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Well, just about the end of the week and haven’t heard a peep from a company I interviewed with on Monday. After basically freezing on the live coding, I didn’t expect that I’d hear back, but still a bit disheartening either way. Also, is it normal for companies to have you live code on mute/camera off and then not review the code at all? It seems insane to me that I don’t even get a chance to explain my thought process or show what the intent of the code I got down was trying to do… In any case, I know I bungled a little brain teaser they had too, and I have been asked something similar in other interviews before, so I think I need to try and figure out what interviewers are looking for when they go down this route. They had me consider a stretch of road and wanted to know how I would go about finding out the exact number of cars on a stretch of it at any given time. I think they wants me to essentially describe an algorithm that factors in variables like cars entering the road, cars leaving the road, car length, length of road, etc etc… but there seemed to be a very specific answer they were after and I just don’t think I reached it. Can anyone give a bit of insight there?
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Feb 10, 2022 18:27
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3 business days is nothing. While you getting hired is super important, it's WAYYYY down on the list of the hiring manager. If they have other interviews they may not even be at the decision point. Remember, and interview isn't a "Do you pass our test or not" its "Where does this candidate measure up against our other options/hypothetical future candidates". So I wouldn't hold your breath on hearing back but hearing back after just a couple days also probably isn't common. Typically those kinds of "how would you count x" questions is not about a specific answer but more trying to determine how you approach a problem. There isn't a right answer, per se, but it's more about can you clearly lay out an approach to solve something or do you kinda randomly shoot around or do you get angry when given a problem with some ambiguity. Basically if someone shuts down when presented with a problem where there isn't a clear path forward it's a good indication they'll probably be someone who needs to lean on te rest of the team unless they have a step by step guide.
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Feb 10, 2022 18:46
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Lockback posted:3 business days is nothing. While you getting hired is super important, it's WAYYYY down on the list of the hiring manager. If they have other interviews they may not even be at the decision point. Normally I’d agree, but every step to this point has been done blazingly fast, the head honcho made the expectation that a decision would be fast (next day or so), and they had already told me previously that they had another candidate at play. It’s kind of a bummer, but I think all the signs are there. At this point I’d probably rather just not cling to false hope lol. As for the second part of your post: so if I just sit there and list a whole bunch of variables I would consider it may not exactly be a failure on solving the problem? Or are they generally wanting an actual approach at a formula that could do it too? I feel like that may have been what I was missing, especially once one of the interviewers suggested a possible variable.
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Feb 10, 2022 18:53
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So it depends on what they were asking. Listing a bunch of variables is a good start. If I were using that question as an interviewer I'd probably throw you some challenges or additional unknowns after you listed off what you thought ("We think traffic is worse in the morning but we're not sure, how would you adjust?") and see how you adjust. Do you stubbornly stick to your first idea even though the problem changed? Do you organize your ideas a different way? Do you push back on requirements? Not totally analogous but I like using a candidates own project as a start point. After walking through I might toss them a totally off-the-wall feature request and have them sketch out how they'd engineer it. The idea being less about how they'd incorporate blockchain into the web-based media player but more about learning how someone approaches a problem when there isn't a very clear path.
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Feb 10, 2022 19:09
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I'm kind of in a weird spot - I worked for about 5 years before leaving my last job in December of 2019 with plans to travel in April of 2020. When the world exploded I figured I'd sit around and wait a while for the industry to settle down since it seemed like companies were more busy dealing with figuring out remote work/policy than recruiting. I hosed around for 2 years in part because the world situation was getting me down and I really didn't want to have to do remote interviews, and now I'm realizing I should probably find work (my savings is looking thin) and remote work doesn't seem like it's going away and might be more of a boon than an issue. A couple of questions regarding my job search: - Are there any recommended ways to practice for coding panels besides hammering on Leetcode/Hackerrank questions and reading various resources for system design panels? - What resources are people using these days to find job listings? I've been on AngelList but have avoided LinkedIn. I have some friends I could leverage for referrals too but haven't made the most of them, mostly because I've felt out of practice with regard to interview panels - Is there a better way to frame my 2 year gap as anything else besides "I wanted to travel, I couldn't, I waited around and worked on some personal non-technical projects, but my intention was always to come back and work in software development because even now it's something I'm passionate about" ? I'm in the SF Bay Area if that shapes advice, but any kind would be appreciated, and sorry if these questions are a bit broad.
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Feb 10, 2022 19:22
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Thirst Mutilator posted:- Are there any recommended ways to practice for coding panels besides hammering on Leetcode/Hackerrank questions and reading various resources for system design panels? For me it's more about how you approach leetcode. Make sure you aren't just banging your head against the wall and taking an hour to do a medium. If you're stuck on a problem for a long time, go look at the solution, implement it and understand it. Then go to a similarly categorized problem and solve that one. For system design, the biggest thing is get used to doing it aloud and repeatedly. Design a basic twitter and write it out while explaining aloud. Design a basic reddit and write it out while explaining aloud. Design a clone of a lovely comedy message board from 1999 and write it out while explaining aloud. I also used this a bit while I was studying system design, though I can't speak for 100% of the information in here: https://gist.github.com/vasanthk/485d1c25737e8e72759f Thirst Mutilator posted:- What resources are people using these days to find job listings? I've been on AngelList but have avoided LinkedIn. I have some friends I could leverage for referrals too but haven't made the most of them, mostly because I've felt out of practice with regard to interview panels Don't totally avoid linked in. It can be a great tool for finding new jobs. Updating your profile can open a lot of doors. Granted you'll have to sift through a lot of garbage, but you can also just respond no to all of them if you want. It took me an afternoon to update mine and contacts skyrocketed. If you have friends on there that can give endorsements that might help with your employment gap. Edit: This was linked a lot in the Oldie thread a few months ago. https://egghead.io/talks/egghead-how-social-media-can-land-you-your-dream-job For another option I used hired.com in my most recent search. It wasn't incredible, but I did end up landing my current job from there. It has an option to be up front about salary requirements, which is good and bad of course. wilderthanmild fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Feb 10, 2022 |
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Feb 10, 2022 19:49
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Thirst Mutilator posted:- Is there a better way to frame my 2 year gap as anything else besides "I wanted to travel, I couldn't, I waited around and worked on some personal non-technical projects, but my intention was always to come back and work in software development because even now it's something I'm passionate about" ? I think that's fine, a gap starting April 2020 is not at all surprising. If you can frame it as "I tried to get my own thing off the ground" or something it might play better and actually make you look ENTREPRENEURIAL which is becoming a buzzword, but I wouldn't sweat it too much.
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Feb 10, 2022 20:14
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Don't say that unless it's actually true, though.
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Feb 10, 2022 20:41
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ultrafilter posted:Don't say that unless it's actually true, though. Sure, but if you worked on a game or something you can kinda bend things around and apply some motivation and timing differently. Like I said, thats something you can say if you can frame it in a way that makes sense.
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Feb 10, 2022 20:53
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Unfortunately I didn't really do anything I could sell on appeal to a tech company, unless they were specifically concerned with my knowledge of like, manga. I'll stick to what I've been saying - I've definitely been rejected right after a phone screen, but most of those have been companies reaching out to me about senior positions, and I can see a committee not wanting to commit to a senior hire who's been out of the industry for 2 years. Been targeting non-senior positions since then. I've been approaching Leetcode that way already, glad to get some validation on that front. I'm loathe to sift through the cruft that my LinkedIn has sitting on it, but it's probably worth it. I'll also give Hired a shot too. Thanks.
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Feb 10, 2022 22:43
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Don't say you planned to do something and then waited around for a year and a half, that sounds like you have no motivation and is terrible way to frame it. Emphasize what you did, not what you didn't. Something along the lines of: I took time off to travel and did so until covid threw a wrench in that. I then pivoted to personal development and give some examples. If you traveled locally that's also still traveling. None this has to be valuable to the company, it just has to be a reasonable reason that you didn't work. asur fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Feb 10, 2022 |
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Feb 10, 2022 22:52
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I know getting the first job is hard but I keep getting rejected from jobs at the final stage usually by a engineer. I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong or my portfolio isn't wow-ing enough or I don't have a good enough portfolio piece. I don't fuckin know other than it's extremely frustrating and depressing to get far along into the process only to be shot down at the last second lol. I think I'm just in that weird place where I've mostly worked in WordPress on brochure sites and not "real" products so engineers just kinda write me off. Is there anyway to get over this hump or am I just screwed until I get a lucky break? I've gotten pretty far into into three different job processes only to be "Unfortunately..." At the last step.
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Feb 10, 2022 23:21
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aperfectcirclefan posted:I know getting the first job is hard but I keep getting rejected from jobs at the final stage usually by a engineer. I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong or my portfolio isn't wow-ing enough or I don't have a good enough portfolio piece. I don't fuckin know other than it's extremely frustrating and depressing to get far along into the process only to be shot down at the last second lol. If you're relying on your portfolio to be a big seller, could you try to build something that isn't wordpress related? Like whip up some kind of portfolio app in python, java, c#, javascript or something like that? If you're getting through to final rounds, how are those going? Are you getting any feedback from the companies? It doesn't hurt to ask, they already rejected you.
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Feb 10, 2022 23:24
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aperfectcirclefan posted:I know getting the first job is hard but I keep getting rejected from jobs at the final stage usually by a engineer. I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong or my portfolio isn't wow-ing enough or I don't have a good enough portfolio piece. I don't fuckin know other than it's extremely frustrating and depressing to get far along into the process only to be shot down at the last second lol. If you're getting to the tech interviews, your portfolio usually won't be a huge issue. Just keep grinding leet code/etc and you should find something.
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Feb 10, 2022 23:34
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Yeah I was thinking of doing something like that, I'm just uncreative and can't think of anything worth making without doing bog standard "to-do app" etc. I'm going to probably work on something this weekend, i've been teaching myself C# anyways in addition to what I already know so maybe i'll make that a little project. It's why I think I'd actually do good at a live coding session but I keep getting sit-downs with these engineers who look too timid to actually talk so I dunno. I have one more interview tomorrow for a Junior Python dev role, even though i'm only "okay" at Python. Don't have much hope for that one but whatever its an experience. I don't honestly know whats happening to be honest unless its that i'm too likeable and that's harming me? I worked in marketing before hand so I know how to talk to people. I dunno. The first job I was really excited for and nailed every portion of the interview, I ended up getting a email a week later saying "Found someone else", which okay whatever. Today's job was probably the last straw though for me, I had all the experience & then some that was needed but I guess the director of engineering reviewed my resume and passed on it  . The HR lady was extremely nice though and actually gave me a tip to rewrite my resume for the director of engineering so I am eternally grateful for that. I'll probably send a little thank you note anyways to her. The only thing I can kinda think of that would be obvious is I have 0 experience with using Git in a team setting. The other devs I work with in WordPress are idiots (sorry) that use page builders and bill $$$$ to clients and if you mention something like ACF to them their eyes glaze over, so I don't really get the experience to do any sort of real stuff like that. Maybe I just need to start messing around with Open Source projects. I had been leaning more on volunteer teaching of coding instead. E/N session over lol. I know its all luck of the draw until you're actually really in the world of development but I guess ultimately my question is "What can I do to improve my portfolio in the interim"? e; Oh, I've mostly been looking on LinkedIn, but apparently i've been reading in here and other places that it's not the best for dev jobs. What are the best places? AngelList? aperfectcirclefan fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Feb 10, 2022 |
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Feb 10, 2022 23:36
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I’ve posted this before in this thread, but when you get rejected it’s not necessarily because you weren’t good enough. Think about it this way: A company interviews ten developers for one open role. You absolutely nail every interview and meet all the qualifications. If your interview got a percent score, you might get a 98%. You are absolutely hirable and would probably do well in the role. Another candidate also crushes all the interviews and meets all the qualifications. Plus, they have some experience with an obscure library that is being used on a new project. They get a 99%. It’s not that you failed or were “rejected” but the company can only hire one person. They go with the other candidate. It’s a numbers game. Keep trying and eventually you’ll be the top choice.
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Feb 10, 2022 23:46
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I kinda doubt lack of git experience would keep you from getting a job as a junior engineer. It's something people usually pick up pretty quickly, like a quick crash course of what you need to know and then sending a slack message if you get stuck. There's more to git as a whole, but a junior engineer is probably only really making commits to their own branch, making pull requests, and simple things like that. It looks like you started lookin in late November, so like 2.5 months of job searching isn't too bad. Don't get too discouraged. I have over 10yoe and I took over 4 months in my most recent job search. What kind of interviews have you encountered? Like algorithm/leetcode stuff, debug this thing, take homes, conversational but technical questions like someone asking you what polymorphism is, behavioral interviews, etc. Are you targeting a particular type or job or industry? Edit: Angelist is good for startups. I mentioned earlier I used hired and it got a few good bites and fair amount of meh ones. Indeed I've used a ton in the past but there is just so much stuff to sift through. I used it a lot more early on though. wilderthanmild fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Feb 10, 2022 |
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Feb 10, 2022 23:50
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I've been sticking more towards Agencies since I figured my marketing and SEO background would benefit. I actually haven't gotten any real technical interviews, they've all been conversational and behavioral. Sometimes I'll get technical questions like "what CSS processor do you use" and stuff like that. So I guess I've been blessed in that regard.
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Feb 10, 2022 23:53
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Unless you want to work specifically for marketing agencies I'd say branch out more. For junior devs industry specific knowledge is not a big factor. I'm actually a pretty firm believer it's a non-factor for all but the highest seniority developers. I've changed industry every time I've changed jobs without issue.
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Feb 11, 2022 00:11
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I'm getting ghosted after 5 interviews with this company. I just want to get my first dev job and spend my day doing something I like to do
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Feb 11, 2022 13:48
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wilderthanmild posted:I kinda doubt lack of git experience would keep you from getting a job as a junior engineer. FWIW I once had a company actually cite lack of git experience as one of the reasons for passing on me. Some places just REALLY don’t want to deal with training people at all.
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Feb 11, 2022 14:34
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I'm coming at tech from a somewhat nontraditional angle. I'd like to write software for self-driving cars, but I am super flexible. I feel like I could rock an internship, but those all require enrollment in a university, so I'm looking at entry-level positions instead. There are job listings for which I meet a majority of the requirements (minus the ever-present "n+ years professional experience"). Sometimes, there are dozens of such jobs at a company. Do I apply for one position and see how it plays out, or should I apply for all positions I might fit? When companies have a "don't see where you fit? tell us about yourself" email address, what's the tone to take? Do I send them my resume/portfolio and ask where I fit? Do I send them an elevator pitch? Do I apply for a job then let them know? I've only ever applied for retail positions; this is all new to me.
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Feb 13, 2022 21:32
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Also, how's my portfolio/resume site: massive self-doxx? Are there things I can change or develop further?
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Feb 13, 2022 21:36
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Normal Barbarian posted:Also, how's my portfolio/resume site: massive self-doxx?
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Feb 13, 2022 23:17
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fourwood posted:Especially for entry-level/foot-in-the-door type job openings, I’m not sure why your résumé is 3 pages, especially with all that white space. I uploaded a printout of that page as a placeholder then forgot about it, embarrassingly enough. e. That brings up something I meant to ask about : I have doubts about the formatting and length of my 'real' resume (pdf), but my bootcamp job coach told me to keep it as-is. It's about 1.5 pages. I remain uncertain. Normal Barbarian fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Feb 13, 2022 |
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Feb 13, 2022 23:32
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Normal Barbarian posted:I uploaded a printout of that page as a placeholder then forgot about it, embarrassingly enough. Don't split a single section over two pages (you can fix this by moving leadership above experience). You're missing a section for keywords to hit keyword matches.
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Feb 14, 2022 06:24
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I’d highly advise you trim some of that verbosity down and get that down to one page. The usual metric I’ve heard is one page per 10 years of experience. Recruiters and hiring managers aren’t going to take the time to look at the second page. One obvious trim is the B&N experience - it’s not going to be relevant.
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Feb 14, 2022 07:54
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Normal Barbarian posted:I uploaded a printout of that page as a placeholder then forgot about it, embarrassingly enough. Yeah, going to give some direct advice here, feel free to take it or leave it. That is not a very good resume. Get this down to 1 page. Not necessarily because its the "right" thing to do but because you are way too verbose and need some guardrails. Cut B&N completely. That robotics summer school you went to 10 years ago probably can be cut or if not, it doesn't need a paragraph. Your projects are way too verbose, get those down to a couple lines. You can get rid of the entire paragraph under your education because you already sum it up fine with "Team Founder, RoboCup Rescue Robotics Team (RoboEaters), UC Irvine" You need a skills section. You are listing yourself as a Data Scientist (which is a little presumptuous after a 12 week bootcamp to me) but then you make me dive into your various projects and experiences to figure out that you maybe know Python and C++? Where's your data engineering skills? What DBs have you worked on? Any experience in R? Think about a format like this (doesn't have to be this exact, but this idea): https://www.beamjobs.com/resumes/software-engineer-resume-examples#example Get used to being able to write out a project or accomplishment in 1-2 sentences, that's a skill you need to learn for this career anyway. Your portfolio is quite good and if you want you can have a longer resume/cv on your website. But what you're handing to employers needs to be a lot more direct.
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Feb 14, 2022 15:35
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This is exactly what I needed. Previous feedback ranged from "you filled out the template? good. go get hired" to "grandma would be so proud of u!", and I'm trying to strike a balance between habitual self-minimization and faking it 'til I've made it. Seriously, thank you, all of you.
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Feb 14, 2022 21:05
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Vincent Valentine posted:4 hours is a fuckin' lot, but man those turned out to be wildly important. People talked down to our indian/female coworkers like it was a rule they had to follow. Never challenged us white guys on anything. What does that look like? You gave a candidate 20 minutes to have a conversation with one of your interviewers and they mansplained whenever the interviewer was female?
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Feb 14, 2022 22:24
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oliveoil posted:What does that look like? You gave a candidate 20 minutes to have a conversation with one of your interviewers and they mansplained whenever the interviewer was female? Yeah. We tried to each have our own "signature" challenge or question that should take 20 minutes but not much longer, where it was just a one-on-one with the candidate to feel them out. They never challenged my white male boss on anything. He was both extremely experienced and very passionate, and the level of his knowledge was readily apparent even from a short conversation. So, not challenging him is not much of a shock, but I can't help but wonder if he was a she if things would have changed. Either way, a good barometer and starting point. They challenged me occasionally. "Actually, I don't think that's such a great idea. It makes a new array every time you insert an element, right?" That's a reasonable, respectful challenge. It opens up dialogue and encourages communication between two people that both recognize that they are both good at their job, but this is a complicated field where people make mistakes. They don't have to always be phrased this way, you can be confident in your challenge and not open it up to dialogue but still be respectful. They constantly challenged my Chinese female coworker, and it was far more demeaning in tone. "Oh haha yeah this is an obscure thing, behind the scenes JavaScript does some stuff where it creates a new array every time you insert an element. It's not super common knowledge." like that isn't basic-rear end javascript. For reference, she was not as experienced as my boss, but definitely more than me. No attempt at opening a dialogue, just explaining. Not saying you disagree with the idea, just saying they're wrong. When they word things like they aren't well known, it's to encourage the person to appeal to them as an authority for knowing them, and they did this particular aspect exclusively to female coworkers. Not everyone was like this. Not even a majority were. But the people that were, were exactly the same every single time.
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Feb 15, 2022 08:57
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How much longer are remote internships going to be a thing for? What about remote entry-level jobs? What about jobs that pay for entry-level relocation? If I go to school where there aren't a lot of tech jobs, how can I pick up a bunch of internships or a solid entry-level job if I'm not from the area?
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Feb 22, 2022 11:00
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Oolb posted:How much longer are remote internships going to be a thing for? What about remote entry-level jobs? What about jobs that pay for entry-level relocation? If I go to school where there aren't a lot of tech jobs, how can I pick up a bunch of internships or a solid entry-level job if I'm not from the area? Relo is generally available for internships, to the point some of them put you in corporate housing. Most larger orgs will relo entry level. Remote internships and entry level roles will always be a thing at remote companies. They'll phase out elsewhere as people return to office.
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Feb 22, 2022 14:00
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I started working remote before the pandemic and I'm never going back. I'm still working on my job search, and I can tell you that since I started looking(since September) even then the number of remote opportunities is drying up fast. That said, there's quite a few more than there were when I was looking for my first job and upon speaking to them they have no plans to go back to office. Mostly startups. Your options are as good as they're going to get right now, and they're only going to get worse from here. But it's still far better than it was 3+ years ago. Note that this includes entry level roles, but I know gently caress-all about internships.
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Feb 22, 2022 14:26
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Vincent Valentine posted:I can tell you that since I started looking(since September) even then the number of remote opportunities is drying up fast. This is not the case everywhere.
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Feb 22, 2022 16:55
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The only non remote recruiter contact I got in the last six months that wasn't full time remote was an AWS one, and even then they said full time WFH was dependent on manager Also there was one terrible recruiter that had an in office thing in Chicago about two months ago
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Feb 23, 2022 00:39
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Spent more than half a day today getting our intern up to speed If you're a student, please do the following before your first day: Install Linux in a VM Install git on it Work through these URLs at your own pace https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/getting-started-with-git/setting-your-username-in-git https://docs.github.com/en/account-...t-email-address https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/connecting-to-github-with-ssh/generating-a-new-ssh-key-and-adding-it-to-the-ssh-agent https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/connecting-to-github-with-ssh/adding-a-new-ssh-key-to-your-github-account Make sure you can open a new foobar.json file with vim, edit it, save it, exit vim, cat it, mv it to /tmp and chmod +x it, then rm it. Create and figure out how to delete /tmp/widget/ folder Clone from a private repo using your newfound non-windows skills I guess you can run bash and ssh from windows now if you're clever enough, but might as well rip off the band-aid Hadlock fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 01:50
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Hadlock posted:Spent more than half a day today getting our intern up to speed Speaking as a vim user, don't force it on people who don't already know it.
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Feb 23, 2022 02:01
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Vim, emacs, nano, whatever Vim is pretty user hostile to the newbie, but eventually you gotta learn it, and it's preinstalled on pretty much everything in existence. Might as well rip off the band aid Mostly just need "you" as an intern to be able to do basic file manipulation on day 1
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Feb 23, 2022 02:12
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Hadlock posted:If you're a student, please do the following before your first day hey buddy i ain't doing an ounce of work off the clock. i'll do it my first day and get paid to do it, student or not 
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Feb 23, 2022 03:19
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