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Vincent Valentine
Feb 28, 2006

Murdertime

Pollyanna posted:

I hope they don’t mind if I don’t have the entire React framework memorized, cause I’m planning on asking whether I can reach for the documentation or not.

I looked to MDN to remind myself specifically how array.filter() worked. Boy howdy that was loving embarrassing, but they didn't seem to mind and I got the job so whatever I guess.

quote:

I feel really embarrassed that even though I work in React daily, I still need to reach for the docs sometimes and I haven’t actually started a React app from the ground up in a while, especially not without Redux included. That said, it’d be best to avoid Redux altogether for this kind of exercise...

Why would you need to avoid Redux? Did they specify that? Time constraint? React seems to go pretty hand-in-hand with redux these days. But this.setState is really good enough, and far better than people give it credit for.

But hey, failing that, go with ApolloClient for state management. Use a sledge to hammer a nail, see how they react.

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Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


So theres a company Im considering, but doing some research into their product, Im a little concerned about its longevity. It seems prone to getting clobbered by policy changes or outdated by other solutions, and recent reviews of its app have been pretty regularly poor. The opportunity itself sounds really good, but Im worried that it might somehow get cut short over lack of funding or product success reasons. Am I worrying too much, or is this something I should dig into? How do I know if a company will live long enough for e.g. the next three years or so?

Munkeymon
Aug 14, 2003

Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.



Pollyanna posted:

So theres a company Im considering, but doing some research into their product, Im a little concerned about its longevity. It seems prone to getting clobbered by policy changes or outdated by other solutions, and recent reviews of its app have been pretty regularly poor. The opportunity itself sounds really good, but Im worried that it might somehow get cut short over lack of funding or product success reasons. Am I worrying too much, or is this something I should dig into? How do I know if a company will live long enough for e.g. the next three years or so?

Assuming it's privately held, is the company running on sales or investor cash? Sales: you can't know unless you're C[E|F]O and even then it depends on factors outside of your control. Investor cash: ask about runway.

If it's public, you can get their financial filings and figure that out yourself.

But you're probably worrying too much because here in Freedomland there's nothing guaranteed about employment in any way shape or form, anyway.

JawnV6
Jul 4, 2004

So hot ...

Munkeymon posted:

But you're probably worrying too much because here in Freedomland there's nothing guaranteed about employment in any way shape or form, anyway.

Yeah, have you held any job for 3 years?

I understand not wanting to hop onto a sinking ship, but it's wholly possible to grow & develop on a product that the business kills in 6 months to a year. Like you've had to explain why you're looking for jobs before, why is "Something categorically not my fault happened that management will verify" such a scare?

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


JawnV6 posted:

Yeah, have you held any job for 3 years?

I understand not wanting to hop onto a sinking ship, but it's wholly possible to grow & develop on a product that the business kills in 6 months to a year. Like you've had to explain why you're looking for jobs before, why is "Something categorically not my fault happened that management will verify" such a scare?

Poor reactions from recruiters and hiring managers over job stints, basically. My current one is the longest at almost 2 years, and my most recent phone screen grilled me about why I had less than 2 years at the job but was looking to move on.

But youre right. I shouldnt be worrying about that as much as about how much I can grow and contribute. I think its ultimately a societal pressure, and not one I should give in to.

Munkeymon posted:

Assuming it's privately held, is the company running on sales or investor cash? Sales: you can't know unless you're C[E|F]O and even then it depends on factors outside of your control. Investor cash: ask about runway.

If it's public, you can get their financial filings and figure that out yourself.

But you're probably worrying too much because here in Freedomland there's nothing guaranteed about employment in any way shape or form, anyway.

Fair point - cant take anything for granted these days, and youre ultimately always rolling the dice. I can ask those Qs real quick, too, thanks!

Munkeymon
Aug 14, 2003

Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.



Pollyanna posted:

Poor reactions from recruiters and hiring managers over job stints, basically. My current one is the longest at almost 2 years, and my most recent phone screen grilled me about why I had less than 2 years at the job but was looking to move on.

"Substantial turnover [in both management and teammates] has made this place a poor fit for me"

I'm not 100% sure the optional part is kosher if someone wants to tell me that's stupid to say please do because I have a problem with bluntness and my business-speak suffers for it.

JawnV6
Jul 4, 2004

So hot ...

Pollyanna posted:

Poor reactions from recruiters and hiring managers over job stints, basically. My current one is the longest at almost 2 years, and my most recent phone screen grilled me about why I had less than 2 years at the job but was looking to move on.

These are the villains of the recruiting story. Their anguished expressions are facades, meant to dig at your ego and make their paltry offer seem fair in their constructed reality.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


^^^ that is metal as gently caress :black101:

Munkeymon posted:

"Substantial turnover [in both management and teammates] has made this place a poor fit for me"

I'm not 100% sure the optional part is kosher if someone wants to tell me that's stupid to say please do because I have a problem with bluntness and my business-speak suffers for it.

And thats basically what Ive said and its worked, its just annoying when recruiters and hiring managers dont bother to get the whole story before casting judgment. Whatever, their problem.

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Oct 18, 2017

Skandranon
Sep 6, 2008
fucking stupid, dont listen to me

Pollyanna posted:

So theres a company Im considering, but doing some research into their product, Im a little concerned about its longevity. It seems prone to getting clobbered by policy changes or outdated by other solutions, and recent reviews of its app have been pretty regularly poor. The opportunity itself sounds really good, but Im worried that it might somehow get cut short over lack of funding or product success reasons. Am I worrying too much, or is this something I should dig into? How do I know if a company will live long enough for e.g. the next three years or so?

I think you need to stop looking for excuses to not change things. Your current situation sucks, and every minute more you spend in it makes you more complicit in how sucky it is. Your first lifeboat may not in fact be a yacht, and this is ok. When you have a stable job you are happy at, you can worry about if your next move is optimal. Right now, you are doing damage control.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Yeah...I have a habit of being too hesitant and not being decisive. Im not gonna make that mistake here.

Relevant to that, what should I think of a non-compete agreement? Its one of those that boil down to anything you make while you work for us and for a few months after thats related to what we do is considered company property, and the nuances of these things escape me. I dont really plan on doing significant/related development on my own, so I dont think this is a problem, right?

Mniot
May 22, 2003
Not the one you know

Pollyanna posted:

Relevant to that, what should I think of a non-compete agreement? Its one of those that boil down to anything you make while you work for us and for a few months after thats related to what we do is considered company property, and the nuances of these things escape me. I dont really plan on doing significant/related development on my own, so I dont think this is a problem, right?

Those types of agreements seem to be ubiquitous in the Boston market. They're lovely and you shouldn't have to do it, but as a younger developer trying to switch jobs ASAP you don't have much leverage to push back on it and it probably won't affect you personally.

Last time I got one with an employment offer, I asked a lawyer to review it. He was able to give a nice explanation about which parts actually mattered and in what way. I recommend doing that -- contract review is a standard lawyer thing and they can quote you a reasonable price based on the number of pages. Look for a lawyer on Yelp who lists "employment" as a specialty, or just try any lawyer since the agreements aren't complex.

Massachusetts has been thinking about restricting non-competes they way that California does, but so far hasn't managed to actually pass a bill.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Mniot posted:

Those types of agreements seem to be ubiquitous in the Boston market. They're lovely and you shouldn't have to do it, but as a younger developer trying to switch jobs ASAP you don't have much leverage to push back on it and it probably won't affect you personally.

Last time I got one with an employment offer, I asked a lawyer to review it. He was able to give a nice explanation about which parts actually mattered and in what way. I recommend doing that -- contract review is a standard lawyer thing and they can quote you a reasonable price based on the number of pages. Look for a lawyer on Yelp who lists "employment" as a specialty, or just try any lawyer since the agreements aren't complex.

Massachusetts has been thinking about restricting non-competes they way that California does, but so far hasn't managed to actually pass a bill.

That's odd - this is actually a company based out of California, and I didn't know that CA restricted non-competes. Is there more information on this? I can't tell if the agreement I am signing is explicitly a non-compete or if it's legally considered distinct. If it's a non-compete, I want to bring it into question before I sign.

Edit: If it helps, I found an example contract with similar language (i.e select sentences and definitions are identical) under section 7 here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1135657/000149315217007971/ex10-1.htm It's not exactly the same, but very very similar. This sounds unnecessarily restrictive and I question the need for it...

Then again, if it's not overly restrictive/is typical for the industry, I'm probably fine with it. I'm really just looking to see if it's somehow objectionable, and I don't have the perspective needed for it. Yeah this is the point where you'd bring in a lawyer lol :stonk:

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Oct 18, 2017

teen phone cutie
Jun 18, 2012

last year i rewrote something awful from scratch because i hate myself
I just got a second interview where I have to demo some of my code.

What's better?

1. Demo an finished app with some solid functionality.

2. Demo an unfinished app with unfinished UI, but has loads of functionality already written, of which I'm more proud.

Skandranon
Sep 6, 2008
fucking stupid, dont listen to me

Grump posted:

I just got a second interview where I have to demo some of my code.

What's better?

1. Demo an finished app with some solid functionality.

2. Demo an unfinished app with unfinished UI, but has loads of functionality already written, of which I'm more proud.

Depends, are they looking at the UI and overall 'product', or are they going to dive into the code and talk about it? If they are diving into the code, I'd pick #2. Maybe try to smooth out any rough edges in it, but you want to put what you think is your best code forward.

kitten smoothie
Dec 29, 2001

Pollyanna posted:

That's odd - this is actually a company based out of California, and I didn't know that CA restricted non-competes. Is there more information on this? I can't tell if the agreement I am signing is explicitly a non-compete or if it's legally considered distinct. If it's a non-compete, I want to bring it into question before I sign.

The contract will specify what state's laws will apply. Also it sounds like you're describing an intellectual property assignment agreement, not a non-compete, so n-thing the suggestion to pay a lawyer for an hour of their time to review it for you.

Vincent Valentine
Feb 28, 2006

Murdertime

Grump posted:

I just got a second interview where I have to demo some of my code.

What's better?

1. Demo an finished app with some solid functionality.

2. Demo an unfinished app with unfinished UI, but has loads of functionality already written, of which I'm more proud.

I haven't interviewed at nearly as many places as other people here, so keep that in mind. But I'd go with whatever is more complete. Reason being, at the places I'd interviewed more than devs came in to take a look. Both PMs and designers, and at one place weirdly guys from the math team(?). If I had brought in an unfinished codebase there wouldn't have been much to show those people.

Alternatively, whichever app is written in the language and frameworks they use on the project you're applying to.

teen phone cutie
Jun 18, 2012

last year i rewrote something awful from scratch because i hate myself
The finished one is React.

The unfinished one is React and Redux. Also includes a Web API that I wrote myself which communicates with some server endpoints, AKA the main reason i want to show it off.

This is a frond end Wordpress/Drupal position im interviewing for, so Im not totally sure if the UI is more important or the Javascript itself.

ohgodwhat
Aug 6, 2005

I know of someone who had an 18 month non-compete, with the caveat they had to pay your salary the whole time. The caveat of that caveat was that the bonus you'd miss out on could be more substantial than the salary.

Mniot
May 22, 2003
Not the one you know

Pollyanna posted:

That's odd - this is actually a company based out of California, and I didn't know that CA restricted non-competes. Is there more information on this? I can't tell if the agreement I am signing is explicitly a non-compete or if it's legally considered distinct. If it's a non-compete, I want to bring it into question before I sign.

Edit: If it helps, I found an example contract with similar language (i.e select sentences and definitions are identical) under section 7 here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1135657/000149315217007971/ex10-1.htm It's not exactly the same, but very very similar. This sounds unnecessarily restrictive and I question the need for it...

Then again, if it's not overly restrictive/is typical for the industry, I'm probably fine with it. I'm really just looking to see if it's somehow objectionable, and I don't have the perspective needed for it. Yeah this is the point where you'd bring in a lawyer lol :stonk:

Your link is for executives, who are typically exempted from a lot of employee protections because they're the bosses.

Non-compete or IP assignment, if the company is covered by CA law, then it'll be a contract that's like "we own everything you make plus you for all time* *to the extent allowed by CA law which negates nearly all of this".

Seriously, try talking to a lawyer. You don't have to pay anything at all until they say "you must pay me $$$ if you want to keep talking" and the three times I've done it they were super easy-going, no pressure, and did a great job of explaining what my realistic options were. It's good experience to have.

KernelSlanders
May 27, 2013

Rogue operating systems on occasion spread lies and rumors about me.

Radical posted:

the team i work for at apple regularly has people make it to the onsite that fail to do hello world even close to correctly and it really concerns me

Do you not screen for that in the earlier remote interviews?

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


:yotj:

Not gonna lie, I'm very excited.

Mniot posted:

Your link is for executives, who are typically exempted from a lot of employee protections because they're the bosses.

Non-compete or IP assignment, if the company is covered by CA law, then it'll be a contract that's like "we own everything you make plus you for all time* *to the extent allowed by CA law which negates nearly all of this".

Seriously, try talking to a lawyer. You don't have to pay anything at all until they say "you must pay me $$$ if you want to keep talking" and the three times I've done it they were super easy-going, no pressure, and did a great job of explaining what my realistic options were. It's good experience to have.

I should have a lawyer take a look at it, yeah. Not least because I want to understand the scope of it and how it works.

Portland Sucks
Dec 21, 2004
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
What, if any, is the standard for companies hiring interns with respect to the potential for full time work afterwards? My boss wants to start hiring interns over the summer to get some extra work done cheap, but he knows 100% that there isn't going to be any full time positions available for these kids if they do well. The kind of work they'll be doing is legitimate for a CS internship and they'll get some resume bullet points that'll look good out of it. I feel like that's just a massive tease though -- I'd be pretty pissed if I spent my summer internship at a company that secretly had no intent of hiring me from the start, am I just a bleeding heart liberal?

Plorkyeran
Mar 22, 2007

To Escape The Shackles Of The Old Forums, We Must Reject The Tribal Negativity He Endorsed
Using internships as a hiring funnel is much more for the company's benefit than the interns. Hiring interns with the intent of just getting some cheap labor is a pretty terrible idea, but not because you're loving over the interns. Even the great ones I've worked with generally take months to start being a net-positive contributor.

Portland Sucks
Dec 21, 2004
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Plorkyeran posted:

Using internships as a hiring funnel is much more for the company's benefit than the interns. Hiring interns with the intent of just getting some cheap labor is a pretty terrible idea, but not because you're loving over the interns. Even the great ones I've worked with generally take months to start being a net-positive contributor.

We hired a intern this last summer who, by my considerations was pretty average, and managed to keep him busy with small jobs that were very helpful to us and he learned a lot in the mean time. It's a corporate research lab so it isn't the typical SWE workflow. I know we're getting our money's worth, I'm just wondering if its a lovely thing to do.

Mythical Moderate
Jul 5, 2002

My heart and actions are utterly unclouded. They are all those of 'Justice'.




Looking for some guidance/sanity check. I'm looking to switch careers from IT to development. I'm trying to decide of doing a boot camp is worth it or not. I've used Python off and on for the last five years for various small tasks at work haven't used it consistently. I know how to throw something together to do a relatively small task pretty easily but trying to do larger projects trips me up. Between getting tripped up on structuring data and a lack of experience I struggle a bit. I've taken a number of online courses for Django, etc and while I can grasp the concepts as they're being taught in the context of the lesson its more a challenge to apply those concepts to projects I want to do. To mitigate this I'm currently taking Harvard's CS50 class which I'm finding to be quite helpful even though I've only finished week 2 so far.

Maybe I just need more practice but knowing myself I think doing a full time bootcamp for 40 hours a week for a few months might be enough to get me over the hump. I am however concerned of how much material is expected to be learned in a relatively short time frame. I know its unreasonable to assume you can be an expert developer with 3-5 months of knowledge. If these boot camps are only skimming over the bare bones amount of knowledge needed that raises a few flags. Would it be better to do something like FreeCodeCamp instead?

Lastly, what are employers really looking for entry level developers when they see their published code? I have no idea what is considered good enough to be showcase worthy. This is probably the impostor syndrome but unless I have full confidence in what I'm presenting I'd rather not even submit it.

Portland Sucks
Dec 21, 2004
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Mythical Moderate posted:

Lastly, what are employers really looking for entry level developers when they see their published code? I have no idea what is considered good enough to be showcase worthy. This is probably the impostor syndrome but unless I have full confidence in what I'm presenting I'd rather not even submit it.

Employers don't generally see your code until you are their employee. I think the notion of having a github account for hiring managers to look at is seriously over inflated. Minus all the white boarding and puzzle questions that go on in interviews the process is still pretty standard.

HR Posts lovely job description -> You submit resume to HR -> they scan it for buzzwords -> hiring manger filters based on cursory glance looking for experience -> interview -> job.

If you know someone in the company and are getting a recommendation maybe skip a few steps ahead.

Hiring is a poo poo process that no one signs up to do, and is usually tacked on top of "real" responsibilities. Few people have time to sit around and look at your github account for more than a few seconds. If you've built some stuff on the side tell me on the resume and be able to talk about it enthusiastically during the interview.

lifg
Dec 4, 2000
<this tag left blank>
Muldoon

Mythical Moderate posted:

Lastly, what are employers really looking for entry level developers when they see their published code? I have no idea what is considered good enough to be showcase worthy. This is probably the impostor syndrome but unless I have full confidence in what I'm presenting I'd rather not even submit it.

Something thats launched. Even if its only alpha and full of bugs (all code is) and only you use it. Hell, having a current bug list is great.

fantastic in plastic
Jun 15, 2007

The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

Portland Sucks posted:

What, if any, is the standard for companies hiring interns with respect to the potential for full time work afterwards? My boss wants to start hiring interns over the summer to get some extra work done cheap, but he knows 100% that there isn't going to be any full time positions available for these kids if they do well. The kind of work they'll be doing is legitimate for a CS internship and they'll get some resume bullet points that'll look good out of it. I feel like that's just a massive tease though -- I'd be pretty pissed if I spent my summer internship at a company that secretly had no intent of hiring me from the start, am I just a bleeding heart liberal?

I ran an internship program at a former company and sometimes I knew we wouldn't have any positions for interns at the end of their internship. I was up-front with them about that situation when I knew that was the case, and I never lost any sleep over it. They got resume bullet points and contacts with my company's developers/designers/management out of it (which occasionally resulted in us calling them later when we did have a position for them) and I made sure to offer interview practice and general early-stage career mentoring.

From what I've heard, a lot of internships in my metro struggle to offer legitimate programming work. If your area is the same way, offering a non-insane internship can still offer value to the interns, even if a direct pipeline to a job isn't immediately in the cards.

fantastic in plastic
Jun 15, 2007

The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.

Mythical Moderate posted:

Looking for some guidance/sanity check. I'm looking to switch careers from IT to development. I'm trying to decide of doing a boot camp is worth it or not. I've used Python off and on for the last five years for various small tasks at work haven't used it consistently. I know how to throw something together to do a relatively small task pretty easily but trying to do larger projects trips me up. Between getting tripped up on structuring data and a lack of experience I struggle a bit. I've taken a number of online courses for Django, etc and while I can grasp the concepts as they're being taught in the context of the lesson its more a challenge to apply those concepts to projects I want to do. To mitigate this I'm currently taking Harvard's CS50 class which I'm finding to be quite helpful even though I've only finished week 2 so far.

Maybe I just need more practice but knowing myself I think doing a full time bootcamp for 40 hours a week for a few months might be enough to get me over the hump. I am however concerned of how much material is expected to be learned in a relatively short time frame. I know its unreasonable to assume you can be an expert developer with 3-5 months of knowledge. If these boot camps are only skimming over the bare bones amount of knowledge needed that raises a few flags. Would it be better to do something like FreeCodeCamp instead?

Lastly, what are employers really looking for entry level developers when they see their published code? I have no idea what is considered good enough to be showcase worthy. This is probably the impostor syndrome but unless I have full confidence in what I'm presenting I'd rather not even submit it.

I did a bootcamp approximately four years ago. What I wanted/needed was some loose organizational structure, a lesson plan, and an environment where I was programming for 40+ hours a week for months on end. The bootcamp provided those things, and it worked out. I think healthy, sane way to look at a bootcamp is that you're paying for the environment and the structure, not the material in particular. There are plenty of programming lessons online for free or at a very low cost, and bootcamps don't provide any secret or arcane information that you couldn't find elsewhere.

There doesn't look like there's any more "CS fundamentals" type of stuff on freecodecamp's syllabus than I would expect to see on a bootcamp's syllabus.

I've hired interns and provided feedback on junior developers as part of hiring committees. "Can I easily run this code?" is usually the first thing I look for in a candidate's code sample, followed by "Are there tests?", followed by "Do I find any showstopping bugs in the 15-30 seconds I can spend on this?"

Volguus
Mar 3, 2009

Portland Sucks posted:

What, if any, is the standard for companies hiring interns with respect to the potential for full time work afterwards? My boss wants to start hiring interns over the summer to get some extra work done cheap, but he knows 100% that there isn't going to be any full time positions available for these kids if they do well. The kind of work they'll be doing is legitimate for a CS internship and they'll get some resume bullet points that'll look good out of it. I feel like that's just a massive tease though -- I'd be pretty pissed if I spent my summer internship at a company that secretly had no intent of hiring me from the start, am I just a bleeding heart liberal?

Personally I see internships as an investment. You don't hire them because you want work done for cheap, you hire them because they may become employees later and you are willing to invest your company's/employees time to train them in that regard. You don't get interns because you can't afford something better, you get interns because you can afford the expense. Depending how "green" they are, the work that they do actually manage to produce can be just throwaway. For true development work (as opposed to data entry or other menial tasks) and to not get work from them that will be thrown away later or fantastically hard to maintain there will be serious time investment required from the full time developers. But yes, there are exceptions, where the intern is so knowledgeable and experienced that the full-timers can learn something from him/her. Probably around the same odds as winning the lottery on that one.

However, yes, a lot (most?) of the companies out there get interns only to get work done for cheap. Most of them get quite disappointed when the work produced is complete garbage and either has to be thrown away or a lot of time has to be spent to maintain it.

Mniot
May 22, 2003
Not the one you know
If you give the intern work that they can put on their resume, help them along during the internship, and offer to provide a reference at the end, then that's awesome for the intern. If they're good and you don't hire them, then it's entirely your loss because a good programmer with some real-world experience on their resume will do just fine.

Portland Sucks
Dec 21, 2004
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Volguus posted:

Personally I see internships as an investment. You don't hire them because you want work done for cheap, you hire them because they may become employees later and you are willing to invest your company's/employees time to train them in that regard. You don't get interns because you can't afford something better, you get interns because you can afford the expense. Depending how "green" they are, the work that they do actually manage to produce can be just throwaway. For true development work (as opposed to data entry or other menial tasks) and to not get work from them that will be thrown away later or fantastically hard to maintain there will be serious time investment required from the full time developers. But yes, there are exceptions, where the intern is so knowledgeable and experienced that the full-timers can learn something from him/her. Probably around the same odds as winning the lottery on that one.

However, yes, a lot (most?) of the companies out there get interns only to get work done for cheap. Most of them get quite disappointed when the work produced is complete garbage and either has to be thrown away or a lot of time has to be spent to maintain it.

I understand all of this logic.

I'm specifically wondering about the perspective of hiring an intern without the intent of a full-time position with regards to not being a lovely employer. It's on my boss if he wants to hire cheap labor and be disappointed. I'm just wondering if it's worth speaking up on behalf of the college kids who might be getting hosed in the process if it isn't a normal thing to do. I really don't care about our bottom line.

Keetron
Sep 26, 2008

Check out my enormous testicles in my TFLC log!

It is also possible to run internship programs from an altruistic point of view.

fantastic in plastic
Jun 15, 2007

The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.
Arguing with your boss that he shouldn't do it isn't going to be productive. You'll just put them in a position where the only things they can do to satisfy you are "make money appear from nothing to fund positions for these interns" or "don't hire interns at all, meaning the work they would have done is not done or is done by overloading an employee".

If you're concerned that the interns might not get a valuable experience out of their internship, volunteer to take point on it or be their tech lead, or something else where you can directly make a difference.

If you're offended that internships exist and you just hate them on principle, :capitalism:

Mniot
May 22, 2003
Not the one you know
Your hang-up seems a little puzzling because not all internships are graduating seniors... Do you mean something different when you say "intern"?

An intern is a college student who has not graduated. They're usually rising juniors or rising seniors (because sophomores suck too much). A successful intern might get asked back the next year, or get an offer of employment upon graduation. Interns take the job because experience is massively valuable for getting a job, and a poo poo-paying summer internship still feels like tons of cash when you're that young.

A co-op is a college student at an engineering school. They spend some number of hours working at a company (for pay) as part of their coursework. You need some sort of paperwork to show the school that you're a real company and that they're not just fetching coffee. Co-ops can run during the school year or over the winter break. A successful co-op might get an offer of employment upon graduation where they'd transition from part-time work to full-time work.

Contract-to-hire is when you're thinking of hiring someone as a full-time employee but don't trust your hiring process. (Or when there's something awful about your workplace that weeds out >10% of new hires and you want to save on paperwork.) You hire the person as a contractor, with the understanding that they'll be hired as a FTE after some probationary period.

The only one of these that comes with the expectation of a full-time position is the last.

CPColin
Sep 9, 2003

Big ol' smile.
One good task for summer interns: "We have this utility class everything uses that's named stupidly and want to update it. We can't use the IDE's refactoring tools, because of X. We can't use a regex, because of Y. Have fun!"

reversefungi
Nov 27, 2003

Master of the high hat!

Mythical Moderate posted:

Looking for some guidance/sanity check. I'm looking to switch careers from IT to development. I'm trying to decide of doing a boot camp is worth it or not. I've used Python off and on for the last five years for various small tasks at work haven't used it consistently. I know how to throw something together to do a relatively small task pretty easily but trying to do larger projects trips me up. Between getting tripped up on structuring data and a lack of experience I struggle a bit. I've taken a number of online courses for Django, etc and while I can grasp the concepts as they're being taught in the context of the lesson its more a challenge to apply those concepts to projects I want to do. To mitigate this I'm currently taking Harvard's CS50 class which I'm finding to be quite helpful even though I've only finished week 2 so far.

Maybe I just need more practice but knowing myself I think doing a full time bootcamp for 40 hours a week for a few months might be enough to get me over the hump. I am however concerned of how much material is expected to be learned in a relatively short time frame. I know its unreasonable to assume you can be an expert developer with 3-5 months of knowledge. If these boot camps are only skimming over the bare bones amount of knowledge needed that raises a few flags. Would it be better to do something like FreeCodeCamp instead?

Lastly, what are employers really looking for entry level developers when they see their published code? I have no idea what is considered good enough to be showcase worthy. This is probably the impostor syndrome but unless I have full confidence in what I'm presenting I'd rather not even submit it.

I did a bootcamp over the summer and I'm starting my first job in software development on Monday (woo!!), so it's definitely possible and feasible. I'd give a consideration for some middle-line approaches as well. The bootcamp I did was a little un-traditional, in that it was self-paced and working with a mentor who would offer frequent code review and career advice. I found this to be super helpful (and more affordable) compared to the standard bootcamp approach, and it's worth looking into. If freeCodeCamp is on one end of the spectrum (free, no paid tutors/mentors, etc.) and something like Hack Reactor is on the other ($18,000 or something ridiculous for a crash course), there are lots of options in the middle. Take a look at something like Viking Code School, Flat Iron School, The Fire Hose Project, and a couple of others to see some alternative models. It all depends on what kind of support you need, what you're looking for out of the curriculum, and what your timetable is.

JawnV6
Jul 4, 2004

So hot ...

Portland Sucks posted:

I'm specifically wondering about the perspective of hiring an intern without the intent of a full-time position with regards to not being a lovely employer. It's on my boss if he wants to hire cheap labor and be disappointed. I'm just wondering if it's worth speaking up on behalf of the college kids who might be getting hosed in the process if it isn't a normal thing to do. I really don't care about our bottom line.

I'm not following how they're being "hosed" if you're up front about it not leading to a full time position at your org. If they still want to take an internship for whatever reason, there's no deception or "hosing" that I can figure out.

Volguus
Mar 3, 2009

Portland Sucks posted:

I understand all of this logic.

I'm specifically wondering about the perspective of hiring an intern without the intent of a full-time position with regards to not being a lovely employer.

I wouldn't worry about it. Personally I believe that internship is a great way to get experience in as many companies as possible to see the Googles/Facebooks and the mom&pop shops how they do business.

Portland Sucks posted:

It's on my boss if he wants to hire cheap labor and be disappointed.

That's probably gonna be on you since you will probably have to fix/maintain that poo poo. The boss only wants another checkbox on a form and will think you're an idiot that it takes you a week to put it in.

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Munkeymon
Aug 14, 2003

Motherfucker's got an
armor-piercing crowbar! Rigoddamndicu𝜆ous.



fantastic in plastic posted:

If you're offended that internships exist and you just hate them on principle, :capitalism:

I don't see anything wrong with internships. Unpaid internships and the industries that depend on them should die in a fire, though.

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