career-advice

[near remnant]

https://tenor.com/view/pain-painful-rip-gif-19017159

[true harness]

have you tried applying yet?

[near remnant]

I will, from tomorrow. I just got laid off today.

[true harness]

why feel hopeless then

[sleek egret]

yar

[sleek egret]

he was rejected. most people get their sense of self-worth externally (i.e. from how others perceive them and how others treat them)

so dos is rather normal psychologically\

[near remnant]

I feel hopeless because I did everything, implemented so many things, fixed many bugs, migrated the whole app from 2.x to 3.x on my own. I know its not something special but it was my first dev job. And I get laid off because of financial issues...

I try to stay positive though

[near ocean]

It is what it is
Whats important is that you get back to applying, these 6 months will make it much easier this time

[sleek egret]

look at it this way, if your employer had made a ton of money, they'd have just hired a bunch of idiots that you'd have to hand hold

[true harness]

he was a junior, right? it was my impression that juniors, especially new hires, are the first to go

[sleek egret]

now you don't have to put up with their idiocy!

[sleek egret]

sometimes. sometimes they fire the higher paid old timers instead

[near remnant]

I have learned a ton and I was working on my own since week one. Im glad, hope I can find a new job soon. Thanks guys, I feel better now! Yeah I was / am a junior.

[weak elbow]

burgr

[near remnant]

https://tenor.com/view/borgir-gif-22149357

[buoyant seal]

That is a good spirit 😉
Consider you got unexpected vacation. Other people dream sometimes for years to have one.

[near remnant]

I'm not sure if its sarcasm or not haha

[buoyant seal]

Not really. When u realise u have no vacations or eventually getting 25 days of vacation per year... U secretly at some point starting to wish more of vacation.
But u don't have a choice

[buoyant seal]

My first time in startup was crazy. I had zero days of vacation without a choice.
I had rest only when fell ill

New year, any other holidays... They were still work :/

I was only promised forever getting vacation at my first job which never came. I quitted and joined another job to get days of vacation ensured

Several lies a person can encounter:
Pay raise will be later (never)
Vacations will be later (never)

Only job change cures this problem sometimes

[delicate bane]

this is also what ive heard. gotta be in that goldilocks zone

[sleek egret]

only the weak take time off work when they get sick

[sleek egret]

these days, it's the remote workers that get axed first

[true harness]

the chads infect everyone at their workplace so they can get off too

[sleek egret]

yes, that sounds very chad (whatever chads are)

[plain widget]

Can someone explain to me what this script does in depriving it?

[near remnant]

mate, it's a Python server

[plain widget]

yes i know but you cn help ?

[near remnant]

is this C# right?

[plain widget]

yess

[white relic]

this channel is for career discussion

[plain widget]

plz

[pine sleet]

@plain widget there are C# servers: discord.gg/tccpp

oh just realized no C# here

[white relic]

you can try in off-topic, maybe somebody will know

[sand patio]

right, so - currently I'm a sophomore in high school, and I've decided to try and flesh out my career decisions a bit.

I want to go into computer science as a major, and I have a few uni's in mind that I'd like to apply to - I want to know how to up my chances, where I should focus, that kind of thing. My GPA is alright, nothing special. I'm not the president of anything, but I am in a couple of clubs, and I intend to join more. I live in a pretty competitive area, so it'll take a good bit of effort to stand out academics-wise.

Aside from that, there's also paying for uni. I'll most likely have to take out loans, which will be fine, and I should be safe with going into a programming job once I graduate. I want to know what else to look for here, grants and the like.

And then there's what I actually want to do career wise, and what the best course of action is to do that. I'm not entirely sure what I'd be interested in programming in a professional environment. I feel like I'd enjoy maintaining tools and the like. I like langdev, but I'm not sure how feasible that is for a job. In school, I'm aware CS has a lot of math, I'm wondering what other class options I have that might include things like langdev, FP, etc.

[peak halo]

If you already know what unis you're interested in, you can contact the admissions office for whichever college contains the CS department (probably the engineering one) and ask what they look for in applicants.

What math are you taking? will you have taken calculus by the time you finish HS?

[sand patio]

I'm taking algebra 2/trig right now. And yeah, I'll have taken calculus by the time I finish HS

[pine sleet]

Academics-wise the best advise I can give you is to not fall behind in any of your classes. Like, you don't want to be taking calculus in college

[peak halo]

make sure you get an A in that.

[peak halo]

I took calculus in college

[sand patio]

I'll do my best :p

[pine sleet]

Oh, and take a bunch of dual enroll classes and get rid of general requirement classes. It's much much cheaper as a DE student than taking a full course in college

[sand patio]

I see

[pine sleet]

Looking for internships as a HS senior can also make you stand out as most students won't be doing internships by that time

[sand patio]

I have the option for DE U.S History next year, I wasn't sure whether to go for AP or DE, and since it's a history course, I'm not sure if I need to take it anyways in college.

[peak halo]

the only problem with that is that if you take too many non-major courses ahead of time, you might not have enough to do for the first year in the major. in my CS program, there's only one course for the first semester, and two for the second.

oh btw, @sand patio, do you have the option of taking AP CS?

[sand patio]

I do, I'm taking it right now

[peak halo]

that could knock out the first CS course. I would say "make sure you get an A in that", but I doubt that will be an issue.

[pine sleet]

Is that necessarily a bad thing? Just seems like more time to focus on your major-related courses instead of general requirements

[peak halo]

but if there's only two courses you can take, then you're not a full-time student, which has consequences for student loans. and it's just a bad use of time.

[pine sleet]

Some other staff members have said getting a 4/5 (depending on school) on certain AP exams will grand you college credits as well

[sand patio]

don't some colleges have a thing where you can qualify to skip general requirements? I believe George Mason does, I forget what they call it, though

[pine sleet]

Ah, gotcha. So minimize the amount of classes you can take during your major while still being above the minimum hours required for a full-time student?

[peak halo]

are you thinking of the guaranteed admissions agreement?

[sand patio]

hmm, I don't think so - let me see if I can find it

I think this is it? https://honorscollege.gmu.edu/

[leaden jasper]

I got a lot of credits from AP exams but due to how my program was structured I couldn't finish in 3. It still took all 4. It did let me be flexible with choosing a minor and whatnot though

[sand patio]

oh no, that's not it - it's called "Mason Core"

[leaden jasper]

Also taking calculus in college is fine, you won't be behind or anything. The biggest thing I would look at is a Uni that has a good track record for internships or coops or similar. Getting that internship will really help later on for that first job since it'll be relevant working experience.

Also I wouldn't worry about which direction you'll take within CS. College courses will help you experiment and that's something you'll figure out as you do more CS stuff

[sand patio]

I see

Is there anything I should focus on EC related? I need to get in some volunteer hours for school, what sort of places do colleges like to see for that?

[leaden jasper]

So my experience with this may be a bit out of date, but it's less so exactly what you do and more the quality of it. Like, the extent to which you get involved and the things you do within the extracurricular is more important that what it is specifically. Your essays and whatnot will also help set you apart, so writing is important.

[pine sleet]

One tip I can give is to start your essay as soon as possible and work on it over the course of months

Yes I am speaking from personal experience

[sand patio]

I see

I was thiiinking of starting a CS club, I'd be de-facto president, which could be nice on apps

[peak halo]

would you enjoy that even if you didn't put it on an application?

[sand patio]

yeah, It'd be fun

we don't have a CS club yet, but I can think of a fair few people who'd join

[spark cobalt]

If all your projects have nothing to do cuz it's in release phase, what are you expected to do tbh. Like I ask for work but there's no work to be done. Finished all my weeks work today.

[peak halo]

what kind of job is it?

[spark cobalt]

I do full stack mostly.

Like I'm gonna get crammed next week when we have new features and customer requirements to be done. But this week is like.... Everything's already done.

[peak halo]

this is the career discussion channel. see #1035199133436354600

[spark cobalt]

May wanna ask in #python-discussion since this channels for careers.

[keen robin]

excuse me

[spark cobalt]

I feel bad just not working lol. I guess I can just use the work time to read some books or something but

I prefer reading at home. But, I prefer going to work so I can get free food.

Like the person overseeing me I feel like I'm getting the vibe that he thinks I'm not working hard. BUT THERE'S JUST NO WORK TO BE DONE

Oh well I guess I'll redemption arc next week

[leaden jasper]

If feel bad doing not work, then take it as an opportunity for continuing education, i.e. get paid to learn the tech thing you've always wanted to but haven't had the time for or what have you

[spark cobalt]

Ok glad to see I'm not the only one with this thought process. Will do

[leaden jasper]

There is still value for your employer when you do personal development stuff

[spark cobalt]

Have lots to learn...

[leaden jasper]

Hell my employer requires me to do 40 hours per year of it. I literally have to plan in time to do some learning during work hours

[spark cobalt]

Oh damn. I think my employers expect me do a lot of hours to self learn as well.

Alright, sounds like a plan. Thanks for your help!

[white relic]

Now is a good time to take the PSAT. In addition to being just good practice for the SAT, it can qualify you for some great scholarships if you do well.
You can take both the PSAT and the SAT multiple times. You can study for them and you will get better at taking them with practice. A lot of students don't bother to retry the SAT, but it is one of the two numbers that really matter on your college application, and it's pretty easy to pump it up compared to GPA. (Also if you do really well you get to brag about it basically for life, although nobody really cares after you've been admitted to college)

[spark cobalt]

Juniors taking PSAT get some reward or something if placed high.

[white relic]

If your school/area is ACT oriented, idk, maybe somebody else can talk to that.

[white relic]

The National Merit program is how I afforded college.

[spark cobalt]

, iirc, only applies for Juniors. Not something that can be delayed for senior year.

[sand patio]

I've already taken the PSAT - they give it to freshman, sophomores, and juniors.

[white relic]

hmm, I took it as a sophomore and a junior iirc
high school was a while ago

[sand patio]

I, uh, didn't study 🥴

[spark cobalt]

Our school required PSAT for Sophomores. But only Juniors qualify for the National Merit thing.

[sand patio]

it did manage to give collegeboard my email, so now my inbox is full of that stuff

[spark cobalt]

Good luck getting the spam removed. I've tried, it's impossible.

[white relic]

If you did poorly or average, you can use the results to help you study for taking it again next year.

[sand patio]

I thiiink I did fine - definitely could be better if I had studied

[spark cobalt]

The math should be super easy. The English part is what got a lot of people in my school.

[sand patio]

huh, it was the opposite for me

[spark cobalt]

Oh. I aced the math part, and got like 30 wrong on the English part. Like 80% of my city is Asian and almost all of them are in advanced math classes so that's probably why.

The math only went up to geometry? That's 10th grade math in California for unaccelerated.

[pine sleet]

I grinded SAT last year and got 1510
Not really sure if it was worth it

[white relic]

I just got buttloads of regular mail. Maybe I didn't have an email at the time, idr
it was kind of cool to read about all the colleges I'd never heard of though, even though it probably didn't really affect my decision in the end.

[sand patio]

yeah I did better on the english part

yeah I'm getting physical mail too. Don't really mind it, it's cool

[spark cobalt]

It's terrible now. They send your email to thousands of colleges, and each college spam you everyday. If you wanna block collegeboard, you have to block the 10239029302930 ocllege spam emails as well.

[white relic]

that's worth bragging about.

[spark cobalt]

I remember spending like more than an hour just manually blocking all these colleges. I didn't plan to go to college so like, it was just clutter for me.

Yeah 1510 really good.

[white relic]

There's no fun in spam emails. When they send you mailers at least you get to admire the chunky envelopes and expensive-looking paper

[spark cobalt]

Mfs have too much money to spend

[white relic]

I remember Yale sent me a lot of junk
so, yeah, probably.

[pine sleet]

Yeah. Not really sure if it was worth the time and money put in
It better pay off, lol

[white relic]

You'll never really know, unless the college you get into has an unusually open admissions process, whether it was decisive or not.

[spark cobalt]

I know recently a lot of colleges removed SAT from admission process, or claimed to not care about it anymore.

[peak halo]

I didn't have to take the GRE to get into grad school, either

[white relic]

did you just apply? The program I'm currently working on applying to says the GRE "may not be required for students with a relevant undergraduate degree" and I'm trying to figure out if I should apply without it
the department is not responding to my emails, naturally

[peak halo]

I applied a few months ago (and starting this month), and it's in the same subject as my undergrad, yes.

[white relic]

I mean, how did you know you wouldn't need to take the GRE

[peak halo]

they just flat out said that they don't require it if you have an undergraduate degree

[white relic]

hmm

[robust island]

What would be a good minor to go along with a computer science major? I was thinking something math-related

[spark cobalt]

Math major is based.

[white relic]

maybe I'll just apply and hope for the best

[robust island]

cs is more based tho

[spark cobalt]

Math major is more based

[white relic]

Your major is what really matters to employers because it determines what kind of degree you get. Your minor, if you choose to get one, is for you. Take a minor in something you find really interesting or to expand your knowledge in a specific subfield.

A minor probably won't get you a job, so make it something you'll feel is worth taking for its own sake.

Or because it's easy.

[sand patio]

I'm at an embarrassing lack of knowledge about this, but how do minor's work?

[robust island]

I'm kinda in the same boat tbh lol

I think it's some additional, optional courses you can take in a field separate from your major

[white relic]

basically

[sand patio]

is it a course by course basis?

does it cost more to do a minor? Since you have the extra classes

[true harness]

it's just a major but less credits

[white relic]

it's usually an extra X credit hours selected from Y courses

[pine sleet]

So I'm getting a major in electrical engineering with a minor in CS. I'm doing a minor in CS more or less as a fallback, but after what you said about it not getting jobs I'm not entirely sure...

Is it possible to get more than one major?

[robust island]

Dual majors, yeah

Probably more expensive/takes more time tho

[pine sleet]

I can put up with that

[sand patio]

does your tuition cover the classes you need to take for your major?

[white relic]

yes, but not necessarily advisable. I was talking to my coworker about this a few weeks ago actually, he was a double major EE/Physics.

[true harness]

it's not more expensive and doesn't have to take more time

[sand patio]

and you'll have to pay for extra courses, yeah?

[robust island]

I mean isn't it extra classes that you need textbooks and instructors for?

[pine sleet]

Hm. Alright then.
Kind of in a dilemma between EE and CS lol

[white relic]

A bachelor's in physics is basically worthless, you have to get a PhD before it matters in the pure sciences. So he was always planning to get the EE and he got a physics degree along the way because he's completely nuts very driven

[true harness]

well sure, but textbook costs are marginal compared to everything else

[robust island]

I'm mainly going for cs major because it seems applicable for the widest range of careers I might want to have

[white relic]

if you end up taking an extra semester/year because you can't complete the requirements in 8 semesters, it will cost more

[true harness]

not necessarily. typically tuition covers enough costs to be a "full time student", which is a certain number of credits per semester

[robust island]

True

[sand patio]

I see

so each class fulfills some amount of those credits?

[white relic]

if you end up taking summer classes to fill in requirements, or have to take more than the maximum number of credit hours in a given semester, it will also cost more

[sand patio]

I see

[true harness]

||plus there are many cost saving measures available to students these days||

[robust island]

Would a full ride cover that do you think?

[true harness]

it would tell you, or you would be able to ask them specifically

[robust island]

i get you lol

[white relic]

I think EE/CS is a great combination (I'm maybe a little biased as a CompE myself.) If you can handle it, EE will get you a great career and the extra CS knowledge you'll get from a CS minor will give you an edge in terms of how effective you can be. But, yeah, it probably won't make the difference between being hired or not.

When you have to retake a class in your junior year, or something, and realize you can't complete your original plan, the minor will be the first thing on the chopping block.

[pine sleet]

Awesome. I think I should be able to handle it as I've always been a bit academically inclined.
I'm also more interested in the hardware/networking side of things than I am with software and software development (while I still do love doing swe, I think of it more as a hobby than a job)

[white relic]

That is similar to where I was when I started college. I actually initially planned to major in CS but switched before registering for classes because the engineering program looked more interesting. Now I get to do both. I've never regretted it.

[sand patio]

is engineering the hardware side of things?

you can also major in SWE, can't you.

[white relic]

It was hardware for me. Different schools have different ways of slicing up engineering.

[summer roost]

depending on the school, yeah. Some schools have a Software Engineering program, independent of Computer Science

[sand patio]

I see

what would be the differences between the two? CS has more math?

[summer roost]

they tend to be very similar programs, but in the places where the diverge, CS focuses more on theory of computing and SWE focuses more on the practice of software development

[sand patio]

I see

[spark cobalt]

Minor can also help for certain science-dev cross niches.

[robust island]

Looking into it more, I might opt for a focus rather than a minor, like a focus in cybersecurity or maybe ai

[summer roost]

you usually need to choose a focus - at least in the programs I'm familiar with.

if you really wanted a minor, it's often easy to get a mathematics minor with a computer science major

[robust island]

Huh looks like you're right, at the college I'm looking at I'd already have all but 2 courses to get a minor just by the cs reqs lol

[summer roost]

There's a lot of math in CS 😋

[spark cobalt]

something that stands out not too tough to work on

I mean...

[peak halo]

That look good on a resume that's submitted for what job openings? Quantitative analyst?

[summer roost]

How would a compiler be "low latency"? What events would you be measuring the latency between?

I'd normally take "low latency" to mean something involving interprocess communication, and likely sockets...

HTTP server, DNS server, database, distributed cache, task queue or message queue...

[gilded valley]

Implement Black-Scholes or something and set it up as a data-api service?

A toy symbolic computing library, a python wrapper for a custom tsne implementation - ideas shouldn't be a sticking point

[analog vessel]

Got job today 😄

I don't have degree btw, I graduate senior highschool last year. Good Luck everyone

[gilded valley]

Congrats, what's the job?

[analog vessel]

Backend developer

I didn't apply for a job. But got recruited

[spark cobalt]

Well done!

[spark cobalt]

Did you at least go through the interview process?

Or was your hiring void of any competition?

[true harness]

bruh that's op

[analog vessel]

Last year, I was trying to build my portfolio for freelancing and contributed to several startup companies. As a result, they hired me as a freelancer for about 5 months and eventually recruited me.

[spark cobalt]

Ah ic! That's a pretty neat way to get into the industry!

Similar story. Graduated high school last year as well, but applied the normal job application route.

Where are you located at? Getting friends our age not in college is a BITCH

[analog vessel]

I have been learning programming for about 6 years. So i didn't have plan to get CS degree

[spark cobalt]

Ah for me it was 2 years. I'm in the South Bay btw, Cupertino area.

[analog vessel]

From Philippines

[spark cobalt]

Ah ic. Nicenice. @brittle thorn

[near ocean]

How did you contribute to startups without being a dev for them

[analog vessel]

GitHub open source projects

[spark cobalt]

Are you getting paid?

[analog vessel]

On contributing? none just doing it for fun because I'm practicing to read someone else code

[brittle thorn]

I approve this

[spark cobalt]

I mean for the startup. I guess it's not uncommon that startups start open-source, but just wondering how they're making a profit or getting any cashflow to hire.

[near ocean]

Startups and profits? Lol

[brittle thorn]

Negative cash flow initially

[brittle thorn]

Kamuta

[spark cobalt]

Yeah, just hmm, maybe MemeCat is a huge investment for them. @analog vessel keep us updated.

[analog vessel]

You mean kamusta? :d

[brittle thorn]

Yes auto wrong

[spark cobalt]

Bold move to hire pretty much a kid, especially in early startup phase taking risks like this can be considered unnessecary. Meaning MemeCat is something amazing

[analog vessel]

The thing is . They need someone who can cooperate and understand the base code

[brittle thorn]

But he or she can code

[spark cobalt]

Yeah this is like the very traditional, try me for free and then hire me route. At least in America, that mindset has disappeared a lot.

[brittle thorn]

Yes and having knowledge of the code base matter more...lots take time to become comfortable modifying large codebases

[spark cobalt]

That's super cool. Didn't know it was possible :0

[brittle thorn]

So it's degree focused now like here and everywhere else...

[spark cobalt]

😔

@analog vessel Congrats again! Keep us updated, your story very interesting. You'll possibly get a lot of cool responsibilities!

[analog vessel]

Alright 😄 good luck on your journey too.

[blissful crystal]

p

[vapid jay]

do you think solving a lot of leetcode problems would make me got a job? or better to focus in building projects? or a combination of both?

[spark cobalt]

Building projects will land you the interview. Leetcode will help you pass the interview.

[delicate bane]

yes it feels like this. i feel like the open source route was more popular back in the day. i wonder what changed

[spark cobalt]

Maybe became more of a buzzword than anything meaningful now. Dunno.

[buoyant seal]

Leetcoding is just one topic out of many in code architecture. Besides DSA

I recommend learning OOP
Code complete by McConnel book for all code architecture stuff, writing clean code
Unit testing by Khorikov
TDD (by Kent Beck book)
Design patterns(head first book)
Refactoring (book by Martin Fowler) and etc

[buoyant seal]

Also if u aim for backend jobs.. good idea to learn something like Postgresql to good level

[vapid jay]

if someone solving a lot of leetcode problems, would he become better at algorithms and data structures? or he should first read a book or take a course in algorithms?

[spark cobalt]

The latter is much more efficient.

If you're doing LC questions with no knowledge of DSA, you might not necessarily get any better at DSA.

[buoyant seal]

Reading first stuff like Grokking Algorithms book, learning material, practicing and then leetcoding is way more efficient

[spark cobalt]

EPI (Elements of Programming Interview) is pretty good too. CTCI (Cracking The Code Interview) is a little shallow, but should suffice for junior interviews.

[buoyant seal]

EPI?

[spark cobalt]

Elements of Programming Interview

[sleek egret]

interviews can vary wildly between companies. even within company divisions.

[buoyant seal]

true. DSA was not even checked in my current company interview.
English, free for all tech questionary, SQL, Refactoring were checked

[spark cobalt]

DSA is like 33% of my company's technical interview.

[sleek egret]

is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[spark cobalt]

[buoyant seal]

DSA was checked only in 10-20% of my interviews 😆

[sleek egret]

I don't even know what "DSA" is

[buoyant seal]

leetcoding. (they are sort of almost same)

[true harness]

dsa isn't leetcoding 🤔. it's data structures and algorithms

[sleek egret]

and what does "DSA" stand for?

oh, so actually writing code to solve a simple problem

[buoyant seal]

DSA means through Data Structures and Algorithms, so usage of lists/dictionaries/graphs/stacks/dequeue stuff and knowing algorithms to use them is technically DSA
but leetcoding for most part checks this stuff usually

[spark cobalt]

Basically yeah

[sleek egret]

most of the candidates I interview fail that part horribly

IMO, the one or two question we pose there aren't even a little difficult

[buoyant seal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bId3N7QZec

[spark cobalt]

It's pouring ugh and I left my umbrella in my car

[sleek egret]

is that video funny?

[buoyant seal]

yeah. a joke on topic.

[hearty island]

time to get back on my lean six sigma grind

[sleek egret]

about 1 in 3 young 'uns we interview have a hard time deciding when to use lists vs dicts or have a hard time conceptualizing nested data structures

note, this is after they go through (and pass) a written test. I suspect many cheat on the written tests.

[spark cobalt]

I thought that was taught in colleges. Isn't DSA like in every CS program. That sounds a little too basic lol...

[near ocean]

Yes (probably)

[sleek egret]

I don't really understand why some cheat on the written. do they really think they will somehow make it through tougher, more exploratory, questions if they can't do simple things like partitioning a list?

[vapid jay]

are not list vs dictionary basic think? they probably learned them in intro to programming course not DSA courses

[sleek egret]

Yes, they are very basic. this is why I am mystified that so many fail hard

[spark cobalt]

That's a yikes. And you're probably interviewing the better students of the class too.

[sleek egret]

look, if I say to them "use a dict here" they can. they know the syntax. they know what a dict is, what a list is.

[gilded valley]

The reason you cheat is to maximise your chances of getting a job - you hope you can blag the next stage, or that the interviewer just takes a liking to you

[sleek egret]

but they don't seem be able to see a problem and then decide "I should use a list of dicts for this"

[buoyant seal]

fake it, til you make it philoshophy is possible xD
fake it, until your learned in the process to match your position.

some people have goal only to get first months salary though, without planing to make it.

[gilded valley]

I personally know people who have cheated take home tests and gotten jobs out of it, so it can work

[spark cobalt]

The OAs are intended to be extremely easy though and they typically give you so much time too. Like if you need to cheat you should just go back to study DSA.

[sleek egret]

well, I operate under with the motto "trust no one" so 🙂

what is an OA?

[buoyant seal]

ergh. Everything comes with experience. During university students are exposed enough to code writing practice to know a difference
if they just finished online courses, they could be just... not used to code, not understanding it yet
there is difference between first year student and graduate after all. online course people are less than 1st year student often enough

[spark cobalt]

Online Assessment. The written test you were talking about, pre-filter test thing.

[sleek egret]

oh right. yeah, ours was just a six questions. time limit of 2 hours. it took my nephew (not a programmer) 30 minutes. the ones that do well typically complete it and get it mostly correct in under 30 minutes. those that take a long time typically score quite poorly.

[true harness]

it's a programming test?

[sleek egret]

I also did it and it took me 10 minutes but then I wrote the questions, so that's not really fair 🙂

[near ocean]

Pretty useless test then

[sleek egret]

yes

[true harness]

how does a non-programmer do it then

[near ocean]

Why have it in the first place?

[sleek egret]

to filter out liars. which seem to be about 2/3 of applicants.

[gilded valley]

Presumably you're not competing for the top tier of applicants @sleek egret ?

[sleek egret]

he's a math major and knows a bit of python

[near ocean]

If the average non programmer joe can do it, it sounds like theres no significant filtering happening lol

[spark cobalt]

But if it is filtering, then it is filtering.

[sleek egret]

hah, a fair % of our interns go on to places like google, nsa, spacex, amazon, etc

[buoyant seal]

if this filtering is fully automated and has zero cost to filter out 75% bad candidates, then it is acceptable filtering xD

[near ocean]

Its random noise thats being filtered out

[gilded valley]

Interesting. IME places that pay well and offer good experience tend to have fairly rigorous filters

[spark cobalt]

Still saves time. Recruiters only need to read 1/4th of resumes.

[sleek egret]

it's not really zero cost because I double-check the automated test scoring for people who almost get the correct answer

[gilded valley]

If you're literally just removing 75% at random, it only costs time - it's pure downside

[sleek egret]

also check for code elegance of the correct answers

[near ocean]

Can you give us a sample question

[sleek egret]

sure, one sec

[gilded valley]

Or just the test

[spark cobalt]

Yeah maybe rmah has different expectations

[white relic]

if you only have time to interview 25% of candidates, "at random" is a valid way to choose them
after all, you don't want to hire unlucky people

[gilded valley]

But you can just sample the 25%, no need to waste time on a test

[sleek egret]

hmm, what's a pastebin site I can post to?

[spark cobalt]

!paste

[inner wren]

Pasting large amounts of code

If your code is too long to fit in a codeblock in Discord, you can paste your code here:
https://paste.pythondiscord.com/

After pasting your code, save it by clicking the floppy disk icon in the top right, or by typing ctrl + S. After doing that, the URL should change. Copy the URL and post it here so others can see it.

[near ocean]

Might as well close it out and pick the first X candidates then

[gilded valley]

There's the secretary problem as well

[sleek egret]

first question, simplest => https://paste.pythondiscord.com/ukugijucas

[gilded valley]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

[white relic]

so, if the test is even five percent better than random chance...

[spark cobalt]

Oh this is really easy. Easy LC question.

[sleek egret]

fifth question, one of the more challenging => https://paste.pythondiscord.com/ocafozemux

[sleek egret]

I'd say 75%+ get the first question correct

[spark cobalt]

Easy LC question as well.

[near ocean]

These dont look that hard, why not increase difficulty then

[sleek egret]

middling question => https://paste.pythondiscord.com/lirazicipa

[spark cobalt]

I thought it was pretty normal to get Medium LC questions for junior dev/new grads.

[near ocean]

If it takes your nephew(?) 30m and it seems about right, just have harder questions, or only give them 45' for all

[sleek egret]

they have 2 hours

[gilded valley]

Then there's still a good chance the time cost, and the cost of annoying candidates outweighs the benefits

[sleek egret]

the ones that do well tend to finish faster

[near ocean]

Are these take home? Or do they do them in a call

[white relic]

an annoying application process is itself a kind of filter

[sleek egret]

they are sent via email and they have 2 hours to submit answers

so they can use any editor/IDE and environment they want

[white relic]

I'm not saying this is a good way of selecting candidates, necessarily, but it is selecting for something

[near ocean]

Hm, yea idk, no more thoughts about this, its more reasonable than i thought originally

[spark cobalt]

Typically from my experience it was like 2-3 Medium questions for a period of time. Instead of 6 easy ones.

Easiest OA I've seen gimme gimme

[gilded valley]

Yes, a filter that filters people who value their time. If you want people who like jumping through hoops, have at it, but I'm glad I don't work there

[sleek egret]

if they get through this, we interview. and part of the interview is having them go through and write code for a problem

for example, given a csv file of security dates,symbol,price, create a table of symbols (columns) vs dates (row indexes) with prices as cell values

[near ocean]

What position is this for? Interns you said?

[sleek egret]

a LOT of people have trouble with that. so I give hints

yes, this is the intern level and finance analyst/quants. for the analyst/quants it's to gauge their programming skill level (i.e. doing just so-so is just one metric for the decision)

[white relic]

Many companies get many more applicants than they can reasonably hire. Especially for low experience positions. Filtering out applicants who value their time more than your application process is good business.

[sleek egret]

for programming interns, well, I expect better but have learned to temper my expectations

[spark cobalt]

Interns I guess makes more sense.

[near ocean]

If they cheat, and i assume some do, do you cut off the later interview short or do you still go through with it and reject

[sleek egret]

oh yes, I've seen cases where multiple candidates from the same university all submitted exactly the same answers (barring a few variable name changes)

[gilded valley]

Strongly disagree. Many of those are going to be the kinds of people who have already done one internship or are in the process for other roles.

[sleek egret]

it's like they think no one will look, lol

[near ocean]

Most recent interview we've had for juniors we spent the 3 full hours on fucking fizzbuzz
I think people we're too shy to cut it short

[spark cobalt]

That's crazy

[near ocean]

Got a nice extended lunch

[spark cobalt]

Lots of people in CS programs don't actually research the industry and ultimately don't prepare well. But I didn't really expect it to be this bad...

[crimson anchor]

How y'all earn money?

[gilded valley]

I think cutting it short would have been a bad look, but 3hrs on fizzbuzz is painful

[sleek egret]

we get around 200 applicants for 3 intern positions. mostly we look at top schools (MIT, UChicago, etc). but also open it up to a few second tier schools as well as I believe that there are sharp kids at them as well.

[spark cobalt]

My boss pays me biweekly. (Someone does, idk who specifically.)

[hearty island]

my boss pays me biweekly (but as a pm intern)

[sleek egret]

wait, you boss PAYS you?!??!!?

[spark cobalt]

No I work for free

[hearty island]

i might be the only pm person here

[sleek egret]

damn, what a softy your boss must be

[spark cobalt]

[gilded valley]

All I'm saying is that intentionally making your application process long and annoying is a bad way to filter - you should try to filter for the most desirable attributes, and try not to filter out candidates who are top of the pool

[crimson anchor]

How much you earn?

[buoyant seal]

https://youtu.be/1nwsLTDcpu0 🤣

[near ocean]

I think at that point it'd be rude not to, the person obviously lied, these people usually come with allegedly years of experience
But yea people we're weirded out

[sleek egret]

it's not long and annoying. 1 quick take-home test then one or two interviews (between 1/2 hour to 2 hours).

[spark cobalt]

My interview process was more than a month ngl. That's pretty nice.

[gilded valley]

No no, not saying yours is. Responding to what Trentj said. Yours seems reasonable

[sleek egret]

oh, ok. well then 🙂

[gilded valley]

Yeah, fair point about them obviously lying. That's a funny situation

[sleek egret]

the liars annoy me

[spark cobalt]

It's sad that some of these training bond consulting companies spend time to tell you to lie on your resume and add a couple of years that don't exist to your resume.

Then they teach you how to answer questions related to those lies.

[white relic]

Again, not saying it's a good way to get the best candidates. But it could be a good way to find people who will sit in their cubicle and do as they're told.
Every team lead wants to hire the best candidates, but hiring procedures tend to hire people who fit in well at the company. Some companies are like that.

[gilded valley]

Yes, and I'm saying looking for people who will sit in their cubicle and do what they are told will foster a bad working culture

[white relic]

There's a lot of cargo culting too. "Amazon does X so that's what we're doing because Jeff read a blog about it"

[white relic]

You're not wrong. It's not like people deliberately set out to hire bad candidates. It's an emergent property of the politics and bureaucracy.

[sleek egret]

it's very difficult to make a good assessment of someone in a few hours

[buoyant seal]

that is why always in addition trial period exists 🙂

[sleek egret]

IMO, you trial period lasts about 30 years

but seriously, I don't even know what "trial period" is supposed to mean from a practical perspective. it seems like a formalism to create a zero-cost "reward" (transitioning out of the trial period) for doing your job

hmm, maybe it reduces wrongful termination lawsuits. sort of like those signs at restaurants coat checks saying "we're not responsible for stolen property" (they actually are, sign or no sign)

[buoyant seal]

no no. you mistake it for something else.
proper trial period is having same salary as after that (regretfully not always though)
main difference is in less legal binding to terminate contract without any problems of established employment.
For example u don't need to work additional 2 weeks (or whatever month-months) if you terminated contract during trial
during trial, you trial company and company trials you 😆 and u both can leave each other without legal problems

[sleek egret]

oh, I'm used to at-will employment

i.e. you can fire someone at any time for any or no reason except race, sex, national origin or sexual orientation

[buoyant seal]

well, that is different in countries like Germany and Russia, may be in many other EU countries

[sleek egret]

in soviet russia, fire jobs you!

(no idea what that's supposed to mean 🙂

[gilded valley]

No trial periods in the UK, at least not that I've ever heard of

Of course you can view an internship like a months long trial period

[analog charm]

Hey guys, I'm working in an outsourcing company as a junior python developer -I'm supposed to be a mid-level after two months-

We're around 30 members on the team, and we had a problem which is that the PRs take much time to review and there are not many developers reviewing it, so the management decided to create a PR channel, and every new PR supposed to be posted in that channel and every developer suppose to spend ~ 30 mins at reviewing every day. I found a PR in that channel that belongs to one of the mid-level developers from my side -my company- so I've reviewed it with full respect and without any kind of EGO or showing off!

4 hours later I found the PM yelling at me because of that. I'm not supposed to review other team members' codes if I'm a junior since this will affect the client's perception of your teammate. also, he mentioned that I must care only about my tasks since no one asked me to review the PR.

I was trying to help others to deliver their PRs ASAP with good quality and all of my comments were valid and I'm used to doing so. I've started asking myself questions like; is that a healthy place for me to learn & grow!?

Idk, am I wrong?

[half flame]

Panther piss!

Who cares if they get upset, if the review is solid, its solid. Stand your ground, and if they want to fight you about it, have them offer a better solution.

"Here's what I offered, feel free to offer something better, if not then piss off!"

[buoyant seal]

Was you yelled by PM from outsourcing company?

[half flame]

Sounds like the PM doesn't know how to do their job

[analog charm]

until now 90% of my comments in that PR have been solved by the owner of the PR. the PM think that It's not better for juniors to review mid-levels and seniors' code

[buoyant seal]

Any way, my advice is to record this PM messages, and report to any higher in hierarchy person with real developer experience.

Start with reporting to higher person in your own company, if this PM is from your own company.

[analog charm]

yeah, my manager

[buoyant seal]

This is 100% not correct behaviour. Even if u are junior, u a supposed to review higher level code in order to learn and to stop being junior. Also to know current project better

Well, u don't have to review, but i highly approve your doing it 🤠

[graceful mason]

• You should be reviewing MRs as soon as you have an understanding of the codebase/system. Code reviews (both doing and receiving) is one of the best ways for a new person to learn
• Your PM should have 0 input on code, it's not his job
• As long as you can't approve PRs there's no harm in you reviewing anything

[buoyant seal]

Anyway... Explain to him, that u were consulted by other third party Devs and explain to him this stuff.

For reference I am middle developer, which received several senior ranked offers.

If he will refuse to understand it, escalate to higher person within your outsourcing company (you should be having boss with real Dev experience / tech leaders)

[buoyant seal]

Well... Or may be... U should escalate it to higher person immediately and to ask for another manager

I think it could be better if u have manager like this

Just be sure to record from now on all messages of this manager

Decide on your own, if this manager deserves second chance without escalation

[analog charm]

I already did that. this is part of the conversation

Hi ...,
Who asked you to add your comments into ... PR?
Any ideas, whos code you are going to review next? 
Didn't you think how your colleagues feel themselves being in front of the customer engineers having it done by you without any agrement for that? 
It is really bad that you did this way.
Let's have a call and discuss it.

[buoyant seal]

Ergh. It looks friendly and civil to me so far

Just discuss and explain it being correct behaviour with arguments provided above why Devs need it

[buoyant seal]

Anyway... Let's not overreact 🙂
As long as it is not pattern, it is good ☺️ people make mistakes

[analog charm]

sorry didn't get it

[buoyant seal]

Just discuss it directly only with this manager for now, provide arguments and try to persuade him

Make a call to him as he suggested 😄

[analog charm]

appreciate your help, thank you 🙂

[buoyant seal]

U a welcome.

Put yourself into shoes of this manager. Can non Dev person know such intricate detail about Dev rituals? Not really.

[analog charm]

He is in the industry since the 90s, and he's a delivery manager but joined this project as a PM because my previous PM left the project in the early stage and there was no one to cover the space. anyway, after one month we'll deliver the current project and start a new one with a new PM 😀

[buoyant seal]

my first manager was Database expert with 11 years of experience working in the biggest bank of our country. Which besides that even developed fully on his own other software developer domain projects in Golang for example.
it did not stop him from being... very poorly knowing software development below junior level. He did not even know how to write unit tests to his code! Or using git properly, or using for that matter golang, or having infrastructure as a code for his deployed stuff. Or finding what is wrong in very poorly written 1st year student level code written in C++.

What can i say, except... old age does not mean being... expert (in everything). He clearly tried to keep up with modern flows though... since he tried to learn golang and made project in it. He was probably fine database expert though, at least he certainly knew high level magic regarding it, including replication and applying search engines.

[smoky quest]

You aren't wrong. Reviews shouldn't care about such thing.
Having juniors be onboarding buddies or review code of more senior people is actually one of the good practices.

It just seems to be a pretty archaic culture and toxic environment at your place given the reactions.

[hearty island]

me as an incoming PM reading this 😅

[spark cobalt]

^ I only have a couple months of experience and I take on like half of the code reviews of people that are like 8+ YOE. Really cool to see how other people develop and their workflow.

From experience, definitely good practice.

[native narwhal]

I need some advice guys
I have been learning on becoming cloud system admin for the past year and a half
covering
-linux
-networking
-python
-bash
-aws cert study

I am at the point where I can do some things but not a lot and I need to start to practice this skill at a company or something

where I live and I can't relocate its 30km(15mi) radius zero companies need people like me
any advice on what should I do, is it possible to find a role for cloud admin remotely with no real experience except studying

[pine sleet]

What degree do you have?

[native narwhal]

I never went to college I was working with graphic design, web admin, digital marketing etc

[vapid jay]

do you have good side projects?

do you have aws cert or are studying for it?

[native narwhal]

you mean like cloud administration portfolio project? No I don't what would I do for a project? grep something ? 🙂

[gritty rivet]

You haven't said what country you are in but check LinkedIn, etc. and find places in your area who are doing the work you are doing and get their advice.

You should be applying for as many jobs as you can if you're not already doing so.

You might find this book relevant: https://cloudresumechallenge.dev/

[vapid jay]

make a CI/CD pipeline for some projects, dockerize it?

[native narwhal]

yeah I haven't gotten to do DevOps yet, that is very good advice actually I felt stuck but yeah dev ops is what I will try to study now

[vapid jay]

what have you done then, without uni or knowing someone you can only get employed with either very high knowledge and/or impressive side projects?

[native narwhal]

I studied linux networking and python for a year lol

[vapid jay]

and you don't have any projects?

[native narwhal]

I have a simple python games but those are crap done following tutorials etc
i mostly want to work with cloud networking so I was focusing on networking, I even learned subnetting which was also crap

[vapid jay]

then you don't deserve a job yet...

[native narwhal]

I don't want to work for money just for practice lol

[true harness]

i don't know what country you're, but that's probably illegal

[vapid jay]

contribute to open source projects

if you know your stuff you will have no problem contributing to others people projects or making your own

[native narwhal]

Its hard to contribute to deploying scalable vm projects, there are really not many of those, again I am trying to become a cloud admin which really isn't project based job its more about maintenance imo

[vapid jay]

Ive said to you what to do you could either do it or stay stubborn

[true harness]

why not make your own projects, then?

[true harness]

what are your qualifications? you could be more persuasive if you explain why you should be believed

[vapid jay]

Im EE major and Ive worked few months in a mid sized company doing front end and backend plus some devops stuff

[gritty rivet]

Homelab projects are more valuable then you seem to realize... you can demonstrate relevant skills as well as the passion and interest. If you're not already in the tech field and don't have a relevant degree, then personal projects and certs are both key

[native narwhal]

I don't do FE/BE or DevOps
I learn cloud, networking, linux and topics that are for a could admin jobs not programming

[vapid jay]

no one cares what you want to do, you have to learn what's in demand,
you can't say I want to do only xyz

[native narwhal]

I guess certs is the answer

[native narwhal]

I am really trying to master the linux, this is literally like a drug for me linux linux linux and i want to work with linux screw demand lol 😄

[vapid jay]

write kernel drivers

[native narwhal]

I mean I'm trying to work with already written drivers 😄

[vapid jay]

you can also try contributing to linux

[native narwhal]

I have contributed to a certain debian distro found a bug for screen brightness well not actual bug but duplicated line in config file 😄

[vapid jay]

that doesn't count lol

[native narwhal]

sadly they didn't mention my contribution lol

[gritty rivet]

You seem to be stubbornly dismissing the advice you're getting here from multiple people... good luck with that 😉 But yes, certs can help. For the kind of role you are looking for, you could probably skip the AWS Practitioner level and go straight for the Associate. The Professional is even better.

Again though, I would seek advice from someone doing this work in your country, the culture may be different

[native narwhal]

I appreciate the advice guys

[oak sparrow]

I just wrote my first python application and I am so proud of myself

[soft ermine]

Wow

[vast pine]

Hi

[hollow jungle]

@dapper crow

[past granite]

I made a app (Translator) Just like Google translator
In first I was very happy but after making and spending hours, got demotivated becuz the translator could translate only

Not speak like google

[sleek egret]

hi career afictionados

[gritty rivet]

So you need to add text to speech? That shouldn't be too difficult, what are you stuck on? https://pythonbasics.org/text-to-speech/

off-topic though

[sleek egret]

I heard that talk is cheap

[quaint lily]

Do i need qualifications in maths to get into the computer science industry?

[peak halo]

A CS degree would cover all the math requirements.

[quaint lily]

Do i not need maths to get into a cs course are uni?

[thorny sphinx]

In the UK some universities require A Level Maths but some don’t

The University of Nottingham doesn’t require it for example

[true harness]

it would depend on location

[quaint lily]

Oh, i thought they all required a level maths, thanks!

[sleek egret]

what is "A Level Maths" equivalent to in the US?

[quaint lily]

Also is a masters degree any more useful in cs than a bachelors or is it not really necessary?

[thorny sphinx]

UK:

High school —> Alevels (2 years) —> university

In A Level Maths they cover things such as topics that come up in Calculus 1 in the US Colleges

[sleek egret]

a masters doesn't add much value over a bachelors. but a PhD might depending on specialty and what you want to do

[quaint lily]

I see, thanks

[sleek egret]

what you will find is that after university, everything is highly variable and the answer is almost always "it depends"

[true harness]

there isn't really an equivalent, afaik

[sleek egret]

schools provide young people with (relative) clarity, consistency and certainty.

[gilded valley]

You don't need it, but you should do it if you think you can get a reasonable grade. Going to a good university matters, and most good universities require it

[thorny sphinx]

I’m working as a Software Engineer at a tech company while I am also a student. Should I be updating my LinkedIn experience section after completing each significant task at work? I noticed that a lot of people just list what team they’re on and then leave it at that

[sleek egret]

one company will treat a CS PhD as a negative, another will think it's highly desirable. hell, that could occur in the same company for different jobs. there are no real standards for anything (titles, salaries, responsibilities, compensation, etc).

[gilded valley]

A B in maths is more valuable than an A in computer science

[sleek egret]

it depends

[thorny sphinx]

It’s my first role and I have relatively valuable things to list (for someone with less than 1 year professional experience)

[sleek egret]

to riff on what Je Suis Latte says... if you have trouble with or don't like math, you're gonna have trouble with and HATE CS/software development

[delicate bane]

this is my understanding as well. the whole A-levels system is pretty different than the states

[gilded valley]

Yes. The way it works in the UK is that you choose 3/4 subjects to study when you're 16 (you study them for 2 years), and then those are the ones that universities will look at when you apply

[sleek egret]

if you don't like following instructions, if you have trouble being super-meticulous, if you get angry with needing to get every little detail 100% correct, you will hate programming

[gilded valley]

This is with lots of caveats and details ignored

[sleek egret]

at the same time, if you have trouble exploring outside of the rules/instructions, if you can't apply existing knowledge in new contexts, if you can't just explore and push the edges of how things work... you're gonna have trouble becoming a good programmer

everything about the UK education systems appears as if it's designed to be purposefully confusing

for example, "public schools" are private schools.

[gritty rivet]

If you're currently using your LI profile to apply directly to jobs, then it makes sense... if not I would just keep notes and update your resume/CV as needed

[delicate bane]

what does that mean

[gritty rivet]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)

whereas in the US, a public school is a free school for the general public in a specific locality

[sleek egret]

so what do they call public schools in the UK?

[delicate bane]

ah it is a private school

i see

[gritty rivet]

Based on this, I would think "state schools" in the UK are roughly equivalent to what we mean by "public schools" in the US https://www.gov.uk/types-of-school

[sleek egret]

even though they are run by councils?

why is public housing in the UK called "council housing"?

[near ocean]

Councils run them, same with schools

[sleek egret]

so why isn't it "council schools" or "state housing"?

[delicate bane]

like, a school board

[near ocean]

🤷 just uk things

[gritty rivet]

I suspect those terms may be used to, or at least understood

[sleek egret]

from now on when I speak to brits, I'm gonna use them

[near ocean]

Im not sure, but its tied to the local authority "councils"
I didnt actually go to school here

[thorny sphinx]

Councils don’t really run them

[sleek egret]

why not?

[thorny sphinx]

The schools run themselves and funding comes from government

[sleek egret]

aren't "councils" just the local gov?

[thorny sphinx]

Yeah funding may come from them but the convo above said that they run the schools when they don’t

[sleek egret]

oh, ok

well, in the US, each town funds and runs its own schools

[near ocean]

You go through your local council to apply your kids to school, if thats not them running the schools idk what is

[sleek egret]

running the school means setting the curriculum, hiring/firing teachers, setting the schedules, setting priorities, etc

[sleek egret]

little late for that, isn't it?

well, I guess better now than later

go. interviewing is a skill all on its own. and you can really only get better by practicing. if you're not sure what they want to see, just strait up ask them. that's literally why they're there.

[smoky quest]

• Get your resume reviewed
• Any interesting school project you could put on it?

[gritty rivet]

Sure.... especially if you're interested in web development work

[delicate bane]

maybe you should just go and see what kind of companies are there. it might not be worth the effort of making something last minute if you dont already have something ready. especially since there is a chance companies might just dismiss you based on your year which is sad but it happens.

if theyre friendly, however, they may give you advice for next year/about what kind of candidates they are looking for

[frosty bobcat]

Pls i need help

[sleek egret]

This channel is about careers, not programming help. try #1035199133436354600 or #python-discussion

[dreamy shadow]

I'm going to have to review my Linear Algebra before fall classes starts.

My brain trying to recall what I've learned:

Also, my manager's data lake perms expired. So now I'm stuck doing the queries...

[near remnant]

If I already have a fullstack project and 6 months of work experience ( python backend ) should I prioritize leetcode or creating more projects?

[spark cobalt]

Probably better if you sent your resume so we can be a better judge.

[gritty rivet]

I agree it depends on your resume, and it also depends on what you're applying for and how it's going.... Leetcode is for interview prep and is not going to help you if you're not getting interviews

[leaden jasper]

@frosty bobcat This is the incorrect channel. Please see #❓｜how-to-get-help

[near remnant]

what you just said I know already but thanks dude

where can I post my resume

[spark cobalt]

For junior developers, I think a good judge of if you're set for Leetcode is if you're able to solve most Medium problems under 30 minutes. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the top companies routinely give out hards for juniors, but unsure if that's the goal. Generally those are limited to a handful of companies.

Can post here. I'd recommend you anonymize it.

[near remnant]

okay, brb

[shy lance]

@modern ore do I respond to this or what

I don't think that's an offer yet tho

their starting salary is $110K up to $170K fulltime . the south jersey area is so cheap.

for instance it's like half as expensive as NYc

[indigo nest]

Guys, what do you think about the ChatGPT and it's coding abilities? I am currently learning front-web developing, but that program seems to be able to create websites.

[spark cobalt]

Someone needs to make a ChatGPT like wall, and then someone pin it.

[indigo nest]

What do you mean?

[spark cobalt]

People ask this question, a lot. And people have to re-re-re-re-explain that ChatGPT is not going to take their jobs.

[delicate bane]

literally this ^. long story short, chatgpt is a tool. it will only accelerate devs instead of taking away their jobs.

[delicate bane]

so many regulars have chimed in lol

ah wilder, you taking a stab at writing a wall? maybe we can convince a mod to pin it if possible

[spark cobalt]

TLDR:

ChatGPT is an algorithm intended to communicate with people, NOT code, NOT write your essays, NOT do etc. In actual practical programming, it in no way understands many things: The structure of your application, what is already implemented, what kind of technologies is used, what your market demands are, etc. A very run down way to describe ChatGPT is it takes tokens, or keywords, and then fills in with other words to make a proper replying sentence.

CoPilot by all means is much better than ChatGPT in actually helping us code. But all it did was, as Rex said, accelerate the speed that programmers are developing at. Has CoPilot taken anyone's jobs?

[spark cobalt]

I'm sure someone can explain it better than I can. Just leave the work to them

[indigo nest]

Well, maybe my question was dumb because of my inexperience, I am new to programming in general. Thank you guys for answering!

[white relic]

Tell chatgpt to do it

[kind cipher]

[dreamy shadow]

If you put "Something went wrong" as your error message. I'm ready to throw fists. LOOKING AT YOU MICROSOFT TEAMS.

[delicate bane]

then afterwards say "make it more pythonic"

[delicate bane]

oh well guess you cant work anymore today

[dreamy shadow]

Spent 10mins trying to upload this CSV file to my manager. Suddenly starts to work when I threaten to send it via email. Composed it and everything.

"Something went wrong. Please try again."

[delicate bane]

also are you still looking for a new job or nah? also should i look for a new job lmao

[dreamy shadow]

I kinda gave up on job hunting. Going to stick around slightly longer.

[delicate bane]

working on unmaintainable systems accumulating worse and worse tech debt over time is a drag

[dreamy shadow]

Although, every time my current manager asks me something that only my old manager would know, I think about linkedin's job tab.

I'm looking at the same PLACES YOU SHOULD BE LOOKING. I ain't no magician.

Also, I have learned to appreciate my old manager's documentation skills a lot more.

[delicate bane]

i open it "just to look" every time the business starts making unreasonable requests with tight deadlines/didnt listen to you previously but now they change their minds bc a customer is threatening to leave/etc.

[dreamy shadow]

I start my masters program in the fall, so after 2 years. I'll have 5 + YoE AND an advanced degree. TRY AND STOP ME THEN AUTO FILTERS

[delicate bane]

i think im "too close to the sun" aka too close to the business as a data scientist. i need a buffer layer tbh

[dreamy shadow]

Apparently upgrading packages from one python version to another requires 3 teams of basically 11 people.

[delicate bane]

like some sort of data product manager or even some kinda business analyst tbh

[delicate bane]

let me guess, you were one of those 11

[dreamy shadow]

AND somehow me, because of course my old manager started the convo + was responsible so now I am...

[delicate bane]

you hate to see it

[dreamy shadow]

Lmao, funniest part was I got added to the call half way through.

Sigh, going to be a busy week this week and next. The "actual" ds team finally got back to me on the model results (which the model is bad, but I already knew that). So going to have to deal with that project too.

[delicate bane]

bro its hella busy for me too. the business has finally decided to fix this falling apart product but its a little too late since the devs that actually knew this codebase have already left and the AI part of it is falling apart as well lmao

[dreamy shadow]

At least this is a long weekend. Monday off.

[dreamy shadow]

Lmao, the other team handling the python upgrade is like: "Yea, so we upgraded, retrained the model and the predictions are different".

Oh really? The predictions are different? Who would have guessed?

Even the other team lead was like: "Duh, you retrained the model. Upgrade without retraining".

AND THEN, they ask me: "What do you think?". I'm like, uh yea. Touch one thing at a time to test if things are working right?

Why am I underpaid again?

[delicate bane]

same tbh lmao

i should have negotiated for more when i started. rookie mistake.

[dreamy shadow]

I did, all I got was an extra sign on bonus instead.

[delicate bane]

hmm maybe i can move teams. do you think thats doable or will i burn too many bridges since its a somewhat small company?

[dreamy shadow]

If you have internal job posts, you can take a look. I did, but I didn't see any DS roles internally.

[delicate bane]

with a company like ours, its too small for stuff like that. its more like: manager likes you -> looks at budget for headcount -> talks to HR -> creates a job posting -> then is able to hire you

the job posting is for regulatory reasons or something since its technically not necessary for internal hiring

[shy lance]

yea

[dreamy shadow]

I'm waiting to see if my raise this year is 3% or less lmao. My old manager left me good words before he left.

Also, yea. You can definitely tell when companies list internal promotions/jobs just for compliance reasons.

[delicate bane]

yeah lmao for sure. also good luck dude haha

[dreamy shadow]

Anything less than what, 8%? or was it 9% is technically a pay cut.

[shy lance]

thanks! I'm going to fail the interview bro!

[dreamy shadow]

PREP PREP AND MORE PREP.

Also, keep applying to jobs. Some places are simply looking for a unicorn. Other places don't know what they are looking for.

[shy lance]

impossible lmfaooo

[shy lance]

if u say this I'm going to brain explode. I did almost 800 lc problems at this point. 200 in the past month

[dreamy shadow]

Don't just focus on LC questions though*. Some of the other algro, etc.

I feel like grinding LC questions only really work for FANG companies.

[shy lance]

algro?

[dreamy shadow]

algorithm questions.

[shy lance]

??? leetcode tests u that

[white relic]

prep time is better spent on mock interviews or researching stuff the company does than doing hundreds of leetcode puzzles

[shy lance]

ehhhhhhhhhhh idk

[shy lance]

how accurate is this ? @modern ore

[true harness]

i'm pretty sure ringring has no actual industry experience

i'm just a student, but i agree with trent. it's much easier to fuck up questions like "why do you want to work here" than an algos question

[white relic]

inexperienced people often make the error of assuming interviews are all about showing how smart you are, and omit to prepare for anything but the very technical side

[shy lance]

I do care bro, I'll prep trust. but I'm not going to stress over the behavioral side.

[white relic]

if you've done hundreds of leetcodes and not one mock interview, you're going to be much less well prepared than someone who prepared more thoroughly.

[shy lance]

yeah I've never done mock interview

[white relic]

You shouldn't stress over any of it. But if you want the job that badly to do hundreds of leetcodes, you should have already asked for an outside opinion on in what respect you might be lacking.

[shy lance]

💀

[white relic]

I mean unless you just like doing leetcodes and do them for fun and to challenge yourself, that's 100% cool

I didn't do any mock interviews. But I also didn't do leetcode. Don't remember if it was a "thing" when I graduated, and also didn't interview for many software positions.
I did get an offer, but it would have been smart to have prepped more, in both respects.

[leaden jasper]

I don't know of a single person who wouldn't benefit from some interview prep. A bad interview will tank the offer, regardless of how well you do on the technical aspects like answering a coding problem. Practicing and prepping answers to common questions, identifying the projects you want to talk about and getting notable/specific details about those projects will do a lot for you.

Interviewing is more than just showing up and hoping you answer their questions well. It should be a conversation and you should mostly know what you're going to talk about.

To take it to an extreme example: Even if you can answer every single problem on leetcode perfectly, if you don't interview well and I don't think you'll work well with a team, then there are probably other candidates that will get selected over you

[sleek egret]

katj9 speaks wise words

[spark cobalt]

I'm having the same issue as well with Outlook bruh

[vapid jay]

Hey, anyone free to help me quickly with a quick python code?

[spark cobalt]

Wrong channel

[vapid jay]

Which?

[spark cobalt]

#❓｜how-to-get-help or #python-discussion

[shy lance]

if it's about projects I can talk a lot about it.

if it's about what makes me a great fit, sure I can answer that.

if it asks why this company, I might be fked. I'll have to look into that

[spark cobalt]

Many ways to answer that. If you're unsure of what the company does precisely, or how it fits into the market, you can always look at Glassdoor and justify why you want to work there from other people's positive experience working there.

[shy lance]

I'm just looking at the company's mission and how that aligns with my interests

[true harness]

make sure what you say is not generic and actually specific to the company

[white relic]

If it's hard to find out what you'd like to know about the company, write it down and ask it in the interview. Interviews should be a two way street.

[spark cobalt]

• https://charity.wtf/2021/02/19/questionable-advice-how-can-i-sniff-out-bad-managers-while-interviewing-for-a-job/
• https://github.com/viraptor/reverse-interview
• https://github.com/tBaxter/questions-for-employers

Saw someone send these links for that somewhere.

[deep drum]

What are some of the top certificates employers seek out in positions for a cloud engineer/architect, and what coding languages should I hone in my skills on to get a job within that field?

[smoky quest]

a cs degree is the main thing employers would look for.
Beyond that, the typical aws/gcloud/etc. can be a plus

[deep drum]

thanks for the info, im completing my cs degree in june and was just looking of some things to add to my resume to ensure that i get a decent internship/job off the bat

[white relic]

Where in the world are you?

[thorny sphinx]

If you have good side projects you should apply to graduate jobs @deep drum

[white relic]

what does "graduate job" mean to you

[thorny sphinx]

At my company Graduate is a step above intern. Interns can only be students in most internships in my country and usually penultimate year of their degree.

[white relic]

oh you mean regular job as opposed to an internship?

[deep drum]

USA near chicago

[white relic]

yes, I agree, it would be unusual to get an internship after you actually graduated

[deep drum]

just wondering on these things, many job posting list their requirements for the positions and determining whether or not its worth the time investment

[spark cobalt]

Well you would preferably want to apply to jobs that fit with whatever niche you're best at. But beyond that shouldn't matter too much.

Should be applying for new grad and all junior positions.

[white relic]

You can't ensure getting a decent offer. I suggest thinking more in terms of maximizing your chances of getting an offer.

[thorny sphinx]

Degree + good Side Project + technical interview practice

[white relic]

A variety of stuff on a resume is a good way to improve those chances, because the more things are on there the more likely it is some recruiter or manager will take notice of one of them and want to bring you in.
You can post your resume here (with personal info redacted) for feedback if you like

[inner wren]

Hey @deep drum!

It looks like you tried to attach file type(s) that we do not allow (.pdf). We currently allow the following file types: .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .mov, .mp4, .mpg, .png, .mp3, .wav, .ogg, .webm, .webp, .flac, .m4a, .csv, .json.

Feel free to ask in #community-meta if you think this is a mistake.

[deep drum]

Here's my resume, I hope to get a job as a data analyst in the software/it/cloud field and eventually transition into cloud engineering/architecture or data science

[white relic]

You can post a link to it in a comment or a screenshot

[white relic]

Education is a bit thin. It should contain at least the name of the institution you're getting the degree from and the (possibly future) date of graduation. Unless those are there in the original and you redacted them?

[deep drum]

yeah they are i just removed em

should i add any relevant coursework as an undertone to the education?

[white relic]

also, AP CS doesn't really belong on there. Anything from high school is pretty much irrelevant

you should also name the exact degree you got/will get, e.g. "Bachelor of Science in Computer Science"

[true harness]

as i understand, resumes should be one page. you can probably cut most of the "strengths and competencies" section

[white relic]

yeah. Columns aren't great either, they can confuse automated systems.

[deep drum]

thanks!

[true harness]

i'm assuming your name and contact info is at the top?

[deep drum]

yes, i might add some hyperlinks/logo for my linkedin, portfolio, medium

[true harness]

in geek squad manager, first bullet point. should not be "one of my top achievements ..." should just be "consistently met and exceeded deliverables ..."

[white relic]

I would take the "signature achievements" and fold them in to the experience section, under the positions in which you made the achievements. You might bold the ones you're most proud of so they stand out but having them in their own section is wasteful of space IMO.

reverse chronological order is pretty standard for resumes, you want the most recent stuff first

[delicate bane]

for a data analyst position, idk if this resume is optimized for one tbh. can you not slim it down to one page?

honestly do you have any projects/portfolio? if i were you, i would try to include that and maybe remove a prior job or condense that section greatly.

[deep drum]

yeah im going to keep my relevant experience as data analyst consultant within my recruiter positions and remove best buy, and include link to my github page which has my portfolio projects

[delicate bane]

thats a good idea. just remember many peeps might not click on a link so if you can have a couple projects with a line or so about them that would be good.

[lost mural]

hi i study the programming in the university and i found some dificult how can i develop my self in the programming and the logic??

any advice please

[spark cobalt]

Just program. Embrace being uncomfortable, and just program.

You were probably expecting a better answer, but that's all there is to it. Just practicing how to problem solve, how to use resources effectively, how to know exactly where to look to get what you need, etc. takes practice.

Basically learning a language to communicate with a computer. Can't be fluent on the first day. Requires that you embrace it and practice it routinely.

[slender yoke]

Hello, as an undergraduate with data science internship experience, a couple of projects, and related volunteering, do you think a 2-page/1.5-page resume is frowned upon?

[turbid dome]

imo yes.
unless you are applying for research positions where your publications are really important to be showcased - otherwise i would really stick with 1 page maximum

[spark cobalt]

It might be time to cut some things.

[gilded valley]

Depends on where you are, this is a bit country dependent. I wouldn't in the UK or US, but most of Europe doesn't mind CVs being a little longer

[slender yoke]

@turbid dome @spark cobalt @gilded valley
Thank you all, I will cut it to one page

Do you recommend having a "volunteering" section or would it be better to just merge than in my summary at the top?
For example adding a sentence like "Team player and organizer who is X at X student club"

[true harness]

it would be useful to actually see the resume

[turbid dome]

to me, that would be just fluff, as a hiring manager i wouldn't base my decision on these additional information. (completely different if your volunteering experience is tech-related, in those case, include them!)

but that might be just me, and fyi i am based in the UK.

[gilded valley]

I would definitely include it. You want rounded people on the team, that sort of thing demonstrates roundedness

[white relic]

I wouldn't put it in its own section, just as a line item under education

[icy elk]

@turbid dome hey I've got a question if you don't mind

Why do most companies simply don't want to hire people outside of the UK even if it is outside ir35?

For US and UK and most of EU, it is legal to get into work contracts with people outside the country even if they don't have a work permit for the said country

Work permits are only required if you actually live in the country that you live in

[white relic]

idk about UK, but most US companies are simply not set up to pay people internationally.
US tax law is bizarre though.

[icy elk]

In IRS's website, they clearly state that work visa is only required for people who live in the USA

And they literally have a form for people who will work for a US company from outside the US

[turbid dome]

hmm i don't really know that tbh.

as far as i understand it, ir35 has really changed in the last few years, and the employer could be on the hook for any violation. (i am not fully versed in the changes though...) hence outside ir35 is just rare in general now

and anytime you deal with oversea employee/contractors, i suspect there is tax implication and is a hassle to work it out. (this is just a guess!)

P.S. i am just a guy who help screen cv and interview people so i am not experienced in these things!

[icy elk]

I see, alright, thanks!

[white relic]

A work visa is not the only bureaucratic obstacle to having an international team.

[icy elk]

What else?

[white relic]

Legal, HR, payroll, IT...

Entering into contract with someone who isn't in the same legal jurisdiction as you is inherently fraught

[inner wren]

Hey @slender yoke!

It looks like you tried to attach file type(s) that we do not allow (). We currently allow the following file types: .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .mov, .mp4, .mpg, .png, .mp3, .wav, .ogg, .webm, .webp, .flac, .m4a, .csv, .json.

Feel free to ask in #community-meta if you think this is a mistake.

[true harness]

send a screenshot

i hope that font looks better than in the screenshot

[slender yoke]

It does, I'm not sure why the quality turned bad when I sent it

Is it readable?

[true harness]

yeah it's fine. is your name on there?

[slender yoke]

Nope, I removed personal info

[true harness]

you have "Email | Number | Location" but no name, so i was wondering

[slender yoke]

Oh my name would be where "DS intern" is written

@gilded valley @turbid dome
The volunteering part was tech related, but it took up a lot of space so I removed the details and just added the title at the summary at the top. Is that better or should I put that section back?

[white relic]

Are you in a degree program? That should be on there with your expected graduation date even if it's a year out

[slender yoke]

Yeah I am, it's in the education section and I have the date as 2020-2024

[white relic]

but what degree

[true harness]

what country are you in?

[slender yoke]

Oh I have that added next to the Uni name and my major (AI)

[slender yoke]

Egypt, but I'm also looking for internships (possibly remote) in the US and EU so I'm trying to make it fit that criteria too

[gilded valley]

I would cut down some of the content about the projects - e.g no one cares about the accuracy of your model - and readd the volunteering.

Also, you might have removed them for privacy reasons, but if not, you should include the LinkedIn and GitHub URLs as text not just hyperlinks

[gilded valley]

You also duplicate a lot of information in the project section by listing technologies twice

[true harness]

i think you should maybe cut one or two projects and expand more on your experience. company Y only has 1 bullet

also, in your "Skills" section, you only have 1 subheading, "Technical Skills". i would just get rid of that subheading. additionally, "Problem Solving" is kind of just fluff

[delicate ember]

hey guys, at the moment, i am required to choose my elective modules for my current Polytechnic Diploma Course:

1. Cloud Architecture
2. Infocomm Sales and Marketing Strategies
3. Mobile Applications

what do you guys think is the more feasible choice. Dont really have much background for any of these modules

[sleek egret]

you should choose the one that interests you

[delicate ember]

yeah i get that, but im pretty mutual with everything at the moment

any idea on what cloud architecture is all abt?

[slender yoke]

I read that it's advised to add measurable points in the resume, so what else could I have instead of model accuracy?
For the technologies, I'm not sure what you mean by duplicates since I listed the ones I used for each project and there are some projects where I used the same technologies

[slender yoke]

Alright thank you, I'll do so

[gilded valley]

It's not really a meaningful point at all to someone who knows nothing about the dataset.

Meaningful points would be more like, "improved the production models accuracy by 5%", the reader needs some point of reference

But for a generic kaggle problem there is no real meaningful datapoint you can include

[dreamy shadow]

Use more action. E.g. Improved model by x% through image augmentation.

Nvm, already mentioned above.

[slender yoke]

Okay thanks a lot, I'll edit these points

[sleek egret]

yar

[warped token]

Hey people

So I am a second year student in college and I'm looking for any sort of internship opportunity and work experience. I have no prior experience or anything like that, I just want somewhere to get started.

I think I'm good with python as in I am at a point where I can learn stuff relatively quickly.

So can anyone help me get started on where and how to start applying

[true harness]

do you have a resume? look up job boards in your area (probably linkedin is a good one) and apply

[warped token]

I recently got into deep learning and I have very less knowledge in that field. But I would like to start in job in that field

[warped token]

Not really

[true harness]

then you need to make a resume

[delicate bane]

if you are seriously interested in DL, you should also consider whether you are willing to go to graduate school. since that is a common requirement.

[warped token]

What are job boards I don't we have those where I live?
And how do I reach out to people on LinkedIn?

[true harness]

there must be job boards where you live. what country?

[warped token]

Any advice on how to make one? I really have no idea on how to get started.

[true harness]

google a resume template, put your info in, get people to review it

[slender yoke]

Even for jobs that are not research-based?

[warped token]

See I really want to go for grad school but my grades have really fallen down this year. I will have to really work on those and then see if I can apply to schools. All the good schools are in America and I'm from India. It's tough road to go from here to there

[warped token]

India

[true harness]

there's no way india doesn't have job boards

[sleek egret]

india has literally dozens of major job sites and hundreds (if not thousands) of minor job sites

[delicate bane]

for DS roles, typically. but you could probably still get a DS role if you have domain knowledge/experience in a specific industry/domain. if youre looking for more ML engineering or data engineering roles, then typically people have experience as a former SWE or classic data roles (ETL developer, etc.)

[true harness]

All the good schools are in America
and there's no way india doesn't have good schools

[warped token]

Hmm ok I guess I can start there. But I don't have anything to add to my resume till now. I am in a reputed college so that should hopefully help in case of domestic recruiters. But still the competition is really strong

[delicate bane]

maybe consider working in the industry and getting some work experience before going to grad school then

[sleek egret]

I vaguely recall that someone told me that there is a lot of top down federal gov control of universities in india

[true harness]

do you have projects?

[sleek egret]

so it's actually possible there are non "good schools" there. that said, I've heard good things about IIT, so I strongly suspect that there are good schools in india.

[warped token]

I assure you india has no good schools for an ms degree. Undergrad maybe. But the scope research is pretty much non existent here. Plus I really want to experience in the west.

[warped token]

Ye maybe

[true harness]

i highly doubt that, but you would know better. you should know that as an international student, your chances of being accepted to anything are extremely low

[slender yoke]

https://www.careercup.com/resume
You can check this out, but make sure it applies to your country as well

[warped token]

Projects like what? I've seen YouTube tutorials for a lot of things by now. Learnt a lot but no I have no good project under my belt.

[sleek egret]

that advice really only applies to people with a few years of experience

[true harness]

anything that you made yourself that is interesting and showcases your skills

[sleek egret]

(the careercup resume thing, that is)

[warped token]

Yeah the iits are good, so are the bits colleges and so are the nits/iiits

[warped token]

can you give me a few ideas for projects that people may like?

[true harness]

do you have anything you're interested in?

[sleek egret]

might as well say "things" instead of "projects". that's how vague your question is. best to select projects YOU find interesting, so that when you are asked about it, your enthusiasm shines through

[warped token]

I am interested in money(jk). See I am looking for a internship in deep learning only.

[warped token]

Yeah that makes sense

[true harness]

so maybe have some deep learning projects

[warped token]

Can you give me some ideas?

[true harness]

i don't know anything about deep learning, so no

[delicate bane]

DL is a huge field. you should narrow your focus. computer vision, NLP, search, recommendations, reinforcement learning, etc.

[sleek egret]

murder bots

[warped token]

Computer Vision is what I'm learning right now and i'll eventually get into nlp too i think

[warped token]

lmao

[slender yoke]

Ohh I see, thanks. A MS degree would be sufficient for the industry rather than a pHD, right?

[warped token]

What do you know about?

[delicate bane]

i would be wary of trying to boil the ocean btw. these fields are extraordinarily large and moving extremely quickly. i wont stop you but just fyi.

[sleek egret]

combine CV with a machine gun. and you get one of these => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQHVwYL1we4

[delicate bane]

yes. if you can do internships during your schooling, even better.

[sleek egret]

(it was introduced maybe 8 years ago?)

[slender yoke]

It's best to work on projects too before trying to expand

[warped token]

Yeye I get that. Will try to narrow my focus

[sleek egret]

oh no, I"m wrong, more like 16 years ago

[warped token]

See but my question is what projects? What is it that I should work on? Say if I am pursuing Computer Vision

[sleek egret]

internships are, IMO, very VERY important to getting gaining an advantage over other students for your first job out of university

[warped token]

ik and thats why i desperately want one

[delicate bane]

so many students underestimate internships. i say, do as many as you can.

[slender yoke]

You could start with a simple project like digit (1-9) classifier

[sleek egret]

Make a combat bot that is better than this one => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3RIHnK0_NE

[warped token]

Bruh I have done that much

Wait is that a project? Thats like the first think you learn about lmao.

[slender yoke]

Currently in one, I'll try my best to get into as many as possible

[warped token]

What are you doing?

[slender yoke]

Well I assumed you haven't done projects before

[delicate bane]

i mean. feel free to explore to see which one you like but eventually i would advise on picking a focus and learning one well

[slender yoke]

Data science and ML

[warped token]

As in where are you interning and how did you go about finding the chance?

[warped token]

and how did apply?

what are your projects?

[slender yoke]

I found the internship through LinkedIn
It's very very important to focus on your LinkedIn profile and network with various people since it opens many opportunities for you

[warped token]

Can i dm you regarding all this? the time thingy is very annoying

[slender yoke]

I posted my resume up there, you can scroll up and see

[slender yoke]

I am not sure what the time thing is, but sure

[sleek egret]

by "time thing", maybe he means slowmode

[slender yoke]

Ohhh makes sense

[warped token]

ye

idk anything sry lol

[slender yoke]

Also, does someone know what would be an appropriate salary range as a remote part-timer in the data science field? I tried to search but couldn't find something helpful

[delicate bane]

it is extremely location dependent

including country/state/locality

[gritty rivet]

try glassdoor, level.fyi, etc. but part-time is probably rare so you may need to extrapolate from full time

[white relic]

by hourly rate, my internships paid about half what my starting salary turned out to be after I graduated

idk if that's typical, but starting salary is easier to find numbers for

[sleek egret]

soup: salary range will be between $20k/yr to $2mil/yr, depending on skills, employer, responsibilities, location, project, etc, etc, etc. sometimes higher, sometimes lower.

I imagine those working part time skew towards the lower end

[slender yoke]

Alright, thank you all 🙏

[amber crane]

how should I go about getting a more science-research oriented job? It feels like all the jobs that are being offered are web development jobs :(

[leaden jasper]

Where are you looking and how are you searching for these positions?

[amber crane]

mostly looking on linkedin and my university's job offering web

[leaden jasper]

What are your search terms for LinkedIn? How are you selecting things to look at?

Generally, for science and research positions, the job description won't be written like most software dev positions are written. Like the terms they use will be different. It may be worth looking at specific companies that do the work you're interested in and seeing what they're using for those job descriptions as starting points for what to search for. Also looking at their competitors

[amber crane]

Ah, yeah that sounds good, I'll have to give it a try.
To be honest I'm mostly looking for: "Something that's not web development for a generic soul-sucking company". I'd prefer if it was something science or research related but I don't have much more to go with than that :/

I'm mostly frustrated by the fact that whenever I look into linkedin or any other place of that sort all that I see is web-dev related jobs so I don't even know where to start looking

[leaden jasper]

Like for instance, any biotech company will need IT support and the like. Any pharma company has a heavy need for programmers because of their internal tools they build and maintain. So you may need to go specifically search there.

It will probably also help if you identify the specific work you want to do. Do you want to be doing the science/research directly? Do you want to support others doing that? Is it just "not webdev"?

[amber crane]

I was thinking along the lines of supporting a team as the IT guy. Like, a team of chemists that produced a bunch of data and they need a program to sort through it. Or they have some model and they want something to simulate it and the like.

[leaden jasper]

hmmmm... so that's not quite how things end up working in practice. Researchers are pretty good at analyzing and sorting through their own data. Most will have a decent-ish grasp on coding, some might even be very good. Modelers especially will be 50% programming/cs, 50% science/physics.

What often ends up happening is you help build the very specialized tools they need that are more than the simple scripts they can whip up themselves. Or you help them deploy their own processes and you take on more of a DevOps role. If there's a lot of data, like in pharma, then you can help build the pipeline tools and analytic tools.

[tight cliff]

Hi, I am looking to work on some open-source projects, could someone please tell me how to go about it.

[pine sleet]

!contribute

[inner wren]

Contribute to Python Discord's Open Source Projects
Looking to contribute to Open Source Projects for the first time? Want to add a feature or fix a bug on the bots on this server? We have on-going projects that people can contribute to, even if you've never contributed to open source before!

Projects to Contribute to
• Sir Lancebot - our fun, beginner-friendly bot
• Python - our utility & moderation bot
• Site - resources, guides, and more

Where to start

1. Read our contribution guide
2. Chat with us in #dev-contrib if you're ready to jump in or have any questions
3. Open an issue or ask to be assigned to an issue to work on

[amber crane]

ohh I see, that's good to know then, thanks for the tips kat

[tight cliff]

Thank you!

[rose elk]

Besides the basics the only thing you really need to be good at is how to look up information, 99% of IT/electricians and programers are basically just better att googling stuff than the NPCs

[leaden jasper]

That's not really true, especially as you get more involved in advanced topics and projects

Knowing how to search and find information is an important skill, but that's definitely not the only thing you need to be good at

[rose elk]

Yeah I guess more complex systems has to have the more creative hand I guess. But alot of technician-consumer interactions is pretty basic stuff

[sleek egret]

besides domain knowledge, as systems grow in size, you will learn software development is about complexity management. that is, while no individual component is all that challenging, the system as a whole can become incredibly complex and thus, your days are spent organizing the interactions between components.

and for the largest systems, you have entire teams of people who do that

if you sort of think about it, all higher level software development techniques revolve around complexity management. modularity, information hiding, scoping, encapsulation, etc, etc

all python 3.x's are fake

[solemn pivot]

how are u this dumb

[sleek egret]

be nice. or else.

[solemn pivot]

wont happen again boss

[leaden jasper]

!ban 928001762185592832 That gif was wildly inappropriate and so are your comments here.

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @solemn pivot permanently.

[spark cobalt]

Finally got some work to do

[leaden jasper]

@obsidian ibex This channel isn't the appropriate one. Ask in #python-discussion

[spark cobalt]

@leaden jasper

[sleek egret]

well that was interesting

[limpid comet]

Hi guys, I am a computer engineering student and I want to buy a new computer but I am confused could anyone help me please

[leaden jasper]

!cban 1005919682181746769 nope

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @obsidian ibex permanently.

[spark cobalt]

I'd probably get a Mac. Really portable for students, and runs really nicely for laptops and something's its size. Though not everyone's a fan of developing on MacOS. (At least I'm not)

[sleek egret]

it's helpful to understand MacOS alongside Linux and Windows

[spark cobalt]

It's very common yep

People that have PCs constantly have to bring it back home everytime they go back, which just isn't possible for everyone (especially if you fly)

I have a really nice Windows laptop and it doesn't even come close to compare to performance of Mac.

[limpid comet]

I got confused on that part and I don't know very well about systems and processors too

[sleek egret]

one of the surprises for the M1 macs was python is MUCH faster for certain operations vs windows/linux. I think it's because they have hardware support for dynamic memory allocation/deallocation (which python does everywhere nonstop)

[pine sleet]

I use windows at home and macOS on the fly
It's great

[spark cobalt]

It shouldn't matter too much for student level imo.

I use Mac for work and Windows for virtually everything else.

[limpid comet]

I am probably going to buy a Mac but it's really expensive here in Turkey and I was wondering if it's worth it

[sleek egret]

you could always buy one in the EU while on "vacation" or something

[limpid comet]

I didn't know that thanks

[limpid comet]

İt's not possible for me because it's too expensive for a student here

[pine sleet]

Windows for gaming, macOS for work / school on the go, Linux for everything else

[limpid comet]

I want to buy something ı can use for a long time and get a good performance

[limpid comet]

I will use it for coding generally

[sleek egret]

probably same guy

[analog sun]

!cban 726708093739860018

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @bitter schooner permanently.

[sleek egret]

I feel sorry for kids that feel the need to try to shock people to get any attention

[limpid comet]

Thank you guys for your suggestions

[smoky quest]

<@&831776746206265384> ads

[analog sun]

!rule 6 If you feel that this message was removed incorrectly, please DM @severe widget

[inner wren]

Rules

6. Do not post unapproved advertising.

[thin swallow]

just checking
i am conducting a hackathon and distributing prize money against the competition
it's completely free and can be considered as genuine gesture from my company
please correct me if this thinking is wrong

[analog sun]

It is an advertisement, please get approval prior to posting in this server

[peak halo]

Does anyone else use Jira? We just started using it on one of my projects, and literally everyone hates it.

This is the most over-engineered UI I've ever seen.

[delicate bane]

its awful. but so is Azure DevOps

[leaden jasper]

I was literally just bitching about it this morning!

[balmy spade]

One of the unlucky 10_000 of the day.

[peak halo]

I just asked my coworker how Jira could be even worse, and he said "if it just deleted stuff without telling you". but it would make literally no difference, because everything is already impossible to find.

[winged matrix]

Personally I don't mind Jira, coupled with confluence I think they make a good combination, but I do wonder why it gets a lot of backlash...

[peak halo]

god damn it. now I'm getting spam emails for each ticket I created

[balmy spade]

It gets backlash because it literally embodies what stelercus called it:

...the most over-engineered UI...
Jira is what happens when you are open to new ideas and closed to reason. It has everything for no reason other than having everything. So what should be a very straightforward process is endlessly complicated by a dozen ways to do one thing.

[peak halo]

tbf, if there are people who want all these features, that's fine. but the UI needs to apply gradual disclosure of complexity.

I come to Jira, and I see a whole bunch of things I don't want to use. but I can't figure out how to do the thing I wanted to do.

[balmy spade]

We have two in-house tools at work, developed by two separate branches of the company, that are UI-frontends to Jira. I think that, in itself, is enough of a statement on the complexity. When a dev team builds their own workflow to use your workflow, consider simplifying your workflow.

[dreamy shadow]

tmw: your manager asks you questions beyond your pay grade. If I knew the answers to these questions, I would be in a more senior role...

[balmy spade]

mfw you think your knowledge is a reflection of your pay.

[dreamy shadow]

In terms of big picture movement, uh I would sure think so.

[balmy spade]

In terms of contract negotiation: I wish you only the highest offers in consideration of your knowledge and skills.

Outside of contract negotiation: It's a dangerously self-limited phrase; "that's beyond my pay grade". It cripples your mind into thinking you not only can't but shouldn't.

[spark cobalt]

You need to remove all tables and only have Issues.

All the fucking scheduling shit, 3 tables in one page, all that thing is ass. But if you set your Jira project to just include Issues tab, then you just get a single table of all issues.

Then you don't get auto prompted into that shitty To-do, In progress table thing and the other 3 UI monstrosities they force on you

It's good, but they really need to stop making the default UI a cesspool.

It's a setting on the projects, not on the user.

[dreamy shadow]

Yes, that's basically what compensation basically is based on, YoE.
Also, there are definitely things outside my scope. Is it limiting? Depends? In this case, not really as these are company specific questions.

Not going to humor this any further. Sounds argumentative for the sake of argumentative.

[molten sinew]

CREATE A FLOWCHART TO MAKE THE ROBOT CREATE THE SHAPES SQUARE AND TRIANGLE

[dapper depot]

what?

[buoyant seal]

may be it is a new chatGPT generated spam 😅

[smoky quest]

People get promoted because they demonstrate they operate above their level.

[gilded valley]

No, they get promoted because they persuade their line manager that they deserve one. Demonstrating they operate above their level is one way to do that

People regularly get promotions due purely to longevity

[stable elbow]

Got 2.5 interviews lined up just today after months of nothing

Hope to god I land one of em. The .5 is from a botched SQL assessment since it asked for MySQL and I only knew postgres :(. See if they want to schedule me

[gilded valley]

MySQL Vs Postgres is minimal difference, why wouldn't you just do it and let them know the situation?

[true harness]

also, if you botched the assessment how is that .5

[smoky quest]

haha true. But given the message I was replying to, it was too tempting

[velvet acorn]

I've just started my first SWE job primarily developing internal applications with Python. I'm coming from a JavaScript background and was curious if anyone had any advice.

My company is super small and is starting to hire more Engineers after their small team built out all of their applications, but they were focused on speed and don't seem to have any standardized coding standards or anything. In the JavaScript world we used Linters and had NPM for package management.

I've started using pipenv for dependency management, but I was wondering if there were any other practices/tools I should try to bring into the team or be aware of?

[gilded valley]

Fair, I was more looking at what Preocts was saying, but you're right that it is one way which is obviously relevant here.

I think the industry in general is a bit shit with lots of people staying too long in the wrong role. Both too senior and too junior

[balmy spade]

I would suggest aligning with a small set of linters that fix themselves whenever possible. black, for example fixes formatting itself. mypy, while valuable, stops the dev and makes them fix it.

The goal would be to get a common core of "this is what it takes for our code to be ready" that adds readability and stability. Avoid, especially early on, anything that stops the dev.

I use pre-commit in my team. We have one linter that doesn't fix itself (mypy). The rest all self-heal. We push for pre-commit on the local before pushing to the repo because it's faster than waiting for a full CI pipeline to run.

[stable elbow]

that i did. I did it in PostGres, and it should work, but i just panicked a bit. Hopefully its all good though

[gilded valley]

This question seems fairly off topic. More suited to #software-architecture

[smoky quest]

There is no easy answer to that either.
Some engineers will actively and more aggressively seek out the next stage. And some others will be more passive.
And sometimes they can end up in situations that does not fully realize them either. Or they happen to be the niece/nephew of *

Same thing in general for role/status/compensation

[gilded valley]

Yeah, I agree there's no easy answer. But I think an issue that is unique to Software is that often managers are less technical and therefore less qualified to judge the quality of someone's work - whereas in most industries that kind of skill gap is less common

[smoky quest]

it depends.
There are also a slew of MBA/pure managers in many fields.
If anything, working in startups/hightech, all my managers have been very technical. But you could say there is a selection bias 😉

[balmy spade]

Speaking to my prior comment without overly revisiting the topic, by request of the op; I was not indicating that there was one way or another to get raises, promotions, etc. I was poorly attempting to point out that hindering your willingness to stretch will, in the long term, hinder your progress. Did it apply to that situation? I have no idea. Perhaps I should have said nothing.

[spark cobalt]

All my managers are PhD like 20+ YOE as engineer people

[balmy spade]

My current team lead is almost 20 years younger than me. xD So that's a thing that happens now.

[uncut cave]

There are very few internships and entry level roles for Python and Data Science, but the few I've found want someone who is working on their masters or Ph.D. I'm still applying but it's discouraging when I only have a BS in Mathematics and have been working through online courses. Any good places to look for entry level roles?

[dreamy shadow]

My managers has been all PhD's too (Except most recent). Age wise is all over the place.

[slender yoke]

This is a list of internships, could help:
https://github.com/pittcsc/Summer2023-Internships

[delicate bane]

DS roles tend to prefer graduate-level education. otherwise, if you have experience/domain knowledge in a specific domain/industry, that could also make you competitive. have you considered data analyst roles? you could always try to land one of those positions, work for a couple of years, then move to a DS role if you are finding it tough to get a position in data.

[slender yoke]

Also networking on LinkedIn plays a huge role in landing internships

[red pagoda]

how do u do that if your still in high school

[slender yoke]

who said that I'm in hs? 🤨

[red pagoda]

i was talking about a scenario

[slender yoke]

ohh sorry I misread it

well, tech internships for highschoolers are very rare
but what you can do is reach out to people that are in a certain field that you are interested in, you could ask them for advice and best practices to do right now to increase your chances of landing an internship later on.
you should also try to message them once in a while, not only one time.

adding to that, join hackathons and meet people and perhaps mentors too and stay in touch with them

[red pagoda]

thanks

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied mute to @livid notch until <t:1673584136:f> (10 minutes) (reason: attachments rule: sent 8 attachments in 10s).

The <@&831776746206265384> have been alerted for review.

[spark cobalt]

There are internships that college kids aren't exactly aiming for. And these are like local community college interns, or research interns (at a college). You wouldn't do exactly the greatest work, and won't be paid well, but yeah, these are roles high schoolers would take. Have known quite a few friends that pursued these roles in HS.

At least know quite a few high schoolers that filled these positions. Assuming they just contacted the school or related department....

[minor kestrel]

I know this probably isn’t the place to ask but can anyone suggest a place where I can find an online job that I can work from home with no experience, I know that’s a lot to ask for but at this point I’ll consider anything.

Sorry.

[gilded valley]

online job that I can work from home with no experience
For software development or similar? Nowhere.

You might be able to find call-centre or data entry roles on Indeed or similar sites though

[gritty rivet]

A lot depends on what country you are in, but in general LinkedIn and Indeed will at least give you a sense of what is (and is not) out there. For part time freelance there's Upwork, Fiverr, etc.

[uncut cave]

Thank you, I'll look for data analyst roles

[sleek egret]

bonjour mon petite amis

¿Como estas?

[gilded valley]

No hablo the spaniel

[sleek egret]

moi aussie

[pine sleet]

Why small friends? 🤔

[sleek egret]

I have been reliably informed by my niece that it's insulting to call people "large"

[pine sleet]

I'm pretty sure "petite amis" means girlfriend lol

[hearty island]

my boss paid for my lean six sigma yellow belt cert

inb4 he pays for my lean six sigma black belt and PMP

[sleek egret]

six sigma is for losers, winners do seven sigma

[hearty island]

PMP for da win

[sleek egret]

what is PMP?

project management professionals?

[hearty island]

project management professional yes

[spark cobalt]

Are you gonna be a PM for technical stuff?

[delicate bane]

no probs bud. best of luck.

[hearty island]

i think so

[spark cobalt]

Ah ok, sounds interesting. Keep us updated

We should make a careers blog channel. Some people's story is intriguing and I wanna follow up on some of their updates

Need more data points

[sleek egret]

are stories data points though?

[tepid night]

Is there any data analyst based server?

[spark cobalt]

Yes.

[sleek egret]

I don't want my story to be reduced to a data point

[spark cobalt]

May not be quantifiable on a chart, but it does give me intuition on a specific circumstance, how it plays out, the psychology behind it, that kind of thing.

I mean I can't experience literally everything. So some of things that I reference to when in a situation, is the situation other people have been in.

It's smart to learn from your own mistakes, but it's smarter to learn from other people's mistakes (is the idea, not saying Damien is making a mistake)

[sleek egret]

various studies have shown that it's better to learn from successes than from mistakes

[dreamy shadow]

Did someone say STORY POINTS? CAN DIGITAL TEAM DO THIS TASK? NO, NOT ENOUGH STORY POINTS.

[spark cobalt]

It's more efficient. There's infinite ways to fail, only few ways to succeed.

[sleek egret]

because there are fewer paths to success than there are paths to failure. knowing what not to do doesn't tell you what you should do.

[sleek egret]

EXACTLY!

[spark cobalt]

Yep exactly. Hence why a story is the best. Usually some successes, some fails, but overall having the understanding of the circumstance itself, you can kind of gain intuition on path to success.

But there's infinite circumstances so back to square one . Either way I do think there's benefit in keeping up with some stories.

[sleek egret]

have you ever considered following the eight-fold path?

[spark cobalt]

Never heard of actually. Lemme look into it briefly

To me it's like piecing together an understanding of the world. Also why I'm studying world history right now.

I mean, history is just stories as well

[sleek egret]

the past is a mystery

[spark cobalt]

That's why it's called the present

[sleek egret]

so, if the future is unknown. and the past is a mystery. but the present is simply the future becoming the past. then, does that not mean that the present is also a mysterious unknown?

[spark cobalt]

Chaos

[sleek egret]

if nothing is certain, can we be certain of the unknown?

[dreamy shadow]

I really hate my work laptop. (Dell precision 5550). Oh, I see your running nothing, let me just WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Fan full speed.

[sleek egret]

have you considered getting a mac?

my mac laptop's battery will last for days under light use. and for like 10 or 12 hours with moderate use. and it's completely silent. it doesn't even have a fan.

[dreamy shadow]

Fanless mac, cook an egg and more!

[sleek egret]

I've had previous mac laptops that got really hot. this one does not

[dreamy shadow]

I had an macbook air at my prior position. Throttled due to heat. But we did have VMs that we did actual work on so it wasn't bad.

[sleek egret]

I bet it wasn't an M1 macbook though

[dreamy shadow]

Teams meeting + share screen would beat it down to a crawl

[sleek egret]

I've had like 6 or 8 mac laptops over the years. this M1 laptop is the best by far

fast, snappy, silent, everything is buttery smooth