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There are some companies that won't talk to you unless you went to one of a few schools, but those are few and far apart. What really matters is that you have a degree in something and a portfolio with one or two well-developed projects that you can talk through.
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Feb 25, 2022 05:26
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What's the obsession with "top schools" I see everywhere then?
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Feb 25, 2022 06:15
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Where do you mean?
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Feb 25, 2022 07:38
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Oolb posted:What's the obsession with "top schools" I see everywhere then? It's not really a thing in most software companies in the industry. Undergrad and academia makes a big about it, but not really software companies imo.
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Feb 25, 2022 07:46
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It's like I hear: oh, GPA doesn't really matter. Oh, the school you went to doesn't really matter. But then how the gently caress can anyone judge competence? Seems to me like everyone is playing a guessing game based on guesses.
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Feb 25, 2022 10:11
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That is correct. Interviewing is broken, at least in software. Instead of hiring for actual competence, companies hire for either data structures whiteboarding or convincing storytelling.
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Feb 25, 2022 12:55
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Good schools matter for MBA, if you want to be VP or C level before 50 Nobody has ever asked me where I went to school, or if I even have a degree. Half the people I talk to, if they even have a degree, isn't related to computers. A lot lot lot of self taught people
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Feb 25, 2022 13:26
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Oolb posted:What's the obsession with "top schools" I see everywhere then? It's complicated but people care a lot more than they should.
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Feb 25, 2022 14:43
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Going to a good school and having a good GPA are signs that you are competent at school, not programming. Handily the absolute worst person I've ever worked with was an ivy phd. I have no degree and no boot camp and absolutely no one has ever asked.
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Feb 25, 2022 14:49
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Oolb posted:It's like I hear: oh, GPA doesn't really matter. Oh, the school you went to doesn't really matter. But then how the gently caress can anyone judge competence? Seems to me like everyone is playing a guessing game based on guesses. "How do I measure candidates?" is a huge, open thing in the industry and there are libraries of books written about how to try to do it. Several people who actively interview and hire new grads (myself included) are posting here to tell you the name of the school is not at all a good indicator of competence. That's pretty obvious to anyone who has interviewed. I still do think a bachelors is a great path for most 18 year olds, because most 18 year olds aren't at a point in their lives where they can follow the other pathways. We like to say "Oh, go to a bootcamp then get a corporate job instead of college" but that's people projecting themselves today as 18 year olds, rather than what they actually were. I think most of us would have flamed out trying to do a real Junior Dev job right out of high school (ofc, there are exceptions). Don't go massively into debt at some private school though, state schools, local community colleges for some, etc are all just as good. If you aren't 18 (or thereabouts) a bachelors really only makes sense if you need that structure or you can go through a program in some way that is very efficient time/money wise. Otherwise there are self-driven and structured-but-faster pathways to learning development. Not everyone can do it, but there are ways to go through that path that, while not cheap or super fast, are way more efficient. So much of the industry you need to self-drive and self-learn to grow anyway.
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Feb 25, 2022 15:06
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Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:It's not really a thing in most software companies in the industry. Undergrad and academia makes a big about it, but not really software companies imo. The number of companies that won't talk to you if you didn't graduate from a handful of schools is low, but a well known CS program has a number of benefits from more recruiters, internship opportunities, and getting through the HR filter. Like a high GPA, this doesn't mean it's required but it will almost certainly make the initial job hunt easier though after that the value falls off drastically.
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Feb 25, 2022 18:27
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One of the top front-end developers we have was 19 when he got hired and started his CS degree like a year after we hired him.
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Feb 25, 2022 18:39
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asur posted:The number of companies that won't talk to you if you didn't graduate from a handful of schools is low, but a well known CS program has a number of benefits from more recruiters, internship opportunities, and getting through the HR filter. Like a high GPA, this doesn't mean it's required but it will almost certainly make the initial job hunt easier though after that the value falls off drastically. Yeah, it'll be easier to get that first job out of college with an ivy league on your resume most likely. But people seem to think that they will just automatically get a dev job if they get a cs degree from a good school, or that they can't make it if they didn't go to a good school. I have known many people with degrees from good schools that just flat out couldn't get hired as a developer anywhere and did something else instead, and I know people without college degrees in anything that work as google devs. It might matter if you want to become a manager, but the thread is for trying to get a dev job. Interviewing well actually matters way more for your career than what school you went to in my opinion, and getting the skills necessary to interview well can be acquired in multiple ways.
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Feb 25, 2022 18:49
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There are companies that only hire people with degrees. It's not as widespread as it was ten years ago, but it's still a thing. Very few of them are picky about what your degree is in as long as you have it.
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Feb 25, 2022 18:51
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quote:Thank you for applying to Fullstack Academy. We are reaching out because the legal regulations of your home state, GA, prohibit its residents from enrolling in our bootcamp programs. We apologize about this misunderstanding, but, unfortunately, we will have to close out your application. Please let us know if your state of residency is not actually Georgia and we will advise on next steps. wut anyone in here have any ideas what weird regulations i'm gonna have to deal with? i sent an email asking for clarification but haven't received a response yet e: i'm guessing it has something to do with not being part of an accredited university. i had assumed all the university partnership bootcamps were just done for name recognition but according to this random article i found it's done to duck under state regulations. i had avoided the university-associated ones bc i've seen bad reviews for some but i may be limited to choosing one of those garashir fanfic fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Feb 25, 2022 |
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Feb 25, 2022 22:00
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Hey, today I expanded my one-page resume into two. If any goon wouldn't mind critiquing it for me, please PM or reply here and I'll be in touch. Thanks! (crossposting to the resume thread)
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Feb 26, 2022 01:49
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My previous boss said the most important part of having a degree is the chance that you'll be interviewed by an alumni of the college you went to. If you do, there's a good chance they'll like you right away because the common thread gives you something to talk about and makes you personal to them. Seems legit enough to me.
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Feb 26, 2022 09:10
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There's also the fact that, at least if you follow the usual highschool -> college degree path, you're going to spend 3-4 years making friends with a bunch of people who are going to be working in pretty much the same industry as you for pretty much the same amount of time. Or to put it another way, the beginnings of a "professional network".
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Feb 26, 2022 15:12
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So this popped up on hacker news today. Looks like at least some of the homework is available for download. CS 11: Interview Preparation Track http://courses.cms.caltech.edu/cs11/material/interviews/
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Feb 27, 2022 22:44
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Hadlock posted:So this popped up on hacker news today. Looks like at least some of the homework is available for download. Am I missing something or can you not access the homework without a college log in?
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Feb 28, 2022 02:12
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I have an interview for a developer apprenticeship. A software development company provides a paid, 5 month education supposedly turning out full stack devs. Other companies sponsor a student, then hire them as devs afterwards. My sponsor would be the software company running the education. All things considered, it's a pretty sweet deal if I can get it compared to everything else out there. The 4 hour interview/introduction provides more details, including a curriculum overview. I asked for curriculum ahead of time, but they're keeping it to the session, which brings me here. I get access to instructors and alumni for questions. Since I don't have the curriculum yet, I'm not sure what to ask. If I'm chosen, I'll address the practical stuff like pay, contracts, etc. Are these good questions? Any I should add? 1) Were you able to put your education to practical use deploying software, using AWS or Azure tools, server fleet management, etc.? Or at least teach yourself how to do these? 2) Were given skills to identify blind spots and understand where you needed to grow to continue to be an asset to your company? 3) Did you learn enough to make your own complete projects? 4) What could you have done ahead of time to better prepare you for the 5 months of education?
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Mar 4, 2022 18:55
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Interview Recap: Jimbolaya in the newbie discord helped me with preparing questions: decision making / project-based, adversity / growth / learning from adversity, motivation / aka "why us, why tech, etc. Unfortunately, interview brain blanked and didn't provide the specific examples I had prepared. I'm pissed, cause they were really good. Now I know I need to rehearse my script ahead of time. Everything else was fine and the puzzle section was pretty easy. They provided grids with green, red, and unknown spaces. They asked for little "scripts" with commands like repeat, right, left, forward (or forward x) and if ?2unknown = green. I feel pretty good about it, given I wrote down the examples in the application. We'll see. If I don't get it, I'll be bummed but I learned an incredibly valuable lesson that I need to rehearse a script and use it for interviews. I also heard from current devs and alumni, the program sounds really sweet. I'll continue with Plan A of prepping for a bootcamp in quarter 4 if this one doesn't work out.
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Mar 7, 2022 23:33
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Apologies in advance for the info-dump, figured the context is important. Background: I'm not currently a good programmer, I am just starting to dive into design patterns. In my work I am head of the food and beverage department of a restaurant group in the explosive growth stage of starting up (one medium and one very large property under our belts, 3-7 more in various states of completion). My day to day work consists of high level people and task management. I am responsible for the performance and morale of a department of 86 people as well as the design and execution of the bars and restaurants we are building. Within two weeks I will take on the Director of Operations role for the two months that our DO is going on maternity leave. I am potentially interested in making a change in the next couple of years (after we get these new properties open and stabilized) for a more stable and lower stress job with a more competitive salary. What excites me the most is the idea of a project manager role and I am looking into agile certifications for my current role. My question is how realistic is this goal for a hobbyist without a CS degree (I have a cert from the local JC) but with experience in high performance project/team management and systems design (even if it is more on the beverage and construction side of things)? Are there any particular skills I should start working on aside from not being a poo poo programmer? What sort of job titles should I look into? Is it even a good job to have? Tl;Dr: I lead the design and construction of bars and direct of our product department. I am also a bad programmer. If I stop being bad do I have a decent shot at getting a project manager role in software? How/should I?
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Mar 11, 2022 07:06
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[edit] removed because I gave bad advice
New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Mar 11, 2022 |
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Mar 11, 2022 08:17
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Justa Dandelion posted:Apologies in advance for the info-dump, figured the context is important. IMO you'd be better off sticking in operations. If you can perform at the director level, I don't see how you'd be better off picking up programming as a skill set for professional use. I don't see why you couldn't move into a product role; either senior product manager or director of product. I hate to be bad news bear, but after managing 96 people you're going to be seen as significantly overqualified for a lot of the low stress positions. Though it should be relatively easy for you to grab something that's lower stress, like a management role overseeing comparatively fewer people. TLDR: find a better paying org/industry, you're already in a role that should out-earn most engineers.
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Mar 11, 2022 13:48
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CS degree means nothing at the executive level, so don't worry about that. The best and smartest VP of engineering I ever worked with had a Theatre degree (and then taught himself to be a brilliant developer and architect). All that said, learning how software is developed and getting some skills in SDLC would be useful. As a director myself I still need to talk about the code pipeline, understand what is getting deployed, understand the implications of a Spring upgrade, etc. What job are you looking for as the next step?
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Mar 11, 2022 15:08
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leper khan posted:IMO you'd be better off sticking in operations. If you can perform at the director level, I don't see how you'd be better off picking up programming as a skill set for professional use. I don't see why you couldn't move into a product role; either senior product manager or director of product. Dang, lol. Thanks for the honesty. Lockback posted:What job are you looking for as the next step? Honestly idk what's out there, seen software project manager roles listed as well as program managers. It's more a company culture, enjoyment of work thing. I love my current company, kinda my dream job in most ways. It's a super ethical and equitable company and my work is really interesting. My only pain point is that it's a startup atmosphere so lots of building sop's in the moment and employee burnout due to building sop's in the moment. Also due to the equitable nature of the company we all make just about the same salary (including the management team) so I'm currently making what a well compensated bar manager should make. I know I could make $120k by going into a different and lower stress beverage director role or director of product in another industry but my fear is that the work would be so dull. At least I enjoy software and project/team management. Justa Dandelion fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Mar 11, 2022 |
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Mar 11, 2022 15:13
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Justa Dandelion posted:Dang, lol. Thanks for the honesty. You're under compensated by probably an order of magnitude or so. Here's what I get from feeling lucky on "levels.fyi director of product" https://www.levels.fyi/company/LinkedIn/salaries/Product-Manager/ Even just product manager you're estimated value is off by a factor of 2 or so. Sure, you can complain about feeling like you're losing your soul or selling out. But I can put a dollar figure on that for you.
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Mar 11, 2022 15:38
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leper khan posted:You're under compensated by probably an order of magnitude or so. Here's what I get from feeling lucky on "levels.fyi director of product" Oh wow. Didn't realize salaries were THAT high. Definitely something to ponder.
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Mar 11, 2022 17:07
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What does it mean when weeks after the project kickoff during sprint retrospectives and backlog refinement we're basically re-doing pie planning? My initial answer is "Pre-Sales didn't get all the requirements and the client wasn't specific enough" but is there some fancy business buzzword to describe this phenomena?
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Mar 11, 2022 19:51
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:What does it mean when weeks after the project kickoff during sprint retrospectives and backlog refinement we're basically re-doing pie planning? My initial answer is "Pre-Sales didn't get all the requirements and the client wasn't specific enough" but is there some fancy business buzzword to describe this phenomena? "misalignment" is my standard buzzword for situations like these. "Misalignment between client needs and communicated specifications" or something like that maybe?
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Mar 11, 2022 19:59
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leper khan posted:You're under compensated by probably an order of magnitude or so. Here's what I get from feeling lucky on "levels.fyi director of product" I wasn't as dissatisfied in my current role until I took a look at this site a couple of months ago and saw people with my same job title are making 50-100% more than I currently am.
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Mar 11, 2022 22:34
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Note levels.fyi leans heavy toward large companies, places where being a manager there might equate to a director somewhere else. Basically you may be in a situation where your getting title inflation in comparison with a silicon valley giant. The salaries are high because it's hard for them to find the right talent because they are looking for far more specific things. I say this as someone who will probably need to take a title downgrade to make a compensation step up at some point.
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Mar 11, 2022 22:55
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Lockback posted:Note levels.fyi leans heavy toward large companies, places where being a manager there might equate to a director somewhere else. Basically you may be in a situation where your getting title inflation in comparison with a silicon valley giant. The salaries are high because it's hard for them to find the right talent because they are looking for far more specific things. For sure. After seeing the levels.fyi info though did inspire to ask former employees what they were making with my same job title, and they were all being paid significantly more. I'm still making the same salary as I did when I first got hired except for a couple COL increases. During the start of the pandemic they had announced a hiring and wage increase freeze so I thought I'd get my proper compensation after that was lifted, but no dice. Been in constant communication with my supervisors about getting proper compensation and they've all spoken to HR about it but constantly get stone walled (we've had 3 different HR directors in the past year). Anyway, started actually researching bootcamp and things last night so hopefully can secure my spot in one starting in July.
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Mar 12, 2022 00:22
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fawning deference posted:So what would you all suggest instead of Clean Code? I know I'm late on this, but honestly this short video (if you can handle the production style) sums up most of what I think is actually important to take a way from Clean Code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LUNr4AeLZM&t=79s As others said, some of the specific rules proposed to achieve clean code in the book are maybe a bit much. It definitely shouldn't be taken as gospel. Additionally, you need to exercise some judgement on when things are clean enough. There's almost always ways you can make your code even more 'clean', but at some point you're not actually improving things (and could be making things worse) by breaking already reasonably clean code out into even more functions. At some point you just need to ship it (and see the last, bonus advice in the follow up video). This follow up video goes into a bit more depth with some discussion of specific rules, and for the most part I think it's good advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNVJSGYUIjc&t=61s There, in 10 minutes or less you saved yourself reading Clean Code.
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Mar 12, 2022 08:41
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Splinter posted:I know I'm late on this, but honestly this short video (if you can handle the production style) sums up most of what I think is actually important to take a way from Clean Code: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LUNr4AeLZM&t=79s You want longer methods not shorter ones OP.
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Mar 12, 2022 16:38
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That's not really true either. You want functions which are the length they need to be and to extract functions when it's doing something useful to do so, rather than just because it feels "cleaner".
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Mar 12, 2022 17:59
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Plorkyeran posted:That's not really true either. You want functions which are the length they need to be and to extract functions when it's doing something useful to do so, rather than just because it feels "cleaner". Yeah, this is it, and that's where needing experience and judgement to know when things shouldn't be 'cleaned' any more. Sometimes overly enthusiastic juniors learn about the clean code concepts and take it way too far and e.g. code that should probably be about 10 functions ends up as 30 functions because they don't really have the experience to judge whether or not what they're doing is actually helpful. In some limited cases it is actually beneficial to factor what may only be a single line of code into it's own function (I'm mainly thinking of is___() sort of methods for things you're using for conditional logic), but in many cases something like that is just making things more convoluted rather than less. I think the general concept outlined in that first video of having your code be almost non-coder readable is a solid approach for the top level of any multi-step, complex action that is being performed. I.e., the steps / algorithm that make up the action should be immediately clear without having to parse much code. This a) makes it clear what the developer intends to have happen as a whole and at each step (which can make it easier to notice a bug in either the high level algorithm or the implementation of a specific step), and b) makes it easy to find where the code you may need to touch lives without having to parse through much of a long function. However, after that first level of 'cleanness' it becomes increasingly less beneficial to continue to break things up into those non-coder readable functions. At that point it's often already pretty obvious that a function contains the implementation details for a relatively straightforward action, and in many cases your functions are also "short enough" at that point as well.
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Mar 13, 2022 00:41
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Normal Barbarian posted: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. Normal Barbarian posted:Also, how's my portfolio/resume site: massive self-doxx? My mother just got diagnosed with cancer and my girlfriend just left me for taking too long to get a job. Life is grand. I could use some more feedback on my resume: (Google Doc). This is my previous one (Google Doc). I've tried to pare it down, but I don't know if I've gone too far or missed the mark entirely. I patterned it heavily off of this: https://www.beamjobs.com/resumes/software-engineer-resume-examples#example. Normal Barbarian fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Mar 13, 2022 |
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Mar 13, 2022 05:04
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| # ? May 17, 2024 10:20 |
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Oolb posted:It's like I hear: oh, GPA doesn't really matter. Oh, the school you went to doesn't really matter. But then how the gently caress can anyone judge competence? Seems to me like everyone is playing a guessing game based on guesses. That's it the whole way up the gravy chain in many places!
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Mar 13, 2022 06:23
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