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Hellblazer187 posted:Is this the right thread for people who are not (yet) working as programmers to discuss learning to program? Is there a thread for that if not this one? Stuff like just talking about the challenges of it (both academically and outside of that) and comparing resources, sharing success, etc. Along those lines, I was hoping I could get some input on what I should do and focus on. I decided to switch careers last year and just completed a year-long comp sci cert at a university. Since then I've been self-learning machine learning stuff, as that's where my interests are right now. I've done some coursera and udacity, so I have a few projects in deep learning on my github from them. The problem is that, to me, deep learning seems insurmountable to realistically get a job anytime soon, especially with no industry experience and very little knowledge. There's just an insane amount to learn, and I don't know what practical skills I should develop. I have the projects, but I can't honestly tell you in depth what a CNN is and how it works for example. I'm also afraid that it's just the current dumb fad and next year they'll be hiring block chain fidget spinner engineers instead or whatever. Should I continue what I'm doing and essentially gamble that I can get an internship next year as a machine learning engineer? What should I be focusing on, then, specifically? Google's Brain internship is open for application until January--I know I won't get in, but part of me wants to try anyway. There also seems to be a lot of positions open everywhere in general, but I haven't tried yet. The reason I'm asking is because of a lot of personal doubt and poo poo I've been going through lately, but mostly I'm 30 and unemployed now. I'm not currently hurting for money, but I'd like to at least feel like I'm making things happen and get my head straight.
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Nov 1, 2017 06:36
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My background is completely unrelated to STEM. Getting a certificate in comp sci was me trying to open up opportunities and stop working dead end jobs. If I drop machine learning for now and try to get a junior dev position, do I just try going for anything and everything? Right now, I'd prefer not getting stuck in web and front-end long term. I guess my question is, how does the industry as a whole work in terms of career path in that regard? Like if I'm working in the bay area as a junior web dev, what are my chances of getting stuck in that field versus moving into stuff that I actually want to do? I think I'm hesitant because of my unfamiliarity with how the industry works in general. Also web presents its own problem, because I haven't touched javascript and its million frameworks.
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Nov 1, 2017 20:23
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Thanks everyone. I guess I'll drop machine learning for now and just drill CS and cracking the coding interview. That's pretty much all I should be doing, right? I've been doing a few problems on Hackerrank in JAVA per day recently, but I wanted to know if it was worth switching to python and just whiteboard with that. I'm thinking its much easier to whiteboard and prototype with, with a lot less language memorization. I sometimes freeze up momentarily under pressure, like in exams, and forget JAVA's dumb arbitrary stuff. I just don't have too much practice with python, and I don't know how to solve complex loop problems with it yet. Hellblazer187 posted:Obviously I'm not much help Alpha but I want to wish you good luck. How did you find the 1 year cert program? Thanks, I appreciate it! The cert was pretty cool--it's graduate level and meant to be nearly equivalent to a bachelor's for people with no experience, so it's like Boot Camp Plus. It was meant to feed directly into a Master's in CS program, but due to personal issues I couldn't continue that path right now (thus my current dilemma). I'll check out Georgia IT. I know if I want to pursue a career in AI/DL that I have my work cut out for me and have to take on a ton of extra stuff.
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Nov 1, 2017 23:08
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I regularly get notifications on blockchain and cryptocurrency poo poo, especially on hot new online courses. I bet if you write a Medium post about 'Your Path to Blockchain Career Fast', you'll get so much applause and get linked on Forbes.ohgodwhat posted:I'll be honest, as a hiring manager who hires for machine learning I have very little faith in most machine learning or data science programs. If you want to be have the academic credentials for it you get a PhD in stats. If you don't want to do that, do kaggle competitions until you're like in the top 25%. (Don't be the guy who put that he was in the top 98%) I was literally going to try the Titanic dataset today to get started but this thread has convinced me otherwise. But that's where I'll start when I pick it up again down the line. Zaphod42 posted:But yeah Cracking the Coding Interview is the poo poo. If you can confidently answer anything in that book you should be golden. Thanks, you're right. I'll stick to java. When I hand write a solution in java and type it up to see if it compiles there is always tons of syntax errors. I'll just have to suck it up and practice harder. Hellblazer187 posted:That sounds pretty great. Was it local to you or an online thing? FamDav posted:fyi java is not an acronym. I don't know why I wrote it that way.
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Nov 2, 2017 04:13
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Tezzeract posted:And no one really knows how Deep Learning works other than to throw GPU processing power and more layers at problems I forgot to post this 
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Nov 2, 2017 05:03
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Lockback posted:We posted an entry level dev job and the response we've gotten shows its still pretty tough for people to find jobs. There is stuff out there but I'd expect for most people it'll take months. Same, we're about to hire someone with 4 years experience to do jr level sass work. Jr devs don't even get considered by us now, I feel sorry for people trying to find something right now and wish you all the best of luck. Hopefully it does pick up next year under biden's economy + vaccine(???).
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Nov 23, 2020 09:55
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That's actually what happened to me, I got more than I initially asked for. From what I've seen, if you can you should try to ask in a way where they have to talk to their supervisor. If they immediately say something along the lines of "we can do that" or "how about x instead", then you didn't ask for enough. Worse they can say is no to the salary and bring you back down within their budget range, but they still want to hire you and make your total comp doable.
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Nov 25, 2020 23:50
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I hope you did the optional thing and at least got more experience with thoese types of assessments. Sadly, optional things suck and are more like hard requirements.
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Jan 22, 2021 19:35
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I know multiple people who have gone through Hack Reactor. Most bootcamp people I know who get hired have come from there, although for many it took them a while before actually landing a job coming from zero software experience prior. If anything, you end up with a good network that you can reach out to. If I went through Hack Reactor, I'd definitely cold contact other Hack Reactor grads on LinkedIn to see if they'd be willing to give a referral. Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:Hack Reactor essentially filters for people who already have the necessary skills/background to get a mid-level dev job and should probably just apply already. It's not surprising Hack Reactor graduates generally get jobs - it's debatable whether they needed the program to do so. I agree with this, too. If you already have a technical background then you're already set to make your own portfolio of github projects and start studying for the technical interview.
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Jan 24, 2021 05:59
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I'd suggest not to bold the project names unless they are very strong. In terms of your design hierarchy, they visually stick out the most to me. I'd also put more quantitative bullet points for your software experience and how you helped impact business. Instead of listing off languages at the end, you can say something like "Built X that drove Y impact, using [pogramming language] and [framework]/[tools]." You want to highlight how you did software work, and how good you were and will potentially be to new employers.
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Feb 1, 2021 19:50
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Shadow0 posted:
If you're smart enough to do graduate work in ML and computer vision then you are smart enough to start teaching yourself python and do kaggle exercises to put on your resume. That'll solve your dilemma of not having experience in those technologies. Plus in my experience recruiters hardly pay attention to your listed tech skills. I have had interviews at places that use tools I never listed on my resume. Had to teach myself redux for a stupid take home project. I think you are buying into the idea that job listings only write hard requirements, when that is not true at all. How many calls are you getting per the amount of applications you send out? To me it sounds like you need to work on the resume and cover letter.
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Feb 7, 2021 01:57
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Post it here and edit out personal info. There used to be a resume service in SA Mart but that was a long time ago, maybe it's gone. edit: also it's kaggle, lol. Not kegel Stuff like this https://www.kaggle.com/bulentsiyah/learn-opencv-by-examples-with-python AlphaKeny1 fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Feb 7, 2021 |
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Feb 7, 2021 10:06
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Shadow0 posted:Here's my censored resume: https://www.overleaf.com/read/gpqqswygnwhc Is this the final version with this formatting you're sending to recruiters? First I'd shorten it to just 1 page. Take out languages and awards--I'd only list foreign languages if it's necessary (btw there's a TokyoDev email I follow that sends me remote Japanese company positions). Squash your education down to just a few lines and highlight that you have a MS and bachelors in CS. Definitely add your phone number, and try to shorten that contact info section to at least 2 lines. Add your LinkedIn url. For the skills, you can push the relevant ones to the front depending on the job requirements. Recruiters likely just skim those for buzzwords and say hey you have java experience, works for me. Talk more about the impact of your published work and what you've done at previous companies. Provide at least 3 bullet points with quantified data, even if it seems minor to you. Like, "pushed 100 lines of code developing X that impacted Y for Android app using [tech stack]". You have industry experience so you should play that up. Talk more about your accomplishments and really learn to sell yourself. Instead of saying "I will work really hard!" like you mentioned earlier, show them that you work really hard and back it up with data. I don't know about the machine learning interview process, but I assume having a MS is a big step in the right direction. I suggested Kaggle because you should include some projects that you've completed in your resume. The goon above that has their React app acts as a strong portfolio and demonstration of their skill, and shows the fundamentals of full stack web dev with relevant/modern technology. Doing something like Kaggle and having a direct link to it on your resume tells me that you've been busy, trying to keep up with latest technologies, and lets me gauge your coding skill. With that said, try to also have relevant projects linked. I wouldn't care if you can do computer vision if you're just applying for a React job.
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Feb 9, 2021 23:15
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You could look at job listings and take note of what companies are looking for, it might give you a better idea of what you want to shoot for and tailor your studies from there. If you want to go the fullstack web/app dev route, that sounds like a good plan. Focus on one thing at a time. You'll learn front end as you navigate building your own projects, for example. I'd throw in data structures and algorithms later on to prepare yourself when applying, assuming companies will interview on those.
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Feb 22, 2021 20:40
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How do people prepare and study for the FAANG interview? I assume it's just, really know your algos and data structures, but even more so than normal. I saw a practice Google one and it seems like they're also interested in optimizing as much as possible to the fastest runtime as well.
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May 5, 2021 23:31
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blue squares posted:Awesome. I'm really loving good so if I can find companies willing to give me the time of day, and I build enough basic skills, I like my chances. (I did some other stuff before landing in SEO, including 5 years in the Navy before college) In your SEO job are you able to take on some work involving front end, or database with SQL? Anything you can get your hands on will be way more experience to put on your resume than bootcamp and self study projects, especially if they are public facing.
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May 12, 2021 17:47
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blue squares posted:My plan was to use the next couple of months to continue to develop my skills and work on some self-projects to make sure I know 100% I want to do web development before I actually quit my job, but if being able to point to stuff that is client-approved would be a better portfolio/resume bullet, then yeah I can take over some of the dev work of my big current project. So here's my question: if you spend the next few weeks learning javascript and any other relevant languages and skills, it sounds like you can personally help develop stuff for your clients very soon? The way I see it, if you get to that stage... you're already a programmer. Would you still need a bootcamp? You already have the job. You'll be working to meet client needs, understand how to collaborate with other devs, have hands on experience in a team/professional setting, and be working on a live codebase developing features and resolving bugs. Sounds like a software engineer to me. From there you can get a really good taste and decide what your next steps are going to be while bolstering your potential resume. Maybe learn cs fundamentals to pass a coding interview. Showing employers things you worked on professionally counts as real experience, which is something crucial that bootcamp, self study, and even college people typically lack which makes it difficult to land the first job. Is the CMS integration something you can learn on the side or have someone walk you through, and are there projects in the pipeline that involve code? Programmers already have to constantly learn new things on top of what they already do--just try not to get pigeonholed like the other goon said. Eventually you will have to pick up other non-FE knowledge, but by then you'll have a much better grasp if a bootcamp will fill that gap. AlphaKeny1 fucked around with this message at 08:55 on May 13, 2021 |
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May 13, 2021 08:34
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I had a candidate that was so impressive during the interview. He showed me a project he worked on that we didn't even ask of him where he discovered and hit one of our exposed APIs and built a page out of the data he found (I work in ecommerce). The position can be done by any junior dev using plain javascript. Based on his portfolio and projects he would have been an easy hire. I still decided to ask him a leetcode easy and thought he would ace that. I just wanted to see how he tackles a problem and codes through it. Turns out he was faking most of our interviews and couldn't walk through the issue. I decided to hold his hand and guide him through it but he still couldn't follow. Didn't even know how to split a string or see why that would help him get a solution. Live coding has been super helpful in weeding out candidates even if it sounds unnecessary or irrelevant to the position for me. I understand at higher levels maybe a system design might be more useful than showing me how to solve a graph problem but I still don't think coding challenges should be eliminated. For anyone here that's not great at this stuff, I took a coding interviewing bootcamp to help me through it. Was super helpful since I was really bad at all stages of the job hunt and really feared any type of interview. It was more useful to me than something like interviewing.io since it also provided a network, taught me how to approach the job hunt, how to answer the soft skills questions, plus plenty of live coding challenges.
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Feb 6, 2022 19:23
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aperfectcirclefan posted:Where was that boot camp? That sounds exactly what I need since I'm horrid at LeetCode type questions. It's called Outco. I can send in a referral for you if you PM me your name and contact info, or if you just want to ask me anything about it.
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Feb 7, 2022 20:35
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I used to do background checks a long time ago and honestly employers most likely hardly care about your situation, HR usually has some predetermined criteria and being a little off on your past experience is probably no big deal. They probably just want to make sure you are who you say you are and not some felon. Also side note, background checks is why I tell everyone immediately around me to be cautious about what they post on the internet. Some companies will pay extra for social media checks to make sure you aren't racist or something and I have seen a lot of problematic ones. At my current company someone turned down a great candidate because of the stuff they posted on youtube.
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Apr 12, 2022 05:15
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My SO is going through a career change to UX and the google certificate was a good introduction but I don't think she came out of it with anything great. She just now got accepted to a bootcamp, which I think the certificate definitely helped her pass the entrance assessment. I can't really help since I only know the career change from a software perspective... like, practice really hard for the interview and have a strong portfolio of projects.
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May 10, 2022 04:10
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When an interviewer asks what you do at your job... if you conduct interviews for your current team is that something you would mention? I'll definitely mention that I train/mentor new engineers, at least.
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Jun 13, 2022 20:38
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Thanks, I mentioned it briefly in my intro. I figure any small thing helps.
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Jun 14, 2022 07:04
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I'm scheduling an onsite right now that should have a system design interview and was wondering if anyone had tips and what to study. I've never had to do one before, but I think I understand the basics like communicate my thoughts, ask plenty of questions to get constraints, weigh tradeoffs, talk in detail about limitations and implementation, write out your API methods, draw diagrams, etc. But I've mostly been doing front end the past few years and haven't touched any back end lately so if you ask me to draw up an entity relation or actually weigh the tradeoffs in depth I would be super rusty and I hardly know a lot of technologies outside the front end nowadays. I do have a copy of Designing Data-Intensive Applications but realistically how far can I get with that within 2-3 weeks on top of continuing practicing JS and leetcode and juggling a full time job.
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Aug 24, 2022 20:23
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Awesome, thank you! I'll pick up a copy. lifg posted:Since you’re in the newbie thread I’m assuming you’re still very early in your career, so don’t worry too much about Designing Data Intensive Applications. Like, if you can talk intelligently about isolation levels, do it, but that’s normally not what interviewers expect from newer programmers. Yeah, I have a little over 3 years experience in the industry but most of my time has been front end the past 2.5 years. In interviews I sell myself as like the lead on projects (I work for a big company), which is pretty true. I've worked in ruby on rails and graphql before and took cs classes in uni but nowadays I really don't think I could talk intelligently about designing an actual system. If they want me to design a front end ui and talk about why websockets might be better I'd be fine, but actually handling data and building the db and server... I have no idea. I think what you're getting at is the best bang for my buck is to understand the high level and the basics, and not worry too much about really diving into individual technologies?
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Aug 24, 2022 22:57
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Thank you, that's helpful for me for what I think I should try to cover in my limited time.
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Aug 25, 2022 05:30
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I assume you talked with the recruiter if they can clarify anything for you and let you know if there's things you can focus on. Like if they're talking specifically basic vanilla javascript and webdev or if it's React only. Or if you need to know any system design and talk high level about designing an app. The worst part if it ends up being them asking trivia questions, like what is a javascript closure or event delegation and how you used them. Since it's so open ended I would hope the recruiter can help you a little.
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Oct 20, 2022 23:24
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I would actually advocate for getting your bachelor's if you don't have one. My friend doesn't have one and it feels like she is automatically disqualified for a lot of job applications, although she isn't in programming. Maybe you can get lucky and find an entry level job with no degree requirement, although either way it's a lot of extra work going from degree/bootcamp to actually having industry skills. Also if you do a bachelor's it will qualify you for a lot of intern opportunities before you graduate.
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Mar 19, 2023 04:52
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Yeah I would not study IT and programming at the same time, those are two different careers. Front end web development is the lowest bar to entry, but nobody is really hiring entry level devs right now so I'd just focus on learning the skills and practicing the interview so that you'll be ready when it picks up again.
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Dec 14, 2023 20:07
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You're getting a degree in a related field, that seems better than any cert. It also seems like you're on the right track. You could look into contributing to an open source project once you learn the basics of React in addition to your other projects, so you get used to larger codebases and making PRs. Also you can grind the tech interview on the side since that can take months and months, but the first order of business is to get a resume that can land the initial phone screens.
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Jan 10, 2024 23:52
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