|
Strong Sauce posted:SFO is the airport FYI. Don't say you want to work in SFO when you talk to people there. They will give you funny looks. My 15 year mortgage on a 2500 sq ft place in a Seattle Suburb roughly 'San Mateo' distant from my downtown job is under $2500/mo. EDIT I'm also not sure what the amazement is with 9-7 daily. 10-7 is 8 hours + an hour for lunch. Is 45 hour weeks really inconceivable? Hughlander fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Jun 4, 2013 |
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 01:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 15:54 |
|
|
^^^ 10-7 is pretty exactly my work schedule, its not that nuts at all. DreadCthulhu posted:I did and I had to get rid of them to make space for this. It was pretty painful at first, but I always hated being worse than average at a dozen different things and with the years I learned to appreciate the importance of focus. I lift 3 times a week and do HIIT on non-lift days. I watch some Netflix while I'm eating. Have half a day with the wife once a week. That's about it that's not work-related, even though I stopped thinking of it as "work". I got a job with a top 5 tech co out of college, left to found my own start-up, went through Y-Combinator, and sold my company to another top 5 tech co where I have worked since. I have never had to sacrifice my non-work life to that degree to be successful in this industry. I mean seriously you spend half a day total per week with the woman you married? Its completely cool if you WANT to live like that, I know some weeks I enjoy spend all my free time working on fun side projects, but please do not tell people in this thread thats its required to be a quality software engineer because its definitely not.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 03:11
|
|
|
pr0zac posted:I got a job with a top 5 tech co out of college, left to found my own start-up, went through Y-Combinator, and sold my company to another top 5 tech co where I have worked since. I have never had to sacrifice my non-work life to that degree to be successful in this industry. I mean seriously you spend half a day total per week with the woman you married? Its completely cool if you WANT to live like that, I know some weeks I enjoy spend all my free time working on fun side projects, but please do not tell people in this thread thats its required to be a quality software engineer because its definitely not. I agree that it's an exaggeration and incorrect to say that it's "required". What I really meant is that it's likely what you need to do to be at the very top of your field one day. I think that's the case of any profession, be it music, surgery or being a 3-star Michelin chef or what not. Maybe some people can get there much more easily, but I can honestly say I was never gifted at anything, so I probably have to put in more time than most. Also, the few funded YC-founders I know all work at least as much as I do, and also spend as much time as I do with their SOs, but your sample is likely much wider than mine, so I'll defer that to your experience.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 03:24
|
|
|
DreadCthulhu posted:I agree that it's an exaggeration and incorrect to say that it's "required". What I really meant is that it's likely what you need to do to be at the very top of your field one day. I think that's the case of any profession, be it music, surgery or being a 3-star Michelin chef or what not. Maybe some people can get there much more easily, but I can honestly say I was never gifted at anything, so I probably have to put in more time than most. I am an early employee at a funded YC company, and have many friends who were also early employees at successful YC companies (e.g. Dropbox) and none of my coworkers or said friends spend or spent anywhere close to 4-5 hours a day on poo poo outside of work, founders included, at least not on any sort of consistent basis. If your argument is that if you want to be the next Elon Musk or Zuckerberg or even Drew Houston, you need to do that, I think you'd probably find that people that end up like that did not do it by convincing themselves to sacrifice their personal lives entirely for the sake of their career; certainly not all of them or even a majority.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 03:32
|
|
|
I agree with the top of the field thing, I will never be an Elon Musk, I just didn't want any newbies in here to think programming required total sacrifice. Its completely possible to have a balanced life and be good at writing code.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 03:42
|
|
|
I'm doing 10-7 schedule as well. I was never told by my company what hours I need to work specifically but we do a standup scrum meeting daily at 10am so I show up slightly before those. I generally see my coworkers doing about 45 hours per week including an hour of lunch, anywhere between 7am and 7pm. Edit: This is in Arizona. Stoph fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Jun 4, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 03:48
|
|
|
Yeah, I mistakenly assumed he wasn't having lunch. During my internship, I never really had lunch. I just took a few minutes to have an apple or three at my desk, while working, about halfway through the day. I just imagined going ten hours like that instead of eight.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 04:31
|
|
|
Just out of curiosity what do you guys think of something like this job offer in Western North Carolina http://asheville.craigslist.org/eng/3836203846.html ? I'm still in school for a couple of semester so I don't really know what to expect for the area compensation wise but with some of the numbers being thrown around here and the job listing 6+ years experience with that stuff and 3+ years as a lead 65-75k seems kind of lovely, even for the area. It's also the higher end of offers I see in the area, there was an offer for a vaguely similar web development position that wanted senior level experience (5-7+ years) and familiarity with about a dozen different languages/packages with the offer being 45k. Is the area just poo poo for compensation or am I overestimating what I can expect? I'm mostly familiar with c/c++ java and a smattering of html/php/sql stuff so I don't know how relevant most of the job offers I see like that are to me anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 09:02
|
|
|
I don't know anything about that area but I can imagine that the cost of living in Asheville, NC is not comparable to San Francisco. That being said, 70k for 6+ years of experience is really terrible, and you should look into relocating somewhere else if you want to get paid a reasonable amount of money.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 13:53
|
|
|
It's not bad for the area. You'd be in the middle of bumfuck nowhere though. (Which is why it's not bad for the area.)
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 14:24
|
|
|
astr0man posted:I don't know anything about that area but I can imagine that the cost of living in Asheville, NC is not comparable to San Francisco. That being said, 70k for 6+ years of experience is really terrible, and you should look into relocating somewhere else if you want to get paid a reasonable amount of money.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 14:56
|
|
|
pr0zac posted:I agree with the top of the field thing, I will never be an Elon Musk, I just didn't want any newbies in here to think programming required total sacrifice. Its completely possible to have a balanced life and be good at writing code. Especially when you throw working from home into the mix. Having 2-4 days at-work and 1-3 at home can make even 90 minute commutes bearable. Or, what I do with a 20 minute commute is work 9-3 and then go home and log in.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 17:08
|
|
|
Aziz Ansari said while there may be racism in NC, the biscuits are too drat good. Confirm/deny? 70K seems low even for a place with a low COL. I mean there can't be that many qualified candidates who only want to make that much after 6 years?
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 18:26
|
|
|
Strong Sauce posted:Aziz Ansari said while there may be racism in NC, the biscuits are too drat good. Confirm/deny? You may not understand just how different the COL can be. Think about a 4 bed, 3 bath, 3000 square foot house with a 2 car garage and a nice yard for $250k, the most expensive restaurants running $30/plate (albeit with representative quality), bars serving $2 domestics and $4 mixed drinks all week long, and people thinking a 20 minute commute is pretty bad. That's the Midwest in most towns of 10-40k people.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 18:45
|
|
|
baquerd posted:You may not understand just how different the COL can be. Think about a 4 bed, 3 bath, 3000 square foot house with a 2 car garage and a nice yard for $250k, the most expensive restaurants running $30/plate (albeit with representative quality), bars serving $2 domestics and $4 mixed drinks all week long, and people thinking a 20 minute commute is pretty bad. That's the Midwest in most towns of 10-40k people. edit: I just checked and Zillow and I guess it's a trick question because such houses don't actually exist; everything that fits those parameters as a detached single-family home is pretty far away from Manhattan (and even those are generally far over a million). Cicero fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jun 4, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 19:15
|
|
|
baquerd posted:You may not understand just how different the COL can be. Think about a 4 bed, 3 bath, 3000 square foot house with a 2 car garage and a nice yard for $250k, the most expensive restaurants running $30/plate (albeit with representative quality), bars serving $2 domestics and $4 mixed drinks all week long, and people thinking a 20 minute commute is pretty bad. That's the Midwest in most towns of 10-40k people. NC is a weird state. There's a pretty high state income tax and generally speaking wages are depressed. But the cost of living is similarly depressed in comparison to what you'd find in comparable places in the rest of US. Surprisingly, what you've described here is about what you'd find in metro NC. Franklin is going to be cheaper. Think, not even covered on Redfin. Here: http://www.zip-codes.com/city/nc-franklin.asp (Notice the median HH salary: $38,475.00) http://www.zillow.com/homes/recentl...3486_rect/9_zm/ When I said bumfuck nowhere, I meant bumfuck nowhere. I'd be extremely surprised if you got a ~90k salary in Franklin. It's important to remember that anyone stationed out there is not going to be looking for the kind of quality or skill as elsewhere. edit If you want to do tech in NC, RTP pays decently. If you can do financial programming work, Charlotte would be probably good too. Rurutia fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jun 4, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 19:28
|
|
|
2banks1swap.avi posted:I've got an interview tomorrow that seems like it might give me that big first full-time opportunity, and I'm excited as hell. It's VB.NET (I'm a C# guy right now) so I'm pretty happy; I'm going to be using different syntax but who cares, same language. They like my code samples and such. So you're an independent contractor? Lots of employers abuse the 1099/contractor relationship and try to dictate when, where, and how you work. It's not allowed and they can get in big trouble. From the IRS website: quote:The general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 20:06
|
|
|
Not sure if I should post this here, or the General Programming thread... I suppose this question's answer will vary from company to company, but how often do you guys find yourselves doing more-or-less the same poo poo day in and day out? My company has a main product that we make customizations to on a per-customer basis, but a lot of the mods are very similar at each company except they all do things slightly the differently. Finding myself more and more bored each week while hoping for a new job  Right now I've got 2 options on my plate, should they both extend an offer. One is an extremely large company where I'd be working on a small team developing software aimed towards education tours to other countries (ie. class trips in high school to Europe). Primarily doing C# it sounds like, could get to travel infrequently for the job and discounted rates to fly on my own time. The other is a bit of a smaller company, aimed at the healthcare industry. The job sounds both laid back but really focused at the same time. The guy I interviewed said a lot of days devs are encouraged to just spend an hour or so reading up on recent developments in the industry, Friday's are frequently "half days" with people drinking beers in the office and just chit chatting a lot. That said, the recruiter made it sound like overtime could be frequent ("Not looking for someone who just wants to clock in and clock out, someone 'passionate'" were her words). I think they only have 3 devs right now, looking to expand up to 15 over the next year or so. Also mostly C#, could potentially do iOS and Android development, and they're considering looking into using the new XBone's Kinect potentially-- could be cool. I really have no idea which sounds better. I guess it would boil down to compensation from either company. Both in Boston, so I'd be moving from Providence. PS; gently caress driving in Boston that's not an intersection gently caress you Sab669 fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Jun 4, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 20:20
|
|
|
Some newbies in this thread may be interested in this startup-focused class on coursera that starts in a couple weeks. Looks like a broad but shallow introduction to lots of (web-based) startup technical subjects.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 20:45
|
|
|
kitten smoothie posted:Interview questions Cicero posted:Interview Advice Just got my offer letter, wanted to say thanks to both of you for the help.
|
|
#
?
Jun 4, 2013 20:47
|
|
|
Have any of you goons gone through a Microsoft interview process in the last couple of years? They found my profile on StackOverflow and contacted me about some jobs, and I'm genuinely interested after 7 years of working at a small, disorganized travel company with only 4 devs. I have a technical phone screening tomorrow, (the one before an irl interview) and was wondering what to expect. From my readings online, they've changed their interview process significantly, but I can't find any detailed personal accounts of it. All I know is that it's supposed to be less torturous.
|
|
#
?
Jun 5, 2013 23:26
|
|
|
When I went through it a couple years ago it seemed pretty straightforward. You interview with like 5 people (I think it can be between 3 and 5, they stop it early if you're either amazingly good or amazingly terrible), they give you normal dev questions that you have to answer. That was for in-person interviews though, I don't think I did a phone interview. The example question in the OP was taken from a Microsoft interview I had.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 00:13
|
|
|
I went through the Microsoft interview process a little over three years ago now. To my knowledge the overall structure hasn't changed much since then, but it's a big company, so YMMV. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. Unfortunately I don't remember what my phone screen was about, so I can't help you there. On the plus side it was apparently uneventful enough that I don't remember it, so it couldn't have been that bad.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 00:43
|
|
|
Or you can do what a team at my company did and get your product purchased by Microsoft. Then you get to go work for them without an interview process. This literally just happened on Monday. I am not on that team.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 00:47
|
|
|
Ithaqua posted:Or you can do what a team at my company did and get your product purchased by Microsoft. Then you get to go work for them without an interview process. This literally just happened on Monday. I am not on that team.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:20
|
|
|
Microsoft is hard recruiting right now, even for their satellite campuses. VV That is literally the exact opposite of what I've heard.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:31
|
|
|
It dragged on a bit long, but otherwise I enjoyed interviewing at Microsoft three years. The phone screen was fairly hard technical questions, but the actual in-person interviews were mostly just casual conversations about programming with smart people.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 02:32
|
|
|
Not sure if this should go in here, but here goes: I'm five months into my first IT job and someone tried to poach me today. I was wondering what, if anything, you folks with more experience would do about it. Backstory: I have a degree in software systems engineering. Last year in the fall, after some half-hearted job searching, I was working in a non-IT job when an old friend from high school messaged me on Facebook wondering if I wanted a job at a software outfit. The company was small and seemed a little old fashioned but the guys seemed all right to work for, and considering my career at the time was going nowhere, I jumped at the chance and maybe undersold myself on my starting salary. I say that because I made the mistake of giving them a number, 55k, and both my interviewers quickly agreed that it was very reasonable and that is exactly what they offered me. I started in January working with a more senior member on a new application, but eventually I transitioned to working on an existing system. The existing system had been built by a different software company, and there were still two guys from that company there maintaining it. The client wanted my company to eventually take over the maintenance and new development on it, with me being the point man and my coworker in support while he developed the new application. One of the other company's guys left early on, leaving three of us: myself, my coworker, and the last dude from the other company, Jim. Jim was supposed to work together with us and show us the ropes in the system he had helped develop, which was very complex. Every office employee uses it daily and it has tons of business logic built using the CSLA framework, which I had no experience in. I'm not sure exactly what his problem was, but Jim was extremely surly with myself and the other coworker initially, stonewalling my coworker when he was trying to integrate his app into the existing system and tattling on me to the client's COO when I was fumbling around at the start. He was just a weird dickhead in general. Example: once a week, he would go on a coffee run and ask everyone in the office what they wanted... except for me and my coworker. Jim started warming up, and to me especially, as I became more adept in the system and made a couple of changes that impressed him. He became much more helpful and we began having casual conversations outside the scope of work. We have become almost friendly with one another, and I might even say I liked him if I didn't remember how he had acted at the start. Jim's time with the client comes to an end next week, and today he asked me if I wanted to have an after work beer and I said yes. There, he told me he was impressed with the progress I was making and asked me to consider quitting with my current company and joining his, with the main incentive being more cash ("whatever you're being paid now, I'm sure we can beat it.") I told him I would think about it and that I definitely wouldn't quit for at least a couple of months because the client's busy season is just starting, and quitting now would probably royally piss off both the client and the company I currently work for. I'm also guessing that Jim would get a bounty for recruiting me. I'm not really considering quitting anyway. As far as my current job is concerned, I certainly don't mind getting up every day and going to work, I have no complaints about my company or the client so far, and I have the added perk that I live a block a way from the client's office so my commute is two minutes by foot. I'm annoyed that I lowballed myself in salary negotiations, but that's my fault. I guess my question is what should I do with this information? I've never been in this spot before. Once Jim is gone, should I mention it to my coworker, who has been with my company for a decade and has the ear of the CEO, in the hopes that he would mention it to the higher ups, in turn allowing me to use it as a bargaining chip come salary review time? Or should I just keep it to myself? Or am I a shitbag for even thinking about this?
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 05:26
|
|
|
Boy Wunder posted:I guess my question is what should I do with this information? I've never been in this spot before. Once Jim is gone, should I mention it to my coworker, who has been with my company for a decade and has the ear of the CEO, in the hopes that he would mention it to the higher ups, in turn allowing me to use it as a bargaining chip come salary review time? Or should I just keep it to myself? Or am I a shitbag for even thinking about this? I'm skeptical of the idea that you'll improve your situation at your current company by telling them about Jim the poacher. By all means tell your management that you've had other offers and that you'd like to stay, but you need to be paid a competitive wage. By all means try to find other offers that you would actually prefer to your current job. But laying out this whole story about a job offer that you don't even really want will probably only make your life more complicated.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 05:41
|
|
|
Boy Wunder posted:I guess my question is what should I do with this information? I've never been in this spot before. Once Jim is gone, should I mention it to my coworker, who has been with my company for a decade and has the ear of the CEO, in the hopes that he would mention it to the higher ups, in turn allowing me to use it as a bargaining chip come salary review time? Or should I just keep it to myself? Or am I a shitbag for even thinking about this? Don't mention it to anyone. It won't help you get a raise down the line, they absolutely do not care that you talked to someone about a job. The only time you should mention another job is when you have an offer letter in hand and you're resigning. Getting a raise depends on a few things: Your competence, company's generosity, and how much they need you. You'll almost never spontaneously get a big raise. Big raises happen when you change jobs. If you want to broach the subject of "gimme more money," be prepared to justify it. "I deserve more money because salary.com says I'm underpaid" is not a valid argument. "I deserve more money because I've accomplished X and Y and Z" is a good start. The subject of salary is touchy for me because I started out making 1/4th of what I do right now due to bad negotiating skills. On the plus side, it taught me to live on a very tight budget and really appreciate being able to afford to eat food that's not ramen. You're definitely not a shitbag, though. So don't worry about that. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Jun 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 05:42
|
|
|
Plorkyeran posted:It dragged on a bit long, but otherwise I enjoyed interviewing at Microsoft three years. The phone screen was fairly hard technical questions, but the actual in-person interviews were mostly just casual conversations about programming with smart people. - How did you become interested in programming? - What programming language have you used the most? - What do you like about [sic] that language? - How would you rate your skill in that language? - (If less than 10) How long will it take you to reach a skill level of 10? Look at those last two questions, and remember what I said before about answering skill estimate questions from recruiters. If you can write a working app on your own from scratch and you tell the recruiter less than 10, chances are good that you just wasted a call.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 06:52
|
|
|
Gazpacho posted:Look at those last two questions, and remember what I said before about answering skill estimate questions from recruiters. If you can write a working app on your own from scratch and you tell the recruiter less than 10, chances are good that you just wasted a call. I do not recommend this. If you tell me you're a 10 in C++, you're going to have to answer some really brutal questions before I believe you. Granted it's probably less harmful to tell a recruiter that you're a 10 than an engineer, but saying that I'm an 8 hasn't stopped me from getting offers.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 08:19
|
|
|
greatZebu posted:I do not recommend this. If you tell me you're a 10 in C++, you're going to have to answer some really brutal questions before I believe you. Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Jun 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 08:40
|
|
|
Gazpacho posted:An engineer who asks candidates to rate themselves on a scale of 10 is an absolutely terrible interviewer because "scale of 10" has no objective meaning and an engineer knows enough to ask questions that do. An engineer who then counts against people for answering higher he thinks they should have is basically playing "What have I got in my pocket?" and is doubly terrible. I can assure you that Microsoft is not interested only in SDEs whose knowledge of Windows approaches Charles Petzold's; however their recruiters do not know who Petzold is nor care, so neither should anyone who gives them an estimate of Windows knowledge. It's very possible that my experience isn't representative and you should just say you're a 10. And I certainly agree that "rate yourself on a scale of 10" is a bad question. But it's very possible to get a good job without claiming to be a 10, I've heard stories from both sides of the table about candidates over-representing their abilities and regretting it soon after, and bullshit you feed to a recruiter because they don't know any better can very easily be passed along to the engineer who interviews you next. Take it for what it's worth, but I was glad I didn't tell my recruiter I was a 10 in Java when the guy who interviewed me (and asked me about it) turned out to be one of the original Sun Java guys.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 09:04
|
|
|
It's really simple, you ask them "What does a 10 mean to you?"
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 13:23
|
|
|
Gazpacho posted:An engineer who asks candidates to rate themselves on a scale of 10 is an absolutely terrible interviewer because "scale of 10" has no objective meaning and an engineer knows enough to ask questions that do. An engineer who then counts against people for answering higher he thinks they should have is basically playing "What have I got in my pocket?" and is doubly terrible. I can assure you that Microsoft is not interested only in SDEs whose knowledge of Windows approaches Charles Petzold's; however their recruiters do not know who Petzold is nor care, so neither should anyone who gives them an estimate of Windows knowledge. Actually, the recruiters at MSFT I've talked to so far have all been engineers, and at least one had a MS in CS. Tech screening call tonight, let Skeet's wisdom shine down on me. 
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 13:33
|
|
|
baquerd posted:It's really simple, you ask them "What does a 10 mean to you?" This, or from the other side of the fence the interviewer asking this question should define the scale as any good engineer would. "10" to me is typically the language creator (if they're still involved in design) or a standards-setter / principle architect kind of person. A "10" in C++ would be a Stroustrup or a Sutter, and if someone responds "I don't know those names but I'm definitely a 10" then I don't know if that person understands what a "scale" is.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 15:17
|
|
|
baquerd posted:It's really simple, you ask them "What does a 10 mean to you?" That's a two 
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 15:42
|
|
|
I feel like some people deliberately leave the "definition of 10" hazy, intending to see if the candidate is the type who asks first to get clarity on an ambiguous situation before taking action.
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 17:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 22, 2024 15:54 |
|
|
Do front-end developers generally get paid more than back-end developers?
|
|
#
?
Jun 6, 2013 18:25
|
|