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Four of my favorite developers I've ever worked with: 1 behavioral psychology degree, 1 music theory degree, 2 no degrees. I don't see a lack of a CS degree as a barrier for most development. The one with the behavioral psychology degree is really adept at dealing with people, especially when there is conflict. I don't think it's a bad thing to get a degree unrelated to CS if it helps shore up the soft skills - that's where a lot of devs really could use help from my experience.
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Apr 21, 2023 01:57
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luchadornado posted:I don't think it's a bad thing to get a degree unrelated to CS if it helps shore up the soft skills - that's where a lot of devs really could use help from my experience.
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Apr 21, 2023 07:47
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"devs have poo poo soft skills" has been the conventional wisdom since charles babbage failed to sell his analytic engine to parliament, its not some unknown obscure problem
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Apr 21, 2023 07:54
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seriously, you could update the victorian era language on some of the comments the parliament dudes made on babbage and his machines and they would fit in fine in a 2023 manager complaining about the programmer weirdo including the negotiated and hosed deadline, lol bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Apr 21, 2023 |
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Apr 21, 2023 08:04
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bob dobbs is dead posted:"devs have poo poo soft skills" has been the conventional wisdom since charles babbage failed to sell his analytic engine to parliament, its not some unknown obscure problem Acknowledging the existence of the problem is the first step. That has to happen before we can de-normalize it and paves the way for actually correcting / preventing it.
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Apr 21, 2023 08:44
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richard hamming noted they had semiformal measures for that problem and secretaries would give preferential treatment to nice peeps in bell labs in the 1960s lol. similar thing documented w the data general dudes in tracy kidders book. etc etc
bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Apr 21, 2023 |
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Apr 21, 2023 08:48
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i think one root cause of the phenomena is that computing has always attracted peeps who were horribly abused as children, like walter pitts of the mccullough-pitts neuron who ran away from home at 15 cuz his dad beat his rear end every day or, much closer to nowadays, bret victor who got his rear end beat all through middle school or dan luu whose dad starved him almost to death in high school (who tweets about it...) lotta comparable examples i know in actual person, almost surely lotta comparable examples in coc and the pos. soft skills have a critical period, you can't beat the poo poo out of a child until 15 and send em to undergrad a bit after and expect them to function decently in society bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Apr 21, 2023 |
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Apr 21, 2023 09:06
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It seems like you’re saying it’s a lost cause, which I disagree with. If someone’s been treated poorly their whole life then it’s going to be harder to learn kindness but not impossible. I refuse to just shrug and say “generational trauma am I right?”
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Apr 21, 2023 10:20
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it means theres about a half century of failed and marginally successful attempts, so any attack should probably do the reading and not pretend that anything ex nihilo is going on
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Apr 21, 2023 10:23
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Programming definitely attracts people with autistic traits and that probably has more to do with the conflict between programmers and non-programmers than a general lack of social skills on our part.
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Apr 21, 2023 14:45
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it's a chicken/egg problem. domain attracts people who have a harder time with social stuff, so a culture of being an rear end in a top hat develops or maybe people who have a harder time with social situations don't mind or don't notice the rear end in a top hat culture as much whichever it is, the problem is old and well-known and also real and getting better
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Apr 21, 2023 14:58
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I'm all for conversations about autism in programming circles, but let's maybe not be ableist shitheads about it. No, autism doesn't make a person be an rear end in a top hat or be more tolerant of assholes, and you should be embarrassed by the suggestion that it does.
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Apr 21, 2023 15:14
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Vulture Culture posted:I'm all for conversations about autism in programming circles, but let's maybe not be ableist shitheads about it. No, autism doesn't make a person be an rear end in a top hat or be more tolerant of assholes, and you should be embarrassed by the suggestion that it does. That's not what I meant and I think you're reaching a bit to get that from my post, but I do think this is worth expounding on a little bit. The issue is that autistic and allistic people have difficulty working together due to their different cognitive styles. If people with autistic traits go off to become programmers and people with allistic traits end up working with programmers, that's going to create some conflict and lead to the perception among non-programmers that programmers have poor social skills, are jerks, etc. Of course there's more going on here--some programmers really are jerks--but I do think this is a bigger factor than is generally recognized.
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Apr 21, 2023 15:24
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Vulture Culture posted:I'm all for conversations about autism in programming circles, but let's maybe not be ableist shitheads about it. No, autism doesn't make a person be an rear end in a top hat or be more tolerant of assholes, and you should be embarrassed by the suggestion that it does. Well said.
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Apr 21, 2023 15:29
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they were talking to me. but the contention seems to be that autistic folks don't often have trouble navigating social situations, which is false. or that autistic people don't miss cues that other folks pick up on, but they (frequently) do. it presents in tons of different ways blah blah blah; one of the big ones is trouble telling when you're making someone upset. im pretty clearly not saying "autistic people are assholes;" apologies if that is the message people are somehow getting.
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Apr 21, 2023 15:43
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Achmed Jones posted:apologies if that is the message people are somehow getting. and - apologies if indeed i am being an 'ablist shithead.' i'm not trying to (which i hope is clear), it'd be pretty ironic on its face but i'm not going to get into any of that. i'm in that weird position where i'm saying what i think is pretty uncontroversial and i can't really tell if VC is being goofy about it or if i'm really being a dick. i'd much prefer to err on the side of not being a dick. so, apologies for being a dick if i'm doing that. i'm pretty confused though, ngl.
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Apr 21, 2023 15:51
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Achmed Jones posted:and - apologies if indeed i am being an 'ablist shithead.' i'm not trying to (which i hope is clear), it'd be pretty ironic on its face but i'm not going to get into any of that. i'm in that weird position where i'm saying what i think is pretty uncontroversial and i can't really tell if VC is being goofy about it or if i'm really being a dick. i'd much prefer to err on the side of not being a dick. so, apologies for being a dick if i'm doing that. i'm pretty confused though, ngl. The response you got is a literal validation of your point.
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Apr 21, 2023 16:19
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I’d quote Alanis Morissette but I think the point would be lost. I agree with what was discussed in the current page. That also explain in part why the field is in majority populated with so few woman. Sad IMHO that it affect the industry this way.
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Apr 21, 2023 19:23
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field was majority women until the 70sish when it was basically set in stone that the software was the moneymaker not the hardware because they really thought harder about what the von neumann architecture means for fungibility of hardware
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Apr 21, 2023 19:28
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I just spent an hour talking with peers about how most of our disagreements involve people in agreement on the important things, but misunderstanding each other due to word choice and missing context. Working with good people at a good company, you'll still have to spend a non-zero amount of time telling people to stop with casual misogyny and give room for the non white dudes to have an opinion. It sucks.
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Apr 21, 2023 22:24
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Achmed Jones posted:and - apologies if indeed i am being an 'ablist shithead.' i'm not trying to (which i hope is clear), it'd be pretty ironic on its face but i'm not going to get into any of that. i'm in that weird position where i'm saying what i think is pretty uncontroversial and i can't really tell if VC is being goofy about it or if i'm really being a dick. i'd much prefer to err on the side of not being a dick. so, apologies for being a dick if i'm doing that. i'm pretty confused though, ngl. i think saying that trouble with the social stuff leads to the culture of being an rear end in a top hat develops due to autistic traits being selected for plays into harmful stereotypes. ive seen it play out really poorly when someone with hfa reveals it, gossip spreads, and then people treat them like they're incapable and their opportunities dry up. as soon as you're othered, you're toast and it's time to switch teams or companies and keep your business to yourself. biceps crimes fucked around with this message at 04:13 on Apr 22, 2023 |
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Apr 22, 2023 04:10
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This reminds me, a lot of the jobs I'm applying for have a section where you can self-identify as disabled, with a note that they have a target of employing 7% disabled people or something like that. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I assume that they don't count things like "correctable vision impairment" as a disability, even though it is legally speaking. One of those "it doesn't count as a disability unless you're struggling" problems...but where's the threshold, then? Does a once-a-month migraine that necessitates a sick day count? What about chronic pain that's low-level and usually doesn't get in your way? What about if you get depressed from time to time but instead of being unable to get out of bed, you're just not as productive as usual? It just seems really muddy, to me.
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Apr 22, 2023 04:16
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:This reminds me, a lot of the jobs I'm applying for have a section where you can self-identify as disabled, with a note that they have a target of employing 7% disabled people or something like that. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? I assume that they don't count things like "correctable vision impairment" as a disability, even though it is legally speaking. One of those "it doesn't count as a disability unless you're struggling" problems...but where's the threshold, then? Does a once-a-month migraine that necessitates a sick day count? What about chronic pain that's low-level and usually doesn't get in your way? What about if you get depressed from time to time but instead of being unable to get out of bed, you're just not as productive as usual? I've always refused to fill out any of those parts of forms. About half the time I won't even give my gender because I don't want it to be relevant to the hiring process.
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Apr 22, 2023 04:19
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my (cis, also computertoucher) sister has a korean name which is one letter away from a western dudes name and there is basically no such thing as a recruiter who will not assume she misspelled her own name, misgender her cis rear end, and use the western name
bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Apr 22, 2023 |
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Apr 22, 2023 04:21
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I don't know if it's a real autism thing, but one trait I have a problem with is folks who are caustic themselves but also deeply sensitive to any perceived slight. If you can't tell that you're being rude, then you can't also be sensitive. The dev I'm thinking of here self diagnosed as autistic. Regarding disabilities, I've got a non obvious thing that definitely qualifies, but I've never felt comfortable listing it because I feel like there are folks with bigger problems the program should be helping. I think HR is generally actually good about keeping that secret since it's legally important.
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Apr 22, 2023 05:02
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Which box do I check for "depressed and hates Capitalism"
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Apr 22, 2023 05:28
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CPColin posted:Which box do I check for "depressed and hates Capitalism" Disabled, depression. Hating capitalism, though potentially causal to your disability, is not itself yet seen as a disability.
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Apr 22, 2023 13:30
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CPColin posted:Which box do I check for "depressed and hates Capitalism" Isn’t that basically assumed these days?
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Apr 22, 2023 14:59
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leper khan posted:Hating capitalism, though potentially causal to your disability, is not itself yet seen as a disability. It sure affects my job performance though! 
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Apr 22, 2023 16:36
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Achmed Jones posted:they were talking to me. but the contention seems to be that autistic folks don't often have trouble navigating social situations, which is false. or that autistic people don't miss cues that other folks pick up on, but they (frequently) do. Maybe autistic people are more likely to find themselves in rear end in a top hat cultures because the technical domain is interesting and engaging to the point of self-harm, whereas people optimizing towards the social aspects of work would eject from that kind of work atmosphere? I'd be willing to concede that, and chalk my own understanding up to a dumb misinterpretation on my part. Achmed Jones posted:and - apologies if indeed i am being an 'ablist shithead.' i'm not trying to (which i hope is clear), it'd be pretty ironic on its face but i'm not going to get into any of that. i'm in that weird position where i'm saying what i think is pretty uncontroversial and i can't really tell if VC is being goofy about it or if i'm really being a dick. i'd much prefer to err on the side of not being a dick. so, apologies for being a dick if i'm doing that. i'm pretty confused though, ngl. e: Okay, fine, I'll be controversial for a minute: I think many ND people are intuitively more adept than the average NT person at picking up social norms, but we're so hyperattuned to things that people don't want to talk about, or insist aren't a big deal, that we spend our formative years being gaslit into doubting our perception of every facial expression or verbal interaction Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Apr 24, 2023 |
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Apr 24, 2023 15:59
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I have ADHD and I never check yes on disability. Just because I read it once and it wasn't on there.
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Apr 24, 2023 16:48
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StumblyWumbly posted:I don't know if it's a real autism thing, but one trait I have a problem with is folks who are caustic themselves but also deeply sensitive to any perceived slight. If you can't tell that you're being rude, then you can't also be sensitive. The dev I'm thinking of here self diagnosed as autistic. Sure. If you think about an autistic meltdown the way that it usually manifests in people who haven't learned coping skills yet, like most kids newer to diagnosis and support, a lot of the time it's because there's a sensory or emotional overload. The person goes to any length to make the pain stop. In that framing: you have a person who desperately wants to avoid emotional turbulence and situations where another person will make them feel bad. So, they might do two things. First, they can try to limit the type and number of potential interactions a person can have with them to ones where they are already shields-up and defensive. Second, when they begin to have bad feelings, they can do whatever it takes to make the interaction stop as quickly as possible. That often involves either making the other person feel something unpleasant enough that they disengage. Or, someone who finds themself in this situation often can be really good at talking themself out of trouble. A person can be effective at very reasonably, rationally, and calmly creating accidental chaos in the wake of that maneuver. Emotional sensitivities are real and very much part of the autistic experience. People of any neurotype have a responsibility to, to the best of their ability, learn and practice the skills they need to avoid harming others.
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Apr 24, 2023 18:09
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Vulture Culture posted:People of any neurotype have a responsibility to, to the best of their ability, learn and practice the skills they need to avoid harming others.
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Apr 24, 2023 20:44
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Got past the most basic screening interview for a position, and the next step is a two-hour takehome test that, I've been warned, will require some knowledge of using Numpy to do linear algebra. My Numpy is like seven years out of date at this point, and this is not the kind of thing that your average leetcode test is going to cover. Bleh!
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Apr 25, 2023 17:44
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I had an interview question that involved doing matrix-matrix multiplication that I didn't remember how to do. Fortunately, we were using a horrible laggy online code editor so I didn't have time to get to the actual math parts of the question before we ran out of time.
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Apr 25, 2023 17:52
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Yeah, I'm hopeful this is basic "do you know how to manipulate numpy arrays" stuff and not, like, "you need to run an iterative solver" or "you need to solve this system of simultaneous equations" (which numpy assuredly has a library to do but gently caress if I know what it's called off the top of my head). Since it's a take-home, I guess that basically means open-book (or open-internet) so I can look up stuff, but I'll fail the test if I have to look up everything. So I'm just gonna try to refamiliarize myself with the basics of the library, and do some more coding problems, before I start the test proper. Assuming I pass the test, then I talk to the hiring manager, then do a "virtual onsite" (  ) which is your standard day-long battery of interviews. Nothing I haven't done before, but mannnn
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Apr 25, 2023 18:03
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Hi thread, not going to weigh in on the ASD discussion, and I don't know if my experience qualifies me as an "oldie" but I guess that's my question. How does the industry look at profiles whose only experience is as technical co-founder / CTO of a (relatively unknown) startup? How can I convey that my experience is serious? Is it? I'll give a little synopsis but I'm curious which factors are better to emphasize, e.g. team size, direct involvement with the stack, product complexity, etc.? Obligatory preface, I'm just posting this for curiosity and it's not indicative of anything happening with my company. Please don't doxx me, if you want to connect outside SA send me a PM, no need to internet sleuth me. But on a personal level the situation is that I moved my family abroad for this company, with a clear timeline from the beginning. My wife's career, aging parents, etc., make it hard to change that plan, so we're looking at moving back to the US in 18 months to two years. I've been open about this timeline with the rest of the founders/management and the plan is to expand to the US so hopefully it all works out. But obviously anything can happen in that timeframe, whether positive or negative for the company, that might make it a transition point in my career. At minimum, I should be able to price myself honestly. I've been out of the US, I have little professional network there, and I know how "CTO" experience can be perceived if the company isn't known (although I do think our tech has "curb appeal" and sounds impressive from the first explanation. No crypto-esque bullshittery). The range of outcomes for me on the market feels huge; I'm not sure where I fall compared to more typical career trajectories. I'm not super ambitious --- even relative to cost of living a junior US salary would probably be a pay bump, plus my wife would be able to work again, so I'm not shooting for the moon but I want to aim for what I'm worth. On the one hand, my 5 years experience feels like 20 years. On the other hand, part of me feels like I never had a real job. At least, I've never been on the market before. Anyways, to keep it relatively short (fake edit: lol) here's the blurb I wrote for the Pragmatic Engineering talent collective (I didn't get in).  I started with very little experience (a non-CS PhD then a post-doc where I mostly acted as a data engineer). Of course, I learned a lot the hard way and I've always been an autodidact but I did try to secure mentorship from some advisors over here, and I was able to hire some amazing developers I learned a lot from. We also learned a lot together, particularly regarding Kubernetes. We needed massively bursting workloads, so we tried Kubernetes with autoscaling and it just worked really well after very little effort, and it grew with us. It really clicked for me a couple years ago (around the time we finally had a product) and since then I've been daydreaming about reimplementing part of our stack as a Kubernetes operator, or building a true IDP, that kind of thing. And I did do what I could in that direction, but we're talking 5-10% of my workload. Haven't hired any DevOps or SRE (although hopefully changing soon) so it's been all me plus a couple of my early engineers that also learned by necessity. So for my next step I'd love to join an established SRE team, or join a mid-stage company with the goal of building a platform engineering team, or maybe just a developer role in a company with a cloud-native product. Hell, I would even consider trying to start consulting and look for gigs helping companies get set up in Kubernetes, although I'm not sure I have the network for that. Anyways, any thoughts on how to level myself, or tips on my blurb, or advice in general? And, uh... fries and a coke please.
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Apr 25, 2023 18:04
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cto of 15 peep team usually translates to line eng manager or staff eng in bigger company land
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Apr 25, 2023 18:07
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Looking around at job postings a lot of them seem to go back to IT staffing firms. My first instinct is to avoid those. Am I being overly cautious?
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Apr 25, 2023 18:10
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McCracAttack posted:Looking around at job postings a lot of them seem to go back to IT staffing firms. My first instinct is to avoid those. Am I being overly cautious? How desperate are you?
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Apr 25, 2023 18:14
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