Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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necrobobsledder: Mar 21, 2005; Lay down your soul to the gods rock 'n roll; Nap Ghost

shrike82 posted:

Seriously, I'm just having a hard time even imagining a coding job which doesn't require some level of knowledge of algorithms or data structures. What would software they write even look like?

Middleware development, sometimes security analysis (like hell a fuzzer is that big of a deal until you get into optimal fuzzing strategies), ETL stuff, and systems integration. There is an incredible amount of software out there that requires basically minimal understanding of the most mundane data structures.

# ? Mar 20, 2012 03:13

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# ? May 22, 2024 14:32

Strong Sauce: Jul 2, 2003; You know I am not really your father.

ETL seems pretty important to understanding data structures / algorithms. You're going to be doing a lot of parallelization for large data sets and if there's any cleaning of data and figuring out what data is important I would assume the techniques you are applying I would classify as algorithms.

If you're just doing Class.extract, Class.transform and Class.load... then I guess you don't have to know any algorithms.

# ? Mar 20, 2012 05:46

NovemberMike: Dec 28, 2008

Strong Sauce posted:

ETL seems pretty important to understanding data structures / algorithms. You're going to be doing a lot of parallelization for large data sets and if there's any cleaning of data and figuring out what data is important I would assume the techniques you are applying I would classify as algorithms.

If you're just doing Class.extract, Class.transform and Class.load... then I guess you don't have to know any algorithms.

Pretty much anything in computer science ends up as an algorithm before it goes into the computer. A lot of programmers can get by without a huge emphasis on it, though.

# ? Mar 20, 2012 06:15

qntm: Jun 17, 2009

shrughes posted:

pigdog, I'm wondering what you ask when you interview developers.

What, and judge me by my code??? Well, only some code I've written years ago is online, and it's at http://samuelhughes.com . (That's not necessarily my real name, by the way, I registered it so that qntm couldn't have it.)

That's also not necessarily my real name, by the way. :v:

# ? Mar 21, 2012 12:59

shrike82: Jun 11, 2005

necrobobsledder posted:

ETL stuff

Eh, ETL "stuff" relies heavily on algorithms. Just off the top of my head, when matching for duplicate data during the transform phase, you use stuff like Hamming distance, bigram frequency etc.

Even if you're not writing custom implementations of them, commercial ETL products like Informatica offer them. How would you be able to make a judgment about when/how to use them if you weren't familiar to some level with the underlying algorithms.

# ? Mar 21, 2012 13:17

pigdog: Apr 23, 2004; by Smythe

In short, what the previous couple of pages illustrate is that depending on their domain and background, people put different value on different aspects of a development.

In everyday work it's worth keeping in mind that a developer may feel pride about some algorithm he tackled or bug he fixed, or judge something by very technical criteria, but whoever pays his salary may have quite a different set of metrics.

It's just the peculiar fact of life that in a job interview, we're very much inclined to match this someone else's, unknown criteria of a "good" employee.

# ? Mar 21, 2012 14:36

etcetera08: Sep 11, 2008

pigdog posted:

It's just the peculiar fact of life that in a job interview, we're very much inclined to match this someone else's, unknown criteria of a "good" employee.

How is that peculiar? The point of an interview is for the employer to find people that they think will be good employees. In order to get a job you want to show employers that you'd fill that role. I am struggling to see how that's weird . . . ?

# ? Mar 21, 2012 17:15

Opulent Ceremony: Feb 22, 2012

shrughes posted:

... a case of folding an associative operation over a list in which the size of partial outputs equals the sum of the sizes of the inputs, which generally turns the O(n^2) left-to-right algorithm to O(n log n). (For example, concatenating a list of small strings, using only a linear-time string + operator, can be done in O(n log n) time.)

This was from a little while back but I'm not fully understanding how to apply the optimization you are describing to your example. Would you mind expanding on this or pointing me to a resource to help me make the connection?

# ? Mar 21, 2012 22:13

shrughes: Oct 11, 2008; (call/cc call/cc)

Opulent Ceremony posted:

This was from a little while back but I'm not fully understanding how to apply the optimization you are describing to your example. Would you mind expanding on this or pointing me to a resource to help me make the connection?

Say you have a list of N elements, all of them small strings, say, five-character strings, and you write this loop:

code:

def concatList(list):
    s = ""
    for element in list:
        s = s + element
    return s

This will take O(N^2) time, because the expression (s + element) takes O(len(s) + len(element)) time where element is of bounded length, and increases the length of s by a fixed amount. Similarly, computing 3 times a number x takes O(length of x) time, where length of x = log base 2 of x, and produces a number that's slightly longer, by a fixed amount.

Now suppose we write this function:

code:

def concatList(list):
    if len(list) == 1:
        return list[0]
    else:
        return concatList(list[0:len(list) / 2]) + concatList(list[len(list) / 2 : len(list)])

This will take O(N log N) time. We can compute that fact because the recursion depth will be approximately log_2(N), and at each level we copy all the characters of all the strings of the list exactly once.

The reason these functions produce the same output is because

(((x + y) + z) + t) = (x + y) + (z + t), that is, because string concatenation is associative.

e: Of course, you can do string concatenation of a list of strings in linear time, if you just use an appropriate data structure, like a StringBuilder or a C++ vector or most C++ string implementations, or some type in another language that supports operations for adding to the end of them. I don't know how Python's += operator works in this case, maybe it's fine too. You can't use that data structure for multiplying by 3, though.

shrughes fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Mar 21, 2012

# ? Mar 21, 2012 22:33

Opulent Ceremony: Feb 22, 2012

That explanation made it perfectly clear. Thank you very much!

# ? Mar 21, 2012 23:48

etcetera08: Sep 11, 2008

shrughes posted:

This post is great, thanks. Lines up nicely with the early Stanford Algo-class lectures.

# ? Mar 22, 2012 05:39

blorpy: Jan 5, 2005

shrughes posted:

You put the word "dumb" in the wrong place.

That's a question because the large dumb numbers are going to confuse people.

# ? Mar 22, 2012 06:05

Pie Colony: Dec 8, 2006; I AM SUCH A FUCKUP THAT I CAN'T EVEN POST IN AN E/N THREAD I STARTED

I'm a senior in school, and a company said they would like to have me start part-time until I graduate, on an hourly wage. How much should I ask for?

- I live in NYC. Average salary for entry level jobs is probably around 55k-60k, give or take 5k for individual experience/intelligence

- I'd be doing JavaScript and Python, maybe C# down the road

- The company is a consulting one, though they've been working on the same projects for quite some time

- I'd be working from home

Pie Colony fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Mar 23, 2012

# ? Mar 23, 2012 16:04

New Yorp New Yorp: Jul 18, 2003; Only in Kenya.; Pillbug

Pie Colony posted:

I'm a senior in school, and a company said they would like to have me start part-time until I graduate, on an hourly wage. How much should I ask for?

- I live in NYC. Average salary for entry level jobs is probably around 55k-60k, give or take 5k for individual experience/intelligence

- I'd be doing JavaScript and Python, maybe C# down the road

- The company is a consulting one, though they've been working on the same projects for quite some time

- I'd be working from home

The "how much should I ask for" question is always hard to answer. If they want you to work part time until you graduate at which time they're going to hire you full-time, make sure that's part of the contract, and just ask for a normal starting salary, converted to hourly wages for the time being. So, around $28/hr (60,000 / (40*52))

I assume you're not getting health insurance while you work part time?

# ? Mar 23, 2012 17:28

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Pie Colony posted:

I'm a senior in school, and a company said they would like to have me start part-time until I graduate, on an hourly wage. How much should I ask for?

- I live in NYC. Average salary for entry level jobs is probably around 55k-60k, give or take 5k for individual experience/intelligence

- I'd be doing JavaScript and Python, maybe C# down the road

- The company is a consulting one, though they've been working on the same projects for quite some time

- I'd be working from home

I basically agree with Ithaqua, but I'll add that I'd still look for other jobs during your part-time employment. Otherwise when it comes time to negotiate your full-time salary, you don't have any leverage (not to mention you may find a place that pays more/is way more awesome).

# ? Mar 23, 2012 19:40

shrughes: Oct 11, 2008; (call/cc call/cc)

Pie Colony posted:

- I live in NYC. Average salary for entry level jobs is probably around 55k-60k, give or take 5k for individual experience/intelligence

???

In NYC?

e: As far as I knew, it was much higher than that. And that's not in the financial sector. So maybe you can take 5k but you can give more like 50k.

shrughes fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Mar 23, 2012

# ? Mar 23, 2012 19:43

New Yorp New Yorp: Jul 18, 2003; Only in Kenya.; Pillbug

shrughes posted:

???

In NYC?

e: As far as I knew, it was much higher than that. And that's not in the financial sector. So maybe you can take 5k but you can give more like 50k.

Salary.com for zip code 10001 is showing 63k starting.

# ? Mar 23, 2012 19:49

Pie Colony: Dec 8, 2006; I AM SUCH A FUCKUP THAT I CAN'T EVEN POST IN AN E/N THREAD I STARTED

shrughes posted:

???

In NYC?

e: As far as I knew, it was much higher than that. And that's not in the financial sector. So maybe you can take 5k but you can give more like 50k.

I mean, there are certainly places that pay a lot more (Google), but I haven't seen more than 60-65k (I've been looking at a lot of start ups though, I guess with varying levels of funding). Last year's salaries seemed to be a bit higher (65k-70k), so I don't know if I'm just looking at the wrong places or getting unlucky or what.

Although yeah, after about 2-3 years it goes up to a solid 80-95k, and there are PHP devs that make 120k+

# ? Mar 23, 2012 19:50

Sab669: Sep 24, 2009

So, I responded to kind of a shady sounding job posting on Craigslist.

Had that "interview" toady. It was more like, he responded to me and n other people and had us come in to his office, show us what he wants done and ask us if it's something we can do.

It was highest level of a business guy trying to talk to IT guys and not knowing whats what I've ever heard of. Pretty unprofessional feeling.

Frankly, it sounded really lovely and I didn't like the guy.. but I'm still a student. I graduate in September. So if I could jump on this project for some quick experience and money do you guys think it's a good idea? I can't really see any sort of ramifications of it.

# ? Mar 23, 2012 21:18

Strong Sauce: Jul 2, 2003; You know I am not really your father.

Sab669 posted:

So, I responded to kind of a shady sounding job posting on Craigslist.

Had that "interview" toady. It was more like, he responded to me and n other people and had us come in to his office, show us what he wants done and ask us if it's something we can do.

It was highest level of a business guy trying to talk to IT guys and not knowing whats what I've ever heard of. Pretty unprofessional feeling.

Frankly, it sounded really lovely and I didn't like the guy.. but I'm still a student. I graduate in September. So if I could jump on this project for some quick experience and money do you guys think it's a good idea? I can't really see any sort of ramifications of it.

Abort. If you don't like the guy and you don't even work for him, imagine working for him.

# ? Mar 23, 2012 21:48

Knyteguy: Jul 6, 2005; YES to love
NO to shirts; Toilet Rascal

Hey Goons,

Once again I need to solicit your input. I have created a new resume with the help of DustingDuvet, and would like some insider knowledge on whether I can score a position in the field. If not, what else should I be learning?

quote:

Portfolio:
http://d3spreadsheet.net/
http://www.pluswebhost.com/
http://www.pluswebhost.com/calc/calc.html
http://www.sierramoonartwork.com/
http://www.pluswebhost.com/~loidasfl/
http://www.pluswebhost.com/~loidasfl/saladmasterinreno.com

Resume:
http://imgur.com/DnJpg

Code Sample:
http://pastebin.com/FxMETuqH

Thanks again to anyone who can give some input.

P.S.: I'm attaching the code sample as codesample.php and the resume in PDF form

# ? Mar 23, 2012 22:28

New Yorp New Yorp: Jul 18, 2003; Only in Kenya.; Pillbug

Knyteguy posted:

Hey Goons,

Once again I need to solicit your input. I have created a new resume with the help of DustingDuvet, and would like some insider knowledge on whether I can score a position in the field. If not, what else should I be learning?

Thanks again to anyone who can give some input.

P.S.: I'm attaching the code sample as codesample.php and the resume in PDF form

"Entry level algorithm design"? What's an entry level algorithm?

Also, why do you have "Visual Studio" as a programming skill? And GUI design?
PHP and MySQL are two separate skills.

Also, you have typos. Like the word "processer".

# ? Mar 23, 2012 23:12

Knyteguy: Jul 6, 2005; YES to love
NO to shirts; Toilet Rascal

Ithaqua posted:

"Entry level algorithm design"? What's an entry level algorithm?

Also, why do you have "Visual Studio" as a programming skill? And GUI design?
PHP and MySQL are two separate skills.

Also, you have typos. Like the word "processer".

Wow. Can't believe I spelled it wrong, and Word missed it :psyduck:

.

- Changed Visual Studio to Windows Forms
- Changed Algorithm Design to MySQL
- Removed MySQL from PHP / MySQL
- Removed GUI Design

I've come to the conclusion that good resumes are tough to make.

Thanks Ithaqua (and again DustingDuvet)

# ? Mar 23, 2012 23:22

pigdog: Apr 23, 2004; by Smythe

Knyteguy posted:

Hey Goons,

Once again I need to solicit your input. I have created a new resume with the help of DustingDuvet, and would like some insider knowledge on whether I can score a position in the field. If not, what else should I be learning?

Thanks again to anyone who can give some input.

P.S.: I'm attaching the code sample as codesample.php and the resume in PDF form

I think your sites look pretty good. It does look like you know your way around web design and PHP.

Commenting from a user perspective, perhaps try to use less combinations of font and font size on d3spreadsheet.com. When hovering over an item, I could count some 9 or 10 different fonts/font sizes on the screen in cells, headers etc depending on the context, while it would look more professional and comfortable bringing that number down to 4-6.

Looking at the code sample, I can immediately notice the copy-pasting within the SQL. I'm sure it works, which is the most important thing, but for good reasons it would look more professional if you'd find a way to assemble the same SQL string in code without copy-pasting. You should always strive not to copy-paste and write the same thing twice (or maybe twice, but certainly not thrice), as every time you'd need to change that functionality, you'd need to change it in several places. The bigger the codebase, the easier it is to miss some of them and introduce bugs. So even in this case, given that it's the one code sample people will judge your code by, try to remove the copy-paste from within the SQL.

# ? Mar 24, 2012 07:25

astr0man: Feb 21, 2007; hollyeo deuroga

I interviewed yesterday for a non-entry level sw engineer position Chicago. The job is low-level C development, and they do a lot of binary data processing. I did fine with all of their coding questions, but actually laughed at the first one: "Do you know what a bitwise operator is?" I don't understand how someone who is interested in this kind of work and has at least 2 years of C experience wouldn't know what a bitwise operator is.

Anyways, I wore a suit but took off the jacket and tie when I saw that everyone in the office was wearing shorts and jeans. That does seem like the best way to go unless you are explicity told "you can wear x for this interview."

edit: vvv that works too.

astr0man fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Mar 24, 2012

# ? Mar 24, 2012 16:29

tk: Dec 10, 2003; Nap Ghost

astr0man posted:

That does seem like the best way to go unless you are explicity told "you can wear x for this interview."

You can always ask.

# ? Mar 24, 2012 16:54

csammis: Aug 26, 2003; Mental Institution

Knyteguy posted:

- Changed Algorithm Design to MySQL

These aren't interchangable - did you originally mean MySQL when you wrote "entry-level algorithm design"? That'd be misleading as all hell and would _hopefully get called out by an interviewer.

# ? Mar 24, 2012 17:12

blorpy: Jan 5, 2005

astr0man posted:

I interviewed yesterday for a non-entry level sw engineer position Chicago. The job is low-level C development, and they do a lot of binary data processing. I did fine with all of their coding questions, but actually laughed at the first one: "Do you know what a bitwise operator is?" I don't understand how someone who is interested in this kind of work and has at least 2 years of C experience wouldn't know what a bitwise operator is.

Anyways, I wore a suit but took off the jacket and tie when I saw that everyone in the office was wearing shorts and jeans. That does seem like the best way to go unless you are explicity told "you can wear x for this interview."

edit: vvv that works too.

What if one of your interviewers had seen you in the suit on your way in, though?

# ? Mar 25, 2012 02:58

astr0man: Feb 21, 2007; hollyeo deuroga

Markov Chain Chomp posted:

What if one of your interviewers had seen you in the suit on your way in, though?

Then I would have just explained my thought process?

# ? Mar 25, 2012 03:01

SeXTcube: Jan 1, 2009

astr0man posted:

Then I would have just explained my thought process?

Choice of interview attire is second only to preferred text editor in judging the worth of a programmer.

# ? Mar 25, 2012 04:17

Knyteguy: Jul 6, 2005; YES to love
NO to shirts; Toilet Rascal

pigdog posted:

I think your sites look pretty good. It does look like you know your way around web design and PHP.

Commenting from a user perspective, perhaps try to use less combinations of font and font size on d3spreadsheet.com. When hovering over an item, I could count some 9 or 10 different fonts/font sizes on the screen in cells, headers etc depending on the context, while it would look more professional and comfortable bringing that number down to 4-6.

Looking at the code sample, I can immediately notice the copy-pasting within the SQL. I'm sure it works, which is the most important thing, but for good reasons it would look more professional if you'd find a way to assemble the same SQL string in code without copy-pasting. You should always strive not to copy-paste and write the same thing twice (or maybe twice, but certainly not thrice), as every time you'd need to change that functionality, you'd need to change it in several places. The bigger the codebase, the easier it is to miss some of them and introduce bugs. So even in this case, given that it's the one code sample people will judge your code by, try to remove the copy-paste from within the SQL.

Thanks I've made some changes per your input. It stills needs some work but it is an improvement

I really appreciate your help.

Re: The SQL too, I'll see what I can do to make it look more professional.

csammis posted:

These aren't interchangable - did you originally mean MySQL when you wrote "entry-level algorithm design"? That'd be misleading as all hell and would _hopefully get called out by an interviewer.

I'm far more comfortable with SQL than algorithm design, so I removed algorithm design from my resume, and rearranged my resume a tiny bit. Maybe I'm missing something here but that doesn't seem like a big deal at all.

Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Mar 25, 2012

# ? Mar 25, 2012 04:26

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

I have my first ever software engineering interview and it's tomorrow. It's at a company that makes console and PC games. But most of my work lately has been web stuff, Java, and mobile. Never done anything with DirectX. Anything I should look over while I review data structures and whatnot?

Juul-Whip fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Mar 26, 2012

# ? Mar 26, 2012 21:14

baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

THC posted:

I have my first ever software engineering interview and it's tomorrow. It's at a company that makes console and PC games. But most of my work lately has been web stuff, Java, and mobile. Never done anything with DirectX. Anything I should look over while I review data structures and whatnot?

Most game programming isn't direct graphical engine work. There's plenty of UI design, middleware, tool design, automated tests, etc. to do using frameworks that have abstracted the underlying graphics libraries away. That said, if you're going for a graphical engine designer position you are hosed as you have no experience and it's a very technical and math intensive field.

# ? Mar 26, 2012 22:03

Juul-Whip: Mar 10, 2008

Yeah that was actually fairly easy. I didn't need to study data structures at all and probably should have brushed up on basic C++ syntax instead; most of the questions I screwed up were due to not having used C++ in a while and just forgetting the syntax. Anyway, I hope I get it, trying not to have an anxiety attack

# ? Mar 27, 2012 23:33

ancient lobster: Mar 5, 2008

What's a reasonable amount of time to ask for in order to consider an offer?

Alternately, how do you juggle multiple interview processes taking place in roughly the same timeframe?

(FYI, in NYC, where things seem to be moving pretty quickly)

# ? Mar 28, 2012 01:36

Knyteguy: Jul 6, 2005; YES to love
NO to shirts; Toilet Rascal

Would like to thank the Goons in this thread for the resume help. With the help of you guys and DustingDuvet, I've gotten 3 callbacks, and gotten past 1 phone interview which goes to an in person interview Thursday.

# ? Mar 28, 2012 03:04

Sab669: Sep 24, 2009

ancient lobster posted:

What's a reasonable amount of time to ask for in order to consider an offer?

As a student who hasn't been in that position, I would think a few days would be sufficient? Unless it's a job requiring you to move large distances.

And grats to guy above^. I had an internship interview Monday that I'll hear back from this Friday, pretty amped about that because there's a chance to go full time when I graduate if they like me, and I mean, why wouldn't they? :smug:

# ? Mar 28, 2012 17:32

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

Sab669 posted:

As a student who hasn't been in that position, I would think a few days would be sufficient? Unless it's a job requiring you to move large distances.

Companies are generally pretty tolerant of asking for a few weeks. They typically understand that you need to do due diligence with other offers you may be considering. An 'exploding offer' is generally a suspicious thing. While I am often critical of him and I don't agree with everything he says here, I think Joel Spolsky gives a very good primer of this sort of thing here.

# ? Mar 28, 2012 17:55

Master_Odin: Apr 15, 2010; My spear never misses its mark...

ladies

What's the appropriate time to follow up on an internship? I got a response of:

quote:

Currently I am awaiting decisions from the outstanding offers and as soon as I hear back from them I will be able to communicate your final decision to you.

Please keep me updated if you have other offers pending. I will be sure to touch base once I am able to relay a final decision.

I'm really interested in the position (and it's been a bit over 2 weeks since that e-mail). Should I send an e-mail to see what's my status in the process and if so, what exactly am I sending beyond perhaps something like:

quote:

It has been a bit over 2 weeks since your last communication for the <POSITION>. At the time, you mentioned that you were waiting on outstanding offers before you could communicate a final decision to me. I'm unsure if that's still ongoing and if I'm still under consideration for the program. If I'm still under consideration, allow me to once again express my interest in the internship for <COMPANY>.

Would hate to hurt my chances, but as a student trying to get his first internship, I'm unsure of the exactly protocol/process.

# ? Mar 28, 2012 19:00

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# ? May 22, 2024 14:32

New Yorp New Yorp: Jul 18, 2003; Only in Kenya.; Pillbug

Master_Odin posted:

What's the appropriate time to follow up on an internship? I got a response of:

I'm really interested in the position (and it's been a bit over 2 weeks since that e-mail). Should I send an e-mail to see what's my status in the process and if so, what exactly am I sending beyond perhaps something like:

Would hate to hurt my chances, but as a student trying to get his first internship, I'm unsure of the exactly protocol/process.

That means "someone else accepted, you didn't get the job". If a company wants you, they'll let you know.

# ? Mar 28, 2012 19:13

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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