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Interviewing with a FAANG company is like buying a lottery ticket. If you win, it can work out very well for you, but you're probably not going to win. If you're not content to pin your financial future on lotteries, you shouldn't be happy with pinning your career on FAANGs.
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Jul 22, 2020 16:59
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ultrafilter posted:Interviewing with a FAANG company is like buying a lottery ticket. If you win, it can work out very well for you, but you're probably not going to win. If you're not content to pin your financial future on lotteries, you shouldn't be happy with pinning your career on FAANGs. a lottery ticket in that you might not get the job? because FAANG companies pay really well
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Jul 22, 2020 17:18
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Yes, that's part of the point I was making. But the rejection rate and the amount of luck involved in the outcome matter too if you're not already in one of those companies.
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Jul 22, 2020 17:27
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Not sure this is the same point others are trying to make or not, but yeah, there can be a lot of options for getting a new job that significantly boosts your pay (or total comp) that is not at a FAANG. Boot camp + 2.5 years should be plenty to get you bites at other places, just in general. (Of course the figgies issue can also depend on whether you’re currently badly underpaid, etc.)
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Jul 22, 2020 17:33
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I had been contemplating taking a shot at Google for the last couple months but I feel like there's no way they'd even interview me
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Jul 22, 2020 17:40
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:I had been contemplating taking a shot at Google for the last couple months but I feel like there's no way they'd even interview me Apply right now.
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Jul 22, 2020 17:49
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Thankfully, I'm not super underpaid. I'm just currently working for a retail company and the lack of sales due to Covid-19 has caused them to remove 401k matching and annual bonuses (which is 20% for me). I definitely felt like my Amazon interview was a crap shoot. Some of my interviewers were super nice and it felt collaborative while others were openly hostile and seemed to have no interest in interviewing at all. I'm definitely not set on getting a FAANG job, it just feels like the job market is largely FAANG jobs.
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Jul 22, 2020 17:55
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:I had been contemplating taking a shot at Google for the last 10 years but I feel like there's no way they'd even interview me
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Jul 22, 2020 17:58
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:I had been contemplating taking a shot at Google for the last couple months but I feel like there's no way they'd even interview me Let them make that decision. There's absolutely no reason to not apply.
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Jul 22, 2020 18:00
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If you want to work at Google, apply at Google. iloverice posted:How do I know I'm no longer a Newbie and I'm now an Oldie? I'm a bootcamp grad that now has 2.5 years of experience at the same company. Earlier this year, I was thinking of maybe moving on to get a bigger paycheck but Covid-19 got in the way and I'm just glad to have a job at all. Amazon reached out to me last month and while I made it to the full virtual interview cycle, I unfortunately didn't pass their SE2 interview. Once things start to normalize again, I'm thinking of applying to a few (hundred) places and want to temper my expectations. Even with my impostor syndrome, I feel like I do a good job at my current position. 2.5 years is either junior or no-modifier depending where you go, but there's no standard. I personally felt more like an oldie after I got comfortable with the idea that imposter syndrome is a recurring state of mind, and that I'm competent and have lots of experience and knowledge to contribute despite not knowing enough about all the things I want to know more about. Your mileage may vary, but consciously acknowledging that I'm not Bill Gates, it's okay that I'm not, and that I shouldn't measure myself against him, really let me move ahead in my career. To your other point: if you want a new job and bigger paycheck, you should start applying now. A lot of companies have switched to fully remote, including interviews. Yeah, fewer companies are hiring but at worst you get some interview practice. If you have the mental energy for it, you should start now.
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Jul 22, 2020 18:26
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Also on that point, some companies are ramping up hiring because everyone is online. To put the idea out there of what kind of jump you could possibly get (or better hopefully!), I left my old company at 70k (they cut pay cause of COVID) and am now making 100k with around another 20-30k in bonuses. And I’m not at a FAANG. I highly recommend reading the negotiation thread when you start putting your resume out there.
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Jul 22, 2020 22:23
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Che Delilas posted:If you want to work at Google, apply at Google. lifg posted:Apply right now. asur posted:Let them make that decision. There's absolutely no reason to not apply. Okay fine y'all have peer-pressured me into it
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Jul 22, 2020 23:11
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Google will do a phone tech screen with pretty much anyone. It can’t hurt to try.
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Jul 23, 2020 02:20
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dantheman650 posted:Google will do a phone tech screen with pretty much anyone. It can’t hurt to try. Oh really? I didn't realize that. I've been laid up with covid for a few weeks and gotten rusty on algos but once I get back in the swing of it that is pretty encouraging to know
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Jul 23, 2020 05:33
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iloverice posted:Thankfully, I'm not super underpaid. I'm just currently working for a retail company and the lack of sales due to Covid-19 has caused them to remove 401k matching and annual bonuses (which is 20% for me). Sorry to hear you had a crappy experience interviewing at Amazon. I work there and we are supposed to treat candidates like customers, which means giving them a positive experience whether they do well or not. Of course, there are plenty of assholes who don’t care. Were you surveyed afterwards? That said, in my experience interviewing is always somewhat of a crapshoot, FAANG or not. It’s just not an exact science. But, that’s also a reason to not take rejection too seriously and try again later; you might get a better interviewer fit in your loop.
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Jul 23, 2020 07:46
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Alright, you all have convinced me to send out some resumes.  Adhemar posted:Were you surveyed afterwards? I was and I gave them meaningful feedback. The recruiter seemed apologetic but at that point there was nothing they could do.
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Jul 23, 2020 16:17
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:Oh really? I didn't realize that. I've been laid up with covid for a few weeks and gotten rusty on algos but once I get back in the swing of it that is pretty encouraging to know Someone here correct me if I'm wrong but I've heard Cracking the Coding Interview is pretty closely aligned with Google interview algos.
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Jul 23, 2020 19:38
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The pinned threads on LeetCode are very accurate and people who actually do their interviews post updates in the threads: https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question?currentPage=1&orderBy=hot&query=
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Jul 23, 2020 22:37
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Love Stole the Day posted:The pinned threads on LeetCode are very accurate and people who actually do their interviews post updates in the threads: https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question?currentPage=1&orderBy=hot&query= A bit off topic, but the gamification of Leetcode is working for me. 10 point dailies for doing the Explore questions. And the ridiculous payouts for 'PVP' in the contests just for a month's worth of Leetcode Premium. I hated doing Leetcode for job interviews, but I think I love grinding Leetcode for the points (what's wrong with me  )
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Jul 23, 2020 23:06
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Che Delilas posted:Someone here correct me if I'm wrong but I've heard Cracking the Coding Interview is pretty closely aligned with Google interview algos. I've got a copy sitting around, so that's good news Love Stole the Day posted:The pinned threads on LeetCode are very accurate and people who actually do their interviews post updates in the threads: https://leetcode.com/discuss/interview-question?currentPage=1&orderBy=hot&query= Ahh thanks, I had no idea this area of leetcode even existed lol. To this point I've just used it to do random problems, this is very useful
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Jul 23, 2020 23:10
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Tezzeract posted:I hated doing Leetcode for job interviews, but I think I love grinding Leetcode for the points (what's wrong with me 
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Jul 24, 2020 00:54
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iloverice posted:How do I know I'm no longer a Newbie and I'm now an Oldie? I'm a bootcamp grad that now has 2.5 years of experience at the same company. Earlier this year, I was thinking of maybe moving on to get a bigger paycheck but Covid-19 got in the way and I'm just glad to have a job at all. Amazon reached out to me last month and while I made it to the full virtual interview cycle, I unfortunately didn't pass their SE2 interview. Once things start to normalize again, I'm thinking of applying to a few (hundred) places and want to temper my expectations. Even with my impostor syndrome, I feel like I do a good job at my current position. I'm pushing 5 years, I'm a team lead, I oversee a ton of cool, complicated tech. I'm well respected at my job, thanks in no small part to pulling success after success from the nightmare that is our codebase(s). Every time I post in the oldbie thread here, I get corrected along the lines of "Hey, cool post! Literally all of it is wrong, but it's nice to see you're trying.  " and I don't know what to fuckin' think anymore. Code is a wild wasteland and has no rules or laws.
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Jul 24, 2020 14:13
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From the previous discussion, it sounds like Google will actually do callbacks on random applications from its website. Does this also hold for the other FAANG companies? This seems different from most other companies where you usually need some in before they actually look at your resume.
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Jul 25, 2020 12:33
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drainpipe posted:From the previous discussion, it sounds like Google will actually do callbacks on random applications from its website. Does this also hold for the other FAANG companies? This seems different from most other companies where you usually need some in before they actually look at your resume. They all will, but your chances are significantly higher if you have some sort of connection. I'd recommend messaging internal recruiters on LinkedIn before applying through a job posting.
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Jul 25, 2020 19:18
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Hello! This seems like the right place to post this, but please redirect me if I'm wrong! So, I'm in a bit of a weird situation. My background in programming comes from my time in a lab, since I originally taught myself R to avoid having to use Excel. In five years, I took myself from writing basic, terrible scripts to now being able to write entire complex Shiny apps, so I'm pretty proud of that. Having to share code with collaborators has given me a chance to work on it being legible and easy to understand, and nobody has screamed at me yet, which I'm assuming is a good thing. I've also picked up Python recently, it's not too hard to go from R to it, so why not! Now, due to the pandemic, I'm finding myself laid off in a few months. I have some time to apply to jobs and assemble a portfolio. The thing is, I've never done any "formal" training and I have no clue as to what the industry standards are with R and Python, I have no idea what I should put into a portfolio, and I have no idea what employers expect and how to properly convey it. My background is in biology, not in programming, but my career goal is that I want to transition from being a bench scientist to a lab data analyst. I really want to keep working in a scientific context, and once things have settled down for me, I want to start an online master's in data science and I have a list of schools I want to apply to. My goals are set, I just need help figuring out how to get there and continue my career in that direction. So, I have a few questions:
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Jul 29, 2020 17:10
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Don't just learn SQL because you'll get hit with questions about database design or how indexes work. Learn what "database normalization" is and use SQL to create some databases. Then, read a book like The Art Of SQL to learn how to do things well. R is usually used by people with titles like "data scientist" or "data engineer"
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Jul 29, 2020 17:21
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This relational databases course is a pretty standard introduction to the context for SQL, which is very valuable to have if you want to be able to do anything more than extremely basic queries. It's also probably necessary to get some basic level of proficiency with Excel. Yes, it sucks for data management and actual analysis, but it's often the best way to present your results, and everybody else uses it.
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Jul 29, 2020 17:42
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hulk hooligan posted:
If you want to message me I can probably give more specific advice based on what your experience is/what you want to do exactly. Normally I'd say we're always hiring, but with the pandemic funding for state universities is all hosed up and I have no idea how things are going to look, otoh our fiscal year starts in september so I assume people will know by then and we've had some people leave in the last couple months. Most of our hires have been people who worked in a lab and then transitioned into perl/python/R/shell scripting for data analysis like you so it isn't uncommon or anything.
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Jul 29, 2020 17:45
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hulk hooligan posted:So, I have a few questions: Portfolio: see if you can write a lite version of your lab software in R, on your personal laptop, then upload it to github. GitHub is your portfolio Job descriptions: SQL is neat to have, means you have some sort of backend/database experience. There are two kinds of "SQL experience" 1. traditional data analytics person who crunches numbers for the big boss and knows all the tricks for writing sql queries 2. a person who knows enough to be dangrous and attempt to write their own ORM. Generally they are looking for #2 and you know how databases work in general and can interface with them. Job postings for #1 are completely different more reporting/analytics stuff and ought to be labeled as such. Job titles to monitor: Uhh you could look at data analyst, data scientist, senior data analyst/scientist? Are you crunching sales data, or are you writing supersonic fluid modeling software or what
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Jul 30, 2020 03:29
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Thank you for the responses, everyone! I'll give some more background on myself, to put some more context on where I'm at. So, basically, my background from college and my volunteer/internship years is in evolutionary genetics. I can do all sorts of molecular biology lab work, and even though I haven't done it in ages, a lot of it is pretty automatic to me and I can relearn it quickly. Then, at my current employer, I managed to switch from genetics to mass spectrometry. A huge jump, but I took to it pretty well and I have a decently solid understanding of what I'm doing even though I wasn't that great at chemistry in college. When I first joined and saw that all the data analysis was being done manually in Excel, I thought to myself, okay, this is going to take me hours each day, everything is just a CSV file, why don't I learn to automate it? Things at the time were much more relaxed since it was a newly established lab and I had tons of free time. Without any programming experience at all, I took up R and taught myself by bashing my head into it repeatedly until it stuck. At first, I took data analysis from being a minutes-long process for each sample, to one that took a couple of seconds without any sort of user input. From there, over the years, I kept expanding what I knew. I'm a wizard at ggplot and Plotly, I can handle all sorts of bizarre data types from various instruments, I've even written import/export functions for poorly documented binary formats. One of my favorite memories is having just figured out Shiny, writing a basic app, and approaching my boss in wide-eyed excitement. I've created an entire pipeline of apps for every single type of data processing that we can do, and they're designed to be user-friendly enough that anyone can operate them. My general attitude is that if I can figure out anything if you just sit me in front of a computer with an active internet connection. Give me a couple of hours and I'll get you what you need. I taught myself Python for the hell of it and I'm going to try teaching myself SQL too. Now, my original plan, before the pandemic destroyed everything, was that I'd be applying to online-based grad schools to get a master's degree in data science, and then either get promoted to, or find a job elsewhere, as a data analyst. I can very easily do anything you want me to do with coding, but what I sorely need is a background in statistics, as well as the diploma itself to unlock higher positions. Unfortunately, I can't do this right now, because I'm stuck in panic mode trying to find a new job before the time limit I was given runs out. I don't have any sort of family that can take me in, I just have a mother who's elderly and doesn't have any retirement savings, so she lives with me and I'm the sole source of income. So, I'm currently left in an awkward position where I'm straddling lab work and the early framework of my future career. Everything is left in a premature state, and I'm clueless on how to handle this transition much earlier than I was expecting it to happen. I know that my future is in data science, and I need to get on that. What I need right now is a stable enough position to start the grad school process and continue to learn and refine my skills so that I can get to where I want to be. A programming job is what I feel would suit me the best right now, even though I'm applying to lab jobs as well. Basically, I'm hosed, but trying to salvage the situation and make things work. Thanks, pandemic!
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Jul 30, 2020 16:42
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Learn sql in 10 minutes is a nice cheap little book with short lessons about sql. I found it pretty easy to readvand useful
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Aug 4, 2020 07:23
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Almost six months ago now I made a post here about a growing desire to leave professional school and attempt to switch careers to development. I am still very undecided. In the Spring, I got an internship with a health informatics company that I hoped would be a great way to mix my love of programming with healthcare, it has not exactly worked out that way. Most of my work involves reading drug information and rewording it to fit on our site. The times when I do get to program something (usually just to make the interns' jobs more convenient) are when I am happiest and most engaged. I spent the majority of my free time over the summer rebuilding a small attendance tracking app that I created for a student organization I'm in to be a general tool that could be used by any other student organization. I'm getting close to finishing it and will be providing it to other orgs at my school as a large scale test. Making this was infinitely more fun than anything I have experienced while getting my graduate level education. Yet, I still don't know whether I should or even want to leave school. I am halfway done with getting a doctoral degree, but my distaste for it grows almost daily; especially with how the faculty have been handling things since Covid started. To get to an actual question: As development has started to become less and less of a backup plan, I've started doing some actual light research into switching careers. One thing I've done is modify my CV to be a one page resume, removing things like the fact that I am still in pharmacy school and the published research I did in undergrad regarding computational drug discovery (although really my only part in the "computational" aspect was running a few bash scripts and waiting for them to finish). Could anyone share thoughts on whether it was the right thing to do to get rid of these, or share some input on this resume as a whole? I realize it may be lacking a bit in real, professional programming experience. I am hoping to work on some personal things more and getting a portfolio website up soon. The projects I mention are present in GitHub already but the repositories are currently private. 
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Aug 5, 2020 09:25
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i vomit kittens posted:Almost six months ago now I made a post here about a growing desire to leave professional school and attempt to switch careers to development. I am still very undecided. In the Spring, I got an internship with a health informatics company that I hoped would be a great way to mix my love of programming with healthcare, it has not exactly worked out that way. Most of my work involves reading drug information and rewording it to fit on our site. The times when I do get to program something (usually just to make the interns' jobs more convenient) are when I am happiest and most engaged. I spent the majority of my free time over the summer rebuilding a small attendance tracking app that I created for a student organization I'm in to be a general tool that could be used by any other student organization. I'm getting close to finishing it and will be providing it to other orgs at my school as a large scale test. Making this was infinitely more fun than anything I have experienced while getting my graduate level education. Yet, I still don't know whether I should or even want to leave school. I am halfway done with getting a doctoral degree, but my distaste for it grows almost daily; especially with how the faculty have been handling things since Covid started. I'm not a hiring manager or anything; I've just helped some coworkers rework their resumes. My three quick, minor thoughts: 1: Unify your part of speech. Even if your current job seems like it should be "Automating" instead of "Automated", it's meant to be a list of accomplishments, not your duties, so past tense is fine. 2: I think the general wisdom (in the US anyway) is to just have your graduation date, and no start date. It somewhat helps avoid any possible age discrimination. Also, if any of those student organizations could possibly cause you to be targeted (an LGBT org, an African Student Alliance or something?), it is something to reconsider. 3: Put the stuff that matters most at the top and slowly reduce in importance on the way down. Unfortunately, since you're changing careers, you may not have a great choice in ordering, but make sure you're happy if the manager only reads the top part. Check out the Resume Ultrathread OP for more.
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Aug 5, 2020 10:51
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i vomit kittens posted:Almost six months ago now I made a post here about a growing desire to leave professional school and attempt to switch careers to development. I am still very undecided. In the Spring, I got an internship with a health informatics company that I hoped would be a great way to mix my love of programming with healthcare, it has not exactly worked out that way. Most of my work involves reading drug information and rewording it to fit on our site. The times when I do get to program something (usually just to make the interns' jobs more convenient) are when I am happiest and most engaged. I spent the majority of my free time over the summer rebuilding a small attendance tracking app that I created for a student organization I'm in to be a general tool that could be used by any other student organization. I'm getting close to finishing it and will be providing it to other orgs at my school as a large scale test. Making this was infinitely more fun than anything I have experienced while getting my graduate level education. Yet, I still don't know whether I should or even want to leave school. I am halfway done with getting a doctoral degree, but my distaste for it grows almost daily; especially with how the faculty have been handling things since Covid started. I would reword a lot of this. I had a really hard time understanding what the hell you did, especially the first three bullet points. You will need to leverage more industry standard terms. Most hiring managers would see this word salad and skip to the next resume. Here is what I came up with, probably needs a lot of work, as suggested, go check out the resume megathread - Automated tasks using Python to find and flag expired content, reduced time spent by 10 hours per week - Built new templating system to generate content regarding drug interactions, reduced manual content generation time by 50% - Studied competitive business intelligence in the pharmacutical industry to develop new patient education material, as well as FDA required drug monographs - Supported online course setup of Learning Management System's online courses - Wrote documentation for product - Technical support via phone and email for product
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Aug 5, 2020 11:15
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Magnetic North posted:
Or, keep them in there. Let toxic companies disqualify themselves from your life.
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Aug 5, 2020 19:46
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lifg posted:Or, keep them in there. Let toxic companies disqualify themselves from your life. That's a choice for the individual. If someone wants to improve their chances in an unjust world, I don't blame them. If someone wants to stand on their principles because the world should not be so unjust, that is certainly admirable. I won't judge either way, but it's something job applicants should be aware of.
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Aug 5, 2020 20:24
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I've been weighing that exact dilemma lately. I worked my rear end off for the Sanders campaign during the first quarter of this year and actually did some useful poo poo, and in terms of resume space it would likely be replacing what I consider a complete dud(substitute teaching from 5+ years ago). I don't want anybody to see it and assume I'm a commie(I am, but I don't want my boss to know) and immediately throw my resume in the trash. I would much rather work for a company that either didn't care about that work or actively appreciated it, but I'm not in a position to be picky
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Aug 5, 2020 21:10
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:I've been weighing that exact dilemma lately. I worked my rear end off for the Sanders campaign during the first quarter of this year and actually did some useful poo poo, and in terms of resume space it would likely be replacing what I consider a complete dud(substitute teaching from 5+ years ago). I don't want anybody to see it and assume I'm a commie(I am, but I don't want my boss to know) and immediately throw my resume in the trash. I would much rather work for a company that either didn't care about that work or actively appreciated it, but I'm not in a position to be picky I'd consider just putting something vague like "US Presidential Campaign" and omitting details that would identify the specific campaign. If they need to know they can ask. I've done this with activism in the past (I would edit in the actual cause if I could find public social media stuff from people at the company that indicated they'd be into it though). Disclaimer: I'm a big dummy without a lot of experience so take with a grain of salt.
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Aug 5, 2020 21:57
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TheIncredulousHulk posted:but I'm not in a position to be picky To some extent you do want to make yourself memorable/notable/endearing to the reader over bland, though I imagine some people would argue the newbie resume isn't the place for it. Standing out in any particular way has a chance to be a negative with some portion of interviewers/companies, but it can also be a positive for some other portion (and neutral too). You have to weigh how much that is worth and fit with the company culture, but if you are already playing 'a numbers game' it seems worth considering.
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Aug 5, 2020 22:37
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i vomit kittens posted:I am halfway done with getting a doctoral degree, but my distaste for it grows almost daily; especially with how the faculty have been handling things since Covid started. If you're at all still on the fence about this, do yourself a favor and head over to our Grad School thread where that very question is the main focus: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3478841 The mood in that conversation changed greatly over the years. It began in 2012 as a place to encourage new students but slowly everyone realized from each other's stories how screwed they were all getting. The way faculty and admins are mishandling COVID and erring towards the side of mass murder is completely unsurprising from the conclusions that we drew from just hearing each other out. I finished my PhD two years ago at a top school and am no better off for it, will probably not get a job because of it even in an engineering field, and got used in more ways than I can name. $160,000 in debt and still unprepared for the jobs market. I left the teaching industry because I felt like a scab for accepting the low pay. That was 2018. If I was in there now, 2020, with COVID being used as a union-busting tool, my leave of absence papers would be filed and I'd never be coming back. What good is a piece of paper from a dangerous, dysfunctional system that barely weeds out the right people anyway.
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Aug 7, 2020 08:57
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