Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Cyrik posted:

Has anyone taken the Berger Aptitude for Programming Test? Any advice?

I took an aptitude for programming test last year as part of a job interview. I think it was Berger, but can't remember really well. If you have at least a couple classes worth of programming experience already, you will find the test incredibly easy. I (and the other CS dudes) would finish each section in half or less of the allotted time. The questions were just really basic programming stuff in a simple, made-up language.

# ? Feb 19, 2011 17:37

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 06:22

FamDav: Mar 29, 2008

Speaking of codility, I did the self-cert test(the min_abs_sum one) coming up with what I think is a pretty good algorithm.

Negative. Doesn't tell me what it fails at, either.

So on a whim I code up the problem exactly as it asks in python. I code val, I use itertools to get all possible choices for S, and then I take the best answer.

I still get negative.

What gives?

code:

import itertools

def val(A,S):
    sum = 0
    for i in range(0,len(A)):
        sum += A[i]*S[i]
        
    return (-sum if sum < 0 else sum)

def min_abs_sum ( A ):
    best_answer = 100000000 # more than 100*2000 or whatever their max is.
    for x in itertools.product([-1,1],repeat=len(A)):
        curr_sum = val(A,x)
        if (curr_sum < best_answer):
            best_answer = curr_sum
    return best_answer

I expect for you all to tell me how stupid I am, but this is really bugging me.

# ? Feb 25, 2011 01:01

Bag of Carpets: Dec 20, 2010

This is a really great thread, thanks guys. A year ago I graduated from a (university) program which specialized in many aspects of web production, but mostly on front end production. Halfway through my program I realized I wanted to start doing a lot more backend coding so I started doing a lot of independent work with PHP, SQL and Javascript. My final year project supervisor liked what he saw and hired me on for a year to develop plugins and modules as an extension of his research for open-source CMSs.

Basically, I want to move into the private sector and find a job developing web applications. I know that having only PHP, SQL and Javascript on my resume wouldn't look the best, so what would you recommend I learn next? (I was thinking Java or Ruby on Rails) Is there any books you would recommend to learn about common algorithms and data structures? Any tips for marketing myself as I do not have a CS degree?

# ? Mar 16, 2011 18:23

kimbo305: Jun 9, 2007; actually, yeah, I am a little mad

Bag of Carpets posted:

Basically, I want to move into the private sector and find a job developing web applications. I know that having only PHP, SQL and Javascript on my resume wouldn't look the best, so what would you recommend I learn next? (I was thinking Java or Ruby on Rails) Is there any books you would recommend to learn about common algorithms and data structures? Any tips for marketing myself as I do not have a CS degree?

The Java analog to RoR is J2EE, which is really bulky in typical Java fashion. I wouldn't recommend you do that if only because the cross section of companies willing to develop a J2EE based website tends to be bigger and stodgier than the company that'd be willing ot use RoR.

You should assess what you did for your supervisor and figure out what major holes there were there, compared to what you'd do in a webapp developer position. From there, just expand into the hole areas until you have reasonable proficiency. My first job was doing webapps, and when I started, I certainly didn't have a complete web site in my portfolio. If you're willing to do an entry position, there should be jobs out there.

# ? Mar 16, 2011 18:34

Parantumaton: Jan 29, 2009; The OnLy ThInG
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ThAn ChUgGiNg SeMeN
iS gEtTiNg PaId To Be A
sOcIaL MeDiA sHiLl
FoR mIcRoSoFt
AnD nOkIa

kimbo305 posted:

The Java analog to RoR is J2EE

The hell it is, Grails or Play Framework are comparable to RoR, J2EE is the Brutalizer option of doing web apps which has its places but certainly not in rapid webapp development.

# ? Mar 16, 2011 20:19

kimbo305: Jun 9, 2007; actually, yeah, I am a little mad

Parantumaton posted:

The hell it is, Grails or Play Framework are comparable to RoR, J2EE is the Brutalizer option of doing web apps which has its places but certainly not in rapid webapp development.

Nice, I see Grails has some real users now. Still, 95% of Java shops doing webapps will probably doing J2EE (or worse, their own homebrew frameworks).

And I certainly never claimed J2EE was comparable to Rails, merely that if you did Java web development, that that's what you'd expect to see work in.

# ? Mar 16, 2011 20:23

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

All I see is people talking about CS degrees and almost no mention of Software Engineering degrees, which is what I'm getting. My college offers CS as well but I shouldn't have any trouble landing a job with a sweng degree right? I feel like I'm pretty qualified.

fwiw the school is Penn State

# ? Mar 17, 2011 00:51

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

Necc0 posted:

All I see is people talking about CS degrees and almost no mention of Software Engineering degrees, which is what I'm getting. My college offers CS as well but I shouldn't have any trouble landing a job with a sweng degree right? I feel like I'm pretty qualified.

fwiw the school is Penn State

How does the Sw. Eng. degree at Penn State differ from the CS degree? There are folks out there wary of sweng degrees because at some places they take time away from necessary foundational coursework and rigor in general to focus on essentially religious issues like methodologies and OO dogma or whatever, but that might not be the case in the land of Joe Pa.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 01:35

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Otto Skorzeny posted:

How does the Sw. Eng. degree at Penn State differ from the CS degree? There are folks out there wary of sweng degrees because at some places they take time away from necessary foundational coursework and rigor in general to focus on essentially religious issues like methodologies and OO dogma or whatever, but that might not be the case in the land of Joe Pa.

We have almost all of the same computer-based foundational courses and I think the sweng guys are expected to take more physics and a few intro business/econ classes while the cs guys just go crazy on math. Upper level stuff seems to be either broad project design and architecture theory, nitty-gritty QNX C programming or software testing, while the CS guys get into more hardcore databasing and web-dev technology, which we only touch on. We're also expected to know the basics of circuit design and architecture although I doubt I'll ever use any of that once I'm in the Real World.

We're also both expected to be proficient at algorithms analysis and data-structures.

Sorry if that's jumbled up, there's a ton of overlap between the two of us. I guess the tl;dr is swengs put more emphasis on project design and the process of making a full-fledged program with a team with lots of emphasis on proper documentation and planning, while the cs concentrates more on a wide variety of fields and high-level math.

Necc0 fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Mar 17, 2011

# ? Mar 17, 2011 01:55

Pweller: Jan 25, 2006; Whatever whateva.

My impression is that a Software Engineering degree will have a heavier focus on actual software development, methodologies, design patterns, maybe using particular frameworks and languages. Whereas CS leans more towards theory, calculus, statistics, algorithms, etc.

Unless there is a SE program that is part of an actual Engineering faculty, which I've never heard of. Seems that area is covered by Computer Engineering, which shares many courses with CS but with more focus on electronics and hardware, and other engineering coursework.

These are my impressions from Canada though. I wouldn't be at all surprised if CS, CE, and SE all mean totally different things from region to region. Your SE program description sounds like you shouldn't have any problems at all.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 02:45

bobthecheese: Jun 7, 2006; Although I've never met Martha Stewart, I'll probably never birth her child.

In Australia, we don't really have any CS degrees that I'm aware of. There's the IT degrees, which I guess are pretty similar, but focus on many separate areas, depending on major (for mine, I majored in Software Engineering, which was documentation, design principals, and project management principals, as well as the actual programming, and some math theory)

There was also Software Engineering degrees which have an extra "Engineering" year, which all engineering courses do.

On top of that, some of the other courses (Electrical Engineering, etc.) also did a number of the same subjects.

From what I gather, CS is largely theoretical (Maths, algorithm design, etc.) with some small focus on actual code.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 03:06

Necc0: Jun 30, 2005; by exmarx; Broken Cake

Pweller posted:

My impression is that a Software Engineering degree will have a heavier focus on actual software development, methodologies, design patterns, maybe using particular frameworks and languages. Whereas CS leans more towards theory, calculus, statistics, algorithms, etc.

Pretty much, yeah.

quote:

Unless there is a SE program that is part of an actual Engineering faculty, which I've never heard of. Seems that area is covered by Computer Engineering, which shares many courses with CS but with more focus on electronics and hardware, and other engineering coursework.

These are my impressions from Canada though. I wouldn't be at all surprised if CS, CE, and SE all mean totally different things from region to region. Your SE program description sounds like you shouldn't have any problems at all.

It's ABET accredited so I guess I'm good.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 03:11

Contra Duck: Nov 4, 2004; #1 DAD

bobthecheese posted:

In Australia, we don't really have any CS degrees that I'm aware of.

Wha? There's a bunch of places that offer CS degrees in Australia. I went through one at USyd and off the top of my head I know that UNSW and Wollongong have them as well.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 04:49

bobthecheese: Jun 7, 2006; Although I've never met Martha Stewart, I'll probably never birth her child.

Contra Duck posted:

Wha? There's a bunch of places that offer CS degrees in Australia. I went through one at USyd and off the top of my head I know that UNSW and Wollongong have them as well.

May have changed over the last few years, but when I was enrolling for Uni, way back in 03, there wasn't any CS courses that I was aware of. Could be a state thing, too. i think there may have possibly been a CS major that I could have taken in my course, though.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 04:56

Contra Duck: Nov 4, 2004; #1 DAD

It might not have been offered at the unis you were looking at but they really are quite common. I found this which lists a couple dozen of unis offering them now and I know it was about the same when I was applying for them in the late 90s.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 07:00

bobthecheese: Jun 7, 2006; Although I've never met Martha Stewart, I'll probably never birth her child.

heh. Only two that I saw in QLD (USQ and UQ). That would be why.

The main QLD/Brisbane unis (Griffith, QUT) don't seem to offer CS courses, but both have various IT courses. Probably all in the name.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 07:13

Bag of Carpets: Dec 20, 2010

kimbo305 posted:

The Java analog to RoR is J2EE, which is really bulky in typical Java fashion. I wouldn't recommend you do that if only because the cross section of companies willing to develop a J2EE based website tends to be bigger and stodgier than the company that'd be willing ot use RoR.

Thanks for the info. I've done a bit more research and have found a lot of jobs (at least in Canada) ask for Java / J2EE rather than RoR... Although RoR is less bulky for developing web apps, perhaps having a base in J2EE is a good (transferable?) skillset to have for an entry level position? Am I missing the mark with this idea?

# ? Mar 17, 2011 15:55

ironypolice: Oct 22, 2002

Bag of Carpets posted:

Thanks for the info. I've done a bit more research and have found a lot of jobs (at least in Canada) ask for Java / J2EE rather than RoR... Although RoR is less bulky for developing web apps, perhaps having a base in J2EE is a good (transferable?) skillset to have for an entry level position? Am I missing the mark with this idea?

I'd try and get some level of familiarity with two or three major frameworks - Rails, Django, J2EE or some PHP thing - and see which one you like the best. Early in your career it's better to have broad rather than deep knowledge, and you don't want to get locked into a particular technology.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 17:09

kimbo305: Jun 9, 2007; actually, yeah, I am a little mad

Bag of Carpets posted:

Thanks for the info. I've done a bit more research and have found a lot of jobs (at least in Canada) ask for Java / J2EE rather than RoR... Although RoR is less bulky for developing web apps, perhaps having a base in J2EE is a good (transferable?) skillset to have for an entry level position? Am I missing the mark with this idea?

It depends on where you'll be working in their J2EE codestack. For maximum job skill portability, you'd want to stay close to HTML rendering and XMLHttpRequest handling stuff. Working with JSPs and JSP Tags is reasonable, because the concepts translate well to other frameworks.

J2EE doesn't offer a great native object storage/representation format. If you're not doing Groovy, then hope for an intermediate framework like iBatis or Spring to help you not have to muck about with Beans. Don't worry about all those names; just know that it'll take longer to get comfortable dealing with data server-side because of the nature of Java.

There's a lot of nuance (aka tedium) to maintaining and deploying a real J2EE webapp. Avoiding that would be good if you're not interested in sticking with it.

To answer your question, doing a J2EE job for a couple years wouldn't be amazing prep for an mid-/senior-level RoR position. But in an interview, you would probably still be able to demonstrate good client-side competency as well as familiarity with the whole stack. The nice thing about RoR is that various things tend to be easier/slicker, so training you on the stuff you don't know is also easier. I'd have much more comfort hiring a junior (and not a robot) J2EE dev to do RoR than vice versa, simply because the amount of orientation to get to the same competency is slanted in Rails' favor.

One final note -- when checking out J2EE jobs, I would pay attention to how their client-side stuff is designed. Using J2EE can be a sign that the company isn't that good with client-side bells and whistles. I'm probably generalizing, but I wouldn't want you to get into a job where the web UI is horribly outdated and boring to work on.

# ? Mar 17, 2011 17:27

Melted_Igloo: Nov 26, 2007

FamDav posted:

Speaking of codility, I did the self-cert test(the min_abs_sum one) coming up with what I think is a pretty good algorithm.

Negative. Doesn't tell me what it fails at, either.

So on a whim I code up the problem exactly as it asks in python. I code val, I use itertools to get all possible choices for S, and then I take the best answer.

I still get negative.

What gives?
code:
import itertools

def val(A,S):
    sum = 0
    for i in range(0,len(A)):
        sum += A[i]*S[i]
        
    return (-sum if sum < 0 else sum)

def min_abs_sum ( A ):
    best_answer = 100000000 # more than 100*2000 or whatever their max is.
    for x in itertools.product([-1,1],repeat=len(A)):
        curr_sum = val(A,x)
        if (curr_sum < best_answer):
            best_answer = curr_sum
    return best_answer
I expect for you all to tell me how stupid I am, but this is really bugging me.

I dont code python, but its a simple greedy algorithm

Take largest value from array
Loop
Take largest value from array, substract or add from previous value that was taken
check which one is the lowest absolute value
repeat

# ? Mar 18, 2011 04:19

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

Does CompE vs CS matter much as far as initial job prospects and advancement? I realize computer engineers get to have the big fancy "ABET accredited" thing on their diploma and can take an FE or PE exam, but does it matter much? If not, would getting an EE Minor be worthwhile if one studied CS, or should you just stick to code and math?

I'm probably meta-gaming this all too much, but I want to do as much as I possibly can to help my future job prospects, given the way things are and will be for some time.

# ? Apr 7, 2011 18:14

Blotto Skorzany: Nov 7, 2008; He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

2banks1swap.avi posted:

Does CompE vs CS matter much as far as initial job prospects and advancement? I realize computer engineers get to have the big fancy "ABET accredited" thing on their diploma and can take an FE or PE exam, but does it matter much? If not, would getting an EE Minor be worthwhile if one studied CS, or should you just stick to code and math?

I'm probably meta-gaming this all too much, but I want to do as much as I possibly can to help my future job prospects, given the way things are and will be for some time.

What sort of programming do you want to do? Having the deeper understanding of the hardware that a CE degree implies will be useful if you're doing something close to the metal, less so if you're writing webapps in a scripting language or accounting software in some enterprisey garbage collected language or whatever.

# ? Apr 7, 2011 19:07

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

Otto Skorzeny posted:

What sort of programming do you want to do? Having the deeper understanding of the hardware that a CE degree implies will be useful if you're doing something close to the metal, less so if you're writing webapps in a scripting language or accounting software in some enterprisey garbage collected language or whatever.

From where I stand now, the thought of lower level things is more appealing - drivers are mysterious black boxes to me that somehow sit between a program and any number possible pieces of hardware, making sure everything works - but I have no idea what it's like and how it would compare to higher level programming in terms of my ability or how fun it is for me to do. I also doubt it would be a good idea for me to start making drivers now or anytime soon.

More than anything I want to make sure I can sell myself to some H.R. guy who knows nothing about what I'll be doing, while at the same time convincing people who actually do know about what I'll be doing that I'm good.

Basically, I'm bet-hedging, for lack of a better way to put it. I also just haven't had much experience with programming yet anyway. If I come out well rounded, that would mean that even if I can't do true Computer Engineering, I can still get my foot in the door and build experience and not have any resume gaps. I'm far more worried about that than anything else right now.

# ? Apr 7, 2011 19:23

rjmccall: Sep 7, 2007; no worries friend; Fun Shoe

Computer Engineering is a very broad field; it is easily possible for two graduates with C.E. degrees from the same school to have almost completely non-intersecting sets of skills. Some schools track C.E. more in one direction than in others.

# ? Apr 7, 2011 21:40

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

rjmccall posted:

Computer Engineering is a very broad field; it is easily possible for two graduates with C.E. degrees from the same school to have almost completely non-intersecting sets of skills. Some schools track C.E. more in one direction than in others.

Well, the big appeal to CE over CS is that one lets me take a snazzy physics test called the FE, the other doesn't.

Does that really matter, though?

# ? Apr 7, 2011 22:12

Found Your Answer: Jul 9, 2004; That's like killing a unicorn!

At least where I go, if you go the CE route and focus on software, it really is pretty much the same thing as CS. It's all about how you market yourself to future employers, anyway.

# ? Apr 8, 2011 01:35

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

windwaker posted:

At least where I go, if you go the CE route and focus on software, it really is pretty much the same thing as CS. It's all about how you market yourself to future employers, anyway.

The more I think about it the more I want to do drivers or the low level stuff. Just appeals to me. Always has, even if it was in more of an appreciation - I never thought about trying it until now.

Would taking the FE exam as a CompE be worth it to an employer, anyway? If not I could just go CS with an EE minor.

# ? Apr 8, 2011 01:43

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

Posted at the request of the OP:

twobanks in a PM posted:

After actually helping someone program something, and getting a mindset for what it really is and the conceptual problem solving involved, I just changed majors from Engineering. That and some research on job prospects - particularly right now, projections be damned - put the fear of poverty into me pretty good.

I'm not new to computers; I grew up with a 286 when I was 5. Built a Pentium at 10; overclocked from 60 to 66 mhz. OC'd the FSB of an AMD K2 to 83 mhz while playing the Battlezone remake 1997. No, I don't want to work for geek squad.

Where should I start? I've never really done much programming at all, but I do understand math quite well, and Calculus comes naturally. I volunteer tutor people in Algebra. I grasp concepts and visualize well, but just lack the experience that most would have with programming if they started earlier in life.

I should also add I'll probably graduate by 29 to 30. Is this going to matter much to hiring mangers or HR?

# ? Apr 8, 2011 03:28

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

fwiw i'd seriously consider hiring someone who has got to programming late in life, it normally means you have to do less unlearning when you hire them :q:

(literally any fresh grad has to normally be repeatedly hit with a stick until they stop writing so much code)

and I would suggest working on open source projects to gain some valuable experience

tef fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Apr 8, 2011

# ? Apr 8, 2011 07:13

kes: Jan 4, 2006

tef posted:

(literally any fresh grad has to normally be repeatedly hit with a stick until they stop writing so much code)

can you elaborate?

# ? Apr 9, 2011 23:24

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

tef posted:

fwiw i'd seriously consider hiring someone who has got to programming late in life, it normally means you have to do less unlearning when you hire them

(literally any fresh grad has to normally be repeatedly hit with a stick until they stop writing so much code)

and I would suggest working on open source projects to gain some valuable experience

Really the only thing I'm worried about is that my outlook is wholly different from someone who went from HS/prep school to College and thinks the hardest thing in life is studying and showing up to class regularly and getting over test anxiety. To say I fell through the cracks is an understatement. I've been piss poor my entire adult life; I'm going to chase stability and benefits much more than risk or advancement.

I'm not some heart-on-my-sleeve, dread locked rebel without a clue, don't get me wrong; simple conversations about what I want from a career and my outlook on issues can't help but make my past stick out like a sore thumb. I shave my head, anyway!

OTOH I'm nothing like the super goony/nerdy/spergy sorts. I hear a big thing now is if people can speak and communicate well with everyone else in this day and age. Is this still true? I've got no problem schmoozing with the business sorts at all. It's fun tutoring them, anyway.

# ? Apr 10, 2011 00:13

Valency: Feb 3, 2010; HALT HALT HALT HALT HALT

kes posted:

can you elaborate?

My experience maintaining a system written by a couple of programmers who were wet behind the ears has been that they were completely incapable of being consistent with their code. The app reads like a "what was the c# flavor of the month" catalog. They'd read about something that sounded cool, try to implement it without really understanding it, and leave this half aborted mess all over the place.

# ? Apr 10, 2011 01:56

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

kes posted:

can you elaborate?

in glibness:

you ain't gonna need it.

in reality:

everyone takes on the simple problems they get assigned and assume a sysiphean task. and they write multiple levels of abstraction.

just look at the 'classic' 'satire' evolution of a programmer, it is not far off

# ? Apr 10, 2011 03:23

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

basically newbie programmers in a team take on trivial problems

and assume they are mountains to be conquered

an appropriate time to bring in design patterns

and some encapsulation

and abstraction

in reality

getting it done and reasonably maintainable is the goal

because the feature developed is worthless.

write code as if you're going to throw it away tomorrow.

by that I mean, don't write crappy code but code that is easy to replace.

# ? Apr 10, 2011 03:26

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

2banks1swap.avi posted:

Posted at the request of the OP:

If you have a specific domain you want to work in, then pick your language (and framework if necessary) based on that. If you want to work close to the metal, do C/C++; general application development, C++, Java, or C#; mobile development, Java or Objective-C (+ frameworks); web development, too many to count really but at the very beginning do HTML, CSS, and Javascript.

But the thing is, locking yourself down right now probably isn't the best idea, as you may not really know what you want. So I'd just pick whatever language suits your fancy, practice doing something useful in it, do well in your classes and try to do some internships or part-time work.

I don't imagine your age will be a big deal, but then again I'm not a recruiter.

EDIT:

There is also more good news for us CS folk, as average starting salaries have gone up to 63k!

quote:

Curriculum

Average
Salary Offer

Chemical engineering
$66,886

Computer science
$63,017

Mechanical engineering
$60,739

Electrical/electronics & communications engineering
$60,646

Computer engineering
$60,112

Industrial/manufacturing engineering
$58,549

Systems engineering
$57,497

Engineering technolgy
$57,176

Information sciences & systems
$56,868

Business systems networking/telecommunications
$56,808

http://www.naceweb.org/Press/Releases/Top-Paid_Majors_for_the_Class_of_2011.aspx

# ? Apr 13, 2011 00:30

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

Well well, talk about motivation! I would also add computer science is more ethical and tends to have you staying at home more than hitting the moonscapes of north Canada.

The project Euler thread gave me some warm fuzzies. Guess I'll fit in after all.

# ? Apr 13, 2011 01:59

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

2banks1swap.avi posted:

Well well, talk about motivation!

Along the same lines, today while I was busily playing Starcraft 2, got an email from a guy at Intel telling me that they'd seen my resume and that they'd like to interview me for a position. I think I might have sent Intel my resume, like, several months ago, but didn't really think much of it. This isn't the first time a company has contacted me out of the blue to invite me to either interview or apply for a position, either, and I'm not even one of those super-genius CS super-stars that was writing self-balancing BSTs in middle school.

It's quite a stark contrast to most other majors right now where most people are still desperately applying for a job, any job. I mean, I don't even have any real work experience (depending on whether you count the internship). If the job market is this good right now, I can't imagine what it will be like in a few years when the unemployment rate isn't some horrible number.

# ? Apr 16, 2011 01:26

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

Cicero posted:

Along the same lines, today while I was busily playing Starcraft 2, got an email from a guy at Intel telling me that they'd seen my resume and that they'd like to interview me for a position. I think I might have sent Intel my resume, like, several months ago, but didn't really think much of it. This isn't the first time a company has contacted me out of the blue to invite me to either interview or apply for a position, either, and I'm not even one of those super-genius CS super-stars that was writing self-balancing BSTs in middle school.

It's quite a stark contrast to most other majors right now where most people are still desperately applying for a job, any job. I mean, I don't even have any real work experience (depending on whether you count the internship). If the job market is this good right now, I can't imagine what it will be like in a few years when the unemployment rate isn't some horrible number.

To be brutally honest the stability and vibrancy of the job market is the biggest motivator ever. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy it, but the fact that I know I could get paid well enough to retire young, have hobbies before I retire, and a good life as opposed to instability and being stressed is very, very positive.

Though now I wonder if I should bother learning too much right now on the side. Would I pick up bad habits like some say?

# ? Apr 16, 2011 01:31

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

2banks1swap.avi posted:

To be brutally honest the stability and vibrancy of the job market is the biggest motivator ever. It's not that I wouldn't enjoy it, but the fact that I know I could get paid well enough to retire young, have hobbies before I retire, and a good life as opposed to instability and being stressed is very, very positive.

Though now I wonder if I should bother learning too much right now on the side. Would I pick up bad habits like some say?

As long as you're not the type to get horribly stuck in your ways, I'd say learning more now's benefits vastly outweigh the negatives. Keep in mind that while a CS program will teach you the basic of programming, there's a lot more to software development than just the basics, and CS is (usually) geared more toward theory than practical application. Learning things beyond the basics would be very useful, especially if you do it in such a way that you have an end product of some sort that you can point to as evidence. Good fodder for interviews.

# ? Apr 16, 2011 02:20

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# ? Apr 20, 2024 06:22

Fuck them: Jan 21, 2011; and their bullshit

Cicero posted:

As long as you're not the type to get horribly stuck in your ways, I'd say learning more now's benefits vastly outweigh the negatives. Keep in mind that while a CS program will teach you the basic of programming, there's a lot more to software development than just the basics, and CS is (usually) geared more toward theory than practical application. Learning things beyond the basics would be very useful, especially if you do it in such a way that you have an end product of some sort that you can point to as evidence. Good fodder for interviews.

So who should I start helping out or nerd pow-wowing with, then? What should I look for? Whatever I want to do later, or anything in particular?

What I want to do is make drivers - or hardware, heh - but I doubt I can start playing with that unless I can program assembly on a VM or something, and that doesn't strike me as a very good starting idea.

Meh.

Since I'm posting, I might as well ask how someone would get into actual, nitty gritty security in the field. Is that more in the IT realm? Is that something you need a 4.0 GPA or connections to get into, or is it more meritocratic? I would have a blast with that.

# ? Apr 16, 2011 02:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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