career-advice

[midnight urchin]

GTA SAN Online!!

[smoky quest]

you would not be competing with mid or senior levels

[earnest spade]

why not aim for the stars, brother. Wasn't my goal to be top dog to begin with?

be completely honest, do you think this industry is actually doing well rn in terms of jobs

no trolling

[balmy spade]

Yes.

[smoky quest]

Yep

[earnest spade]

it's not a bad idea to get into this industry, for the first time, right now?

[smoky quest]

nope

[earnest spade]

no bullshit?

[smoky quest]

bro needs to enlarge his time horizon.
Imagine you asked the same question in 2020 when everyone was hiring like crazy. Do you think the market now reflect the market when students were entering school at the time?
Now, do you think the market in 4 years will be the same than it is today in 2024?

that said, if you strongly believe in the industry going down, then don't go into CS. That's entirely up to you

[earnest spade]

the problem is I'm already in my first year of college my friend and I'm starting to question if I've been scammed

or joined this industry in the absolutely wort time possible

[deft herald]

the problem fortunate part is I'm already only in my first year of college

Fixed that for you

[smoky quest]

this is not as bad as during the dotcom crash or 2008 crash

[earnest spade]

guess only time will tell

[smoky quest]

this will depend on the US election and the interest rate

[earnest spade]

hopefully the degree I get will allow me to get hired at mcdonalds or sum if push comes to shove

[balmy spade]

It will do far more than that if you apply yourself.

[true harness]

you can work fast food without a high school diploma. but i wouldn't recommend it

[vapid jay]

Look man, I graduated in 2022 when this job hell started.

[earnest spade]

unlucky

[smoky quest]

people who are good and have a decent resume won't have issues.
We already made job offers for students graduating in may

[earnest spade]

damn nah I lowkey meant into other industries if this industry goes into shambles

[vapid jay]

Unfortunately, I don't have that luxury. I went to a school where you basically sink or swim and "teaching" isn't really something that professors tended to do. . .More like toss vague tech that only a few people would understand and had to use an INTENSE grading curve for ANYONE to pass.

ugh. . . I need to go, I'm starting to get angry & remembering the verbal abuse from my half brother again. Gonna go to Jiu Jitsu early.

[true harness]

and?

[vapid jay]

I feel like it was all a waste of fucking time.

All of the abuse & disrespect I took, all of the preserverance, repeating classes I f ailed and not giving up? Ohhh~ sorry, but your resume isn't good enough. Now I have to do a QA or IT job to get my start.

[earnest spade]

damn bro, I pray things get better man that shit ain't right

[deft herald]

The thing about getting a CS degree is that it already can apply to a ton of different industries. Tech as a whole may be up or down, but there are smaller subindustries that basically trend opposite of each other

[earnest spade]

hmm that's an optimistic view point of things I guess

[vapid jay]

That's the thing, dude. CS is only getting more and more massive with each and every year, the way in is so vague, the bar is set higher and it just seems to get less and less n00b friendly.

[earnest spade]

yah that's what I'm saying, like I'm in my first year but all my classmates are in the grindset I thought first year was chill lmao

[vapid jay]

Your classmates are going to burn out.

[pine sleet]

well yeah, it can be a highly technical field

[earnest spade]

like one of my friends grinded and basically got an internship this summer somehow, he's first year

[vapid jay]

I need to find a psychiatrist that isn't racist. . . .If I can get back on adderal, I can forget my goddamn mental problems when I work at least.

[earnest spade]

I took first year super chill personally but exams and projects aren't without stress, I'm studying like 10 hours a day rn for the past 3 weeks and prolly for the next month

[pine sleet]

yeah this definetely seems like it needs some professional help rather than a discord server

[earnest spade]

holy shit brah I hope things get better for you man

[deft herald]

10 hrs a day studying outside of class? That's too much imo

[pine sleet]

yeah maybe your study methods just don't work for you

what year are you?

[vapid jay]

I was hitting that number just to make Cs, lol. . . .

[earnest spade]

nono it's spring break now but exams start right after

[pine sleet]

if you're studying 10 hours a day and only getting Cs something is very wrong

[languid cloud]

Hey guys

[pine sleet]

howdy

[vapid jay]

One class I studied 10 hours a day and still failed brutally. First time i took linear algebra.

[earnest spade]

was it 10 hours a day consistently for months or just like the week before the exam?

[pine sleet]

rip. i'm taking linalg next semester

[deft herald]

There's like a point, at least in my experience, where any more studying just burnt me out and was a net negative gain

[vapid jay]

get the syllabus NOW.

[true harness]

time management issue? distracted during those 10 hours?

[pine sleet]

nah i'll be fine

we win these 😤

[earnest spade]

cuz I'm only doing 10 hours a day because I'm aiming for a first class honours, getting just a passing grade would be a massive downgrade to my high school level

yah

[true harness]

if you're doing 10 hours of studying a day, i would guess that there are some efficiency improvements to be made

[vapid jay]

Bro, the prof I took gave me about 50 questions a night and 3 quizzes a week. The quiz questions you needed to know how the homework was done and you could only DO that by reading the material which took 3 hours a night. . . .Wanna know how the ppl who passed LA passed it? They just bullshitted it and knew it already.

[pine sleet]

seems like a prof issue than a class issue. always check rmp

[earnest spade]

how come? I'm finishing a lot more by doing 10 hours a day than if I only did 5 hours. Sure the last 5 hours are less efficient than the first 5 but I'm still getting shit done

[vapid jay]

Not much I could have done, I re-took LA with another prof after taking a semester off and barely managed to pass. I studied 2 hours per day and got a C. Started off strong but petered out.

[earnest spade]

ego boost I guess but also it looks hella good on your resume

[pine sleet]

yeah it happens

[balmy mural]

10 hours a day sounds like something is very wrong in the way you study. The only times I ever came close to that is if my exam schedule was unlucky and I had 2 different exams landing withing 2 days of each other

[pine sleet]

though i think i am pretty mathematically inclined so i'll be fine

[vapid jay]

I did, it was him or this guy who had an even worse rating than he did. I didn't know I could take the class at the tech school across the street at the time.

[earnest spade]

no first class honours would be from college. I'm first year university right now

[vapid jay]

Oh wow, his RMP rating got HORRIBLE since I graduated. . . .Serves him right.

[earnest spade]

brother where are you getting these conclusions from 💀

[vapid jay]

Oh wow, he's been reported tot he Math board too. . .They're still protecting him. . . Huh. . . .

[earnest spade]

to be fair this is during my spring break right now. No way I can study 10 hours and go to lectures at the same time. But 10 hours is very very doable if it's during break

[pine sleet]

honestly i don't think there's like ever a reason to study more than 5 hours at a time

[earnest spade]

I've been doing it consistently for at least the last 2 weeks. The week before that I think I was hitting 6 hours. Only after that I realized I need to step it up a bit

[white relic]

If you're being abused and disrespected in your degree program and studying 10 hours a day to get barely passing grades, it sounds like you had an atypically negative experience. That sucks, but I suggest you be careful about generalizing your experience. Other people who got CS degrees didn't have comparable experiences to yours and that may be correlated with why you're having difficulty finding a related job

[vapid jay]

been on reddit lately? A lot of people are having trouble finding a dev job. Like a LOT.

[white relic]

The market is hard, sure.

[balmy spade]

The market is much better than it's been, not as good as it was.

[languid cloud]

Facts

[vapid jay]

Yeah, but this isn't what I signed up for. I signed up for "Move fast and break things, work hard and preservere and you will get rewarded." not "Ehh~ yeah it sucks and you had a bad time, but don't generalize.".

[fleet reef]

Dude
What's with the name?
Giving dogs a bad name

[balmy mural]

People have been complaining about not finding jobs on reddit since forever, because the people who do get jobs aren't posting about it

[pine sleet]

do NOT get cs opinions from reddit

well, concerning jobs at least

[balmy spade]

Surprisingly when you go to a site designed for people to complain, you find complaints.

[earnest spade]

they gotta let in more youngsters fr

[balmy spade]

We are. :)

[earnest spade]

then why's my mans drake struggling 😢

[true harness]

resume issue

[vapid jay]

Here is the thing static void main. . .

I know you guys are earnestly trying to help, but I'm going to keep it a buck? I'm exhausted. I'm tired of eating trash and being told "don't generalize" or "just work harder." I'm gonna be 32 in May, I don't know what issues I want to solve I don't know what to do with programming because I am heecking EXHAUSTED bro. Like what am I supposed to PUT on my resume ??? When I have to learn ANOTHER framework just to add a PIECE of a puzzle onto a program I don't even know exists? All this JUST to get a job???

[pine sleet]

once again seems like something to work out with a therapist or something

we're just here for career advice

[earnest spade]

I'm praying for you brother 🙏 the shit your going through, that ain't right man 💔

[vapid jay]

I appreciate it.

[balmy spade]

Like what am I suppsed to PUT on my resume

Any skill that you can demonstrate that has value to the position you are applying for.

[vapid jay]

Look man, be real. . . I have a basis. I know Python, C++, a lil java, I can take online video classes when books become too exhausting, but like . . . How many years would it take you to get a job if you were in my position?

[pine sleet]

have you done any major projects

books are videos are only gonna take you so far

[vapid jay]

Bro, what is even a "major project" ?

[pine sleet]

i think if you found something fun and just worked on it, it wouldn't feel so "exhausting". just have some fun with it

[vapid jay]

I was originally gonna make a full stack app, but to DO that I have to learn databases and networking.

[pine sleet]

but like, if you always have a thought that "i need to do this so i can get a job" in the back of your head you're just going to get burnt out and not be motivated

[balmy spade]

I got a job in tech with 25 years of retail experience and no programming experience (that I could demonstrate). You asked what goes on the resume. The answer is demonstrable skills that provide value to whom is going to hire you.

TL/DR: Demonstrable value

[pine sleet]

imo this type of thinking doesn't help: "i want to make this, but i have to learn this, this, and that first", just dive into the project and learn it as you go

[vapid jay]

Fuck it, what do I have to lose at this point. . .

[pine sleet]

but also it might help to just let go of the idea of "i HAVE to do this"

just work on whatever, whenever you want, switch projects when it gets boring, just do something that's fun, consistently

[vital wyvern]

There's gotta' be some appeal in finding someone that can tolerate 25 years of retail experience.

[vapid jay]

25 Christmases. . . .

[true harness]

you don't need networking skills to learn database skills, and you don't need deep database skills to make a simple full stack app. as robin said, just dive into what you want to make

[vapid jay]

Twenty Five Black Friday's. . . .

[balmy spade]

:) And I love retail. Disliked the job. Loved the work.

[vapid jay]

tbh, I'm not sure what I love anymore.

I used to love games, but like. . . .That was just an escape that I stopped doing.

[balmy spade]

The team that interviewed me hired me because of what I could demonstrate from my resume. Critical thinking, task management, reflection, and putting myself in the shoes of the client I was helping.

I entered tech as a tier 2 support specialist. One step away from the call-center.

[balmy spade]

That's something I can't unpack with you. Legitimately, that is something to unpack with a therapist. I needed one after I left retail. Seven years later I still need one. Self worth takes an absolute beating. It happens. It's okay. You can build it back up.

[vapid jay]

I didn't mean it like that.

[balmy spade]

You know you best. We're just strangers on the internet.

[vital wyvern]

I think from a senior level I'd be interested in hiring anyone that can tolerate an environment as notoriously soul-crushing as retail/military for that long. My skillset is not that hard to learn, it's the soft skills that take the most effort lol.

[balmy spade]

You have a unique view. I find the majority of my peers think less of tier 1 support, retail, and food industry. They don't open say that "unskilled labor" nonsense but their words hint at it.

I find that to be unfortunate. The ideas I've pushed up the chain from our tier 1 support have saved the company millions. The amount of work, focus, and energy someone needs to pour into a retail job is staggering in hindsight.

My takeaway from it, in reflection, was that I didn't value the skills I'd learned. Communication, thoughtfulness, time management, multi-tasking, and so many more. They are invaluable to me even today as a software developer.

[vital wyvern]

It's nice when you find someone that does value that. I was recently given an incredible opportunity despite feeling like I didn't really nail the technical interview-- but it sounds like the org I will be working for is willing to help teach me; and instead is placing a huge value on my other skillsets and soft skills. They are out there.

[fringe sphinx]

I think there may be some bias at the lower level (ie junior or senior engineers who aren't in management), but at the mgmt level and above, I've usually seen a lot of respect for all aspects of the business: companies care deeply about customer experience and often their NPS

That said, I've worked primarily in high touch (sales and support) enterprise products, so my view is slanted

[balmy spade]

I'd agree with this. Our senior leadership and c-level leadership are always open to listening regardless of our title. Hence how I've pushed the willing up to be noticed. haha. Even our CEO makes it perfectly clear that the client comes first and the first line of team members talking to the client get attention when needed.

It's just that mucky middle ground that I have to check my sighs of frustration with. "Yes, talk with tier 1. Not only do they have all the details they probably have six ways to work around the issue that you didn't know existed in your own system!"

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, that's a good leader. And, tbh, the type of person. I usually see at that level (I've rarely seen jackasses )

[lost cypress]

Anybody have any tips for being prepared for my first SWE Internship Interview? Aside from the do leetcode and stuff. I'm getting some nerves even though it's only been a few hours since they reached out to me.

Idk why I'm so nervous, i guess it's just because I have received so many rejections after applying to positions that this is such a rare opportunity for me

[balmy spade]

Get plenty of sleep the night before. Eat a good breakfast. Keep to your usual routine. The "just a Tuesday" vibe will help you relax and think clearly. During the interview just remember to be as calm as possible. It's normal to be nervous. Chances are even your interviewer(s) will be nervous.

[gritty rivet]

The main thing that has made interviews less nerve-wracking for me over time is practice

If you have anyone you can do mock interviews with, whether someone experienced or just a peer as new as you are, it's not a bad idea. Or you can just rehearse answers to common interview questions on your own, preferably in front of a mirror. I know it feels weird if not downright painful, but the practice builds confidence and fluency

[fringe sphinx]

Be yourself. Don't try to fake some different personality. You -will not- know the answer to every question: be comfortable handling unknowns with curiosity and clarifying questions.

[gritty rivet]

There's no substitute for the real thing though. You will get questions you don't know how to answer and feel awkward. You may walk out feeling like you totally blew it only to find out that they thought you did well

[balmy spade]

I don't know if it helps, but we often ask questions purposely knowing you might not know the answer. How you handle not knowing is just as important as handling what you do know.

[summer roost]

the interviewer doesn't want you to fail. interviews where the candidate bombs are not fun, for anyone. If the interviewer tries to give you suggestions, take them. If they ask whether you're sure an approach will work, it's probably because they're sure that it won't. If they suggest giving up on some problem and moving on to another one, it's because they've already decided that the one you're working on is out of your wheelhouse, but they want to try another one to see if you do better at it - don't fight them on it, move on, and try to do better on the next one

also, I find it helpful to remember that the interviewer is a programmer, just like you. Interviewing people is probably not their whole job, or their favorite part of their job. You've probably got a lot more in common with them than not.

[summer roost]

to this point, interviewers need to answer questions that they anticipate most candidates not getting. An interview where you only ask questions that most candidates can easily answer is one where you did a poor job of winnowing the field down to the candidate who is the best fit

[lost cypress]

thank you so much for all this advice everyone, sorry a bit busy right now ill read everything in depth soon!

[small ivy]

Any job opening , I have been out of job from 3 months looking for new opportunity in business or data analyst..any leads would be appreciated. Thank you.

[vital wyvern]

This was one of the most refreshing parts about my interview with <current company>. They sat down and explained the questions I got wrong; they discussed the things I did right regarding analyzing the problem, and then identified some knowledge gaps and did me the professional courtesy of sending me some resources to learn up on some of those concepts that I wasn't quite confident in.

So I walked away from the interview (regardless of the job status) with more knowledge than I came there with, and with a keen idea of how I would've needed to improve had I not gotten the job.

[strange pumice]

just finished my CS degree

now the hard part starts -> getting a job

[summer roost]

ooh, that's quite awesome. And tells you a lot about what the culture will be like if you do accept the job, I think

[vital wyvern]

I accepted the job. Everyone here has been so incredibly cool
I'm beyond excited to start and learn and just... kinda' be around these people.

[balmy spade]

Was it for the security world? That's such an interesting area to hire into compared to others.

[vital wyvern]

Yep. For a pretty decorated MSP.

[balmy spade]

I don't know what MSP is but super happy to hear the sec community is doing it right.

[vital wyvern]

Sorry; managed service provider. Endpoint Detection and Response, specifically.

[hearty island]

is there any reliable way to find entry level roles on linkedin that are actually entry level?

[strange pumice]

this

[hearty island]

besides sifting through every job posting

[balmy spade]

Snarky me wants to say "Yes, the ones that have no experience requirements".

However, there probably isn't that easy of a way. Entry level is, unfortunately, a fuzzy term.

[strange pumice]

aswr so many entry-level position with 5 years of experience

[summer roost]

if it requires 5 years of experience, it's not entry level

[hearty island]

yes, absolutely

[strange pumice]

but som eof them have the term "entry-level",

[balmy spade]

Yeah they do and I don't agree with its over-use. Entry-level should have maybe a degree requirement and a list of preferred skills that familiarity is desired. But that's not how the market works more often than not.

[strange pumice]

for this reason, i did like a year-long internship

[near ocean]

theyre mistagged

[balmy spade]

Had that convo with HR last year when we were looking to fill a support role.
Them: "Okay, you have a list of things here but how many years of experience are needed."
Me: "N-no... I just would like them to know what those things are. Like, in very broad terms. If they say Kubernetes is a toaster maybe that's a sign they arent' a fit"

[hearty island]

it seems like i have no choice but to do my may internship

[balmy spade]

Given the chance at an internship, I'd do an internship. :) It's how I have the job I have now.

[fringe sphinx]

You don't just 'join as an officer'

[near ocean]

ohno, another one bites the topgun propaganda dust

[fringe sphinx]

What country?

[strange pumice]

US

[vital wyvern]

Getting a commission in a career field that doesn't suck is the opposite of free.

You can go be an Infantry Officer or something though; but I'm not sure that's a wise career move if you're looking to actually apply anything you learned in school.

[fringe sphinx]

Do you have a bachelors?

[strange pumice]

ye just recently finished altho i wanna use it as my last card, i still have hope to pentetrate the job market

[strange pumice]

fair

[vital wyvern]

Tech commissions are fairly competitive in the US military-- a very low portion of those commissions come down to OCS candidates; many of them are dedicated to Academy graduates, and ROTC graduates.

[fringe sphinx]

Getting a commission is not an automatic type thing. REM's on it, but ocs slots are nowhere near automatic.

[strange pumice]

interesting i never factor that in

[vital wyvern]

You don't have to delete your posts; we're not mad at you. We're trying to inform you so you don't make a silly decision lol.

[fringe sphinx]

I remember one guy who went ocs, signal corp.

One of, I dunno, many who wanted

[strange pumice]

ah

[vital wyvern]

Both Billy and I are prior military; I spent 8 years in the Active Duty side of the Air Force-- I'll let Billy tell his story if he wants.
The military can be a good path into certain job markets-- the clearances you get are pretty great for pay if you separate and work a job that takes advantage of that. But it's also a lot of work-- and not something I would recommend for someone as a 'last resort' kinda' thing. Not because it's insulting, but because you're not going to have a good time lol.

[strange pumice]

oh you guys are veteran. Respect 🫡

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, I think it's a great idea for people who want to hit the reset switch, but it's certainly not a cheat code.

[strange pumice]

Not because it's insulting, but because you're not going to have a good time lol.
Ngl, that hit hard

[fringe sphinx]

That reminds me: sign up for the Home Depot military discount (Lowe's has it too). 10% off. I didn't know until a few months ago.

[strange pumice]

i was contemplating if reserve duty is worth it, civillian job on lock + military

[vital wyvern]

I often think I should've went guard/reserve, FWIW.

[strange pumice]

so suppose i go through the ocs route, the MOS i get is not by choice or?

[hearty island]

istg i think indeed is better at filtering jobs

[fringe sphinx]

Oh I picked my MOS at MEPS.

But, it was definitely walking into a car dealership.

[vital wyvern]

It depends. You have more agency as an officer at which contract you sign, but with the caveat that-- the recruiter can just tell you to get lost if you're trying to pick up a job that is highly sought after. You don't hold the cards there; you either take what they offer you or you walk away lol.

[fringe sphinx]

(I got my second choice, which was a terrible mos, but then got lucky... long story)

[vital wyvern]

I signed a special operations contract; I was injured after... quite a long training pipeline, and was reclassified into a job against my choice. The military is not merciful when it comes to respecting your desires.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, airborne school called it going 'worldwide'; if you went straight from ait, and failed, you'd go anywhere.

[strange pumice]

darn that's cold, i watched lots of yt videos and seems like the recruiters aren't all too friendly. if that is the case then im having some sort of seconds thoughts, i don't wanna do a job that doesn't require me applying what i gained from college

[hearty island]

ah yes a six hour commute for 55K

[fringe sphinx]

I have no complaints about my recruiters. Nobody lied to me, misled me, etc.

[vital wyvern]

Concur; recruiter was chill, bought me Chipotle like once a week.

[hearty island]

uhhh i have no experience in CPSI/Evident/Trubridge/PointClickCare/PICIS Pulsecheck. oh well

time to learn 🙂

[vital wyvern]

I would recommend making a list of roles you're targeting, compiling the skills from those roles that you see most frequently mentioned, and then working on them in order of 'frequency'. (Obviously don't spend a ton of time learning AWS AND Azure, but if some system is mentioned in every advertisement, then it probably stands to reason that you need to obtain that skillset.)

[fringe sphinx]

I had a wonderful experience. I got my shit together. I met interesting people. Travelled to some cool places. Did crazy things. But, just don't do it because it'll help your tech career directly.

[strange pumice]

so how did you guys easily transition from military to SWE

[balmy spade]

I'm not sure easily is the correct word there.

[fringe sphinx]

Applied to defense contractor(s), and had multiple offers.

[vital wyvern]

I'm not an SWE to be clear, I work in Cybersecurity. I enrolled in a pretty competitive Bachelor's program after I separated; one that I wouldn't have been able to afford had I not done the whole military shtick.

The biggest thing I took from mil was people skills. I was an awkward shut-in prior to the military. I'm a bit more... confident and socially adept now. (But only a bit lol.)

[strange pumice]

i see so you were enlisted in the military previously, that's some route to a bacherlos degree. Respect the determination

[strange pumice]

do you think one must learn Cyber Security or be swift in cyber security to be ready for militery cyber jobs, i see alot of jobs in cyber security.

[fringe sphinx]

There are some direct commission paths: https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/specialty-careers/army-cyber.html I have zero knowledge of this stuff

[vital wyvern]

Not necessarily. It can't possibly hurt to have a preexisting skillset, but US military training is pretty top notch for technical fields.

[hearty island]

imagine if there was a way to filter linkedin for jobs that require 0-2 years of experience. i will die trying to find a way

[tall cloak]

Anyone know good projects for a portfolio? (Intermediate level and mainly for work with API's, open to other suggestions though)

[hearty island]

finally applied for a position today

i found a way to search google directly for jobs, it's nothing i didn't already know

here's what i did if anyone's curious: data analyst 1 site:applytojob.com | site:lever.co | site:myworkdayjobs.com | site:greenhouse.io "location: United States"

[nova snow]

if I want remote then?

[hearty island]

idk dawg

[nova snow]

oh

[whole flare]

jobs that require 0 years of experience

next joke!

[hearty island]

ok maybe 1, 1-2 is my optimal range

[burnt zephyr]

random forest... right?

[peak halo]

Hello, this is the career discussion channel. Code that you have in another language (or even in Python, really) isn't on-topic just because you wrote it for work. Try one of the off-topic channels.

[wispy nymph]

sorry

[wind cedar]

how long do people usually do TA?

[summer roost]

Teacher's Assistant?

[wind cedar]

ye

[summer roost]

a year or two, I'd guess?

[vapid jay]

wonderful wecoming place this.

[torpid sky]

Learning data structures and algorithms suggest any good resources

[kindred oyster]

<@&831776746206265384>

[crisp stream]

!warn 504754290699665415 We're not a job board. Please read and understand the rules, especially rule #9

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied warning to @vapid jay.

[shadow saffron]

When I started with Python, freelancing brought in good money with small tasks like scripting and automation. Later, I moved to more complex backend programming in company roles.

Now, being in my final year of university, I can't do onsite work. Returning to freelancing, I find it tough to get small jobs because of GPT.

Anyone else experiencing this? How are you dealing with it?

[true harness]

for a B.S maybe one or two years. for grad students it is likely more

[true harness]

see the pinned messages in #algos-and-data-structs

[white relic]

You were bringing in good money freelancing as a student?
Even before GPT that wasn't typical.

Unless you live in an extremely low CoL area or by "good money" you don't mean enough to live on

I guess if you started in the early pandemic, that might have been worth it for a time. But that wasn't how it always has been

[wheat hatch]

Where I work we are already in the process of automating away those small jobs with "generative AI", as the managers like to call it. The more complex jobs are still far from being automated.

What I've seen is that our new recruits are put on increasingly complex tasks due to the simpler tasks that we used to use for onboarding are being increasingly automated.

[lunar yew]

helllooo there people

i am looking for people who are seeking for jobs
who know python very well

i need advice on something can you help me pls ??

like if you know python flask and your expert at it !
you put it in your linkdin right ?

well im looking for what to learn
to be expert at it and put it on my linkdin any advice ?

to what can i learn ???:>

help

[thin hatch]

bro what is ur question????

ayo why is the slowmode 20 sec here

[lunar yew]

lol idk
ok let me ask again im bad at explaining 😦

well you see if your a expert in python and python modules or idk "Flask" for example !
you write in your linkdin that your expert in linkdin right ?

then you see i want to know other things that people write in theyre linkdin that thyre expert at it in python !

so can you say what you write your expert at in your linkdin ?
so i can see and make it my mission to learn it ?!
@thin hatch

help

[thin hatch]

buddy idk

[gritty rivet]

Learn the skills required for the jobs you want to apply to and/or for building whatever you want to build.

[lunar yew]

but
bro i dont know what to learn 😐

[true harness]

do you know what jobs you want? research what skills are required for those jobs

[lunar yew]

ooh let me try it 😦

[ebon tapir]

i could put an end to all of child pornography, but im not really motivated to do so

[kindred oyster]

this is not really on topic for this channel , this channel is about python and the world of work

[lunar yew]

https://tenor.com/view/obadiah-stane-tony-stark-was-able-to-build-this-in-a-cave-with-a-box-of-scraps-tony-stark-box-of-scraps-iron-man-gif-23963164
LOL

[tidal gazelle]

Can a macbook be used for software engineering/computer science?

[true harness]

yes

[topaz surge]

Hello everyone

My name is aadarsh Vani I have Btech in Civil engineering last year passout , I want to get into IT I need career guidance like how to start with I want to get into AI ML

[peak halo]

if you want a career in AI/ML, you will need a degree related to it.

[topaz surge]

Actually I have a friend who did his degree in Electronics but he is in Infosys in Generative AI

He said I can get into IT if I start learning Code and DS etc

[peak halo]

what does he do with generative AI?

[topaz surge]

He is a data scientist he uses Gpt 4 and things like that to implement LLM

I don't know much but this is what I know

[peak halo]

at least in north america and europe, it's exceptionally challenging to get a first job in machine learning without a degree that's closely related to it. So that's what I recommend that you do.

[topaz surge]

Just one question how much time do I need to learn python for AI ML as in for data scientist

[peak halo]

as long as it takes to get the degree.

[topaz surge]

In India it's not that rigid if you have talent and know how of things

Thankyou for your time buddy

[peak halo]

if you're sure you're not going to pursue a degree, I would expect to spend at least several months of full-time personal study.

[topaz surge]

Ok thank-you

[hearty island]

how important is it for a data analyst to know about ds/algos?

[wheat hatch]

Depends on what kind of data you are analyzing.

I have colleagues that are mech engineers whose only CS background is a 5 week course in C++. What they are really good at is analyzing signals like vibrations and such. Very handy when analyzing EM waves where a traditional CS background is worth close to zero.

[hearty island]

🤔 what about financial data

[wheat hatch]

No idea about that, I try to stay as far away from financial as I can 😅

[wind cedar]

That isn’t true

[true harness]

why?

[hearty island]

on linkedin, is there a shortcut to skip to the next job posting.... besides clicking?

my approach is essentially just clicking on a job + cmd F to find the year of experience required

i would think about automating it, but it's against ToS

and risk linkedin banning me? nah fam

should i apply to the IRS for jokes

i would be in a much worse spot without my internships. i can't imagine people with nothing going into this job market

[summer roost]

I was a TA for 2 years as an undergrad, so anecdotally, it seems true to me. And I know other undergrads who were TAs for one or two years, and I know grad students who were TAs for the entire time they were there.

[wind cedar]

He’s saying at least 1 year, people can be TAs for a sem bro

[summer roost]

you didn't ask about the minimum amount of time someone can be a TA for, though, you asked how long people usually TA for.

[true harness]

i didn't mean 1 year of consecutive time, rather TAing in one or two years, such as when they are juniors or seniors

[grave quartz]

who can help my with pillow but i don't know pillow:)

[fringe sphinx]

Start in #python-discussion

[grave quartz]

no no no

[wispy geyser]

is learning c++ harder than learning python?

[summer roost]

I'd expect a professional engineer to be able to pick up either one to a reasonable degree of competence pretty quickly

[fringe sphinx]

I suppose they meant: "as a first language"

[summer roost]

They asked in #career-advice, so I assumed they were asking within the context of their career

[fringe sphinx]

🤷🏻‍♂️ @wispy geyser ?

[wispy geyser]

well, i just found out that i have to learn more than 1 language to be a coder so

nvm, forget what ive said

[wind cedar]

ok mb

[cosmic lodge]

Probably cuz it's more syntax heavy and u have to compile some libraries manually and generally speaking it's more work for everything

[fringe sphinx]

Do you know any language yet?

[cosmic lodge]

The ides like visual studio ide also seem more complicated and more effort cuz u have to mess with the settings a lot

[wispy geyser]

im currently learning python

[cosmic lodge]

sometimes I wish I started with c++ tho rather than with python i'd probably be more motivated to learn it properly

[fringe sphinx]

Don't worry so much about learning other languages, at this point. Focus on getting 'good' with one first, it's hard enough without getting distracted by jumping around.

[kindred oyster]

unless you have a reason , there is probably no reason to learn it
just get good at one language , any one that you choose

[ebon tapir]

it would involve coding

[cosmic lodge]

it'd be pretty cool to like code a game engine in c++ or just do low level stuff but it's hard to find the motivation

[cosmic lodge]

If it were possible then why hasn't someone done it already

[ebon tapir]

it probably has been done before

[cosmic lodge]

Can i hear your idea out of curiosity? Since it seems impossible

[kindred oyster]

@fringe sphinx you here ?

[ebon tapir]

i cannot say

its too detailed and pretty confidential

[cosmic lodge]

I mean if u were serious u wouldn't be talking about it ina discord serveru would prob be working for the cia

[fringe sphinx]

This is certainly not a conversation for this channel. Much less server.

[ebon tapir]

i figured you would say that

[cosmic lodge]

It's honestly unfortunate the world is as sensitive as it is today cuz ur not allowed to talk about anything interesting anymore anywhere

it just gets censored and u get banned & wiped off the server and it's an unfortunate consequence of our culture and how sensitive everyone is yet the most interesting creations & inventions are all going to be something like that

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, how dare us want to talk about careers in the career channel! /s

But cmon... go to off topic

!topic

[inner wren]

Off-topic channels

There are three off-topic channels:

• #ot0-psvm’s-eternal-disapproval
• #ot1-perplexing-regexing
• #ot2-never-nester’s-nightmare

The channel names change every night at midnight UTC and are often fun meta references to jokes or conversations that happened on the server.

See our off-topic etiquette page for more guidance on how the channels should be used.

[cosmic lodge]

whatever u say i'll shut up now since i have to right?

if he wiped CP from the internet that is a career related discussion btw he would get pretty damn far in his career

[fringe sphinx]

This channel is for discussing things directly related to careers (education, job searching, resumes, and stuff related to work). There's plenty of places to discuss projects, and off topic channels.

[cosmic lodge]

My bad i thought u were saying it's not allowed in the server so i must've misunderstood

which would've been weird i guess

[buoyant seal]

Yeah. C++ is overwhelmingly more difficult than python 😄
Or at least i used it during university for several years, and i understand that i still know very little about this language
And even if will try to learn further, its ecosystem is too much problematic to play nice in terms of modern development.
I don't have hopes to be able operating in this language with efficiency i desire.

I think if choosing language harder there is a huge point to choose java instead. as it is very multipurpose language
and despite it being outdated in some places, it does look catching up nicely and able to meet modern standards for comfortable development

Or at least C# is nice looking and catching up to modern stuff too.
If only it had a bit less windows legacy it would be nice. It catches up to being Linux friendly, so becomes more and more okay

[lament garnet]

Hello, I just finished my 12 week boot camp for data scientist and AI. We focused on using python. I do plan to teach myself SQL next, and I am gonna look at Github too. I have an interesting job history too. Most of my work has been as laboratory technician. What would anyone recommend for the next step in finding a job using python? or entry level IT jobs, Im good with a computer and figuring things out. Even a paid internship but one that pays well. I don't mind remote work, but I can't move out of IL at this time. Does anyone have an recommendations or suggestions for getting a job and getting more experience?

[smoky quest]

the closest the field to your past experience, the more you can leverage that as an advantage

[vernal tide]

what some things you recomend me learning in order to get a good job at ai?

[peak halo]

What degree/professional experience do you have, if any?

[hearty island]

how do you guys stay positive when it comes to the job search?

i find it very hard to be positive

[thin hatch]

wdym

[hearty island]

to be positive about the job search?

[thin hatch]

make money

[hearty island]

forget i asked.

[thin hatch]

lemme tell u something rn

[true harness]

just imagine yourself getting a job

[thin hatch]

imagine yourself making tons of money

get rich asf??????

[hearty island]

dude you're not helping, would you please stop?

[thin hatch]

i dont get what the problem is

[balmy spade]

Positive motivation is internally sourced. If you get it from an external source it's like sugar water. Short high, hard crash.

Appling for jobs is brutal on your motivation. Statistically, you're going to be rejected more than you are accepted. But you can turn those stats around, change your point of view.

In sales, you have to deal with a lot of rejections on a daily basis. The trick used is accepting that fact and just getting more excited after each rejection. A rejection, statistically, means you're closer to an accept.

More practical self-care advice includes: Getting regular sleep. Eating breakfast. Keep up any exercise routine you have. Take breaks.

[true harness]

A rejection, statistically, means you're closer to an accept.
it does?

[balmy spade]

When I was working a kiosk we had a rough gauge that we needed to talk with, and be rejected/ignored by more than 300 people for every single sale we'd make.
The mental trick was to not think of the rejections as a negative but just pushing the numbers up needed to get that sale.

Hopefully it's obvious that this is not an exact science.

[true harness]

sure, it seems reasonable to use it as motivation, but this is clearly a statistical fallacy. if it works it works, i guess

[balmy spade]

Well, as you probably know, I'm not overly fickle about the exact sciences when it comes to just getting the work done.

[true harness]

idk. i would caution against this line of thinking not only because it isn't correct, but because it only encourages sending more applications. i think it's more efficient to improve the application instead

[balmy spade]

You're certainly always welcome to offer your advice to those asking for it.

[thin hatch]

lmfao u both have the same pfp

but with different ideiologies

[wheat hatch]

I think what preocts meant was to not get hung up on the rejection, and instead focus on the things that went well. I'd argue this is a fundamental aspect of actually improving the application.

[true harness]

i definitely agree. one needs to get over the sadness and try to use it to improve. i just disagree on how

[wheat hatch]

That's fair. I also usually try to go for quality applications over mass sendouts, but that's for my situation.

[balmy spade]

fwiw, the original question was about maintaining positivity through the process. It's a different question than increasing the effectiveness of an application. Both are certainly important.

[hearty island]

anyone know of any free interview platforms besides pramp?

[smoky quest]

the first few times, it will sting, but after a few, you also get desensitized

[hearty island]

pramp isn't entirely free from what i'm seeing

[smoky quest]

your network of friends, family, teachers and parents' friends

[hearty island]

they aren't willing to help me, they refuse actually

[smoky quest]

if your close peeps refuse, imagine random strangers

[hearty island]

?

[smoky quest]

indeed

[hearty island]

no, i don't understand what you just said

people have other things on their plate and cannot just spend time practice interviewing me

[smoky quest]

the point is that if people who are close to you, and are vested in your success, do not want to spend the time and energy to do mock interviews with you, then it will be less likely for strangers to do it for free

[hearty island]

so then how am i supposed to prepare for interviews?

[smoky quest]

find better friends, family and teachers, or pay people

[hearty island]

k

[smoky quest]

maybe your local job center has things, but I doubt they will be knowledgeable about your area

[round anvil]

Guys suggest me a good IDE chrome extension app

[lament garnet]

thank you for the advice

Thank you for the advice, I will check those out and see what I can learn to add to my growing repertoire

[mystic violet]

Hi, are taxes totally private?

Meaning, can anyone access your taxes beside you or the government?

Can employers demand to see your taxes?

Hm, so only you would be aware of your financial activites and where your money come from? (Obvs besides the required people, like the taxman)

Thank you

[smoky quest]

what problem are you trying to solve?

[mystic violet]

nuthin, just gna be rich is all

[smoky quest]

how does that relate to an employer having access to your taxes?

[mystic violet]

jk, im not gna be rich

[mystic violet]

was just curious

[smoky quest]

I mean, I am also curious how that would help you get rich

like why would the employer not having access to your taxes help you get rich?

[tidal gazelle]

Not sure if I can ask this here, but what does a good personal statement look like?

[solemn glade]

is lua easier than python?

[vocal yarrow]

Hi

Is there a platform where I can find Technical Co Founders ?

[snow patrol]

🤔

[mystic violet]

do u want to know the answer?

#career-advice message

[nova snow]

+1 (I also want to know)

[fringe sphinx]

I've known of employers to ask to see your prior pay stub or W2 (ie: if you claim to make X, and they make an offer based on the claim), but not your tax return.

[abstract glacier]

hey guys i know this is the wrong channel but i dont really know where to ask

can you guys help me with this... i dont really understand the problem nor do i know how to fix it

[vapid jay]

can you guys help me with this... i dont really understand the problem nor do i know how to fix it

[icy halo]

any good tutorial of git on youtube?

[fringe sphinx]

There's a longer discussion of salary negotiation but; sometimes HR asks your current pay, and if you answer, then be expected to be asked to show your w2. Basically: You don't have to disclose, but if you do, don't lie.

[tropic sluice]

I don’t think so

[solemn glade]

well i wanna learn lua for roblox and i asked some roblox devs and they said it is easier

[tropic sluice]

Lua is different from roblox lua

Roblox uses luau , and python cant be implemented in roblox so definitely thats why they said that

[vocal yarrow]

I have tried that 😄

[white relic]

Lua is simpler than python. It's easier to learn all of Lua than all of python. There's just not as much of it. But that doesn't mean it's easier to use. You could say the same thing about C, which is also much simpler than python, but in order to use it effectively you need to know a lot more.

[pastel thunder]

do qualifications mean nothing without connection?
how are some people getting interviews at multiple FAANG companies within 1-2 months while switching? I have never had a chance to interview at FAANG.

[strong sigil]

On pay: I've contracted for decades. For me, pay is just one factor. Public good, interest, skills I hope to learn, length of commute, non-pay factors such as stock options or pension are all important. I usually only disclose pay if I feel there's an advantage in doing so. For example if I'm bidding for a job which just looks like fun and is in the public interest, I know the fair rate for the job is half what I got on the last project and I'm bidding at that lower level, I certainly don't want them to know I could earn more! Doing some research so you know the fair rate for that kind of job is a good idea.

If they ask your pay, perhaps you should ask them the average pay on the team you're joining and offer to swap! I've never tried it but perhaps I should for my next project...

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, I'm similar. Commute has always been my biggest decider, I've turned down many a long-commute (but great $$) projects & jobs.

And, the quality/interest level of the project is more important to me nowadays, once you hit a certain threshold.

[strong sigil]

I once tried - and failed - to investigate the commute gender gap for an academic project. Couldn't get the data. The observation is that when parents get children and move to the suburbs, the main earner's commute time and cost soars while the main carer's reduces to typically 15 minutes. So how does the gender gap look if you include the time and cost of commuting when calculating average hourly pay? Personally I prefer working to commuting. Though these days, working from home changes the nature of work.

[fringe sphinx]

Interesting, not true in my case, but had a co-worker who, post-kids, quit their 15minute commute job to take the higher pay about an hour away in teh city.

in my case, I live between two highways, so have worked in nearly every direction with about the same travel time (max 30 min). And this was, for me, the most(ish) important factor for a job.

[strong sigil]

That's stats for you - every case different, yet there's still an overall picture! My sister's also a counter-example, working from home on the material science for hydrogen aircraft so no commute yet the primary earner. I sometimes go to extremes - using my skills as a way to experience other countries, up at 3AM for a fortnightly commute but walking to work between flights.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, I'm sure nowadays (like you said), remote work has really flipped this around.

[tidal gazelle]

Not sure if I can ask this here, but what does a good personal statement look like? (For university applications)

[tall cloak]

Does anyone know good projects to put on a portfolio?

[buoyant seal]

Anything u have enthusiast about, and managed to make worthwile in features and having at least a single user using it or more.
examples
Things for gaming:

1. I have Discord bot for gaming community to track space stations, players and forum posts
2. Parsed game and made game navigational tools

Making dev tools:

1. I made CLI app to simplify following Git conventional commits and generating changelogs
2. made plugin for argoCD to support Cue lang.

Infra stuff:
Making infra repository showing off your deployment skills
deploying as a code, automatically with configuring observability systems

I plan next to dive into minecraft modding

My projects are mostly Backend oriented, and 1-2 DevOps stuff, although every project is sprinkled with devopish stuff abit.
Minecraft modding is literally not in any domain except gaming and desktop development, but it will benefit my portfolio nevertheless
Because... it will be an interesting challenge to make it good and challenge me in other ways
Also as minecraft modding produces easy to capture Screenshots how it looks like, it will be easy to show off for portfolio ^_^

[buoyant seal]

I could recommend trying to make Daily Organizer of your tasks to do ^_^
Anything u wished to keep track off, Tasks, movies to watch and etc.
If u are enthusiastic about it at least.

Also as a project can be always a project of making Portfolio site itself 😄 Optionally it can be a blog too

[buoyant seal]

What sparkls for me imagination to make projects?
Encountering what people need, or what i feel enthusiasm about it wishing personally.
Usually happens during my participation in some kind of gaming community or at work
To make things happen, we need preferably to get hang of some User interface library

1. making CLI 2) or making even TUI! 3) or making in a nice web Web or even desktop/mobile app
   Once I get hang of another UI library, i usually get new ideas what i wish to make

[nova snow]

Hello, I am in 3rd year of college in the computer engineering department. I have 11 backlogs and I don't think I will survive the upcoming semesters. I need to drop the college I think. What should I do? How can I find a job for me in the tech industry? I am sad. Thanks in advance!

[buoyant seal]

https://github.com/Zaloog/dotenvhub
I find this simple TUI app some dev made for secret management very cool.
TUIs are cool for devs 🙂

[tall cloak]

Alright, I will try a few of these. Thank you!

[strong sigil]

@nova snow Tech is increasingly competitive - in times where working from home is normal, we're now in competition with bright minds wherever they may be found. So perhaps your first option is to just go flat out on the rest of your degree and turn it around. Sacrifice everything else, though perhaps promise yourself a nice long holiday after graduation. But also consider which aspects of computing you're good / bad at; why it is that you're not doing as well as you'd hoped. If the answer is: you don't really love tech (but love something else), perhaps this is a good time to change your direction - to seek a career in that something else, perhaps doing an aspect of it where your tech skills are an important secondary skill.

[buoyant seal]

Minecraft Modding can be a very epically important pet project btw ^_^
As you train skills for Java, very important language in making quality software.

Also i want to add that any project u make for portfolio
https://www.amazon.com/Unit-Testing-Principles-Practices-Patterns/dp/1617296279

This book teaches theory behind unit testing. For which goals to aim for, how to escape pitifals. It will explain you importance of unit testing and what kind of testing exists. This book is important to weaponize your skills to an average commercial level development.
https://www.amazon.com/Test-Driven-Development-Kent-Beck/dp/0321146530
This book teaches practice behind unit testing. On a specific example it walks you through how to have unit testing as part of your development cycle at every moment. It teaches you feeling how much gap between tests is allowed in your working code.
you better be doing with Unit testing. Because then it will be highly likely of worthwile code quality

in some ecosystems and situations, it will be especially dfficult to apply unit testing though.
Known to me exceptions: Trying to unit test 15+ years old gaming mods in C++
In average any frontend is harder to unit test.
Best unit testable any server side, cli app, parsing logic and etc. Anything that u are able to split in terms of code from UI itself

So u should better unit test code of logic, how data is gathered before being sent for final render to front

[wild monolith]

Hey who here has freelance experience? I wanted to ask you some things. Thank you in advance!

[smoky quest]

Hi!
We don't allow ads

[still condor]

!ban @grizzled talon I just told you that this is not the right server for recruitment. And the channel clearly says: NOT FOR RECRUITMENT

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @grizzled talon permanently.

[gritty rivet]

You can ask your actual questions and someone may answer. There's also a lot of past discussion about freelancing in this channel's history, including the first of the pins

[wild monolith]

Noted, thanks

[summer hull]

.

[smoky quest]

hi!

[neat cape]

hii

[frank grove]

Hi everyone,
I have a question. I recently was talking with a friend of mine about python as coding language for work and why it isnt used for backend and frontend. He explained me that since python is a open source language were most of the modules and libraries are free, python is not a preferred choice for coding. Is this correct or you guys can enlighten me.

[vapid jay]

Ain’t no motion if bro don’t get a portion 💯🔥 FUCK U TALM BOUT???????

[buoyant seal]

ergh.... sounds like your friend is not very knowledgable about this stuff.
I can assure you that Python is at least very usable for backend.
Python Django FastAPI popular backend api frameworks
And Celery like popular Message queue framework, also whole data engineering (which is sort of backend too) is made in it too.
Python ecosystem is very mature and developed to make backend
My company has like... more than million of code lines in python for back ^_^

[buoyant seal]

As for frontend... yeah... python has here more limited capabilities.
You can make frontend in pure backend means with server side rendering (using regular html/css), and adding regular js or even event very superb htmx
But fully fledged client side interactive web front is not very possible in python
But not always needed too.
In the case of needing fully fleged interactive front, it is made in react/vue/angular.
But it will add a huge complexity of interacting data structures between front and back... so its own... can of worms/problems
backenders write openapi (see FastAPI or Django ninja for auto generation) to auto document their back for easy making communications with frontenders ( there can be even typescript generated from openapi)
or there is a funny option of making front and back in single typescript language

As some example
https://darklab8.github.io/fl-darkstat/
This is made in pure backend language + htmx. I did not need fully fledged js/ts frontend frameworks to make it interactive front, good usage of templating and htmx worked fine enough too ^_^

[frank grove]

Thank you for the answer @buoyant seal this is very helpful.

[digital fjord]

With the web assembly builds of CPython, you can get pretty far with frontend python via things like anvil, but it's mostly used if you have python programmers hired for a different purpose

[frank grove]

Thank you for the answer @digital fjord

What does a Data Scientist do on job ? I don't want the theoretical answer. @inner wren

Than what does a job role which involves building and training sets, Mining data for patterns ,refining algorithms and doesn't involve cleaning and organizing data called?

[near ocean]

Are you sure that role even exists?

[vapid jay]

name = str(input ('Введите никнейм: '))
message = str(input ('Введите действие: '))
message = message.replace('Я', name)
print (message)

Code for /me.

[fringe sphinx]

Fantasy? The boss? I dunno.

But, seriously, this is why imo the first job is to be a competent coder. There's some people who like to think of DS as an ivory tower, but you do need to roll up your sleeves and actually work.

[crude folio]

what's peoples' general view on RSUs (Restricted Stock Units), I'm treating it as zero compensation until I see money-in-account of course but I'm not sure how much trust to put in whether I'll actually get this money from my scale-up

[fringe sphinx]

RSU is way better than ISOs.

Depending on the company, sure, all stock could go to zero... but in practical terms, I'd (just my opinion) consider it +- 10% of its current value.

[crude folio]

my org have done a bad job of explaining them fully tbh. I guess it's just the RSU release plan that worries me, it's very vague and allows for modifications by the board whenever they see fit. i'm sure that's pretty standard though?

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, that's a bit unusual to begin. Usually RSU is part of at-hire comp plan. Are they modifying your comp plan post-hire?

(not saying it's unusual to happen, just that the usual discussion is about offers & comp plans)

[crude folio]

the RSU plan is recent, so everybody has been provided with RSU allocations retroactively in a way

but the release triggers in the RSU plan doc aren't actually defined, the only info attached is that these can be modified by the board when appropriate.

[frank grove]

But if i learn python what job roles are just for coding most job roles are of ds and da

[crude folio]

i'm chasing it up but I seem to be the only one that has read the docs and realised we've not been told what target needs to be reached before release. it's just referred to as "performance targets"

[fringe sphinx]

There are many types of SWE roles out there, many of which use Python. https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-top-programming-languages-2023. And, learning Python doesn't mean you can't learn something else. Step 1 is getting good at programming.

[fringe sphinx]

How big is your company?

[crude folio]

I personally use Python in a devops/devex role, building pipelines and enabling tooling for other teams

[fringe sphinx]

Sounds like it's a private company, is why I ask.

[crude folio]

330 ish. I'm sure it'll be defined and sorted out soon as it's still early doors, it just worried my brain a bit.

[fringe sphinx]

Private tho, right?

Public vs Private options are really different animals.

[crude folio]

yep

[fringe sphinx]

My two cents on private animals: they play games with stock options. For instance, when a startup I worked at IPOd, our stocks were restricted for 1 year post-IPO. Of course, managements stock had a 6 month lock-up. Guess what? They cashed out at 6 months, and the stock was nearly worthless at the 1 year mark.

My joke for years was that I wanted to make a million dollars but I forgot to say that I wanted to be able to keep it.

[crude folio]

Damn, that's awful. I guess that's what I'm worried about, all I've heard about stock options is how companies screw over their workers - are RSUs different in thise regard?

[fringe sphinx]

I was young and got paid more than I did in my previous job and got a great network from it, so it was all good.

I like RSUs for public companies, your performance is tied to the companies stock performance. It's a reasonable way to align everyone's interests. (sure, stock moves for unrelated reasons, but shrug)

For private companies, it's just a stock option. The company still has to have an exit... and it might (probably?) not. And, let's say it's an acquisition, the acquiring company won't want employees to 100% vest or they'll lose everyone. So, they'll (the acquiring company) either renegotiate the vesting terms or offer new packages. Depends on the exit.

In other words, stock in a private company is generally worthless until the company has an exit (IPO, acquisition, etc), and even then, the stocks often get redrawn.

(there's rare cases where people are able to take loans against pre-IPO stock, but this is for unicorn cases)

So, I guess I'd say: RSUs are great because you can make a lot of money with it. It's good incentive money. But would I take a lower salary because I was getting a private companies RSUs? Probably not.

[white relic]

there's a line between using equity as an incentive and using it as an excuse to underpay your employees

It doesn't sound to me like @crude folio's company is on the wrong side of that line

[vocal yarrow]

not so good

[crude folio]

Thanks for the info @fringe sphinx very helpful

[fringe sphinx]

to be clear (in case I wasn't), I agree with this. Unless they were cutting salaries at the same time.

[mighty belfry]

Hello, I am Kritix I want to create a web application where people can discover open-source projects to contribute and as owner of the project I can list my project and seek contributors.

but I don't know how to plan the product. could you help me?

[mighty belfry]

i would like to create a platform similar to IMDb, but exclusively for open source projects.

[kindred oyster]

can you not do it on github already ?

[mighty belfry]

But GitHub doesn't give me more options like if I want to search according to the complexity of the project, Level of the project is this project already saturated or just started.

[fleet reef]

Who's going to collect and maintain this information?

So kinda like https://goodfirstissue.dev/

[mighty belfry]

i haven't decided yet

[balmy spade]

Sounds like you'll want to pick a starting point and start figuring out how you'll build the framework for such a site. Make a page. Make a way to store data. Make an input for data to store. Make a page that displays data. And so on.

[white relic]

this doesn't seem like a career discussion tbh

[mighty belfry]

If you are looking for a partner for a project in the XYZ domain, our web application can help. You can list your project on our platform, and interested contributors who are also interested in the XYZ domain can discover your project and join you.

[kindred oyster]

also how do you classify if a project is easy or not ??

mostly people want to contribute to codebases of well known things

why would people want to contribute to one off projects that are personal projects or similar projects

[balmy spade]

I hadn't even noticed! ha!

[white relic]

Workshopping project ideas isn't really what this channel is for, maybe an off topic channel would be better, or if you have concrete plans and need help with the implementation try #❓｜how-to-get-help

[tidal gazelle]

Can someone help me with this? What does a good personal statement look like?

[kindred oyster]

what do you mean by "personal statement" ?

[gritty rivet]

That's very much a question of opinion but there are loads of sample cover letters and resumes out there to look at. https://www.tealhq.com/cover-letter-examples/python-developer

[tidal gazelle]

thanks

[white relic]

@tidal gazelle is applying to universities iirc. Slightly different from a general resume / job application

I don't remember writing a personal statement for any of my uni applications but I imagine you'd want to tailor it a bit to the school

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, college essays. Yah, that's a whole thing. My son spent months working on his, and got feedback from his teachers/etc. It's a pretty involved conversation and one that I'm not sure this channel/discord is the right place to start.

[random gorge]

Are we doomed?

[buoyant seal]

Yes, we will all die. Indubitably and inevitably.

Could u be more specific which kind of doom you are predicting? Problem of getting old, COVID, skynet awakening, world war 3, resource exhaustion, global warming, global pollution, alien invasion, smth else?

[near ocean]

doomed?

[wind breach]

I'm very early in my career shift process, but I moved from healthcare to Hospital IT, and I'm now learning Python and SQL in hopes of eventually moving into some other field (or stay in healthcare in a different capacity)

[buoyant seal]

Is there a question there? Or it is just a statement

[wind breach]

Sorry, was typing and got pulled away. Just wanted to ask if anyone happened to have any general resources (preferably free or budget friendly) related to python utilized by healthcare information systems. I've been compiling stuff but joined this discord yesterday and wanted to put out a line.

Healthcare systems tend to be... extremely antiquated & built on ancient architecture but I do know there's python usage out there, just not in the realm I'm currently in.

[undone glacier]

Does anyone here do/is familiar with data engineering? Like in a professional capacity with job exp

What would you say is the worst/most painful part of the job?

[lost cypress]

Just got emailed a date and time and meeting information for a SWE Internship interview

In the email that I’m replying and confirming that I will be there, is it a bad idea or a bad look if I ask if I should expect a behavioral interview or technical interview?

[true harness]

I think you can make it more open ended, like, "what can I expect to happen during the interview", or something like that

[lost cypress]

Hmmm good idea

[wheat hatch]

Same is usually true for closed R&D networks that larger corporations tend to have. My experience is that many people on discord have no experience working in these environments and will therefore give bad advice regarding them. Just a heads up to be careful filtering the replies.

My advice regarding your question:
Find out what version of python is running on your systems, along with any other services that your systems use, and then do targeted searches for information on those.
If you (god forbid) should be stuck in python2, some of the documentation that exists today will not work for you. So you need to know what you are dealing with before you start reading. I had the displeasure of running into a python 2.5 environment a few years ago, so they exist out there.

Another thing I'd do is to check if there are any plans to upgrade your systems in the near future, and if so the possibility to add a modern python environment if one does not already exist.

[wheat hatch]

The worst: The "AI" fanbois that believe the code can solve world hunger.

The most painful: The constraints put on you from legacy interfaces and the mental gymnastics required to get the data from point A to point B in the correct format.

The latter part is also why I enjoy it though haha.

[smoky quest]

This is so wide and broad that it would be difficult to answer properly as it could mean any number of things.
I would suggest to look up the vendors popular in your area. They will generally have sales pamphlets or docs available somewhere. Looking up their career pages would also give you some clue about what their stack

[wind breach]

For sure! I appreciate your reply (as well as yours, @wheat hatch). To be a bit more specific I specialize in clinical laboratory but I'm totally open to branching out. I've found a lot related to analysis of laboratory data on the more research/biotech side of things, and Stanford has an online "python for healthcare" course that I'm hesitant to spend $450 on, but I bookmarked it just in case. Looking up vendor career listings is a great idea, I'll give that a try.

[golden wharf]

hey, I just wanted a few peoples opinions on this, I know it has probably been discussed to death

[fringe sphinx]

Any discussion of this involves a lot of nuance. Such a broad and under specified question is probably not going to get a lot of engagement. Perhaps if you ask a more concrete, narrower question.

[golden wharf]

I dont really know how to narrow it, I mean the question is just: do you think ai will replace the act of coding

do you have any opinion on the topic?

[fringe sphinx]

I think in the foreseeable future, no.

[golden wharf]

so 5 or so years?

[fringe sphinx]

I think in the longer timeframe, it might change what 'coding' means.

But coding today is significantly different than it was 10 years ago, 30 years ago and 50 years ago, so that's hardly surprising

[golden wharf]

yeah, but do you think it is likley that the actual process of typing out computer code could be eleminated

why do you think that?

[fringe sphinx]

But even that means nothing. We don't write assembly or punch cards.

[balmy spade]

Will programming be different tomorrow versus today? Yes. History proves that far more than likely.

[harsh river]

naw

[fringe sphinx]

Perhaps we are able to use productivity gains to write -less boilerplate code-, but the logic of how a system is implemented? That's not changing anytime soon.

You're falling for the linearity trap, I'd say. You're assuming that the short term gains will be continued at a linear rate of improvement.

[balmy spade]

You think rather little of what it takes to do those jobs.

[fringe sphinx]

AI is barely helpful for anything -I- do. Perhaps it is very helpful for a junior engineer struggling with basic coding, but past a certain skill level? Nah

[proven mantle]

How do I gently bring up at retrospective that I think it's a bad practice to let pull requests merge only on a newhire approval? Without sounding like I'm calling the newhire bad.

[golden wharf]

that is assuming AI doesnt have a plateu, which we are already close to reaching with companies having to use training data before 2023 to ensure there is no ai generated data in their training data

and also the act of coding could be replaced, but that doesnt take away the human intuition and critical thinking that goes into it, I mean we will never see AGI in our life times, comparing current AI with AGI is like comparing a horse to a space ship

[wheat hatch]

Also not taking into account everything around development work. Coding is really the easiest part of the process. Personally I'm very curious how companies with requirements on the code will be able to verify and prove they meet those requirements with generated code.

[balmy spade]

Document your concern. Show the pros, the cons, and the value differences.

[fringe sphinx]

My review strategy is dependent on both the task and the submitter.

[harsh river]

coding is not the easiest part of the process lol

[fringe sphinx]

What's your level of work experience?

[wheat hatch]

Ohh boy you are in for a surprise

[proven mantle]

Sadly, my team is just adding everyone on pull requests and the newhire is usually the first to hit approve. I just don't think newhires have enough knowledge of our system to have that power...

[golden wharf]

I am not talking about gpt 3.5 either, I am talking about AI in general, AI companies are limited on their data input, and AI will never have critical thinking or creativity in our lifetime, so how can it replace the job?
software engineering at the end of the day is systems design, for work I write code, sure, but I also have to manage and design our systems
how could a robot with no crictical thinking do that?

[harsh river]

it's one of the less complex parts of it all compared to the rest, but it's not the easiest.

[true harness]

once you've got concrete requirements and a plan, coding is easy

[balmy spade]

I agree with KRRT. The actualy hands on keyboard coding part of the job is not the easiest. Nor is it the hardest.

[golden wharf]

you are still assuming there will be no plateau, which guess what, it will happen weather we like it or not

[fringe sphinx]

What? That's f'ing crazy.

[true harness]

lol. lmao, even. do you have retros or anything similar? that would be the place to bring it up

[golden wharf]

Ai is trained off of humans, how can is possibily be more smart then us?(esspecially without critical thinking} this is what happens when you listen to too many tech bros

[balmy spade]

An approach I'd suggest, to keep the blame on the team and not the newhire, would be to open with the value of new eyes on code. But outline any value you can on a second reviewer (preferred to be a code owner) in addition.

[wheat hatch]

Sure, let's say that for you thats the case and for me that's not the case.

[fringe sphinx]

Meh, let's not get into an AI debate. That's good for off topic. (Not saying original question was off topic, just getting into a drawn out discussion of ai goes nowhere)

[harsh river]

what's your case?

[golden wharf]

man, it is learning FROM us, it doesnt have thinking skills, it just re-says what past humans have said, so how on gods green earth can it become more smart then us

[fringe sphinx]

Tbh, I think y'all might be debating semantics. I took pucch's comment to be: the type of coding that AI helps with is not the complex part.

[golden wharf]

okay, you clearly have no diea what you are talking about

[balmy spade]

Kindly, take the weak debate on AI elsewhere please.

[fringe sphinx]

!ot

[harsh river]

it already can, and it still need major supervision. but anyways.

[inner wren]

Off-topic channel

#ot2-never-nester’s-nightmare

Please read our off-topic etiquette before participating in conversations.

[harsh river]

what are your credentials to say something like that?

[golden wharf]

the ai-generated data it will train itself off of, will be no better then human data, infact it will be worse, with hullitionations
what you are describing is impossible, I am sorry to tell you this, you are describing an AGI

[analog sun]

Hi there. We are ending this conversation since it is no longer civil or on topic

[buoyant seal]

https://www.commitstrip.com/en/2016/08/25/a-very-comprehensive-and-precise-spec/?
Correct answer was written already in 2016 year ^_^

[analog sun]

Thank you all for listening

[golden wharf]

they will never be better man, do your research, I beg you

[analog sun]

@humble crypt @golden wharf I will mute you if you continue

[golden wharf]

its a fact, like I said, you can look it up, everything I am saying is based on facts

[golden wharf]

okay sorry, discord mod

[analog sun]

!mute 1146484002564358235 Not listening to moderator and admin requests.

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied timeout to @golden wharf until <t:1713223940:f> (1 hour).

[edgy quarry]

!paste

[inner wren]

Pasting large amounts of code

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

After pasting your code, save it by clicking the Paste! button in the bottom left, or by pressing CTRL + S. After doing that, you will be navigated to the new paste's page. Copy the URL and post it here so others can see it.

[undone glacier]

But data engineering is not related to AI AFAIK?

Can you give me an example of legacy interface constraints, or the mental gymnastica you mentioned?

[wheat hatch]

They move in the same circles.

Sure, I can give an example.

Let's take a case where your task is to take data from some source A and combine it with a different source B outputting a combined C.
Source A has a legacy format that you cannot change. The frequency of the input is not set, it can arrive at 1Hz, 100Hz, 1000Hz, or anywhere in between.
Source B has another legacy format not under your control that is not similar to A, and will arrive at random, so no fixed frequency.

Add to this that the format of B changes every once in a while and you need to maintain perfect backwards compatibility.

[river meadow]

Hi guys.. I wanna know what's the best way to increase my portfolio. I'm very new in tech world and don't have any experience yet. Already studying some java stuff in codecademy and other sources of informations about it. I work in a big company like a analyst ( my salary is ok now but it's because i live with my mother ((27M)) ) but want to migrate to programming. I don't see a lot of potencial in my current career that's why i want to change to this market. ( thinking about web development ). The question is, i don't want to drop my current job unless i already be make the same money i get in the company ( it's not much, basic analyst salary ). If you guys have some tips to give me in my current state, i will appreciate a lot! Obs: Sorry for my writing, the English is not my primary language.

[versed gate]

I am going to implement Social google login with firebase and Django.

when pop up dialog, I got some errors.
pop-up-closed-by-user

Please help me if you are expert.

[harsh river]

#❓｜how-to-get-help
this is the wrong place to get help. read that channel

[versed gate]

gotcha.

[kindred oyster]

<@&831776746206265384>

[vale anchor]

Hey all, ive been creating roblox games for a while now.. I want to make some cash, but idk how to make it consistent, maybe yall know what i should do if u have experience in freelance? Should i get into web dev or something

[buoyant seal]

I could describe my experience on playing project Lemoncraft for you https://lemoncraft.ru/
As it contains a type of answer to your question.
The run servers with different 10+ mod combinations, consisting different gameplay. From mini games to different play mods having electro technical technology trees to magic technology trees.
They wipe their servers clean every 3 months.

The important part for them... that they offer very shiny Vip, Preimum, Diamond, Koya, Deluze or whatever Donating kits
https://donate.lemoncraft.su/
That grant players extra commands during game play, like protection of inventory during death, extra commands to use to restore health or hunger meter
And even getting sets of items of corespnding to Donating level quality
Together with ability to buy items for gameplay for more real money, to make shortcuts during playing
They have pretty much... almost consistent amount of money earning.

Obviously they are registered highly likely as legal entity and have installed different common money payment systems
from Visa, MasterCard to several others.

Their mod setups have customized things, to make selling donating things easier during gameplay. As well as other customizations for nicer gameplay.

=======
What can be morale of story? People wish easy way to use your results/products. Everything in lemoncraft project is minimized for easy procedure to get started playing and paying.
Their product is made ready for usage quickly. As well as they took care of legal side.

[fringe sphinx]

We don't allow advertising here, sorry. See #rules

[vale anchor]

Is this an ad or sumth

[buoyant seal]

This is advice/example/inspiration how to monetize Roblox projects. I drew similarity here with how people monetized Minecraft servers

As far as I am aware Roblox and Minecraft custom servers share similar nature.

[gleaming dock]

How do I know when I'm ready for a job to do with Python? And where the heck are all the entry level jobs?

[fringe sphinx]

tbh, you'll never feel ready because there's a lot you'll learn on the job. It also depends on what type of job (there are many jobs that use Python, but often combine Python with other skills). So, unfortunately, the answer is "it depends". But, tell us more about your education/work experience/country/goals, maybe we could give a more concrete answer?

[gleaming dock]

I'm self-taught, just sitting at home on the computer. I code little projects now and again but obviously that's not enough.

I need to figure out what to learn, so I can build bigger projects.

I'm in Australia, currently in high school. I love all things tech related and am just looking for a good job anywhere in the field. I heard some jobs involving Python offered high pay, so I was like 'Heck Yeah!'.

And now here I am.

[gleaming dock]

I do have some of the resources I used aswell if you want

[fringe sphinx]

Do you plan to go to University?

[gleaming dock]

Not if I don't have to, by the time I'm that age, I was hoping to have at least an entry level job

[white relic]

Many jobs involving Python do have high pay. But that doesn't mean that learning Python is enough to qualify you for one.

[gleaming dock]

Exactly why I'm here.

[fringe sphinx]

It's exceptionally hard to go that route. You'd be competing with Uni graduates for an entry position.

However, you can look for 'adjacent' jobs in tech... like support and QA (testing) to get your feet into the industry.

Or, if you have any family/friend connections, you might find someone willing to give you a shot. But competing for entry SWE positions is hard.

[gleaming dock]

It's funny you should say that. Just yesterday I applied to Data Annotations. It seems like a pretty good way into what I want to do

[white relic]

The really high paying jobs are ones that involve insight and training in some other field besides computer science. You won't be competing for those without a relevant degree.

[vapid plank]

i need some help with a python assignment (involves turtle), i dont mind paying some money 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

Separately, if you're asking; what should I learn next? My general answer is: you can either go deep or go wide. Go deep into whatever you're learning right now. Or, go wide by picking a topic you know nothing about (say, networking or data analysis or games) and build a project.

[vivid bane]

!rule 9

[inner wren]

Rules

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

[fringe sphinx]

It's very hard to recommend what to learn next because there's many right answers

[vivid bane]

open a help thread, and someone could help you #❓｜how-to-get-help

[fringe sphinx]

lol, ^

[gleaming dock]

I understand that, so I appreciate you trying. The thing is I'm not really learning anything specific right now, I still need to figure out what I need to learn to at least get started in the industry

[fringe sphinx]

So, generic answer then more specific: At your stage, it -truly- doesn't matter what you learn, as long as you're learning something. It's like going to the gym for the first time: it doesn't matter what weights you lift, you'll get stronger.

Whether you build a game, a website, a data project, a Minecraft mod, whatever; all of these will make you a better programmer

This is why we suggest picking something you find interesting: the skills will transfer to industry, even if the task doesn't.

!kin start here, take a look at the project ideas and come back here or #python-discussion to discuss them.

[inner wren]

Kindling Projects

The Kindling projects page on Ned Batchelder's website contains a list of projects and ideas programmers can tackle to build their skills and knowledge.

[gleaming dock]

That's awesome. I'll see what I can do.

[fringe sphinx]

In other words: you're asking about 'industry skills', but it sounds like you first need to 'get good' at programming... and the only way there is coding increasingly complex projects. It doesn't matter what the projects are.

[gleaming dock]

Okay, and for a 'complex' project, would it be better to get chat gpt to write like say, an individual function that I make small tweaks to then put in the project, or is it better for me to write every single thing from scratch?

[fringe sphinx]

Using GPT is like asking your friends to lift your weights at the gym for you. It won't make you stronger.

I know it's tempting and convenient; but you need to be able to do this yourself... especially at the beginner stage.

[gleaming dock]

fair

[fringe sphinx]

Best thing is to do really simple things to start. Rock paper scissors or mad libs, for instance... or turtle (graphics) projects

[gleaming dock]

What sort of resources do I use to understand those things?

[fringe sphinx]

You'll get there, have fun with it, don't 'grind', and make small progress frequently. Like going the gym (my third gym analogy)

[fringe sphinx]

Have you done a basic tutorial yet?

!res

[inner wren]

Resources

The Resources page on our website contains a list of hand-selected learning resources that we regularly recommend to both beginners and experts.

[fringe sphinx]

Filter on beginner

[gleaming dock]

What do you mean?

I can show you some of my projects to show you my understanding if you like?

[fringe sphinx]

Check out automate the boring stuff or a byte of Python on the resources link. Make sure you understand that stuff.

[gleaming dock]

I guess that true, as long as you understand the concept behind what it is, it doesnt matter what language you use

[vale anchor]

No they dont but ok

[wheat hatch]

That's pretty much how we solved it, but maybe I did a poor job explaining why it was a tedious problem to solve.

The issue wasn't so much implementing a solution that works for one version of A and B, but to implement a solution that works for all permutations of A and B version formats. Remember sometimes B can arrive on the form 12345 and sometimes it can arrive on the form 12ff45 or 54321 or ff3f12. We had no control over that but the pipeline needed to be able to work nonetheless (and we were not allowed to simply clean these other formats out, they held important data points)

The frequency of A was also a bit of a hassle, sometimes we needed to downsample it if it came in at 1000Hz, sometimes we needed to interpolate it if it came at 1Hz.

And this was just the dev part, then there's the maintenance aspect to consider as well.

[oak oak]

is it okay as a programmer to use a flip ton of modules?

[peak halo]

yes. if you're implementing stuff that you could have pip installed, you're wasting your and your employer's time.

[buoyant seal]

that depends on situation.
in general like yes, if there are advantages of using library over self writing necessary thing.
for work in general yes, because devs are everyday keeping up with libraries updates and maintanance anyway
but you still should choose only the most stable dependencies that aren't likely to become dead in quick future or already deprecated at the moment of choosing.
and some works have very strict reviewing policies which libraries are allowed (in banking sphere as far as i know)

for projects with big gaps in maintanance and pet projects in particular
i would recommend the complete opposite and trying to use as least dependencies as possible.
because having many dependencies make harm to their maintnance and flexibility often enough.
depends on the case. Some dependencies are good in helping to write cleaner code, but most are usually often harmful for long term maintance projects with big gaps in dev cycles
P.S. i kind of gave a thought to this topic in an article https://darklab8.github.io/blog/article/long_term_maintained_software.html

[regal axle]

Also; sometimes you end up using another module just to solve an issue introduced from a different one. So sometimes it is worth writing your custom solution to avoid patch work fixes.

[wheat hatch]

I'd also add in that the modules sometimes comes with terms and conditions for usage. So if you use a ton of em and if it's for comercial application I'd check the licenses.

[peak halo]

I gave this particular response because I got the impression that OP thinks using modules is "cheating". The last few respondents have given good reasons for when you should choose not to use modules (but none of them are "it's cheating" or "it shows weakness")

[digital fjord]

The big reason why we avoid deps at work is to minimize distribution size.

[true harness]

also from a security perspective, the less code you depend on, the less likely it is that you're going to have some malware introduced into your dependencies

[digital fjord]

There is a bit of nuance there, there are some deps where it is better to have them than not for security.

[wheat hatch]

This is especially true for security. First rule we were taught when I was in uni was "don't build your own security"

Talking security primitives here

[true harness]

right, obviously some dependencies would be foolish to cook up your own, but you also don't want to be pulling in is_odd packages and the like

[digital fjord]

The overall sentiment that you should be using dependencies is the correct one though, despite all the aforementioned caveats.

[pure urchin]

What is a good python roadmap to follow and learn for a beginner, before moving onto choosing a career path and diving into learning more for that? Like what should I know in python before choosing career and studying specifically for that.

[gritty rivet]

!resources

I would follow whatever basic tutorial you find engaging. If you can build a simple text based game you're ready to move on to backend web frameworks or just about whatever you are interested in

[inner wren]

Resources

The Resources page on our website contains a list of hand-selected learning resources that we regularly recommend to both beginners and experts.

[dusty fulcrum]

Just found out I passed a technical interview I was sure had gone badly. Interviewer asked for thing A, I misheard and gave him code for B. Neither he or I noticed. He said the code wouldn't work, I showed how it would and by chance the sample test cases he wanted worked for both problems. It wasn't until after the interview was over that we figured it out.

[smoky quest]

nice! this tends to correlate with nice teams to work with too since they look beyond a mechanical yes/no

[deft herald]

I once got a job offer after an interview where we literally mostly talked about foosball. I legit think they just wanted me to come work for them so i could play in their lunch/break games

[true harness]

so what you're saying is that they were assessing your team building skills 😩

[deft herald]

Yeah lol. I almost took the offer but it was just too low for me at the time

[smoky quest]

Interviews can be weird. I had a C* trying to get me mad to see how I would react. Also had an offer after proving something was possible when the interviewer said it couldn't be done.
It's all humans in the end 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

I was sad when our top foosball player left.

[white relic]

Our office game is ping-pong

[deft herald]

unfortunately same here. although with nice weather there's a group that plays spikeball and i've been doing that the last couple years

[white relic]

My last job had a group that played ultimate once or twice a week

That's a more intense thing to do during lunch but it was fun

[deft herald]

Yeah definitely requires a shower and change of clothes

[true harness]

my ultimate coach in high school said she got into it because they played at lunch at work lol

[white relic]

/me weighs the likelihood of having played ultimate at lunch with someone who later became psv's high school coach

not very likely

[true harness]

they worked in IT. iirc they wrote cobol

[random gorge]

Which google cloudskillboost certification worth?

Should I take ML or GenAI course before?

[dusty fulcrum]

One of my first interviews was meeting a friend of a friend at a bar where we played pool. The pool game was the interview.

[dusty fulcrum]

I once had an interview where the guy asked me about someone I admire. This was before Jobs went back to apple, and I had been looking at his next computer, so I said Steve Jobs, for his vision and tenacity at building something cool after leaving apple.
The interviewer: I worked with Steve Jobs, he's an asshole.
And that was the end of that interview.

[smoky quest]

ah understandable. Could have gone either way

[dusty fulcrum]

You never know. I had a "strictly python" interview where the guy asked me about c++ virtual functions, rest actions, javascript, http codes, and network models. And 0 python related questions.

[deft herald]

ha. as in "i know you already know python. Let's see what else you know"

[dusty fulcrum]

I've used a LOT of languages, but if I'm interviewing in a specific one, I'd appreciate a heads up so I can use it again first. For the record, the job had absolutely nothing to do with web dev, so the questions about rest and http were really weird.

[timid geyser]

this is the most confusing server ive ever seen

[harsh river]

what exactly confuses you?

[gritty rivet]

You're posting in the career channel. As the description says, it's for discussions of careers.

Your screenshot shows three off-topic channels where you could have posted this off-topic comment

[timid geyser]

ur defo the most boring person irl

[fringe sphinx]

If you're new, start in #python-discussion

[undone glacier]

I see.

Are you familiar with SAS?

I see certifications on some ex-classmates' linkedin profiles

https://www.sas.com/en_sg/training/academy-data-science.html

(Probably not exactly this but kinda like it)

Is SAS worth it for data eng or are there better courses out there?

[lost cypress]

i know it's pretty late

hopefully someone is up, but i have my swe internship interview in 2 days

pretty nervous, im fairly confident in my technical skills for this but it is going to be my first interview ever for a tech job and I am having trouble shaking these nerves. im afraid i will stutter and just be a mess.

funny enough though I feel like I am a pretty personable and non awkward person in real life but thinking about this interview has me nervous

does anybody have any advice or tips to be prepared and also stand out as a candidate? it's really important i pass this interview because it is the only interview i have recieved so far

[pulsar drum]

In the past one thing that helped me not feel so nervous is remembering it goes both ways - it's fair game to ask them questions as well. You can also leverage that to make yourself stand out - asking questions (not just answering them) can demonstrate competence and interest.

[smoky quest]

• It's like going on stage: the first few times, you will be a mess and mumble and your nerves will be terrible. But by the fourth time, you won't care anymore
• The corollary to the first one is that it's recommended to start your batch of interviews with companies you don't care about so that you can use that as practice rounds and won't mind if you don't present well
• Practice some leetcode to get in the mood
• Practice giving an elevator speech about why you want that interview
• Practice explaining your projects
• Before the interview, do some jumping jacks and force your smile to get the blood pumping

Oh and don't attach your ego to the interview. It's like relationships, sometimes you have two great people who just aren't meant to be. Not being picked doesn't make you unskilled or a bad person.
So take it like a sales funnel where you apply to X roles, get Y replies, go through Z interviews, etc.
From there you can learn what works, what doesn't work and improve

[lost cypress]

great idea

[lost cypress]

this is really good advice thank you

but the only tough part is that i've applied to so many internships as i'm currently a junior right now, and funny enough this pretty big company has been the only one to ask me to interview

so I haven't really been able to just decide to interview with some companies i dont care about you know?

i think i'm just nervous because of how much pressure it feels there is in terms of even getting any more interviews with another company and whether or not i'll be able to find a job after i graduate next year

[dusk moon]

How do I earn some cash (as a side hustle) by working on projects as a python developer after, say I complete "Scientific Computing with Python (BETA) certification" and "Date Analysis with Python certification" from freecodecamp?

[fringe steppe]

does anyone know how to get a remote job?

[smoky quest]

you apply to jobs that are remote like the ones you see on indeed or linkedin

[fringe steppe]

ok,i didn't find jobs on them before hhhh

but i'll try them,thanks.

[vast cave]

just think of it as a normal chatter

and when u speak, replace your "uhhhhhhh" with pauses, helps a lot

and if ur offered a glass of water, when u get asked a question that you'll need to think about, take a sip

[wanton lion]

Python ain't getting us nowhere gang 🙏😭

[meager rivet]

.paste

[ripe thorn]

How much to check if a message pinged me or not in discrod py

[cyan crater]

Can anyone suggest a good remote job site from Bangladesh. Trying hard to get one but no lights till now :sigh:

[pure urchin]

I would say I am intermidiate in python - while also knowing some advanced stuff, but I have now moved on to learning about webscraping - which I think is really fun and a bit complicated. But does someone know if there is like a career path in webscarping that I could aim for, like any job that requires webscraping - and in that case, is there a roadmap to becoming a master in webscraping to have all knowledge to apply for a job? because I feel like this is something I really want to work with and develope my skills in this field.

any resources?

[buoyant seal]

not sure what you mean under undermediate, but please do learn unit testing and how to write python code right from visual debug of your IDE from inside of them (Easily possible with Pytest Explorer extension in vscode at least)
https://www.amazon.com/Unit-Testing-Principles-Practices-Patterns/dp/1617296279
https://www.amazon.com/Test-Driven-Development-Kent-Beck/dp/0321146530
Then u will be indeed intermediate average python dev.

[buoyant seal]

is there a roadmap to becoming a master in webscraping to have all knowledge to apply for a job
web scrapping has book about it.
It is often used for... not very legal reasons. i would be hesitant to dedicate your career around it. I on purpose deleted any mentions i dealt with it in the past from my resume ^_^

[pure urchin]

okey, cool! Will defiently check that out. But what is unit testing and the book provides the code in C# (which I dont know anything about)

[pure urchin]

oh, XD

[buoyant seal]

it should not be a big problem to read it despite it being in Java i think. They don't really use any intricate syntax.

But what is unit testing
Unit testing is the main major step towards building quality code that can scale in code size amount.
It autovalidates its correctness through running automated tests for small scope of code or even entire endpoints of your framework if desired.
Unit testing approach (and TDD) changes your code architecture by making it more quality, having right sized functions, classes, more testable just because u use it

TLDR: it changes code quality in magnitudes by 3-10 times+ for interpreted language devs and the most important cornerstone to build projects of some reasonable quality

[buoyant seal]

Also it is very important for web scrapping too... because it makes possible to keep sanity here and checking that code for each scrapped stuff still does work as expected with remote resources updates (We can run tests against local cached resources (for quick local test driven development) and a second time against remote refreshed resources)

[buoyant seal]

Unit testing done in a wrong novice way can lead to dissapointment though. U need to adhere to its best practices to yield maximum gain from it.

[pure urchin]

Ok, but do you think if I read the books you provided with links, first about the unit testing and then the book that goes more in depth in webscraping - I could become a freelancer in webscraping or at least start working on some larger, more advanced projects regarding webscarping?

[pure urchin]

eehhhh, you just sounded like a philosopher....

But is there like no good python unit testing book out there you could recommend instead of the C#?

[buoyant seal]

probably. I would think if u wish to web scrapping, u are highly likely needing data engineering or backend job role knowledge in general
working with databases, apis.
you need somewhere to store your web scrapped data you know. Learning how to use Postgresql for example (or MongoDB) can be helpful. As well as interacting with S3 and etc.
working with backend apis will be helpful to expose results of scrapping in programmatic way for others from your db or even rendering for end users right away

[pure urchin]

Okey, so how would a roadmap to mastering webscraping for you look like? The books you provided --> HTML, java, css maybe ---> SQL for databases? -----> Postresql, MongoDB ----> S3 (whatever that is....) ----> doing projects with backed and apis etc.

I am sorry, but I am just a bit confused what to continue learning in python (because I realize there is so much to learn) - so I want to focus and master 1 topic rather then touching on all subjects. But after doing python for a littble bit over 1year it all gets so confusing how I should move on and develope furhter and were I should set my goals... I feel like I am stuck in a maze or tutorial hell or something but can not really describe it, XD.

[buoyant seal]

1. Learn to use a single language well, for example Python. "Python in simple packages" book or smth (Head First Python 3d edition is very attractive)
2. Learn using SQL for databases
3. Get started having practice building projects in Django, Postgres and etc
4. Learn unit testing eventually. Rebuild your projects with it
5. continue your journey in directions you wish ^_^ learning web scrapping or extending your knowledge regarding python.
   For example it will be super helpful for you reading book "Jaworski M., Ziadé T. - Expert Python Programming, 4th Edition " as it contains knowledge regarding usage of async, multithreading and multiprocessing, as well as better configuring dev env and other stuff.
   For web scrapping you do need parallelism to make it more efficiently. Specifically async is meant to interact with hundreds networked resources at the same time from single core
6. continue extending knowledge regarding python or databases or code quality and etc. "Code Complete by Mcconnel" will be helpful book to overview majority of software engineering existing stuff and how to do stuff better. this book will tell what to read next

[pure urchin]

ok, but when can I say I have learned python very well, when did you realize you could move on because you hade sufficient knowledge in python? Were should I draw the limit?

[buoyant seal]

everyone draws there their own line where they see it enough...
...i see this line at the level of having ability to build neat reusable unit tested static typed libraries like https://github.com/encode/starlette , bringing new functionality with nice interfaces to interact with this code that hides its complexity behind.
When your skill became high enough to contribute to ecosystem, and you became comfortable with language to solve any problem in efficient amount of time, then it is good

[buoyant seal]

It is very nice having reusable nice libraries in your code, your code becomes growing as ecosystem of solutions
reusing the best stuff across applications. Code becomes more condensed, growing in size and solving all the problems in the most fitting ways.

Fair warning: your path of web scrapper/freelancer may be the opposite to this stuff. Freelancers aren't usually paid for maintanance, just for having developed, shipped and forgotten
So you may not see my values as fitting your situations/environment/challenges as your career goes

[pure urchin]

Yea, i get what you mean and I agree! But thx so much for the help, I think you have helped me get back on the path at least for a little longer and I dont feel like a lost puppy anymore... I will take your advices and start with ordering Head first Python 3edition, read that and move on from there - probably to SQL etc. So thx for your patience and help Darkwind The Duck! ( :

[signal oar]

hello any advice for someone trying to get into free lancing... i have few web projects doing crud social media ecommerce etc. do i actually need a job to start a freelancing journey ....

i applied for few jobs and got neglected some not even view my offer

[gritty rivet]

do i actually need a job to start a freelancing journey ....

Getting a normal job is certainly a more realistic way for an inexperienced person to make a living.

With freelance platforms you can see for yourself who the competition is. There are endless people who have impressive portfolios, loads of positive reviews and crazy low rates. Without existing clients you have to do better and cheaper and apply for many jobs for a long time until you get lucky.

[tulip flume]

Hello everyone, I'm planning to buy the leetcode premium can someone help me if there is any coupon code that I can use for discounts. Any help is appreciated!

[lost cypress]

my internship interview is soon and i am having trouble with formulating a good elevator pitch

could anybody please give me a solid format or anything, assuming they will ask me "Tell me about yourself"

I want to avoid rambling about unnecessary things

[white relic]

"tell me about yourself" should be like a 10 second answer max.
"Well, I'm originally from <city>, but I'm majoring in <degree> at <university> and I'm interested in <whatever it is the company does>."

[tame falcon]

At what point do you know you’re ready to join hackathons or the workforce?

[white relic]

Let them ask followup questions rather than trying to impress them at length

[true harness]

i tend to do longer, like 30 seconds. i talk about what school i go to, what i'm interested in, and also highlight a previous experience/project

[white relic]

I feel that "tell me about yourself" is really just a way of framing the interview conversationally

sometimes it does spin off into interesting subjects though

[peak halo]

I did hackathons while I was a student, and I joined the workforce when I finished my bachelors.

[pine sleet]

[eternal summit]

I'm a sophomore at uni going into my junior year next fall, this summer I want to grind hard so I can land a software developer internship next summer or possibly in the spring... however I'm not sure what language would be best for me between python or java, which one should I put all my energy torwards to reach this goal?

[fringe sphinx]

It's always hard to say what's best, but what's popular is easier: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-top-programming-languages-2023

[plush summit]

Just go python a lot of useful libraries and great for datajobs

[wheat hatch]

No experience with this organization, sorry.

Certificates weigh different in different countries. In my country they are just a piece of paper in most cases, but things can be wildly different elsewhere.

[gritty rivet]

You don't. You just do it even though you know you're not ready 🤣

[autumn haven]

does chemical engineers really have phyton coding in some homework, i googled it and some said yes some said no kinda confused, is there maybe any chemical engineers

im about to go foundation in uni and im still deciding should i go for chem engineering or not

[gritty rivet]

I would guess it varies by uni if not by prof.

That doesn't seem like any reasonable way to choose a major though.

[peak halo]

Will the answer affect your decision about chemical engineering? Because whatever python work that chemical engineering involves is just a means to an end.

[leaden jasper]

My bachelor's is in chemical engineering. My university opted to teach MatLab but I personally used Python when I could. I also did do a minor in CompSci

[lofty wolf]

.paste

[lost cypress]

hey what do you think about this?

or anyone that might have thoughts about this response to "Tell me about yourself" during an interview

Well, I am originally from -----, but I am currently living at the -----, as a junior majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Mathematics. During my time here at ----- I’ve worked on several personal projects, however the one I am most proud of is actually a full stack project that I worked on with a team at my university’s annual hackathon. It is called ----- and it is a web app that allows a user to interact with a chat bot requesting flight information. Although I do not have any technical work experience, I feel as though group projects such as that hackathon have played a great role in improving my communication and teamwork skills, as well as technical skills, which I would love to be able to contribute to ----- as a Software Engineer Intern.

i practiced this a few times and it takes me about 30 seconds give or take with a solid pace, which i feel is a solid time for a response to that question

[fringe sphinx]

Nothing wrong with it, but: I'd rather you say something like: My three favorite projects were: x, y and z. And drop the stuff about 'although I do not', etc. In other words, take the opportunity to show you have written code and participated in projects. You don't need to apologize or justify not having work experience.

[lost cypress]

definitely

oh so I should actually talk about multiple projects and what they are? i just didnt want to say too much

[fringe sphinx]

Maybe end with something about -why- you liked these projects: the teamwork, the problem solving, the 'figuring out requirements'

[fringe sphinx]

You should be prepared to in a follow up. Basically, a good strategy is to have two or three 'stories' (projects) that you can use to answer various questions.

The 'tell us about yourself' is an opportunity to say what you enjoy doing: the type of energy you'd bring to a team.

[lost cypress]

oh yea of course

i just was wondering like how many projects i should bring up in the response to tell me abt yourself

oh thats interseting

[fringe sphinx]

In general, I'd guess 2 or 3.

[lost cypress]

hmmm okay, I'll probably do that but I probably shouldnt go to in depth about them right? just as much as i did with that first project i mentioned earlier in the original response?

do you have the name by any chance

nice good luck

[undone glacier]

Ah ok

I reread your other response and got kinda confused

About this part specifically:

And this was just the dev part, then there's the maintenance aspect to consider as well.```

Why did the data need to be downsampled or interpolated if it was string/varchar?

[smoky quest]

am not them, but I read it as the data coming in at 1,000 sample/s but needed to make it look like it was coming in at 1 sample/s

not too different from looking at weekly activities when you are an engineer at discord and people send thousands of message/s

[faint merlin]

is competitive programming useful, like, at all compared to just making github projects

[smoky quest]

it's a fun hobby

[true harness]

if you find it fun, then that's a pretty good reason. but it doesn't demonstrate many of the skills that employers look for

[faint merlin]

i don’t enjoy it in the slightest, i was just wondering if employers thought it was good yeah

[wheat hatch]

adding in @smoky quest as well since I think you both misunderstood me. The data from A was a complex structure, you can picture a dictionary in python. Recursive error is correct in that it sometimes arrived at 1000 samples per second, but it could also arrive at 1 sample per second and we wanted it somewhere in between. So sometimes we needed to downsample since 1000 was too much, and sometimes we needed to interpolate since 1 was too little.

And this is the part that I wanted to highlight re your original question regarding the pains of a data engineer - dealing with data that does not want to behave.

[fading mauve]

Hi mates, i am concerned that in the entry level what is the real chance of be able to get job whether in office or freelance? in the internet there are tons of materials that shows how to build portfolios but everyone can do them easily and in addition there are millions of developers in competition plus Ai is also improving.... I really started to lose hope in frontend & full stack fields

[buoyant seal]

Hi mates, i am concerned that in the entry level what is the real chance of be able to get job whether in office or freelance?
very good chances if finishing CS degree.

in the internet there are tons of materials that shows how to build portfolios but everyone can do them easily
tons of materials... but only skilled developers enough which have also enough dedication to spend time build them.
Don't be fooled by pretty stuff novices can build ^_^ Devs watch for internal quality of code first.
And that beginners often have it very very shitty or even worse... many just copy paste stuff. Once person conducting tech interview watches it, usually stuff is easily revealed.

there are millions of developers in competition
aim to get a job locally where u live first ^_^ u have work permits and advantage of being available locally in office. As well as citizenship
That alone eliminates majority of the world.
If u will have cs degree and nice portfolio, that will make chances almost guaranteed, assuming u were not slacking off during university and made on your own programming related tasks. And having developed necessary degree of tech intuition (should be developed by default as u graduate)

plus Ai is also improving
well... still nothing to be afraid of for real developers.
CMSes like wordpresses exist for long time, boierplating site creations, as well as other different platforms offering no code solutions. Still not really a problem at all, as they all have hard disadvantages.

I really started to lose hope in frontend & full stack fields
choose then one u don't lose your hope then ^_^

[gritty rivet]

If you're networking with people you can find the jobs that very few people are applying to. https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/advice-for-junior-software-engineers/

[fading mauve]

@buoyant seal well thanks for encouraging but for applying platforms like LinkedIn mostly (almost 100%) they even don't give feedback so is there a solution for that too?

@gritty rivet Thank you!

[buoyant seal]

1. drop anonymzed resume here (Just remove contacts and your name and that's it), people will give feedback and what can be improved
2. search other platforms besides LinkedIn. You can have more like by searching job through your country local head hunting platforms.
3. you could drop your portfolio for review too in #web-development or smth, some not lazy person could watch it and comment as well

[fading mauve]

@buoyant seal Thanks one more time unfortunately I didn't graduate from CS but I studied myself effectively and I am taking this seriously, I mean my intention is not just doing copy paste but rather to understand the concept and be able to rewrite by myself so in this case, will I need certificate or only cs degree necessary?

[buoyant seal]

CS degree is path of least resistance. During university people train themselves 4 or 6 years, getting used to programming, learning fundamentals, and solving different challenging math problems in programming way.
It is hard to compete with graduates for any good jobs you know. CS attending person can be just somewhat above average in programming terms to make it through.
Many recruiters could be just filtering out resume right away if person is not having education.
It is normal for graduates to solve algorithmic challenges up to middle level more or less easily, as well learning necessary stuff to catch up to their desired job role

Without CS degree, you will be needing a lot of luck, networking and/or very excellent portfolio
As well as potentially going to compete for lower grade job roles
Usually people without CS degree demonstrate too poor skills to have them hired

[fading mauve]

I understand but knowledge can be reachable outside of University too as there are longer tutorials than 100 hours (in one video) and platforms to ask like Reddit, Discord etc so people can educate themselves quite well

[buoyant seal]

Sure and some people make it. It is just taking usually person with already tech background / having developed tech intuition.
Enough dedication to learn for long time, as well as having sufficient amount of free time (adult life can be full of work draining out of energy)

[fringe sphinx]

(Unnecessarily extreme comparison) sure, and you could read everything you need to be a surgeon. But do you think anyone will let you do surgery without a degree?

[buoyant seal]

I encountered person working as... guard person that learned doing pretty well Wordpress during his work or smth 😄
I encountered my mother for some reason trying to learn IT, despite having zero tech background and zero tech intuition (she learns it already for 2 years and did not go anywhere)
I encountered former colleague frontend developer, who was graduated at some ecological university and then learned in his courses frontend role
Cases are different. It takes .... a lot of dedication, some luck, and highly preferably already tech intuition developed

[fading mauve]

it is not same

[fringe sphinx]

Sure. But you're still not going to get an SWE interview (* some exceptions do exist) without a degree.

[fading mauve]

@buoyant seal and I would like to ask that; nowadays frontend seems already like Fullstack right? I mean even if a person only does frontend stuffs he still has to know and apply some backend parts too

[mystic violet]

thats not how that works lmao

u need a degree to be a surgeon

[fringe sphinx]

Why? I can take out an appendix, I've read the book and practiced on stuffed animals.

[mystic violet]

what...

r u trolling?

[buoyant seal]

People like specialists. Backend dev does not have to be full stack person
Frontend dev does not have to be full stack person.

But as far as I hear it is often can be asked from frontend devs to do backend stuff in parallel, because there are not enough always frontend tasks (more stuff to do at back) or because it would be nice if they could read how to interact with backend on their own in order to intergrate backend to front
....So i would say i guess yes. Some full stack knowledge is requried from frontend devs today in potentially often occurrence.

[mystic violet]

i dont think any credible medical organisation will accept a doctor without a degree

[fringe sphinx]

Yes, a most SWE jobs also won't hire an entry level candidate without a degree.

[mystic violet]

yh?

[fringe sphinx]

You did see my preface: "unnecessarily extreme example", did you not?

[mystic violet]

🤷‍♂️

[fading mauve]

This is what I was afraid and was planning to take certificate if it would work

[fringe sphinx]

It was a half serious comment that people care about degrees for a number of (often valid) reasons.

[fading mauve]

I was hoping a strong portfolio would help maybe

[lapis wind]

I think it somewhat depends on where you live, but also, I'd say your success without a degree (or even with a degree tbh) lives and dies with networking

[digital fjord]

And of course, networking is way easier when studying

[lapis wind]

If you're not going to various tech meetups, conferences, etc... And interacting with other people in the industry and discussing with other interested in people, it is going to be much harder to A) start and B) climb

[lapis wind]

Half the game is simply being good at talking to people and building contacts, also can help with interviews if you're not very comfortable in them with new people or other tech people who you haven't met before.

[mystic violet]

Personally, I dont need a CS degree, or networking

Ive forged my own path. I will get the money, and evacuate the industry

[fringe sphinx]

Independently wealthy? I wish I had that.

[mystic violet]

The only advice I could give is, look at your strengths, and maximise them

[mystic violet]

Im in poverty.

[fading mauve]

😊😊

Nice to hear!

[smoky quest]

It's also about your competition.
Each job gets thousands of applicants, where everyone has degrees, great internships and awesome projects. So your projects can't just be strong, they have to be much stronger than your competition to offset your weaknesses

[mystic violet]

I literally live off state benefits.

[smoky quest]

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

[lapis wind]

The biggest issue regarding that is actually getting to a point where the employer actually sees it.

A lot of HR places strip people out before they even look at a github etc... Even then they might never look at that.

[mystic violet]

My success isnt due to 'inherited wealth', its from hard work

[smoky quest]

people pay for results, not hard work

[mystic violet]

Evidence?

[smoky quest]

life

[mystic violet]

Oh, life? So Im right then

[smoky quest]

Which is also why you see engineers showing up at work at 11am. That's because they deliver value, not because they have their butts in a seat

[fading mauve]

Okay let's say that one of the project in portfolio is building an online shopping platform, to make it really strong should I put lots of products (to make seem it more complex)?

[fringe sphinx]

My point was about getting the job, not keeping the job. You have to get a shot at an interview: to pass the resume screen and then the interview. Without a degree, or an intro/network/whatever, you won't have a shot at most companies for a direct SWE entry job. You can, however, shoot for an adjacent job (support, qa, etc)

[lapis wind]

One of the reasons I refuse to use time trackers in companies that don't bill clients based on dev time.

[smoky quest]

It's about the 👏 demonstrated 👏 skills 👏 for the role.
Complex does not necessarily equate better

[fringe sphinx]

We all said exceptions exist.

But in -this- job market, the exceptions are exceptionally slim.

[lapis wind]

Oh yeah I agree with that, I have no degree either and am fine within the industry, but it took a lot of project, self-teaching and networking to be fully secure in it.
Since even once you get your first job, if you're a junior, you can still find yourself only there for a year or two, and then the degrees etc... Can still end up being weighed against you

[fringe sphinx]

Just to be clear; I'm saying a degree is important. That without a degree, you probably need to start with an adjacent tech job (which is fine). That projects alone won't make up the gap: that hiring committees will filter first on degree.

[smoky quest]

there are also some different doors between someone with a degree and without a degree. It's not necessarily a bad thing depending on which doors have your attention

[fringe sphinx]

And, that networking is probably the only way to land a coding job directly.

[lapis wind]

Yeah, personally, I still think networking outranks having a degree or no-degree, in the UK at least I see a lot of new graduates coming out of Uni with a 'generic' CS degree and struggling to land junior or graduate roles, but then they never try to network.

[smoky quest]

network might get you in front of an interviewer but it won't impart you the skills

[fading mauve]

Uhm sorry but couldn't get it, to create something complex doesn't show the skills?

[lapis wind]

oh yeah, I'm not suggesting it gives you the technical skills or knowledge, but I am somewhat assuming you have those skills required already when you start looking and applying for things. Whether that be by self-teaching or via uni doesn't matter too much providing you actually learn and can demonstrate those skills in an interview

[smoky quest]

not all complexity is equal.
Adding a bunch of products for the sake of it won't necessarily demonstrate any skill. Adding caching might demonstrate more relevant skills

[lapis wind]

Also, something that isn't your generic "Clone of website X" or similar copy-paste projects IMO.

[fading mauve]

Ah okay got you

Mates thanks for explanations but lastly I would like to ask you. Actually my main goal is to become cyber security engineer , do you have any recommendations that I could improve my skills and experiences before looking for job?

[lapis wind]

I have not done it personally, but I think Hack The Box is generally considered a worth while set of courses to go through (I don't mean buy their certificate program, but they have a free set of skill courses available relating to Cyber sec)
https://academy.hackthebox.com/catalogue/paths

[inland basin]

Hey guys, I'm looking for open source projects to contribute to so I can develop my python skills.

Is there a curator website that I should look at?

[lucid knot]

How would I continue to learn python after college

[gritty rivet]

Not super up to date but a good start: https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners?tab=readme-ov-file#python

[gritty rivet]

By building stuff with Python

[lost cypress]

during a behavioral interview for an internship, when asked about a time I succeeded,

would talking about a really difficult operating systems exam that I passed be okay?

like assuming I give some context behind it and stuff

or would that come off as basic and not impressive at all to a recruiter

[smoky quest]

What do you want the interviewer to learn from it?
What did you learn from it?
What would you do differently if the same situation was to happen again?

[true harness]

use ⭐

[raven bramble]

hello. i'm a freshman at asu studying cs and minoring in math. i was interested in adding a minor in econ for some versatility into the field of finance and potential help in securing fintech/quant positions. Is minoring in econ a good idea?

[gritty rivet]

If you're interested in economics and the additional minor won't delay your graduation or hurt your grades, then sure.

[fringe sphinx]

Incidentally, that's more or less exactly what I'm telling my son to do. (Econ or finance minor).

[raven bramble]

yeah all checks out i'm just wondering if theres a better alternative minor to acomplish the same thing

[white relic]

It won't hurt. Broadly speaking, your minor is for you. Unlike your major, which is about getting a degree that certifies to other people and companies the depth of your understanding and some particular field, anything you decide to minor in is about taking advantage of your time in college to broaden yourself and learn more about something you find fun or interesting

I wouldn't expect it to carry much weight in whether you get hired at a finance firm or not, although who knows and I'm not in finance, but if that's what you're interested in and you can do it without delaying your graduation, why wouldn't you?

[fringe sphinx]

My philosophy is: take courses in whatever you know least about (topics that are complementary)... that also have some real world relevance. Econ/finance is solidly in that range.

[lost cypress]

so you're saying i should be able to have these answers if i want to use a response such as that

?

Also one question.

After being given my date and time for my interview tomorrow, I asked the HR person about the kind of format I can expect for the interview.

this was their response

As for your question about the interview format – you should be asked some competency-based questions relating to the skills needed for the software engineer role, and you will likely be asked to discuss your educational background as well.

however I did some research on the person they told me would be interviewing me, and they have 0 technical or engineering kind of background, it is just primarily business and hr stuff.

they also are not an employee for the company i'm interviewing for. but work for some kind of recruiting company that i am assuming is a partner company

therefore I am kind of lost on what to expect now. will it likely not be leetcode questions?

any thoughts are appreciated thank you

[fringe sphinx]

I wouldn't overthink it: you are you. Don't overthink it, don't apologize for not knowing the answer to something: you will not be able to answer everything.

That said, from what you just said, they might ask a whiteboard style question (ie: a simple leetcode or fizzbuzz like question)

But most importantly: be relaxed, the worst thing that can happen is you dont get the job. Which you currently don't have, so nothing was lost.

[gritty rivet]

Better in what way? To accomplish what same thing?

If your goal is to be a regular software engineer an economics minor is very much optional. If you're targeting specific roles where that's relevant somehow, it may give you a small edge

[lost cypress]

good point i never really thought about it like this

[lost cypress]

Thanks a lot

[undone glacier]

How did you do the downsampling/interpolation thing 😳

[unborn dome]

hello anyone is from canada?
I just graduate and now I'm looking for a job so I just want to know their experience

[raven bramble]

no not for regular swe. refer to original message

[gritty rivet]

A regular SWE at a fintech, then the same answer. That's a situation where an econ minor might be a slight edge.

Otherwise... You should look around on LinkedIn and see what people are doing that work and what backgrounds they have.

[untold crystal]

When I am making a resume, should I make a separation section for different projects with diff coding languages?

Idk if I made sense here. E.g python project section and seprate section for Java projects

Or a mix is fine?

[gritty rivet]

I've never seen it done that way

[brave swallow]

i just saw this really weird job post where if you applied you have a chance of winning phone or money. Im not saying its a scam but rather weird, the platform i saw it was known to have rarely any scam posts

[fading mauve]

Hi mates I studied some caches and realized that there are different cache types
Object caching, Browser, cdn...

1. does it really matter to use which type of caching to implement?
2. In tutorials, it is mostly showing to implement via APIS, is there any reason for that?
3. object caching is always showing with WordPress, why?

[buoyant seal]

1. does it really matter to use which type of caching to implement?
   yeah, it matters. because they serve to cache at completely different levels and purposes.

Commonly it is responsibility of a backend dev to utilize Redis/Memcache programmatic controlled in code caching for his database purposes.
Server side caching at the level of nginx can be obligation of backend dev too. But never saw anyone doing that.. so i guess backend devs finish at redis

At the level of Nginx client side setting headers for caching we can configure caching for static assets (Usually DevOps, or the one who is responsible for infrastructure deployment takes care of it)
Commonly CDN is also responsibility of DevOps
And caching headers at any other levels is usually again devops.

There are solutions for frontend rendering with server side rendering. In this case it is again responsibility of devs using programmatically controlled caching depending on need ^_^

[buoyant seal]

1. does it really matter to use which type of caching to implement?
   programmatic in code caching with redis/memcache is the most flexible but requires having access to server side rendering. So implementable only at backend side or frontend with server side generation

CDN can be tricky to configure and requiring knowledge of infrastructure as a code. It can be easy, and it can be overwhelmingly not easy at the same time (hehe try to configure CDN in AWS for example)
Usable only if you have CDN. not every infra needs it.

Client side caching headers is... basic knowledge for frontenders and any infra deploying person. not really a lot to have tutorial about
Needed only if you server static assets (usually all people do at some point) and works only for them

[solemn glade]

if __name__ == "__main__"

what the hell does this mean

[buoyant seal]

code that will be invoked within this if condition will run only on direct python3 scriptname.py invokation.
It will not run by accident on code import when u in another file imported it as from scriptname import smth
tldr, necessary thing to make file with this code trully reusable across files

[solemn glade]

what does the statement actually mean tho

[buoyant seal]

well... i told you what it means.
It checks that current file is the one directly invoked as entrypoint for python interpreter.
python3 scriptname.py called exactly this file as entrypoint, and no one else

[solemn glade]

alr i got it thx

[vapid jay]

guys is it possible to get a job from Python and how long will it take for me if i am working at least 1-2 hours a day

[fading mauve]

@buoyant seal Thanks a lot!!

[cinder fossil]

this is a pretty hard question to answer. The skills you develop will likely assist you in getting a job, especially if you're going into a programming-adjacent field. it'll assist you with university if you haven't already gone, assuming you're doing a STEM degree. But "how long will it take me" heavily depends on other factors about yourself, what career you want to go into, etc

[hollow oyster]

do you guys freelance?

[buoyant seal]

some do, some do not.
I prefer to be full time worker, with spending my free time onto self studies. That ensures rapid career to desired directions and salary growth according to my expectations. Also having spending free time onto self studies, i can any time spend time on extra mind relaxing instead if necessary (Therefore easier to keep sanity)
Being full time worker, people expect me writing code for long term maintanance, which i am happy to do as with this code is easier to work with and enjoy the process of coding.

[onyx roost]

holy shit

no its just its so organised

[near ocean]

2 cover letters huh? Were they required or did you decide to write them

[fleet marten]

!rule 6

[inner wren]

Rules

6. Do not post unapproved advertising.

[fringe sphinx]

You should put your resume tracking project in your resume 😆

[near ocean]

Excel sheets as a service

[bleak quail]

is it a good idea to shift from computer engineering to computer science?

[gritty rivet]

That depends entirely on what work you want to be doing

[bleak quail]

I'm studying to be a software dev

[near ocean]

Whats the difference between the two curricula

[bleak quail]

ik computer engineering grads can also become software devs, but the computer engineering course from our university feels like its closer to its electrical engineering side

[bleak quail]

computer engineering is like a mix of computer science and electrical engineering

but im mostly interested in software, currently in my course I find myself studying physics and calculus most of the time

[hollow oyster]

is that notion ?

oh i see

[gritty rivet]

You want to be a software dev, but are currently studying computer engineering instead of computer science...

Then obviously, all else being equal, you should switch. Is there some specific doubt you meant to ask about?

[split citrus]

Hello guys! I just have a quick question. Is it ok for me to change my pretty vague job position to something that lined up with the work I did? So my offical job title was "Engineering Intern" but I did a lot of QA engineer work. Will it be okay for me to do "Quality Assurance Engineer Intern"?

[bleak quail]

unfortunately our university assigned that course to me, my first choice was comsci, under circumstances i didnt have a choice :(

[near ocean]

Dont computer engineers have the same opportunities as comp sci?

[gritty rivet]

We had a long argument in the channel where people strongly disagreed about a similar question. But generally if you're not blatantly inflating or misrepresenting your title, it's understandable. And if that's going to stop someone from hiring you you probably don't want to work for them anyway

[gritty rivet]

Your question was if it's a good idea to shift and now you're saying you can't? The more you say the more I have no idea what your actual question is 🤣

Are you asking whether you can still be hired as an SWE even though your degree is in Computer Engineering? Then sure. This may vary by country and company but here in the US at least that wouldn't be much of a stretch at all.

[split citrus]

thats true. my main work during my internship was mostly QA Engineering work lol. I was just worried when they do a background check it might come up as a red flag because the position doesnt match

[bleak quail]

yeah my questions pretty vague haha, alright I'll try to make it have more sense

I'm currently taking computer engineering at our university, and so far in my experience, I've only gotten a few classes related to computer science while most of the classes are leaning towards the engineering aspect (to be fair im in my first years), but I've also looked at our prospectus, and our computer science subjects get progressively smaller and smaller. Now I've also compared our prospectus to that of a computer science prospectus, and compared to ours, the lineup of subjects just seems, more interesting. Now I want to shift to computer science, but I'm kind of scared that I'll make a bad decision, because people say computer engineering is more broad and has more job oppertunities.

[gritty rivet]

If you want to be extra careful maybe use the official title and just add (QA) at the end. I really cannot imagine that anyone would ever question that

[bleak quail]

To add to this, I really wanna work software related jobs like, software development, data science, machine learning etc.

[gritty rivet]

No major is objectively better than any other for every person. It sounds clear that CS is a much better fit for you and worth switching to if you can

[bleak quail]

and the pacing for our comsci subjects are really slow too, like we get a class on programming twice a week, while most of the days are spent on engineering parts

[gritty rivet]

Even if your country has more Computer Engineering roles, this is much less important than doing something you are interested in and can therefore excel at

[bleak quail]

I mean, I've made my choice on shifting over to comsci, but it's kind of scary haha

[split citrus]

Awesome! Thank you so much!

[bleak quail]

everything sounds clear that i should shift to computer science, but I kind of feel guilt from shifting

but anywho I'm only in my first year of college and people say thats the perfect time to shift when you don't really vibe with your current course

so I think I'm making a fair play here ig

[fringe sphinx]

First year? That's absolutely the time to change.

[true harness]

yes. the more time you spend in computer engineering, the more computer engineering courses (courses that won't count for CS) you will take. as a first-year, you're really just taking prerequisites for things that can count for lots of majors

[wheat hatch]

Yes, I went computer engineering but I have worked as a software developer for many years. The lines are so blurred I don't really see them anymore.

The thing you get with comp eng that you might not get in a pure cs education is a bit of electronics and processor stuff, but any job requiring that will be happy to hire a pure comp sci person as well.

[white relic]

any job requiring [electronics] will be happy to hire a pure comp sci person
Hard disagree from me, personally

There are certainly roles where I would be happy to hire a CS person and train the electronics portion on the job but not all (or even most)

[mystic violet]

eh

[kindred oyster]

usually, the other way around would be better imo. The electronics guy will already have some programming experience. Its easy to teach them the programming rather than teaching electronics

[white relic]

most any engineering program already involves some programming

[smoky quest]

It's not a competition.
For some cases someone with electronic strengths would be prioritized and in some other cases, someone with cs strengths would be prioritized

[wheat hatch]

Place I worked at hired a game developer once and taught him programming on very specialized processors. In my world this isn't that uncommon, but maybe that's not the case for you. You're right in that it was a blanket statement from my part.

[kindred oyster]

i would bet that the percentage of people who are supposed to know electronics prior and are taught relevent programming on site is much higher than the counterpart. Becuase it is not easy to "teach electronics" on the job tbh. (well , it might kind of depend on what we define here by electronics, like taking an arduino UNO , hooking up an LED or attaching a shield on it doesnt really take much ).

[echo raven]

hey i am going to start machine learnign ... and i am good in python and mathemantics only

is it enough or should i go for other languages

[smoky quest]

enough for what?

[buoyant seal]

sounds like enough to keep learning ^_^. do visit https://kaggle.com to find different examples of machine learning with data sets and tutorials

[echo raven]

to start ML

[smoky quest]

sounds like a question for #data-science-and-ml rather than #career-advice .
But yes, math and python are great start for ML

[echo raven]

sorry

[mighty cosmos]

Hey guys, does an internship hold any merit or help land a full time job?

[lost cypress]

How long should I wait before following up with a recruiter that interviewed me? and thanking them blah blah

[regal axle]

If it’s in the same industry, yes. Absolutely

[random spade]

Howzit. Sorry for the late response. OK, thanks. I'll definitely look into that while trying my best to look like I'm not spamming people, 🤣 .

[deft herald]

You can send a thank you email day-of

[lost cypress]

oh really? its been about 3 hours since

[deft herald]

but i wouldn't go asking "do you have an answer for me yet???"

just make the purpose of the email to say thank you for your time, looking forward to hearing from you soon, etc etc

[lost cypress]

definitely, thank you!

[lost cypress]

is it weird to mention in the follow up that I'm a quick learner or maybe eager to learn any technologies/stacks are needed

because there were a couple tools and things he asked me to explain that I did not have experience with before

[deft herald]

Really this should have been communicated in the interview, so no i wouldn't say that in the follow up

[lost cypress]

Well yea i did communicate that as well during

[deft herald]

but it's up to you really. Do what feels right

[lost cypress]

but yea i guess it is pointless to say as well in the follow up

[smoky quest]

show, don't tell.

Don't say "hey I can learn it quickly", because who wouldn't say that?
It would be more impactful to send a follow up email soon-ish about how you looked at it and built something awesome so quickly

[deft herald]

there you go

[lost cypress]

great point

[true harness]

would a followup like this change your mind on a candidate?

[random spade]

Howzit, how are you? Ja, I'm sorry for the extra late response. Thank you for your response.

I'm currently working at a university as a full-time, permanent employee. I've completed my PhD. I spent 7 years at the UJ (partly while completing my PhD and partly afterwards), as a full-time, temporary employee. With everything that I've done, I've only developed myself for academia. This is why my question is (probably) quite rubbish for most people, but quite serious for me, since I don't know anything outside of academia.

Since my goal is Iceland, I've looked into certain requirements and I've seen that Iceland has a particular policy to follow when it comes to employing foreigners and, based on what I've read, it boils down to hiring the person best suited for the job who is closest to the country (making South Africa very undesirable). Also, the government requires an employer to provide some serious proof for the reason for hiring someone who is not part of the EU (I'm just making my case worse, 🤣 ).

No, thanks a lot. I'll look into dutchdevelopmentjobs. This is good. If I can hop over to the Netherlands then, hopefully, it should be easier to make it to The Promised Land (🤣 ), from the Netherlands than from South Africa.

[smoky quest]

it could

[random spade]

Ja, so, my biggest issue is that everything I've done in life until now has been dedicated to pure mathematics and it is only recently that I've begun working with Python and trying to do useful stuff. I've applied for jobs at banks over here, as well as for graduate recruitment programmes (importantly, I don't care about the salary while being employed as a bloke who knows nothing, because I know nothing, but I've heard from many people that, apparently, banks tend to shy away from someone like me because they reckon that I want a high salary fitting of the PhD).

Anyway, thanks for your response. I'll look into this!

[lost cypress]

If someone you were interviewing for an internship for example was not able to explain 1-3 specific technologies out of the 8-10ish that you asked about, is that a pretty bad look to you?

Even if they genuinely excelled in every other aspect of the interview?

[fringe sphinx]

Not at all. Seems normal. If you answered all my questions, I'd be a terrible interviewer

[white relic]

Is it typical for software interviews to ask about 10 different specific technologies?

[smoky quest]

internships and entry level are assessed for potential, not experience.
By definition, an intern has zero experience

[smoky quest]

some resumes may call for it

[summer roost]

an interviewer wants to find out how much you know. You can't find the extent of someone's knowledge without asking questions about things beyond it

[true hatch]

what are the goats of CS schools?

[brave cove]

Guys! What’s better to improve IT interview question of website or app?

My want to improve my skils❤️❤️

[true iron]

As a python develoer, where I should send proposal?
Please list good job sites or job channels

[pine sleet]

linkedin and indeed are good ones

[brave cove]

Help

[pine sleet]

i don't understand what you're asking

[brave cove]

Brush the question for job

[solemn glade]

whats daemon threads and multiprocessing useful for in python game development?

[smoky quest]

how does it relate to #career-advice ?

[white relic]

There are a lot of excellent schools known for their CS programs, but at the undergraduate level the differences are more in the professional network it helps you build than in the quality of education you get.

[brave cove]

Have some website can brush questions like QA or python engineers

[acoustic phoenix]

Currently confused in choosing a cs specialization to pursue as a career. I'm interested in both ML and CyberSec, but I'm finding it hard to make a decision. Any tips?