SF Bay Area
    • I targeted mid/senior full-stack or back-end software engineer roles at pre-IPO and public companies rather than small startups.
    • I did all of this while working as a full-time as a mid-level software engineer at a decently well-known tech company.

    Getting your foot in the door

    • Cover letters are 100% useless. Earlier on in my search I wrote cover letters for every application, it was a huge bottleneck. I gave up on writing them and quickly found that they had been useless, my response rate from applying directly on a company's career page didn't drop at all.
    • Messaging recruiters directly on LinkedIn was astoundingly effective for getting a phone screening. Just search "<company name> recruiter" (make sure they are technical recruiters) and send a few of them a friendly message, you'll get a reply from at least one of them in my experience. This worked great for companies that repeatedly ignored me when I applied directly on their careers website.
    • If you have a friend at a company you're interested in, have them refer you. Doesn't make passing the hiring bar any easier, just makes it faster to get your foot in the door with a recruiter. Most companies have referral bonuses for your friend if you end up getting hired, so don't even feel bad about asking!
    • TripleByte really came through for me. I was highly skeptical of TripleByte, since I had applied in 2016 in a previous job search and got turned down, and didn't agree with their assessment of my abilities at the time. I gave it a shot again this time around and got accepted. This ultimately is what led to me getting the interview that resulted in the offer I accepted. If you get accepted they generate a ton of leads (about 10) with high quality companies, and of course you get to bypass the initial coding interview. If you found this post helpful feel free to use my referral link: https://triplebyte.com/iv/Tt1YlBK/cp The cool thing about the TripleByte exam is, pass or fail, they give you painfully, brutally honest feedback so you know what to improve on.
    • December/January are really shitty times to be job searching. Everyone's gone for the holidays, companies don't have head count yet for the next year yet. I lost a lot of momentum around this time of year but it picked up again in mid January.
    • Have some kind of system for tracking what stage you're at with various companies. You will forget to follow up with people otherwise. I used a Trello board, and even then I accidentally let companies slip through the cracks occasionally.
    • Some companies will let you skip the phone screening if you're anticipating offers with other companies. Google and Facebook did this for me. Once you have an offer on the table, the ball really gets rolling. Never be afraid to let recruiters you're working with know about offers you have coming in, it makes you look like a strong candidate and they'll work faster to bring you in.
    • If you've been waiting a while to hear back from a recruiter or aren't sure what's going on, just email them. They will never get so annoyed that they stop talking to you. When in doubt, just follow up.

    Interview Preparations

    • I conducted my search while still employed full time, but I'm still undecided on whether or not it's better to quit your current job while searching. I think only the individual can decide this. Your current job can be powerful leverage or it might just be weighing you down. In retrospect I think things would've gone better for me if I had quit since I have plenty of savings, but I didn't know how risky it would be.
    • Leetcode is by far the best coding interview prep tool and a premium subscription is worth its weight in gold. The list of questions that companies ask is often incredibly accurate, but not always. Over my 5 month search, I solved about 250+ problems. In my opinion, do NOT spend time on bit-manipulation problems, I didn't get a single real-world question about them. All the other leetcode question topics are very useful (with the possible exception of "Math", I did get some of those questions but they were less common). Hard questions are relatively rare in on-site interviews in my experience, so I would optimize for mediums, but do some hards if you have time. If you're just starting out and feeling clueless, grind out some easies.
    • interviewing.io is a powerful tool. They let you do mock coding interviews with an actual human, as well as for-real coding interviews with brand-name companies that lead to on-sites if you do well (I ended up getting an onsite offer with WeWork from this but never followed through on it).
    • I strongly recommend using Python for interviews if you don't already. Many top leetcode solutions are in Python. Python has pretty much all the data structures you need (heaps, counters, queues, dictionaries, etc.), it's much faster to write and more human-readable than Java, and almost all interviewers will understand it. I truly believe it's worth the time investment if you're not fluent in Python already. One exception could be if you are looking for front-end roles and will be needing to write a lot of javascript.
    • When I first started out, I seriously sucked at system design, and I still don't think I'm great. The best resources in no particular order: Mock system design interviews with smart friends, Designing Data Intensive Applications (book), Grokking the System Design Interview (online reading materials, they're behind a paywall but well worth the $70).
    • Practice coding on an actual, physical whiteboard if you can. It is a separate skill from typing on a computer. If you don't have one, buy one, it's a good investment.
    • Once a company invites you to the final in-person interview, that offer is generally good for a quite a while, often a month or more. Don't feel like you need to schedule it ASAP, do it whenever is best for you.
    • Invest in a good headset for phone interviews. I used AirPods and they work great.
    • Have multiple solid reasons for why you're looking for a new job, because you'll get asked this a lot.
    • Have good stories about things you worked on. Biggest challenges, how you resolved disagreements, things you would have done differently, etc.
    • Read up on offer negotiation: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

    Onsite Tactics

    • If you're like me, you will do very well on phone screenings, but you will face many rejections after onsites. My offer rate from onsite interviews was disappointingly low: I did 16 onsites in total over the 5 month period, and only had 3 offers to show for it. It wasn't just me, this was also true of my smart job-searching friends that were working at places like Microsoft and Amazon. It gets discouraging, but it's important to be able to handle the rejections gracefully. Not only will you get rejections, you might get offers that are disappointing and not worth leaving your current job for. The best advice I can give for handling rejection is to never get too excited about any one company. Always have another company in the queue to focus on instead. Frustratingly, most companies just won't give you feedback so you won't know for sure why they turned you down. I want to name and praise a few that gave me good feedback after rejecting me: Square, Lyft, Cloudera, Stripe, and Netflix. Always ask for feedback even if it's not given initially.
    • Put your phone in airplane mode during the onsite. Calls or push notifications going off in your interview are very distracting.
    • If you find yourself with downtime in-between rounds, erase the whiteboard so you don't have to do it mid-interview.
    • If the company wants you to do a coding exercise on your own laptop, the first thing you should do after checking in for your interview is to get on the guest Wi-Fi so you're not doing it mid-interview.
    • For the love of god, bring your own whiteboard pen to onsite interviews. Do not waste precious time playing the "which one of these whiteboard pens actually works" game.
    • If you prefer to write code on a computer instead of a whiteboard, it doesn't hurt to ask your interviewer if they will let you do that. Some of them will let you, though take note if they say they grade more harshly when coding on a computer.
    • Come prepared for anything you might need during the day in a backpack. Snacks, water, medication, etc. Most companies will have those but it's no guarantee. Always bring your own laptop. I had a company *cough*Cloudera*cough* that said they would provide one for a coding exercise, and then didn't have one for me when I showed up.
    • Take a bathroom break in-between every round, even if you don't think you need it. It helped calm me down, and I was never distracted by having to pee during an interview.
    • Have a well-rehearsed list of questions to ask your interviewers when it's your turn to ask questions. Otherwise there will be awkward silence and you'll seem disinterested in the company. Obviously, have at least one solid reason for why you are interested in the company, they will ask.

    Hope this was helpful, if you have anything to add or disagree with anything I wrote I'd love to hear it.

    submitted by /u/numerous-nominee
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    Midewest Tech Conferences That Cost Less Than $1000

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 06:56 PM PDT

    Hey all, I was allocated $1000 by my team to attend a tech conference this year. I'm mostly interested in Web Development, Restful Services, Serverless Containers, Continuous Integration/Deployment, and Front end programming. Does anyone have any recommendations for such a conference in the midwest? Admission would have to be less than $1000. Thanks!

    Note: I've already been denied from going to GOTO Chicago

    Edit: Just remembered that I have some unused Frequent Flier Miles, so anywhere in the US is up for consideration.

    submitted by /u/GauntBilly
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    2019 stack overflow survey results

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 09:17 AM PDT

    I thought this was really interesting. The dev ops people are the most contented (which surprised me as I thought they had pager duty). Python is climbing the ranks. Some data is broken by minority and country as well.

    https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019?utm_source=so-owned&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=dev-survey-2019&utm_content=launch-blog

    submitted by /u/birdsonstrings
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    I get stuck in a cycle of self destructive behavior at every job I've ever had. Help me break it.

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 09:13 AM PDT

    It goes like this:

    1. I get a job. I throw myself at it, and work as hard as possible.

    2. I receive feedback from management on how to improve my work. I do my best to apply it.

    3. I get to a point where I am doing good work. I'm happy, my boss is happy, everyone is happy. This is where the trouble starts.

    4. I don't receive what I believe to be appropriate recognition. Lower than anticipated raises, passed on chances for new projects, denied promotion opportunities, that sort of thing.

    5. This eats away at me and I become bitter. I hate my job and start performing poorly at work. Management talks to me which makes me more bitter because I'm only angry about their failure to properly recognize me.

    6. I quit or am fired and start over somewhere else.

    This cycle takes 2-4 years. I'm on step 4 right now. Long story short I received a glowing annual review and a "generous" 3% raise. I also did not receive a few projects I wanted.

    I need to break the cycle so I can establish my career. Switching jobs like this is killing me. What do I do?

    submitted by /u/DumbledoresGay69
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    Less interesting position at more interesting company with more pay VS more interesting position at less interesting company with less pay?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:49 PM PDT

    Okay so I am torn. As a new grad in CS with software dev internship experience, I have two offers on the table. The first pays 70k, which is above the local average for new grads, the companies product really interests me being in the music industry (i'm also a semi-professional musician), and I know the company is solid to work for as I did an internship there years ago. But.... it's a software developer in test automation position. I can see myself enjoying this work for awhile but eventually wanting to go back to conventional dev work or move into technical management.

    The second is a typical .NET backend software dev position, but the pay is average at 60k, and the company itself or its product doesn't interest me that much being in geographic software, though I have heard they are also good to work for.

    So do I take the first position, and try to gradually pivot into other roles within the company or work there while searching something that fits my long term goals more, or do I just go for the second more interesting position at a less interesting company with less pay?

    submitted by /u/ClittoryHinton
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    Worried I Might be Fired

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:36 PM PDT

    Hey, guys! I recently joined a company as a junior developer, everyone's pretty talented and despite getting a couple of other job offers I chose them because they emphasized that they don't mind if I'm self taught or just starting out, they want me to grow with them and learn and if I get stuck I can always ask. It has been a month, I've been assigned to to a big project, I'm working alone and am a bit stumped, have repeatedly asked for guidance but I'm getting absolutely nothing. I don't know what to do, is it my fault?

    submitted by /u/dUnknown1
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    Where is there an actual demand for Software Engineers in the U.S.?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 01:20 PM PDT

    I got a B.S. in C.S. from a state school because I wanted a job thrown at me after graduation. Apparently this is unreasonable in California, despite the fact that I graduated with honors, can actually program, have some IT work experience and have a few projects. I've been searching for two months. I'm going to redo my resume and try for another month, but after that I'm either going to sell my soul to a contractor or leave California, so: where is the demand actually at?

    ​

    I have heard the Mid West, Texas, Utah... any specific cities? Any closer to the West coast?

    ​

    Thank you for your time.

    ​

    Edit: my resume is horrible, probably the cause of the majority of my problems. Thanks everyone for the advice and feedback.

    submitted by /u/_purple_stuff_
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    Recommendations to move into management?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 08:43 AM PDT

    I'm starting my first job as a SWE out of college and want to move into team management quickly. Obviously this depends on company, team, etc...

    I'm interested in knowing more about what I can control, eg my performance and perception as a leader.

    Do you have any general tips for going from an engineer to an engineering manager? Any books or articles to recommend?

    Edit: Some of the responses make it clear I didn't say what I meant to. I don't mean quickly move into management by subverting a career as a dev, I just meant I want to do well and do better than the average. Succinctly, I want to be a leader one day.

    submitted by /u/Eleiko23
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    How much experience is equivalent to a degree?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 12:42 PM PDT

    I've heard from recruiters (Capital One, Microsoft, Google, more) that they would consider 2-3 years experience (as an actual software developer) equivalent to a degree.

    But then I saw an Amazon job posting like this and if I'm understanding that right Amazon wants 12 years of experience equivalent to a bachelors.

    Is this just the only company that thinks this way or am I just not understanding the wording here correct (English not native).

    submitted by /u/ThrowawayCSQs
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    Hard time deciding between summer internship options

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 05:40 PM PDT

    Hey guys, so I'm currently interning at a big company doing less than ideal work. I'm in a business oriented team taking things as a solo digital solution provider. The only code I'm getting to write is some python scripting and a little SQL to digitize some excel stuff and I'm doing more product management than I would like at this point in my career. I have a few options for the summer:

    Stay

    • - $30 per hour, living stipend
    • - good people
    • - mediocre location, mid-size US city
    • - understood problem/scope

    same big company - different team and location

    • - great location - close to big east coast city (girlfriend lives close as well)
    • - again a non software engineering team - industrial domain, but the work would be more technical
    • - self guided, so same solo situation as current role but with somewhat better work
    • - maintain pay, living stipend

    same big company - different team

    • - much harder - scipy/numpy/apache spark heavy grade python work to an extent that I haven't done before and I was told it would definitely be challenging
    • - definitely in the realm of work that would benefit me, in terms of coding everyday - becoming a better engineer
    • - working individually but at least with more senior SEs providing guidance
    • - maintain pay, living stipend
    • - same location as #1

    Small company, not necessarily a startup but size of one

    • - great location - in big east coast city (girlfriend lives close as well)
    • - get to work in a team
    • - easily most ideal work - consumer product - web backend js, nodejs etc and opportunity for other domains - aligns with past projects I've done
    • - relaxed company culture
    • - low pay, no stipend - $20

    It was always my goal to get a small company with better work for the summer, but the pay is worrying. I don't know if it's worth it to drop down. I think I'm definitely not staying, but it's hard to make a decision between the options I do have.

    submitted by /u/SuperSimpleStuff
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    Stay at internship part time or focus on my school?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 06:07 AM PDT

    Hi guys, I was hoping I could get some opinions.

    I just did a 1 year internship with a company and decided to switch to somewhere new for my final term. This new company is offering to keep me on during my following semesters of school too as a part time worker.

    However, I'm concerned that the work load may be too high doing both school and part time internship. They also don't know but I'm planning to continue school after my Associates Degree and wouldn't be able to return full time for a couple years at least.

    I also might only be available to work there for about a year as a part time (I'll be moving cities to continue school).

    I know this is very specific to me, but I'm mostly want some opinions on how his will make my resume look. 1 year full time internship, and around 1 year part time at another company. Is that bad? Or do you think employers will understand because I was a student?

    submitted by /u/nathe8
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    I love my algorithms class but I suck at/hate leetcode. How do I get better?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 08:12 PM PDT

    When I took my algorithms class, I enjoyed how theoretical and algorithmic it is. However, when I see leetcode, I struggle to know how to solve many of its problems and get demotivated and frustrated in the end. How do I get better?

    submitted by /u/sudopods
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    Changing job before a big release in a few months (or longer)?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:58 PM PDT

    In short, say a scenario where after you got your yearly review. There's no change in position or salary. So you decide to look elsewhere. Applied & got accepted to a new job with higher salary/title. (no background check done yet).

    ​

    Is it reasonable to leave your current company for the new one. Your team haven't completed your current project that you are working on (1-2 years). You are one of the "lead" developer, but not really a dev lead or senior dev if thats makes sense. It's one of these thing where you play a significant role. The release won't happen for another 2 months. (with potential delay is possible).

    ​

    ​

    So... is it looked down upon?

    submitted by /u/RyuRouge
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    Tips for incoming college freshman going into CS

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:38 PM PDT

    Hey guys!

    So I'm essentially an incoming freshman at a Stanford/MIT/CMU/etc. school and I was wondering if the members of this sub had any tips for going into this field, specifically getting internship offers and developing my CS knowledge. Is there anything I should be doing now, or anything I should start doing immediately during my freshman year?

    Thanks!!! <3

    submitted by /u/thatsnotverylikely
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    How can I use a job offer to my benefit?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:37 PM PDT

    I just received my first full time offer, but its not really a job that I want to accept. Besides using it for leverage when negotiating salaries, how can I use this in the short term to possibly get myself more opportunities? Is this even possible?

    submitted by /u/TheRealJamesHoffa
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    How do I get the positions that reject me direct-hire, but accept me through staffing agencies?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 01:37 PM PDT

    This is a pretty simple question I guess - I've been applying like crazy for companies positions directly through them. I even started reaching out directly to recruiters to make sure some eyes get on my resume.

    ​

    However, I'm not having great luck through the email/greenhouse drop method. However, since I submitted my resume to dice.com I'm getting constantly spammed by recruiters, some of which are pretty legit it seems given that they are looking for literally the same positions that I applied to it. I'm getting to the point where some of these look like they will turn into offers, obviously significantly lower and with no benefits (or at best high premium plans) through the staffing companies. I have an ivy-league degree so these recruiters are bloodthirsty about pushing me to as many positions as they can.

    ​

    How is this possible? I was under the impression the staffing agencies would get paid the same amount as me as a direct-hire, just take a cut.

    submitted by /u/Sneet1
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    Looking to get back into Development, would Bootcamp help?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:30 PM PDT

    Hello Reddit,

    ​

    I am based in Toronto, Canada. I have a Comp Sci degree and I did a few internships that involved high level web dev (PHP, JQuery, Angular). When I got my first job as a developer, the company that was hiring we was restructuring, so I ended up having no work and no mentorship. I took a job at a SaaS company as an API developer in .NET. Unfortunately to my shame after a few months I was forced out due to unfavourable politics, bad management, and on my end not paying enough attention to learning the stack.

    ​

    I made a deal with the company to 'sweep what happened' under the rug, keep my developer salary, but work in last tier enterprise support. After roughly two year in the position I want to get back into dev, specifically working in startups that use a more cutting edge stack (React.Js, Backbone.Js, RoR, etc). I tried just applying with the skills I already have and it didn't get me anywhere.

    ​

    Would enrolling in a course be helpful? More specifically courses like a Bootcamp. I am just worried that it isn't legitimate and the money would be a waste.

    ​

    Thank you for the help!

    ​

    TL;DR: I have a Comp Sci degree, I worked as an intern developer and screwed up my first real developer job (with questionable blame). I want to get back into dev but I am not getting anywhere. Will a Bootcamp going to help me?

    submitted by /u/AcadianSSR
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    Got offer for a job that was listed in the city I live in and others, but was sent to another city. Got an AirBnB for the first month to feel it out. I hate the new city. Not even one week in, I'm receiving solicitations from recruiters for the same job and company, back in the city I live in. Huh?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:19 PM PDT

    I'll try to keep it as concise as possible:

    ​

    Reached out to by contracting company for a tech job at a Fortune 500 company.

    ​

    Job posting says locations: City A, City B, City C. I live in City A.

    ​

    Go through interview process. Get offer, but for City B. I express apprehension because of relocation to City B. They (the contractor company) say I was "slightly better" than a local City B candidate. I say it's not about money (it wasn't). I ask for City A.

    ​

    Contract company says we'll see what F500 company says. Next day, they say no it has to be City B. I say okay because I needed to make money.

    ​

    Get BnB for the first month. I can't stand the new city, it's the polar opposite of where I came from.

    ​

    Day 1. Get all my stuff and whatnot. There's other contractors in the same job function as me. One is in the new city and the other...is in the city I was originally in. One of them expresses befuddlement that I was made to come to the new city for this.

    ​

    Day 2. Receive multiple solicitations from outside recruiters to staff this same company, for this same job...IN MY CITY (haven't updated my LinkedIn yet). At this point I'm aware that all of these postings, including the original ones that listed multiple cities, are for the same functional group. It's not like it was for different leads or anything.

    ​

    I want to be based out of my home city. It makes no sense to be working multiple time zones away when the other office was 15 minutes from my house and one of the other guys is there anyway. As of yet I haven't spoken with the client company about anything pertaining to this or any of hiring negotiations, it was all through my contract employer. Unsure how to proceed.

    submitted by /u/reluctantwanderlust
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    Applied to company didnt hear back now they want me to apply to a different role advice please?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 03:27 PM PDT

    I attended a recruitment event for a large software company felt it went pretty well talked to a lot of the employees and they encouraged me to apply . Applied to 3 roles got rejected from 2 and the third one still in the process.

    I received an email today from them asking me to apply to a different fairly senior role (the job asks for 5 years of experience and I have between 2-3) which I feel I am less qualified for than the other roles I applied for.

    ​

    Dont want to post too many details the role is a web dev role I do have experience in web dev but not using the specific frameworks in the job description.

    ​

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

    ​

    Thanks

    submitted by /u/OldSupermarket2
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    Renegotiate the offer and the manager will call back

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:07 PM PDT

    So the job title is that they're looking for senior and after the interview and the test, they give an offer. I understand the company background is small and seems growing. But I like the company environment.

    However they offer with lower/average salary. Trying to renegotiate and the manager said he would call back as he needs to discuss the offer with his team and will let me know within a week, he said to let him know if I accept the offer, is there anything I should worry about? Or anything to do at this point?

    Edit: I'm thinking to call back to accept the salary, would I look desperate or better just wait?

    submitted by /u/Band1c0t
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    Promotion denied because of budget

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 03:20 PM PDT

    This is long, sorry. I'm a Technical lead/Sr Developer at a pretty well funded startup. I've been at my company for two years. I have been working hard since I got here to get promoted to Software Architect/Staff, I've gone through 5 review cycles and received excellent performance reviews every time. I've also gotten two raises since I've been here. I work long hours and put everything I have into it.

    About a month ago as were going through our bi annual review process, my boss informed me that she has been so impressed w my work that she had submitted paperwork for me to be promoted, but the bad news is that it was denied. The reason for this is purely budget, she said. I've since asked to confirm the reason was purely budget on a couple of occasions during our one on ones and was told that yes, I was a great employee and it was purely about budget. My boss also told me on a few occasions she is continuing to push for my promotion. The next review cycle is in six months but sometimes it happens 'off cycle'.

    While that may sound like a reasonable response to my concerns, I still have a couple of issues w the situation. Some people did manage to get promotions this cycle - including my boss. And a couple of people who frankly contribute much less to the company IMO than I do. I don't know how I feel about my boss receiving a promotion but not me, or anyone else on our team for that matter. I tend to give her the benefit of a doubt as she's a good person and has always supported me, I believe it was out of her hands. My thought is somebody higher up took a look at my promotion paperwork and decided I wasn't worth it. This infuriates me because I know how hard I've been working. So right now I'm very appreciative of my boss because she is trying to promote me, confused about the situation in general, and angry in general at my company and whichever executive or finance people made this decision.

    Ever since this happened I have been struggling in terms of my confidence and my attitude. I'm hoping someone will give me some advice that will allow me to refocus and redouble my efforts at my current job, or make a decision to start looking for a new job. Here are my thoughts:

    I can't necessarily look for a new job while continuing to work the overtime hours I've been working, given the grueling and time consuming nature of the tech interview cycle. The last couple job searches I had were pretty all consuming for a number of weeks, I am pretty sure my current job would suffer if I started interviewing.

    I'm not sure I should leave because I've been working for a promotion for a long time and here's someone who's actually submitting the paperwork to make it happen. I feel like I owe my boss some loyalty for this.

    Problem is right now my attitude about the company is very bad and my confidence is low. Sometimes I think about quitting and finding a new job but I also know it would be a lateral move, probably. I will switch to a new company and there will be no one there to push for my promotion,I'll have to start from square one again.

    I like my boss and in general I like the people I work with and the company. My job duties are directly in line w my technical interests too. Salary and benefits are fine, it's not about the money for me really.

    So that's it, I'm just throwing this out there. I have to decide these issues in my head pretty soon and refocus myself. Any advice appreciated.

    submitted by /u/Vispanna
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    Very Confused About My Role

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 07:05 PM PDT

    TL;DR: I'm not a developer and don't want to be a developer, so how do I get out of the developer role I've found myself in?

    ​

    First, this is heavily anonymized because I know some coworkers are redditors. Second, thanks in advance for reading through this wall of text.

    ​

    I've managed to get myself into an odd career situation, and I'm hoping this community can help me work through what to do about it. As the tl;dr says, I have somehow found myself, very much not a developer, in a very senior software developer role.

    ​

    First, some background on myself: I came into this role with almost 15 years of experience primarily in managing projects and engineers plus a good amount of systems engineering for large, complicated, and expensive multi-domain systems (electrical, mechanical, controls, software, etc.). While I have written code here and there over the years, with the exception of my first couple of years out of college ages ago, I have not been a full-time developer nor worked on a true software development team. I consider myself an excellent fit as bridge between business and technical groups and have even spent some time doing technical sales/marketing.

    ​

    I have been reasonably successful in my career, successful enough that I have been comfortable taking some career risks to learn new things and stay fully engaged. Based on feedback over the years I would rank my top three skills as: project management, engineering management, system engineering/architecture.

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    Fast forward to today: I am about 6 months into a new role, and I feel totally lost and confused. The company is fairly large (pushing 10k employees and billions in revenue) although I can almost guarantee you have never heard of it. I cannot figure out what my role is supposed to be. I'm in a pure software development team that is building web applications. Prior to being hired, we discussed this at length, and I was assured that they were not looking for a developer, but rather someone with project management and leadership skills. There was a lot of debate over my title, and it's still not clear. I have seen my name with at least six different titles attached to it. I will say they really wanted me, and made the switch very worthwhile. There is a lot of opportunity business-wise for this team, which I hope translates into career opportunity.

    ​

    The plan, as I understood it prior to joining, was to bring me in as as sort of team lead / project manager then transition into an engineering manager as the team grew large enough to warrant another sub-team. The problem is: This team already has a pretty well-defined agile process and a scrum master that isn't going anywhere handling the project management side of things, and prior to my first day, the team had already been split into sub teams with brand new engineering managers. Now that I am here, it seems I am being pushed into a senior developer role. I spend about 75% of my time writing code (in a language I've never used before), and the rest of my time chasing down answers to internal technical questions for a group of outside developers.

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    I've received overwhelming positive feedback, and I have asked both my boss and his boss pretty directly about the role and expectations. I always get the same answer: find something you're interested in and dive deep in that. That's kind of hard to do, when my skillset is already over represented. I've tried branching out and offering to help with some of the project management and process improvement side of thing, and have been told repeatedly that it's not my place. I really don't want to be a full-time software developer again. I moved on years ago because it wasn't a great fit for me.

    ​

    I'm hoping to tap into the collective wisdom here for some guidance. How did I end up here, and what should I do? Stick with it, hoping something changes? Look for something else? It seems too early to be job shopping, but I don't want to get pigeonholed into a role I don't want nor do I want to waste my time here. Having open dialogues with my management has led nowhere. Thanks again for any input.

    submitted by /u/whydidtheyhireme
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    Is it normal if (as an intern and one year before grad) I’m still not sure whether if I preffer Front or Back End development?

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 06:50 PM PDT

    I am still not sure about what I want to be in the future. What I will specialize on.

    I recently got a "full" stack internship job. I actually touch SQL - C# - JS but I don't touch HTML/CSS because the company I work at uses some framework to create HTML with JavaScript. There is another team in charge of the HTML.

    I'm quite unsure now if I will be able to realize by myself if I want to focus/specialize on Front-End or Back-End since I won't really get to work in Front-End...

    Is this normal? I'm going to graduate as a Systems Engineer in about a year from now.

    We are taught a lot of things but not much UX nor graphic design, however Im somewhat interested in those topics too. As much as Back End (My first language I actually understood is Java)

    Thank you very much for your advice

    submitted by /u/Manucarba
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    New grad salary negotiation

    Posted: 09 Apr 2019 06:41 PM PDT

    I received an offer as a new grad and was wondering how to start salary negotiation. I have heard to ask for 3% more, but am not sure exactly how to bring it up. Should I just say something like "as far as salary, I feel like I will be able to contribute fast because of my relevant internship experience and personal involvement. Would you be able to increase the yearly salary by x amount? " not sure as this is new ground for me and I didn't negotiate during my internship.

    submitted by /u/undeadbobblehead
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