career-advice

[hexed drum]

There's no way we could possibly know, that's a question for your careers guidance people

[vapid jay]

Oh

[burnt atlas]

Just strive for the highest possible grades across all your subjects

To the best of your abilities

[vapid jay]

But i always thought i should prioratize learning python at this age because i will have a deep knowledge of it when im 18+?

[peak halo]

Math is the most important; the CS school I attended had at least one semester of calculus as a hard requirement, and getting an A in it is a soft requirement.

[burnt atlas]

I mean im also still in high school, i just balance the two

[vapid jay]

If you dont mind me asking, what are your grades and your knowledge level of python?

[fringe sphinx]

I agree with Le Jaune, school first... but that should leave time for learning other stuff.

[peak halo]

there's no way to quantify "level of python knowledge"

[vapid jay]

1-10

[hexed drum]

🤦‍♂️

[peak halo]

there's no non-arbitrary way to map python knowledge to one of those numbers.

[vapid jay]

1 being i know almost nothing and 10 being i know alot about it 🤷‍♂️

[fringe sphinx]

There are high schoolers in this server who are really good at Python, if that's what you're asking. There are others who are just starting. And everything in between.

[vapid jay]

Cool, so let me get this right: What i should do is focus on school, whille learning a bit of python daily?

[fringe sphinx]

Sure. Find a balance. Do what you enjoy, and you'll get good at it. Slow steady learning over a long time will make you great. (doesn't have to be daily)

[vapid jay]

Yeah im just a bit nervous for my future since if i dont get better grades any time soon i may know alot about python but not land a single job

[fringe sphinx]

You're 13. It's many years from worrying about this stuff.

[vapid jay]

Still better to figure it all out now and know what you want to do in the future

[hexed drum]

are you just looking for an excuse to avoid schoolwork?

[fringe sphinx]

Just take school seriously, and either allocate more time to studying or seek out help from parents/advisors/tutors. And, build a broad foundation.

[vapid jay]

No, i really like computers and programming, so i decided to try and learn python and make a living out of it, but now i found out i need good grades and a computer science degree.

[fringe sphinx]

Nope. At 16, 17, 18, and 19, I had a different vision for my future. Changed my Uni plans 4 times. (changed majors once while in Uni)

[true harness]

I agree with you somewhat, but you have a lot of time to figure things out

[hexed drum]

Why wouldn't you think you need good grades and qualifications in life? I guess because you're only 13

[vapid jay]

I know i need it i know but like if i have a high set of experience in python programming, start doing gigs on fiverr and make some good projects i can put that on my CV and show the CV to the company im applying for, and get accepted without a degree. But now im re-considering.

[burnt atlas]

Not sure about level of python knowledge, but my marks arebusually between 80% and 90%, a few in 70s

[fringe sphinx]

Here's a simpler answer: School is #1, because it gives you options. Learn what you want to learn on the side, not because of "career", but because you're interested. A broad foundation is how you prepare for the future, not a narrow specialty.

[hexed drum]

Yes it's possible but it's like choosing the hard way on purpose lol

[true harness]

people in degree programs are also doing projects, though. it's not degree vs projects, it's degree and projects vs projects

[vapid jay]

If you combined all of my grades as of rn you would get a 7.65, bad?

[hexed drum]

like it's definitely possible, it's what my stepdad did, but that was decades ago, and if you have the option to not do that, it's silly to choose to make your life much harder

[fringe sphinx]

The grades that matter are your next 4-5 years grades. (also, I know nothing about your school system... talk to people in your system)

[vapid jay]

So like my high-school grades matter more than my middle school grades?

[hexed drum]

depends on the country, hence why I said you need to ask local people

[fringe sphinx]

In the US, 100%.

[vapid jay]

Lithuania

[hexed drum]

None of us here know how it works in Lithuania and we're not going to research the Lithuanian school system just for you

[vapid jay]

How do i find out more abt it then

[hexed drum]

Ask your careers guidance people at your school

[vapid jay]

No such thing in lithuania

[hexed drum]

Then ask your teachers

[vapid jay]

Bro they are teachers making a bit more than minimum-wage

[hexed drum]

So you think the fact they're in low paying jobs means that they don't know what kind of grades you need to go to university?

[vapid jay]

They never went to a university

You see a college and a university is a big big difference in my country.

[hexed drum]

Even if all your teachers never went to university, which I somehow doubt, that doesn't mean they have no idea what it takes to go to university

But anyway like I'm not sure what else you want from us, what is your alternative? No one here can tell you, you claim no one there can tell you. So what, are you just screwed?...

Maybe then just try googling in Lithuanian as a last resort?

[vapid jay]

What am i supposed to google then

[bold hornet]

.

[hexed drum]

Even if you rely on an LLM, you still need to understand the crap it is spitting out

[bold hornet]

I'm assuming that by the time i graduate uni, LLMs would have advanced to the point where it explains the code

[hexed drum]

Why don't you want to learn python?

[bold hornet]

I'm ambivalent about learning it, I'm just asking that with the progress of LLMs, whether it would be a good use of time

[hexed drum]

no one knows what the future will be like, but your assumption is a bit ridiculous

[white relic]

not saying you're wrong, but would you care to elaborate on that beyond "ridiculous"?

[hexed drum]

I mean, even if LLMs get to the point of explaining the code, he'd still be learning it anyway, just through the LLM, so it doesn't even make sense

[bold hornet]

Not really, you can understand something if it's written in basic terms, but I wouldn't call it learning

[hexed drum]

Python really isn't hard enough to put this much effort into avoiding learning it

But sure if you assume that LLMs will be at the point where you don't need to understand any code and you don't want to learn to understand it then you can just not learn it

[bold hornet]

Yes, hence my question whether I should learn it in the first place. It's interesting to me, but ultimately most of what we learn is used for commercial purposes

[hexed drum]

Yes, don't learn it. If you're sure that in the future you definitely won't need it, and you don't want to learn it, then why bother?

[faint depot]

Either learn it or don’t learn it. That fucking simple. Don’t let AI fool you into thinking it’s going to replace SWE. I suggest learn it anyway and see for yourself what it can be of use to you. You won’t know until you try it

[buoyant seal]

At this point of time it depends on what level of.. frustration you wish to impose onto developers.
If you are fine being frustrated beyond comprehension with using LLM models and never learning how to be dev yourself? If you are not going to have a goal to solve problems at dev side for product runinng? then learning Python(or any other dev language) has no point for you.
If you are fine using third party tools for doing analysis for you, and u have no need for complex dev level automatation? May be you are fine enough to just use Excel? then Python has no usage for you.

If your goal does include building overly custom code / applications / diagarams that depends on a general purpose language ecosystem, if you need your code to interact with databases, data files and you wish to be not locked in a particular a single tool that solves it all for you (which can be having big price to it included)
then u should learn general purpose language.

Basically... it is question if u have a need for freedoms that general purpose language provides or not. if you wish to be a developer that solves all the problems to make the product or not.
If you have no aims for that, then u don't need python or general purpose languages

[fringe sphinx]

This, to me, is like asking whether you should learn basic arithmetic because calculators exist. Learning basic coding is not a Herculean task: it's something millions of people do every year, whether they pursue it as a career or not.

[lofty tendon]

Hello friends,

I am a Node.js backend developer with 2 years of experience. I want to start freelancing, but I have no idea how to begin. Based on a friend's suggestion, I created an account on Fiverr and made a simple gig.

My question is: which field has the highest demand in freelancing? I mean fields like frontend, backend development, WordPress, DevOps, data pipelines, data engineering, etc. I want to learn as many skills as possible so that I can set up my own business and avoid working as an employee for a company.

Over the past few months, I have met many people and attended several interviews, some of which were not even related to my field. For example, I gave a data engineering interview where I built an ETL data pipeline using Node.js, Python, Docker, Apache Kafka, and Postgres. I also interacted with companies that develop gambling websites, games, and even crack software to steal user data or bypass paid APIs for WhatsApp and Meta applications.

After working for 2 years, I have realized that most IT companies have middlemen who take a significant cut of the revenue, leaving employees with very little. I want to do something of my own.

I have a few friends who are frontend developers, full-stack developers, and UI/UX designers.

If you have any advice, please share it with me. I’d like to know what strategies I should use, which platforms I should focus on, etc.

I am not interested in frontend development, and I’m not good at designing UIs. I prefer backend development and want to explore more opportunities in server-side technologies. Should I explore fields like DevOps or data engineering?

Thank you.

[vast flicker]

can anyone point me to guides(if there are any) to get a job as a self taught developer?

[fringe sphinx]

Freelancing means different things to different ppl. Some people mean it as 'gig' work, short small transactional projects. Others mean it more like contract work or part time work. For backend roles like data engineering, it's probably reallly hard to find gig work: most of data engineering is long term work, not quick tasks

[fringe sphinx]

Ask in #python-discussion , lots of ppl can suggest learning resources

Oh sorry? Jobs

[fringe sphinx]

Start with a good resume. You can post an anonymized resume here for critique. If self taught, you may have to land an adjacent job first: something in the industry like QA or support, but that all depends on you, your network, etc

[fringe sphinx]

I don't think I agree with premise that most companies have middlemen. Yes, there are staffing companies that can earning 20-30% of salary, but saves the company on benefits/etc. There are also a lot of offshore agencies who will staff entire projects, but is it fair to say they're 'taking a cut of revenue'? More generally, why would a developer 'get a cut of revenue' to begin with? They get paid a salary, generally speaking.

But: if you want to go into business yourself, it comes down to offering a service that people will pay you for. I've done this, building off some specialized knowledge I had gained. It's a long path but fulfilling when it works.

[toxic isle]

anybody here also documenting there progresw

[peak halo]

like through github contributions or what

[toxic isle]

a youtube channel where u make videos about ur progression and projects

🌟 Just 4 Week into Python!
I’ve started my coding journey and documented my progress, challenges, and wins in a YouTube video. If you're learning Python too, check it out—I’d love to hear your thoughts and share tips! 💻

🎥 Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPyDKpf3YkQ

Let me know how your journey’s going too! 🚀

heres a example

[spare dawn]

I feel like im wasting my time on doing research now, companies glance over it like its nothing (only 2-3 really cared/cared to ask out of 50+). Should i consider dropping it/handing to another person and focusing on accumulating projects?

[fringe sphinx]

? What research?

[spare dawn]

robotics/AR undergrad research, im trying to get a paper

[fringe sphinx]

If you're learning, then you're doing the right thing. Don't over optimize for a chaotic process.

[smoky quest]

Note that there are multiple things at play here:

• The further in the hiring pipeline, the more time the company can afford to spend with you. So it's normal that no one will click on any of your link or ask you about anything, especially in the initial stages
• It's about the demonstrated skills and their relevance to the role, not the nature of your project

[amber quest]

What are the most popular Python software?

[peak halo]

Instagram is probably the most used piece of Python software.

[gray turret]

really? i didnt even know it was in py

cool

[amber quest]

I started with python two weeks ago

The company call me to a new challenge

From PHP to python with Django

Do you have some initial tips?

[peak halo]

that is, they want you to rewrite a wordpress website in django?

[amber quest]

Or wrongs from noobs

[amber quest]

Create a new API to a city hall

Like a bridge between 2 old systems

The last team got out of this project and removed the APIs

[pine sleet]

hello, your message was deleted as we do not allow advertising on this server

[stuck urchin]

I was in this server for help during my undergrad course, thanks everyone. I'm going to leave now.

Just a question..is python an employable skill? Will having python under your belt specifically land you a job?

[vague ether]

Yeah, of course

[stuck urchin]

In how? I can only think of data analyst or even tableau analyst but that requires panda..isn't c and other languages much more efficient? I assume python is dated and just an into to coding langua

[vague ether]

Maybe u are right

but I do not think so

[stuck urchin]

You said of course with such assurance

[smoky quest]

Efficiency can mean many things.
It can mean the speed at which the code runs, but also the reward vs effort. And in that latter category, python trounces C as you can achieve far more value than C in the same amount of time.
And then you have to account for the nuances of CPU vs IO vs GPU bounds tasks

[vague ether]

for example, If u know python well, you can develop AI programing

[stuck urchin]

I just know python for making data scraping easier but I never got far enough to know what that meant

[vague ether]

Melon, I can help u, may i send DM?

[stuck urchin]

With? I don't do python anymore. Was a fun experience.

[smoky quest]

are you sure you won't ever encounter python over the course of your career?

[stuck urchin]

Idk I guess I'll stay I'm really drunk

[vague ether]

Yeah, I see, then what did u lean?

[stuck urchin]

I can't remember. But it was fun. I did like tuples and libraries whatever else

[vague ether]

I mean what type of language will u learn?

[fringe sphinx]

According to IEEE and GitHub, Python has never been more popular: https://spectrum.ieee.org/top-programming-languages-2024 and https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-2024/

[stuck urchin]

I don't have an interest in coding

[vague ether]

Hi Melon, I wanna know u. May I have DM? I can help u

[stuck urchin]

Please no not rn
Stop implying you'll help when I didn't ask for help

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, then you're probably in the wrong server 😆

[vague ether]

Who? You Mean Me?

[stuck urchin]

I just came here for my intro to python course and it was beneficial and I thank anyone greatly that helped me

But now I leave, Tata.

Good luck everyone on their future careers and future lives. I wish you all well.

[vague ether]

Melon, Are u in here yet?

[summer plover]

backend dev and more

[vapid jay]

Hii

[nocturne scarab]

No

[spare dawn]

true, what companies/jobs/career positions should i be looking for given my AR/VR/Drone development background?

[safe ice]

https://lu.ma/i8bow7sr

[harsh river]

!rule advertising

[inner wren]

Rules

6. Do not post unapproved advertising.

[harsh river]

!rule pay

[inner wren]

Rules

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

[west flicker]

i need help!!!
what i'm trying to do,
every time the user inputs a code that's higher than the limit, the if statement in line 13 shouldn't be activated
and no i'm not asking CHAT GPT

somebody pls answer😭

[rugged plume]

This is the career chat, not a place to help with coding issues

[main moss]

Maybe try using 'elif' instead of 'if'.

[fringe sphinx]

To be honest: any. I've hired people with all sorts of Uni focus areas for totally unrelated work.

[long solstice]

where do i learn python

[rancid saffron]

hey guys any pyton pro coder here ?

[weary void]

https://cs50.harvard.edu/python/2022/ is where i am currently learning python at

[rancid saffron]

hey any python pro coders here? i need some help with my python project

[peak halo]

See #❓｜how-to-get-help. Be sure to ask your actual question, not if someone is willing to answer the question after you ask it.

[open ivy]

Cloud DevOps work is tool heavy in that the tools are very complex and difficult to use.

Developing a physics engine (my side project), on the other hand, is algorithm heavy. Numpy/numba is not intuitive and much less of a black box than AWS/Azure/etc. However, there is a lot of "hammock time" figuring out how to make the code efficient, flexible, and accurate.

I wonder how I can find jobs that are more algorithm heavy? Even if it isn't in simulation itself, such work is a better fit to my experience and interest.

[hexed drum]

Through the same methods to find any job? I don’t get your question

Like there’s no special secret, just don’t apply for devops jobs

[fringe sphinx]

Agree with above. Job hunting is a very imprecise sport. And, people's roles within a team vary greatly depending on: manager, personality, the rest of team, business requirements, etc. I'm doing some algorithm heavy stuff for past two years, quite unexpectedly, when most of my career has been more infrastructure and application-centric.

[open ivy]

You are saying job descriptions aren't that precise? That sounds about right, which is one reason why random cold applications is deprioritized compared to all the other strats.

I just was hoping for a way to find this out from research on the companies and thier products? To get past the buzzwords? To make the cold application strat more focused and worthwhile. Otherwise it feels like a big waste of time.

I wonder what are some ways to ask people in my network about their job? Trade secrets NDAs etc but there must be a way to get some idea if they are algorithm heavy?

[fringe sphinx]

Job descriptions are incredibly imprecise. Sometimes they bear no relation to the job whatsoever. Some larger companies even hire 'talent' and then assign roles post-hire: I know two companies where the team you interview with isn't necessarily the team you'll work for.

[fringe sphinx]

You can always ask people about their jobs. Rarely will they tell you nothing, even with NDAs

[open ivy]

@fringe sphinx "incredibly imprecise" yet another reason why the "send out hundreds of cold applications" strategy doesn't work well. It's a broken system at so many levels!

I don't want to give up on cold applications entirely, but none of my ideas to improve the strategy seem to work. Can I get more info about the day-to-day work, beyond the "incredibly imprecise" descriptions? Can I talk to someone in the company first? Can I do a small "pilot" project for the company and they keep me if they like the work?

Maybe a website where you make a profile, link to your portfolio sites (which I plan on keeping up-to-date anyways) and let the companies choose you for interviews works better? With a good portfolio, they know enough about my interests to make a well informed decision.

[balmy spade]

Can I talk to someone in the company first?
Yes, if you are networking and have someone from that company to speak with. By average, you are, at most, just six people away from someone in that company from who you already know.

Can I do a small "pilot" project for the company and they keep me if they like the work?
Depends on the company and getting that interview with the interest to hire. But if you've gone that far, it's usually better to just take the offer. Less chance of being brought on at a lower rate, a weaker contract, or even asked to pilot for free.

It's a broken system at so many levels!
Yes it is. At the same time, it is the system that exists. Forging your own path will remove you from the system that exists. From there, you're treading where vetted advice no longer fully applies.

[true harness]

to be fair, you are around 6 people away from pretty much everyone

[balmy spade]

That is the source of the metric I used. ;)

[fringe sphinx]

I'm just repeating the above but: Generally your goal is to land an interview. You get that either through cold applications or warm introductions (networking). Pursue both. Practice your interview skills to maximize your outcomes; be self critical and seek feedback - people are terrible at evaluating their own weaknesses.

[fringe sphinx]

How many steps from Kevin Bacon are you?

[true harness]

457889897654

[balmy spade]

What a flex. They have Kevin's ICQ number.

[open ivy]

On another note, I feel more burned out when I doomscroll.

It is such an efficient burnout-generator. Maybe too much blame is put on the jobs? Setting a sustainable pace on the job will not sacrifice productivity long-term, and makes one much happier. But there are so many other things in one's life that deplete them. And those can often be adjusted more than the natrue of the day job.

[open ivy]

This does feel that "all roads lead to networking and portfolio building".

Getting feedback? Networking is much better than cold applications. "Thank you for applying to xyz" does not a good feedback make.

Building social skills? I would rather spend my time with real people rather than AI resume screeners.

Building technical skills? Side projects are paramount. Coursera etc also has a place, but nothing replaces a real, complex project with refactoring, etc.

Showing off your projects? It is much easier to get a chance to speak about them in networking than in a cold application. This is a nice synery between the social and technical worlds.

Showing genuine interest in the field? Going on your own to a "geek club" and actually enjoying what they talk about speaks volumes. Saying "Yes I am passionate" in a cover letter is much easier to fake.

Enjoying the process, so you keep going and don't give up? It's hard to find anyone to likes making 100s of workaday accounts. Mental health of friends

I want to improve the cold application process but without doing so it has so many disadvantages compared to building relationships that it is very much deprioritized right now.

[balmy spade]

This is the obvious question, but have you considered not doomscrolling?

I want to improve the cold application process
This cannot be done from the outside. You have no control over it. You can only control yourself and your perception of the situation.

[open ivy]

I would much rather spend x hours on networking (which includes research for meetups etc) than x hours on cold applications or even 50:50 at this point. Unless I do improve the cold-application process.

[balmy spade]

Then that is where you should spend your hours.

[open ivy]

Right now the plan is about 1/2x on side projects, 1/6 x on portfolio building, 1/3 x on social interaction itself, 1/6 x on researching (finding meetups, tech trends, etc).

[fringe sphinx]

I think we've consistently said; cold applications, networking, and continual learning (practice/projects) is the way. All three.

[balmy spade]

Agreed. Focus on what is important for you and keep all doors open.

[open ivy]

I fight doomscrolling addiction, and am somewhat sucessful. Which is actually quite a bit better than the average, people are not good at fighting it.

How do I fight?

1. When a moment of depression hits, open my code up and stare at it. For a few minutes I can be too stressed/depression /etc to work.
2. Have non-doom scrolling recreations. And be aware when the capacity to work is
3. Touch grass. Or just run across grass fast enough to max out that Vo2. And other standard health stuff.

[fringe sphinx]

So yah, your plan makes sense. But also work on your interview skills: don't under estimate the social/behavoiral part of an interview.

[open ivy]

That is why I want to improve the "cold application" process. It is too broken right now to be worth it, it is almost a pure waste of time. But if I improve it, even if it is still far from perfect it may be worth trying again.

[fringe sphinx]

I disagree, but we've gone around this before. It's worth it because it's low effort, is my opinion.

[balmy spade]

It is not a waste of time.

When you say you want to improve it: Are you talking about improving yourself?

[open ivy]

It's not low effort when you scale it up to hundreds of applications.

[open ivy]

I explained ways to improve cold applications itself earlier, but the general idea is to find a better match beyond just "the description sounds good." It is to see positions that really jump out as good matches. But I don't know how.

For improving myself I am also doing that. There are three strats:

1. Technical. Side projects are great here, if they are complex enough.
2. Social. Networking is basically "making friends".
3. Lifestyle (health and wellness, resistance to wasting time, etc).

[pallid gulch]

Im trying to pivot to a career in AI/ML. Any dos and donts for me. Im in it for the past two months and feel its taking too long for me to get into the practical stuff

[fringe sphinx]

Why not? How much effort are you putting into each app?

[pallid gulch]

anyone who could help me with this?

[open ivy]

The whole process was about 5-10 minutes per app with my half-automated system. Multiplied by 800 apps it was over 100 hours of work that did not build any social or technical skills. And it felt really frustrating (it was anything but "fun") and still ultimately failed. I do not want to repeat that, but if I have somewhat of a better process (even if not perfect) I think it will be worth it even if it is no more pleasent.

[open ivy]

But let me actually calculate an optium of applications per week:

40 hours of "work" (job search)/week. Not including hammok time for side projects and some other thinking tasks taking walks etc.
Important tasks to do in this work (arbitrary order):

1. Big code projects. This is the biggest task, but the other tasks on this list are similar weights. I can give it 1/3-1/2. Afterall, it is the main tangible thing I have to show for.
2. Social interactions and reaching out to people itself.
3. Finding meetup groups and other get-togethers.
4. Market research (this is quite interesting and fun done right).
5. Courses in technical and social tasks (toastmasters, AWS, interview-specific training, etc).
6. Puzzles and problems (leetcode, short game jams etc) to flex muscles.

This is 5 tasks (besides the "main" task) so about 25/5 = 5 hours/task/week.

If I add "cold applications" to this list, and if I do not improve the process, I should weight it less since I have less faith in it. So lets give it a weight just under 1/2, or about 2 hours per week. At 10 minutes per application (which will be the minimum to taylor it to a resonable level) this is 12 applications/week.

So I calculate 6-12 applications per week depending on how bad or good I am at motivating myself to a full 40 hours. And 12-24 if I "improve" the cold application process.

[lost cypress]

is it bad for an interview follow up email to be this long?

Blank blank blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank. Blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank.

Blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank blank 

im about to send a follow up and i want to say thank you and reiterate my intesrest

then refer to things we talked about during the interview

or do i just keep it short and simple saying thank you and a few other words??

what would a recruiter want to see

[open ivy]

Setting aside that the follow up email feels artificial (but not doing it is also not great either), I think about 25% shorter and focus on 1 or 2 things that you really are interested in that came up in the interview. It's just a guess.

[lost cypress]

good point

[smoky quest]

it's not the size that matters but what you put in it.
So the question doesn't really make sense

[old bridge]

You should use Jake's Resume and refactor all of your bullet points in STAR format!

[hexed drum]

Just apply to a lot of places. I sent 130 applications before my first interview

And that one place that gave me attention turned out to be looking for someone just like me

[lost cypress]

I feel like my question makes sense. I’m wondering if an interviewer cares if I send them an extra long follow up email / if they usually are not trying to read a lengthy message as a follow up

Not that confusing of a question

Also you answered the question, you didn’t need to add the last part

[hexed drum]

Depends on the person but the length you sent is fine and not ridiculously overly long or anything

[lost cypress]

Agreed it probably does depend on the person I guess

[smoky quest]

Why wouldn't I add the last part if the question didn't make sense?

There is no need to be passive aggressive about it or so defensive about a question

[lost cypress]

You answered my question, meaning you understood it. Therefore you did not have to add that last part

[smoky quest]

Why not?
Your question indicates you are thinking about the problem the wrong way. You and the discussion would be far more productive if we were to discuss the content of your message rather than you seething and being butt hurt about it.
I encourage you to adopt a growth mindset

[finite crag]

Keep it short and simple. Thank them for their time, reiterate your interest in the role, and mention one or two specific points from your interview that stood out or align with your strengths. No need for a long essay.

[lost cypress]

Thank you

[neat creek]

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NrsfkF/

[lost cypress]

I have not had an issue with anyone else giving me career advice or critiques in this chat, that is telling of how you have been. I am in this chat so I can learn and grow in professional aspects. So I am not sure why you are telling me I do not have a growth mindset

[bitter hull]

Does this server has job postings?

[balmy spade]

Nope.

[gritty rivet]

Read the channel description for some links

[open ivy]

If you are sending more than a couple hundred applications or so, than automation is helpful. What tools do you recommend? I have heard about https://lazyapply.com/ but I do not know it well.

[deft plaza]

Hey all, are there any and I mean any low entry point experiences I can do as a freshman that can help me progress in the field of swe?

[peak halo]

look into opportunities on campus. apply for internships.

[vapid violet]

You should probably specify high school or collage/university freshman

[deft plaza]

Sounds good! I'm currently applying to internships, should I take an unpaid internship?

[deft plaza]

College freshman

[peak halo]

No. If the internship is unpaid, then they won't have you do anything useful.

[deft plaza]

Ah, ok. Is there a way to simulate for myself a software development cycle (whatever that may mean) that is akin to real industry practices?

[peak halo]

You can look into making open source contributions. Otherwise no.

[open ivy]

What about a fairy complex side project? That will require refactoring, architecture, etc.

It's very easy to overscope, so make sure you have smaller versions of the project that are more doable.

[peak halo]

You can make a side project if you want. But a real "software development cycle" is going to involve teams of people who have to coordinate with one another.

[vapid violet]

I am also looking for internships and what I have been told is that if it is an unpaid internship the company probably scamming you because all people have valuable skills to contribute and should be compensated.
-# At least for internships in the US

[deft plaza]

Interesting. Would collaborating on a project with friends be closer to emulating that experience?

[smoky quest]

I would nuance it far more than that.
Not all unpaid internships are scams, though it is still far from ideal from a paid one

[open ivy]

Agreed. Want unpaid work? Just have a side project. Or find a cool open source project to work on. Or find a friend who needs help. Etc. Don't do insutry work unpaid. Industry is supposed to pay. Well.

[peak halo]

Maybe. I think internship employers will care more about your grades.

[deft plaza]

Thanks for the clarification. It's hard trying to pry open the door of experience and opportunity

[vapid violet]

The only chance of me taking an unpaid internship is from a non-profit.

[smoky quest]

it's entirely up to you

I just want to make the distinction between something you would or would not do, with calling things a scam

[deft plaza]

For those of you who made it, how many internships (if applicable) did you have before landing your first tech role?

[smoky quest]

You can expect between 1-3 internships. Outside of that would be more outliers

also prioritize the quality over quantity

[quasi fulcrum]

Do people really need a bachelor's just to be a Python expert? 🤔

[balmy spade]

What makes you suggest they do?

[summer roost]

no, it's orthogonal. Degrees help people land jobs. A Python expert without a degree will have a harder time getting a job than a Python expert with a degree, on average.

[steady osprey]

I have one more class left for BS CS. Can't get an internship or a full time position. I have not applied to big tech only only small non tech companies about 500 of them.

[true harness]

you could send your resume for a review if you want

[smoky quest]

don't wait to send 500 applications before getting feedback. So I hope you have gotten some feedback every 100-150 applications and that you are tweaking it and trying different versions to see what sticks.
This also implies it is useful to maintain a journal/spreadsheet to track your applications

[rugged axle]

My boss is putting a lot of pressure on me to complete stuff on unrealistic deadlines wants me to integrate entire payment integrations in a matter of few days.Isnt it immature to rush something like payment integration ?

[smoky quest]

what is your level of seniority?

[rugged axle]

junior

[smoky quest]

Then it may be more interesting for you to:

• Make your own estimate
• Go back to your boss and ask them for advice given that your estimates do not match theirs and you would love to learn and grow from that experience

This will help put both you and your manager on the same page about what it takes to take it to completion. It could be a case of you overthinking it, or your manager not fully thinking through it, or anything in between

Having yours and their estimate will be helpful to compare where they diverge

[rugged axle]

I ask my boss to ask a senior to guide me but they said that no one is gonna guide dissingly. He said u have to do everything on ur own

[smoky quest]

that's why I mentioned you coming up with your own estimates, rather than someone else doing all the work for you

like, maybe they are super in a hurry and are okay skipping tests

but without a basis to discuss the trade off, the discussion will just be about what people believe

You want the discussion to focus on a specific plan, not on a "I am right" "No, you are wrong" fruitless discussion

[rugged axle]

Respect needs to earned recursive just like money.

[smoky quest]

wat

this ain't GTA

[rugged axle]

I am saying dissing people and putting unrealistic deadline will not help

[smoky quest]

who is more likely to be wrong and dissing people:

• The junior engineer who just started
• The manager who has years and years of experience building software and is accountable for the success

[steady osprey]

I have rewritten my resume a few times based on GPT's suggestion for ATS compatibility. I also submitted it to a resume evaluator site and incorporated some of their suggestions as well. I work as a supervisor for a renewable fuels company. I know my experience here doesn't really translate but it's all I've been doing for the last 10 years.

[smoky quest]

So all in all, this is a unhealthy state of mind.
You have to give people the benefit of the doubt and that they are doing what they are doing because they think it makes sense.
And so from there, the problem becomes about how to align and share the state of the world, rather than making it about your manager versus yourself

[rugged axle]

I think my manager is playing mind games with us trying us to make us work more and more . Triciking us using corporate tactics

[smoky quest]

Random notes:

• Assume ATS filters are just a myth. Imagine ATSes as a fancy spreadsheet that gets reviewed by recruiters/HM
• Resumes are read top-bottom. So always put the most important stuff first. For instance, go with reverse chronological order. So put your bsc above your associates
• Remove lines like "focused on algorithms, data structures, and software engineering". That's neither notable nor demonstrating advanced skills
• Show, don't tell. Don't tell people you worked on hands-on projects and collaborative work. Show them by talking about the projects themselves, their impact and what was difficult/cool about them

[smoky quest]

I can guarantee you that 99% of the time, it is not the case.
Assume people are doing what they think is the best for the company.

Also it's far healthier to give trust than have it earned.

[smoky quest]

forgot to mention but:

• Every resume I see will incorporate a description of an interesting project, be it a school project, personal project or an internship. This goes back to Show, don't tell, but your resume doesn't contain any such project. You want at least 2-3 projects like that to show that you have built some software, even if it is a toy project

[smoky quest]

Two last points:

• https://www.overleaf.com/latex/templates/jakes-resume/syzfjbzwjncs is a classic template. Feel free to use it or not
• Feel free to search for other resumes shared in this channel to get a sense of your competition and also the feedback they have gotten

[rugged axle]

What bout all the pressure thats being put on me and the team ?

[smoky quest]

As a third party, I cannot comment on that.
It could go from Your manager is an asshole all the way to Your manager is dealing with a junior engineer who has performance issues, with anything in between

[rugged axle]

I nevere had deadlines problems before though

[smoky quest]

Different people may have different perspective.
And your best course of action is to try to work things out and to try to understand what is your manager is trying to say, prior to rejecting their position

[vapid jay]

Without context this sounds pretty insane

[smoky quest]

Maybe, I can't speak to that.
That's why the first step is to bridge things and to have something concrete to talk about (ie. a plan).

A broken analogy is like you thinking driving from point A to point B will take 2 days and your manager stating it should take 1 day.
You can either have a shouting match, or you can both look up a map and compare your thoughts so it's less about feelings and more about facts

and you can't argue against facts (in theory)

[vapid jay]

Remove your associates entirely imo, someone could discriminate based on the belief that community college education is less rigorous than 4 year institutions. For instance I'd think it's very strange that you didn't take DSA at your associates degree or mention it.

[hexed drum]

No I just did it by hand

130 isn’t that many though

[steady osprey]

Yeah that's what I was wondering. It sucks because I learned more about software development from one class in that applied associates than I have in my entire bachelors.

[vapid jay]

I think you can still cram more numbers into the Operations Supervisor role claims, or phrase them better, for instance reducing meeting lengths by 30 minutes daily sounds much less impressive than saving 150 man hours * person per year, which might be like 600+ depending on how many people were there, right?
For automation you can have some stats there like what I suggested above, it'd look nicer.
In regards to removing your associates you should put this info into your bachelors to avoid discrimination against people who went to community college.

I would have projects showing that you can do the skills listed at the bottom ready, for instance a project involving PostgreSQL if you did it in school. Maybe link to your github.

You could mess with your Operations Supervisor title and pick more specific things that make you seem more like you operated in an agile environment but this is risky unless there's some truth to it.

[hexed drum]

0 but I have a PhD in physics

[vapid jay]

I agree, as someone who only has an associates, I learned enough to start teaching myself, however others might not see it this way, so if you can, I would just make it look like all your education was at the 4 year assuming it ranks much better.

[smoky quest]

Take it as a different opinion, but I wouldn't remove the associate. It's part of your story and shows your progression and commitment.
Though I would still rephrase your bullets in it 😉

[vapid jay]

0 but it was 2022 and I have an AS CS, now is a bit different

[vapid jay]

I think this is a fair point too.

[steady osprey]

I'll take some time and clean my github up the only reason I haven't put it on there is because it's a mess. I have all these small projects (I can't even remember what I was trying to accomplish) on there mixed with crud applications and small assignments that I was kind of embarrassed for people to see looks like braille to me now. Also you get mixed opinion on places like cscareerquestions saying recruiters aren't going to take the time to go look at it.

[hexed drum]

Yeah my GitHub is a mess, like 90 repos lol

Proper say they don’t look but I got quizzed on my major GitHub projects in my interview

[vapid jay]

I had like 2 projects where I thought the code was clean enough and documented it really heavily but idk if anyone ever looked at it. When you do behavioral interview prep you can use these projects as talking points in your canned responses. Look up STAR.

Even if they don't look at your github it will help to just be able to explain those projects in good detail, maybe add testing to them, document them normally, add industry standards like OpenAPI, so on

[hexed drum]

Do you need to prep for behavioural interview? I think as long as you’re sociable enough you’ll be fine

[vapid jay]

You want to build a narrative around these projects so that you can use them in response to a variety of behavioral questions

[vapid jay]

I think behavioral prep is super important for any job

[hexed drum]

I think it’s fine to do that on the fly, but I do also just interview well

I studied for my tech interview though but also they told me to

[vapid jay]

Yeah but I think you'd be better at it if you rehearsed behavioral interviews, this is what I did to get a job at least. I did rehearsed behavioral and technical interviews several times, had responses preplanned (not word for word but general things I would bring up), and was presenting myself in a way that people would want to employ me

I also studied the common behavioral and technical interview questions of companies I was interviewing at ahead of time

[hexed drum]

Idk I prefer to be genuine and very reactive rather than having preset answers

[vapid jay]

This took like maybe 2-3 days in general and then I'd do like a few hours of interview prep on that specific company before my interviews

[hexed drum]

I did think about it a lot, maybe that counts

[vapid jay]

So I kind of agree but even thinking about it a lot was interview prep

[hexed drum]

Yeah it could count, I definitely thought “what would I say if they ask this?”, but it wasn’t formal prep

[vapid jay]

You don't have to do the STAR response it's just like a guideline to speak well and create narratives that make you look like a good hire thru ur anecdotes, for instance "Describe a time where you had an issue with a colleague and how you resolved it", these are trick questions you can easily mess up

You're basically creating a narrative with your resume and with your review to project an idealized form of yourself that people want to work with, obviously you don't want to sound too fake, but this is the goal

[hexed drum]

I’m just careful about it during the interview, I mean it’s usually pretty obvious with what not to say in the moment. But sometimes I did just say the wrong thing because it was the truth and I wanted them to know even if it wasn’t a conventionally good answer

I agree most of the time you’re trying to spin everything into something constructive at least

Not necessarily positive but at least constructive

[smoky quest]

Reviewers make decision in at most 30-45s. So your resume should stand on its own and you should not expect anyone to click on anything

[steady osprey]

People say I'm likeable sociable at least to my face but they also say I'm somewhat direct which might be a hindrance. I'll work on researching interview scenarios and try to prepare. I guess I kind of expected to have a few interviews fail when I first started thinking about career switching I just thought I would learn from each one and get better at it that's usually how I learn everything trial and error but I can't even get into one to fail miserably. I am working on a django app for a friend's podcast to make it as easy as possible to manage it I feel like I know what a good webpage looks like and then I make one and I am convinced otherwise. That'll be one I can talk about more readily.

[steady osprey]

So describing the collaboration and projects directly on the resume is going to get noticed more.

[smoky quest]

Imagine your car is broken and you have to spend all your savings to fix it.
Wouldn't you want applicants that have concrete examples of cars they fixed in the past on their resume?

Would you bet all your savings on someone who has never fixed a car before (from their resume)?

[terse bone]

Can i use python for mathematics?

[smoky quest]

sure

[steady osprey]

If I had to pay all my savings to fix my car it would be a scrap metal dealer I'd need applications from but I see your point.

[terse bone]

Which platform can i use for python?

Like learn python

[smoky quest]

it's a question better asked over at #python-discussion

[vapid jay]

What level of maths is required to become legendary grandmaster on codeforces?

[smoky quest]

probably a question better asked over at #algos-and-data-structs

[rain thorn]

can anybody help me improve my script?(dm me)

[harsh river]

we don't do dms here, check out #❓｜how-to-get-help

[rain thorn]

the script wont fit 😦

[harsh river]

!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.

[rain thorn]

thx, and also i realized i said in wrong channel .-.

[rain thorn]

bruh i cant post it

[steady osprey]

When you were learning did any resource stand out to you as directly applicable to the job? In school we built CRUD applications on my own I like building things to automate but I'm interested in what the day to day looks like for the job? I know this is going to be different for everyone but as a broad view?

[vapid jay]

this one ended up being super useful for working with a large code base, doing refactors, making sure my changes wouldn't break things https://missing.csail.mit.edu/
Course overview + the shell, shell tools & scripting, data wrangling, command line environment, debuggin & profiling, metaprogramming were all really nice

[steady osprey]

Thank you this might be exactly what I'm looking for.

[vapid jay]

yeah just be careful some of what they suggest is not super useful until you get a job. I'd watch the lectures, learn what each thing is but maybe not go too deep on the suggested exercises. The ones I listed are better about it but you should just know what bash & unix utils can do, when to use stdout/stdin, that type of stuff. You shouldn't try to be a sed/awk expert or even good at them, just when to use them.

[harsh river]

<@&831776746206265384>

[dark arrow]

!cleanban 1304979783704383532

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @gray kindle permanently.

[buoyant tide]

!cban 1305620321403142239

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @plucky lodge permanently.

According to the API, your request is malformed.

[buoyant tide]

!cban 1279249339616596029

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @somber fog permanently.

According to the API, your request is malformed.

[buoyant tide]

!cban 1279412006130024591

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @surreal adder permanently.

According to the API, your request is malformed.

[steady osprey]

That was weird. Anyway okay I will keep that in mind.

[hexed drum]

Well TIL it is a lot of effort to pull someone's head off

[steady osprey]

On the not going too deep on these topics the requirements on some of these job posting sound like they expect you to have expert knowledge on everything entry level or not you just have to hit the ground running.

[hexed drum]

Any good job will train you to do your job

[steady osprey]

My thoughts exactly it pisses me off when I read them. I train and write instructions on how to operate systems at my current job and nobody understands until they have to do it in a live environment and can see the interactions between components the written instructions are more of a cheat sheet.

[fleet iris]

i need a job

job market is so dull

[hexed drum]

There are some gems, you just have to keep looking

[fleet iris]

is this the answer for me?

i should apply at linkdin? is there any alternative

[hexed drum]

@fleet iris depends on the country. Linkedin is great though. I used mainly Linkedin, Indeed, and Stepstone

I applied to 130 before I got my first interview

[fleet iris]

by 130 you mean the ones you click and apply or the ones from which u got a reply?

i already applied for 20 ones and got only 3 replies

[hexed drum]

I got a lot of rejections, idk what % tho

[fleet iris]

but even in these replies they are not interested when i say i am currently doing degree.. all of them look for graduates

[hexed drum]

Yeah well as I said I applied for 130 before I found one that was interested in me, so just keep trying if you want a job

[fleet iris]

ok

how good was your portfolio when u got your first job.. i only have some crud websites now

[hexed drum]

I have a PhD in theoretical physics

[fleet iris]

i am too busy with college don't get much time to code..

oh then you switched to cs directly

[hexed drum]

Yeah, but I have a lot of side projects over the last 15 years or so

[fleet iris]

nice

i see teachers in my college telling students to get internships but they never tell how to get these.. ig i am going to continue applying thru linkdin and make better projects meanwhile

[west flicker]

i forgot that shii exists!!

[dapper bane]

Last time a lot of people said that my game project no one will open so I am including projects that are open source in my resume https://paste.myst.rs/q4boxsrz

This is from my resume with all personal details removed

Some of my open source contributions are merged some are being worked on but that is still some solid code

if u guys need links to see more then ping me

[west flicker]

alr
i can't put it directly under line 11
if i leave it under the line where it is still going to give me the result for line 11 plus the result for line 15 which i don't want
i want only line's result to show up

[fringe sphinx]

This is the wrong channel, could you open a help thread: #❓｜how-to-get-help

[vapid jay]

herllo

[steel pendant]

Is that possible to get job in US from india for python dev with 5yrs of experience?

[fringe sphinx]

Generally you'd get a job for an India based company that provides services to a US company. Hiring an individual in another country is a real legal pain, so companies use subsidiaries or intermediaries to do it.

Subsidiary would mean; it's part of the company and fully controlled by the parent company. Intermediary would be a third party (ie; staffing company) that acts as a middle man.

[fringe sphinx]

(* I assumed you were asking about remote jobs)

[fallen gyro]

Just "python dev" is very vague. Look for a specialization (like cyber sec, backend, ML, data sci, etc) which requires python and try looking for that jobs that require that specialization and once you've decided which specialization you want to choose you should start developing your skills in those areas of python

[eager violet]

how can i start cyber sec?

[vapid jay]

someone who could help me py 2 exe

[median coyote]

which one would be easier to get the first job, cybersecurity or front end/back end ?

[eager violet]

im no expert but im pretty sure its defo front end/back end web devolopment

[next plover]

Cybersecurity is very rarely a first job

[iron zinc]

hey guys How can I grind money by knowing python as a teen pls help

I have done a lot of opencv pojects

hello?

ohh yh I can also develop basic websites

I made a portfolio for someone

[dusk flume]

with backend integration?

[open ivy]

What tools do you all use to automate sending job applications?

Note: If I still need to tailor each one manually, it would still be very nice to automate "Yes I am an American citizen, workaday accounts, GPA and colleges, and all the other "grunt work" that is really a machine's job.

Note: Automation is not useful below 100 applications or so. Only if it is worth it to send out hundreds and keep going (instead of changing the strategy) is automation helpful.

We are Python coders so we should be able to automate stuff fairly easily after all, but often using a tool that already exists is easier! It's a common enough problem that someone must have written something if nothing else.

[hexed drum]

I don't think it's worth the effort to automate it

[tame berry]

as what would you guys say that i would work as a Python programmer, would i be, a web dev, data scientist, what are the things that i would most probably be
(what do you say from experience)

[hexed drum]

How are we supposed to know what you would do? lol

[tame berry]

i get what you mean lol, what i meant is what position do most Python programmers choose? is there a reason behind their choice for that or is python just suited for that particular position?

[hexed drum]

Web developer and data scientist are both popular uses of python. There are many more uses in addition to those two. It's impossible to answer your question

[tame berry]

impossible cause there are way more positions?

[open ivy]

Are you saying that we shouldn't send more than a couple of hundred or so? Because automation makes more and more sense as we scale up.

Also, aren't there enough people sending enough resumes that someone made such a tool?

[fringe sphinx]

Python is so popular it's like asking what people who speak english do for professions.

Citations: According to IEEE and GitHub: https://spectrum.ieee.org/top-programming-languages-2024 and https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-2024/

[hexed drum]

It's easier to list things that python is probably not good for than what it's used for

[tame berry]

it is indeed popular, but you obviously won't use python to make an OS, same way, what areas are focused on python

[hexed drum]

Copy and paste manually is just easy enough as it is. If you want you can make some kind of templating thing that produces a CV and cover letters with the parameters given (e.g. correct company address on the cover letter)

[hexed drum]

Unemployed people usually have the free time to be doing it manually, and also it's very specific to each person's CV

[open ivy]

"Yes, I am authorized to work in the USA is not specific to me".

[hexed drum]

Basically everything except OS

[tame berry]

sounds fair, thanks for the info!

[hexed drum]

tbh even for OS, you could write a huge amount of it in python if you wanted, just probably not the lowest level stuff

[tame berry]

in what universe

[open ivy]

Is there a tool which automatically fills out all the standard stuff that is constant? Like GPA, us status, etc. It will not cover every case, but I really don't need to be searching for my university hundreds of times from a list etc.

[hexed drum]

It's not clear what you're referring to. Fill out what? You mean online forms?

[open ivy]

Yes. And workaday accounts.

[hexed drum]

I don't know what "workaday" is

[open ivy]

So many job applications require you to make a workaday account for each company. Very annoying and perfect for automation.

[hexed drum]

you can write a filesystem in python, if you want (for example)

[tame berry]

i thought you were talking about the really low level parts

[hexed drum]

tbh even for OS, you could write a huge amount of it in python if you wanted, just probably not the lowest level stuff

[hexed drum]

you could look at things like Selenium to automate the browser

[tame berry]

what about AAA games or GUI dev (front end dev and desktop/mobile apps)

[open ivy]

Selenium is good. But I don't want to reinvent the wheel. Hasn't someone wrote a tool and posted it on GitHub which uses selenium?

[hexed drum]

A tool specifically for workaday?

[open ivy]

A tool that covers, say, 80-90% of the most common cases. One of which is workaday applications, they are common enough to be a problem.

It will not cover the resume tailoring or the cover letter, you will have to give it a custom resume and cover-letter each time if you want to tailor it. For now I can do those manually, and maybe start to add simple tools to it.

It will not cover strange, unusual stuff, for which I will still have to manually handle. But these are found in only 20% or so of all applications and within those only a part of them.

[hexed drum]

I don't think that exists, no

[open ivy]

That is strange. How many people have sent out at least 100 online job applications? It seems like it would be a popular tool.

[hexed drum]

I sent out 130 applications and dealt with making a lot of accounts like you describe and it didn't bother me enough to even think about automation. I don't think it's a common thought people have at all

[smoky quest]

Once someone find a job, they kind of loose interest in it for a few years.
Though you could argue you could offer this as a service to applicants, but that's a whole different thing

[hexed drum]

I mean it's often only for your first job that you need to send out hundreds of applications anyway, or in my case changing field

[smoky quest]

or above senior

[hexed drum]

What do you mean?

[open ivy]

I sent out 800 applications and failed to find a job. WIth a little automation but not enough for such a large number.

That is why my current strategy is much more centered around networking. If a strategy fails try something else, don't give up hope!

[old bridge]

Haha in this current economy even my 3 YOE would require hundreds and hundreds of applications

[hexed drum]

If you sent out 800 applications and failed to find a job I don't think your problem is lack of automation to send even more lol

[smoky quest]

for instance, the current market is still tough for above senior positions

[old bridge]

Well it depends. The current market required me to send out ~600-700 before I got my job

It's more dependent on recruiters than anything else. Recruiters aren't exactly engineering prodigies

[hexed drum]

Were you just applying for literally anything even if not qualified?

[old bridge]

No my resumes were tailored. I had multiple prepared for dozens of tech stack combinations and read the JD everytime

This is because I wasn't going to be caught unprepared in a recruiter call

[hexed drum]

Maybe it's a country thing. There aren't even 600 jobs to apply for here lol

[open ivy]

Yes why I am focusing on networking right now. I already have aquantiances who love to talk about their side projects and are willing to listen to my own. Much more fun than job applications. And automation does not work for video chat lol.

[hexed drum]

I live in Germany btw

[old bridge]

Yeah at 150 apps if you get no response you need to try to tweak your resume a bit

[hexed drum]

I only got one interview from 130 applications but I got the job from that interview

[old bridge]

For me the extra +50 in that 150 is a buffer to account for fake job posts or recruiters that are mentally checked out

[hexed drum]

I have a PhD tho

[vapid jay]

Bruh

I can’t use vc

[old bridge]

Recruiters are really the first line of defense and it's the hardest part to get past because they don't have the most attuned sense on how it is to work as a software engineer. So they have to look at markers like language expertise and theyll ask maybe some basic questions.

This is an extremely unreliable way to source candidates even still to this day and is the reason why so many qualified engineers don't get a job. It wasn't about how well I could program an application to do something. It was about recruiter biases and their psychology lol

[hexed drum]

Yeah thankfully I'm pretty good at gaming those things if I get a chance to talk to them

[old bridge]

Yep. It's about the game, the constraints they placed onto you with their position of power. You have to play their game and beat them at it

Thankfully the recruiter I worked with most recently was actually a good recruiter. Probably the best one I've ever seen actually. Call it survivor bias. I had to go thru hell lol

[hexed drum]

I actually find the interview process really fun, especially with HR. It's just getting past instant rejection that's tricky

Hmm I don't think it's about beating them at anything, I think it's more about entertaining them

the job ended up offering me way more money than I asked for which is kinda wild

[old bridge]

Well entertaining them is a way to beat them.

Beating the game means getting past the obstacles that were placed before you although I can see the negative connotations. In this case, it is a bit special, as the connotations are actually intended to be negative as I simply do not agree with the way most recruiters handle the job market. It is wicked, from my observation

[summer plover]

Is that when they asked you for an approximation of the salary you're hoping for?

[old bridge]

Of course, I do not have much of a properly formatted alternative, but given enough time, I'm sure any able bodied man, woman, or maybe even child can see that this system of recruiting isn't exactly a good one lol

[open ivy]

I do lean in favor of networking. I just was wondering about automating the mass job applications as a side-bonus.

[hexed drum]

Yeah I asked for an amount and in the offer they said I was underselling myself and offered me significantly more (by EU standards at least)

[old bridge]

Yeah networking is incredible. People are creatures of habit and would much rather go with the safest option, and networking is the best way to get all of the "getting to know you" part out of the way of a job interview, which is usually mostly what they care about, since knowing how to do the job is a basic given. Culture fit is everything to the engineers that youll be working with really

[summer plover]

Which country is that in? And may I ask for an approx of what you earn per year along with your amount of experience in the field

Are you a full stack developper?

[hexed drum]

70 to 80k euros in Germany, 0 years experience

[summer plover]

with a phd

[old bridge]

Damn that much for 0 years isn't bad gang

[hexed drum]

German wages are really low

[old bridge]

At 0 years I was getting paid 20$ an hour 🙂

[hexed drum]

My wife is a mechanical engineer and they just hired a new engineer for 43k

[summer plover]

Respect, I can't see myself pursuing graduate studies, but the farther I could go would be masters degree

[open ivy]

Networking has a nice consolation prize even if it fails to get one a job.

"So I built a community around myself and had fun and discussed side projects and learned things and it was a waste because I never got a job" says no one ever.

[hexed drum]

Yeah the PhD is in physics not in CS, I pivoted

[old bridge]

Ah I would definitely say it would be a waste because I never got a job. I'm a very resource oriented specimen. I feel humans fight over resources quite viciously (which is why I place it's value so high on my list of priorities)

[summer plover]

Networking benefits you whatsoever

[summer plover]

Ohh, and the job is?

[hexed drum]

Automated testing

[old bridge]

Nice

Now if that network I built that didn't help me get a job decided to help me finish my projects I would then see an alternative benefit for my network 🙂

[smoky quest]

It's more nuanced than that.
Generally speaking, there are two reviewers:

• The recruiters who will weed out the obviously bad candidates
• The hiring manager

The degree of involvement from the recruiter may vary, but the hiring manager has the final say

[open ivy]

Honestly, if it really were impossible for me to get a job I would be forced to accept that and live as much as I can even with the ensuing poverty.

If my brain is incapable of continuing to live and be happy with a known horrible thing in the future, than I won't function. And not because of jobs: I don't think that jobs are hopeless as long as I am flexible in strategy and keep going.

Aging, however, is mostly hopeless. So "horrible thing happing to me in my future that I will have to live through" no matter how many good dream jobs I will get will still happen and I need to learn to still live my life with this reality.

And a network is helping me with my projects, at least a little, which is a net benefit even though I contribute back out equally to thiers.

[old bridge]

True. I suppose the problem here is that a "bad candidate" solely relies on a single failure point which is the psychology of the individual reviewing you as a person in a 15-30 minute call.

Already, we're starting off here with some really bad factors for your probabilities here. You're entirely at the mercy of the recruiter, and there's really no regulation behind that. They could have had a bad day that day, and that will affect your employment. That is something I have unfortunately observed

It's like any other system really. Can't get around it unless we get all humans to adhere to proper structure with little to no [[]]. That's not a simple task in any way, so I can empathize with the powers that "be" 🙂

[smoky quest]

First pass decisions are made in 30-45s. Which is is why it's so important to put your best foot forward in your resume.

But indeed, interviews are not so different from relationships. You can have two great people who aren't meant to be. Failing at an interview is not necessarily a reflection of one's skills

[old bridge]

True! Ideally, no recruiter would use personal unbridled bias to pass or fail for an engineering role.

We cannot account for their inductive reasoning, that's simply an unreasonable thing for a human to desire from someone else. I don't know what they've experienced or been through.

Really, the only solution I can see would be an industry wide standard that starts at the top of the monopoly chain (Google, Meta, Amazon)

There's not much incentive for those large companies to make the candidate process any better. They're turnover factories, and yet smaller and newer startups will use them as indices for how they should behave

Primitive, but I suppose any decision a large entity would make would seem primitive to a small entity

Complex landscape indeed, when you think of all of the reasons

[smoky quest]

I don't see that many recruiters with biases. Though I am sure we can always find someone who exists

[old bridge]

Might be a location thing, happens often in California. Some recruiters use the time on the call to talk about their day (probably just trying to get a feel for my culture fit more than my tech expertise) but who knows how they're "grading" you in that conversation, if they even are at all.

In truth, the candidate really has no opportunity to improve unless they're getting enough interviews lol

Either way, there's so many moving parts to this it's actually amazing it functions as well as it does currently. But I bet a recruiter could tell you all about the living hell they experience that we engineers dont have visibility into

[smoky quest]

I have extensive experience in California and have never seen that.
Can you give a concrete example?

[old bridge]

Yes, I interviewed with a couple of FAANG companies and the recruiters I spoke to (first rounds) were less worried about my technical and corporate experience and more so wanted to talk about unrelated experiences. I would reveal the specific experiences they talked about (pretty mundane, not a bad conversation, like a conversation youd have with some random person at the train) but then that'd serve as a [[]] marker that I don't want to put on the internet for hundreds of [[]] analysis demons to see 🙂

Not a bad conversation, but seems like there's really nothing for a candidate to "stick to" besides just putting your best foot forward and hoping for the best

[smoky quest]

Not sure what you are trying to hint at.

Some things to note:

• FAANG and tech companies will track diversity metrics
• Recruiters will do a first call to do intake and spot check experience. So what may sound mundane might be them trying to assess an experience
• Diversity and DEIB in general is quite important in FAANG and tech companies

Statistically, you will encounter someone who is racist or whatnot. But you won't encounter 99 racist people in 100 applications/calls

[old bridge]

Nah not hinting at racism or anything negative. I enjoyed the conversations I had with those recruiters because I really don't care what they talk to me about. They could've asked me if I have ever walked around a corn field with a cape on while beating 12 beetles on the face with a thin sheet of cured ham 🙂 so I try to stay prepared to match the energy level for whatever they ask me, strange or not, since it seems how well you make conversation seems to be more noted in these interviews.

Though, I didn't fail the first rounds, so I suppose I'm not sure if they wouldn't have passed me had I said "I was hoping we could stick to talking about my professional experience instead of the weather" lol

[fast fossil]

this one, many Linux distros, for example, come with Python distributions because the system relies on Python in some way or another, that's why there's that --break-system-packages flag that you can use to stop pip from complaining that you're installing stuff into the system Python which can potentially and very seriously render your system unusable

[old bridge]

Interesting regarding the diversity metrics note. I wonder how intensely that factors into decision

[smoky quest]

generally speaking, it doesn't. But you can always find a counter example of a more cynical person.
Either way, not a reason to attribute failure to find a job to diversity

[old bridge]

Yeah I think once the majority of candidates see applying for a job as a continued process it'll be less stressful for em (not necessarily non-stressful)

When I started years ago I thought applying to 10 jobs was a lot. Truth is, you may as well have applied to half of 1 with the odds that you're setting up for yourself at 10 apps and no experience haha

What's ironic about this statement is that my first job as a SWE was actually the first job I applied to (they were paying peanuts and needed someone with expertise who would work for next to nothing)

[smoky quest]

The experience is indeed quite asymmetric. Even if a candidate speaks to 100 companies, each recruiter/hm will have talked to thousands of people and have far more experience

[old bridge]

Sadly.

I hope my fellow engineers all get employed at the same time that I'm employed.

If I'm not employed, I hope they get employed at the same time that I get employed. Just don't get employed before me, please 🙂

[ionic crag]

whats a general carrier for a first year in university from which you can pretty much change to anithing

so far I just know how to code but duno which path to choose specifically

[summer plover]

That won't happen

[old bridge]

Then I will employ them and their children's children 🙂 (NO diddy involved)

We just need a way to create that many jobs

[sand patio]

are you in the U.S.? Lots of schools offer general engineering programs, after which you can declare a specific major

in fact, it's mandatory to do that in some schools, if you want to go into an engineering major

[ionic crag]

no Im not from the US

[sand patio]

I see

[ionic crag]

I live in Europe and I got no idea of what do choose

[sand patio]

you'll want to look into how schools in your areas handle things like transfers, or if there's some sort of general engineering equivalent

[ionic crag]

makes sense, thats a good tip thanks

[open ivy]

Google workforce is only 3.7% black and that includes non tech. 8% of all tech workers are black.

So no it doesn't help much to bubble in black in a job app to FAANG. And stupid when whites complain about affirmative action at Google when they would be helped since they are not Asians.

A good way to have diverse people, as in different ways of thinking, is to filter by having complex side projects. Whites in my observation at least, have less side projects on average so this will tend to skew POC a bit. But that is not the main goal.

With all the memes and zieghiest of "fund yet another crypto no sorry AI" I am skeptical that companies want diversity in thought.

But programming AI is good at telling us how to do what has already been done with Flask or whatever library. The humans will have to do novel stuff, and real diversity matters here.

[true harness]

how did you observe that white people have less side projects

[open ivy]

By looking for people with side projects and seeing who has them in tech. At my university.

And some whites still do have them, it was just somewhat less common. I am not avoiding whites or anything like that.

As to why I am not sure.

Remember that in the USA we have a long history of POC fighting for their rights. So maybe some whites are complacent?

Again, it's not a huge effect.

[smoky quest]

Regardless of one's race, reducing someone to the color of their skin and attributing behaviors to that stinks of racism

[open ivy]

Yes that is why I don't use it to judge anyone there are far more accurate and less problematic metrics.

I have benefited from studying the struggles of POC and how they overcome them even though I am white.

For example, what do you do if an angry mob is mad at you? Most people will be clueless. But if you look at the baseball color line there is a strat that at least gets you by in such a situation (such as a toxic workplace etc).

[smoky quest]

Everyone would benefit from empathy

[open ivy]

Yes that is part of the strategy.

"The people in the mob have their own struggles and peer pressures, I need to not direct anger to them". That works well. They want a fight, don't give them a fight.

[sand patio]

to be honest isn't that just anecdotal, it seems unfair to generalized based upon it.

[open ivy]

Yes, I am careful not to judge individual persons harshly.

Sure, other people frequently judge me and eachother harshly, singling them out and all.

If that ever happened to you, you are not alone it sucks. But we are not being forced to single out an individual and say "you are much worse than average in a way". No one is compelling us to dish out what we take, the buck can really stop here.

[smoky quest]

you were judging people based of the color of their skin though

[open ivy]

No I was judging a majority harshly. Name a single Discord user who I singled out and judged.

[smoky quest]

I never mentioned a single person. I am referring to groups of people based on their skin colors

[sand patio]

what I'm saying is that it's unfair to generalize the entire group because of an anecdotal experience of yours, I wasn't referring to individuals.

[open ivy]

It's much more painful to be singled out, alone, and judged than being in a mahority who is judged.

Many of my own Python side projects were judged harshly, people thought I was weird etc.

If this happened to you as well, you are not alone.

[sand patio]

being part of a majority that's judged is like, the root of racism.

[smoky quest]

You missed my point: You, @open ivy , have singled out groups of people based on their skin colors and attributed behaviors solely on the skin color. That is racist

[sand patio]

or well, "majority" is the wrong word. a group of people vs individuals, like what you're mentioning.

[open ivy]

It's less bad than had I judged black people harshly. Firstly, whites are much less vulnerable. Secondly, I am white myself.

[smoky quest]

That's a false equivalence.
Racism is racism

[open ivy]

But I will stop anyway. There is no need for me to bring it up.

[smoky quest]

Indeed. Racism is not welcome here

[open ivy]

if anyone is singling you out for having strange programming ideas, you are not alone. It sucks when people are dismissive about algorithm improvements etc.

I will have to find a way to discuss these ideas in interviews that doesn't make me look weird. I am tired of being socially rejected and outcast for years. I don't know how to gently get the interviewer up to speed?

[true harness]

using the term "singling out" in that context doesn't make sense to me. if you're presenting something and are being criticized, i wouldn't call that singling out 🤔. you're just the only one doing that thing

[open ivy]

It's because it is rarely a fair criticism of the physics simulation algorithm or whatever. When people give a constructive criticism it is a nice thing!

I have experienced, in many cases, a pure dismissiveness disguised as criticism. Where the people start ghosting me etc and I end up with very few programmers to talk to.

I personally have had good experiences with fantasy writers, and they have made great friends. But being isolated in my own field was painful.

I hope this will be fixed soon, time will tell. I think I can just find the right environment.

[smoky quest]

What type of criticism are you treating as unfair?
Algorithms have well known characterization like the big-O notation, among other things, including but not limited to experimental numbers (ex: runtime, memory usage, etc.)

[open ivy]

"suppose this works. NO ONE CARES". stuff like that.

Or sometimes a feigned interest which is phony.

[pine sleet]

if they said literally only that then yeah that might just be unconstructive criticism

[smoky quest]

doesn't sound like criticism as much as it is them signaling they are the wrong crowd for these topics

though there are nicer ways to go about it

[open ivy]

Another one was "there is a time and place to talk about this". And there is no such time and place.

[true harness]

i mean, this could just be a (somewhat) disrespectful way for them to switch topics

[open ivy]

Or a generic "people have been thinking about this for years how can you have any hope".

[true harness]

that is reasonable advice in some cases. but we don't have any context with which to evaluate these statements

[open ivy]

Regardless, actually well thought out criticism (which generally has both positive and negative aspects) was very rare to either get or to find others willing to share their own ideas and receive constructive criticism from me.

[pine sleet]

i think if you've found a new algorithm or whatever that's demonstrably better or unique, the time and place would be a research group or a paper for it, i can understand that an interviewer may not want to spend an hour talking about the nitty gritty details about whatever it is you've come up with

[open ivy]

I want a back and forth discussion, and honestly 30 min per week is enough. It need not go into every little detail.

[pine sleet]

the process of publishing a paper usually involves a lot of back and forth discussion and targetted constructive criticism

[true harness]

are we still talking about interviewing? i think we lost the plot a bit

[open ivy]

30 on mine 30 min on theirs.

[open ivy]

Yes. I think with a better elevator pitch I can forment a genuine discussion.

Which is crucial for showing the interviewer I deeply understand this.

[true harness]

if you're trying to change the interview topic to what you want to talk about, rather than what the interviewer wants to ask you, that may explain why you are getting the responses you are getting

[open ivy]

I generally didn't test it in interviews, I was testing it on individuals in peer interactions.

Interviews usually let you talk about it, and I was cautious not to get too detailed.

But if you express an insight or detail in a certain way it comes across as very wise. I don't know how to walk that line.

[old bridge]

https://www.themuse.com/advice/star-interview-method

Incredible device - I have used it myself, does* numbers

[summer plover]

You mean advice? Or is it actually device

[old bridge]

Wait this is career discussion. I thought this was OT 🙂 OW (oh well)

[summer plover]

buddy you could have just said yes and I would've understood

[old bridge]

You right

[summer plover]

thanks for editing your message, I read the one before

[old bridge]

Well I hadn't edited it for quite some time, I was beginning to worry that you hadn't seen it! 🙂

[burnt path]

skids

[smoky quest]

Hi!
Do you have a question or topic about #career-advice ?

[burnt path]

honestly

[smoky quest]

I never lie

[burnt path]

no i dont

[smoky quest]

so what's the point?

[burnt path]

the point is for u not to know

[smoky quest]

This is a channel with a specific topic.
If you don't have any specific topic or question related to the channel, then you will be better off in one of the off topic channels

[burnt path]

okay and who are you?

u lit just learned a few lines in py nd think u yk everything

[smoky quest]

are you 12 years old?

[burnt path]

im older than u

[smoky quest]

<@&831776746206265384> shitposting

[burnt path]

lets run ones in hack the box then

im waiting

[pine sleet]

i don't know what this is about, but this channel is for having meaningful discussions about careers. if you don't have something within the topic to talk about, you can just not

[past heath]

hi everyones

[vapid jay]

Hey

[peak panther]

hi

do you guys at some point of learning feel like, this is not for me ...

[buoyant seal]

there are fields in software development i am sure they are not for me.
or with which i have very hateful relationship but i have to use anyway 😄

not for me: Machine Learning, Development in Windows, PHP, Lua and other dynamic typed languages in average (partial exception is only to Python), all modern js frameworks i don't wish to use
i hate it but i have to use it in small amounts anyway at least: Javascript (as vanilla js)
Also i don't like Web scraping and end to end testing implemented through web scraping. and all macos/ios related stuff.

At the same time there is list of stuff i appreciate to use.
Things like... okay i can appreciate Python a bit. Golang is my favourite actually. static typed languages i am fan of.
Docker, Terraform Tofu are realy great infrastructure as a code tools, linux environment is really good to develop things
In general i like working with Container scheduling systems, and i enjoyed using datadog for monitoring
In average i appreciate backend development with unit testing approach
I enjoyed to use Htmx as vanilla js alternative

[buoyant seal]

The point is to try different stuff and find out for yourself what u like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6rP-YP4c5I

[peak panther]

that is very helpful tbh haha thanksman

The problem is i just started learning data structure and algorithms in Python and it feels overwhelming (I'm a beginner) , but yep gotta try it to find out ...

[fringe sphinx]

Why are you learning DSA? Genuine question because often people start in DSA too early for the wrong reasons.

[buoyant seal]

Also we can note here that u could be picking very Fun or very Dry/academic resources to learn DSA.
as far as i am aware this book is for the fun and simple approach. even if depth is less than academic resources

[peak panther]

Because i looked on YouTube at what to do after finishing learning the basics of Python and it says DSA.

[peak panther]

thank you ! i will check it out

[hexed drum]

I got this book, highly recommend it https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-MIT-Press/dp/0262033844

[buoyant seal]

@peak panther oh yeah, this is university dry one and has 4 times more pages.
now u have book examples for both 😄

[hexed drum]

I found it very approachable and easy to understand

the thing I like about it is that it goes as deep as you want. The introduction of each algorithm and data structure is very simple, but then it goes into more and more depth that you can skip over if you don'ot need it

[buoyant seal]

Very approachable and easy to understand? For someone who got used to speaking higher math/chineese you mean

[hexed drum]

Read my last comment:

The introduction of each algorithm and data structure is very simple, but then it goes into more and more depth that you can skip over if you don't need it

[buoyant seal]

fair enough. may be.

[hexed drum]

the point is that it has everything you ever need, both the simple part and the difficult part

[buoyant seal]

it looks to be speaking higher math/chineese already at 50th page at least or earlier though.
I think it is not very approachable book
this subject can be learnt far easier.

[hexed drum]

It's kinda racist to equate maths to "Chinese"

[buoyant seal]

Chineese language is considered hardest in the world. highly likely it is just truth.

[hexed drum]

the book is in English, not Chinese

[buoyant seal]

higher math with its hieroglyphs is quite similar

[hexed drum]

no, it really is not...

[buoyant seal]

lets agree to disagree

[hexed drum]

not to mention the example you posted was extremely simple mathematics anyway lol

but yeah, maths and Chinese are not similar. I'm not really sure why you think they're related

[fringe sphinx]

This is not good advice for a beginner. DSA is something you can learn much later, and is very overrated. What you should do first is small projects: build stuff with Python. Practice with sites like Exercism and Codewars

[hexed drum]

I wouldn't say DSA is overrated. Basically every technical interview will test you on it

I got tested on it even though I was hired by them knowing that I had no CS knowledge at all

[brazen island]

I haven't had a single interview ask me anything related to DSA

[peak panther]

This seems to be a controversial

[fringe sphinx]

It is a common expression: like 'it's all Greek to me' or 'this confusing math looks like Chinese'. Not saying it's right or wrong, just merely acknowledging that I don't think anything wrong was intended.

[hexed drum]

It's all greek to me is because maths uses greek characters

[hexed drum]

Really? That seems very hard to believe

[brazen island]

Are you in the US? I think the common perspective here is American. It also depends on where you live. I'd get in touch with people that you know wherever you live and ask them

[hexed drum]

I'm in Germany btw

[digital fjord]

I've been asked DSA on every interview, but I still wouldn't recommend doing DSA before you have at least written some code from an empty file to a working program.

[peak panther]

nop morocco

[fringe sphinx]

Are you in Uni?

[hexed drum]

Yeah definitely DSA is a more advanced topic, not for total beginners

[brazen island]

I'd really ask people you know in Morocco that work in software what the "culture" is then

[peak panther]

yep but not specializing in cs just curious to learn ...

[brazen island]

There's many local specifics that really do matter.

[hexed drum]

One should learn DSA anyway because it's interesting and useful

[digital fjord]

yea, it is critical just for establishing the shared language for talking about programs, even disregarding the whole interview angle. But you can do that later.

[fringe sphinx]

Online roadmaps are generally terrible: the way to 'get good' is to be able to build projects. After you have good coding experience, you'll find DSA pretty easy to learn.

[fringe sphinx]

But if you must learn, there are online courses. MIT has a DSA course on YouTube, see pin in #algos-and-data-structs

[hexed drum]

I don't see why you're discouraging it so highly, it's not that advanced, it doesn't hurt to learn

[fringe sphinx]

Read the context here: new programmer struggling with DSA. Implication is they should get better at basics first. Context; #career-advice message

[hexed drum]

I didn't read the context that way, but fair enough. Different interpretations of his situation I guess

[white relic]

I find that unlikely. Many languages have an equivalent expression, and most uses of the expression have nothing to do with mathematics.

[hexed drum]

Okay well I still personally find it a bit racist, particularly the Chinese one

[wicked sapphire]

hi

[peak halo]

hello and welcome to our wonderful career discussion channel.

[wicked sapphire]

im frend

[peak halo]

did you have a career-related question? #ot1-perplexing-regexing is a channel for general chatter.

[wicked sapphire]

ok

[true harness]

what is racist? it has nothing to do with Chinese people, only the language

[hexed drum]

Idk, equating mathematics to Chinese sounds kinda racist to me

it looks to be speaking higher math/chineese

[versed drum]

Yeah i hate ppl who speak python

[fringe sphinx]

Please read the Wikipedia page provided above. This is complaining about common idioms in various languages. Let's stay on topic here.

[hexed drum]

I'm just not comfortable with it at all, but sure I'll drop the topic

[vapid marten]

you're not even chinese?? you're german

tf are you getting heated about?

[hexed drum]

I'm not German

[fringe sphinx]

We dropped the topic. Move on plz.

[vapid marten]

my bad gang

[west flicker]

What's dsa

[vapid marten]

??? how

[vapid marten]

datastuctures + algorithms

[fringe sphinx]

Data Structures and Algorithms. It's a first or second year courses in a typical CS program.

[fringe sphinx]

Not OP, but; because DSA problems are often 'trivia' problems that don't reflect what most SWEs actually do.

Discussions of DSA often go a round in circles because there's nuance involved.

[hexed drum]

Bad ones are, but the DSA problems in my interview were directly related to the work I'd be doing

I think that there are a lot of senior engineers who don't really know any DSA who get by without it, coming up with cludgy solutions for things that have a nice and simple DSA solution. My stepdad is like that

I imagine that in such companies they won't ask DSA questions

but that is a matter of their own ignorance

[fringe sphinx]

The nuance that gets lost is because some people go too far and equate DSA and competitive programming mastery with being necessary to being a good programmer

[hexed drum]

Yeah as usual the truth is somewhere in the middle

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, there's some sweet spot of: SWEs should know more than 0 and less than mastery/grinding out Leetcode.

[hexed drum]

I'd say it is a bit of a red flag tho when people think that the only use of DSA is being fast. It's really just as much about comprehension and programming ease

[spare dawn]

is it better to bulk apply to jobs with the same resume/responses or tailor and pick a few?

im getting mixed messages from career advisors at my school vs people who actually got something. Im considering automating my applications and bulk applying

[hexed drum]

The former, bulk apply

Its a huge risk to limit your application numbers, I was aiming for 5 to 10 a day

[spare dawn]

yea thats what im leaning towards, companies really dont care about each application, so im aiming to just automate it/not care back at them lol

[hexed drum]

I think that’s what most people end up doing anyway, at least they just automate “by hand” ie lots of copy and paste. I’ve definitely sent the cover letter with the wrong address to a company before but when you’re doing so many this mistakes average out

[spare dawn]

Thats fair, do CLs matter? i havent been doing them since it adds more work for me to do per application

[hexed drum]

I think if they let you send one you may as well

[spare dawn]

ive only gotten 1 oa, 1 interview out of 100 or so applications thus far

[hexed drum]

Yeah I only got my first interview after 130 applications but I got the job from it

[spare dawn]

waiting on one possible offer, its dirt pay but ill take it over nothing tbh. if i somehow do get an offer should i take the first one n be done or keep applying for better/wait?

[hexed drum]

Depends on how bad the pay is tbh and what your financial situation is

[spare dawn]

i do need more pay, but i cant afford not having anything this summer either

i can do research maybe but that's below minimum way at my school, ill keep looking i guess 💀

[smoky quest]

This is a unhealthy mindset

[smoky quest]

The best approach is to do a mix.
Ideally, you should tailor and invest time in each application. That's workable when it's only a few but not when it's hundreds as it is in the current market.
So It's best to invest time when it makes sense (ex: something super relevant to your skills, a company you really want to join, or just picking a ratio of X jobs you want to spend more time on), and then spend less time on the rest

And track your applications, their status and re-review your resume every few weeks as you gather data about what works and doesn't work

[hexed drum]

I agree with that

[hexed drum]

I’d say it the opposite of unhealthy tbh

It’s the only way I found to deal with the process sanely

[smoky quest]

not really. That's passive aggressive/incel mindset rather than adopting a growth mindset

[hexed drum]

It’s an incel mindset to automate job applications? What the fuck lol

Okay whatever man 👍

[smoky quest]

no, the not care back at them is

[spare dawn]

lol, i get what you mean about growing/improving, but if companies cant care enough to give me a rejection letter or offer some feedback what can i do? I received some feedback at career fairs which was good (mostly that they couldnt read it well).

[hexed drum]

They’re companies, not people. If you treat them like they are going to respect you you’re a fool

[spare dawn]

at the end of the day its a job, at a corporation that will easily throw me away so

[smoky quest]

What you can do is to adopt a growth mindset, to dig deeper into the problem and see it as an opportunity to improve so that you increase your response rate.
Basically, it's about these two reactions:

• I don't get a reply, therefore they are all bad and I should hate them
• I don't get a reply, what am I missing to get a reply? What could I do to improve my response rate?

The second approach will be far more successful and healthier than the first

[hexed drum]

Who said anything about hate? You’re projecting BIG time

[dusk flume]

What are y'all arguing abt

[hexed drum]

Whether automating applying is for incels

[smoky quest]

I would also encourage you to look beyond that.
It's not about a job, it's about your career. Different jobs will lead to different paths. And aside from that, it's not a faceless corporation that will hire you and with whom you will work, but people. You will develop a professional network and relationships that can extend beyond a single job. And thinking about it in terms of people will help you draw similarities and differences in behaviors between the recruiter, the HM and the teams (what they are looking for, how they work, etc.)

[dusk flume]

I'd say you should focus on making each application unique in some way idk

[smoky quest]

I understand that misreading stuff is more funny, but I encourage you to have a more productive participation

[hexed drum]

What did I misread?

[smoky quest]

everything

[hexed drum]

Maybe you shouldn’t accuse people of having incel ideology bc they have a realistic understanding of how companies will treat them

[smoky quest]

Are you 12 years old or what?

[hexed drum]

I’m 30 years old, which is why I don’t go around calling people incels

[smoky quest]

why not? Do you feel targeted?

[hexed drum]

Now you’re accusing me of being an incel? Give it a rest

[spare dawn]

i do agree with that, I connect with every recruiter and person i talk to and make sure to network/talk. Im constantly juggling 2-3 jobs and just don't have that flexiblity though and the system doesn't reward applying to a few and waiting, thats what I did last year and ended up working long shifts at a mechanics shop unrelated. ill try to change my mindset but its hard given the rejections/being treated like they dont care.

[vapid jay]

Hey guys I need your help

I want to become quant trader and than quant portfolio manager after gaining few years of experience. Can someone please help or guide me on the roadmap and what all things I need to learn, from where to learn etc...

[smoky quest]

Indeed. It's frustrating and challenging.
But it's also less stress to not build resentment against the recruitment process. It frees up energy and time for the important and useful stuff for you. It also helps build better relationships with the recruiting team.
Though to be clear, it is true they do not care. You can care about one person, but you cannot care about thousands of people. And the difficult part is to go far enough into the recruiting pipeline that they start caring about you as a person. Though to note that companies do care about the candidate experience and will do their best to make it as painless as possible, but there is no standard and it's still at the aggregate level, not personal level

[white relic]

Already giving up on your AI startup idea? Or is this part of the same plan?

I understand finance is pretty tough

[vapid jay]

I think computer science is used both in quant and AI

[white relic]

sure

[vapid jay]

Machine learning

[vapid jay]

I need a roadmap

[fringe sphinx]

Here's a good outline of quant related topics (from the defunct quantopian): https://gist.github.com/ih2502mk/50d8f7feb614c8676383431b056f4291

Realistically tho, quant is an entire field of its own right, and the roadmap starts with; learn what Quants do, what degrees are good entry points, and what skills are valued.

[slender quartz]

Sorry, downvoted this by accident

[vapid jay]

Thanks 🙏🏻🙏🏻

[lucid matrix]

I’m sure there are many paths but the people I know/know of who got into quant trading studied math/applied math and then moved into finance

[vapid jay]

What about coding?

Algorithms

I'm talking about quant traders and portfolio managers in companies like Jane street, citadel securities.

Not like quant analyst at JP Morgan

[lucid matrix]

Some had heavily studied both math and CS. Others kinda did some coding on the side I think but they were very strong in the math

[lucid matrix]

Yeah I understand you

[ashen wraith]

Day 1 of learning python what to keep in mind to get better?

[vapid jay]

So math is a common factor I see

[lucid matrix]

Wouldn’t take what I am saying as what to do— just sharing anecdotes

[fringe sphinx]

You really should read about what the field is. To even say this means you haven't taken the time to read about what 'quant' means or what the field entails. In other words: Before thinking about a roadmap, you should understand the destination

[vapid jay]

I have read about it

[ashen wraith]

Can you be a software developer and a nurse at the same time?

[fringe sphinx]

Not to be argumentative but: then why be surprised that Quant entails a lot of math?

Like; it's almost in the name itself

[fringe sphinx]

No idea.

[vapid jay]

Because I'm very bad at maths

[lucid matrix]

Are you in school

[smoky quest]

You may find people who do leverage knowledge of both, but rarely people who are actively pursing these two careers at the same time

[vapid jay]

University

[fringe sphinx]

Start here plz: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_analysis_(finance)

[ashen wraith]

I think you can build a software to track patient files in real time.

[ashen wraith]

I think you can be both if you foucs on health informatics.

[vapid jay]

https://youtu.be/PQ67i06LxJ0?feature=shared

You can watch this video

[ashen wraith]

But this idea needs testing.

[near ocean]

There's no job at jane street and co for someone who can't do math

[smoky quest]

Right, you would leverage knowledge of both. But you would not be a software engineer AND a nurse at the same time. Though nothing prevents you from moonlighting as either

[vapid jay]

How?

[vapid jay]

Yeah sure

[ashen wraith]

Well you need to learn the fundamentals first then try to apply them it isn't as simple as it sounds.

[vapid jay]

What fundamentals?

[ashen wraith]

Data Structures and Algorithms.

[fringe sphinx]

Lots of jobs pay well. The one thing in common is: you have to be good at the job to unlock the top tier

[ashen wraith]

And it would be best if you had a team.

[ashen wraith]

What is pay well to you? I think it is subjective.

[lucid matrix]

clicking through that video it seems mostly useful to someone already familiar w/the industry. it doesn't really say as much about the education path

there's likely someone at your university you can talk to

[fringe sphinx]

That's true too.

[vapid jay]

I thought you might use some development

[hexed drum]

70k+ euros in Germany

I think in the US it’s way higher though

[ashen wraith]

I think it is pretty nice because you have freedom too.

[vapid jay]

Working at single job never makes you rich. You have to try different things

[hexed drum]

We pay like 45% tax tho

[lucid matrix]

do you like math

[fringe sphinx]

Never?

[vapid jay]

Expand your horizon

[vapid jay]

Yeah I like math and algorithms

[hexed drum]

You seem to like buzzwords more than actual engineering, maybe you should look into going into marketing

[fringe sphinx]

Ironically, some Quants make a ton of money and never change jobs their entire career.

[near ocean]

they probably could have made more if they hopped companies a couple times

[fringe sphinx]

Cmon man. We've asked you to be nice. That wasn't called for

[vapid jay]

I'm talking about investing. You can do real estate, luxury rental business and what not being a quant

[hexed drum]

It was a serious suggestion

[fringe sphinx]

Oh for sure

[hexed drum]

I only buy S&P500

[fringe sphinx]

You've probably out performed most hedge funds

[hexed drum]

Yeah that’s why I only buy that. I’m not going to beat it on average

[old sparrow]

hiii

[brave cove]

Twentyfour can't get a job

[harsh river]

what's 24 here? your age?

[smoky quest]

It would help to share more information about yourself so we can help you better

[deft plaza]

Is it possible to shadow a tech role as a student? I want to get an idea of what a day of work looks like for your average (backend) developer, because it's still a mystery to me.

[peak halo]

There are internships that are offered to students

[deft plaza]

I know internships exist, it's just they are crazy hard to land, but I suppose I would need connections either way.

[peak halo]

What country are you in, and are you a university CS student?

[deft plaza]

I am in the US and I am a CS major in college

[peak halo]

And you're sure you can't get an internship without connections? Did your university record statistics about what percentage of cs students got internships in the most recent summer?

Because they weren't crazy hard to land as recently as 2020.

[deft plaza]

I'll have to check. Maybe I should give it more time. Got to keep applying though.

[peak halo]

What year are you and what is your GPA?

[smoky quest]

Feel free to post an anonymized version of your resume for feedback

[vapid violet]

On a resume should I use my legal or preferred name? (I just shorten my first name from its longer form)
Also should I apply for internships using my personal email or university email? For reference my personal email is similar to my discord name

[deft plaza]

I am a freshman with a 3.9

[peak halo]

@vapid violet use whatever variantion of your name that you want. Your resume is not treated as a source of Truth for your official name.

You can use your personal email address if it doesn't sound like a child came up with it.

[smoky quest]

• None of these really matter beyond practical matters. So as long as your name matches your resume and what people call you and what references call you, etc.
• There is a general acceptance of usernames, though being more professional can only help. And in terms of usernames, as long as it's not too bad of a slang or that you would feel weirded out if your parent call you out publicly with that name

[peak halo]

My sister's email address is her initials, followed by "furball". That's the kind of address you don't use when you apply.

[smoky quest]

Also might be worth starting to look at getting your own domain name.
Looking now might be more advantageous than later if it is at risk of being taken

[vapid violet]

👍 was curious because I uploaded my resume to a site that tried to autofill some of the application questions and it filled legal name but not prefered name.

[smoky quest]

some application forms will even include a question about your preferred name

[vapid violet]

yeah, it did, just auto-filled the wrong stuff. Mostly just made me think about it

[deft plaza]

Here is my current resume

I would love some feedback pls 🙏

[peak halo]

In either case @vapid violet, both of the things you mentioned are micro optimizations. It doesn't matter how much you micro optimize your resume if you fundamentally don't have the skills they're looking for.

And if you are in the top n most relevant candidates for the position they're trying to fill, they'll interview you, and all that matters after that is how well you convince them during the interview that you have the skills you alleged that you have in your resume

[smoky quest]

Overall it's a great start!

The main issue is the average resume I receive for internships has far more accomplished projects. So that will be your main issue.

The main advice is:

• Work on more complex projects
• Add more information about your projects

[fast fossil]

How did you measure customer satisfaction?

[deft plaza]

You're right! I need to focus on quality over quality when it comes to projects.

[deft plaza]

Company review metrics

[smoky quest]

I would also suggest to focus your projects more on CS rather than fullstack apps

[deft plaza]

Can you please elaborate

[harsh river]

out of curiosity, is it actually common to update resumes while being employed?
if so, how often?

[smoky quest]

I mean CS topics like stuff related to math, cryptography, distributed systems, OS, etc.
They demonstrate a higher level of skill

[smoky quest]

It's quite common, though it might differ.
It can go from raw notes, to literally updating the resume, etc.

Rule of thumb for me is to keep notes of achievements on a quarterly basis at minimum

The main goal being to have a written record, not necessarily to have it well formatted. That's dual purpose too: for performance review and resume

[deft plaza]

I actually never thought of that. So I should apply the more abstract and theoretical concepts taught in my classes?

[smoky quest]

definitely!
You can also kill two birds with one stone too: this means you can spend more time on a school project, earning better grades AND making it deeper/better/stronger/faster for your resume to brag about

[harsh river]

oh interesting, makes sense.

[deft plaza]

That's awesome thanks for this great advice!

[smoky quest]

I know some people who do a weekly reflection at the end of friday. But tbh, I don't have time for that

[harsh river]

me either.

[harsh river]

i suppose for me a good rule of thumb would be to review all merged PRs and build a general picture from there

[smoky quest]

I also take notes on logseq. So it's easier to review my notes and then stuff like PRs/email/docs

[deft herald]

I've done so once or twice since working at my current job. Usually to indicate a promotion or drastic change in role. Same with LinkedIn

[harsh river]

that reminds me, i should add my change in role, heh, thank you

[toxic isle]

aye quick question for u guys ?

how would u guys organize this ?

[harsh river]

#❓｜how-to-get-help

[toxic isle]

ok sorry thanks

[errant glacier]

What is the best advice to transition career from other tech fields to Software development

[smoky quest]

best in terms of?

[errant glacier]

I mean what is easy way. All entry level software dev jobs mostly for new grads

[smoky quest]

Then the best advice would be to find the way to leverage your past experience as to give you a leg up in the search of your new career

[gloomy depot]

do yall use cryptography when developing web using python?

[smoky quest]

I do my best to protect my customer data

[gloomy depot]

i had some complication when utilizing the library, do u think you can help me with it?

[harsh river]

!rule job

[inner wren]

Rules

The rules and guidelines that apply to this community can be found on our rules page. We expect all members of the community to have read and understood these.

[plush summit]

<@&831776746206265384>

[pine sleet]

hello, your message was deleted as we don't allow advertising on this server

[lime hazel]

Are some of you not python professional but just python enthusiast who do something completely different for a living?

[buoyant stone]

Sry for breaking the rules 🙏

[smoky quest]

sure

[lime hazel]

I find it hard to stick with programming on a regular basis when this is just a hobby. Sometimes you just don't have the motivation or the good project to focus on

[placid forge]

fr

[pine sleet]

the great thing about a hobby is you don't have to stick with it on a regular basis. there is no financial penalty for not doing it

[hexed drum]

Okay but then you never build anything significant

[pine sleet]

you also won't build anything significant by forcing yourself to program
because it's a hobby you can let the motivation come naturally. don't try to force motivation

[hexed drum]

That’s why its better as a job, bc then you have to push through when you don’t want to do it, and that’s what makes you resilient

[pine sleet]

though i find that doing open source can be more motivating because it's not just you doing it

[smoky quest]

Why work on a hobby you don't enjoy then?
What's your goal? What's your motivation?
Why programming on a regular basis when you could do something more rewarding?

[hexed drum]

Some people, such as myself, need a management structurem, coordination, and cooperation. We aren't all lone wolves

[smoky quest]

that doesn't sound like much of a hobby then

[hexed drum]

There are definitely hobby situations like that, for example when I worked on SerenityOS it was like that

but they're not that common

[smoky quest]

in terms of lone wolves, there are plenty of meetups/groups you can meet with the aim of being a hobby

[hexed drum]

What do you mean? I've been to the ruby meetup in my city every month but there are no hobbyists

[smoky quest]

are ruby meetups intended to be a prime target audience for hobbyists? Are the ruby meetups in your city scheduling talks that are relevant to hobbyists?

[vapid jay]

For research, how much does the university prestige matter? FWIW: I'm a US citizen living in Asia

[hexed drum]

I don't know 🤷 I mean, I don't really care

[hexed drum]

Quite a lot, I'd say

[smoky quest]

then why offering anecdata?

[hexed drum]

Why not? Stop picking fights...

[vapid jay]

I'm looking at an east asian university thats somewhat prestigious in asia but nobody cares in the US

[hexed drum]

Well if you later want a permanent position in the US then I wouldn't recommend that

[vapid jay]

I have other experience in the US so its mainly just for fun + an extra line

[hexed drum]

Getting a permanent position in the rest of the world based on that might not be too bad tho

[smoky quest]

I am only questioning statements made without evidence backing them up. No reason to be so defensive

[hexed drum]

My evidence is my experience. I didn't claim to speak for anyone else. YMMV

[smoky quest]

you made a blanket statement based on a single data point. That's hardly evidence nor experience. This might mislead others in the channel

[hexed drum]

Please quote the "blanket statement"

[hexed drum]

If your goal is not to get a permanent position then it doesn't really matter

[vapid jay]

yeah thats what I thought. I'll just go to the one in the best location

[hexed drum]

you aren't going to get rejected from major journals or anything

[vapid jay]

I'm only going to be there for 3 months part time so I doubt I'll be publishing anything

[hexed drum]

Oh well then it really doesn't matter, I mean that would look great on your CV no matter where you go

[smoky quest]

sounds like the value will be in the international experience

[vapid jay]

I'm looking for semiconductor research but most of it is for EE/Chem Eng.

[smoky quest]

Even though, for 3 months part time, you will still get far more value by traveling abroad. Though not clear if that position would be in your current country or a different one

[vapid jay]

I'm from the US but the positions are in Taiwan

[smoky quest]

oh Taiwan is awesome

[vapid jay]

Yeah I went to Taipei for a week and I loved it

[smoky quest]

might also be good to establish a network

[vapid jay]

Im not interested in working in Asia b/c of the pay and culture

[smoky quest]

that's the beauty of limited engagements like 3months: you aren't signing up for years
The point is not to settle there but to expand your mind, see a different culture, different ways of working and tackling problems.

And in terms of network, it can help to see how things develop over there, or if in the future someone comes to the US, or etc.
This is a small world.

[vapid jay]

Alright I'll give it a look and see which one fits me best! ty 🙂

[lime hazel]

No no I enjoy it a lot, but sometimes I don't have any objective and then I loss my knowledge on it. So using python again a few months later is more difficult than working on it everyday

[near ocean]

You cant advertise here

[pure merlin]

ok

[buoyant seal]

!rule 6 9 (cc<@&831776746206265384> ) better delete your msg.

[inner wren]

Rules

6. Do not post unapproved advertising.

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

[icy berry]

you have to folow our rules

[icy berry]

you cant just do it when users ping moderators

[stray narwhal]

hy can anyone tell me what i need to do to get an internship i mean how can i apply or find internships

[plush summit]

Doesn t your uni or school help you with them?

[white relic]

Some do, some don't. In some places universities are expected to find placements for their students as part of curriculum, some places it's considered entirely the student's responsibility.

[radiant vortex]

When filling out an application, is it okay to repeat stuff from your CV for questions? E.g.

"What experience do you have that makes you a suitable candidate for this role?"

Or

It asks for work experience, and what you did in that role?

[white relic]

Finding an internship is essentially the same as finding a job. You can ask at your university's career center or equivalent, look for job fairs, monitor interesting stuff on linkedin, research local companies you might want to work for, polish your resume, and send in applications to openings that you find.

[white relic]

I would expect anything you answered to that question to be at least somewhat reflected on your CV, yeah. You can (and perhaps should) take the opportunity afforded by the question to go into more detail about how the experience is relevant to the application.

depending on how much detail you have in your cv that pertains to the application, I wouldn't think ill of you for copy-pasting

but our ATS either doesn't ask those questions or just doesn't show the answers to the likes of me

[radiant vortex]

Right, the bullet points for my work experience are really similar to the job I'm applying for, so I can't think of much that would add on top of it

Hello, this server isn't for recruitment

[fringe sphinx]

That seems reasonable to me, if it's directly on point or if you preface it with a short prefix g so it doesn't seem like a lazy copy/paste

[radiant vortex]

Yeah I've changed it into a continuous paragraph instead of the separate bullet point

With some minor tweaks

[gritty rivet]

The prestige of your immediate supervisors may matter more. And keep in mind that prestige is often regional, so an Asian university may not be ideal if you're not actually planning to work in Asia.

[brazen trout]

Hey, I am not a experienced coder and i am 18yo
i want to do something to earn small amounts of money like 10$ or 20$
any advice?

[white relic]

The sites I know of where you can pick up gigs like that are upwork and fiverr.
You could start by looking on those sites and seeing what kind of jobs are available that are in or close to your skill range.

[brazen trout]

Yes but i need experience right?
like i can't get first client without having a experience of 2 years
what to do for a starter?

[white relic]

Getting your first client (and your second, and...) is always going to be hard and more a matter of luck than skill.
But you can make yourself more appealing to prospective clients by doing some projects independently.

What kind of projects those might be depends on what kind of work you want to get into, but web development is a popular and fairly easy place to start.

[brazen trout]

Well
thank you for the advice
i will do my best

[analog sun]

@valid geode your message has been removed for violating rule 6

[vestal oxide]

how much money does a fresher python dev makes in a year

[peak halo]

depends on a lot, like location and what that person is employed to do.
I would look on glassdoor

[vestal oxide]

okayy

[smoky quest]

@hoary pike ^ this doesn't smell like a MVP.

Alright, moving this discussion to #career-advice was a mistake. The timer is killing it.
@hoary pike am happy to discuss and bounce ideas in an off topic channel if you want

[zealous topaz]

hey guys. my current contract is set to expire by end of January. While I'm looking for potential opportunities given by my client, I have to assume the worst. My tech stack is Junior Data Engineer. The only thing I'm concerned is the time period my contract ends. Does recruitment happen often in/after February? I'm in the USA.

[hollow cairn]

Hello i am looking for a full stack python Dev with Good knowledge of Chatbot development
Hit me up if you are interested

[restive vector]

👻

[keen phoenix]

is cs even worth it anymore

[harsh river]

absolutely.

[keen phoenix]

but the current job market?

[smoky quest]

sure

[harsh river]

job markets have ups and down. if you stand out from the rest then you have an advantage

[hexed drum]

The current market is fine, not sure what the issue is

[cursive zenith]

Where would anyone suggest finding a partner to assist with the development of an app?

I would be looking for an equivalent or a person who's skills would compliment mine to achieve a final product.

[acoustic swan]

#python-discussion

#1035199133436354600

[near ocean]

Anyone in hiring using or thinking of using AoC puzzles as tech interview problems?

[digital fjord]

I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to do that

[hexed drum]

Yeah the copyright policy on it is pretty strict

[near ocean]

thats pretty sad, leetcode is too boring

[hexed drum]

Yeah I find it weird that the creator is pretty hardcore about it

[tender pine]

Hello chat, I finished few python courses currently in second yearand i have good command in web development, basic data analytics, ml, I m looking for some way to fund my cute projects aka money. So if you have any kind of work online literally any kind from creating ppts to creating college projects feel free to let me do it ☺️ even for few dollars you can hire me for part time

[ashen wraith]

is it normal to feel like you are wasting your time sometimes?

Like doubting if programming will make me any money at all.

[near ocean]

Yes

[buoyant seal]

i doubted i will developer up until graduation from university, finding real dev job and working 3-6+ months in it
i had as backup plan to become my native language / English translator 😅

[ashen wraith]

My major is Nursing so programming is like a side skill to me right now.

[vapid jay]

Nursing is guaranteed $ though, so no issues.

I wish I did nursing for UG and then went for my MSCS due to the security it offers

[white relic]

No matter how careful you are, no matter how smart or successful, there's always a chance you could have done better by doing something different. But comparing yourself to a counterfactual - the alternative version of yourself that made different decisions - is no way to live. Nobody ever learns what could have happened.
Nobody knows what the future holds. All we can do is the best with what we know in the present

[fleet iris]

what do you think is the best go to language that has good community, tools used by companies and has more job opportunity... if someone is looking for a software development job

[buoyant seal]

Popular languages in use all have a lot job opportunities, all used by companies, and all have large communities
...in my opinion such languages are: TypeScript, Python, Java, C#, and Go. (such languages are commonly supported by any web infra tools, like terraform cdk stuff)

i pick terraform, i see supported them
I open pulumi? again same languages

[edgy rover]

Python is unfortunately imo not a language by itself enough for a job. You usually get the job because you have another specific skill and that skills requires Python to be the tool on the job. That being said, it also mean Python is super versatile.

[buoyant seal]

out of those 5 languages, highly likely Java and Typescript dominate the field though.
They are the most multipurpose, usable for Backend, Mobile, Desktop and even Web frontend in some case development

[edgy rover]

Probably same goes to other languages. But I feel particularly strongly about Python on this.

[fringe sphinx]

That's somewhat misleading. Yes, SWEs are generally expected to have a good foundation (not just knowing a language), but plenty of devs work in Python, citations: https://spectrum.ieee.org/top-programming-languages-2024 and https://github.blog/news-insights/octoverse/octoverse-2024/

[fleet iris]

okk i was having a feeling that i only know high level languages i use python and js most time. but now in my uni as am learning different dsa topics i see low level languages like C is often used.. so was thinking having a good understanding in C along with these high level languages, and is it worth the time i spent on projects with C/C++?.. i been doing web dev

[fringe sphinx]

Knowing languages is just one dimension of what makes a SWE. There are many ways to grow, learning a new lang is just one.

[buoyant seal]

as far as i am aware C has its worth only if u a embed dev, or somehow in a company that does stuff related to Oses
or somehow needs to squeeze super level of performance out of python (never encountered that yet except in the books)
if you are Web dev, in 99.9% chances u will never need C/C++. not practical languages for web dev that are not having any tooling to it provided as far as i am aware

[hexed drum]

The market for C++ is pretty huge, but yeah not usually web dev

well, it depends, back-end might be written in C++

[buoyant seal]

if u wish to specialize in web dev, u will find mose use in learning Java/C#/Golang/Typescript/Python/or even PHP/Ruby stuff.
Some web devs even tinker with Rust, but that's at this point of time very rare niche case.

[fleet iris]

okk so ig i focus more on projects and spend the time on making websites rather than grinding data structures with C++

[fringe sphinx]

Both are fine options. No right answer.

[fleet iris]

i liked java but python is very comfortable.. i been learning C over the last few months i find it fun too

but java haven't made any projects just learned for uni

[fleet iris]

maybe i should do both?.. but too busy with uni

[buoyant seal]

Beware the comfort of Python 😅 it is comfortable yes.
But it is a trap for large amount of code, when u wish having dozens/hundreds thousands of code lines, and your code is not getting autovalidated for typing correctness in any data structures like it does in Java/Golang/C#
Makes more problematic to read the code what is going on there locally, as code in python is filled with mutations to which u need reading too many files to figure out what is going on, or crawl with visual debug to see what is inside (otherwise not really clear what can be inside at all, as types are too rare present and python have Any attributes/values freely in anything)

[fleet iris]

yes i am starting to understand these

[vapid jay]

Hi

[fleet iris]

thats why i was asking maybe should i go with low level langauages until i am decent

and actually understand what is happening underneath the code

[buoyant seal]

if u plan specializing in web dev, consider investing to Java/Golang/C# world. all those languages are used in web world plentifully too.
Especially java.

if u are just exploring what u like and haven't picked specialization, then C/C++ adventures are fine too.

[fringe sphinx]

My usual advice is: as a beginner, you'll get better doing anything, and you're more likely to keep your motivation if you like what you're doing.

[fringe sphinx]

Even working in high level languages, you still need to be inquisitive to understand what's happening underneath. Learning C doesn't make you better at anything other than working with C. Same with C++, etc.

[fleet iris]

okk

[fleet iris]

👍

[fringe sphinx]

Nedbat posted about this topic recently: https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/202401/you_probably_dont_need_to_learn_c.html

[buoyant seal]

@fleet iris basically this. Learning C/C++ will not make you pretty much better with other languages beyond C/C++
But getting comfortable with each language to the level where u are able to solve any problem with it takes a large amount of time.
You could have used this time to get comfortable with popular language for your specilaization in that time

It takes plentiful of practice, finding what in the language works, best practices, learning its ecosystem in order to become comfortable with it
While u have large amount of time, u could be picking something to go through this road in advance

[fleet iris]

okk i will focus on one

[hexed drum]

Learning C/C++ will not make you pretty much better with other languages beyond C/C+
If you learn one language, the next will be much easier

[fleet iris]

and in my uni interviews some company does not allow python idk why

for seniors, they told not sure

[fringe sphinx]

We're not saying not to learn other languages. I'd expect you to learn 3-4 languages over a 4 year CS program.

[fleet iris]

ok

[buoyant seal]

Companies are partical, and they desire u learned the language they already use.
Each language (attached to some job role application) has coressponding job vacancies amount. Find job site, and google amount of job positions local to your county and which job roles come offered with it

[fleet iris]

i've decided to continue with django and maybe explore more of js and ts and also learn a bit of DSA problemsolving on the side with leetcode (not started leetcoding idk how will it go) but all of this have to to be done along with my uni 😭

am still in 2nd year

[fringe sphinx]

That sounds logical to me. Balance.

[buoyant seal]

Or you could spend that time doing fun with making mods for games like Minecraft/Starsector
And thus learning some specific language usage, and working on contributions to real people instead of making "business projects in a vacuum"
https://darklab8.github.io/blog/choosing_pet_projects.html

[fleet iris]

ok i will checkout

[buoyant seal]

if u are web dev, it does not mean your projects should be web dev only
Starsector and Minecraft are made in Java, they will benefit to your coding skills fine as it is
If u would learn coding with proper code quality (with unit testing), that would be awesome as it is

[fleet iris]

actually i learned python from modding a game called bombsquad which has python api layer

okk

[lofty tendon]

Hello everyone, does anyone know of a platform where I can create serverless REST APIs for learning purposes without needing an AWS account or a credit or debit card?

[true harness]

cloudflare workers

[buoyant seal]

Virtual machine of Linux OS created locally at your machine
Wsl2 is a good default for that if u are dedicated windows user.
Fully free option. Ngrok can expose it to public internet if necessary

[summer plover]

That goes for any other language btw

You can't expect to get a job solely because you're a leetcode expert

You need to have experience with certain frameworks, database management systems etc.

[near ocean]

You can definitely get a job knowing only python, probably not as easy as knowing more languages

[summer plover]

Like what for example

[near ocean]

javascript is a good complement
(some sql definitely)

[summer plover]

I'm curious what job you can get with vanilla Python only

[near ocean]

Knowing the language is whats important, you can learn x framework in a couple days to a decent degree

[summer plover]

Will Python itself get you a job? Answer is (as far as I know) most probably not

[near ocean]

wdym python itself, you cant know flask and not python, the point is to know python

[summer plover]

Yeah and I never opposed that

I'm not talking about knowing Python, obviously you have to learn the language first.

[true harness]

what does it even mean to know python itself

[summer plover]

No libraries, basically you almost wouldn't import anything

As I said, you can name yourself a leetcode expert, but without the rest it won't get you nowhere

[true harness]

but... no one actually does that

[near ocean]

no you dont need experience with specific frameworks or databases

[summer plover]

Coding skills need to come with something

[summer plover]

Which is why I asked what kind of job you can get

[near ocean]

any job that uses python?

have you seen anyone test how well you know <insert python framework here>?

[summer plover]

No

[near ocean]

so...

[summer plover]

but you wouldn't get to the interview in the first place if you didn't have any experience or projects using similar frameworks in your resume