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Mobius posted:No, I really don't want to be a BA. I want to do the requirements and design AND coding. I like coding, I'm just more interested in solving problems with my code than writing "the best code ever." Hence why I don't think I want to be a pure coder. I've found that doing all three of those things by yourself leads to (a) blind spots or (b) lack of attention to one or more of the three which leads to (c) crappy results. Gathering requirements especially should be done by someone who has a keen knowledge of the solution space but not necessarily the potential coding solutions (lest the gatherer [un]intentionally ask the customer leading questions).
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Jan 20, 2011 18:43
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windwaker posted:Pretty general question: how much do CS employers seem to care about your general GPA vs. your CS-classes GPA? I ask because I'm averaging a ~3.85 in my CS classes here at university but closer to a 3.3 in my other classes (and I did get a 2.6 in one of my math classes... oops). I feel like I'm generally a good programmer (I fall into the typical "already has experience with 90% of the stuff discussed in class" crowd in class but still pay attention/do well) but I don't know how much my overall GPA will hurt me when job time comes around. It really depends on the employer. Some employers don't let sub-n GPAs past the initial recruitment threshold at all. Some employers look at GPA, ask questions about serious discrepancies, and evaluate the candidate based on a variety of attributes that may or may not take major GPA into account by itself. This won't help you right out of college but it seems to be the case that for the majority of employers, GPA completely stops mattering after a while. Anecdote time: my undergraduate cumulative GPA was 2.7 (  ) and my major GPA was around 3.5. Recruiters for a certain Kansas-based GPS company came to a career fair at my university, saw my GPA, and literally crumpled up my resume in front of me and threw it into a trash can. Six years later I'm working for a different software company in Kansas and getting recruiting calls from the aforementioned GPS company on a regular basis v v
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Feb 10, 2011 18:12
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kimbo305 posted:To be honest, that would be kind of cool to see happen. It was probably either very funny or completely terrifying to the other job seekers around me. It's one of my favorite hiring stories now
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Feb 10, 2011 19:41
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Please tell me those guys at least have advancement within their employer and pay raises to match inflation and experience. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha edit: if this was serious then of course it depends on the employer in question, but if the employer is Cerner or Epic then no they probably do not have these things.
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May 9, 2011 22:24
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tef posted:Ask them for their github/bitbucket repo, with example code in it. I could see this being a good gauge for college grads but not for developers with families and full-time jobs already under their belt. I put in eight hours at work, get my fill of fulfilling work, and then want nothing to do with the computer machine when I come home (save for some volunteer work for my wife's library).
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May 17, 2011 17:24
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tef posted:that's a real shaim. Man don't I know it  I think about resurrecting it from time to time but that codebase is so far behind the times it's not even funny. Unity pretty much eliminates the entire plugin registration / eventing system I wrote and .NET itself has progressed at least a major version. On top of that I use a Mac now so writing a killer IM app for Windows doesn't move me like it once did.ALL THAT SAID, spending four years hacking on shaim did wonders for my resume at the time. Whenever I interviewed the developers loved hearing that I worked on it for as long as I did. It was time well spent. And hey, I'm not entirely a 9 - 5er yet. I'm teaching myself microcontroller programming so the "competent programmer" part of my brain can fully atrophy and die 
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May 18, 2011 02:42
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No Safe Word posted:rolleyes-vomiting-rolleyes.gif  Usage: basically every shruges post I've seen lately 
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May 20, 2011 04:00
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Even if you're not interviewing or working at banks it is my opinion that every man should have a suit tailored to fit just right because it is a fine loving feeling  Thel posted:I guess my next best bet is black pants/light dress shirt/tie and a decent jacket? Sure, that works. Just to put this out there in the sample set: my typical interview wear is khakis, button-down shirt with no tie, and a sport coat. Lurchington posted:My company's dress code is 'clean clothes; no sweatpants' This pretty much sums up my company too.
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May 22, 2011 17:07
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HondaCivet posted:Not to derail but I always think it's interesting hearing about how devs having about the same amount of experience seem to differ so wildly in real ability and knowledge. What do you think devs like you guys do differently from, say, the entire C# group that doesn't seem to know what LINQ is? Maybe this is a dumb question but I'm just curious about professional development as a dev I guess. Generally, some people stay up to date with current developments in their frameworks / environments and some people don't. If the particular shop Ithaqua interviewed at requires using .NET 2.0 that's fine and all but the interviewer must have buried his head in the sand to not even know the word LINQ. Someone who is a .NET developer and hasn't at least heard of it has not paid attention to any .NET message boards, blogs, books, code, or documentation since roughly 2007.
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May 27, 2011 22:08
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tef posted:but csammis some people don't have time outside of their job to keep atop of current trends MY FREE TIME 
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May 27, 2011 23:46
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Whatever you do don't wear a suit  Be prepared to talk about the experience that you have, either in previous jobs / internships / whatever or from projects on your own time. Don't be caught "um"ing if you're asked what interests you about development or about development at that company.
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Jun 8, 2011 21:36
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Orzo posted:Wear a suit, usually an interviewer can tell if you're not dressed properly by the tone of your voice. Confidence also comes through in the tone of your voice. If the interviewer sounds hot DO NOT take off your clothes unless you are 100% confident in yourself.
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Jun 8, 2011 22:26
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Thel posted:Bullshit attitudes are unfortunately rather common in the industry. Truer words, man. We should just rename "Cavern of COBOL" to "Suits 'n' Certs Spergout Corner"
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Jun 16, 2011 14:12
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Calcaneus posted:So I'm a Computer Science undergrad student, is ABET accreditation a big deal for CS? Because apparently my school's program doesn't have it. I've never heard anyone reference it directly except when the accreditation board did a review of my school (Iowa State) and I was on a student board they were interviewing. I'd be a little wary of a program that wasn't accredited by some standards body; they could be calling "Making Webpages with ASP.NET" "computer science" and no one would be the wiser. Are you sure they aren't accredited?
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Jun 26, 2011 16:31
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shrughes posted:Doing a quick search on http://www.abet.org/AccredProgramSearch/AccreditationSearch.aspx shows that my undergrad CS program is not ABET accredited, nor is CMU's, I don't know much about it but it seems like more of an engineering program thing than a CS program thing. For example CMU has it for its "Electrical and Computer Engineering" program, but not for computer science. This is possible, though ISU's computer science program (at the time I was going there) was a nearly pure math degree and not even part of the engineering college. e - and it is listed on that search as "computer science" if you search for iowa state.
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Jun 26, 2011 16:52
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The internship field is astonishingly full of seekers. I had no idea how crazy it is until I went to a career fair at my alma mater last month reppin' R&D at my company. We had first-year freshmen - people who had started college six weeks ago - handing us resumes. A few colleagues of mine have had similar experiences at other schools. I really don't remember that kind of pressure when I was in school. Are academic advisors saying "get an internship or die trying" instead of "hello welcome to State Tech home of the Fighting Animals" these days?
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Oct 25, 2011 14:16
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Orzo posted:Really? I'd definitely put mine down after 10 years. Seriously? I'm seven years out of college and have been employed as a software engineer / architect ever since. What possible use would my GPA be to a potential employer? "You've done x y z, led a b c projects, oh but you had a 3.4 GPA? Thanks for your time goodbye." e: for the record my GPA was not 3.4, it was 2.7. I still can't see what relevance it has after so much time but hey maybe that's my college stupidity talking 
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Nov 10, 2011 17:44
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If an employer is looking at someone's resume that reflects ten years of industry experience, doesn't spot a GPA on a resume, and then proceeds to ask for one...to me that's a really good indicator that they're placing an undue amount of value on some things that you did a decade + 4/5 years ago as opposed to the experience you've gained since. If you just put your GPA then you lose that litmus test.
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Nov 10, 2011 17:56
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It's likely that if the employer cares about GPA then they will see the major GPA, think you're hiding your cumulative, and ask you about it immediately. Trust me
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Nov 11, 2011 23:04
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Since he is apparently at the offer stage I could see this agreement being for more like confidentiality of the terms of the offer and less like confidentiality of the fifteen million lines of source code used to run civilian wiretapping they're going to show him in the interview.
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Nov 29, 2011 02:28
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Sab669 posted:Alright, career fair at school next Thursday! I went out and blew my tax returns on 2 suits, 4 shirts, 4 ties, and 2 pairs of shoes. It sort of depends on the company but it also can depend a great deal on how you present yourself and your interest in their work. When I do career fairs I try to get engaged with each person who stops by, talk about what we do, things they've worked on, what FTEs and interns do, what I do, what positions are available, all that noise. I'm guessing here but I'd say I end up spending anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes with each person with more time going to people who are obviously engaged with me and not all "my advisor said I need to get a in-tern-ship? I've been in school for two months. I went into computer engineering/science because I install Windoze for my family when it crashes which is ALWAYS! Never heard of your company by the way." That sentence and variants on it get uttered far more than you'd like to think Keep in mind that you probably want to get there earlier rather than later if at all possible - six hours of meeting people with an extraordinary range of social skills and trying to draw each one out gets really exhausting for the poor folks at the tables. PS: be memorable. Wear both suits at the same time.
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Feb 22, 2012 17:35
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Knyteguy posted:- Changed Algorithm Design to MySQL These aren't interchangable - did you originally mean MySQL when you wrote "entry-level algorithm design"? That'd be misleading as all hell and would hopefully get called out by an interviewer.
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Mar 24, 2012 17:12
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The salary metric of meeting value only works if you're trying to convince budget-minded people to not invite half the R&D department to a meeting about quarterly gains or something. Really the trick to meetings is not to have regularly scheduled "you must sit here and talk about this" time and not "broadcast things to everyone you think might ever work on the project so bring everyone to the table" time but to have "hey we need to talk about this okay hm let's do that" time with the people who are actually working on a project, and do that only as necessary. As long as the results are recorded / acted upon then ad-hoc meetings are great. Example: I am in a senior position and I only have a half-hour every couple weeks* scheduled with my direct reports and that's just to shoot the poo poo. If I need to know something I go talk to them. If they need to know something they come talk to me. If I found out they were sitting on an issue or an idea until Meeting Time I'd hang my head in shame for they have been Taught Wrong and I have been Teaching Wrong * this doesn't count daily standups but those are like ten minutes absolute tops
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May 21, 2012 13:01
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I see both Skills and Publications quite often on resumes from interviewees in your general situation. I haven't seen a resume yet that doesn't have a Skills section at all though. Why is it considered no-go?
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Jun 18, 2012 03:34
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You should still be prepared to talk about it. If a fresh grad's resume got to me and there was no GPA at all listed (like Ithaqua says put your major GPA if you can), I'd ask about it. If it wasn't great I'd ask why it wasn't great. It's in no way a deal-killer - my cumulative GPA was 2.7! - but from what I have seen it can speak to general motivation problems in some people. You just have to have a good explanation why your motivation outside of the classroom sucked. If you've got a well-populated github that's a positive. If you bent all your time on  and didn't do anything else that's not so much a positive.Speaking of which! Judging from the resumes I've been seeing lately this bears saying to the fresh graduates and new-to-the-field seekers: be prepared to talk about everything on your resume. Try to avoid listing things on your resume just because you saw it in a class once (I see this quite a bit with Haskell and assembly).
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Jul 5, 2012 16:33
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I used to work for a large company that made medical software - not the hardware, just the software - but since it was used to aid in diagnoses it was FDA regulated. There was plenty of bureaucracy, literal paperwork, and zero chance to make changes just to improve things. It wasn't stressful in terms of deadlines but it was stressful because you had to make goddamned sure each piece of code you wrote was reviewed six ways and back before it could proceed in the build pipelines. I'd think device manufacturers would have it even worse since you can't just issue updates.
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Jul 12, 2012 02:36
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In addition to the math related changes, you're also creating 600851475141 PrimeNumber objects. Why did you choose to make the PrimeNumber calculation a class?
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Jul 13, 2012 01:51
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Gazpacho posted:I feel like repeating that it's a terrible drag to talk to one starry-eyed recruiter after another who doesn't seem to understand that often software devs apply for a job where the skills match, even if it doesn't appear very exciting. That's completely understandable from the applicant's perspective. I'm sure most of us have taken jobs where they needed the cash / location more than they needed the job - I know I have. But that isn't the perspective of a hiring manager with more qualified applicants than positions to fill. Why on earth would you hire someone who is not interested in solving the problems that your company needs solved? That person could be a flight risk when they find something they are interested in and a drag on the people around them.
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Sep 7, 2012 14:06
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Sab669 posted:If you've done a decent bit of Android programming but only used Mono, how would you put that on your resume? Would look weird under a Technical Skills section to say something like "Android Development (Mono C#)" I wouldn't think that was weird, though I would definitely ask you about your experiences since Android development is a largely Java world (as far as I know) and it'd be interesting to see how you handled the learning process among other things.
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Jan 9, 2013 20:49
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KNITS MY FEEDS posted:Ah, good to know. Thanks for the quick response. Yes, if they meet you at a career fair booth and like you. Companies that do this use the time for a quick test or in-person interview to determine whether you're worth flying to wherever they're located.
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Feb 7, 2013 03:46
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Sarcophallus posted:Is it common for companies to require college transcripts during the application? Huh, they must have raised the GPA requirement since I worked there in 2006 I don't recall giving them a transcript at the time but if they had asked I would have provided. I don't think it's terribly uncommon. I've heard that Garmin, which is also in the Kansas City metro, does it too and they care about GPA for much longer (10 years of experience in the field? Cool but I've gotta see that GPA first.)And for what it's worth I agree with Progressive JPEG - I love Kansas City. Interestingly enough I relocated here for Cerner as well. I don't work there anymore but this is where I've bought a house and plan on staying for quite some time.
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Feb 26, 2013 19:29
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Stobbit posted:So, my question is this: given that I'm still waiting to hear from Company B regarding the date of a second interview, what's the best way to say "thanks, but I have now accepted an offer with another company" "Thanks, but I have now accepted an offer with another company." It happens all the time and you don't owe anything to Company B. If you receive a call from the recruiter asking why you can say "Company A is a better fit for me" and that really is the end of the conversation.
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Mar 28, 2013 16:27
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Cicero posted:Yeah. In my mind, I'd put a new college grad who's had a decent amount of academic experience with a language at a 3 or a 4. A junior developer with a few years of professional experience in the language at like a 5 or 6, and a senior developer with lots of in-depth knowledge at a 7 or 8. 9s and 10s would be reserved for extreme cases like "I contributed source to the compiler for this language" or "I was the primary developer for one of its best-known libraries" or, as noted, "I wrote this language". About a year ago we were interviewing a man who had 15-20 years experience with C++. I asked the question, he smugly answered that he was at least an 8 at C++. We reviewed the coding test he'd just written for us in C++ - it wasn't great. Talking through it I discovered he didn't know quite as much as he claimed. For example he couldn't tell me what "const" meant or, when explained, why you'd want it. Not exactly an esoteric corner-case of the language I'm begging anyone who goes on a software developer interview: if nothing else you must absolutely be prepared to back up your bullshit. A few pages back the guy with the three page resume had something like "and many more" in his 'familiar with' language list...I'd probably ask him to name 5 and how much / in what cases he's used them. I'd ask him to demonstrate his expertese in one of the languages he claims expert level in, probably SQL. Judging from my own experience people seem to think this means "I wrote a select and it used a join  What do you mean 'execution plan'?"
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May 24, 2013 13:08
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baquerd posted:It's really simple, you ask them "What does a 10 mean to you?" This, or from the other side of the fence the interviewer asking this question should define the scale as any good engineer would. "10" to me is typically the language creator (if they're still involved in design) or a standards-setter / principle architect kind of person. A "10" in C++ would be a Stroustrup or a Sutter, and if someone responds "I don't know those names but I'm definitely a 10" then I don't know if that person understands what a "scale" is.
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Jun 6, 2013 15:17
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FamDav posted:top interview tip: if you can describe a solution for a programming problem using a hylomorphism, you'll get the job. I've heard candidates talk about isomorphisms but what the hell? e: huh, I thought of philosophy first but you probably mean this hylomorphism? I've never heard that term 
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Jul 21, 2013 04:26
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baquerd posted:This is what leads to open plan offices for developers. I don't hate them anymore, but I recognize it will cut my productivity in half and make that known. Since we're throwing out one-off data points that are totally meaningless in any broad sense, my most productive and happiest engineers are in open plan. They've repeatedly told me that they like being able to just swivel chairs and consult with each other. Different people work differently! e: to answer your basic question Splurgerwitzl, I love my job, though at the moment it's a software architect & management role so I'm not sure that's helpful. I got to this role by being promoted up through being a couple of levels of software engineer and I loved the hell out of those roles too. csammis fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Jan 3, 2014 |
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Jan 3, 2014 21:37
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Ithaqua posted:Yeah, I love open floor plan when it's done correctly. I've seen it done badly more frequently than not-badly. That's a good point. You pretty much described what we've got going on...for the most part. We've been running out of space in our current building so last summer Facilities tried to put our new interns smack in the middle of the Sales area. I called bullshit on that and rounded up enough tables to make it work. It wasn't the best situation but it was a drat sight better than being surrounded by salespeople. I couldn't believe anyone thought that would work 
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Jan 3, 2014 21:47
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Mniot posted:Do you know what they were used to before an open plan? They were used to individual offices and, despite talking and interacting and getting lunch together like normal human beings who like each other, they actually are one of the most productive teams in my org. They've figured out some sort of work cycle that works well for them. baquerd posted:Funny thing though, that management gets offices, even when a lot of what most management does is meet with people. Why do you suppose that is? Not our managers This actually sucks though because I work at a cube desk and don't have a dedicated place for private one-on-ones and I don't want my engineers to round the corner and see me going over salaries and HR reviews and poo poo.JawnV6 posted:I can't imagine this hellish environment where you don't have the option of headphones to block out other conversations or have so little respect from co-workers that they'll interrupt you no matter what you're apparently engaged in. No poo poo. Basic understanding and respect is how our arrangement operates. "Headphones on" means "Think really loving hard before engaging this person." The engineers aren't interrupting each other because they know how it is. None of our engineering teams get a ton of unsolicited questions from outside engineering because I (and the rest of R&D management) put out the word that if you want to "ask engineers" you ask us first specifically so we don't have sales engineering or whoever barging into the open spaces and bothering people. Ithaqua posted:My preference is actually shared office. Senior dev + junior dev/new team member. Individual office is too isolating. This sounds like a good deal too. How does it scale when the company grows up towards office capacity? That's a serious concern we've had.
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Jan 4, 2014 02:48
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perfectfire posted:Has there ever been a survey of what kind of development goons do? It seems like the majority in this thread do web development. I'm a C++ developer who works in enterprise content management focusing on our RDBMS data model. I haven't done a lot of work-a-day development for the last couple years since I was promoted to my current role: manager of about a dozen other [mainly] C++ developers. My software development work these days is chiefly design and prototyping with the occasional "oh poo poo huge customer issue and the owning team is swamped so ~code~"
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Jan 25, 2014 00:07
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2banks1swap.avi posted:If a company you applied to writes back with "Well we can't accept you for this job but please apply to something else," do they really mean it? Does it matter? Make the application and put the onus on the company to decide whether they mean it or not. Remember: if you don't apply you are excluding yourself. Whenever I've said that I mean it but it's rare. If I don't want a candidate working for me then I probably don't want him in a different part of the organization doing anything similar and so I wouldn't suggest they apply to something else.
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Feb 7, 2014 17:51
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