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Gin_Rummy posted:Cross posting from BFC's resume thread, just because I think I should solicit some actual programmer advice on this too... Or put another way, if your resume is all about the programming you do, why are you opening with a line about how you aren’t a programmer? Sounds like a weak foot forward to me.
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Jun 16, 2021 01:16
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fourwood posted:I dunno, I don’t do hiring but this sounds a little too grovel-y (“I know I’m not what you want, but please just give me a chance!” kind of a thing), when poo poo like “delivering products under budget” would be a great bullet point in your experience section without the “I know I’m not actually a programmer, but…” part. Well, my resume is not about the programming I do. The stuff mentioned in the summary are things I do in my free time. I have never once been asked to code anything in my professional career, and thus have no actual working experience to list... so I try to mention it in my summary and then talk about my work experience and any generic bullet points that may apply to a given programming role.
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Jun 16, 2021 02:08
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Wolfy posted:Is breaking into software engineering really just a challenge to see who has the time in their life to do these loving hacker rank challenges? Yes Time to wind up the "class privilege" discussion Jack in the Box for this thread again Sure you might be capable of doing hacker rank challenges, but working 85 hours a week between McDonald's and waiting tables at the local cafe, good luck having enough mental energy to do anything productive when you get home Unless of course, you have a rich parent or family member who can cover your living expenses for 3-6 days, or maybe even sponsor you for a coders bootcamp, then you're all set If you have young kids at home 
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Jun 16, 2021 02:12
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Hadlock posted:Yes Now, to play devil's advocate for a bit: in what skilled profession would one have an easier time breaking into than software? Assuming that you chose the wrong one before, you're a young person with a small family and a job/career you would want to leave. HackerRank & co are dumb in and of themselves but still, you have to somehow prove to the hiring manager that you can do the job. How? Hire them for the fun of it for 3 months to see what's going on? And what do you do with the other applicants in the meantime? Postpone them? I have no idea, honestly.
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Jun 16, 2021 02:48
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My main problem with HackerRank type-stuff is just that it’s so far outside the realm of what you’ll actually be doing day to day. They’re extremely artificial problems that rely on having memorized the right largely useless bullshit. I’ve been programming professionally for 15 years now and most of the questions I see from these sites seem like absolutely contrived bullshit you just have to know the secret for ahead of time and will absolutely never use on the job. Of course, I’ve been in games that whole time, so my opinion is probably worth less than nothing for FAANG-type jobs. e: I’m actually considering tying to get out of game development sometime soonish and this sort of poo poo really annoys/scares me. chglcu fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 03:05
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Volguus posted:Now, to play devil's advocate for a bit: in what skilled profession would one have an easier time breaking into than software? Assuming that you chose the wrong one before, you're a young person with a small family and a job/career you would want to leave. HackerRank & co are dumb in and of themselves but still, you have to somehow prove to the hiring manager that you can do the job. How? Hire them for the fun of it for 3 months to see what's going on? And what do you do with the other applicants in the meantime? Postpone them? I have no idea, honestly. There's also the fact that you had to know someone who knows "that one weird trick to breaking into tech". I think if you told high schoolers "yeah if you memorize these 300 brain teasers, and build a barely functional blog using Django using a medium article off the internet, you can drop out of school right now and any number of companies will hire you for $100 Gs and you'll be making $200k inside of five years" they'd just roll their eyes at you. Getting selected to play in the NBA or NFL seems like a more realistic goal
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Jun 16, 2021 03:12
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The alternative to studying HackerRank was going to an ivy league for four years so this definitely seems preferable.
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Jun 16, 2021 03:26
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Gin_Rummy posted:Well, my resume is not about the programming I do. The stuff mentioned in the summary are things I do in my free time. I have never once been asked to code anything in my professional career, and thus have no actual working experience to list... so I try to mention it in my summary and then talk about my work experience and any generic bullet points that may apply to a given programming role. If you have written programs, then you are a programmer. Especially if you want a programming job. It doesn't matter that it's been in your own time and nobody's been paying you to do it - nobody was paying fresh grads to do their coursework assignments, but you can bet that they consider themselves programmers and are talking up those projects on their resume.
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Jun 16, 2021 03:31
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Jabor posted:nobody was paying fresh grads to do their coursework assignments, but you can bet that they consider themselves programmers and are talking up those projects on their resume. /Pulls the "college is for an education, not a job training program" Jack in the Box off the shelf, blows dust off the top, begins cranking
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Jun 16, 2021 03:34
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In my experience, college is a place the government subsidizes you a minuscule bit to waste a few hours a day while you learn actual useful stuff on your free time outside classes and working full time for minimum wage.
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Jun 16, 2021 03:39
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Wolfy posted:Is breaking into software engineering really just a challenge to see who has the time in their life to do these loving hacker rank challenges? Hadlock posted:There's also the fact that you had to know someone who knows "that one weird trick to breaking into tech". Hadlock posted:Yes
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Jun 16, 2021 04:21
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Jose Valasquez posted:Just spending some time googling about software engineering interviews is really the only "one weird trick" you need to know. The FAANG interview process isn't some dark secret that only insiders know about. I mean, I wasn't being facetious,
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Jun 16, 2021 04:57
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I started quite the discussion. For reference, I went the boot camp route. It' crazy to me that in less than a year I went from hello world to getting responses to applications from large tech firms. I agree that is a much lower bar than most industries. I just feel a lot for my classmates who have families and stuff. These interview processes are long, and it can get a little overwhelming once you're working your way through it with multiple companies.
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Jun 16, 2021 05:23
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Wolfy posted:I started quite the discussion. For reference, I went the boot camp route. It' crazy to me that in less than a year I went from hello world to getting responses to applications from large tech firms. I agree that is a much lower bar than most industries. I just feel a lot for my classmates who have families and stuff. These interview processes are long, and it can get a little overwhelming once you're working your way through it with multiple companies. And to top it off. Most of my senior and college-sourced coworkers sneer at the bootcampers unless they themselves also did not go through the college route. Your resume has a very uphill battle against these lousy fuckers. Death to nerds basically.
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Jun 16, 2021 06:38
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Wolfy posted:Is breaking into software engineering really just a challenge to see who has the time in their life to do these loving hacker rank challenges? My answer to this heavily depends on the verdict I get from a FAANG interview I did yesterday. I went in expecting to do some multidimensional, dynamic, competitive programming problem. Instead, I was asked to write an object that contained data structures of my choosing to perform some specific actions. My brain froze while they were posting it up because my brain was trying to figure out what crazy Python collection I was being trapped into regurgitating. I am actually unreasonably anxious about it. It's like being abused for years by somebody who then asks you to do something simple and just kind of goes, "ok" afterwards.
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Jun 16, 2021 07:22
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I got laid off yesterday and it made me realize the only reason I haven't quit my job before is because doing tech interviews is such a poo poo mental state to be in. It's the same mental energy as letting your head fall back, closing your eyes, scrunching up your face and going "uuuuuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhh"
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Jun 16, 2021 11:13
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Yeah, interviewing sucks rear end. At least I got to skip most of it the last time by going the "know someone who is up high and hiring" route thanks to Twitter.
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Jun 16, 2021 12:40
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4 years in and my experience hasn't been anything like this at all, but maybe it helps that I'm in Colorado. I've had multiple offers north of 140k in the past year, and I have never had to do any kind of hackerrank challenge. I didn't really have to do any kind of studying for this most recent round of going through the interview process (starting a new opportunity at the end of June), but I did have to spend some free time on coding challenges. That is definitely a lovely time-sink, but at least you can usually timebox the non-awful ones, and reject/ignore the lovely challenges. Maybe it helps to just avoid companies based on the east/west coast?  As far as bootcamps go, I came from a boot camp but I don't talk about it or mention it in my resume. The first job was definitely tough to get, but it took me only about 3 weeks after the end of the bootcamp of sending about 100ish emails to different recruiters/HR/etc. before I broke through (I followed this advice to a T, which I highly highly recommend if you're looking for that first gig). The bootcamp has never been an issue even slightly since then. In my experience, there's roughly two types of bootcamp grads: 1. Folks that can't code their way out of a paper bag and can only build the exact same app with the exact same stack that they learned in their program. Whenever I hear any kind of bootcamp grad complaints, it's always talking about these people. 2. Folks that naturally "get" programming and used the bootcamp to give them the jump start they needed. They're competent/smart and the bootcamp history quickly becomes just a footnote in their experience. It should be easy to tell which bucket you're in, and as long as you're not the first type, you'll eventually get that first job, and things get much easier after that. I've never run into any kind of negative bias from other coworkers, but the impostor syndrome can definitely creep up from time to time.
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Jun 17, 2021 04:38
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The Dark Wind posted:4 years in and my experience hasn't been anything like this at all, but maybe it helps that I'm in Colorado. I've had multiple offers north of 140k in the past year, and I have never had to do any kind of hackerrank challenge. I didn't really have to do any kind of studying for this most recent round of going through the interview process (starting a new opportunity at the end of June), but I did have to spend some free time on coding challenges. That is definitely a lovely time-sink, but at least you can usually timebox the non-awful ones, and reject/ignore the lovely challenges. Maybe it helps to just avoid companies based on the east/west coast?
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Jun 17, 2021 05:09
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Hadlock posted:/Pulls the "college is for an education, not a job training program" Jack in the Box off the shelf, blows dust off the top, begins cranking I'm actually really happy my parents said that because they were just happy I was educated while I was waiting tables for 60k/year even if I kind of hated myself for having to tell people I was "just a waitress", it reminded me that work is that thing you do to afford doing what you want to do and doesn't define who you are. Its not always a terrible thing. I never ended up graduating, but while my younger siblings are more successful than I am, I at least have the qualification of "most fun and interesting", and I think once I get my first tech job I'm going to crush in ways that many people who naturally navigated into programming can't possibly do without putting in way more work than I did in bootcamp. Learning how to critically think about poo poo is a fantastically useful skill and would solve a lot of techbro nonsense. That sounds really arrogant, but I'm trying to get away from the practice of making GBS threads on myself and making excuses for anything I succeed in (I just got lucky, oh well I just googled it, I'm just really good at these kinds of tests), which is hard to do, especially with a lifetime of "be a lady" socialization. I'm good at this, I learn faster than anyone else I've been in a learning situation with, and there's no reason someone shouldn't give me a job. I need to keep that mindset despite the fact that I can't even get a callback. Its like dark souls bosses. They can win as many times as they need, I only have to win once. At least that's what I have to keep telling myself.
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Jun 17, 2021 08:54
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Guildenstern Mother posted:Learning how to critically think Sorry I got hung up on this. What is your definition of critical thinking? Looking at the pros and cons of both sides of a decision, then choosing the one with the best likely outcome? Sorry to be obtuse, but I'm surprised this needs to be taught, or whoever learns it out of a book, isn't going to be hired to do that task as a full time job. Looking at the wikipedia article, apparently the UK has A-level courses on critical thinking? Presumably an A level is either senior high school or junior college. I can read out of a high school text book how to grind through a quadratic equation, but without an inherent understanding of what I'm doing, am I the person you should hire for that job? Hadlock fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Jun 17, 2021 |
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Jun 17, 2021 09:59
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Hadlock posted:Sorry I got hung up on this Sort of. I think one of the greatest things about education, whether from an institution or wherever, is being exposed to new ways of thinking, and adding all of them to your arsenal of problem solving. No single epistemological method is going to work for every problem, but being able to identify which one is going to be the best approach to a situation is probably the core of my definition.
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Jun 17, 2021 10:06
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This is all great advice. One of the most important things about job searching, from my experience, which is mentioned in that piece, is to not just spam front-door applications and don't just look for people who have job listings to respond to. Make a big list of companies you specifically love and want to work for. Then directly contact those companies and make your pitch. Even if they aren't hiring, if they like you, they will keep your information on file or remember you when you circle around again. Companies are much more likely to hire someone who takes the time to reach them directly and say, in better words, "I am not applying just anywhere, I love what your company is doing and I want to be a part of it", rather than someone who just sends their resume to a job listing. Emailing directly to companies which may not have put up a job listing yet gets you in before the thousand other applicants who have not contacted them yet. So, in short, the advice boils down to something like: don't just wait for job listings to pop up. Be pro-active. Emailing directly will make more of an impact than just the two-click "submit resume" on Indeed.
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Jun 17, 2021 14:22
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Guildenstern Mother posted:Learning how to critically think about poo poo is a fantastically useful skill and would solve a lot of techbro nonsense.
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Jun 17, 2021 15:10
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you want to march right into their office, ask to see the hiring manager, and hand over a copy of your resume in person. a strong handshake will seal the deal
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Jun 18, 2021 03:22
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redleader posted:you want to march right into their office, ask to see the hiring manager, and hand over a copy of your resume in person. a strong handshake will seal the deal 
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Jun 18, 2021 04:02
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fourwood posted:My job requires a lot of this and the number of people I’ve worked with who seem to be entirely lacking is depressing. And so far I’m really not sure how you teach someone critical thinking/problem solving skills if they don’t already have them… This is sort of my reasoning as well
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Jun 18, 2021 05:17
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Hadlock posted:This is sort of my reasoning as well I understand this sentiment, but sometimes you can get through to such people. People learn and understand differently and it is worthwhile to ask them how they best learn/figure things out on their own and try to attribute that style to your explanations towards them. Something else that mostly can't be taught is having a sense of urgency. Either you come in and you take the job seriously and show a little hustle or you don't. Urgency is almost impossible to teach.
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Jun 18, 2021 13:02
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Actually got through my first technical and did a final interview for an internship the other day. The technical was weird because even though the problems were "easy", it felt like all my problem solving skill went out the window having to do it under observation. The interview I got through to went really well though and I got to talk all about my personal projects which I think was a big plus. I know it's not the biggest achievement in the world but I started self learning programming like 9 months ago and it's just nice to be at a point where at least some people will put up with me in something adjacent to a professional context. It's nice.
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Jun 20, 2021 16:31
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PEPSI for TV-GAME
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I've been thinking of a career change from copywriting for a long time for Reasons. This solidified during a new tool training that is glorified square space (Maker) and I realized I don't want to slide boxes around to serve customers cake. I want to bake the cake really badly. I think I'd like CS/Programming because I like/have: Working on one thing for a long time until it works. Optimizing to perfection (or a deadline) I like chatting with my dev coworkers about the problems they're solving like solving how to optimize the search function in a big eCommerce company with 100ks of skus. I'm great at thinking AND implementing Good at trying everything when thinking doesn't work I learn fast, then deeply Staying cirrent is easy Money/family is primary motivation. No kids yet. Second is I desperately want to bake the cake for a job. Sales, operations and customer service background seem like excellent soft skills. Assuming finances aren't a problem, is a CS/Software Engineering degree the best option to career change? Assuming my job would be ok with it, I've got a BA and I THINK I could go to school full or part time while working. I'd have about 40 hours to contribute to school outside of class. I'm talking to an advisor today, but I figured I'd post to think out loud.
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Jun 21, 2021 13:56
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If you already have a degree it's probably not worth going back for a second one. There are various master's programs that teach CS to people with other undergraduate degrees, so if you absolutely must have a formal education, that's a route to explore. Before you commit, though, do you actually have programming experience? If not, you might want to get that first. Take an online class or start messing around with a project on your own. If you don't actually like programming, it's good to find that out early.
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Jun 21, 2021 14:13
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I have no experience with this, but doing a bootcamp is another option in lieu of doing another degree. If you do a search through this thread, there are a number of goons that have gone through that route and have found success. It could be a good option if you're a highly motivated, self-learner type. Definitely take some of that energy/motivation you have at the moment and get started at Free Code Camp, or The Odin Project to see if web development is something that you're really interested in.
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Jun 21, 2021 14:19
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EDIT: Doesn't matter. Gonna go make a color palette tool to solve a problem I haven't seen yet. If I like that I'll keep truckin' ThePopeOfFun fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Jun 21, 2021 |
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Jun 21, 2021 14:22
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I passed baby's first faang coding interview and now it's time to prep for "behavioural" and "design" interviews in addition to the usual algo questions. Any tips on where i can learn about and practice behavioural and design questions? thanks in advance
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Jun 26, 2021 14:28
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awesomeolion posted:I passed baby's first faang coding interview and now it's time to prep for "behavioural" and "design" interviews in addition to the usual algo questions. Any tips on where i can learn about and practice behavioural and design questions? thanks in advance Not really practice, but Designing Data Intensive Applications is the book I wish I had read before doing any system design interviews.
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Jun 26, 2021 14:54
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The behavioral question I see all the time is a variation of “tell me about a time that something went wrong.” They’re listening for an answer with three qualities: 1) You saw the problem, 2) you fixed it, 3) you made sure it wouldn’t happen again.
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Jun 26, 2021 14:56
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Jose Valasquez posted:Not really practice, but Designing Data Intensive Applications is the book I wish I had read before doing any system design interviews. Oh good call. I read some of it and liked it but then stopped. Sounds like I should continue reading. Thanks! lifg posted:The behavioral question I see all the time is a variation of “tell me about a time that something went wrong.” They’re listening for an answer with three qualities: 1) You saw the problem, 2) you fixed it, 3) you made sure it wouldn’t happen again. Thanks, I will prep something for this!
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Jun 26, 2021 15:24
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It looks like I have pending Google and Amazon interviews at this point, and I also found out from both of them last time that my behavioral interviews were lacking. The Amazon recruiter kind of let it slip and I got that feedback from the Google recruiter too previously. This is a peculiar situation for me. Something like 6-7 years ago, I had done an Apple interview for a team a friend of mine was in. I lost the offer based on the manager's impression of my attitude. At the time, I had been getting obliterated at work. I had a sabbatical planned--a two month vacation I had earned from how long I had been there--that kept getting pushed off every few weeks over the course of a few months. So I had this carrot in front of me that just kept disappearing, and I hadn't been taking vacation in between, so I was worn the hell out. So come time of the Apple interview, I ace every other aspect of the interview, but the manager thought I was kind of pessimistic and that killed it right there. My friend and I had talked about just forcing a smile and acting like everything is the greatest thing in the world when doing these, and I tried to go that way two years ago with my first attempts at Apple and Amazon interviews, but apparently that was pretty lovely too. So the funny thing in all of this is when it comes to these conversations, I really don't have any real nervousness or problems with them and I can really think strategically about them. This isn't a talent or anything but a side effect of staying in Toastmasters long enough that I got my DTM (that's the final title you can get). You spend nearly two decades having to talk about a random thing in front of 20 people and you start to get okay at it. So it's more an issue of what kind of delivery I should use. A situation I have at my current job is that I'm not very well understood with my sense of humor. I have a feeling this is something of a goon curse. Have no fear, it's not that I am walking shitposter at work; I am just a walking shitposter in every other aspect of my life. It's not like I say something and HR has to get involved. It's more like people with English as a second or third+ language have a hard time understanding me. I got that feedback a few times a few years ago and I've tried to work on it. Now I fear I am guarding myself too much with that when interviewing elsewhere. In an effort to be professional, I just come off as extremely wooden. So I'm trying to decide if I should be more natural instead. The idea is that these folks care less about the answers as they do about thinking what it would be like to work with me. So I guess the question is disregarding the questions, what kind of tone and delivery has worked for other people?
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Jun 30, 2021 07:52
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i'm guessing that the key is reading the interviewer and adopting an attitude that that specific interviewer will appreciate over trying to figure out what the optimal attitude is to have across all interviews
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Jun 30, 2021 14:10
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:In an effort to be professional, I just come off as extremely wooden. So I'm trying to decide if I should be more natural instead. You're overthinking this. Take a deep breath before the interview. Stay calm. Be optimistic about the job. Show eagerness to get started soon.
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Jun 30, 2021 14:31
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