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lemonslol posted:<<fear and anxiety>> I felt the same way at my first job, and I have a traditional compsci background. I spent some time every day tearing apart web sites that previous programmers at the company had built. I recommend doing a whole bunch of tutorials for whatever type of programming you'll be doing. Even if it's stupid stuff like, "build a blog", or "make a todo list". And when you get to the end of any tutorial, think of a new feature and program it in.
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Dec 10, 2016 07:09
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You've become a real programmer on the day you read old code and ask "who the gently caress wrote this bullshit? It's complete garbage" and then a bit later realize "oh wait, I did." On the other hand, one day you will be given a task to update a piece of code that no one has touched for years. You will open it up with fear and trembling, look through the code, and see a comment like, " # to add a new report do this...", and you'll look at the version control and discover that past-you left that comment. It's a moment of such enlightenment you'll become a goddamn Buddha arhat on the spot.
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Dec 11, 2016 22:34
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I've seen people move from QA to developer. Once at Bank of America, no less. I think it's actually easier to move around in larger companies, because cogs are easily replaceable. If you want to be a developer, having "developer" on your resume will help get past resume screens. But having a job is better than not. If you get work as QA, just start automating everything. That's the kind of activity that future interviewers will like to hear about.
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Dec 14, 2016 17:08
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lemonslol posted:So I started that job. signed the contract, almost choked when I saw the salary, etc. How do I make sure I can leave this job when the project is over in two years with a good shot at a better developer job? Is it a resume thing? Is it a projects on the side thing? What makes you go from first dev job making below median salary but incredibly higher than my phd stipend, to medium salary? The bare minimum get the next job. - Do work that is good and looks good on a resume. - Make sure your boss likes you. - Occasionally do something interesting.
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Dec 14, 2016 21:40
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lemonslol posted:One more thing: I'm in charge of tracking my own hours. Should I track 2 hours for every 1 hour while I am still figuring stuff out? I can't imagine that I should track 5 hours for something it may take someone else 1 hour to do. Absolutely not. One hour is one hour.
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Dec 14, 2016 22:36
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It'll depend on the type of work you want. But in general a four year degree won't be better for than four years of working. Get a GitHub account, and make something you're actually proud of. Not something from a book. One guy I interviewed without a CS degree (whom I gave a huge thumbs up to) made a twitter bot that let people play a text-based MMA game. It wasn't much, but he talked about it like a programmer would.
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Dec 16, 2016 20:17
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pr0zac posted:I've done probably 300 programming interviews and reviewed many times more than that in resumes. A resume listing a programming cert is one of the highest correlating data points I've found to "guaranteed to not actually know how to program". Programming certs exist? What are they, from Red Hat?
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Dec 16, 2016 23:45
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The best QAs I've worked with have had a wicked strong conceptual model of the system. I remember one time a coworker and I were working on two different features in the same area of the application, and our QA thought of a way to break it before we even merged our branches.
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Dec 18, 2016 17:26
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mekkanare posted:I don't have an issue thinking of things to do, it's the motivation I'm having trouble finding. Forget motivation, just make it a habit. That's how writers do it. StashAugustine posted:LAlso, anything I should know about how database design works in a practical professional standpoint? Interview SQL questions for beginners are normally just to write simple query that demonstrates a join, plus a simple modeling question like, "design the tables for a small store and shopping cart." If they're really ambitious they might add, "and accept multiple payments during checkout."
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Dec 23, 2016 00:14
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You're going to fail a lot of really stupid interviews for places that have really stupid interview procedures. It's fine; don't worry about it. "How would you create a system that can rollback a database update? Normally you can do it in the database layer with MySQL trans and rollback. But can you do it in the code layer in Perl?" <<whiteboard a really ugly answer where updates statements are turned into select statements, and run to get their values, which are cached for a potential rollback>> "No, I'm sorry, the right answer was to use MySQL *inside* the Perl layer and use trans and rollbacks."
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Dec 30, 2016 04:52
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:I have to disagree. I've found a decent recruiter can help you get to the stage where you're actually talking to people in the company, especially if your resume is light on work experience. And I've found Craigslist to be awful. Yeah I've had really good luck with recruiters. They work in the background while you continue your normal job hunt, and occasionally ping you for interviews. I've always thought the worst case scenario is you get interview experience. Maybe I've just been lucky.
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Jan 3, 2017 20:49
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HondaCivet posted:So if I can't walk through the solution immediately I'm just an idiot then. Great thanks, that's really helpful. "Red flag" doesn't mean dumb, just inappropriate for the specific position. Shared screen interviews are *normally* a low-to-mid level competency screen. (Again, for a specific position.) But sometimes you'll get thrown curve balls. What kind of questions are you getting?
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Jan 4, 2017 02:41
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zeldadude posted:Hey guys, couple quick questions here. I'm looking to get back into programming hopefully as a career and have a few questions. I used to code websites for myself and friends using PHP and MySQL so I'm fairly familiar with those (and html and css of course), but I'm kind of lost on which other languages are in demand these days- I was thinking of learning python, then maybe JavaScript or C#? Any advice there? I started my career in nearby Albany. Don't go to Albany. But if you can find a boutique web development firm near you, apply. They're always looking for code monkeys to make contact forms and manage Wordpress sites. A diploma isn't required for web development. At all. I suspect JavaScript is the most future-proof language skill to have in terms of employability. But pick a language that you enjoy using, you'll keep your sanity longer.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:33
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CPColin posted:I guess what I'm (possibly irrationally) worried about is the interviewer wondering why they let me go, instead of, say, transitioning me back into a general development role. Maybe I could deflect that question by joking, "You know, at the time, I didn't think to ask." "Ambition" (along with "money") are valid answers to the question "why did you leave your last job." Good companies respect that.
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Jan 8, 2017 18:38
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HondaCivet posted:So, hooray, I managed to land an in-person interview . . . in the email they asked for this: I had to do something similar once, but the topic requirement was more open. I talked about something I'd been researching. I got really positive feedback on it. The manager loved that, by the end, people started discussing the idea with each other. My advice is standard tech presentation advice. Know your topic one step further than what you're going to talk about. E.g. If you want to talk about using box-sizing in CSS, make sure you know all the parameters, known edge cases, and the history of the box model. Now if they want you to be more specific in one area, you'll have enough knowledge to dig into the details. (But...I didn't get that job, so take my advice with a grain of salt.)
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Jan 9, 2017 20:28
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My topic was related to general software development. I think they were looking for anything techy that the team would enjoy learning about. But definitely ask for clarification before the interview. I did.
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Jan 10, 2017 21:04
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Kibbles n Shits posted:I'm working through Hacker Rank challenges and I'm getting a little discouraged. I got through the warmup algorithms fine and a few others were doable but largely it's making me feel absolutely stupid. However, I'm going to a junior college and haven't taken algorithms or data structures yet. Am I being too hard on myself? I feel like I should be able to at least understand some of these problems. The answer to your question is Yes. But what kind of questions are you stumped on?
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Jan 10, 2017 22:05
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Remember that Python is practically just compilable pseudocode. I was rejected from Amazon last year. It was a round of one hour interviews with two people in the room at a time. Each hour started with it a short behavioral interview followed by a programming challenge. It was mostly algorithm questions. But what tripped me up big time was a system modeling question, a topic I am weak at. My recruiter at Amazon sent me a copy of Cracking the Code Interview to study. I really liked that book, and I think it helped, but then I wasn't hired, so the gently caress do I know.
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Jan 18, 2017 01:06
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huhu posted:Should I attempt to hold out for full time work or continue to build my resume with great pay from contract work? I'm thinking my temp web dev job might legitimize my abilities a little bit? For what it's worth I'm in Boston. Keep the job have and keep applying for the job you want. More years of experience means you'll have an easier time getting past HR departments. (And as long as you're working 40 hours a week, contract work is full time.)
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Jan 20, 2017 02:36
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Digirat posted:If you are waiting for responses from other interviews and you don't have to respond to the offer immediately, do wait until you hear from them. You can also let your other interviewers know that you have a time table for accepting an offer, they may be able to make a decision quicker for you.
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Jan 20, 2017 20:36
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I've found that new coders never understand the importance of all the maintenance issues of programming, like commenting and proper commit messages and such. People who haven't suffered the pain of maintaining a legacy system always think that their program is self-documenting. And they're always so resistant to doing "that useless stuff" that isn't raw computer science.
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Feb 3, 2017 20:47
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Bob Morales posted:There is nothing worse than someone with "10 years of 1 year of experience" My old team lead used to say he wanted someone with ten years of experience, not one year of experience repeated ten times.
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Feb 3, 2017 23:59
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piratepilates posted:I've never had to interview people before, and I have no real way of telling if I have 3 years of experience or 1 year repeated three times. I don't have a *ton* of experience interviewing. I'm always one of a series of interviewers, and we talk about it at the end and come to a group consensus. For very experienced people I look for things like: - Having solved problems with hard trade-offs, and gotten them to production. - Familiarity with a variety of tools, and expertise with a few. - Experience (and a story) with handling things going wrong, and fighting for what they believe in. - Can teach me something. It's weird when you interview a 10 year QA vet, and you ask them something simple like, "tell me about a time you disagreed with the boss/devs/BAs about whatever," and they don't have anything to talk about.
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Feb 4, 2017 03:36
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You'll never love comments as much as when you have to add a new report to a hastily-built Perl reporting module you haven't touched in three years, but there at the top is full POD documentation, including a section titled, "dear future self, this is how you add a new report."
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Feb 5, 2017 18:57
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:Is a Mac of some kind absolutely necessary for getting into coding? Now that you received answers to this question, can you tell us who put this idea in your head?
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Feb 6, 2017 16:44
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Doghouse posted:Someone told me that they applied for a job at Mastercard - not as a dev, but some sort of tech position - and they literally asked him in the interview to take his wallet out and show them his Mastercard. He said sorry, I actually only have a Visa card right now, and they told him they were not going to hire him because he wouldn't be committed to what they were trying to accomplish. "What are you trying to accomplish?" "We're trying to find a way to differentiate ourselves from Visa."
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Feb 17, 2017 05:44
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Option 1 appears to be more practical, option 2 more theoretical. My experience says that theory will get you farther over the long term, and practice is something you can pick up on the job. But that doesn't account for college prestige, which will matter in getting your foot in the door for your first job. The industry is *very* strong in the U.S., not sure about U.K., but I'd be surprised if it was that different. ML is great for a career if you want to become a data scientist, which might be right up your alley given your background. But if that's your goal, you might want to look at actual data science curriculums. I've known lots of people who became programmers mid-career. It's a great career path.
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Feb 26, 2017 01:55
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Vincent Valentine posted:Yeah, I never went to college for anything and I'm doing great. I won't be doing any super math related jobs like making software for graphics cards, but I'm doing great in my Java/JavaScript/python role. To push it further, I never even went to high school, that's always a fun topic in interviews. Never went to HS, or dropped out? I've known quite a few dropouts, but never anyone who never even attended.
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Feb 28, 2017 16:54
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Fergus Mac Roich posted:How is this possible? Are there places where Git is not industry standard? Many. But that's not an excuse for a technical person in webdev to not even know what Git is. In any industry it's expected that you'll be an expert in zero-to-one things, know a few things, and be vaguely aware of everything else.
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Feb 28, 2017 22:46
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Vincent Valentine posted:More on topic, it was weirdly not a big hurdle to overcome. An awkward topic in interviews, sure, but everyone I've met in the tech industry, from meetups to work, has absolutely not given a poo poo about anyone else's education unless they went to the same school and want to reminisce about the campus. If anything I'd think it'd be a bonus. A lot of programmers pride ourselves on being self-taught and self-motivated, but a programmer who never even went to high school is just on another level. I know you didn't ask for advice, but dear god you should leverage that on your next job hunt. Saying, "I never went to HS and taught myself coding by reading SICP and the dragon book," would get you an interview anywhere.
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Mar 1, 2017 04:22
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Jose Valasquez posted:I tell new people to spend 15 minutes trying to figure out the answer to their question before asking me. Then I'll ask where they've looked when they do ask. Personally I use the "talk to a stuffed monkey" approach. It's where you explain the problem to a stuffed animal sitting on your desk. Often you'll come up with the solution right then. It works because talking out loud activates different pathways in your brain than when you're thinking to yourself. If you feel stupid talking to a stuffed animal, you can talk to a coworker instead. But then you'll get to feel stupid in a whole new way as you suddenly start describing an obvious solution while you're explaining your intractable problem.
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Mar 13, 2017 15:47
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PokeJoe posted:The point isn't to show that you're a rockstar programmer, it's to show that you have the capability to execute an idea using code. This is a great way to put it, and should be quoted everytime someone asks about personal projects. People who hire just want to know that you're smart enough and can get things done. The interview satisfies the former, and your github account or employment history satisfies the latter.
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Mar 19, 2017 21:09
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You can pin repositories in GitHub, and they'll show up at the top of your page.
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Mar 20, 2017 15:58
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What goes into a good phone screen? I'm starting to screen junior devs, and I don't really know what to look for or how to look for it. There's a separate programming language test, so I don't have to judge that. Right now I let them talk about their programming history, get them to go into details, and ask small questions about whatever tech stack they use (like why are you using Mongo instead of a relational DB). Then I'll ask a couple open ended questions about common situations (like if your website gives you a 404, how do you go about debugging that). And that's my half hour screen. How do other people do this?
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Mar 20, 2017 21:17
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ullerrm posted:My phone screens have two parts: Good point, the real interview is onsite and costly, a phone screen would do well to focus on the screen. Thank you. fantastic in plastic posted:I determined a list of 5-7 traits I wanted in a new coworker and came up with a few questions which might illuminate each trait. The effectiveness of my questions varied and I was kind of bad at it at first, but having a concrete picture in my mind of what I'm looking for was a big help. I was able to iterate my way to a sensible repertoire of questions over ~6 months of being involved with my company's interview process. My definition of "trait" is quite broad, and could mean anything from "compassionate" to "knows what git is" -- as long as the trait is something concrete and something I could rationally defend if someone asked me why I thought the trait was important. This is a method I've never heard of, I'm definitely going to give some thought to "trait based questions". Thanks.
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Mar 21, 2017 16:58
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When making languages predictions always remember that worse is better, New Jersey beats MIT, yada yada yada.
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Mar 21, 2017 23:07
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huhu posted:Outside of people who work in frameworks like Angular and React - what do you do in your day to day that requires JavaScript? For myself, it's only really been to add plugins for specific functionality like lazy loading or light boxes. For the most part I haven't had a request for more than that. Sometimes I want to add something and just build it myself. However, in interviews, it feels like I should be saying I do more... but the demand has to do more has never really been there so I'm a little confused. I still use jQuery to quickly get the UI interaction I want.
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Mar 23, 2017 16:39
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laxbro posted:So basically, I found out today that I still need some training wheels. I spent half of today trying to figure out how to import a third party library into PyCharm using pip but gave up and just went and did it on Cloud 9. Cloud 9 is expensive and seems to be pretty buggy (especially the free version). Should I figure out how to develop on Windows, use my OSX laptop, or put a ubuntu virtual machine on my computer. I'm learning that this is a very important part of the development process that isn't really covered in depth with in the books and classes I've taken. Also, should I stick with PyCharm work in something that is a little easier to grasp? Don't feel bad. I've been programming for a couple decades, but every time I have to pick up a new IDE or package manager or some "new easy toolchain" I feel like a blubbering idiot again.
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Apr 2, 2017 02:19
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Grump posted:Was wondering if I could get some critiques on my resume as well. Put specific technologies into each bullet point. You mention HTML and PHP and MySQL in your skills section, which are skills that employees want, but did you use them for on your job? Show me where. What kind of jobs are you looking for? Frontend, backend, QA, other?
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Apr 4, 2017 15:55
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Grump posted:Front end. Almost all of my skills are showcased in my job or projects sections, except for stuff like React, where I only have small hobby projects, not large enough to put on a resume. Put a frontend skill into every bullet point in your job. You didn't install an app, you installed an HTML/CS+JavaScript app. Get those important keywords into the experience section.
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Apr 4, 2017 18:20
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