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Negotiate the salary to a much higher level if you do take it.
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Mar 11, 2017 00:57
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Luigi Thirty posted:I'm unemployed and have an interview with a company 10 minutes from my house at a 20% raise from what I was making before. It's the first opportunity I've had that wasn't a 45 minute commute and is actually based out of this city. People get roped into nonprofits and then find out the nonprofit's work si unsavory as hell AND it pays less. Just take it.
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Mar 11, 2017 00:59
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Tell them you want to get paid in product, and then turn around and sell it and double your salary
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Mar 11, 2017 01:04
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So I had a follow up phone screen today. The first one was with HR and the one today covered basic technical stuff. I thought it went well and apparently so did my interviewer because he said he'd like to move forward and emailed me a coding challenge. It's pretty simple and looks like the purpose of it is to see if you can code and if you know basic OOP stuff. However, my question is, should I try to incorporate design patterns into it? Like, I answered it and think I have shown I know OO design principles, but I don't know if they are also looking to see if I know design patterns as well? Like, I could shoe-horn in a singleton and a factory class, though they kind of seem like overkill for this simple task. I'm just not sure if more is better in this case, or if I should just keep it simple?
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Mar 11, 2017 01:23
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sausage king of Chicago posted:Like, I could shoe-horn in a singleton Design patterns aren't necessarily good, they're just a record of ways people have tried to make OOP useful. The way I (and many others) see it, a singleton is just a fancy global. Who knows what they'll think is good code, but if I were reviewing it I'd look for a clean separation between pure calculations and side effects.
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Mar 11, 2017 01:29
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sausage king of Chicago posted:So I had a follow up phone screen today. The first one was with HR and the one today covered basic technical stuff. I thought it went well and apparently so did my interviewer because he said he'd like to move forward and emailed me a coding challenge. It's pretty simple and looks like the purpose of it is to see if you can code and if you know basic OOP stuff. However, my question is, should I try to incorporate design patterns into it? Like, I answered it and think I have shown I know OO design principles, but I don't know if they are also looking to see if I know design patterns as well? You should write the code more or less the way you'd write it in prod, which I hope doesn't involve mindlessly shoehorning in design pattersn where they don't fit.
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Mar 11, 2017 01:52
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Luigi Thirty posted:I'm unemployed and have an interview with a company 10 minutes from my house at a 20% raise from what I was making before. It's the first opportunity I've had that wasn't a 45 minute commute and is actually based out of this city. We've had several MLM clients and I can say that morally bankrupt aspect aside, they are easily the worst clients we've ever had. Unreasonable doesn't cover it. Don't misunderstand: you're working for the shitheads at the top of the pyramids and every one of them has a different idea about how the business should be run and how the software should work. They will never be happy with the work you do and you will always be "hurting their business". That said, a jobs a job.
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Mar 11, 2017 05:57
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I'm thinking about making a major change to start a new career as a web developer and I'd like to get some opinions from people currently in it. I'm a middle-aged guy in Austin, TX. Never finished my bachelor's degree. Haven't really programmed much beyond basic HTML since high school (and very recently some Codecademy JavaScript classes). After a decade of working tech support I've got myself a decent middle-class salary at a major company that will be around forever. Of course, it's still a tech support job with the grind of endless phone calls, weekend/evening schedules, working every holiday, etc. I've been thinking about a change for a while. Well, a friend of mine recently went through a 6-month intensive bootcamp/trade school that got him from having no programming experience to getting a full-time gig one month after graduating. (Galvanize's web development program, specifically.) I'm currently applying there myself, but before I pull the trigger on quitting this very secure job, cashing out my 401k, and basically upending everything, I just want to get an idea if this is crazy or not. More specifically, is now a good time for someone to start in on the ground floor for a career in web development? I've heard every response from "the bubble is any second from popping and entry-level web developers are gonna be living under bridges" to "the sky is the limit and this is a rocket ship to fortune". (Oh yea, no spouse or children to support. Also, with cashing out my 401k I'll have about a year's worth of money to be able to go through the program and then look for a job.)
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Mar 11, 2017 22:44
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LanceHunter posted:
Have you done any serious development before? You should try to figure out if you actually like coding for 5 hours per day before jumping careers. I was happier switching from IT to backend dev awhile back, and I've been quite pleased switching to web development from backend, but I knew well in advance that I could and enjoyed coding itself. If you can't motivate yourself to start/complete a project on your own, consider a night course of some kind where you actually have to do coursework on some schedule. Codecademy is so low investment it doesn't really give you a great idea if you'd enjoy it as a career.
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Mar 11, 2017 23:15
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LanceHunter posted:I've heard every response from "the bubble is any second from popping and entry-level web developers are gonna be living under bridges" to "the sky is the limit and this is a rocket ship to fortune". It's a tough question to answer without knowing how much of the knack for programming you have. If you're good at it, and enjoy it enough to grind 8+ hours a day into it, the job market looks bright for the foreseeable future. When the last bubble burst, the ones left crying by the roadside were the mediocre, no-real-talent "coders" that learned some VB6/Java over a weekend and started asking for a six-figure salary. If/when this bubble collapses, the ones hurt this time will be 26 year old "CTOs" of socialfartapp.com startups, not the guys generating real value for stable companies. Also, don't cash out your 401K unless it's an absolute emergency. You'll get hit with tons of taxes and fees, because, you know, that money's supposed to be for retirement.
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Mar 11, 2017 23:23
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LanceHunter posted:I'm thinking about making a major change to start a new career as a web developer and I'd like to get some opinions from people currently in it. Super duper DO NOT cash out your 401k and spend all that money on a bootcamp or some other year long/x number of weeks course, holy poo poo. You can learn web development on your own for free or cheap without wasting your very valuable retirement savings (plus the taxes and fees you'll get on it!) You'll have to create some things and get in at entry level, but imo it is NOT worth spending a ton of money on a bootcamp. Find some online courses that only cost a few hundred bucks on udemy (or some free ones) and start making some projects and contributing on github in your free time. Maybe it worked for your friend, but the overall opinion of 'bootcamp kiddies' in the industry is not great. It MIGHT work, but man what a risk to take on your 401k when you can learn it yourself and get better optics from interviewers as 'self-taught' rather than 'bootcamp'. These bootcamps are often the new version of for-profit schools and maybe this is a good one, but there are a LOT of bad ones. Shayl fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 00:05
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Skandranon posted:Have you done any serious development before? You should try to figure out if you actually like coding for 5 hours per day before jumping careers. I was happier switching from IT to backend dev awhile back, and I've been quite pleased switching to web development from backend, but I knew well in advance that I could and enjoyed coding itself. If you can't motivate yourself to start/complete a project on your own, consider a night course of some kind where you actually have to do coursework on some schedule. Codecademy is so low investment it doesn't really give you a great idea if you'd enjoy it as a career. I agree with this. Start with some stuff on coursera or something, maybe, before jumping in with both feet. What if you hate it? e: Also yeah do not dip into your 401k Shayl posted:Maybe it worked for your friend, but the overall opinion of 'bootcamp kiddies' in the industry is not great. It MIGHT work, but man what a risk to take on your 401k when you can learn it yourself and get better optics from interviewers as 'self-taught' rather than 'bootcamp'. These bootcamps are often the new version of for-profit schools and maybe this is a good one, but there are a LOT of bad ones. My company hires a lot of boot camp grads, and some of them are good, but my impression is that they get slotted into doing the more menial jobs and then it's hard for them to evolve out of that.
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Mar 12, 2017 00:14
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I agree with this. Start with some stuff on coursera or something, maybe, before jumping in with both feet. What if you hate it? My company won't even consider them. For front-end they don't have a 'degree required' mentality (they do for their Java developers, but not my team) but bootcamps are a huge red flag for my manager and he would always prefer someone who is self-taught. I don't know if its because he's had bad experience with bootcampers before or what, and this isn't true for every company, but mine doesn't like them and I've seen plenty of others that don't either. It's the only thing we're actually picky about, too. We use react, but angular or pure javascript experience or knowledge is enough to get your foot in the door, and its worked out pretty well. And, they've hired people who are self-taught but brand new to paid development as juniors, so that's not necessarily a hurdle, either. (Though...one of those guys had to be fired because he was just awful, but that's a different story). It just isn't worth 25k or whatever to me for what these courses offer; I'm self-taught and I KNOW front-end is something you can teach yourself because I've done it, and I had no trouble getting a job at this place (and I had several other offers from other companies in this area). Granted, I have the boon of experience but I also know what the general opinion is (in this city at least) when it comes to bootcamps, and its not good. Shayl fucked around with this message at 00:25 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 00:21
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If you already work for a tech company, transitioning to a dev role within the company avoids a lot of the stigmas associated with boot camp. And I strongly believe that if this tech bubble pops it'll bring the whole economy down with it, so at least you won't be alone under that bridge.
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Mar 12, 2017 00:34
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While the discussion is on self-taught programming, what do you guys suggest I do after I complete CS50x? I'm leaning towards focusing on web development, specifically something python based like Django. Or would it be better to focus purely on Javascript for interactive frontend stuff, especially since I can use BaaS like firebase app?
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Mar 12, 2017 01:56
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Shayl posted:My company won't even consider them. For front-end they don't have a 'degree required' mentality (they do for their Java developers, but not my team) but bootcamps are a huge red flag for my manager and he would always prefer someone who is self-taught. I don't know if its because he's had bad experience with bootcampers before or what, and this isn't true for every company, but mine doesn't like them and I've seen plenty of others that don't either. It's the only thing we're actually picky about, too. We use react, but angular or pure javascript experience or knowledge is enough to get your foot in the door, and its worked out pretty well. And, they've hired people who are self-taught but brand new to paid development as juniors, so that's not necessarily a hurdle, either. (Though...one of those guys had to be fired because he was just awful, but that's a different story). Well, the thing is, they have relationships with a lot of employers (like mine), and the hardest job to get is your first one. I'm 100% self-taught myself, but I wouldn't rule out suggesting boot camp to somebody trying to break in. RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Mar 12, 2017 |
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Mar 12, 2017 03:04
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Well, the thing is, they have relationships with a lot of employers (like mine), and the hardest job to get is your first one. I'm 100% self-taught myself, but I wouldn't rule out suggesting boot camp to somebody trying to break in. I'd rule it out if it costs 25k like this program does and using up your 401k for it. There are way cheaper and arguably better ways to get into the field, especially since this guy is mid-career and already works in tech support.
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Mar 12, 2017 04:02
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LanceHunter posted:I'm thinking about making a major change to start a new career as a web developer and I'd like to get some opinions from people currently in it. 25k is a lot of money. You could conceivably start a business for 25k. You should be confident that programming is something you want to do before you sign the check. As for your career prospects -- I don't know what webdev's like in Austin, but on the West Coast I think "middle-aged" would be more likely to cause issues than "bootcamp".
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Mar 12, 2017 08:39
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Really it's like, are you some math phd going through a boot camp because you can code C++ but suck at being useful (that's somebody I know, I think he'll do okay), or are you some retard going through one who'll come out with delusions that you is developer? There's basically two things to being a half-decent programmer: you have to be reasonably high IQ - some people simply don't "get" logic - and you have to be good at reading endless amounts of technical documentation and source code, in a nonlinear order, to figure out how to get your poo poo done. Like, this isn't necessarily advanced stuff, an example is, there's just some people who simply don't know how to google. You try search terms, then you try a different query that won't match the wrong stuff, you think about what rare vocab words might be in a valid match. Likewise, you've got to be able to deal with "I don't know how to solve this problem, what do I do." Self taught people have proven they can do this, and you've got some evidence of IQ, boot camp grads haven't proven either.
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Mar 12, 2017 09:22
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I did the bootcamp thing, and while I don't necessarily regret it I have a hard time suggesting it to others. It was incredibly stressful(on more than one occasion I saw students crying over how hard it was) and incredibly expensive. That said, there were two reasons I went. One, it massively expedited the process. Two, and most importantly, it gave me a roadmap of what to do. I had to know quite a bit going in(everyone had to rebuild a lot of lodash/underscore.js functions, and I had to build a project which ended up being a side scrolling spaceship shooter game using canvas) but I was at a bit of an impasse. I knew html, css and JavaScript, I built some stuff, but I didn't know where to go from there. I didn't even know react/angular existed, and if I was told to "learn some frameworks" I wouldn't even know where to start. I am 100% certain that I would have been able to learn without the schools aid if I knew WHAT to learn, but I sure as poo poo wouldn't have pulled it off in three months. Short version: learn html/JavaScript/css, build something that takes you 35 hours just to see if you even like it. Then figure out a roadmap of techs to learn. I have heard very good things about freecodecamp.com, but it honestly looks like major overkill.
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Mar 12, 2017 09:24
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Shayl posted:I'd rule it out if it costs 25k like this program does and using up your 401k for it. There are way cheaper and arguably better ways to get into the field, especially since this guy is mid-career and already works in tech support. $25K can buy you like 100 tech manual and multiple years in a community college. You could probably get most of the classes required for a CS degree from a major, expensive university for that. That is way too drat much for a boot camp. Do also consider that in the programming world the most important question is "can you prove you can do the job?" If you can demonstrate that you are capable of programming competently you'll get a job. It won't happen overnight but one thing I've pointed out a lot is that like 10% of programmers have no higher education at all. None. If you can sling code with the best of them nobody give a drat how you learned it.
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Mar 12, 2017 11:39
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fantastic in plastic posted:As for your career prospects -- I don't know what webdev's like in Austin, but on the West Coast I think "middle-aged" would be more likely to cause issues than "bootcamp". I hear this a lot but most of the devs I work with are middle aged and none of them have told me they've had issues finding work. One of my 50+ year old coworkers recently left for new work and said he barely had to look before he had 3 interviews lined up. Hell my team just picked up a dev in his late 30s who's brand new to it. If you can code, you can probably find a job if you look hard enough in the right area.
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Mar 12, 2017 16:10
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For a final round interview I have to do a 45 minute presentation on a project of my choice. I'm just finishing up a project for my makerspace, consisting of one part Raspberry Pi python script and another part Flask website which I was planning on talking about. My discussion points are a technical overview of each part, challenges faced, tools used, and next steps. Anything else I should be considering?
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Mar 12, 2017 17:03
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sarehu posted:Like, this isn't necessarily advanced stuff, an example is, there's just some people who simply don't know how to google. You try search terms, then you try a different query that won't match the wrong stuff, you think about what rare vocab words might be in a valid match. Likewise, you've got to be able to deal with "I don't know how to solve this problem, what do I do." We've gone through 2-3 devs in the last 4 years that we're absolutely incapable of this or just unwilling. The last one was a recent CS grad. Constant emails and poking heads in to say "hey I'm getting this error", sometimes attaching the stack trace. I just don't even know how to respond to that. I mean, that's the job man: you get an error, you Google the error, you fix the error with help from SO or docs or something, repeat.
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Mar 12, 2017 19:53
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I've worked with people like that, where they give me an error message and the first thing I do is google it and it has the answer. Generally they're people who are fresh out of school (and therefore not very confident in themselves) so their first reaction is to ask for help - which to be fair I usually tell them to ask for. But when the solution presents itself after very basic troubleshooting, I tell them that. "I just googled the error message and it was the first hit, here's a link." If it keeps happening after a couple times I'll stop being so helpful and ask them if they've done basic research first. So far they have either gotten the hint and become more self-reliant, or they've been let go for being terrible at their job after a few months.
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Mar 13, 2017 01:15
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huhu posted:For a final round interview I have to do a 45 minute presentation on a project of my choice. I'm just finishing up a project for my makerspace, consisting of one part Raspberry Pi python script and another part Flask website which I was planning on talking about. My discussion points are a technical overview of each part, challenges faced, tools used, and next steps. Anything else I should be considering? When I've had the "present something" part of an interview, I've had interviewers ask side questions with an intent to hijack the meeting and see how you handle it. So be prepared for maybe having to actively work to keep your talk on the rails.
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Mar 13, 2017 03:14
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Iverron posted:We've gone through 2-3 devs in the last 4 years that we're absolutely incapable of this or just unwilling. The last one was a recent CS grad. Constant emails and poking heads in to say "hey I'm getting this error", sometimes attaching the stack trace. I have a git commit and a stack trace saved as part of an interview test. Turn laptop to person. Here's the directory, here's it in intellij, eclipse, sublime text. What's this exception and how do you fix it. The reason? It's bog simple and we had a 4 year experienced dev who couldn't do it and that's when they got put on a PIP and managed out. The fact we failed so badly in our interview process made me ensue we wouldn't do that again.
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Mar 13, 2017 03:25
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Che Delilas posted:I've worked with people like that, where they give me an error message and the first thing I do is google it and it has the answer. Generally they're people who are fresh out of school (and therefore not very confident in themselves) so their first reaction is to ask for help - which to be fair I usually tell them to ask for. When I was doing my internship, one thing I struggled with was to actually know when to ask for help, for fear I look lazy. Unfortunately, I think I have a bad habit of wasting more time than I need to trying to Google-fu a solution.
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Mar 13, 2017 03:47
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I tell new people to spend 15 minutes trying to figure out the answer to their question before asking me. Then I'll ask where they've looked when they do ask. Or just passive aggressively send them a lmgtfy link
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Mar 13, 2017 04:05
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Smugworth posted:When I was doing my internship, one thing I struggled with was to actually know when to ask for help, for fear I look lazy. Unfortunately, I think I have a bad habit of wasting more time than I need to trying to Google-fu a solution. I give myself 15 minutes of dedicated attempts at solution finding before asking for some clarity. It usually proves to be enough.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:05
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Gildiss posted:I give myself 15 minutes of dedicated attempts at solution finding before asking for some clarity. It usually proves to be enough. I don't have a hard and fast timeframe but that's pretty close for me. Half the time when I enlist someone else's help they'll word the google search a different way and come up with the answer instantly; I know I've done the same thing for others. Sometimes all you need is a different perspective.
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Mar 13, 2017 04:56
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Gildiss posted:I give myself 15 minutes of dedicated attempts at solution finding before asking for some clarity. It usually proves to be enough. This is sound and I will start using it.
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Mar 13, 2017 07:53
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Smugworth posted:When I was doing my internship, one thing I struggled with was to actually know when to ask for help, for fear I look lazy. Unfortunately, I think I have a bad habit of wasting more time than I need to trying to Google-fu a solution. I've still not found a good way to get my interns to not be afraid to ask for help, they seem more pathologically afraid to ask, and be stuck for days at a time, instead of just asking. Maybe this says more about me than them, but I don't think I'm that much of an ogre...
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Mar 13, 2017 08:06
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Skandranon posted:I've still not found a good way to get my interns to not be afraid to ask for help, they seem more pathologically afraid to ask, and be stuck for days at a time, instead of just asking. Maybe this says more about me than them, but I don't think I'm that much of an ogre... I find dropping by their desk and asking "How's it going?" will often trigger them to start talking about the stupid thing they're stuck on. Even if they don't want to bring up that they're stuck, you'll notice if they start giving the same answer several days in a row. Nippashish fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Mar 13, 2017 |
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Mar 13, 2017 09:57
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Skandranon posted:I've still not found a good way to get my interns to not be afraid to ask for help, they seem more pathologically afraid to ask, and be stuck for days at a time, instead of just asking. Maybe this says more about me than them, but I don't think I'm that much of an ogre... Do a daily stand up. Get them talking about what they're working on.
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Mar 13, 2017 13:43
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Jose Valasquez posted:I tell new people to spend 15 minutes trying to figure out the answer to their question before asking me. Then I'll ask where they've looked when they do ask. Personally I use the "talk to a stuffed monkey" approach. It's where you explain the problem to a stuffed animal sitting on your desk. Often you'll come up with the solution right then. It works because talking out loud activates different pathways in your brain than when you're thinking to yourself. If you feel stupid talking to a stuffed animal, you can talk to a coworker instead. But then you'll get to feel stupid in a whole new way as you suddenly start describing an obvious solution while you're explaining your intractable problem.
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Mar 13, 2017 15:47
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lifg posted:Personally I use the "talk to a stuffed monkey" approach. It's where you explain the problem to a stuffed animal sitting on your desk. Often you'll come up with the solution right then. It works because talking out loud activates different pathways in your brain than when you're thinking to yourself. I like that idea because sometimes I've asked my coworker why something wasn't working, when I was just looking at the wrong loving browser tab.
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Mar 13, 2017 16:08
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lifg posted:Personally I use the "talk to a stuffed monkey" approach. It's where you explain the problem to a stuffed animal sitting on your desk. Often you'll come up with the solution right then. It works because talking out loud activates different pathways in your brain than when you're thinking to yourself. I prefer to do it with non-technical people, because I find that having to translate the problem into simpler, non-technical terms can help as well.
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Mar 13, 2017 16:12
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Nippashish posted:I find dropping by their desk and asking "How's it going?" will often trigger them to start talking about the stupid thing they're stuck on. Even if they don't want to bring up that they're stuck, you'll notice if they start giving the same answer several days in a row. See, I think I know this is the right answer, I just don't want to do it... Why can't they just be mature, capable developers that get PAID as if they were students? 
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Mar 13, 2017 17:58
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lifg posted:Personally I use the "talk to a stuffed monkey" approach. It's where you explain the problem to a stuffed animal sitting on your desk. Often you'll come up with the solution right then. It works because talking out loud activates different pathways in your brain than when you're thinking to yourself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging I noticed years ago that a good portion of the time if I try to type up a post on the internet asking for help I'll end up fixing my own problem as I'm writing or right after I submit the post, so now when I'm stuck I'll write up a detailed description of the problem and what I've tried, and very often that leads me to my own solution.
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