career-advice

[sleek egret]

you can buy a car working fast food jobs. that's not exactly a high bar. and you don't "save for" a loan, you pay them off after.

[vapid jay]

i always remember my advisor when come to expertise, i saw a lot of people really good and with a lot of experience on Java, but in general i think truelly experts know every or most of syntax & applications for it.
more important than knowing what already is present is knowing what is upcoming and if you can use that to make your products better.
like C++ modules in 2020

[pine sleet]

Think of the cost of a degree as an investment in your future

[vapid jay]

i like my work team, but work remotelly is making harder to connect with then.
the job is good remunerated, but i dot not receive any performance relatory from the boss : X. and this lack of specification is making my perfomance low.

[sleek egret]

ok, then don't quit

[smoky quest]

A CS degree will be the path of least resistance and with the most opportunities and compensation.

Without a degree, you could make a tiny amount of money sooner for a lot more work and risk. Or you could make a lot more money with a degree for less work and less risk

[gritty rivet]

Doing stuff on the side to apply your skills before school is good

Earning money is good

Combining those two things in one activity as a high school student is extremely difficult.

Internships for high school students are very hard to find, but not impossible. Do look into it, but don't count on it working out.

Freelancing on sites like Fiverr or Upwork is possible but not going to be worth the money unless you're in a low wage country and very highly skilled

So keep programming, and do what you gotta do to make some money in the meantime

[safe coral]

how do I post my resume here

[pine sleet]

You can post an anonymized (if you so wish) image

[safe coral]

oh

[vital wyvern]

That needs to be... shortened substantially if that's three pages.

[safe coral]

it is 3 pages indeed 😦

[vital wyvern]

Maximum of two pages would be my first recommendation.

[safe coral]

okay so I dont need to put so much info about what I did in my positions? @vital wyvern

[vital wyvern]

I think you should focus your resume into whatever career you're applying to. If you want a DFIR job, write a resume geared towards DFIR.

[safe coral]

is there a position where I can use both degrees? @vital wyvern

Does it look like a good resume for data science/analyst positions?

[vital wyvern]

Certainly, there's broad opportunities to apply ML/AI in both offensive and defensive cybersecurity positions. I'm not sure I'm up to the task of job hunting for you though, but they do exist, and they're quite prevalent.
And no, at bare minimum, as I stated, I would recommend you shorten your resume to 1-2 pages.

[safe coral]

okay!

[vital wyvern]

According to your resume, you've been working as an analyst since 2009. You've far more experience than I in analytics.

[safe coral]

Yeah when I was in Turkey (Im originally from there) I worked with government part time while in school

[fringe sphinx]

"Created SQL queries to extract data from multiple sources for reporting purposes" => "Wrote reports in SQL"

"Evaluated large datasets...": How?

[safe coral]

thats the main reason I wanted to go back to college and get a degree in data science @vital wyvern

[fringe sphinx]

Utilized excel and R.... : say more about statistical techniques

[safe coral]

okay

[ivory sluice]

most of this can be condensed into 1 block
do you have 2 bachelors degrees? or 1 degree with a double major?

[fringe sphinx]

etc. Sounds like a great resume, but you're underselling yourself. Talk about the techniques, methods, the meat of the stuff.

[safe coral]

I have 3 bachelors and 3 minors @ivory sluice

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, so your most recent job should have lots of advanced stuff... it reads like some junior doing sql + excel + dabbling in r, etc

[safe coral]

okay! I should also mention the last position was part time

since I was in school

and my internship was in Columbia Montour Chamber of Commerce

My hair is now gray cuz of overstudying and overworking. Should I put that too in my resume?

[fringe sphinx]

lol, a before and after

For what it's worth, I'm a hiring manager. That's the kind of resume I look at and just have no idea if you have any technical skills or not.

[safe coral]

seriously last 5 years all I did was studying and working. I didnt even go to a vacation or had a weekend off

omg you are? Thank you so much. So I should cut my resume to 2 pages?

and put tons of technical stuff in it?

[fringe sphinx]

I go straight to the most recent job, and look for: "Was this person an engineer? A data scientist? Hands-on? What tech did they use? "

So, put your effort into a few bullets (~4-5) for the recent jobs. Sell what you know, not what you did. Nobody cares that you increased customer retention... but, if you "Used XYZ and XYZ to build and deploy a predictive model for customer retention, which led to a 50% improvement." or something like that

Personally, I skip the skills section... I want to see what you used in the most recent jobs.

[safe coral]

okay and shorten my resume?

also can I hit you up after I worked on my resume?

[fringe sphinx]

yah, definitely. Just cut all the corporate bs out. "Performed exploratory data analysis with R programming language to uncover hidden relationships between variables": Yawn. We know what EDA is.

[safe coral]

okay

[fringe sphinx]

also, this is just like my opinion man. seek others too!

(but you have a great background, you should have no problem getting a job)

[safe coral]

would it be better to say performed logistic regression, random forest classifiers in R for predictive modeling?

[fringe sphinx]

Hell yah. Then I know what I'm dealing with.

[safe coral]

okay! thank youuuuuuu

I will work on my resume and hit you guys up later 😄

[fringe sphinx]

If you have room, you can say: "... classifiers in R for predicting impact of XYZ on ABC"

But also, be somewhat careful about putting too much in one job. Like, you don't really need to talk about Excel. You've got R and Python. Even SQL you could combine into one thing (SQL + Python, etc).

[safe coral]

well the problem is Im looking at these jobs and they ask like EXCEL SQL PYTHON R

they want you to have all of them

[fringe sphinx]

Ok, fair, maybe combine the SQL and Excel into one line about reporting?

[safe coral]

okay! thanks a lot!

[fringe sphinx]

gluck!

[wanton birch]

@safe coral What type of positions are you applying for?

[safe coral]

Data Science positions @wanton birch

[wanton birch]

I meant in terms of seniority and all that

[safe coral]

Mid level

[random turtle]

Hii

[ashen palm]

Will humans be needed to code anymore? Does it matter to study computer science anymore? I am very depressed to see how the AI revolution is going on - from coding to solving complex math problems. Should I drop out of school? How do you see the future of software engineering?

[true harness]

Yes. Yes. No. Pretty cool.

[fringe sphinx]

Why depressed?

[wanton birch]

The roles we play will change for sure. However, the need to know and master computer science has become a trillion times more important now!

[fringe sphinx]

We went 30 years between the search engine wars and now the ai wars. This is a great time to be an engineer: the stuff we can do is amazing. It sucked developing 20 years ago.

[ashen palm]

But we won't be needed to code; it can be done by AI

[ashen palm]

to reduce bias or supervise AI code/models?

[wanton birch]

That's just a part of it. There will be an army of engineers needed to maintain these things.

[smoky quest]

we can have AIs for that

[wanton birch]

Nobody is planning on just unleashing random models. There will be a lot of engineers needed to test every last aspect of things we are inventing from development, deployment to end of life cycle or whatever. The more dependent on them we become, the more we will need to make sure they are maxising whatever utility function we give them.

[wanton birch]

Eventually I think it will all be mostly like that. Even the physical labour will get replaced by yours truly Boston Dynamics 😛

[sleek egret]

if you have to ask if AI will replace you, then AI will replace you.

[fringe sphinx]

Huh? You’ll be replaced by an ai that can ask if an ai will replace you?

[sleek egret]

IMO, the less faint of heart people go into software dev, the better

[ashen palm]

lmao

[fringe sphinx]

Can’t wait to replace myself with a discord ai me

[true harness]

we can already replace most of career discussion tbh. just send "go to college" every so often

[sleek egret]

I meant you in the first person personal sense, not in the general humanity sense

[fringe sphinx]

I know, joke

[sleek egret]

oh, ok

[smoky quest]

the AI for rmah needs some tuning

[fringe sphinx]

But that would be funny. Very hitchhikers guide.

[sleek egret]

heh, so true

it is interesting to see the different variations of "I don't want to learn useless stuff" from different youths though

[ashen palm]

Won't there be always people needed to come up with algorithms and program the ML software or the whole programming thing will be given to AIs. Only mathematicians will end up having jobs.

[true harness]

blah blah CS degree is the best path blah blah most success and money

[sleek egret]

and it's interesting to see first hand the rather limited time frames most younger folks think about

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, and a bot in general for the inevitable list vs array conversation, and nested loops

[sleek egret]

it's like even 5 or 10 years in the future can't be imagined

[true harness]

to be fair, that's more than half their lifetime

[sleek egret]

lol, it's more likely that most mathematicians will be replaced by AI

too many less experienced folks think that writing code is the hard part of software development. in fact, writing code is the easy part.

[sleek egret]

yeah, I get it. it's not like I was any better. I had a hard time thinking more than a month or two ahead when I was a teen 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

The unknown is whether this latest ai stuff is just a step function or whether it’s the beginning of a continuous cycle of improvement. Like, right now, I see it as a step, like pre search engines and post. I think it’ll plateau in the next 3-5 years, once they squeeze what they can.

[true harness]

a month! i can't even plan what i want for lunch!

[fringe sphinx]

Salad. Save your calories for a nice dinner

[sleek egret]

what chatgpt showed was that you can brute force your way to "smarts". it's why there is so much money pouring in now. we're going to see great improvements over the next couple decades.

[fringe sphinx]

I dunno, that’s reminiscent of google… we thought it was the beginning of amazing

[sleek egret]

we did? having been there when google launched, not really

[fringe sphinx]

Well, i was at lycos so perhaps my view was rosier

[sleek egret]

and google did not brute force things. they had a rather elegant approach that was different from other players

their approach required a lot of compute power sure, but it wasn't them just throwing compute power at existing approaches

openai essentially threw 10x then 100x compute power using (mostly) existing approaches

[fringe sphinx]

I expected search tech would improve somewhat linearly

[sleek egret]

I did not. it's simply not possible without the system "underestanding" the info at a semantic level

which you can't really do without some sort of AI or AI-like system. IMO, of course.

either way, even though openai is garnering the lion's share of PR right now, it's quite apparent that AI is undergoing a renaissance over the past 5 (maybe 10) years or so. the advancements made relative to the decades previous are astonishing.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, I guess my commentary is really about the ai drought over past decades, feels like we were due for this and im happier for it

Career wise, there’s always been a shortage of competent engineers, I can’t see this changing it. But, firms are certainly looking to cut the lesser skilled positions

[sleek egret]

you ever watch the youtube channel TwoMinutePapers? he's been covering advancements in AI for almost decade now. the pace is accelerating.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, love that dude

It might just be his accent

[sleek egret]

yes, the first people that will feel the axe are the low-end outsource programming shops who mechanically fix trouble-tickets

they have fairly well-defined problems, clear acceptance criteria and large existing codebases the AI can be trained on

also, the level of acceptable code quality is, shall we say, quite low 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, I’ll be interested to see good uses of ai generated PRs: feed it a problem@and test case, and review the fix.

[ashen palm]

so what'd be your advice for cs students for the sake of a conclusion of all the discussions so far :)?

[deft herald]

Just jumping into the conversation here. My advice to CS students would be to take classes about AI and ML

[sleek egret]

pay attention in class. try to actually understand the theory instead of just try to pass the exams

[deft herald]

Yeah. Actually do the work assigned to you, too. Don't outsource to AI please

[sleek egret]

I see this difference quite a lot when we interview financial analysts/quant types. take statistics... nearly all of them can do stat problems. ...

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, it takes more time than most people expect or want

[sleek egret]

that is, give them a clearly defined problem and they can follow the rules to mechanistically get the answer. ...

... but that's not what the job is. any idiot can do that. we really want are people who can formulate what the problem is in the first place!

and to do that, you need to actually understand the underlying mathematics. which, somewhat sadly, most grads do not

[fringe sphinx]

I didn’t really learn calc until 10 years out of school, tbh

Like, I took it, didn’t grok it fully, passed the classes.

[sleek egret]

the same holds true in software dev. but instead of math, it's complexity management. for any large scale system, the real problem is how you organize the parts, how they talk to each other, etc.

[fringe sphinx]

Same with most stats. College tends to be a cram session

[sleek egret]

that's not a simple problem and there is no one best "solution". it takes a deft hand, lots of experience and a certain way of thinking.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, but, that’s the 1% problem… nature vs nurture

[ashen palm]

it requires a lot of effort to do mathematical modelling; so whats depressing is putting all the time to build the skills for uncertain future

[supple vapor]

Hello all, medical student here. What are good resources for me to learn python? Is datacamp better than Udemy in this regard?

Interested in eventually knowing enough python to contribute to AI/ML research in radiology since I find this sort of image anlaysis fascinating

[deft herald]

If you get a degree in CS, i wouldn't worry about those skills being useless in some uncertain future

[sleek egret]

just start with free tutorials. then work on a few simple projects. programming is a lot like learning to play a musical instrument. knowing the theory helps, but a lot of repeated practice is required.

[ashen palm]

thank you

[sleek egret]

contributing to AI/ML relearch in radiology will mean you need some maths: linear algebra, possibly tensor calc, statistics. also need to learn about various image manipulation algos.

[supple vapor]

Do you think its worth putting time at this stage in coding? Since I am training to be a physician my time is sort of strapped so I do want to use my leisure time somewhat productively lol. I do wonder in the future if I can end up as a start up advisor for health tech/health AI companies.

[supple vapor]

I have linear algebra down and statistics. Tensor calc and image algos, no....

[sleek egret]

I know two MD's who learned to program while in med school. it's definitely possible.

[supple vapor]

But we aren't talking really good levels of coding right? Just like above average level (which is good enough for me, I don't have enough time to git gud)

[sleek egret]

depends on what you mean by "average"

[true harness]

i know of a person that used to work in healthcare and now works in tech

[supple vapor]

Initially I was interseted in tech, but the market went to shit so I'm back on the healthcare track lol. At this point maybe I'm intersted in management consulting/venture capital work. But I bet learning python will help me in regards to data analysis if I want to do these jobs after medical school

[sleek egret]

both are doctors. they program a bit recreationally as a hobby. they are not professional developers.

[supple vapor]

Yep this would be my goal as well. Its a hobby

[sleek egret]

med school is not something you can half ass, man. you must know this.

you may not have to be an uber-genius, but the workload is very high.

[supple vapor]

Yea but everything is P/F now haha so I have little more free time and my med school lets me customize experience a lot. M3 is tough with clinicals and studying but besides that it isn't too bad

It was hard to keep motivation in medicine when I saw the fuck you money people made in tech, but seems like the bubble sort of popped. I'd never be a good enough SWE to command those salaries anyway

[sleek egret]

only the top few % of software developers make "fuck you money"

[true harness]

but a lot make "pretty good money"

[sleek egret]

the average salary is something around $120k in the US. and thus, that's after a good 10 years on the job. and that's the best in the world. quite good, but not "fuck you money".

[supple vapor]

Yeah man but if you read subs like /r/cscareerquestions you think everyone is making 250k TC straight out of college haha

[sleek egret]

the very sharpest can get that, yes

but you have to understand, those guys are 1) extremely smart, 2) extremely dedicated, 3) extremely focused on software development

[supple vapor]

Yep that's what I realized, so basically got realistic and stopped regretting my life choices making me pursue medical school LMFAO

[deft herald]

Not to mention they got their job in some very HCOL area, like the SF Bay Area

[sleek egret]

saving lives is a damn sight more important than getting a few extra % retention for your employer's saas product

also, chicks dig MD's more than programmers 😋

[supple vapor]

Haha yeah I agree but your sort of treated like shit as a resident and medical student

The comp in medicine is still really high but its just the training that sucks (and some other factors haha)

[sleek egret]

it used to be worse 🙂

back ye olden days, it was not considered all that odd for residents to work a 24 hour shift, crash at the hospital for a few hours, then work another 24 hours shift.

[supple vapor]

Lmfaoooo yeah it was muchhhhh worse

[sleek egret]

it is my understanding that that sort of shit is illegal now

I wonder if hospitals still have those bunkrooms where interns and residents could sleep instead of going home

[supple vapor]

Hmm lot of people sleep in the call room sometimes?

[sleek egret]

I see

[supple vapor]

Tbh also my ideal speciality was radiology. Cuz good work life balance (40-50 hours) work and high comp (500-750k).

Only issue is that I don't know if its gonna be replaced by AI or not lmfaoooo. Reading into research more and its crazy how much progress there's been. I don't think it'll be fully replaced by AI but I think demand for radiology will decrease in future when radiologists with AI tools can have much faster productivity?

[sleek egret]

anyway, look the bar for cutting edge work in AI/ML has gone up a lot over the last decade. you sorta need a PhD now. I wouldn't say it's an absolute requirement, but it's a strong plus. which would mean you essentially need to do a double MD/PhD to have a strong chance at a career in a radiology AI specialty.

now you might be able to swing something with just an MD and strong non-academic programming chops, but that road will be quite difficult. unless you know people in the industry who can help you.

[supple vapor]

Yeah my interest was moreso doing research in the field (while in medical school) because I found it interesting and wanted to put it on my residency applications. But seems like the bar to do research is really high now lmao

[sleek egret]

you have decided on radiology as your specialty already?

[supple vapor]

I am leaning towards it. I enjoy using tech. Radiology uses crazy cool tech. MRIs, PET, Xrays, CT scans, etc. all are very cool for me. Its either that or something more surgical like ENT or opthamology (but residency for those is much tougher)

[sleek egret]

if so, I suggest you focus your programming stuff on image processing. nearly all radiology systems are now digital now run the data through image processing systems. you might be able to sell an understanding of how they operate as an advantage for your residency applications.

my sister is a radiologist, her workstation would make most nerdbois go nuts. a half dozen computers tied into a variety of imaging systems and a dozen large very high quality monitors.

[supple vapor]

Yeah I am also trying to look at it from a business side as well. Private equity is gobbling up a lot of healthcare practices so having better business acumen definitely helps. Also yeah with your sister work station, thats what I find cool. Basically having lot of monitors and having to scroll through 3-d volumetric data looking for abnormalities etc. Very cool

[sleek egret]

yes, a lot of smaller cities are now subject to medical monopolies or cartels

[supple vapor]

IDK if AI is gonna reduce demand for radiologists in the future though as well

[sleek egret]

no because non-radiologists will need still radiologists to sign off on diagnosis for liability reasons 🙂

[obsidian mauve]

What's that 4000$ IT course I hear a lot of people talk about

[smoky quest]

no one talk about it around me.
Do you have a specific question?

[foggy linden]

4 grand dang

[smoky quest]

Hi! We don't do ads

<@&831776746206265384> ads

[true turtle]

!warn 843907739112570930 Our server is not an ad board, don't treat it as one.

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied warning to @coral marsh.

[dim bay]

your said you would sorta require Masters/PHD to get work in AI ML , is that true for data science also?

[near ocean]

You kind of need a masters, yea

[dim bay]

What about data analyst?

[gritty rivet]

Why not take a look at the job listings in your area? Not sure what country you're in but I suspect you'll find most analyst positions expect a Bachelor's

[dim bay]

ok

[hearty island]

the guy who recruited me at my internship company said my resume is good🤔🤔🤔

[true harness]

presumably that's why you were selected

[hearty island]

yes

[dim bay]

Why data analyst average salary is so low as compared to back end developers? https://www.indeed.com/career/data-analyst/salaries https://www.indeed.com/career/data-analyst/salaries

[woven apex]

Ideally that's how you're selected
unless you know a guy who knows a guy

[hearty island]

but then i keep getting rejected from project management jobs… so that means my resume has to be better

[lilac quail]

People don't stay Data Analysts that long either

They get specialized either on the business side or the data side, and are shuffled again after 2-5 years of XP into more product analysis roles or data engineering roles

[dim bay]

I know on data side they can get into data engineering or data scientiest or even AI ML role but what business side roles data anlyst can get into?

[thick shuttle]

Data analysts are just data scientists with a READ heavy role instead of a WRITE heavy one IMO

This means you will be dealing more with the business side rather than the technical side of figuring/sorting the data

[lilac quail]

Product Analysts, they get a way better pay because they are basically experts in their business domain as well on getting useful insights from data

[dim bay]

but product analyst salary is much lower https://www.indeed.com/career/product-analyst/salaries

[lilac quail]

Well you are looking at averages. Product Analysts average englobes all types of businesses, even the lower paid ones, when Data Analyst is more in the IT departments already

In my experience, assuming you stay in the same business, you'll get a better pay if you become Product Analyst than regular Data Analyst, just because your skill is rarer on the market. Don't believe too much these stats.

[dim bay]

okay even more than back end developer with same years of expierince at same company?

[lilac quail]

I'm not saying 'even more' or comparing, I'm just saying a backend dev is more likely to remain a backend dev, and increase his pay with time. A data analyst probably switches after 2-5 years of XP to other, better paid roles, because of the xp they acquired as DAs

I also see the DA role as the entry gate to IT when you have more of a business background, which leads to a LOT of DAs currently on the market, attracted by juicy salaries, and that also makes the salary range drop a bit

[dim bay]

okay, thank you

one more question I think web dev is entrepreneurship(startup) friendly as compared data science, as you can start with low capital (single developer) and provide service of building websites to number of companies, is data analysis have any scope for entereprenureship startup?

[lilac quail]

You can probably make a product out of it and commercialize it, but it's indeed less clear than a website and all its components.
I think most companies choose to adopt some sort of consulting agency model with data analysis and data engineering. They would hire people to work for customer companies, on specific contracts

[dim bay]

but then that would be actually people sourcing company not data analyst company like companies with HR headhunting expertise would do it, but to build actually inhouse data analysis based company we would need data and I don't think any big (Client) companies will risk exposing their data to outside party

[lilac quail]

Yeah you'd need a product to sell. These bigger clients would still share that data with you, by giving you the same access (and harware) as their interns

[dark fiber]

this is a bit of a long shot but has anyone seen that portfolio someone made that is a car game website and you drive around a desert coming across this persons info, older projects, etc

[small geode]

I wouldn't say you should trust Indeed numbers as much as government data:

[radiant moon]

what is the difference between "computer programmer" and "software developer"? I always assumed the latter was just the somewhat-more-modern way of saying the former

[small geode]

According to them:

15-1251 Computer Programmers
Create, modify, and test the code and scripts that allow computer applications to run. Work from specifications drawn up by software and web developers or other individuals. May develop and write computer programs to store, locate, and retrieve specific documents, data, and information.

15-1252 Software Developers
Research, design, and develop computer and network software or specialized utility programs. Analyze user needs and develop software solutions, applying principles and techniques of computer science, engineering, and mathematical analysis. Update software or enhance existing software capabilities. May work with computer hardware engineers to integrate hardware and software systems, and develop specifications and performance requirements. May maintain databases within an application area, working individually or coordinating database development as part of a team.

[radiant moon]

wow, turns out I'm too lazy to read all that and figure out how they differ 😕

[small geode]

😂 TLDR it seems like a "computer programmer" is someone who doesn't research/design, they just write the code. "Software developers" are designers and programmers.

[radiant moon]

hard to imagine the former exists anywhere, but perhaps my experience is limited

[true harness]

code monkey

[small geode]

I agree. It does state only 132,740 "Computer Programmers" to the 1,534,790 "Software Developers" so that's probably why we've never seen it happen

[fringe sphinx]

Government classifications are certainly not useful. It’s probably some archaic coding due to a particular agency

[radiant moon]

where are those terms from -- the US Department of Labor?

[fringe sphinx]

I’m assuming a h1b or green card discussion?

[small geode]

Bureau of Labor Statistics, so yes

[small geode]

I wouldn't go that far by any means.

[fringe sphinx]

Fine, not useful for anything but filling government forms.

[small geode]

Which every business must do and while yes, the business chooses to identify the code to what they believe as accurate, it is an accurate portrayal of what those businesses would post the position for and call it.

[fringe sphinx]

H1b stuff? Yah certainly

[small geode]

How does that apply?

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, that’s the only time I’ve needed the dol codes

[small geode]

Definitely not at all

[small geode]

Then it's likely you either aren't required to report them, or someone else in your organization does. This can even be your organization's benefits team/manager who may report it for unemployment purposes. The DOL can also gather this data from tax filings, where people will usually just list the title they were given at work.

[fringe sphinx]

You don’t need to report employee codes in your corporate tax returns. Maybe for some other agency, but I’ve never done it.

[small geode]

Some states require it. I also didn't mention corporate tax filings, but individual.

[fringe sphinx]

Never heard of it for state or federal taxes. But I don’t know every state.

[small geode]

By require it, I mean require the reporting of. It does not relate to taxes, but unemployment.

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, maybe some insurance company needs it? My states UI doesn’t ask, they just audit number of employees/etc

[small geode]

In those states I doubt the state governmetn is working with an insurance company. Businesses can employ one to assist in legal proceedings, in which case they would also likely want SOCs.

[gritty rivet]

Once again this channel has fallen into pedantic discussions of US law between non-lawyers? I won't fall for it this time 😅

[small geode]

Nothing about law. I'm just saying you can certainly trust data from the Department of Labor as it pertains to US employment.

[fringe sphinx]

I don’t think pedantic is the right word…. (Joke)

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, and I’m saying the DoL stuff is a cobweb of useless archaic coding that most of the time people are throwing a dart at.

[small geode]

Agree to disagree, especially with how it sources its data.

[fringe sphinx]

🙂 agree to disagree. Let’s talk about how chatgpt is coming for our jerbs

[gritty rivet]

As an intern, you're probably not going to change the company culture. But it might be fine to raise this with your supervisor just for the sake of discussion

[peak torrent]

does anyone have legal insurance U.S.A location? I have thinking to use for my contracts just want to hear someone else opinion

[fringe sphinx]

Most meetings are a waste of time: it’s efficient for the manager but not for staff. But, you can turn lemons into lemonade: make a point to ask someone after the meeting about something you didn’t understand. Do that daily or weekly, and you’ll find the business/software/everything makes more sense and you’ll become more valuable and productive

[peak torrent]

TIA

[fringe sphinx]

I use insureon for professional liability

Most contracts I see require pro liability, e&o, etc.

[peak torrent]

Good to know, What about professional advising? I would like to get some contracts review before sending them to my clients

[sleek egret]

that's what lawyers are for

[peak torrent]

really? I know... I asked if he uses some legal insurance

[somber shadow]

heya l

[sleek egret]

I was replying to "I would like to get some contracts review before sending them to my clients"

[glossy grove]

who are looking for developer?

[small geode]

Recruiting is not done here.

[fringe sphinx]

That’s different. Insurance is different than legal advice: you ask a lawyer to review a contract. Some contracts require professional insurance, and it might also be a good idea, but this is also where a lawyer can advise you. I never (rarely) sign anything without a lawyer review.

Even employment agreements should be reviewed; you’d be surprised what they’ll find, and surprised that rarely is an agreement ‘unmodifiable’ as some employers might claim.

[sleek egret]

I also urge you to carefully review your contracts when younger. and even discuss points that confuse you with your lawyer. after doing this a dozen times, you will be able to catch many things that slipped by you at first.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, and don’t just assume lawyer understands the finer points. Lessons learned from my youth

[peak torrent]

Thank you for the advise.

[peak torrent]

I didn't know that. I have not been contracted for any company so far. I mainly been doing freelance work while I still on school

[peak torrent]

thank you!

[fringe sphinx]

Good luck!

[true harness]

how do you know when that's happened though

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, many $$$’s later

[sleek egret]

indeed. also your lawyer can't read your mind. if something is important to you, tell him

[sleek egret]

our legal bills last year were mid 6-figures 😦

[fringe sphinx]

I feel you. And I got you beat, for real.

[sleek egret]

damn blood sucking....

[sleek egret]

sorry to hear that, man

[fringe sphinx]

Eh, it ended up good.

After multiple years.

[true harness]

is there no "second opinion" thing

[fringe sphinx]

The best part about contracts is: (opposing) lawyers can make whatever arguments they want about them, and it’s extremely expensive and time consuming to resolve.

So if a relationship turns hostile, the contract is not as deterministic as you’d think.

More relevant to this channel, noncompetes are a really interesting area of law, and something to be careful with in your first job

Careful=familiar

[sleek egret]

indeed wrt contract indeterminism. also, many younger folks don't really seem to comprehend the difference between criminal law and contract disputes

[fringe sphinx]

I just wish U’s spent more time on copyright and patent law

[spark cobalt]

My intern got COVID...

[sleek egret]

did you cull him from the herd?

[sleek egret]

um, pretty sure you cover them in detail in law school

[spark cobalt]

[fringe sphinx]

lol, i meant cs.

[spark cobalt]

10 week intern, likely 10-20% of it got screwed

[sleek egret]

10 weeks is a pretty short internship

[fringe sphinx]

I dunno, how long is summer nowadays anyway?

[spark cobalt]

Its a summer internship and ends pretty much right when his school starts

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, my first intern broke his arm the week before starting. His writing arm.

[sleek egret]

lol

[spark cobalt]

[fringe sphinx]

ended up hiring him eventually, but still. man.

[spark cobalt]

These kids!!!!!! He finished like 2 tickets in the first week then decided to just party I guess and get COVID somehow

[sleek egret]

universities typically have summer breaks from 12 to 18 weeks long

[fringe sphinx]

wonder if he's one of those 3 jobbers... bet he has multiple internships 🙂

[sleek egret]

make them come into the office

[fringe sphinx]

what do they call themselves? overemployed?

[spark cobalt]

We got him through some program to help kids get internships, I doubt it

[spark cobalt]

Yeah ik, just he has COVID so can't do that anymore

[sleek egret]

did he provide a doctor's note?

[spark cobalt]

Oh true, idk if he sent anything to anyone

[sleek egret]

you can't trust kids these days

[fringe sphinx]

yah, in the good ole days when teenagers were trustworthy... lol 🙂

[sleek egret]

so, a few years back, I had this younger guy, mid 20's working for me...

[spark cobalt]

I'll talk to director about it today and see if they want a note or some confirmation. I haven't heard COVID in like a year. COVID used to be the best excuse like 2-3 years ago

[sleek egret]

once in a while his mother would call me to tell me he was sick and couldn't make it to work. and once he got needed a lawyer for some issue so I referred him to one.

[harsh river]

my type of guy

[spark cobalt]

[sleek egret]

his mom sent his younger sister to me with a gift to thank me. his mom was so sweet. but it was hillarious.

[fringe sphinx]

oh, i only had a mother call me once... but the kid legit had a panic attack and never came back to work.

[sleek egret]

lol

[spark cobalt]

I mean a lot of our interns get driven to work by their parents. But that's the extent of the parental interaction

[fringe sphinx]

I think it was because the companies stock price tanked like 50% in a day. And he had all his (couldn't have been much?) money in.

[spark cobalt]

My intern lives by himself so no parent talk

[sleek egret]

$1k means more to a 20 year old than to us older farts

[fringe sphinx]

fair

[spark cobalt]

<@&831776746206265384>

[fringe sphinx]

hey, how are y'all hiring nowadays? I can't figure out what hiring sites/medium kids (college grads) are looking at these days.

[true turtle]

!cban 872474667577909320 2w spamming a youtube video

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @spring pivot until <t:1687974410:f> (14 days).

[spark cobalt]

One of the people that founded the product I work on is resigning. So now I'm the only one left that knows this product like inside and out.

[fringe sphinx]

I hate paying recruiters (for juniors)

[sleek egret]

oh, there was another intern who's dad called us at the end of his stint to ask how he did. but that doesn't seem an unreasonable ask to me.

[spark cobalt]

Our company does like no advertising, we just slap new grad to our job post and we get hundreds of applications in a day. My company also did a lot of direct recruiting from colleges etc.

Okay that sounds really contradictory

[sleek egret]

yeah, most university career centers will be thrilled to help you out and they tend to like having a few smaller companies in the recruiting mix along with the big firms

[spark cobalt]

We don't do use any paid services* to be more precise

[fringe sphinx]

yah, that's what I usually do (career dev centers), just curious if anything online is worth it

[spark cobalt]

Yeah my company's a Series D startup and we were able to set things up with a lot of at minimum T2 (state) colleges

[fringe sphinx]

I used paid recruiters for mid-levels for past 10 years... very mixed results, but the talent pool was pretty sparse.

[sleek egret]

there probably is, but getting applicants has never been a problem. getting quality applicants has been the problem.

[fringe sphinx]

yah, amen to that. hire fast/fire fast is the only successful strat, afaik.

[sleek egret]

I swear, if I ever take on a CTO role at a larger firm, internal training is gonna be a major part of my strategy. even if 1/2 jump ship in a year, I think it'll be well worth it.

the gaps in practical knowledge in entry level hires is... troubling.

[fringe sphinx]

The problem with most CTO gigs is the lack of direct authority

like, some vp of eng ends up telling you to stay in your lane.

[sleek egret]

VP of Eng works for me, dammit!

but more seriously, I get what you're saying

the training is one of those things you have to make clear you want to do during hiring negotiations. if the other execs don't care/oppose it, it's not gonna happen.

[fringe sphinx]

I haven't done a pure CTO role, but did a lot of consulting with very similar dissatisfaction: very unsatisfying to merely "advise".

[sleek egret]

consulting is fine if you don't really care 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

"what's your biggest weakness?" "I care too much"

[sleek egret]

lol

[modern ore]

How do I become like tech lead

He is my favorite tech personality

[lilac quail]

Lots of experience in a broad domain

[sleek egret]

four things are required: 1) high level of technical skills, 2) solid communications skills, 3) good leadership skills and 4) a touch of management ability to keep things organized

the leadership skills will be expressed through teaching, oversight and coaching

[smoky quest]

they are shitposting. They are talking about the youtube dud

[smoky quest]

It's not a channel for shitposting

[uncut kiln]

Hey, I'm new to programming and I just finished learning python basics. Now I'm pretty confused where to go from here. Can anyone help me out with it?

[smoky quest]

In the context of a career, if you are in HS or college, a CS degree will be the path of least resistance and with the most opportunities and compensation.
So continue practicing python and build some projects

[uncut kiln]

Okay so I'm a electrical engineering graduate. But I want to switch to IT. So career wise how should I proceed from here?

[gritty rivet]

Make a portfolio and apply for jobs

[modern ore]

Apply for jobs

[smoky quest]

the path of least resistance would be to find a role that leverage your electrical engineering degree so as to make it easier for you to transition and make it less risky for a company to hire you

[fringe sphinx]

Most EE jobs will require some programming. Ideally, get any job that your EE degree will qualify you for... err, yah, what r_e said.

[lilac quail]

One thing I always advice is to keep a foot in what you know, and put the other in IT. Try to find a job that would require your knowledge in electrical engineering and that also has the IT aspect you are looking for

[uncut kiln]

I actually am not interested in working in my field and that's why I want to switch.

And that's why I started learning coding but now I'm pretty clueless as to where to go from here.

[wanton birch]

How long do you think something like that takes? I mean your minimum expectations on average.

[lilac quail]

Same, I was not interested anymore in what I was doing before I switched to IT. It will be more easy to find a job with the EE + IT mix, and then you'll evolve internally, or switch jobs again, to really do what you want. In other words, you'll have that choice later for sure. Now if you're lucky.

[gritty rivet]

Depends on your skills and everything else. I personally spent years dabbling with basic Python but once I got really serious it didn't take long. I did a 12 week part time bootcamp and was employed as a developer about 2 months later

[summer roost]

I'd guess maybe 2 years on average for someone to get the bare minimum coding skills for anyone to be willing to employ them.

[wanton birch]

thanks

[fringe sphinx]

I agree with gg, but I’d add that there are many adjacent jobs in tech

So, maybe you don’t land a SWE job, but QA, tech support, etc are all good ways to enter the industry, as long as you keep learning and fighting for the job you want

[modern ore]

6 months to 6 figures like the boot camps 💯

[fringe sphinx]

They just don't say how many of those figures are zeroes

[true harness]

well, yeah, it's assumed

[smoky quest]

I would argue that on average, people fail without a degree. The success stories you hear aren't about the average.
That said only a sith deal in absolute, and likelihood depends greatly on the distance between you and the job.

Your case also isn't average and you have far greater odds thanks to your background

[sleek egret]

any technical/engineering university degree + some practical programming skills puts you ahead of people with bootcamps and similar levels of skills

[sand patio]

Hi - would I be able to ask for a review of my resume? There's this internship that I intend to apply to that is targeted towards high schoolers.

[pine sleet]

send image plz

[fringe sphinx]

first off, bad job censoring... since it still has your linkedins,etc

[sand patio]

:p

I'm aware that I should probably cut the content down so it'll fit under one page

[pine sleet]

definetely should be one page

[sand patio]

I'm fine with my email/linkedin/whatever being public ~ it's traceable regardless

[fringe sphinx]

Remember that employers will search all of it, and your social media presence. Dont be a dope.

[sand patio]

I see, sure

[wanton birch]

I mean, yeah! You see people with degree, experience and skills struggling and competing hardcore. That already tells you about how one should set their expectations when they are coming in cold from a different field, no degree, barely a portfolio, etc.

[fringe sphinx]

Resume isn't bad. It's less "fluffy" like other peoples resumes, you talk about technical skills. Probably a few grammar nits, and shorten it to one page, but it's not bad

[sand patio]

I see, sure

[fringe sphinx]

Try to get bullets on one line. Like, this is too long: "A text based multi-user-dungeon game in which you play as a caterpillar whose goal is to grow into a butterfly and escape a
forest cursed by mites." - but it sounds fun

[sand patio]

I could probably skip the game synopsis there

[fringe sphinx]

I dunno, just shorten it so it fits on one line, is my suggestion

[sand patio]

sure

[fringe sphinx]

And, as an employer, I focus on your most recent job: maybe try to make that sounds a bit more technical and relevant. Like,. what did you actually do?

[sand patio]

right, I can do that.

[fringe sphinx]

"most recent" = "top project". I see the first item as the most important.

[sand patio]

so I should put the most recent thing I've done at the top?

[fringe sphinx]

Normally yes, but since they're projects, you could put the most "impressive"

[sand patio]

gotcha

that's sort of what I have going on already

[fringe sphinx]

but, yah, this is stellar resume that beats a lot of college students.

[gritty rivet]

Do you have any formal/paid work experience? Even if it's not technical or anything, probably worth including if you do

[sand patio]

thank you :) I'll make some improvements based on what you mentioned

[sand patio]

not yet, no

in like a week, I'll probably be starting my first job

[gritty rivet]

Good luck! I think you'll have a good shot 🙂

[sand patio]

thanks!

[sleek egret]

awesome, best of luck. don't hang out on reddit or discord while at work for at least your first week or two 🙂

[sand patio]

hah, alright

[fringe sphinx]

yah, pro-tip, leave your cell phone in your car.

[gritty rivet]

I can't remember the last time I had a job that didn't require personal cellphone for MFA, but I agree with the intent 😉

[safe coral]

hello guys I updated my resume! Please let me know what you think

[fringe sphinx]

Much better than yesterdays! (perhaps wordy, but it's wordy with substance)

There's some grammar stuff, but i like the direction

[safe coral]

I used grammly lol

[fringe sphinx]

""... resulting in a 50 percent guest retention"

What about the retention?

[safe coral]

that means we got people coming back

[fringe sphinx]

Improvement? Overall? etc

Maybe, a x% improvement in guest retention?

[safe coral]

oh yeah thanks also can you check your dm @fringe sphinx

[fringe sphinx]

Will do, I don't really dm tho

[safe coral]

I shared the look of my resume with you lol

since I cant share it here

[fringe sphinx]

Ok, for you, I'll look 🙂 I tend to blow up my discord accounts every few months

[safe coral]

hahahaha thanks friend

[dreamy shadow]

Try to condense it further into 1-2 lines. Not paragraphs disguised as bullet points.

[broken root]

So I was writing python, just for a very short time.
But I decided to try jump back on it, so what python framework would you advice learning?
And what type of tech stack ?
Would appreciate any recommendations

[knotty drum]

Hi guys! Obviously it depends on your place of work, but what would you say your average work day look like?

Like is it trying to solve leetcode type problems but applied to your line of work

Or talking to clients or what

[fringe sphinx]

https://youtu.be/m4OvQIGDg4I

[knotty drum]

Basex

[harsh river]

that depends entirely up to you, do you want to do backend, frontend or full stack?

[gritty rivet]

This is the career channel, so I assume you're asking from that perspective. My advice would be to decide based on the greatest overlap between a) your local job market and b) whatever most interests you. Plan your projects around the skills you want to demonstrate to get the job you want to get

[broken root]

Perhaps backend

But i hear AI and data analysis is interesting in python

[broken root]

sure! Thanks

[gritty rivet]

For backend there's roadmap.sh/backend

[knotty drum]

What's the best way to find that out?

[gritty rivet]

LinkedIn, Indeed, etc.

[knotty drum]

Sure

[gaunt wren]

is it difficult to get started as a web dev

[pine sleet]

I hear it's quite the opposite

[near ocean]

Webdev is pretty accessible but you'll probably still want to get a degree in CS

[knotty drum]

What sort of projects do you come out of after completing a CS degree

[smoky quest]

Your own robots with AI, your own programming language, distributed systems (ex: raytracers, databases), etc.
But it depends also if you are at the top of the curve or not

You can also look up schools and classes and see examples of projects like http://cs229.stanford.edu/proj2021spr/

[knotty drum]

Thanks!

I never thought about searching for projects that way, duh

Any Canadian peeps over here? Im visiting and i really like the country, how's the tech job market?

[balmy flicker]

Hi everyone looking for some advice. Long story short I’m possibly looking at having to leave the QA engineer role and start applying to more broad positions in order to secure a job in this market. While I have the automation skills and the right resume I absolutely hate software development. Used to be a software developer in C# for desktop and web based apps and having to learn 3+ frameworks just to achieve a simple application just got me stressed and depressed. What jobs could I do that are super straight forward where I can just sit down and program in Python and automate tasks? More specifically geared towards scripting and automating instead of development.

[fringe sphinx]

Considered a devops role?

[balmy flicker]

Never really understood what the role did tbh and how it was different from other positions but I will look into it

[sleek egret]

i have to agree with billybobby, that sounds like a "devops" role

[balmy flicker]

I don’t specifically understand how Devops is different from a standard high end it role. But to be fair I’m not in IT I’m in software so I wouldn’t know

[sleek egret]

practically speaking "devops" today is more like system admins who can write some of their own tools to automate parts of their work

note, "devops" was originally meant to be the practice of uniting "development" and "operations" in the same team

I understand that a few firms have gotten that to actually work, but from what I've seen it usually doesn't actually work out too well.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, the funny thing is my top engineers spend a lot of time doing certain devops-y things, because they’re inherently hard

[balmy flicker]

Would I have to skill up and learn a whole bunch of other stuff or could I just change my title of my resume and wording and start sending it? Assuming I have a couple years of experience as QA lead and software dev.

[fringe sphinx]

So, a strong devops engineer really takes a load off the senior engineers

[balmy flicker]

I’m not opposed it’s just that I’ve had to skill up non stop in this climate for all these different jobs so it’s just annoying of course but if it’s a good path I’m willing

[fringe sphinx]

At least have some AWS or whatever knowledge

[sleek egret]

you may need to learn a bit more about how computer systems, networks, servers, etc. work in a bit more detail. but it's not rocket science.

[balmy flicker]

Okay I can throw in an AWS certificate and take some courses. Are there any automation frameworks that devops specifically use or is it just automating stuff from a backend point of view without any UI automation? Already know selenium front and back. I would obviously google this but Reddit is down so back to discord.

[fringe sphinx]

I dunno, everyone I know uses Jenkins. That’s super common

[balmy flicker]

Okay great I’m familiar with the name so I can try to get familiar with that in my spare time.

[sleek egret]

there are many standard tools that devops people use! ansible is quite popular

that's the great thing about standards... there are so many to choose from!

[fringe sphinx]

Personally, I wouldn’t stress the tools. Just understand AWS and scripting. Maybe write something to spin up ec2 instances, and run something basic on them

[sleek egret]

I agree

[fringe sphinx]

It’s easy to learn Jenkins/etc, but I really wouldn’t want to hire someone who can’t script in Python + shell

[smoky quest]

that was in 2010. Now it's on its way out and being replaced by more modern solutions like gha or circle ci alikes

[sleek egret]

well, if they can't write software, they're not really "devops" are they? more just "ops".

[balmy flicker]

Okay great. How’s the role for entry level to your understanding? Is this something I need 5+ years of experience to land a starter role or can I hit the ground running if I know my stuff?

[sleek egret]

the academic standards for "devops" is typically lower than for strait software development.

[fringe sphinx]

I mean, I assume they can program, I mean more like: can they assemble a deployment script and understand directories, and ami’s, and the like

[sleek egret]

pracitcal knowledge of how systems work is more heavily emphasized

[sleek egret]

I would hope so. devops guys who don't understand things like directories won't get very far, lol 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

My favorite advice here is to: use a Linux laptop and force yourself to learn shell.

[balmy flicker]

I’m hoping to float along with my part time automation gig but if it falls through I am screwed so looking for something stable. This has been super helpful thank you everyone. I will look into a simple AWS certificate and Jenkins esque tools.

[fringe sphinx]

I made a mistake once and hired one. Didn’t last 3 weeks.

[sleek egret]

oh... @balmy flicker you need to know linux for devops. it's essentially a requirement.

[fringe sphinx]

Couldn’t figure out ssh keys, iirc

[sleek egret]

did he come out of the PC helpdesk side of things?

[fringe sphinx]

Don’t really remember, but probably

[balmy flicker]

I don’t know shell but I know my MacBook command like the back of my hand. That’s Unix based so it’s transferable right or completely different things?

[sleek egret]

mostly sorta

[balmy flicker]

Okay great. I used to run Ubuntu as my main OS in middle school and high school but the new MacBook OS was too pretty to not get. This is good news thanks.

[sleek egret]

lol, this article is funny => https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/13/workplace_jargon_language_barrier/?td=rt-3a

[fringe sphinx]

Oh that is great. It’s increasingly uncommon!

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, I really struggle with millennials z they don’t get my movie references.

[sleek egret]

I've interviewed candidates for programming internships who had never opened a file for readng before.

[fringe sphinx]

Or, ‘I don’t have cycles for that right now’. They also cringe when I say: ‘there’s no such thing as half pregnant’

[sleek egret]

why is that last one cringy?

[fringe sphinx]

I dunno, they don’t like it. Like, it’s a running joke.

[sleek egret]

hmm

but yeah, many of our interns have never seen the classic films that are foundational to modern western culture: things like star wars or the matrix

[near ocean]

Office slang isnt the problem, the problem is when they mention people by their nicknames like im supposed to know who the stiffmeister is

[sleek egret]

I think it's sorta funny,but one of my partners seems actually offended by it

[sleek egret]

wtf? lol. do they not know that such things are to be kept private inside your clique?

kids these days, <sigh>

[fringe sphinx]

Some day I’ll just hire other grey beards

[sleek egret]

we're too expensive

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, true. I can’t afford me.

[peak halo]

I hear "cycles" occasionally. What even is it, other than just... Time?

[smoky quest]

like CPU cycles 😉

[true harness]

washer cycles

[pine sleet]

Blender cycles engine

[worldly root]

Hi I need suggestion

[harsh river]

i suggest you get some sleep

that suggestion will be tree fiddy

is this your first infraction? what kind of setting is your work based in? i.e cybersecurity or sensitive?

[true harness]

huh

[foggy linden]

if i'm considering double majoring in chemistry and a coding-related major, what coding related major should i go for in terms of applicability with chem stuff?

[smoky quest]

what's the choice?

[foggy linden]

wdym choice

[smoky quest]

what coding related major should i go for in terms of applicability with chem stuff?

Which majors are you hesitating with?

[foggy linden]

idk i'm just asking in general since i don't know a ton about them- i just know that i like coding, and that i might double major

[smoky quest]

I don't know much about chemistry, but I would assume something around math/physics/statistics/data science

[foggy linden]

my main plan is chemistry, just wondering what would be most useful as a double major for chemistry jobs ig

yeah probably data science of some sort

[ocean stream]

Well chem has a bunch of different specialties from what i understand, computational chem, mathematical chem, etc. So if you plan on getting a job in a speciality then double major in the one most related.

[foggy linden]

yeah I can prob do that stuff fine

[spice delta]

!pastebin

[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.

[smoky quest]

<@&831776746206265384> ads

[lime bramble]

I will not share, I will avoid.job vacancy

[true turtle]

!rule 6 9

[inner wren]

Rules

6. Do not post unapproved advertising.

9. Do not offer or ask for paid work of any kind.

[true turtle]

@lime bramble

[proven crest]

I’m a junior, but here’s how my day typically looks:
Meetings for around an hour in the morning
Start working on tickets (can be bug fixing, improvements etc to different software)
Occasionally running in house software or refreshing databases
Occasionally code reviews, 1on1s, roadmap, product or other meetings scattered around the day.

It’s really not like solving leet code type problems, especially on the day to day. although occasionally it can be. Perhaps as a more senior developer you more of your tasks are like that, but I’m sure it also scales with ability.

Honestly if I had to compare it it anything it would be working on a large personal project where you aren’t the one managing everything and you’re working along side other people working on the same project. Plus you have additional support.

I was also curious, for those in here who are employed, as a junior developer (either now or when you were one) was there anything that stood out to you or was unexpected? I guess for me, I didn’t realise there are so many meetings! I heard about it but thought it was over exaggerated and memed a bit, but it’s genuinely quite a lot.

[near ocean]

I only have one meeting every day, except every other friday
What stands out to me is how terrible most codebases are but maybe i just got unlucky twice

[proven crest]

We have a mix, some of the stuff is really well written and looks like a work of art. It’s as readable as a book.

Some of the older stuff is terrible, but it’s also no longer in use.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, our code base is pretty clean/easy to follow except for one module written by a contractor who loved j2ee design patterns.

[proven crest]

Oh that reminds me, I was also wondering. If anyone here has read ‘Clean Code’ - Would you recommend it? Is it still relevant in 2023? I’d assume it is as it’s language agnostic.

Is it something understandable and good to read as a junior dev or is there something more pertinent you’d recommend at that stage?

[fleet reef]

Some people love it, some people hate it

[fringe sphinx]

I read it a while back. I think it’s useful in that it gives you a diff perspective, but don’t ‘study’ it as if you’re going to follow it precisely. It’s like the GoF design patterns, useful but not a bible

Like, I think it’s as good as any, and it’s important to be well read

[proven crest]

I’ve actually read nothing on design patterns so I think it should be a good read for me, but yeah nothings ever really a bible. Apart from docs mostly I guess

[fringe sphinx]

Wait, I didn’t mean say it’s similar to design patterns, just that reading it has a similar purpose of expanding your foundation: rather than being something you need to memorize and follow

[sleek egret]

clean gocde is a very good book and it's as relevant today as it was when it was written. it would have been relevant 20 years before it was written. it will be relevant 20 years from now.

[near ocean]

Obligatory https://qntm.org/clean

[sleek egret]

I strongly recommend all devs to read it. and then re-read it occasionally over the decades.

[prime trout]

yo guys where do i get to get hired here?

[sleek egret]

they key takeaway from design patterns is that they are simply a vocabulary for specific types of designs. i.e. "singletons", "delegation", "facade". to wit, they are more descriptive than prescriptive.

having a shared vocabulary is very important in moving software dev from craftsmanship to engineering.

[near ocean]

You dont, go to a job board

[prime trout]

where?

[near ocean]

A job board, theres many of them, pick one

[sleek egret]

@near ocean do you think it's possible that we'll see a renaissance in software engineering over the next decade or two?

[near ocean]

I hope not to be in the industry in 10-20 years

[sleek egret]

lol

[near ocean]

I have no idea, i dont have the experience to make a guess, i started working a year and a half ago

[gritty rivet]

Read the channel description. There's also LinkedIn, Indeed, etc.

[prime trout]

ok ty

[true hound]

Hi there, everyone! I'm on the process of validating an idea right now and I was just wondering, has anyone ever needed to hire a developer or programmer for a coding project or gig? What were the specific reasons or circumstances that led you to seek external help and how do you typically go about finding and hiring freelance developers for your projects?

[sleek egret]

ccompanies hire people, not "projects"

and yes, many here have hired programmers before. myself included.

and as to "why?" we hired people because we felt that the cost of paying them was outweighed by the value they provided through their work. it's pretty much that simple.

[fringe sphinx]

I haven't thought much about the "why" part, but it also depends on the job market. I've hired contractors when the market was tight: it was, in some cases, the ~~best ~~ only way to bring in mid level talent with particular specialties.

[dim bay]

Guys is it good idea if I decided to learn data analytics and web development side by side? or should I just focus on one?

[fringe sphinx]

Is it a good idea to generalize or specialize? I'd say generalize is wiser. But, learn one at a time, ofc

[sleek egret]

that all depends on your background knowledge and capacity for learning

[sleek egret]

the best idea is to do both. the so-called T approach

you acquire minimal competency across a wide variety of domains and deep knowledge within a single domain

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, perhjaps I'd qualify it as: generalize early, specialize later.

[proven crest]

Awesome, thanks. I think I’ll pick up a copy of Clean Code this weekend!

[pastel thunder]

when asking alumini for referral for job, how to tell them I looking for higher compensation and not sound lame.

[fringe sphinx]

"I'm looking for more responsibility"

or a bigger challenge, or something like that. NEVER EVER EVER say anything bad about your previous place. "I love working at bobs burger software, but I'm looking for a new challenge"

[pastel thunder]

ok, i will try this next time.

[sleek egret]

only techies think that sounds lame in any way, lol

[near ocean]

Why would you mention why you're applying to a job to a person giving you a referral

[hearty island]

i finished my power bi dashboard for the internship. now i have to write documentation

[fringe sphinx]

That's a trick question. The code is the documentation... lol

(I’m joking, but many devs feels that way)

[hearty island]

yeah my boss wants to see what i can come up w

[tender frost]

Tbf, it can be. E.g. the documentation for the python-discord bot-core project is all generated from docstrings, annotations, etc.: https://bot-core.pythondiscord.com/main/index.html

Even the changelog etc. is in the code

[radiant moon]

Here's my rant about documentation:
Most documentation that I see is worse than useless. It's outdated and misleading.
In my experience, developers rarely keep documentation up to date, therefore I'd genuinely prefer no documentation to misleading documentation.
Also, many beginners write documentation that merely restates what the code is doing, which I can see plainly.
In my ideal world, the only documentation would be

• prose in separate files that describes the problem that the entire project solves -- this sort of thing is unlikely to become outdated as the code changes
• source-code docs which explain why the corresponding piece of code isn't doing things in the obvious way.

[tender frost]

Yeah, documentation should in an ideal world prioritise why it's doing something, not just how

[fringe sphinx]

I was just trying to make a joke y’all

[short peak]

Honestly my biggest issue with most documentation is that 90% of the time, there is no way that I've seen to parse through what I can only summize as "what I don't know I don't know" without just an absolute metric ton of reading.
For instance, I'm building a site generation tool for resume and personal purposes using flask/jinja2 somewhat similar to Nikola. I needed a way to pass a decently large amount of variables into jinja-html. Stack overflow, ai, and an hour of documentation reading all gave 3 different ways to do it by using a combination of loops with setattr(), etc. That is, until finally after the code was written to put it in and I was solving another issue, ai spits out that apparently jinja2 reads kwargs like regular variables.... really... and why the fuck was I not aware of this incredibly simple solution before from at the very least the jinja2 documentation? Everything in there said to pass variables by passing basic variable assignments. Ai and stack overflow I can understand not producing it, but what the hell jinja..

[radiant moon]

huh, I've used jinja occasionally and don't recall making that particular mistake
iirc you pass a single "environment" dict that defines all your variables

[short peak]

That's essentially what I've done now. Whole point was the extensive lengths I've had to go through to learn basic things like that, and how many roundabout ways get suggested instead.

Probably is just I'm bad at looking for things, that'll have to be figured out with time

Or extensive use with ctrl f after learning the particular lingo now that I think about it

[indigo nacelle]

which would be a better starting point for a student entering into IT career , DevOps or Development.

I have intreset in both, but I am confused in selecting one.

[radiant moon]

neither of those terms is precisely-defined, so my guess is: it doesn't matter

[terse cliff]

any coding questions

[buoyant seal]

Uh. i had real life case of... write DSA task very fast or u a screwed.
Database was getting quickly overfilled with celery task results... i had like minutes left, to acquire access to AWS ElasticCache Redis
each 5 minutes increased database filling by 1%. it was already 95% of database full.
i needed to write script that will clear database from already completed celery tasks, that are done longer than 20 minutes.
otherwise... a huge... a huge amount of people will be potentially blocked from using service.

example of data piece
keys like celery-task-meta-a69aec30-e838-4c2a-8e21-6635334bb566 with data

{
  "status": "SUCCESS",
  "result": null,
  "traceback": null,
  "children": [

  ],
  "date_done": "2023-06-14T12:46:32.402758",
  "parent_id": "724313f5-e2f3-4a93-9e2f-55c24741e495",
  "task_id": "0204ebaf-68c3-4175-a621-18137f8c45b4"
}

I was able to do it in time ^_^ writing script that accessed in bulk and deleted in bulk necessary stuff fast enough.
Fun experience. never knew i will need leetcoding level tasks with time limit in real life to solve
Quickly cooked up python script saved me.

[true harness]

what's the DSA?

[buoyant seal]

DSA = data structures and algorithms, types of short scripts u are asked to write at leetcoding/kata training services
Usually having some parameter expected for performance and data edge cases

[true harness]

yes, what dsa in your story

[buoyant seal]

DSA here that i needed to write similar algorithm that processed it in bulk (performance requirement) and with time limit (like leetcoding), and it is kind of regular python script in the result (like those leetcoding tasks usually have)
leetcoding will be better word.
Technically it is algorithm => so already A.
It involved structures to optimize performance => so already DS too.

[true harness]

oh, ok. doesn't really seem like leetcode, but ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[vapid jay]

guys please mention me or add me if u want to answer this , i am a 19 years old after studying cs for like 2 years i learned alot of things (webdev(html css js php sql i like it and i want to learn 3d web design) python i learned alot about algorithms sorting resistivity pyqt i like problem solving ) i feel like idk what do in university because i am not good at anything like i am just decently good can advise to excel my programming skills or any roadmaps i should take and thanks in advance

[smoky quest]

What do you mean you aren't good in university?

[vapid jay]

the problem is i don't feel like i am an expert in those things i did like if you ask me to make a website now it will look bad and i will use the internet to look stuff up do you understand me that's why i asked for courses and suggestions i know stuff but i am not THAT good i guess this message is better sorry my english is bad

i didn't go t uni yet but i want to learn on my own

[smoky quest]

A CS degree will be the path of least resistance and with the most opportunities and compensation

[smoky quest]

my recommendation is to go to university for a degree and to practice with projects

[fringe sphinx]

Lawful evil?

[vapid jay]

thanks for the suggestion but can u suggest me anything to learn on my own

[smoky quest]

if you want recommendations on a topic, you could look at the resources in our topical channels

[vapid jay]

How chatty are good teams? Im in a group of 4 + 2 coops, 2 of the people hate the other one (not me) and basically the group doesnt talk very much unless theyre forced by something

[smoky quest]

It's more of a function of:

• The people
• Do the work requires frequent collaboration
• How long they know each others

[true harness]

hating each other seems like a poor recipe for communication

[vapid jay]

Ya it kinda sucks feels like it kills the whole group chatting when theres some fighting going on

[smoky quest]

yeah, I would stay away from the drama.

It could also be due to some past issues that festered and wasn't addressed by the manager

[near ocean]

What kind of fighting is this, are they just being petty over nothing?

[pastel thunder]

yeah, recently discovering this, specially on new libraries, they sometime even miss some omportant feature

[vapid jay]

I dont wanna get too specific but they generally feel like the person is intentionally throwing them under the bus in meetings with the supervisor or in general being difficult to work with from lack of communication. Which now that I think about it kinda lead to more lack of communication over time

[sleek egret]

that's bad. very bad.

[near ocean]

That sounds like the manager's responsibility, what are they doing about it?

[knotty drum]

Hey thanks for the detailed answer!

[safe wing]

yo how yall doin

[pine sleet]

Pretty good. Do you have a career-related question?

[safe wing]

oh im sorry i am in a false channel

[pine sleet]

No worries, there are 3 off topic channels if you'd just like to chat

[sleek egret]

I start my day with reading emails and messages that came in overnight, takes about an hour. then I have a team call where I learn what's happening and what the problems are. then I deal with a few of those problems. then lunch (sometimes with clients). then I read more email and send out more replies. then I have a few meetings with internal staff. then I try to finish up with the problems identified in the morning. then I have more meetings and deal with more emails. by this time it's about 5pm, so I can finally get started on actually getting some work done...

[knotty drum]

What would you say the problems are? That's what i dont understand.

Like if i work at Steam, the app just works right now, like unless you're fixing bugs or adding features

[sleek egret]

various people on my team will have various random problems. ranging from simple bugs in their code to needing advice on architectural issues, from not fully understanding some of the underlying math to being annoyed that someone else on the team is late with something.

[wanton birch]

I made preparation for this one nice job advert I came across. Went to go apply and they just stopped accepting applications. I feel like shooting myself in the face.

[sleek egret]

then there are issues that arise with external services we use, changes to requirements, findings from experiments with trading strategies, etc, etc

[sleek egret]

it's just a few hours lost, not a big deal. and it's not a total loss since you probably learned a bit while prepping.

[wanton birch]

I am not mourning the hours lost. I spent a year already applying to hundreds of jobs. I am mourning the loss of a great opportunity as it looked like I was a really good fit.

[sleek egret]

ah. well, there are more fish in the sea. and sometimes the opportunities come back around.

[wanton birch]

I wish there was a way to report all the stupid entry level jobs with not entry level experience required. Makes a mockery of the search function. Have to go through endless mislabelled jobs to get to actual entry level jobs.

[vapid jay]

Who send me 10 dollars to buy my girl flower olds

[smoky quest]

This is not the channel for these

[vapid jay]

For prom

[floral topaz]

And jobs that are actually a scam/pyramid scheme, or just a recruitment agency making a fake listing so they can get your contact details

[true harness]

can't you filter by experience

[wanton birch]

No. I mean you can and that’s how I see the entry level stuff mostly. But the experienced level stuff is also posted with the same tag. As a result, you get flooded by experienced level stuff. This happens on every platform and will keep happening as long as platforms don’t let us correct for it. Companies don’t care. Recruiters even less probably.

[true harness]

this seems more like an issue with the platform

[wanton birch]

The platforms let you pick what level the job is. So it’s not their problem by default. HR and recruiters evidently can’t be bothered to fix it. As such, I say that at least the platforms should let us report it.

[vocal scarab]

What places can I go to practice Python? I’ve been using codewars but I would like more websites to use.

[smoky quest]

You may want to check the resources or ask in #algos-and-data-structs

[vocal scarab]

Awesome, thank you.

[wanton birch]

I have a strategic question about linking to my Github from LinkedIn.

I feel like if they see my stuff, they’ll go “oh’ not a real developer. Just a hobby level guy”.

So should I show it or not?

[smoky quest]

It's better to not show something shitty

[near ocean]

Just pin your best projects, youre allowed to not have top shape no test no readme type repos with terrible code, its all part of learning

[hardy blade]

Why is it that our industry is subject to so much academic hazing? Everyone always assumes that you know nothing and they know everything

[true harness]

i don't think generalizing from a few situations is reasonable

[smoky quest]

Interviews are about demonstrated skills

[wanton birch]

Well I am trying my best to make it look decent. I pinned some MATLAB/Simulink stuff, some C++ ones and some python coursework/project works.

[wanton birch]

What are you talking about? Please provide a relevant example if possible.

[fringe sphinx]

That sounds more like imposter syndrome.

[vapid jay]

i think it's because always exists something to learn, i entered in my actual job with a lot of previous and complex experiences, but i have to improve my specialization in specifics languages and i did it along the time i'm working
this make me suffer a bit

sometime they want you to program in they way they program, listen every word they say, that's important to maintain your hard adquired job

and if you have something from your experience to increment the project try to explain more cleaner you can

[summer roost]

what you call "academic hazing" is in fact the fairest way to compare candidates. It's a good thing that candidates are evaluated based on how they perform relative to other candidates on some problem, rather than on the basis of where they've worked before or who they know or what school they went to. It's one of the things that makes our industry more meritocratic than most.

[wanton birch]

I think that some form of testing has to be there. I agree that it is much better than just assuming things. Candidates at least get a shot!

As to the nature of the tests themselves, well, that can be debated.

[summer roost]

sure, there's better or worse things to test on, and better or worse ways to conduct tests, and there's different types of tests, and we can argue about the best types of tests to conduct. But ultimately, it's not "academic hazing" to test candidates and compare them against each other, it's "due diligence"

[wanton birch]

I think @hardy blade was annoyed by certain types of people who fail to understand the point of these exercises and passes unfair judgements on people. We see that in academia too. Asking students to solve 5 maths problems in 30 mins doesn't show that those who couldn't are automatically inferior mathematicians or couldn't outperform the others overall. But frankly speaking, I have the same criticism of the education systems in general. It is shit but at least we are trying.

[lime bramble]

https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/comments/148j7b3/lost_interest_in_my_high_paying_development_job/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[proven crest]

Steam should always just work because you are the end user running the production software. There may be minor bugs, but that’s part of what’s being worked on.
There’s also bugs related to improvements that haven’t been pushed to production yet. Check out steams update logs for a better idea:
https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/?feed=steam_client
Remember this only includes what’s been pushed to production, they’re undoubtedly working on a lot more.

To give another example, I’m working on software that was left alone for a few years because it wasn’t working or a priority at the time. I had to do a bunch of refactoring for it to work with 3.11, I then started getting it to work as an MVP, then I started working on improvements, one of those led to me finding a bug in a utility in our production software so I created a ticket and started working on that as a priority.

That bug wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) affect anything that’s currently being ran, but it has the potential to create problems.

[still crest]

Anyone here does freelancing?

[dreamy spade]

I had a video interview this week. I made it past the first round. On the second round they want an in person interview at their office. What do you think I should expect?

[small geode]

Very few, but ask your question anyways

[small geode]

Completely depends on the position, expected experience, industry, even the company

[proven crest]

Congratulations, well done!

As said, it can vary based on a lot of factors. They should have told you a little bit about what you can expect in your invite.

What is the position you are interviewing for?

[dark arrow]

!silence

[inner wren]

✅ silenced current channel for 10 minute(s).

[leaden jasper]

!unsilence

[inner wren]

✅ unsilenced current channel.

[small geode]

Confusion

[fringe sphinx]

there was a spammer in between those

[small geode]

Ahhh

[true harness]

you can always ask them

[proven crest]

I think I might have done that too actually, I said something along the lines of let me know if there’s anything I can do to prepare

[true harness]

I always ask what's happening next

[proven crest]

Yeah it’ll do no harm as long as it’s done right

[slim vortex]

I live in Georgia the country and on linkedin, the US state Georgia jobs pop up when the companies select the wrong georgia, I would love to work for US companies because of the way higher salaries but it isnt possible, just my little complaining about the job market

[peak halo]

maybe your country should tell the UN that they're going by Sakartvelo in English

[slim vortex]

thats also a good idea

[peak halo]

are there even tech jobs in your country that aren't in Tbilisi? could you just look for jobs there, and eliminate the confounding word from your search? @slim vortex

[sleek egret]

georgia is called Sakartvelo in georgian?

[peak halo]

yes

[slim vortex]

its not really a big deal, there aren't even that many tech jobs here, but some do mark the jobs as georgia for remote working, so I cant really exclude it

[sleek egret]

then why do you allow englanders to call it georgia?

[slim vortex]

they called us like that

[peak halo]

the native word for Scotland is Alba. and the native word for Wales is Cymry. And the Irish word for England is Sasana.

[slim vortex]

not sure why, but we just accepted it and moved on, changing your countries name is not the easiest thing

[sleek egret]

you're not changing the country's name

the name is Sakartvelo

[peak halo]

And the native name for Japan is Nippon. But the Chinese call it Riben.

All this is to say that the names of places in different languages is often unrelated to what the people in that place call it.

[slim vortex]

for us no, but for them yes and its not just english, germans call it Georgien and russians gruzja

[sleek egret]

you know there are other languages, right?

[slim vortex]

yes

[sleek egret]

like, in korea, germany is called "독일" (dog-il) and england is called 영국 (yeong-gug)

[near ocean]

Linkedin is an american product, in the US they speak english

[sleek egret]

china is called 中国 (zhongguo) but in korean, it's 중국 (jung-gug)

english names for various nations follow no rhyme or reason

for example, korea is actually either 한국 (hangug) or 조선 (choson)

oh shit, I thought this was one of the off-topic channels. my bad. appologies everyone.

[still crest]

On which sites I can answer questions and get paid?

[small geode]

Answer questions and get paid? I've never heard of that

[near ocean]

You can try tutoring but you'd need a degree for that

[sleek egret]

well, many non-degree students who are pursuing a degree do tutoring

[near ocean]

That too, but usually its tutoring high school students that pays and it usually requires you be a graduate otherwise no one would hire you

I've seen rates go for 50+/h for some more seasoned tutors

[true harness]

yeah but it's like an hour a week

[near ocean]

It depends but thats still more than they can earn "answering questions"

[still crest]

Any other ways to earn money as a student online?

I applied for study pool as a tutor

[true harness]

does it have to be online? I made an ok amount at fast food. and of course there are internships

[still crest]

I can't find jobs here

[true harness]

there are no fast food places where you live?

[sleek egret]

while I was a university student, I fixed copying machines, I fixed computers at a local store, I worked in a t-shirt printing sweat shop, I delivered pizzas and probably a few other part-time jobs I'd rather forget

[true harness]

I used to be a pro guac maker

[near ocean]

You can find a job, you just dont want to

[still crest]

Yeah but it is difficult to find work there

Online will work better for me

[sleek egret]

you're the chipotle guy, yes?

[true harness]

well, I'm a chipotle guy

[sleek egret]

working in the school data center would have worked better for me. but sadly, it was not to be.

[still crest]

Oh

I am a college student

[true harness]

I mean, if you really need the money, you don't have much of a choice. as a relatively uneducated person, people are not really going to want to hire you remotely, or for freelancing

[sleek egret]

so was I when I had those jobs I listed earlier

[still crest]

Ohk

[true harness]

I'm a college student also

[sleek egret]

back in my day, kids didn't get snooty about the jobs they took until after university

[still crest]

Yes I agree

[sleek egret]

a friend of mine went to MIT and worked construction during the summers

[near ocean]

Work a retail/hospitality job, it's forced character development
I feel bad missing out on the experience

[still crest]

From which country are you?

[sleek egret]

I know another guy who went to harvard and worked in an electrical harness factory during the summers

[sleek egret]

USA. all these guys were from the USA.

[proven crest]

Where are you based?

[still crest]

India

[still crest]

I see

[proven crest]

Where abouts? I’m not asking for an address but what city or town?

[still crest]

Delhi

Studying here

[sleek egret]

I hear it's hot in india right now

[proven crest]

Theres no jobs in Delhi? Since when?

[still crest]

There are but it's difficult

[sleek egret]

yeah, hitting 37C to 38C... damn

[proven crest]

In what way?

[still crest]

42

[sleek egret]

that's even hotter!

[still crest]

I mean I prefer online work since it can be managed with my timetable

[sleek egret]

get a job fixing computers. it's related to your major and learning about how they work at a practical level is always a good thing.

if you're lucky, you'll only get shocked a few times 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

Sure, who wouldn't prefer online work, but beggers can't be choosers 🙂

[still crest]

Lucky enough

[sleek egret]

I preferred going to europe for the summer with some of my richer friends when I was in university. but that wasn't meant to be.

[still crest]

XD

[proven crest]

Ah see thats different from there are no jobs. What you mean is there are plenty of jobs, but you only want somthing thats work from home. And on top of that you only want one that will fit around YOUR schedule.

[still crest]

Yeah studies also there

[sleek egret]

I worked fixing computers in the back room of a tiny shop with one other guy. it wasn't some major corp.

[proven crest]

I think offline jobs would be more suited to you. Work in restaurants, bars, cafes, fast food etc. They're all shift work. You can do shifts that fit around your schedule.

Maybe you can find a customer service job that is remote and has shorter shifts, not sure you'll have to look into that.

[wanton birch]

Are they still around? I struggle to find electronics repair places in the west these days.

[sleek egret]

that summer, I learned how to solder, how to remove and re-solder chips. how to use a logic probe and oscilliscope. and how not to insert metal into something with charged caps or that you shouldn't short UPS battery terminals 🙂

[still crest]

I see, seems a little tough

[sleek egret]

no idea, but probably not. the owner was sort an asshole to his customers, lol.

[sleek egret]

I was cheap. I probably got paid minimum wage.

[still crest]

Ok

[fringe sphinx]

there are still regional ISPs and IT outsourcers and resellers. For example, to find the outsourcers & resellers, look (on microsoft's site) for the microsoft certified vendors in your area. https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/partnership/find-a-partner

[sleek egret]

yeah, my niece goes to one of the top 10 universities in the world but she waited tables at a local restaurant last summer. her roommate is an heiress to some corporate fortune, so she jetted around the world. not everyone can be super-rich. <shrug>

[proven crest]

There is one near me, i would never trust them with any of my technology. Maybe a phone screen repair or something simple. No way would I trust them with a 3k laptop. I doubt they even have insurance to cover any mistakes

[wanton birch]

I learnt all that because of my hobby. Sadly there aren’t that many people looking to get their electronics fixed these days. Not to mention that some of the technology makes fixing not that easy anymore. I work on retro electronics so I can still do things.

[fringe sphinx]

It's like cars. They become less and less repairable over time. To the point where it's often not worth the trouble (to repair vs replace a failed part... not the entire car)

[sleek egret]

yeah, but delhi is a HUGE city, there are probably 100's or 1000's of electronics/computer repair shops

metro area population of 33mil people

[proven crest]

Yup, I did bar work throughout uni. One of my roommates was studying abroad from Mumbai, his family was quite high up in Bollywood.

[sleek egret]

dayum, that's a lotta peeps

[sleek egret]

so.. he was good looking too?

some people have all the luck, lol

[fringe sphinx]

33M? That doesn't seem right.

[proven crest]

Eh, he was a nice looking lad. I think his family were more in the directing/producing than acting.

[wanton birch]

Generally what happens due to super high competition is that you’d need to go all in. No part timing. There are folks ready to do it full time. The part time thing isn’t as big there as it’s in the west. To make any meaningful amount, you need beyond full time hours.

Not suggesting that one still couldn’t find something. It just is a very different market overall.

[proven crest]

They had a fucking mansion though, and multiple cars, drivers, help. All of that was just normal for him. That being said, he wasn't spoilt at all. He valued money.

[sleek egret]

even so, man, even so. that reminds me of this indian guy on my floor my freshman year... from a super rich family... his pops told him he'd buy him a porsche if he got a certain GPA. which he did. so he got the car. lucky bastard, lol.

[sleek egret]

well, that's good. my niece's heiress roommate I mentioned? she has this story where her roomy didn't know how to do laundry (they have servants for that) and so she would just buy new cloths for a while when she ran out.... lol

then my niece told her about dry cleaners

[wanton birch]

I had that policy for socks. I used to buy the cheapest bulk amount possible and just use them and throw them into the bin after use.

[sleek egret]

lol, that's just wrong man. but funny.

[proven crest]

Lool, nah nothing like that. He did have to get used to washing his dishes though. We had to tell him to do it all the time. He did try to look into getting a cleaner though 🤣

[proven crest]

Depending how you used the socks, that might be the best thing to do

[sleek egret]

I can understand them having a bit of trouble getting used to cleaning up after themselves. as long as they try (and get there eventually), it's fine, IMO.

[wanton birch]

I used to wear them more days that most people used socks without washing. They’d get real nasty.

[sleek egret]

dude... that's wrong

anyway, back to careers 🙂

[wanton birch]

Me and many other international students in the UK had that problem. Our parents spoilt us and all those chores were only ever done by servants and chauffeurs and what not. It was some adjustment, mate!

[fringe sphinx]

well, it is career related: you're not going to have one with that sock policy.

[near hemlock]

That sock talk sure was uplifting.

[sleek egret]

interviewing pro tip: do not go to your interview wearing smelly socks or underwear!

[fringe sphinx]

oh man, we're doing pro tips?

[wanton birch]

Doesn’t happen when you buy in bulk like I did! Just chuck it out and get a brand new pair!

[fringe sphinx]

Don't bring a knife to an interview. (had that happen once)

[sleek egret]

whatever works for ya, mate

[wanton birch]

What if I am Sikh?

[fringe sphinx]

Oh. He wasn't. It was redneck.

[wanton birch]

Perhaps a Sikh in the heart

[sleek egret]

I once visited an office with a prominent sign that said "no firearms allowed on the premises, please check your weapon at reception"

[near hemlock]

Texas?

[sleek egret]

tennessee, so close enough 🙂

[wanton birch]

But what if the interviewers shoot you? How would you equalise the force?

[sleek egret]

life's not fair

[wanton birch]

Do you guys always wear 3 piece suits to interviews?

[fringe sphinx]

Dress pants/slacks, collared/button down shirt, clean shoes.

Unless you're interviewing for sales or something, then a jacket. Never worn a tie for an interview.

[sleek egret]

people haven't done that for about a half century, lol

[sleek egret]

my first few "real jobs", I had to wear a suit and tie every day to work

[wanton birch]

I did this exam proctoring gig and they told me to dress business professional. So I did. All suited and booted. Then I go there and find out other proctors we’re wearing casual stuff like hoodies. Making it worse, even the faculty were wearing casual! I looked like some Hollywood investment banker or something roaming around looking all out of place and awkward.

[fringe sphinx]

IBM?

[sleek egret]

banks

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, yah, that's a different animal. Luckily they're much chiller nowadays.

[fringe sphinx]

Business professional != suited. It's dress pants and shirt.

[sleek egret]

you should have played outside inspector

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, if you google business professional, I guess it tells you suit. Fair mistake.

[wanton birch]

I didn’t want them to complain about how I was dressed. I’m very easy going. I’ll happily meet you in my Pjs if you are comfortable with it. I don’t care

[fringe sphinx]

I read it as "business casual", which is normal nowadays. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/starting-new-job/guide-to-business-attire

[wanton birch]

That’s what I did. Looked at that and then went with safe than sorry.

[sleek egret]

for tech jobs, just don't be slovenly and you'll be ok

[fringe sphinx]

I wear business casual when visiting customers, and sometimes I throw on a sport coat... but I'm the guy in charge.

[wanton birch]

Like from Slovenia or something?

[sleek egret]

uh sure

[dreamy spade]

Audiovisual Software Developer 🤞

[wanton birch]

Luckily, didn’t get a real interview yet. So never really mattered. My balls could have been hanging through the gaping hole of my ripped underwear during those phone interviews and no harm done

[dreamy spade]

Sounds like a great idea. I will do that.

[proven crest]

Awesome dude! Sounds like its perfect for you!

[fringe sphinx]

My usual advice is to spend a little time reading about the company, not just their products. Read google news, maybe look around LinkedIn to see what their employees say about their current roles, etc. Make sure you have 2-3 good questions you'd like answered.

[sleek egret]

congrats @dreamy spade!

[wanton birch]

That’s cool. Congratulations on finally getting some traction. Wish you all the best.

[dreamy spade]

I’m not out of the woods yet. I’m on round two

[sleek egret]

now you just have to cram a few semesters of digital signal processing math into your head over the next few weeks 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

Also, remember that they like you. They brought you in. Don't be too insecure: sometimes interviewers can seem impersonal or awkward, but interviews are (sometimes) socially awkward situations, so just chillax and view it as an opportunity to talk to someone new.

[sleek egret]

FFTs, bode plots and signals autocorrelation, oh my

[wanton birch]

I wish instead of those things they gave me a project. I swear I’d ace it. The only reason I did well at uni was that there were lots of projects and I aced them all. I always hated abstract learning and vomiting solutions and answers in short exams.

[proven crest]

I'm guessing they covered a the basic stuff in the initial interview with HR/Talent or whoever and this interview is with the technical team.

Some basic advise would be:

• Research the company. What they do, what products to they develop, anything interesting going on like recent mergers, what technology do they work with etc. Again this was probably covered, but they'll probably ask you this too.

• Be presentable. Wear a smart shirt, make sure your hair and facial hair is well groomed. Get a trim if its a bit shaggy.

• Make sure to show interest, ask plenty of questions. Connect with that they say if you have experience.

For the more technical portion of the interview, they might ask you questions about your projects, experience, and general technical questions. For example for me they started out by asking simple questions like the difference between a list and dictionary, and the difference between inner and outer join. These gradually got more difficult until I couldn't answer. Regarding my projects they asked a lot of questions about why i did X like X, if there are any other ways I could have done it, why did I use X technology, what problems I encountered, how i resolved them.

Also just be polite and honest. I remember a few conversations where you said you treat everyone as your opponent or enemy, that's not the kind of mindset you want. They read your CV\Cover, they know your a junior, they don't expect you to be an expert. They expect you to be a team player, honest about what you do / don't know, be resourceful and willing to learn.

You'll do great! Can't wait to hear how it goes.

[fringe sphinx]

"These gradually got more difficult until I couldn't answer.": Yah, actually, that's part of my interview style. I want to hear how an interviewee handles a question they can't answer. Not a trick question, just seeing them work through a problem.

[proven crest]

Thats interesting! How do people tend to answer, what are examples of good and bad? When I started to struggle I'd say as much as I knew and said I'd need to research that further to give a more confidant answer and got to the point where I said that's something I haven't encountered, I'd have to do some resaerch into it

[wanton birch]

I know someone who works in IT Audits and easily gets insanely high paying jobs. Always passes all interviews obviously. But then gets fired. They have very little technical knowledge. But they somehow always do incredible in interviews.

The moment I get an interview, I’ll go to that guy to help me prepare. I haven’t met someone so incompetent in everything who manages to secure so many high paying jobs.

[fringe sphinx]

So, I'd ask some form of a basic leetcode-type question, but guide them through the answer. So, I'd look to see if they could decompose the problem, identify what they're not clear about, etc. No particular right/wrong answer, just that they could: verbalize, work with the interviewer, decompose a problem, and of course, could write some form of pseudocode to describe it

again: I wasn't leetcoding them. If they knew the answer, I'd ask another one they didn't know.

[wanton birch]

So your goal was to work through problems with them and see what that experience was like?

[fringe sphinx]

Yes

[wanton birch]

That sounds good. A much better test than “here’s some random coding thing and you’ve got 10 mins”

[fringe sphinx]

Many companies use pre-screens for that. not a big fan personally

[proven crest]

We had that too, I didn't think I did too well but I was never given results. Still to this day I have no idea and I'm scared to ask lol

[fringe sphinx]

Also, you'd be shocked at how many people fail a fizzbuzz, if you don't prescreen.

[wanton birch]

This German company sent me a long pre screening test that was all behavioural.

[wanton birch]

Is that the if this then that thing?

[fringe sphinx]

yah, probably. you should be able to whiteboard a fizzbuzz problem blindfolded though.

[wanton birch]

Assuming you are familiar with programming!

[fringe sphinx]

well, if you're applying to a swe position, yes.

[wanton birch]

I guess you can start with that just as an ice breaker. It’d be hilarious if anyone actually failed to solve that. I can’t imagine there exists anyone who would fail.

[fringe sphinx]

Read this: https://imranontech.com/2007/01/24/using-fizzbuzz-to-find-developers-who-grok-coding/

[proven crest]

You'd be supprised

[fringe sphinx]

It's old. The industries gotten a lot better. This is pre-leetcode/etc.

[wanton birch]

“Want to know something scary ? – the majority of comp sci graduates can’t. I’ve also seen self-proclaimed senior programmers take more than 10-15 minutes to write a solution.”

I call bullshit! That is impossible

There cannot be CSE grads or senior programmers who don’t understand basic conditional loops. That’s like what you learn within the first hour of learning any programming language.

[true harness]

¯_(ツ)_/¯ avoids wasting people's time

[wanton birch]

Or more like this is the best they can do. There is always a trade off whenever you test people this way. The bias comes from education systems marking and grading folks based on performance in test/exam setup.

I’ve always done significantly better whenever it was some sort of a project compared to class tests and exams. By significantly better, I am talking about some extreme where I barely passed a subject but went on to be one of the highest scorers in projects where the application of Knowledge from that subject was tested in practice.

I think the screening should be reserved for sanity check type of stuff.

[proven crest]

What do you mean by this?

[true harness]

the screening should be used to cut down the amount of candidates to a number you can reasonably review. adjust difficulty to get desired result

[fringe sphinx]

yah, fair, I've just found they're abused in some cases:"trick question" bullshit rather than the fizzbuzz type of screening.

[wanton birch]

As in testing for familiarity with things but not the depth of knowledge

[summer roost]

Very much this. I've interviewed some candidates whose resumes must have been total fabrications.

[proven crest]

I think screening should be a minimal bar. If you're doing this for a junior position, you might get some extremely talented and over qualified developers, but they'll leave after 6 months or less. That won't be a good ROI.

[true harness]

wdym? screening isn't used to select candidates, only filter people that don't do well on the screening

[wanton birch]

But if your screening method filters out legitimate candidates then you are making a selection of not selecting them, aren't you?

[fringe sphinx]

Eh, that's certainly not a concern. That would be a failure in my comp and work environment and learning opportunities.

[proven crest]

cut down the amount of candidates to a number you can reasonably review.
adjust difficulty to get desired result

Maybe I misunderstood, but from that I got if you have 1000 applicants you set a very high bar that you'd hope 5 or 10 will pass.

[summer roost]

Screening is the very first step after resume reviews. You've got a pool of candidates whose resumes indicate they should be a good fit for the position, and you need to select which of those candidates you're going to invest resources on interviewing.

[true harness]

you would still have manual reviewing of resumes, maybe a few hundred, then interview a handful

yeah you can also do screening after resume review, I've heard both done

[fringe sphinx]

that's fairly typical for me... I'll often just tell the recruiters to hand me a pile of unfiltered resumes, pick out the top 20 and maybe pre-screen them

[summer roost]

So, yeah: you probably don't have the resources to conduct 1000 interviews. You need to figure out which of those 1000 candidates you're going to interview somehow.

[wanton birch]

So what proportion of the candidates that make it to the technical interview phase turns out to suck? @fringe sphinx @proven crest @summer roost

[proven crest]

I have no idea, I'm not a recruiter

[fringe sphinx]

50% are terrible, imo. Doesn't mean the other 50% are hirable.

Many interviews I've had to muscle through 30 minutes when I know they aren't hirable in 5 min. Phone screens help a lot too.

[proven crest]

Why did you keep going? Why didn't you cut it short?

[wanton birch]

Ah! That sounds bad indeed.

[summer roost]

Yeah, "suck" is a spectrum. Lots of candidates can do something simple like fizzbuzz, but can't possibly complete the job duties.

[fringe sphinx]

I dunno, I feel like a jerk. Still want to treat someone as a person.

[proven crest]

I guess yeah

[summer roost]

My company has an official policy to not end interviews earlier than scheduled. For lots of different reasons, but not being a jerk is one

[true harness]

plus you're not getting the time back. you've scheduled some amount of time for the interview already

[wanton birch]

Plus if it is a performance anxiety issue, the additional time might help the candidate calm down and perform better. Sometimes people freeze!

[summer roost]

yep, that's one of the reasons, too.

[fringe sphinx]

I had one data scientist interviewee who I swear was high. Like super high. To the point where I just wanted to get out of there unharmed.

And I had a tiny office at the time, with my back tothe wall. and he was by door.

[summer roost]

once someone makes it to actually getting a technical interview (past the initial screening), they always get at least 2 (back to back) rounds of interviews from my company. And one of the reasons for that is that some candidates do much better in the second round than the first, after calming down a bit and getting a fresh set of interviewers to talk to.

another reason is that, outside of cases where someone blatantly lied about their credentials, they might be a good candidate in the future, even if they don't have the skills now, so treating them like shit just hurts your future hiring.

[fringe sphinx]

I like to tell this story a lot: I was once hiring at a big tech company, and had 2-3 jobs posted. Inhouse recruiter said she had like 500 resumes and needed to filter them before giving them to me:

[summer roost]

Also, bad candidates often have friends who are good candidates. Treating some candidates poorly can backfire when rumors start spreading that you treat candidates poorly.

[fringe sphinx]

Long story short, I ended up hiring from internal recommendations (people would drop friends resumes on my desk) before she ever gave me any resumes.

(different HR person handled setting up interviews, so the other recruiter ended up doing nothing)

[proven crest]

How many recruiters do you have in your company? And are you a tech or recruitment company?

[fringe sphinx]

then? no idea. Now, not relevant (small tech)

[proven crest]

Ah i see

[fringe sphinx]

that was a long time ago, but I think the moral of the story is: networking is important

[summer roost]

for what it's worth, companies usually err on the side of caution in matters of hiring. They'd much rather reject a candidate who would have turned out to be a good choice than accept a candidate who turns out to be a bad choice.

that is: the goal of the hiring process at most companies isn't to hire the best available candidate, it's to avoid hiring a bad candidate

[fringe sphinx]

Yes: and this enters into the hire (fast|slow), fire (fast|slow) debate.

My experience in small tech is: the winning strat is hire fast, fire fast… but since firing is never ‘fast’ in big companies, this isn’t an option

[wanton birch]

This is so annoying!

This company has a timeline I have to design in their website too! God I hate it.

[summer roost]

lol. Remember that interviews/hiring go both ways. Part of it is definitely you deciding whether it seems like a company you'd want to work for.

I realize that people who need a job can't afford to be choosey, but I'd expect some candidates to walk away when confronted with something terrible like that

[wanton birch]

After a year of humiliating and demoralising failures, I'd say I'm willing to put up with VERY abusive and toxic companies.

Does this mean I have to pay them 4000 to be an intern?

[fringe sphinx]

https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/comments/149p2p3/internship_application_fee/

Not much web presence either, I don't get good vibes from this one.

[wanton birch]

Looks like a scam honestly. Similar to that german company that rejected my internship application and then emailed me saying I was selected for their training program that costs money.

[small geode]

Given the domain was only created a couple months ago, I'd say so
https://talosintelligence.com/reputation_center/lookup?search=ottawa.education

[sleek egret]

that looks like a scam to me

these scams targetting poor young job seekers are just wrong. they should be focusing their efforts trying to scam rich people.

[sudden shoal]

But unfortunately scamming young people is easier because we are easier to reach out,
and most of are not so familiar with the process.

[true harness]

and are desperate in many cases

many such cases!

[sudden shoal]

I met the scammer almost once a month because of some job ads seems easy to apply.

[wanton birch]

Sadly, with most entry level posts being screwed over by job posters mislabelling their thing, these scams end up being the reasonable sounding ones

[true harness]

i don't see how that's such a big deal. just ignore it and move on? takes 15 seconds to verify how much experience it requires

[sudden shoal]

Honestly, for junior role, those scam ads are more reasonable.
At least it will not require smth like:
frontend framework + backend microservice exp + Pytorch + C++ knowledge + AWS/Azure/GCP + Docker + k8s

And they even expecting you're already good with jenkins/terraform

[small geode]

Not all of that is unreasonable, however

[sudden shoal]

Not all but many, that is enough to call that as a problem

[small geode]

The only thing unreasonable is expecting work experience. You can practice everything you listed and create projects with it all

[sudden shoal]

I mean, that is the reason why scammer so easy to get the score.

[small geode]

Nobody's debating that

[wanton birch]

Because it is wildly inefficient. I am not talking about one or two randoms. It is all mostly intermediate-ish to senior roles when I select entry. Why not label them as such? Why do I need to read through so many adverts when that simple tag would have done the work for me?

I have no choice, so I have to sit there reading endless adverts. So I already do what you are saying. I just don't understand why one wouldn't be for the change where they actually have to label these things properly.

[small geode]

I believe they agree, you've just repeated it several times in the past couple days.

[wanton birch]

Oh! Sorry. Misunderstood things. Yeah! High chances of me ranting and rambling. Sorry about that!

[true harness]

i don't think the company is doing the labelling. linkedin is just pulling that from the job post

[sleek egret]

hmm, they may change the title based on click-through metrics

which is just sad but makes it look better to the advertiser

[sudden shoal]

Sure, you're right.

I think some company try to label the senior job advert as entry/associate/junior just for higher hit rate.

[sleek egret]

the company doesn't want higher raw hit rates

[wanton birch]

Why?

[sudden shoal]

To avoid being filtered I guess, especially for some start-up environment company.

[sleek egret]

it's a mystery

[sudden shoal]

Yeah, it's still a mystery.

[hardy blade]

I've started interviewing at my company and it feels good to be on the other side.

I make sure that I don't unnecessarily grill people and give the weaker candidates a chance by letting them in. I remember how they felt and I apply this to how I interview from now on

It feels good to know that I'm giving someone an opportunity to put food on the table

[proven crest]

Are you really giving them a chance if you've already designated them weak before they've even interviewed? Its a nice confidence booster for them at the least

[summer roost]

what do you mean by "letting them in"?

[proven crest]

Comes across as wasting company time and dragging them through a process you know they'll fail as some kind of charity

[hardy blade]

why would i designate them as weak before the interview?

[proven crest]

"give the weaker candidates a chance by letting them in" You tell me

[vapid jay]

WTFFFFF

[hardy blade]

Which is after the interview

You seem like someone who is into academic hazing. I empathize with people and understand that nerves might result in them not performing to the best of their abilities. I like to see the potential in people

[summer roost]

so by "letting them in", you mean that you're intentionally hiring worse candidates when better candidates were available?

[proven crest]

What do you mean by letting them in? Letting them into the interview or the job?

[hardy blade]

No, i hire the good ones too. I'm just saying I'm lenient when hiring, I very rarely reject anyone unless there are obvious red flags. By letting them in, i mean i pass them onto the next round or I pass them if its the final round

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, you have to avoid being biased because you might miss out on good candidates

i am all for an inclusive and diverse workforce.

[summer roost]

https://awfulannouncing.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/94/2022/09/bold-strategy-cotton-300x225.jpg

[wanton birch]

We are seeking a talented UI Software Engineer with a specialization in mechatronics to join our team.

UI here still means User Interface, right?

[summer roost]

yes

[proven crest]

Sounds like an interesting hiring process and an interesting team..

[hardy blade]

I'm not hiring for my team specifically, otherwise i'd be more strict

[wanton birch]

Why would someone specialising in mechatronics be a talented UI dev?

[proven crest]

https://tenor.com/view/lolol-lmao-gif-22173456

[hardy blade]

Plus I'm ensuring my own job security by letting in weaker hires

[summer roost]

that's a very good question. UI and mechatronics seem pretty far apart to me. Maybe UI means something else within this domain that I'm not familiar with... what technologies does the job ask for? Do they seem user interface related?

[hardy blade]

don't act like corporate america has morals, they will lay you off in a heartbeat

[proven crest]

You're ensuring your incompetency is crystal clear

[hardy blade]

Meh, you don't know me so i doubt you can accurately assess that. You seem like someone who enjoys sucking up to corporate america

[summer roost]

this doesn't seem like a constructive conversation to pursue. I suggest we drop it.

[graceful mason]

Sounds like they're more working specifically on a UI alongside mechatronics engineers who are building the main product - when you're working on low-level systems it often helps to have the low-level knowledge too

The ad explains it pretty well tbh

[summer roost]

yeah, Qt is very clearly User Interface related.

[wanton birch]

Utilize modern C++ (>= C++11) for software development.
Have knowledge of high-performance 2D graphics.
Experience with Qt/QML development is required.
Familiarity with Figma is a plus.
Proficiency in programming languages such as Kotlin, Java, and C++ is required.
Knowledge of high-performance 2D graphics.
Experience with Qt/QML development.
Familiarity with Figma is a plus.
2-5 years of relevant experience in mechatronics engineering.

Collaborate with hardware and embedded software engineers in the software development chain dedicated to graphical user interfaces.
Carry out GUI software integration by maintaining modular architecture, reusable components, and user interfaces.
Collaborate with other front-end or back-end developers, managers, and quality teams to deliver an excellent user experience.
Perform benchmarks and participate in the choice of future solutions.
Demonstrate autonomy and leadership in the execution of assigned tasks.```

I am still confused as to what this has got to do with mechatronics

[summer roost]

Qt/QML is so important they listed it twice

[proven crest]

What is high-performance 2D graphics?

[wanton birch]

I developed one. Wanna see?

[proven crest]

Yeah!

[wanton birch]

You give me a job and I will show you the thing along with how I coded it

[proven crest]

I'll give you an interview, first interview question: What is high-performance 2D graphics?

[wanton birch]

It is a revolutionary technology where innovative means of developing graphics are leveraged with modern AI technology to delivery high value 2 dimensional graphical stuff.

[graceful mason]

AI? 😅

pretty sure what it means is you need to make an interface on a toaster where 90% of the resources are already being used