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Safe and Secure! posted:Going through Coursera's old database class videos, and drat, my school sucked. How is Coursera, anyway? I've never looked too much into them, but it's been three years since I graduated now and no programming job, and I could use something to get me back into shape. It's hard to keep up with online courses while working, though. Is that something I could put on a resume, by any chance? Edly posted:I think this is good advice. When I applied to the company I'm currently at, I was responding to a job posting for a senior dev position, which I wasn't really qualified for. From reading these posts, it seems like cover letters are a bit different for programmers than the cover letters I learned about from people outside of the industry. What kinds of things belong on a cover letter for a programming position? Zero The Hero fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 04:16
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Zero The Hero posted:How is Coursera, anyway? I've never looked too much into them, but it's been three years since I graduated now and no programming job, and I could use something to get me back into shape. It's hard to keep up with online courses while working, though. Is that something I could put on a resume, by any chance? I have a question slightly related to this - how essential is a computer science degree to working as a programmer? Would these kinds of online courses and a solid "portfolio" on Github or whatever be any kind of substitute? I started out as a comp sci student years ago, then changed majors to something totally unrelated and have since come to regret it. I have a steady job (that has nothing to do with programming) and neither the need nor the desire to get a new one at the moment, but in the long term I would love to change careers. While I'm willing, theoretically, to get a comp sci post-bacc or a second degree, I just plain don't have the tens of thousands of dollars that would cost, and the idea of taking on loans to pay for it after having dug myself out of one student debt hole already is pretty unappealing.
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Jul 12, 2013 12:41
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Third Murderer posted:I have a question slightly related to this - how essential is a computer science degree to working as a programmer? Would these kinds of online courses and a solid "portfolio" on Github or whatever be any kind of substitute? I started out as a comp sci student years ago, then changed majors to something totally unrelated and have since come to regret it. I have a steady job (that has nothing to do with programming) and neither the need nor the desire to get a new one at the moment, but in the long term I would love to change careers. While I'm willing, theoretically, to get a comp sci post-bacc or a second degree, I just plain don't have the tens of thousands of dollars that would cost, and the idea of taking on loans to pay for it after having dug myself out of one student debt hole already is pretty unappealing. But the computer science degree is hardly required, it might just make it easier to get through the first step of the interview.
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Jul 12, 2013 12:48
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Third Murderer posted:I have a question slightly related to this - how essential is a computer science degree to working as a programmer? Would these kinds of online courses and a solid "portfolio" on Github or whatever be any kind of substitute? I started out as a comp sci student years ago, then changed majors to something totally unrelated and have since come to regret it. I have a steady job (that has nothing to do with programming) and neither the need nor the desire to get a new one at the moment, but in the long term I would love to change careers. While I'm willing, theoretically, to get a comp sci post-bacc or a second degree, I just plain don't have the tens of thousands of dollars that would cost, and the idea of taking on loans to pay for it after having dug myself out of one student debt hole already is pretty unappealing. The University of West Georgia has a Master's that can be taken online in Applied CS and can be taken by non-CS majors. It's only 16k total. You can do it in 2 years with summers, but I think you can also spread it out. 16k spread out over, say, 4 years is not so bad. Edit: Columbus State University has a similar option for even less, like 8k total I think. Google around, there are options.
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Jul 12, 2013 14:35
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So I've done a couple of phone interviews with this company and now they've got me doing a "skills assessment". It's really strange because they're using ProcturU to have someone literally watch me by webcam for two hours while I do it. I'm not too concerned about the assessment itself and I think I know what to expect, it just seems like such an odd thing to do. Has anyone else had something like this?
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Jul 12, 2013 15:20
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Garnavis posted:So I've done a couple of phone interviews with this company and now they've got me doing a "skills assessment". It's really strange because they're using ProcturU to have someone literally watch me by webcam for two hours while I do it. I'm not too concerned about the assessment itself and I think I know what to expect, it just seems like such an odd thing to do. Has anyone else had something like this? I'm curious: What's the "skills assessment" like? When I went through Robert Half for a job (never again!), they had me take a few adaptive programming tests in things I said I was competent in, but that's because they're a headhunter shop. They're not developers, and don't have the ability to evaluate a developer's competence/truthfulness.
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Jul 12, 2013 15:34
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Why would they want to watch you while performing this test? "Ah look at those facial expressions while writing that recursive solution, a true wizard. Uh oh he looked uncomfortable for a second, subtract 5 points". It seems laughably idiotic.
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Jul 12, 2013 16:33
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Don Mega posted:Why would they want to watch you while performing this test? "Ah look at those facial expressions while writing that recursive solution, a true wizard. Uh oh he looked uncomfortable for a second, subtract 5 points". It seems laughably idiotic. We used to watch people while they coded simple stuff (FizzBuzz, etc). You actually learn a lot when you watch someone code, although you have to give a reasonable amount of leeway for performance anxiety/stress. I saw several people who took 5+ minutes to figure out how to write a for loop in a language that they claimed to have 10 years of experience in. You also can see a lot about how they approach problems. Do they set up breakpoints and step through their code? Do they start writing trace statements to the console? Do they just blindly change stuff and see what effect it has? It's nothing that will disqualify a clearly competent applicant, but it can help with borderline cases.
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Jul 12, 2013 16:41
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Don Mega posted:Why would they want to watch you while performing this test? "Ah look at those facial expressions while writing that recursive solution, a true wizard. Uh oh he looked uncomfortable for a second, subtract 5 points". It seems laughably idiotic. Guess you've never given a phone screen where answers come in two word chunks and by the end of it you're utterly convinced their friend in the room should've applied.
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Jul 12, 2013 17:29
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Maybe the webcam thing is to prevent someone from getting advice from someone else during the assessment? Is that something that happens? edit: Yeah, like that. ^^^ Uziel posted:Tuition reimbursement isn't an option I take it? I get some tuition reimbursement from my company, but it's only enough to cover two or maybe three classes per year at most schools. It's good to know that it's not a hard requirement, though I've always worried that trying to educate myself on my own would leave me with gaps in my knowledge that would inevitably reveal themselves at the worst time. Doghouse posted:The University of West Georgia has a Master's that can be taken online in Applied CS and can be taken by non-CS majors. It's only 16k total. You can do it in 2 years with summers, but I think you can also spread it out. 16k spread out over, say, 4 years is not so bad. Really. Things I've looked at before, like Oregon State's post-bacc program, have been a lot more expensive... I'll have to look into these, thanks. Medenmath fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 17:29
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Ithaqua posted:We used to watch people while they coded simple stuff (FizzBuzz, etc). You actually learn a lot when you watch someone code, although you have to give a reasonable amount of leeway for performance anxiety/stress. Although, I think it's funny that someone would have their friend do that portion for them. If you can't get past the easier pre-screening how are you going to pass the in-person interview? I guess they are just maximizing their odds. Don Mega fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 17:34
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Don Mega posted:Although, I think it's funny that someone would have their friend do that portion for them. If you can't get past the easier pre-screening how are you going to pass the in-person interview? I guess they are just maximizing their odds. We get people who think we won't notice that they can't speak english in the in-person interview... Proctored testing services (such as Pearson VUE) can be fairly expensive, and sometimes inconvenient for test takers, so I'm guessing ProctorU is just a cheaper alternative. I doubt they're in any way observing the test-ees other than to monitor for cheating.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:28
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I just have to vent: I just spent two hours filling out one of those questionnaires for a remote Python/Django job on CyberCoders. When I was done, it took me to the Applied Jobs Dashboard and I noticed the "In review" status tag was in red instead of black like the other jobs that I've applied for. I opened up the HTML in Firebug and noticed that the tag had the class, "inactive-job." If it is an inactive job, why the gently caress did their recruiter send me an email today about the drat thing? Applying for jobs the traditional way is so drat frustrating. I've probably wasted 16 hours of my life filling out these questionnaires. Grr. Also, thanks to the people who gave me the reality check on the machine learning stuff a few pages back.
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Jul 12, 2013 20:40
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HondaCivet posted:When does a place go from "startup" to "small company"? I think you need to look at the company's revenue forecast. Once the massive growth period is over, the company starts to slow down and the projections look a lot less like an asymptote into infinite revenue. Stoph fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 21:18
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This isn't aimed at you, but I sometimes wish I could shake every grad I interview who says they want to do machine learning as part of their job. It's the new hotness and it really annoys me. Bonus points for those who say they enjoy designing algorithms. I get why they say it, but after the nth bloody grad says it, it just becomes tiresome. One of these days I'll write a blogpost about what life really is like for most developers in finance.
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Jul 12, 2013 21:20
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Milotic posted:enjoy designing algorithms I think anyone who says that doesn't really understand what an algorithm is.
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Jul 12, 2013 21:29
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Milotic posted:One of these days I'll write a blogpost about what life really is like for most developers in finance. What is that like, anyway? I always imagined that developers in finance get paid more than developers anywhere but they also have to work more hours than anyone else (except maybe those poor game developers  ), so it evens out.Zero The Hero posted:How is Coursera, anyway? I've never looked too much into them, but it's been three years since I graduated now and no programming job, and I could use something to get me back into shape. I like some of them for filling some specific gaps in my knowledge, or as a broad introduction to a topic I haven't been exposed to. I don't actually "do" or "keep up with" the courses, I just watch the videos - usually months after they're over, because I sign up when they're open so I'll have access to them later if I ever decide I want to learn from it. Though some courses just get closed once they're over, for some reason. I would feel weird putting a specific course, especially an online course, on my resume, but maybe that's just me. Safe and Secure! fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jul 12, 2013 |
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Jul 12, 2013 21:32
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Safe and Secure! posted:What is that like, anyway? I always imagined that developers in finance get paid more than developers anywhere but they also have to work more hours than anyone else (except maybe those poor game developers Re: hours - Depends on the company and the culture and even the role - I used to work for a Central Bank which employed 1700 people (it's doubled in size since the other regulator got folded into it), and on some teams people did 9-5. This was typically on the middleware, HR systems and the like - systems not undergoing major rework, ticking along. I worked on the team that supported the economic forecasting division, which was much more of a time sensitive, front-office type role, where you'd often be doing adhoc one off work because a member of the MPC had asked a question and needed an answer within a day, which could result in longer days. I currently work for a much smaller company that builds a systematic trading platform, the days are longer, and I have worked 8 till midnight in the past, when something *had* to be done for start of trading next day. Regulators love doing stuff like banning short selling with 24 hours notice, or some other external event occurs which you have to react to. I typically do 12 - 14 hours a day, but I don't really notice it as I'm having fun and stuff takes time because you're always checking your assumptions and testing stuff because when you write a platform to trade lots of exchanges, there's a ton of edge cases.
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Jul 12, 2013 21:51
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Milotic posted:Re: hours - Depends on the company and the culture and even the role I know there's at least one finance company paying finance salaries and you just sort of come in when you feel like it and work from home if you want, and it doesn't matter how many hours you put in as long as your reasonable workload is completed.
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Jul 12, 2013 22:23
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Yeah I dunno about putting a coursera class on your resume. Maybe if it's really relevant and you feel like you got a lot out of the class? I'd feel more comfortable putting skills you got from that class onto my resume, though, assuming you learned a fair amount. I think ideally you'd use classes like the ones on coursera as a springboard to develop something on your own that uses and builds upon what you learned.
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Jul 12, 2013 22:41
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Cicero posted:I'd feel more comfortable putting skills you got from that class onto my resume, though, assuming you learned a fair amount. I think ideally you'd use classes like the ones on coursera as a springboard to develop something on your own that uses and builds upon what you learned. Yeah, like I wanted to start doing some web development and realized I knew nothing about databases and no more about SQL than how to write a very simple SELECT statement. Dangerously, I even thought that "knowing SQL" meant knowing how to write a simple SELECT statement. >_> If I mention this on a resume, it'll look like "Experience with: Java, Python, SQL", rather than "Courses Taken: Databases (Coursera), Control and Data Acquisition (Nowheresville University)".
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Jul 12, 2013 22:46
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So I did the Big Brother test thing, it was awkward as expected. For authentication they asked me a bunch of questions about my life, almost all of which I got wrong because they were mostly about past addresses and I've lived in the same place since I was 3 and I couldn't go ask my mom because that would be cheating. They let me in anyway with a second photo ID and the assessment itself was more or less like a CS final. I'm pretty sure I got everything right but I did take a long time on it, so I have no clue how I did. Since the main point of interest here is the monitoring, I'll just say that it seemed pretty unnecessary. Not only are you on webcam but they are also monitoring your screen, and at certain points during authentication they actually take control of your mouse, and some unseen manager also pulled some kind of log from my system. Not for the  of heart. I guess it's so you really really absolutely can't cheat or have someone else take the test for you or whatever, but drat.e: in case anyone was wondering what kind of questions were on it, there was a math section with word problems, a programming section with four problems that you just type code (any language) into a field, I guess they just look at it? And a pretty interesting section where they define a simple programming language and ask questions about it.
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Jul 13, 2013 00:05
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It sounds like the company is over compensating for not knowing how to interview programming applicants. Is cheating on a remote interview such a big deal? I thought that's the reason to call someone in for an in-person interview.
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Jul 13, 2013 00:37
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Stoph posted:It sounds like the company is over compensating for not knowing how to interview programming applicants. Is cheating on a remote interview such a big deal? I thought that's the reason to call someone in for an in-person interview. Doubtful, the company is big and has a reputation for being a very developer-oriented place. There's currently about 800 programmers working there and they're continuously recruiting. I've heard they have fairly stringent requirements, although I can't imagine this thing is helping them much. I should also point out, in case it wasn't clear, that the person watching me did not work for the company I applied to, they work for ProctorU and likely will not be communicating any of my behavior or whatever to HR at the company, so it probably wasn't really about watching how I work.
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Jul 13, 2013 01:25
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So do no people ever have laptops AND desktops? Virtual machines? Seriously.
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Jul 13, 2013 03:22
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Now I'm curious where Garnavis is interviewing... That sounds a lot like our testing, but I haven't heard anything about online proctoring. We rely pretty heavily on our testing as the main measurement of programming ability, because our experience has been that verbal interviews are not at all accurate at measuring technical skill.
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Jul 13, 2013 06:08
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Our phone screens just have them write code on some etherpad clone.
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Jul 13, 2013 06:46
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Stoph posted:Is cheating on a remote interview such a big deal? I thought that's the reason to call someone in for an in-person interview. If they're flying people in and perhaps had past experience with cheaters, perhaps they dont want to spend money on duds. Though you can wonder if the extra cost for the proctor is less than a lost plane ticket and hotel every 1/x candidates.
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Jul 13, 2013 07:58
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Safe and Secure! posted:If I mention this on a resume, it'll look like "Experience with: Java, Python, SQL", rather than "Courses Taken: Databases (Coursera), Control and Data Acquisition (Nowheresville University)". As a recruiter, "experience with <list of acronyms>" is less precise than "taken a course". In the latter case I know you'll have a knowledge of basic stuff and probably at least know of the existence of some of the more advanced things. Experience makes little sense outside a past job or project description. I'd put both as having the SQL keyword may help pass some automated filtering or help you pop up on recruiters scanning for candidates. (Not that I approve of such, but I have the luxury of seeing resumes after the worst ones are already screened out) That said, I'd generally just scan quickly to see if you know some of the bare minimum languages/technologies we need, and try to gauge your actual experience with them from your past work.
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Jul 13, 2013 08:12
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Cicero posted:I think ideally you'd use classes like the ones on coursera as a springboard to develop something on your own that uses and builds upon what you learned. I want to highlight this. Experience, even on a small hobby project, counts way more than courses. I'm not going to hire a painter whose experience is that he read a book about it. For some reason many resumes from people fresh out of school don't mention those, as if they think "it doesn't count". If you made it, it counts.
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Jul 13, 2013 08:20
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Zhentar posted:Now I'm curious where Garnavis is interviewing... That sounds a lot like our testing, but I haven't heard anything about online proctoring. Epic Systems, though I imagine there are a number of places with similar sorts of assessments, maybe without the proctoring.
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Jul 13, 2013 14:03
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Is this the place for discussing Silicon Valley style comp plans? This is totally new to me coming from working as a developer in academia and for privately held firms where you got base salary and maybe a bonus. I interviewed with a publicly traded SV-based firm yesterday, and I walked out feeling good about it, so I need to think now about what to consider if an offer comes in. During the phone screen, the HR rep gave a very general description of the comp package and mentioned that new hires get an RSU grant of some number of shares as a signing bonus. Is there a generally accepted practice as to what happens to unvested shares if a company is acquired or goes private? If company B buys A in a stock-for-stock transaction, do your unvested shares of A convert to unvested shares of B according to the same proportion if you were any other investor holding those shares? What if it's cash for stock, or if they go private? Do they accelerate the vesting and you get a lump sum of cash, do you get paid cash according to the original vesting schedule, or are the RSUs just declared null and void? Is this stuff going to be set out in the contract governing the RSU, or is it something that would be decided at the time a change in control happened, and you're just at the mercy of whoever decides to buy you out? If I get an offer I'm going to have my attorney look over all the paperwork anyway but I'm curious how this stuff works in general.
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Jul 13, 2013 18:26
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kitten smoothie posted:Is this the place for discussing Silicon Valley style comp plans? This is totally new to me coming from working as a developer in academia and for privately held firms where you got base salary and maybe a bonus. I get an RSU as part of my package for the job I'm about to start and it's just X number of shares of the company's common stock where X = total equity amount divided by average share price for the month before my start date. I'm not 100% positive, but If it's a publicly traded company then your RSU shares are the same as all other shares owned by the general public, so whatever happens to everyone elses shares will happen to yours (I don't actually know how stock conversions work when a publicly traded company is bought...)
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Jul 13, 2013 20:49
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Is there paid overtime in the US? In BC (Canada) apparently it doesn't exist for software devs.
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Jul 13, 2013 20:53
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No. Some places do comp time or extended vacations. But small amounts of casual uncompensated overtime is pretty standard.
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Jul 13, 2013 20:57
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RSU agreements often specify what happens in a change of control, so refer to the agreement. Unvested RSUs are not stock shares but they are obligations of the company. A company that tried to arbitrarily void them would risk a lawsuit. e: I hope you understand the basics here. RSUs do not amount to anything until you complete some vesting requirements set out in the agreement. Calling them a "signing bonus" is HR sleaze. They are deferred compensation that you lose if you don't fulfill the agreement. KNITS MY FEEDS posted:Is there paid overtime in the US? Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jul 13, 2013 |
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Jul 13, 2013 22:05
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KNITS MY FEEDS posted:Is there paid overtime in the US? In BC (Canada) apparently it doesn't exist for software devs.
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Jul 14, 2013 00:58
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Garnavis posted:Epic Systems, though I imagine there are a number of places with similar sorts of assessments, maybe without the proctoring. Get out while you still can.
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Jul 14, 2013 00:59
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Dentist knows of what he speaks, but if you need more background: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS.aspx
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Jul 14, 2013 02:19
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Gazpacho posted:Dentist knows of what he speaks, but if you need more background: This is a joke, write? I was told Epic primarily used VB6 and also has teams working in .NET for web apps. I mean, VB isn't really ideal either, but I guess I can see why they never mentioned MUMPS... Incidentally, the language used for the 20-questions section of the assessment was called MIIS. I immediately assumed it wasn't a real language because it had really bizarre things like purely left-to-right operator precedence and those weird single-letter commands that no serious language would ever actually have. Now I realize that not only is there a real language that uses them, but MIIS itself is real and MUMPS-derived, and possibly worse than the original. M... maybe I'll get to work on web apps? 
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