|
Clanpot Shake posted:What if you need to write a 10 paragraph decision log for why your changes should be made and a comparative analysis of which data type to use for a database column before you can do any of that
|
#
?
Jan 16, 2024 20:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 09:35 |
|
|
Vulture Culture posted:I'm going to be very unpopular for saying this: if you lean into this mindset and get good at figuring out what follow-ups you're going to be asked, you'll start banging these out in 15 minutes. There are a lot of problems with change advisory boards, especially if there's tons of rework, but a lot of the complaints about the front ends of these processes originate from people who are chronically unable to describe the problem they're trying to solve. I assume by "banging out" you mean "generating with ChatGPT because nobody's gonna be reading it in-depth anyway"
|
|
#
?
Jan 17, 2024 00:21
|
|
|
Cugel the Clever posted:I'm immensely jealous of the "ran out of work for the day" crowd, though I don't entirely understand it... There's always something available, even if it's just refactoring, bug fixes, operational improvements, or self-driven learning. I'm never going to run out of poo poo to do, we have 101 locations, several hundred kilometers worth of fibreoptical network and four different (OT) networks to deal with. All the same, I've done pretty much gently caress all since Tuesday  Spent two hours in a teams call this afternoon with a new colleague shooting the poo poo (80%) and looking at stuff we're going to do in the next few weeks (20%). Vulture Culture posted:I'm going to be very unpopular for saying this: if you lean into this mindset and get good at figuring out what follow-ups you're going to be asked, you'll start banging these out in 15 minutes. There are a lot of problems with change advisory boards, especially if there's tons of rework, but a lot of the complaints about the front ends of these processes originate from people who are chronically unable to describe the problem they're trying to solve. That's an unpopular opinion, but one I actually agree with. I'm also one of those assholes who will 100% ask people to explain their plan in more detail during CAB if I feel there's any ambiguity and they're touching any of my poo poo.
|
|
#
?
Jan 19, 2024 18:01
|
|
|
Clanpot Shake posted:What if you need to write a 10 paragraph decision log for why your changes should be made and a comparative analysis of which data type to use for a database column before you can do any of that I’m working at a larger company that requires all work that takes more than 2 weeks to become a document that requires sign off from high level engineers and engineering managers. It all still manages to work though (I think?) because you have a week or two to go back and forth on the document and then anybody who still has unresolved arguments has to justify it in a big public meeting that spans across business units and they very obviously become the person holding it up. Nobody wants to ever go and defend their “I want more detail” quibble in that meeting because it absolutely sucks.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2024 03:37
|
|
|
At least documents set some reasonable expectations, and deviations still happen but with relative to scheduled/approved work. For some reason our place is having serious beginning of year issues achieving anything, mostly because there are no clear statements for requests, and those writing the technical expectations are just as confused. Most tasks are complete, tested, and in review, and then everything gets thrown out and regresses back to an open task with more unknowns. Even simple refactoring is tying up leads and principals in knots, and some things are lingering because they're solutions in search of problems. Rambling, sorry. Anyway, I've been slowing down since every additional 24hr adds a 30% chance of regression, and that's less offensive when you haven't solved the problem four times already. Estimates, I completely disagree.  Estimates are typically easy, though of course they take practice like anything. Where they fail is any external dependency, particularly on people who can't estimate or have zero vested interest in the schedule. IE, work estimates can be very accurate; calendar estimates become more inaccurate with additional people or processes.People have delivered three-month projects for decades. The day over day slips probably have the same reasons in 2024 as they did in 24bce.
|
|
#
?
Jan 20, 2024 08:22
|
|
|
Cup Runneth Over posted:I assume by "banging out" you mean "generating with ChatGPT because nobody's gonna be reading it in-depth anyway" I've been loving chatgpt for exactly this reason don't try and get it to do math though.
|
|
#
?
Jan 23, 2024 14:37
|
|
|
My previous boss^1 just used ChatGPT to write a LinkedIn recommendation for me
|
|
#
?
Jan 24, 2024 00:31
|
|
|
 Lots of redundancy in these changes. Update the get+parse helper in this class to handle those common steps. (updates all instance functions to call a static helper that accepts the instance as a parameter, so it can call instance methods) Well that's rather creative!
|
|
#
?
Feb 2, 2024 16:39
|
|
|
I think I'm finally sick and tired enough of my job to start properly looking again. It's not *bad* per se, but between the teams who depend on our work treating us like we're an inconvenience while putting out "stuff we already built, but worse", the lack of any coordination at a project/product level, and the environment plus deadlines grinding the initiative out of everyone who tries to make things better, I don't think I've got the fight in me anymore. What job boards do y'all use now? Or is it a matter of finding the most recent linkedin recruiter message that sounds like they halfway work in a relevant space and getting on a call with them? I swear it seems like the only jobs I see recruiters shilling are the bad ones Also if anyone doesn't hate their place of work and has remote openings for a senior/staff/principal backend-focused canadagoon, flip me an application link In a similar vein, how are you setting up your resumes? When I was last applying for jobs, people only wanted to see a one-pager with highlights, but every time I've been interviewing people are using 2 pagers with more in-depth job information
|
|
#
?
Feb 13, 2024 22:00
|
|
|
ChickenWing posted:and the environment plus deadlines grinding the initiative out of everyone who tries to make things better
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 02:55
|
|
|
Love Stole the Day posted:I'm in this post and I don't like it  
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 03:27
|
|
|
I last jumped 2yr ago and things have changed, but I searched Indeed and LinkedIn and directly checked those companies and applied. It's still probably best to steer clear of the LinkedIn recruiters until the point of desperation, or if you have a very niche role only filled through recruiters. Stick with 1pg unless you have specific academic or published works that support the role or compensation. I'd also recommend against embellishment even though it might reduce the number of replies; there's nothing that drops faster than the score of a candidate claiming experience with XYZ who can't even explain/demonstrate the basics. I am curious where the industry is with pre-interview process. Are companies using take home exercises, live coding phone interviews, entirely online gatekeeping (a la leetcode/hackerrank style questions and the dozen providers that appeared in 20-22)?
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 06:59
|
|
|
PhantomOfTheCopier posted:I am curious where the industry is with pre-interview process. Are companies using take home exercises, live coding phone interviews, entirely online gatekeeping (a la leetcode/hackerrank style questions and the dozen providers that appeared in 20-22)? All of the above, and more! I'm apparently going to be doing a take home writing exercise about my last project. Yay? I will admit to morbid curiosity (and they are willing to pay me for my time in the interview process so heck why not)
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 07:40
|
|
|
Finished my bachelor 18 months ago, went back to uni for it at 29 after wasting my 20s not knowing what I wanted to do. Got my current job a couple months later, and am liking it ok. I am really kinda dreading the next time I have to go applying for work though. I live in the boonies in Europe and don't want to move because family + I don't like larger cities (500k+ large) so my pay isn't great, but my expenses are also low. Converting to USD I have about 1800-2k total monthly expenses and make 3450 after tax atm. Plus about 5.5k/year pension savings on top of that. Pros: Company culture is great, job isn't very stressful, cool coworkers, learned a lot of SQL and some frontend/C# here. Guaranteed raises every year for first 4 years. Also 5 min walk to work. Cons: Bery little actual coding which is what I found most fun while studying, boss wants me to do more client-facing tasks because I am good at it but I also hate it, no WFH which sucks if I want to move. I kinda suck at finding time to code outside work - not because I don't find it fun/interesting but I just don't find the energy + have so many things I'd rather be doing. So I'm worried that whenever I decide to move on I'll be pigeonholed into customer-facing jobs which i hate. I do get to spend a lot of time with our DB at work so that's at least something, but I don't do much dev-ops as another department runs that.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 11:36
|
|
|
Volmarias posted:All of the above, and more! I'm apparently going to be doing a take home writing exercise about my last project. Yay? I will admit to morbid curiosity (and they are willing to pay me for my time in the interview process so heck why not) Green flag. Not making me write code that has nothing to do with the target domain, go into detail about something I'm guaranteed to have a lot to talk about, and getting paid for the time spent is all indicative of people who are respecting your time and effort Insurrectionist posted:Pros: Company culture is great, job isn't very stressful, cool coworkers, learned a lot of SQL and some frontend/C# here. Guaranteed raises every year for first 4 years. Also 5 min walk to work. I mean it sounds like you're getting dev experience at your job, so no matter what that's going to apply to wherever you end up going. Having client-facing experience is always a plus because there are a lot of relationships in dev you can treat as client-facing (at a reasonable level of abstraction, anyone expecting code from you is a client and a lot of the same interpersonal skills apply whether that person is someone purchasing software from you or an internal PM asking you to add a feature) Also, I've been in the industry full-time since sept 2015, got promoted to principal engineer in 2021, and I do my best to not touch code outside the hours of 9-5. You can and should learn and skill up a lot on work time. I've done some stuff for family/friends and the occasional personal project and for the most part I'd rather have been doing anything else. I love programming and any time I spend a significant amount of time doing it outside of work I burn out within a few weeks.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 15:02
|
|
|
ChickenWing posted:Also, I've been in the industry full-time since sept 2015, got promoted to principal engineer in 2021, and I do my best to not touch code outside the hours of 9-5. You can and should learn and skill up a lot on work time. I've done some stuff for family/friends and the occasional personal project and for the most part I'd rather have been doing anything else. I love programming and any time I spend a significant amount of time doing it outside of work I burn out within a few weeks. Agreed. My employer is very deliberate about encouraging us to use company time for education and upskilling. For me, the biggest reason I'm not working on personal projects more often is that I don't have much I'd like to do. I like writing software to solve problems, and work has plenty of interesting problems. I can scratch the itch there (get paid for it!) and not feel the need to invent something for myself to do during my off hours. Plus, and maybe this is specific to the area I work in, I don't typically encounter challenges that require big data or distributed computing in my daily life.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 15:35
|
|
|
My issue is I have a lot of ideas but many of them feel like they'd be large projects and I get demotivated. I worked with Kotlin at uni and would love to make my own combined shopping list/meal planner/calorie counter app for example just to have one customised for my needs and not bloated. But that would be quite a lot of work, especially not having touched Kotljn/Java since late 2022 so I'd need to brush up.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 16:21
|
|
|
ChickenWing posted:Green flag. Not making me write code that has nothing to do with the target domain, go into detail about something I'm guaranteed to have a lot to talk about, and getting paid for the time spent is all indicative of people who are respecting your time and effort Nominally, yes, pretty reasonable. The problem is that I haven't worked in a year, the last major project I can point to with any clarity is 5 years ago, and my memory is garbage. What technical challenges did I face? They were definitely there, but I cannot remember what they were! The projects afterwards were all either minor, ill fated, or ill suited for me, and coincided with the downward spiral in my personal life over the next 5 years, resulting in less than stellar professional performance before being swept up in Vibe Based Layoffs last year. That, and soft skills "tell me about a time when" questions are my weak point in the first place, due to the aforementioned memory.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 16:26
|
|
|
Meanwhile, apparently this guy is my competition: Ask A Manager: I was rejected because I told my interviewer I never make mistakes Ladies and gentlemen, we've finally found them: the one programmer without sin. The prophesized one.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 17:14
|
|
|
much like the Navajo weavers I simply incorporate the mistakes into the tapestry of my code, so that it is always working as intended
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 17:21
|
|
|
Fellatio del Toro posted:much like the Navajo weavers I simply incorporate the mistakes into the tapestry of my code, so that it is always working as intended Keeping the Bug - > Feature pipeline working as intended. I once fixed a bug in the product I worked on at the time then had to hotfix it back in for one customer for whom it was a key part of their work flow.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 17:27
|
|
|
Volmarias posted:The projects afterwards were all either minor, ill fated, or ill suited for me I mean these are still great fodder for that sort of question. Being able to talk about a project that didn't go so well and understanding exactly the reasons it didn't go well and how you'd avoid or tackle those problems in the future is still incredibly valuable to an interviewer.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2024 19:36
|
|
|
ChickenWing posted:I mean these are still great fodder for that sort of question. Being able to talk about a project that didn't go so well and understanding exactly the reasons it didn't go well and how you'd avoid or tackle those problems in the future is still incredibly valuable to an interviewer. "Political interference from above made progress of any kind difficult" doesn't seem like good fodder. What lesson did I learn? I learned that unless you have worked with an org before, never assume timeliness. It's a worthwhile lesson to be sure, but it's more frustrating because it was the exception, not the rule.
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 01:41
|
|
|
Volmarias posted:"Political interference from above made progress of any kind difficult" doesn't seem like good fodder. That's what euphemistic phrasing is for! "The project suffered due to conflicting priorities and difficulties in alignment among stakeholders. It taught me how to balance shifting targets and how to attempt to negotiate compromise between opposing design viewpoints. In the future I'd attempt to work out any differences in requirements earlier in the project so that coordination didn't get in the way of development at later stages" you and your interviewer both know what you mean but you've identified issues and remediations and been political about it
|
|
#
?
Feb 15, 2024 16:14
|
|
|
*checks DL request, and it's still not approved* Me: Hey I requested to join this DL two days ago, can you please approve it? (2 hours later) Guy: Hi, it's already approved Me: It was not approved when I asked this morning Guy: No, it was approved yesterday *checks DL request, and it's still not approved* Me: *sends a screenshot showing that it's still not approved* Guy: ...
|
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 17:53
|
|
|
ChickenWing posted:That's what euphemistic phrasing is for! Please do my soft skills interviews for me. Volmarias fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Feb 16, 2024 |
|
#
?
Feb 16, 2024 19:04
|
|
|
ChickenWing posted:That's what euphemistic phrasing is for! Yeah, this language ... is a skill. Hats off to whoever can pull it off in a split second.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 00:11
|
|
|
ChickenWing posted:That's what euphemistic phrasing is for! This perfectly describes a project I'm still in. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 00:24
|
|
|
Volguus posted:Yeah, this language ... is a skill. Hats off to whoever can pull it off in a split second. you don't need to pull it off in a split second, though, you can prepare answers for common questions such as "tell me about the challenges you faced in this project."
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 00:30
|
|
|
Wibla posted:This perfectly describes a project I'm still in.  but also think about how well that will fit in a "tell me about a challenge you overcame" question in a future interview!
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 04:00
|
|
|
Truman Peyote posted:you don't need to pull it off in a split second, though, you can prepare answers for common questions such as "tell me about the challenges you faced in this project." Doesn't hurt to accumulate a list of the scenarios as you encounter them so you're not scrambling to recollect months or even years later.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 04:27
|
|
|
Volmarias posted:Please do my soft skills interviews for me. Volguus posted:Yeah, this language ... is a skill. Hats off to whoever can pull it off in a split second. The trick is Truman Peyote posted:you don't need to pull it off in a split second, though, you can prepare answers for common questions such as "tell me about the challenges you faced in this project." If you are forearmed with "what went well/what didn't go so well" for your last handful of projects, you've basically nailed these interviews. Even easier if it's a takehome assigment and you get time and a thesaurus and everything.
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 04:27
|
|
|
I've interviewed candidates who bring their prepared answers. They are generally a bit scared, "Can I use my notes?". Sure! Why would I have an issue with someone who planned ahead? People can't remember everything; they usually have some examples they are really excited to share. It can also be very comfortable to get locked into one example instead of showing breadth of experience, and having the list helps. The trick is to know your strengths and weaknesses. Within reason you should be requesting allowances (I do not speak of legal accommodation) such as "Can I use my laptop to answer code questions?" or "Can you give me a 15min break between interviews?". A recruiter might ask why, so you should be ready to fess up. "No one can read my writing on a whiteboard" and "I get really nervous and want time to relax". If you get a jerk recruiter, so be it, but honestly most in the process understand all this and try to help candidates along. Why? You get better data when candidates aren't hiding under the table shivering in fear. And then there are jerk engineers who think an interview is about proving the candidate wrong and showing off their magnificence. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 17, 2024 21:09
|
|
|
I'm getting back into conducting interviews and getting bummed out. Our company is early and we're not offering flashy salaries, instead opting for 6% 401k match, bonuses up to 10%, and good bennies. Our coding interview is a small utility that's already written, but has bugs in it. I find this way less stressful than asking somebody to write code from scratch, and way more valuable to us. Being able to read, digest, and fix existing code is extremely valuable, while going off to write a greenfield project however you like doesn't come up much until you hit higher levels of the engineering ladder. The people we're collecting in the pipeline are having a really hard time with it. Like not being able to suss out where the data is flowing, how functions are being called, and where deadlocks are occurring. It's the same test I took so I don't feel like it's bad or unfair, I actually really enjoyed the exercise. The good engineers just aren't enticed by our mediocre salaries.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2024 16:02
|
|
|
What’s the salary?
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2024 16:35
|
|
|
Outside of special circumstances, like when the bubble burst last year, the company I worked for pulled out of tech, the entire industry were firing people and I felt like I needed a safe place to weather the storm for a year, there's just no way I'm not taking the offer that pays best.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2024 16:39
|
|
|
Judge Schnoopy posted:... One problem with engineers is not considering their audience. They'll post code for review with no background, no test cases, no commit messages distinguishing the feature from refactoring from cleanup from personal grievance. In the absence of listed expectations, your applicants need to both fully understand the application (to get a sense of flow, component priority, error handling) and then think about what could go wrong. Remember that candidates uncovering a fundamental flaw in an IRS tax calculation are the ones you want; not the people that only spot the misspelling on line five. Make sure you're measuring the right thing. Sit down and write your rubric. What's expected? What's required to get there? How long does each step take? 2x for interview stress.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2024 19:22
|
|
|
It's in person. The code is three functions with some concurrency, and it deadlocks. There are many comments in the code to explain what each thing does. We have two engineers on the call to work with them, answering questions and giving some pointed hints when the candidate seems stuck. There are lines of code that are broken, and lines that can be improved. The rubric is to fix the broken lines to make the program work (solved whatever way the candidate likes), with bonus points for: improving the things that do work, explaining their reasoning about their change, code reading comprehension (little influence here because we understand reading in front of people can be stressful), and asking good questions. I loved the interview as a candidate, it was a really fun pairing exercise with the interviewers.
|
|
#
?
Feb 18, 2024 21:03
|
|
|
Judge Schnoopy posted:I loved the interview as a candidate, it was a really fun pairing exercise with the interviewers. FWIW, I also prefer 'tell me what this code does and how you would improve it' interviews, as long as the code is reasonably understandable. How many lines of code are candidates being asked to review/understand? That's not the end-all/be-all, but it's a good idea of how long it could take to parse it, and it could be that it's simply too long.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2024 01:28
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 23, 2024 09:35 |
|
|
Falcon2001 posted:FWIW, I also prefer 'tell me what this code does and how you would improve it' interviews, as long as the code is reasonably understandable. The file is 100 lines long, and 55 lines are code. The rest is whitespace or comments. 1 class, 1 method, 1 function. The kinds of discussions I'm having feel pretty junior, with some basic misunderstandings of implementing concurrency in the language they claim proficiency in. e; because I went back to check it anyway, you can fix the test and pass by changing 7 lines, in 3 different spots. Not impossible for 45 minutes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 19, 2024 03:22
|
|