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It's sorta common, in my experience, for startups to think they've got HOT loving poo poo coming through, oh my god you've never seen code like this. Oblivious to the fact that market timing is going to make or break 90% of them before any human decision tipped their fate, they obsess over made up problems instead.
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Jan 12, 2024 02:00
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A startup thinking that they need people to sign an NDA before looking at their code or that the NDA would ever do something useful is definitely a sign that they're somewhat delusional, but startup founders being somewhat delusional is also sort of normal.
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Jan 12, 2024 04:04
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My guess is you'll be looking at architecture if it's a senior role, which is slightly more understandable for an NDA. Still probably wildly unnecessary but if I'm generous they maybe trying to prevent you from spilling how ugly things actually are behind the curtains.
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Jan 12, 2024 04:17
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I declined the NDA and the interview is still on. I think they wanted me to check out some code built by a consultant, and they don't have the background to know what is key and what is standard.
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Jan 12, 2024 05:03
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Arguably the startup asking you to sign an NDA is a sign the startup might be someday successful. If the founders are that jealously protective of their tech, they might be focused enough to get the company someday profitable Random: many moons ago I signed some NDA not for their primary product but apparently they ran one of those free/low cost VPN products (think NordVPN - I forget which one but it wasn't that one) and then monitored traffic for connections known to be API end points for mobile apps and then resold that data. They're still in business but I'm sure DNS over HTTPS is gonna ruin their business model
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Jan 14, 2024 05:18
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I wore a suit-jacket (blazer?) to a technical interview, I feel like I made an impression as it seemed like I got a lot of peoples attention when I entered their office, but was it a good impression? So far I think in retrospect the worst thing I probably did was my tendency to ramble when nervous, as I feel like I probably end up saying things that ultimately are counter productive to coming across as proficient in the skills for the position I'm interviewing for, I dunno yet what the result is but I suppose I'll try to practice and write down some more concise answers for some of the questions I've answered. So far I've taken a sort of casual approach of not really practicing for the interviews as I'm not really in a rush but some of these jobs (looking for game development positions) do look really nice and professionally satisfying and would be nice to get the job offer for even if my unemployment benefits last a whole year and if I budget carefully can probably make that work to focus on indie gamedev. Questions I tended to get asked IIRC: - Tell me more about your technical accomplishments/roles. - A bit of a curve ball but I got asked about some more specific Unreal frameworks we didn't use at my past job so my answer was "no, it never came up". - What's an example of something like a Character you've implemented, i.e ai, state machines, etc. - Would you change how you approached the above? - Any experience implementing multiplayer? - What sort of gamedev do you see yourself as, do you like to push the envelop of technology/performance, or do you prefer implementing gameplay features? - Any questions for us? (I usually ask what a typical day is like, how are issues handed out, I should ask next time what sort of training they offer for personal growth?)
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Mar 5, 2024 16:39
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teen phone cutie posted:code academy is usually when I start when trying out a new language. it's low effort and hands-on enough to make you actually feel like you're getting something out of it: I got roped into paying them 40 bucks a month for a few . How is it for .net stuff? I have a pluralsight subscription for my work but got roped into the interactiveness of codeacademy, but found the course structure not really easy to access. as in i could never pick up easily where I left off
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Mar 14, 2024 14:55
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kneelbeforezog posted:I got roped into paying them 40 bucks a month for a few . How is it for .net stuff? I have a pluralsight subscription for my work but got roped into the interactiveness of codeacademy, but found the course structure not really easy to access. as in i could never pick up easily where I left off no idea, but I also have seen varying levels of quality from pluralsight as well, so I wouldn't say one is better than the other as a blanket rule.
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Mar 14, 2024 15:52
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My experience with Codecademy has been mixed. It's great that it's interactive, but some of the questions will not accept answers that are actually correct and there are essay style questions that don't actually check poo poo. If you've got it, try it. Pluralsight is probably more consistently quality, based on the 8-ish courses I've done there. I don't think any have an interactive component, though.
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Mar 14, 2024 21:20
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Today, I accepted an offer for an L5 role in figgieland with a TC above 500k (after annualizing the RSUs) at a large engineering organization you've definitely heard of. Exactly six years ago today, on April 17 2018, I posted the following itt while laying in the bed of a shoebox hostel room of a poor neighborhood of Osaka, which I later redacted because of getting flamed by some people itt who perceived my monthly updates as whining and which was how I got the red text attached to my forum name because I dared to push back on what I can now refer to in hindsight as terrible advice. I was told that maybe this tech stuff just isn't for me. Love Stole the Day posted:8 yrs after getting my math degree in 2010, the most I've ever made is 17k and have only been employed for a total of 7 months. I knew how to do fizzbuzz 15 years ago. Graduated a year early, had a 3.25gpa, was president of two clubs, played for the soccer team, was on the putnam team, worked 2 part time student jobs, spoke a bunch of languages. More than 200 applications since I started tracking the data last year. No one cares. A few days after I posted the message quoted above, a poster itt began trying to give advice. After a few months of watching his advice not have any effect, he finally threw up his hands and explained via PM that he's actually a hiring manager in the US, and wants to see for himself what's going on here. He gave me a link to apply to a job opening he had just made, and several years later he wrote in a recommendation letter that within 4 minutes he knew he had to have me. That poster itt used his hiring budget to pay for me to fly halfway across the world. A couple months later, he told me in a 1:1 that I "knocked the cover off the baseball" by taking ownership of a project that no one else in the engineering org had cared to touch, which later became one of the biggest the wins of the entire year. That win enticed another big company you've definitely heard of to poach me and then promote me again after a year... and which now, a few years later, is rinse-repeat'ing again with this new job! According to the IRS statistics, I will be in the top 1% of personal income earners in the USA with this new job. As long as nothing stupid happens, and if I'm careful not to burn out or wash out somehow, I will be able to more than make up for spending all my twenties as a traumatized, borderline homeless person and may even end up get to that FI/RE amount of savings before 45. Thank you to [forum redacted because I don't know if he'd be okay with the forum name drop but will edit this if he says it's okay] for giving me the chance that I needed. Thank you also to forum poster Shirec for her empathy: incidentally, she ended up in one of my sister teams at this same large engineering organization. Two years ago, Shirec and I somehow wound up in a meeting together, by chance, and noticed each other. It was the first time we had seen each others' faces. We smiled.
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Apr 17, 2024 12:26
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I love hearing goon success stories, sucks that your first post got that kind of reaction but you sure showed those nerds.
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Apr 17, 2024 13:19
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Love hearing a feel good story. Congratulations!
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Apr 17, 2024 15:01
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Oh wow congrats! I'm glad everything worked out for you! That  has got to be the best investment you've ever made, ever.
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Apr 20, 2024 03:30
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Congrats! I'm somehow still Magoo'ing my way into software developer jobs and finally got a proper Game Development role at an actual game studio about a month ago after being laid off from my Game Developer in Name Only position at a glorified surgery simulator startup which Failed To Meet Sales Expectations.
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Apr 20, 2024 04:42
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Congratulations! Awesome story.
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Apr 25, 2024 11:40
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anyone have recommended free resources to study for the CKAD?
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May 7, 2024 15:35
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kalel posted:anyone have recommended free resources to study for the CKAD? I took it 4 years ago and it expired but I used this pretty much exclusively: https://github.com/dgkanatsios/CKAD-exercises I passed with 70%, 66% being the minimum passing grade. It was tough, but I also don't live and breathe it every day.
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May 8, 2024 05:22
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I will probably post this in the Resume/Interview thread as well, since this seems relevant for both places. I'll try to be brief. I'd been in music and coffee shop gigs all my life until COVID. I learned to code, did a 6-month bootcamp at UCONN, and my instructor hired me at his company, which is Fortune 500, straight out of it. I started in April 2022. It's been 2 years and I have been promoted twice and am now a Tech Lead for our Innovation team (have you guys heard of imposter syndrome?). I have had this rocket strapped on me because, I think, of 4 things I have always seemed to be good at: being pro-active in taking on more responsibility, following/standardizing/improving processes, mentoring my peers, and being vocal and charismatic. I also have a great boss who believes in me and puts me in positions to try things out, and failure is just a learning experience, etc. Here's the meat of my post. I'm starting to get interested in exploring different opportunities. I like my current job enough but why not look to see what else I can get? Well, I am nervous. I got lucky with my job because my instructor loved me and made the hiring process extremely easy. I am not a great coder. I will figure something out if you ask me to and I have attention to detail, but I also wrote my first line of code only 3 years ago. I hate / am miserable at algorithms and generally forget everything I know when put on the spot. I'm a rambling speaker who is bad at boiling concepts down to a concise core and am under the impression that I will be unable to get through any round of interviews with a company that would pay me more than I make now because of these things. Am I alone in feeling that the interview process, especially for a tech lead role, is punishing for people like me and would at the very least require a full-time job's worth of time to do interview prep, which I am not going to be able to manage right now? Is all of this really just imposter syndrome?
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May 12, 2024 17:13
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1) You must be doing something right. 2) Doing well at a software job doesn’t prepare you for the software interview process. 3) Yes, that is weird. 4) Doing well at algorithm interviews is just about study and practice.
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May 12, 2024 17:43
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lifg posted:1) You must be doing something right. What are you referring to for #3? #2 nails it for me. It makes me wonder why the interview process is the way it is, and it also kinda validates what I'm saying: I know I'm doing really well at my current job, but the interview process is an entirely different thing that I would need to dedicate tons of time to prep for algorithms and if I'm being honest, I don't want to nor do I have the time to while working a full-time job.
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May 12, 2024 17:53
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fawning deference posted:What are you referring to for #3? #3 is just referring to #2. It sucks. But I will say that a lot of companies who aren’t FAANG don’t do those algorithm and system design interviews. You’re likely to get a small take home project, or an interview where you’re given a pile of code and told to add a feature.
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May 12, 2024 18:39
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fawning deference posted:What are you referring to for #3? #2 is the way it is because the top end companies have infinite resumes and care a lot more about false positives than false negatives. false negatives cost them nothing, since they have infinite resumes in the funnel. so they optimize their process to minimize false positives, while biasing towards people willing to put up with indescribable amounts of BS. other companies, which do not have the same constraints in the hiring process, do what the top end companies do because the top end companies are successful.
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May 12, 2024 19:45
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fawning deference posted:I'm a rambling speaker who is bad at boiling concepts down to a concise core My wife is a product owner and she processes things while talking so she comes off as rambling if she is unsure + the added bonus that she's really, really bad at telling stories. We worked out some strategies like practicing in front of me before big presentations and for the small stuff do bullet points. You do your standup thing, say your bullet points and then stop. Also, practice saying, "I do not know off the top of my head but I will get you that info as soon as possible" when you can't get a concise one or two sentence answer. It really will tighten you up.
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May 12, 2024 21:54
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fawning deference posted:I will figure something out if you ask me to and I have attention to detail, but I also wrote my first line of code only 3 years ago. I hate / am miserable at algorithms and generally forget everything I know when put on the spot. I'm a rambling speaker who is bad at boiling concepts down to a concise core and am under the impression that I will be unable to get through any round of interviews with a company that would pay me more than I make now because of these things. to be blunt, this is working as intended
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May 12, 2024 22:42
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at other companies (like mine for example), the difference between a tech lead and a regular IC is just the amount of meetings you're in. Sometimes, it's not even a role you want b/c you get paid the same with more monotonous non-coding work. That being said, knowing algorithms are not a blocker for getting a high-paying web dev job (which is sounds like what you're doing) that is going to challenge you. I've jumped around a lot and am currently in a really good financial spot, despite not ever doing a single leetcode problem because seriously gently caress doing those in your spare time. Regardless of what job you're trying to get, it's going to involve a combination of a good interview panel, some luck, and repetition. If you're dying to work at FAANG, sure do algorithms, but regardless you're gonna have to just interview over and over and over until you get lucky.
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May 12, 2024 23:45
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I work at Google. Google insists on complex algorithms and data structures-based interview questions as the benchmark for what makes an engineer worthy of being hired. I have used nearly 0% of the algorithms and data structures knowledge I grinded on Leetcode in my day-to-day work. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an outdated shibboleth at best.
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May 13, 2024 15:06
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