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Email the second company right now and tell them your situation: that you have an pending offer and would like to decide right away on it, so if they could HURRY UP, JERKFACES.
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Aug 30, 2013 23:52
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Ah, sorry. I edited my post because I noticed that the offer has a deadline for response of 5:00pm on Monday. I can't be available for an interview in-person until Tuesday at the earliest.
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Aug 31, 2013 00:17
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Are you in the US? That's a holiday here, and kind of strange to put a deadline on that day.
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Aug 31, 2013 01:41
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Oh, right, sorry. It's Tuesday, not Monday.
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Aug 31, 2013 03:09
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Ithaqua posted:Sure. Company culture and career development. If the other company has a good team that will really foster your professional growth, it's worth considering. This is interesting! Ithaqua, you've made a lot of good posts in this thread and if you don't mind it would be great to hear more about your experience judging the corporate culture of a company. I'm going into an interview on the 5th and I want to know what to be aware of. People have posted some good questions to ask during an interview to get an idea of the company. Are there any business-esque responses that might not be transparently bad, but be indicative of problems? When you ask about how the business operates, what do you want to hear from an interviewer and what response should send you running out the door?
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Sep 2, 2013 02:53
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CatsPajamas posted:This is interesting! Ithaqua, you've made a lot of good posts in this thread and if you don't mind it would be great to hear more about your experience judging the corporate culture of a company. I'm going into an interview on the 5th and I want to know what to be aware of. Here are some things I like to see:
I hate being asked "interview 2.0" / brainteaser questions. That's not a bad sign, but it's a sign that they're lovely at interviewing. Questions I always ask, and why I ask them:
That's all I can think of right now. I'll edit the post later if I come up with anything I forgot. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Sep 2, 2013 |
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Sep 2, 2013 03:48
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I don't want to hear "someone goes and slaps a patch directly into production".
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Ithaqua posted:I like to hear that they pay for certifications and conference attendance. What certifications?
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Sep 2, 2013 07:59
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shrughes posted:What certifications? For .NET developers, Microsoft has a ton of certifications. I picked my first one up a few weeks ago just for the hell of it.
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Sep 2, 2013 08:59
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If I heard a prospective employer encouraged employees to get software development related certifications, I'd assume their employees were the type to value certifications, or that their management was the type to value certifications. That's a bad sign.
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Sep 2, 2013 09:20
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Pieces of paper are a big help if you are ever trying to sell your services to people who are not able to make a call re technical competence, e.g. senior manager types or HR. Right or wrong that's just how it is. Also if your company is willing to pay for you to do training or fly you to conferences and you don't take it up you're a fool. You never know what will happen in the future or where you will end up. It's just a positive sign that the employer is willing to invest in its people, which is unfortunately really rare. And I would argue a direct contributor to the skills shortage, because everyone expects the other company to train people up so they can be poached. Which just doesn't work because most programmers are not ruthless automatons out to optimise for immediate reward. Also, I would've taken a pretty significant pay cut if it meant working at a place with a manager I respect and co-workers I can learn from. A good manager will stop you from going nuts and good co-workers are the easiest and best way to develop skills.
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Sep 2, 2013 13:46
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On a positive note re: conferences, the company that laid me off in July is still paying for nearly all of my trip to Djangocon, so try to get your employers to buy nonrefundable tickets for these things 
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Sep 2, 2013 14:01
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unixbeard posted:...Which just doesn't work because most programmers are not ruthless automatons out to optimise for immediate reward... Speak for yourself.  Ithaqua posted:Here are some things I like to see: I did a test in advance of an interview through codility (dot com), it was interesting, the scoring definitely probes the edge cases of the scenario problems. I did it from home, and with VS2010 express, all of which within the parameters of the test. Apparently other applicants had some real issues with the test, I thought it was pretty straightforward. You could definitely Google the problems I was given, which I resisted the urge to do too much, since I was pretty sure I would have to explain my thought processes (which I did). If you get a invite to take a test through it, I would definitely do the demo test so you don't get overwhelmed by the test page when it actually counts.
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Sep 2, 2013 15:47
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So, stupid question because I've never worked contract work before. I won't have any taxes taken out of my paycheck, will I? I just declare all my earnings at the end of the year when I do my taxes and end up probably paying a ton to the gov?
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Sep 2, 2013 16:16
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You won't have anything taken out, but you need to calculate and pay your own withholding on a quarterly basis. You need to fill out a 1040-ES and pay via EFTPS. EFTPS is weird and lovely, and it takes a while to set up because they have to snail-mail your password. Technically the first year you do a 1099 you don't have to withhold and you can just pay a ton at the end but in following years you'll be penalized if you don't withhold. It's better to just get it set up right away though. Also the 1040es is hosed up and will probably result in you withholding the wrong amount, especially if you have w2 income as well. So yeah. You might want to just broadly estimate your 2013 return and just make sure that the withholding numbers make sense. Or figure out what marginal bracket you're in and withhold that plus 12.4% (SS/Medicare).
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Sep 2, 2013 16:52
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This is a wonderful list. 2 weeks ago I started a new position in a team that about checks all these boxes, and I am ridiculously happy with the job. It is especially nice (probably essential, really, in tyool 2013) to have a shop that has unit tests, automated builds, and code review. When you have this stuff in place, a new hire like me can immediately go committing code on my first day at work and I can do so confidently because there's a good safety net. I am going to disagree on open plan offices, though. I have never worked in an open plan office where I could be productive, even next to developers. The problem with working in a big open plan bullpen with 20-25 other people is that we all were on different mental timeframes of when we wanted to get work done and when people wanted to bullshit with one another, and the people bullshitting didn't get up and leave the room to bullshit. With that many people in the room, at any given point, someone was talking and not working. If you are like me and need quiet to concentrate, you're going to have a bad time. I now share an office with one other guy. It's a 200 sqft room where one entire wall is a 12 foot tall whiteboard. We are the only two employees this company has in my city -- everyone else is two timezones away in Silicon Valley -- so nobody can burst into the door like Kramer and disrupt us. I can walk in at 8AM, sit down, and next thing I know it's time for my noon standup call and I've got a pile of finished work. It's absolutely blissful. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Sep 2, 2013 |
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Sep 2, 2013 17:05
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In case you're in the STL area and want some experience, I just saw this pop up in my LinkedIn: http://launchcodestl.com/ It offers to pair newbie coders up with professionals for pair programming. Full time at $15 is insulting for programmers really but it's temporary until they offer you a job. I'd consider it if my situation was different at least and just wanted a foot in the door. Personally don't think it's enough to get people to stay in St. Louis without having something tying them down but it's at least a neat concept.
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Sep 2, 2013 22:34
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So this week I just started an online CS Master's program, and I have a limited programming background - a couple classes during undergrad, which was a few years ago - and I just applied to a QA internship, and they want to do a phone screen. The description basically just said "troubleshooting shoftware" and the required skills didn't list anything technical, it had things like "ability to solve problems." So I figured, hey, why not shoot over an application? Is this going to be super technical? I am very, very rusty in actual programming skills. Can anyone tell me what kind of thing I can expect over here?
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Sep 3, 2013 16:02
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Doghouse posted:So this week I just started an online CS Master's program, and I have a limited programming background - a couple classes during undergrad, which was a few years ago - and I just applied to a QA internship, and they want to do a phone screen. The description basically just said "troubleshooting shoftware" and the required skills didn't list anything technical, it had things like "ability to solve problems." So I figured, hey, why not shoot over an application? QA internship is likely going to have nothing to do with code at all. I'm guessing checklists of operations to perform in a program, possibly some free-form testing, and then you submit bug reports.
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Sep 3, 2013 16:32
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"How would you test _______?" (be very thorough)
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Sep 3, 2013 16:58
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Could you give me some start of an example of how that might go? Thanks for the feedback, goons.
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Sep 3, 2013 17:43
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QA testing is going to be boring as gently caress and you shouldn't do it unless you hate yourself and/or don't want to be paid as much as an actual developer. Hope that helps.
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Sep 3, 2013 17:46
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Yeah, I realize that. I need to make some money while I'm still in school, though, and hopefully it won't be too long until I can seek out development internships and then development jobs. That's my thinking right now, anyway.
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Sep 3, 2013 17:57
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I passed my resume along to a fellow bar regular that works for a international train signal company as an EE. Since he was trying to work there for code stuff, he's on good terms with some of their embedded developers and is surprisingly eager to help. Assuming I get past the "this resume looks like  " and the (possible) does he have a B.Something stages, how should I be preparing myself to make myself attractive? Also, how much different will embedded C coding be from the C++ and OOP stuff that I grew up on?My dream way to prepare for this would be to find a simulator/emulator and work out a little traffic controller program. Unfortunately, this week is crammed full with my current job, which makes me feel like asking him to give me an extra week or two before he hands it off to somebody.
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Sep 3, 2013 18:03
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Doghouse posted:Yeah, I realize that. I need to make some money while I'm still in school, though, and hopefully it won't be too long until I can seek out development internships and then development jobs. That's my thinking right now, anyway. Go look on Craigslist real quick and scan for local software engineer jobs. Spend 30 minutes calling those companies asking if they have any short term or part-time work available for a CS student. It's very likely that at least one of them has a small project in mind that they can give you, and it will be way better for your resume than a QA job (and probably way better for your wallet).
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Sep 3, 2013 18:04
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I've got a job, but this feels like a newbie question so I figure I'll try it here... I'm going to my first technical (Java and stuff) conference in a couple weeks. What should I wear/bring/know?
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Sep 3, 2013 18:06
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Yeah, that's a good idea. I have applied to quite a few software engineering internships in the past couple months, to no avail. I'll try your suggestion as well, but my actual skills at this point are so rusty I'm not sure it's worthwhile. I remember basic concepts, like if/else statements, loops, and so on, but not too much else.
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Sep 3, 2013 18:10
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Trapick posted:I've got a job, but this feels like a newbie question so I figure I'll try it here... What kind of conference is it? In most cases you should be fine with just slacks and a button-up. I like to bring a nice leather folder with a legal pad, a few pens and pencils, business cards, and some spare resumes (you never know if you'll need it).
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Sep 3, 2013 18:16
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Brannock posted:
If a company wants to help immigrant employees acquire a green card, if a job position requires 5 years professional experience (in addition to some other requirements), they can apply at EB2 priority rather than EB3 (which will get you your green card 5-6 years earlier).
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Sep 3, 2013 23:22
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BirdOfPlay posted:how should I be preparing myself to make myself attractive? Also, how much different will embedded C coding be from the C++ and OOP stuff that I grew up on? The list at the bottom here should give you some ideas: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3376083&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=157#post418616456
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Sep 3, 2013 23:51
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Okay, so, I'm a butt and graduated without any internships or any work experience in general. CSC is my second degree (besides medicinal chemistry) and my resume really sucks. Fortunately, I have some great references (including the prof in charge of everything embedded at my school). Should I list my references directly on my resume? I saw from the large CV/business thread at they recommend never saying that they're available upon request, but, it also says to disregard all information posed there for tech jobs. So, first off, please tell me how much my resume sucks (note: the names have been changed to protect everyone). Hold nothing back. Unleash your fulminate expertise upon me. Oh, also, I'm Canadian with dual (American/Canadian) citizenship--should this be something I made a point of mentioning somewhere? And second, are there jobs wherein having a chemistry degree in addition to CSC would really be a huge asset? I'm not afraid of getting my hands really dirty with low level/embedded stuff. my back pages fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 11:33
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my back pages posted:And second, are there jobs wherein having a chemistry degree in addition to CSC would really be a huge asset? I'm not afraid of getting my hands really dirty with low level/embedded stuff. Also y'know, chemical manufacturing in general, lab kit industry, pharmaceuticals, medical tech, possibly a lot of the chemistry-level bioinformatics stuff? coffeetable fucked around with this message at 13:25 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 13:23
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coffeetable posted:I don't have domain experience, but I imagine you're a petrochem (production, services, refinement, whatever) recruiter's wet dream. Yeah, I have a cousin in pharmaceuticals (on the management side) and he's said that programming fuckups are a major cost to the company, and it's stuff like QA and flow control stuff that a chemical engineer can do sanity checks on more easily than a pure CS guy.
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Sep 4, 2013 13:40
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BirdOfPlay posted:how should I be preparing myself to make myself attractive? Also, how much different will embedded C coding be from the C++ and OOP stuff that I grew up on? Disclaimer: I am an engineer doing embedded stuff for a firm that makes pressure and temperature instruments, and one of our largest customers is a train company There are a lot of different meanings of the word 'embedded' ranging from 8-bit shitwagons with 512 bytes of program space and 64 bytes of RAM all the way up to SoCs/SBCs with a gig of ram and quad 64-bit 1.5 GHz CPUs, so it's hard to give a general answer. That being said, I would guess based on your prospective employer's field of train signaling that the embedded stuff they do fits the classical definition of embedded where you make real-time systems that have a microcontroller like a PIC or one of the ARM Cortex chips as the brains. As far as making yourself look good, there are three basic things where you will want to focus on demonstrating to your interviewer:
Toward #1, I would suggest making sure you
Toward #2, I would suggest making sure you
Toward #3, I would suggest making sure you
I hope that helps. Blotto Skorzany fucked around with this message at 13:57 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 13:51
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my back pages posted:So, first off, please tell me how much my resume sucks (note: the names have been changed to protect everyone). Hold nothing back. Unleash your fulminate expertise upon me. Oh, also, I'm Canadian with dual (American/Canadian) citizenship--should this be something I made a point of mentioning somewhere? Well besides the lack of work experience I think it's a pretty good resume. I would probably tailor the project list to each job you're applying for - perhaps just the RTOS + 2 or 3 more that are relevant to the position. Get rid of the "(with full ‘break everything’ functionality!)" comment. I would also drop the cook job (it's not relevant) and replace it with a few bullet points describing what you achieved as a spectroscopy analyst. Your skills section is somewhat huge for an entry-level applicant. Being able to use specific operating systems or databases isn't particularly impressive unless you're an expert on them or the job ad specifically mentioned them. Skills like SQL, HTML/CSS, text editors should really go without saying.* List Photoshop if you're going for a designer role, but it doesn't matter if you're going for a dev role (unless it's to develop Photoshop plugins, maybe). For each language you say you know, you need to be prepared to be grilled on the subject by an expert. Use your discretion, but I never liked the prospect of being asked a question about something I claimed to know and being unable to answer. I only listed two languages on my resume when I was applying for jobs and I got plenty of interest nonetheless. As for the citizenship thing, I don't think there's any reason to mention it on your resume. As long as you're authorised to work in the country where the job is, you're all good. * Again, if the job ad specifically mentions a skill that you have, make sure to list it.
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Sep 4, 2013 14:19
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my back pages posted:Okay, so, I'm a butt and graduated without any internships or any work experience in general. CSC is my second degree Just a note, and maybe it's just me, but Computer Science is just "CS", and to me "CSC" is actually these guys. I don't think I ever see the "CSC" abbreviation of CS.
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Sep 4, 2013 14:24
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my back pages posted:Okay, so, I'm a butt and graduated without any internships or any work experience in general. CSC is my second degree (besides medicinal chemistry) and my resume really sucks. Fortunately, I have some great references (including the prof in charge of everything embedded at my school). Should I list my references directly on my resume? I saw from the large CV/business thread at they recommend never saying that they're available upon request, but, it also says to disregard all information posed there for tech jobs. You should look into DOW Research, they recruit pretty heavily. You basically write software, program robots, etc. for Chemistry research and having the Chem familiarity would be a nice Ace up your Sleeve.
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Sep 4, 2013 14:30
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my back pages posted:Okay, so, I'm a butt and graduated without any internships or any work experience in general. CSC is my second degree (besides medicinal chemistry) and my resume really sucks. Fortunately, I have some great references (including the prof in charge of everything embedded at my school). Should I list my references directly on my resume? I saw from the large CV/business thread at they recommend never saying that they're available upon request, but, it also says to disregard all information posed there for tech jobs. First since it seems like you want to go into a field that is probably going to value paper more, I would probably keep Education at the top. I would move your Work career up after Education, while also removing the job you had as a Cook. The work you did at the lab should have be more descriptive about your tasks though. Next if you're going to look for low level embedded stuff I would try to find a way to extract your first project out with the rest of the projects you did. I think it is too easy for someone reading your resume to just toss it because it doesn't look like you have any embedded experience. I would get rid of, "with full 'break everything' functionality!" because while I get it's a joke, some HR person might think you break stuff or just get confused. I would write out ST2 because I don't think it's that common of an acronym for Sublime Text 2 Your bullet point, "Managed my own local PostgreSQL iMDB (IMDB? Why lowercase i?) database using psql" seems to be fluff as well. Is this essentially saying you know how to work postgres? Your last bullet point, "Created modern semantic HTML5/CSS3/jQuery web pages" seems to me to be complete fluff. Did you write a framework? Make a response website that works for any size/resolution? Would probably work better if you had done something like, "created a responsive movie website using a postgres database containing information IMDB" Maybe you don't care but I don't think having your full address is necessary. Just city/state. Just keep using "References upon request." You should be using your references to get you interviews not sending resumes saying, "you know this guy"
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Sep 4, 2013 18:23
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Hmm, thanks friends! Time to send out Resume, by MBP, version 2.1. I cut down the skills section, as you've made a very convincing argument. I figure I'll just list C, Python, Java and then add in specific skills they require that I've got. I also trimmed the 'software' section a bit, and I added a blurb about my spec analyst position. I kept the cook job in there, if nothing else to show that I have the capacity to stick around for 7 years (not that I will, figure some people would like to see it though), and they will definitely give me the best reference humanly possible for a restaurant owner to give. Fortunately, this still leaves me with enough space for 1page. I considered cutting down more skills, but then the bottom of the page would hike up and reveal my trailing whitespace. Should I consider still doing this, or would it be more advisable to keep it more 'price is right' style? (That is, as close to 1 page as possible without going over). Thanks. Also, sadly, a lot of chemical engineering stuff is out of my jurisdiction as I have no P.Eng (Canadian). However, I *think* come December I can take a test for Software Engineering P.Eng registration. I like the sounds of DOW and the like. I actually didn't include it on my resume but I did make an antimalarial with some industrial software, so, that would be neat. Strong Sauce posted:Stuff Hmm, thanks! I agree with the break everything and ST2 bits, also, great catch on the iMDB, should be IMDb, oops! Also, the websites actually were responsive, so, extra points for reminding me that I'm a dingbat and forget things, hah. Yeah, I really only put my address there in case they need to mail me stuff. Thanks!
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Sep 4, 2013 18:45
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Skuto posted:The list at the bottom here should give you some ideas: Thanks, that list jump-started some memories of C and what would gave me issues in the "C" class. Also, would skimming K&R C be more detriment than helpful to get my head on straight with regards to C as it's used now? I mean, I do know that the book is based on C86, but isn't that the last version Microsoft is compliant with? Otto Skorzeny posted:Disclaimer: I am an engineer doing embedded stuff for a firm that makes pressure and temperature instruments, and one of our largest customers is a train company That was my assumption too. It wasn't until I peeked in at the embedded megathread that I saw how complicated things are. My friend tried explaining how most of their work is in ATC, ATP, and ATS (Automatic Train Control, Protection, and Stop) systems. He also tried explaining them to me, but a crowded and active bar isn't the best place to do so.  And especially thanks for giving me an idea of what kind of system I'd be working with, this make it easier to pop over to the embedded thread and ask for some pointers. quote:
It does! It also makes me blank out over the differential between what I know and what I need to know. #2 is where most of my deficiencies currently lay, obviously. Now to hope that I get some personal time next week to do read up on this stuff.
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Sep 4, 2013 19:03
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It's C89. And the K&R book is still a good reference. edit: Also this is purely anecdotal, but I'm a C developer and everywhere I've worked has required that I use straight C89 due to cross/legacy platform support. astr0man fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Sep 4, 2013 |
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Sep 4, 2013 19:06
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