career-advice

[vast inlet]

you pay 10k for exercises you can find in hackerrank

[fluid kiln]

True. I have a useless degree and Im hoping to get into the tech feild starting with python. I was thinking a certification would lend me some credibility

[vast inlet]

there are not Python certs, like there are in Java and the such

you can start with the basics in katacoda, and then jump to hackerrank

[fluid kiln]

Ok, am I able to put stuff like that on a resume? I'm just curious what factors will contribute to me landing a job

[vast inlet]

hmmm I think lately people hiring cares more about a candidates experience than what it says in your resume, I can be wrong. But if you show proficiency on aplied Python, you can land a job. maybe start with basic exercises, then jump into freelance stuff (either webdev, scrapping, bots, automation of things, etc)

[fluid kiln]

Hmm. Ok. I have a long road ahead of me.

[vast inlet]

the best way to learn, is to apply what you are learning.

[fluid kiln]

Last career type question. Are there any non coding jobs in tech I can keep a lookout for until I can land a job in dev? I always learn best by full submersion so I want to get a foot in the door of a tech company but idk where to start

[vast inlet]

Business Analysts do little to no coding

[fluid kiln]

Sweet, I'll keep an eye out for that

[vast inlet]

theres also QA people who just do manual stuff

[fluid kiln]

Hmm. The only QA stuff I've seen requires coding experience

But I'll keep an eye out. Now I have some keywords to plug into searching sites

Thanks for the insight badger

[vast inlet]

yeah well, theres QA that uses automation (using Python frameworks)

but I know theres manual QA

you can check the subreddit for QA or software testing

[main thicket]

@vapid jay Arduino doesn't use python at all??

[karmic sun]

anyone here know if there's any way to get into data science without a masters?

[main thicket]

Being good

And being able to show you're good

[north swan]

damm all the job listing on stackoverflow are brutal

and require like 4 flavors of dev

[vapid jay]

which company

[north swan]

all of them!

there are almost no straight python jobs on there

seems like most places want js

[vapid jay]

sure.. js is popular..

they want engineers to create internal tooling

but, let me fill you in on an industry secret

[north swan]

alright

[vapid jay]

was trying to find a command to free up my port.. anyway

those posts you see, that ask for multiple specialities

they're just to discourage most applicants

say if a company wants to hire someone with js skills, they will never outright mention only js experience

they will put in a bunch of fluff, and sort through applicants as they come

so they get their pick

[north swan]

damm jerks

[vapid jay]

it is what it is.. this is what they do at large tech companies..

[main thicket]

@north swan a lot of people who use python day to day (Machine learning people, scientists, engineers, etc) don't use Stack Overflow much or at least don't identify with their population much

[vapid jay]

@north swan the job post is made by HR people. Don't worry about the requirements too much.

[vast shoal]

@north swan Applicants will rarely be a perfect fit for the position. It's very common that the person that gets hired satisfies some but not all of the listed requirements. Go ahead and apply for anything that you think looks interesting, and just be upfront and honest with what your credentials are. If you really are lacking something crucial, they will let you know, but chances are that a lot of the things on the list are not actually hard requirements.

[north swan]

ill keep in mind for the future for sure

i only just figured out how to write a script to move pictures into another folder.. I'm years away

[main thicket]

Idk if I only see ads from reasonable companies but the descriptions I see are generally pretty reasonable with requirements and have a separate 'preferred qualities' section that lists the bonus points for an application

Where do people find these jobs which require 10 years of react experience for a junior dev at minimum wage or whatever

[vast shoal]

Maybe there is greater than average demand in the job market where I'm at, also. There's such a drought of half-decent developers that I think companies can't be overly picky about who they hire for a lot of positions.

[slim island]

the market for decent developers is definitely supply limited

but i've also seen job postings asking for 5+ years experience with technologies that are 2 years old

i think it's just HR meming

[vernal lily]

^

[slim island]

oldschool HR driven hiring pipelines where the you tick whether you need junior/mid/senior at X and they just translate that to number of years regardless of what X is

[soft mirage]

what do you do when you having an internship at a company but they literally don't give you work

[vernal lily]

get to the end of the internship

do try to ask for work though

[soft mirage]

that's like a month and a wekk

[vernal lily]

sometimes this happens

[soft mirage]

imma die here right

[vernal lily]

some of my family have full time jobs where there sometimes isnt work

[soft mirage]

sometimes

but always

3 weeks

0 work

[main thicket]

@soft mirage ask for more work?

The point of an internship is to grow

If you're not challenging yourself in a stimulating environment, you're wasting opportunity

[soft mirage]

they act busy or say wait for your supervisor which haven't showed up since i started

[vapid jay]

is it a large company

Reasons for doing an internship:

1. Listing work experience before graduation, or doing research as a grad student at a large company.

[soft mirage]

it's the government it demands every company with more than a number of employee to have interns

[vapid jay]

2. Learning from peers, understanding what challenges they face in their line of work.

[main thicket]

If they aren't giving you work, keep yourself busy doing stuff

Also that's a very interesting government policy. Which country?

[soft mirage]

so some like this don't give a F about interns as it seems

[vapid jay]

3. Skillsets you need to break into your desired line of work.

You don't need them to give a damn.. don't overreach. What is your objective?

[soft mirage]

to see how the real world i guess works

[vapid jay]

is it a large company with a good brand name that you can leverage if you add it to your resume, or is there a possibility of you learning a skill that would be helpful somewhere down the line during your time there?

[soft mirage]

@main thicket it's xD hmm saudi arabia, and im keeping busy by learning new lang and stuff but i can do that in my free time and im not here for that am i

[vapid jay]

ahh middle east.. is it a government company?

[soft mirage]

it's Yokogawa it has branches all over the world so im assuming it's big

[vapid jay]

oh cool I know them

[main thicket]

If they're unwilling to give you work, the best you can do is just keep yourself busy. A company on your resume is better than none

[vapid jay]

yeah, sure they have huge offices in Seoul and Tokyo too..

[soft mirage]

.true

[vapid jay]

Yokogawa would look good on your resume.. just find some people you can assist doing shit with..

[soft mirage]

but still

[vapid jay]

and put that on your resume

[soft mirage]

i've already stuck my nose a bit but it's not fun

[vapid jay]

is there anyone interesting you can tail

like follow engineers around and ask questions

[soft mirage]

they give you like 5 minutes then go do their work and their excuse is wait for your supervisor

[vapid jay]

well they have their own rules..

[soft mirage]

you ask when will he come they say few days and now it's 3 weeks

[vapid jay]

but I understand why it sucks in general.. if it's a constituted rule, it's like a chore to them

[soft mirage]

yeah it seems like it

[vapid jay]

ask if you could have someone else supervise you.. else, learn something else during your time there while you wait..

[soft mirage]

that's not a bad idea actually, might try it next week since it's last day of the week today here

Thx for the help

[vapid jay]

weird flex: If the internship isn't giving you anything to do they aren't going to remember 5 minutes after you're gone. Meaning you can say you did pretty much anything you want at it.

Do your own projects and just say that's what you did.

[vapid jay]

Hey

[vernal lily]

Do your own projects and just say that's what you did.```don't do this cos some employers will contact previous internships to check

[vapid jay]

Is math hard for computer science degree :/? Cus I’m not good at math and only took algebra 1, 2, liberal arts, and geometry in hs

[main thicket]

Depends on the uni. Some unis make CS go through Calc1-3 + differential equations + discrete which is about the same as an engineering major. I think most make you do Calc1-2 + discrete which is a lot more doable. There's some where you might have even less (just discrete or calc 1)

[vapid jay]

See idk if I’ll pass that

Seems hard

Never took calc

[main thicket]

Calc 1 is introductory so it's expected you haven't done it.

But you too can learn to do well in maths with some dedication

[vapid jay]

I don’t wanna fail if I take t

that's reasonable..

but think about your end goal..

are you going to pursue a career where math won't be relevant..

or do you expect you'll need it somewhere along the line? if so, you can always focus on graduating first with good grades, landing a role that isn't math heavy..work for a couple of years and study math later if you need to to pursue a different line of work

and why would you take liberal arts..o.o just personal opinion, but I don't see it as useful..

I didn’t they gave me those classes :/

Well I wanna do fbi or cia and cs good degree to get in

But idk if I’ll pass the math part:/

[frosty remnant]

@vapid jay I had similar apprehensions about a CS path in college. I did up to Calc2, but I ended up seeking a tech degree from the business school in information systems and operations management.

As far as jobs are concerned, I don’t think the difference means much to most employers.

I didn’t actually finish that program (it was a long combined bachelors/masters) and I don’t think it has been limiting, because I chose to get in the field and the experience has been just as valuable, if not more than, the degree I’d have earned in the same time.

Anyhow, if math is your concern, there are other options for education path, and surely one can even have opportunities without a degree altogether.

[main thicket]

I would expect the actual CIA and FBI related jobs would expect some decent maths understanding

[vapid jay]

you would expect that..

but

||Classified||

[ionic cargo]

Maths and Physics will help you out in the long run.

[main thicket]

Physics?

Doubt it

[grizzled sundial]

Computers run on Physics.

[main thicket]

Don't need the physics to use the computers though

Can even do embedded without knowing any physics

[grizzled sundial]

That doesn't mean Physics is unhelpful to someone in this field.

[vapid jay]

let's wait for someone to chime in with how physics helped me in this field..

[vast shoal]

As much fun as introduction to mechanics and special relativity was, it's probably the course with the least relevance to my day-to-day work that I took in uni.

[main thicket]

I have never used physics knowledge in programming except when I'm doing programming to do physics. I can't imagine a scenario where physics is useful sans something like gamedev, where the physics is still super basic anyway

[grizzled sundial]

When you're working with custom hardware and mechanical systems, understanding the underlying mechanics of the system you're driving is incredibly helpful.

Wireless communications, temperature control, fluid dynamics -- being able to understand the physical ramifications of your software is important.

Yes, many people can and do have highly successful careers where they abstract that part out, but it's silly to call it unhelpful.

[vast shoal]

I've never had to do that kind of work, so I'll take your word for it, but I can't imagine that it's common unless you go into a very hardware-centric role.

I mean, if you're a computer engineer, I can see how it might be different.

But I think software engineering in general is less likely to require that kind of knowledge.

No knowledge is unhelpful, but some is more urgent.

[main thicket]

@grizzled sundial The vast vast vast majority of people working with custom hardware and mechanical systems are engineers

Seriously, the people writing fluid dynamics simulations and control for mechanical systems are absolutely not software people first. The people dealing with wireless communication or custom hardware are most likely electrical and computer engineers.

Those people had physics as part of their degree and it was drilled into them

The average CS student will be making websites and APIs, mobile apps, and enterprise software. They will not be touching computational fluid dynamics. They have 0 benefit

[grizzled sundial]

You denied that it was helpful at all, though. People's careers extend beyond what they do in their first job out of school.

[main thicket]

I already said physics isnt helpful in software unless I'm using software to do physics, which CFD and control systems definitely count as

And those fields are NOT very approachable to CS majors. A little bit of physics isnt going to help with CFD or control theory when they are 4th year subjects for engineering requiring 3 years of GUIDED engineering study to approach. Very few employers will choose a CS major for a job involving those things

The average mechanical engineering graduate is barely qualified to do CFD. The average CS grad comes out with calc 2 and discrete knowledge. It's not a realistic expectation to jump to a subject which would generally involve studying Calc 3, differential equations, 2 subjects of mechanics, fluid mechanics, numerical analysis only then to start computational fluid dynamics

[grizzled sundial]

I'm getting the vibe that you're just describing your career and assuming that's massively applicable.

[main thicket]

I am not describing my career. I do robotics and ML stuff

But I'm getting the vibe that you as an electrical engineer overestimate CS students' ability and desire to do engineering work and how commonly engineering work comes up to them

[grizzled sundial]

You said it wasn't helpful.
I describe a anecdote where it was.

That's all

[main thicket]

You did say "this field", which the things you mentioned almost certainly dont count under

And your original reasoning was "computers run on physics"

Which you sort of backed out of

When you mentioned a bunch of fields that arent related to computers using physics

[grizzled sundial]

I find the idea that CS grads are gated off from the hardware side of computers kind of silly.
If someone wants to work on the kinds of things I described, they would benefit from studying Physics.

[main thicket]

You didn't really give examples of hardware side of computers. CS students definitely have FPGAs and digital circuits accessible to them with little effort. But physics doesn't help much with FPGAs and digital circuits (until it's crossing the line between digital and analogue anyway).

CS students certainly arent going to be able to teach themselves up to RF and analogue circuitry on their own. Many EE people doing those have masters.

[grizzled sundial]

I gave an example of where a CS student would benefit from knowing Physics. Don't get too hung up on my initial off-handed comment.

[main thicket]

You gave multiple examples of where engineering students would benefit from knowing programming, not the other way around

[grizzled sundial]

physics doesn't help much with FPGAs and digital circuits (until it's crossing the line between digital and analogue anyway

You just gave an example where it does, though.

Yes, if we exclude all of the instances where it's helpful, it's not helpful. But that's pointless.

[main thicket]

Please tell me how many CS students are involved with high frequency digital circuit design and how that's part of this field to begin with

It's literally not even part of the field anymore

[grizzled sundial]

Unless you're telling me that it's impossible for a CS grad to ever work in that kind of technology, it's wrong to call Physics unhelpful.

And, frankly, I work with a handful of people with a CS background who have dug more into the hardware side of computing as their career progressed

[main thicket]

Saying you should learn physics because you may somehow become involved with high frequency digital circuits is no better than learn biology because you might get involved with computational genomics research or learn neuroscience because you might get involved with FMRI development or learning chemistry for molecular dynamics or linguistics for natural language evolution and development

[grizzled sundial]

You should!

Learn what you're interested in!

[main thicket]

The original point was "Maths and Physics will help you out in the long run." said to someone who had no idea what to do other than they might want to be at CIA or FBI

I'm not going to be recommending someone to learn biology as a CS major

I'm sure I cant stop you from recommending biology to CS majors in case they're involved in the latest genomics reserach in the future when they somehow want to change career directions

[grizzled sundial]

The CIA and FBI definitely deploy large scale software projects to esoteric hardware.

[main thicket]

They definitely have also tried mind control experiments. Should get a PhD in neuroscience just in case, aye?

[grizzled sundial]

Do you want to work on mind control experiments?
Then that PhD will help you.

[main thicket]

Did they say they wanted to work on esoteric hardware that's close to analogue electronics?

They did not

[grizzled sundial]

They didn't say they want to design websites for 40 years, either.

[main thicket]

So the obvious jump is to niche analogue hardware rather than one of the other 500 software related fields like mobile dev, systems dev, database management, devops, or even one of the 2000 software-ish fields like computer vision and natural language processing?

[grizzled sundial]

Hardware/software systems are hardly niche.

[main thicket]

Projects where you require analogue hardware understanding as a programmer must be very niche. Especially when the CIA chose a person with a CS background over an EE who's been working with analogue systems for many years.

Also hardware/software systems ARE still niche for a CS major when 99.9% of programming jobs dont touch any hardware

I have no idea why you still choose to argue this point

[grizzled sundial]

Me neither.

[vernal lily]

an argument about which major is best for CIA mindcontrol experiments? 👀

[grizzled sundial]

Naw that wasn't it

[granite maple]

👎 👎 👎 👎

[craggy wave]

@granite maple Anything I can help you with? This doesn't really seem like a relevant message for #career-advice

[vapid jay]

which area is usually the easiest to get started in?

1. Software Developer
2. DevOps Engineer
3. Database Administrator
4. UX/UI Designer
5. System Administrator
6. Information Technology Specialist
7. Software Quality Assurance
8. Web Developers
9. Systems Engineer

[solemn valley]

If you mean the python related parts of that area, if you are actually comfortable with python in general jumping into either of them shouldn't be that hard

[bitter wigeon]

anything involving heavy infrastructure knowledge in addition to development skills are usually the tricky ones for neophytes inexperienced in both disciplines

but, also, usually, the most well paying ones

at least IME

[vapid jay]

not for python related parts

[pulsar drum]

I've had the impression that QA is easy to get started in but I can't speak from experience

[vapid jay]

i heard web dev is the best for new grads

i also have only been getting calls for web dev

so

im not interested in it but im not getting any other calls

[bitter wigeon]

the pay for your average mid-tier flask/django developer is usually respectable

[soft mirage]

It's true no one cares if i even came to work, but as @vernal lily said they will contact the company to check like my uni advisor already took the contact information and planning on a visit too which will go so wrong lol, also the company have a plan for interns but the guy to go thro it is on leave so no one to really assign me or anything, but ill see next week hopefully something happens and it works out. @vapid jay

[bitter wigeon]

Devops really has become a catch all phrase that I've seen encapsulate Cloud/Datacenter development, to the guys who simply maintain, and write build scripts for Jenkins :p

[vernal lily]

Devops is a catch all yes

[bitter wigeon]

really, I believe it's original meaning was something as abstract as the agile manifesto

a process of collaboration

not exactly a title

[vernal lily]

things evolve

[bitter wigeon]

I think that's more of a product of the original term never truly being understood, and latched unto, but hey 😄

that's how these things go sometimes

[vapid jay]

devops is a culture

[bitter wigeon]

well, if you believe career builder, it's whatever you want it to mean 😄

or any job board site for that matter

anywho, whatever flavor of that term one subscribes too, ime, candidates in those roles (not counting juniors) usually best prosper with strong underlying infrastructure knowledge.

as those usually get pegged as the "general" automations team in some environments 😄

[vapid jay]

feels nice having structure again

i was aimlessly studying random shit

[bitter wigeon]

I think you might like webdev. Working with django is quite fun once over the curve

frontend webdev, now, uh, that's something else 😄

[vapid jay]

wait

so what are the different types of web dev

[bitter wigeon]

well

[vapid jay]

or

which one has the highest chance of getting a job

[bitter wigeon]

you usually have a frontend for your typical webapp (not counting micro-services/apis, not getting into that), something whose tech stack consists of html/css/javascript/jquery etc

[vapid jay]

like type of web dev

[bitter wigeon]

and a backend that could be php, python, java, hell even for some real esoteric cases, c++

there you normally handle the business logic, persistent storage, everything you could need

I suppose that's not entirely true, especially considering the new services approach, your backend could be comprised of several languages, but I wouldn't worry about any of this right now, I'd just pick a framework and run with it, and pick it up as you go

[native mango]

What degrees would I need if I want to pursue game development?

[vernal lily]

well most relevant would be comp sci

but you don't 100% need a degree

[gilded valley]

What are opinions on games tech degrees? Are they worth it if you're sure you want to work as a games programer?

[unkempt ferry]

i think i saw a p good article ones about general is better? you can always specialize later, and learn on the job

[formal sedge]

depends on what you want to do. game dev degrees tend to incorporate art and design aspects a lot as well. if you want to be a game programmer, i would recommend a software engineering degree and a lot of practice in game engines

i've also literally never heard one good thing about a single game dev degree

[vernal lily]

thing about game industry

is that at a big studio game programming and artwork and animation
will be completely different jobs done by different people with different career paths

if you want to be a game programmer

then a computer science degree is probably a good idea

[formal sedge]

exactly

most studios probably don't care about degrees as long as you can actually code, too

[vernal lily]

tough for foot in the door without though

[mild zenith]

You have to have a strong portfolio to back it up, though

[formal sedge]

true

[vernal lily]

gamedev industry is a bit tougher than webdev industry

[formal sedge]

game programming is wild

[native mango]

True

[tired hill]

I can personally verify this 😛

If you are passionate about games, go do it. If you want a high salary it's not the place to go.

Probably with exceptions

But there is definitely value in doing something you love compared to hating every day you are at work

.. that is also subjective.

[fallow sapphire]

do u guys know if they let u pick ur favorite programming language in universities?

[tired hill]

Never seen that happen, but language should not matter anyway

You don't learn languages. You learn programming 😃

You would be expected to use the language they decide

[tawdry remnant]

At my uni they typically had java in first year or two, but then beyond that it was rare that they restricted you to a specific language

It obviously depends on the uni, but in general I think you reach a point where you can use any of the common/mainstream languages

[tired hill]

yeah that's probably how it works in most places

[main thicket]

Yep, you'll be taught a specific language for intro subjects, and then you'll either be expected to use a language that fits and makes sense (eg. You won't do scientific computing in JavaScript, probably expect C/C++, FORTRAN or something like that) or you'll be free to use whatever language (eg. A traditional AI subject isn't really limited to a specific language)

[somber pebble]

Do you absolutely need a degree for web development?

[main thicket]

You don't absolutely need a degree for almost anything

Webdev is one of the fields where working without a degree is easier

[somber pebble]

Really?

[main thicket]

Yes

[somber pebble]

Why is that?

[main thicket]

Less conceptual depth, more breadth of experience and tool knowledge based

[somber pebble]

But a degree wouldn't be a bad idea right?

[main thicket]

In my opinion, education is rarely a bad idea. A degree is good to have but you shouldn't cling to it if it's unreasonable to get (eg for financial reasons or something)

If you have the time and money and no commitments, a degree is often a good idea

[somber pebble]

I'm not very good at making websites look nice right now

Also my js skills suck lol

[main thicket]

Everyone sucks until they work on it consistently until they suddenly don't suck. Keep at it

Take advantage of the free resources that exist, there are plenty

[somber pebble]

Yes there are a lot

I'm using Django right now

Anyways thanks for the advice (;

[vernal lily]

a degree gives you more flexibility if you ever move away from webdev

but for webdev itself you really don't need a degree

getting interviews without a degree would be far harder though

[sacred pike]

How do I get out of web development?

I want to start writing software for more interesting products

[wraith skiff]

Degrees are pretty much essential if you ever want/need a work visa... @sacred pike where do you live?

Usually just Google it...and then ring places and simply ask. You would be amazed at how much information people will gladly give over the phone.

[sacred pike]

I’m in Colorado

Just tired of web development

[main thicket]

Learn stuff other than webdev and apply for something not webdev

[edgy pilot]

Yo guys, I can't decide whether to go into a degree focusing on Machine Learning or Cyber Security. What do you recommend?

[main thicket]

They're very different fields. Do one in the field you want to work in

We don't know what you like or what you're good in

[edgy pilot]

I'm good at Python and have a decent understanding of both

[vernal lily]

Machine Learning is way, way more mathsy
so consider if you would be okay with that amount of maths

[edgy pilot]

Yeah that's good advice thanks bro

[junior birch]

ML is going to be extremely prevalent in coming years

[vapid jay]

I need help guys.. where do I go to understand the stack for IoT using python? I'm switching careers and need to ramp up quick..

[main thicket]

There's no standardised python stack I know of. Would vary a lot between companies

IoT is more of a buzzword term than anything. Can be anything from just a buzzword for embedded or just application level dev for something not a PC

[vale heart]

https://www.zerynth.com/
this came up googling python IoT stack

whether it's the standard or not tho, no clue

[vapid jay]

hey this is pretty cool

[sour hemlock]

hey guys is python a good language to learn to land a first job with no degree? I know skill and knowledge trumps all but is there as much opportunity as JavaScript?

[vapid jay]

im learning js right now

i gave up learning cpp, python

[vivid dock]

Completely depends on your location, and programming skill.

Python is just a tool to do a job.

Just like most other programming languages, master one and apply it to other languages as needed. Show you master one, and that you can easily learn any other and you shouldn't have very much of an issue finding something

[sour hemlock]

sweet thanks

@vapid jay why give up on python

[vapid jay]

Is it important to have high GPA for someone who is about to enter work life? What do you people think about this?

[sour hemlock]

only top tier companies care about that shit where they have so many applicants they need a reason to differentiate candidates.

Other than that nobody cares. If anything its just for a first job. After that its all about work experience, work ethic, and how well you can work with other. That pretty much goes for anything. @vapid jay

[main thicket]

no one cares about your GPA unless you're going for grad school

[weak moth]

Is it worth it to switch over to do python dev as a career. Currently a DBA but I just feel like scripting stuff is becoming more fun than doing my actual job

[vapid jay]

Thanks for the info @sour hemlock

@weak moth I work only with python and it's really fun.

working with just that makes it fun also for me because I can concentrate on python as a language

[vernal lily]

Is it worth it to switch over to do python dev as a career. Currently a DBA but I just feel like scripting stuff is becoming more fun than doing my actual jobthis is really a personal thing cos DBA can also be a solid job

[cobalt lark]

It's also depend on what you like coding

[vapid jay]

what is DBA

[vernal lily]

database admin

[gusty stump]

What languages do you think complement python best?

[silent thunder]

c?

[vernal lily]

yeah probably C

unless you are specifically doing webdev, then JS

or R for stats

[main thicket]

C or C++ certainly

[tired hill]

C / C++ definitely. I use that a lot to build extensions

[tired hill]

Can get some crazy performance boosts from that

[charred compass]

Hey guys. How are you all?

[formal sedge]

[vapid jay]

people don't really use R

outside of finance.. I rarely see it

you can use R within python, if you like syntax in some packages.. there's no loss of performance

[charred compass]

Had a quick question. I'm starting to learn python. Background (nothing formal in terms or comp sci) but everything self taught. Wanted to know.. how realistic is it to land a entry level python job?

[sullen rock]

R is really awesome for stats. What killed R is lack of parallelization and integration with other languages like Python, and lack of deployment options, but R is great nonetheless

[unkempt cloud]

My STEM based friends are saying the software engineering and computer science market/area is going to be over saturated with time.

Do you guys think so? Interested in hearing what people in the industry actually think.

[vapid jay]

lol

I'm sure someone once said, computers are a passing fad too

probably said the same thing about the internet

[candid vortex]

@unkempt cloud I'm not working in the industry so take my opinion with a grain of salt

But I believe good developers will always be in demand

People not with just technical skill but the right soft skills as well

[vapid jay]

@unkempt cloud Don't listen to them. There's crazy need for good developers.

[unkempt cloud]

Welp, time to switch career paths then

[rare sand]

If anything, I think the opposite will happen. I think the demand for good developers will outpace the increase in new developers.

both will certainly go up.

I think it's kind of a gold rush right now, and the devs with the right qualifications will not only find it easy to find work, they will be headhunted out of their current jobs.

[icy berry]

this have happened to me, like a few weeks ago.

I got a raise at work

😄

[vivid dock]

I don't even have much experience and was head hunted

[vapid jay]

Has anyone here done a proper live company project?

I have started to work in a small startup, it's basically a online event ticketing/booking platform website.
In order for me to join this company they have given me a task to come up with a model that can help their business.
I want to know how can I use machine learning or any similar technology in python to create a live project which can be deployed to help that company.
Any ideas?
Any ideas where I should start and how to proceed?
I am a fresher so I don't have experience in handling a project.

[main thicket]

On the contrary to everyone else's opinion here, I do believe it will be eventually saturated. I think that's already starting to show in junior positions. @unkempt cloud

Of course "good developers will always be in demand". That's true for essentially any field ever. Engineering has become more saturated and engineers are still in demand.

But as the supply increases, positions have higher requirements. Salaries do decrease on average, yes, even for those on the top.

Anyone denying that things will saturate is just ignoring basic laws of economics. More people also means more good people. More people also means there's more people willing to do things for cheaper to the point that employers forgo quality for muuuuch cheaper wages.

Very few high paying careers survive being high paying for long unless there's something artificially limiting who is qualified. Eg. Number of medical graduates is fixed in most places and artificially limited. Law is mostly a crappy field to be in except if you're in the top 20 unis for it. Etc.

[indigo sleet]

Aren't there more factors than that?

Technology is still gaining in popularity in a big way

[main thicket]

Number of jobs is increasing yes, of course. Number of graduates will increase to match.

That's how it's always worked.

When people see a field doing well, they try to join that field

[rare sand]

"eventually", of course it will. but the question is whether that's far enough into the future that it's worth worrying about right now.

[vernal lily]

well if someone is graduating now
they gonna want to look 20-30 years in the future

[rare sand]

they are?

[vernal lily]

🤔

[rare sand]

how do you figure?

[vernal lily]

cos lets say someone graduates now
they are around 20
they still gonna want a good career when they 40 or 50

and that's 20-30 years away now

[rare sand]

I still don't understand that reasoning at all

if you haven't built a rock solid career by the time you're 50, you're never going to.

[vernal lily]

but if the pay of developers is gonna drop massively in 20 years
that's gonna affect you

when ur 40-50

[rare sand]

sure. that might happen in the US where developers earn absolutely ridiculous amounts of money. I'm not worried here in norway.

employees have rights here.

and we're not earning 3x what we should be.

[vernal lily]

I do think this will happen at least in Silicon Valley yeah

[rare sand]

but as for the 30 years from now, are you really still gonna be a dev in 30 years?

[vernal lily]

I mean its happening already for certain skills like Ruby developers

[rare sand]

seems likely that someone starting out as a dev today might have a different role 20-30 years from now

perhaps a type of role that isn't likely to earn much less

[vernal lily]

what sort of role do you mean

do you mean like moving into management

I'd kinda like to do dev forever 😿

[indigo sleet]

devops, team lead, manager, systems, QA, "customer success engineer"...

[vernal lily]

okay yeah

[sullen rock]

US software engineers are pretty fairly compensated. Only exception is in California really, due to HCOL and taxes, also all of the latest/greatest new things are developed there

hence why it is called silicon valley, the birth of the commercial computer industry 😛

also their pay is usually inflated due to compensation in terms of equity as well

[vernal lily]

what is pay in NYC like

[sullen rock]

they might have 30k in equity and 100k in actual comp, so total comp would be like 130k

NYC is high as well but not as high as california

most places in US are fairly similar in comp

[vernal lily]

do you think Cali pay will stay high for long time

[sullen rock]

as long as they have high taxes, high property prices, and they keep the same social/political policies, sure lol

but that's another topic 😛

all bubbles burst eventually

in 2009 many properties dropped 50%, which was pretty common across US

so if you wanted to buy a house it was a nice time

a good choice is choosing a medium cost of living city

not too extreme

[vernal lily]

why do companies keep on setting up in Cali if the dev costs are so much higher

like

surely a web startup could set up in any big city in US

why they chose San Fran and pay more for labor?

[sullen rock]

more exposure, better chance of getting capital investors

really these

nobody in Missouri is going to invest in a self driving car startup

when 90% of the jobs are truck driving jobs

most startups are backed by venture capitalists

(basically people who either work at hedge funds, or equity companies just shelling out cash)

or the startup isnt funded by venture capitalists, and funded by the business itself, and they get lucky and sell their company to microsoft or google

[vernal lily]

ah I see so they go where they can get capital

what's like

the second place location for tech after silicon valley?

is it NYC or Chicago or something?

[sullen rock]

yea both of those pretty much

seattle

San Fran/Silicon Valley, NYC, Seattle, Chicago, Austin, Dallas, DC

[vernal lily]

Houston maybe?

[sullen rock]

yea houston/dallas/austin

[vernal lily]

okay yeah this makes sense

[sullen rock]

chicago and anywhere in texas will have least cost of living compared to like california or new york

[vernal lily]

I'm in Europe so I can't really work at any of these 😂

I'm looking London Paris Berlin Frankfurt

[sullen rock]

london and dublin are pretty up and coming for tech in general

tehy are good

[vernal lily]

yeah i might just stay london

its just feelsbadman that I know they make so much more in Cali

[sullen rock]

you do NOT want to be in california lol

[vernal lily]

lol why is that

[sullen rock]

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=United+Kingdom&city1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&city2=London&tracking=getDispatchComparison

[vernal lily]

Oof

yeah I see

[sullen rock]

(2,703.02 £)
(1,725.69 £)

[vernal lily]

also in london zero need for a car

[sullen rock]

that's what kills you is rent/housing

[vernal lily]

hmm yeah

cos you can even live outside of london for very cheap

and commute in

[sullen rock]

yea in US you absolutely have to have a car

the public transit system is nonexistent

[vernal lily]

london public transit is the GOAT

Paris metro is pretty decent too

but much less extensive

[sullen rock]

i would love to be able to just take a high speed train to work

[main thicket]

New York or something is good for public transport

[vernal lily]

oh yeah the New York metro is apparently good too

[main thicket]

But yeah, most of West coast is awful for that

[pulsar drum]

In CA they're actually working on building a high speed rail but they severely underestimated the budget required

So now no ones knows where an extra $60 billion or something is supposed to come from

[vernal lily]

^ yeah Joe Rogan talks about the high speed rail a lot 😄

the project is having big problems

apparently so much cost went to battling legal attacks too

a loot of rich cali people didn't want the rail going through their neighbourhood and they spent a lot of money trying to block it

[main thicket]

What

Convenient access to public transport increases house prices, no?

[vernal lily]

hmm yeah

I don't understand why they wanna block it

[pulsar drum]

Cause they prefer to take their Ferraris to work

🙃

[vernal lily]

someone on reddit said this ```Massive opposition by anti-Obama republicans during the first 6 years. Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. Made finalizing land purchases almost impossible.

[main thicket]

:/ Americans are weird

[frozen spear]

Cali high speed rail is kind of a joke now.

I think max speed is like 85 now with all the revisions.

So many problems. Including shared tracks.

I took high speed rail in Italy from Venice to Rome. That rocked.

[gilded dragon]

@frozen spear , they scrapped the idea in Cali

[shy pollen]

I am in liverpool

Most up and coming places are art

Most engineering jobs are C# corprate or some C++ for game dev in that field

You can tell who is competant and who is not with job interviews

Here is a known software engineering one for C++ in our city: ```
Forward-thinking company looking to add a C++ Graphics Developer to the team

Working in a small team of 3ppl initially, however, there are plans for this team to grow. Currently, they have quite an informal structure.

Essential skills:

C++
3D programming
If at graduate level a degree in computer science or computer games

Interview process:

Skype interview
Face to face interview```

All the other ones are just hr-made listings that say the same you will have a wonderful experiance as a junior developer working in a unique agile enviroment. 26 years work experiance required + a phd for something that havn't been made yet. Perks include a "new" office we moved into just after world war 2 and standard, goverment-mandated "benifits"

£60-80k per year to make a bank frontend

But these standards are bad Experience with modern JavaScript libraries and tooling, such as Reactjs, Redux, Webpack – 5 years’ experience React Native – 2 years’ experience

Redux is 4 years old :P

Oh and a minimum wage job that you have to know the entire microsoft stack for and have previous jobs 👏

[vapid jay]

:( worse things...

[sullen rock]

redux is the biggest car salesman pitch ive ever seen. Pretty overkill for most things, unless you are like AirBnB or something

most things can just be resigned with better props passing

redesigned*

[vernal lily]

there's a ton of lighter redux clones also

https://github.com/bcherny/undux

[ember nexus]

Handsome fellow.

[shy pollen]

Ah, so you know me

[main thicket]

What's overkill about react? You can use JSX as thin HTML files essentially

[vernal lily]

he talking about redux, not react

[main thicket]

Ah whoops

Misread

[vernal lily]

I kinda agree redux syntax is pretty clunky

I like ones like undux

but yeah uh React already has decent state management just passing props around

[vast forum]

Hi guys, anyone from Sydney?

I have 2 days free sat and sunday everyweek

I want to do programming

Does anyone want to do the same?

Or any company give free internship for sat and sunday

[acoustic roost]

overly medicated

piiissshaawww

@vernal lily "redux syntax is pretty clunky"

"just passing props around"

seriously?

redux unscrewed like 6 months worth of crazy in like, 20 +/- lines of js

for me anyhow

[vernal lily]

have you tried undux? Or one of the similar redux alternatives?

they are nicer syntax for a smaller app

in particular this one is good, popular with the Vue crowd https://github.com/mobxjs/mobx

but yeah I actually think in a small/medium React app that local state can be fine

there's always a trade-off whichever you choose to do

[rough plinth]

how do you find python contract work?

[shy yoke]

don't like react, only use Aurelia

Vue is okay too

[hollow wasp]

I guess anyone can get an intershit. But umm, idk about an internship.

[lyric mortar]

Ok, my first question in here:
Can i have a career please

thankyou

[regal briar]

@lyric mortar yep

[lyric mortar]

YESSS, thanks!

[vivid dock]

React is eh, vue seems cool, but svelte is the shit

[vernal lily]

Angular

[sullen rock]

Unpopular opinion, but I think once you use react a lot it grows on you

Angular is the opposite for me

Vue I cannot comment on I've only looked at a few times

[vernal lily]

I disagree I think modern Angular (Angular 8) is really good

its opinionated but it pushes you towards a very good program structure

[sullen rock]

it's good for large teams I suppose, but I like the performance and concepts of React

youll definitely see a larger learning curve with react

[vernal lily]

if you like performance, Vue out-performs react by quite a lot

Vue is also the quickest to learn IMO

Svelte even more so

[vivid dock]

Svelte is definitely a good alternative for any new projects that are not huge

[vernal lily]

ye

[ionic cargo]

So what should I move onto? I have mastered the fundamentals of python and i'm trying to develop in order to get an internship, advice on what I should be learning?

[vernal lily]

what area of python do you want to do?

web back end, data science, machine learning or other?

cos after fundamentals of python comes specialization

[ionic cargo]

See i'm really confused on what I should pursue.

I'm 14 and have around 2 years till I can get an internship.

[vernal lily]

probably easiest to get work in web dev

[ionic cargo]

Well, I don't want an easy job.

[vernal lily]

so I'd recommend the Flask tutorial http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/1.0/tutorial/

[ionic cargo]

It's what I believe is fun.

[vernal lily]

yeah that's good

I don't know what you like though 😄

I did ask

[ionic cargo]

Yes, I know :p

Could you possibly explain data science and machine learning please?

[vernal lily]

well data science is a general term
but it mostly means dealing with a lot of data, doing statistics and visualizations

in python this means using libraries like Numpy, Scipy and Matplotlib

I'm not that experienced with machine learning

but common libraries for that are Tensorflow and PyTorch

[ionic cargo]

Hmm, lets say data science, storing data e.t.c: is something I'm pretty interested in, if not I will experience the others as I go along.

[vernal lily]

this book is good

and free 😃 https://jakevdp.github.io/PythonDataScienceHandbook/

this book covers Ipython, numpy, pandas, matplotlib and some basic machine learning using scikit-learn

even if you don't use this particular book

those are good topics to look at

and the actual code is all here too https://github.com/jakevdp/PythonDataScienceHandbook

[ionic cargo]

Thanks :p I will check it out.

[vernal lily]

😃

[sullen rock]

dude you are 14 lol

I didn't even know what programming was when I was 14

[median bane]

programming at 14 is fine, those maths can be harder

[sullen rock]

I mean 14 is basically 8th grade

maybe he's a genius or something

unpopular opinion, but he should probably just enjoy his life while he's young

because he's gonna be programming for a while once he gets a job

[pulsar drum]

One don't have to be a genius to have a basic understanding of programming

[sullen rock]

an 8th grader? lol?

[pulsar drum]

Mate I was programming at 11

[sullen rock]

that's pretty intelligent

congrats

[pulsar drum]

It's really not a feat

[sullen rock]

most people weren't MATE

[real python]

Do this somewhere else

[sullen rock]

I think it's a pretty good feat

[real python]

This isn't a life advice server, nor should you be antagonizing others

[sullen rock]

I'm not antagonizing, I was stating he is an intelligent kid for programming at a young age

a compliment

[real python]

I'm not blind

[sullen rock]

but you obviously want to antagonize, so I'll leave lmao

[main thicket]

Programming at a young age is relatively common. There's classes in a lot of places. But also, everyone knows how to use computers and a lot of kids grow up being interested in computers due to games and such

That leads them trying to learn how to hack and mod games. Or make games or other stuff

[ionic cargo]

😆 I doubt he meant it rudely, just some advice I guess but i'm going into my GCSE's and I've decided it's what I want to do in life. Thanks though :p (Just realised he left at the end of this.)

[shy pollen]

Main disadvantages when doing it young are maths is hard and GCSEs/others take up a ton of time and can stress you out

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[gilded valley]

I don't really think maths is hard. I think its more that people just assume they either get things instantly or not at all with maths, whereas really its like everything else and the only thing that really matters is the amount of time you spend on it

[delicate flicker]

I don't completely agree with that

[main thicket]

Maths does take time

You need time and thinking to let all the pieces fall in. It's not hard, anyone can do it with the effort put in

But it does take time and some cognitive maturity which itself takes time

[gilded valley]

In what way don't you agree @delicate flicker?

[final thistle]

what kind of maths are you talking about?

[gilded valley]

That's true for pretty much all levels of maths that I'm aware of

[final thistle]

ah, you were talking about data science

[delicate flicker]

I don't agree that maths has the same balance of ability-work as other subjects

I don't think it's unique, I think most subjects are different in that regard

I think in maths it's more possible to get things instantly - obviously anyone can get anything given sufficient time, and I agree that people neglect that too much

but the time you spend on it isn't the only factor in how good you are

[vernal lily]

math ability is mostly genetic

that isn't to say you can't go far regardless

but the genetic effect on math learning is well-supported by studies

last big study I saw put it at 60% genetic and 40% environment

don't mean for that to be discouraging

40% is still a lot of variability that you can change

even if you learn math at a slower pace than some other people, you can still progress very far at your own pace

[main thicket]

Maths ability is not mostly genetic

Lol

[vernal lily]

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep11713

up to you what conclusion you draw

[main thicket]

They don't control for a lot of environmental factors. There is genetic separation between a lot of people who are lower class and a lot of people who are upper class, which they don't account for. Would be good if they controlled SEC while also controlling genetic factors so we could see differences. Nonetheless, GCSE scores are absolutely not an indicator of mathematical ability.

Standardised tests are a garbage indicator of true mathematical understanding. The cognitive skills used in high level maths are not the skills used in middle school standardised maths syllabi

[unkempt ferry]

• any form of test is going to be problematic as an indicator just by the nature of how bad a lot of people get test anxiety. It doesn't mean they don't know the stuff or they aren't good at it. It just means they're bad at taking tests

(it goes the other way too, I got an A in college freshman chem without studying because i'm really good at taking tests)

[vernal lily]

upper class is only a small % of the population so that shouldn't skew the results that much really

[unkempt ferry]

it doesn't even have to be upper class though, i'd say mid middle to upper middle class and up

[vernal lily]

if I find a nice study from a good journal that controls for social economic factors I'll post it

could use university results instead of GCSEs as the dependent variable also

[brave summit]

Math ability is 90% just working instead of making excuses like "I don't have that kind of brain" or some shit

[vapid jay]

qq.. are you affiliated with papa john

[formal sedge]

Not everyone can handle math, family man

Especially since dyscalculia exists

[main thicket]

No different from saying not everyone can handle reading since dyslexia exists. That's a very minority medical condition and doesn't apply to the average person

[formal sedge]

Two sentences, only tangentially connected

The second was not proof of the first

It's more like saying not everyone can handle complex literature analysis

[vapid jay]

complexity is relative

[formal sedge]

Exactly my point

[vapid jay]

relativity is complex

cake is not pie

[formal sedge]

Complexity is relative. Just because you have no problem doesn't mean others don't

[vapid jay]

I never said some people don't have a problem

see you assume that, just like some people assume these things should come easy to everyone

[formal sedge]

I never assumed that or said you said

Simply explaining my earlier point :p

[exotic dagger]

So- I got a C+ A year ago when I took my first python class I know I went on here a bunch to get a lot of help (almost carrying me).
But like.. I don't know what I should do, since I (somehow) got an A in C++ ...

I am thinking about either going into a different ITCS class (Java / mobile programming), just to get a beginner's knowledge of it. Another decision, though, is to retake that C+ for a python class to hone my skills.. especially with OPP..

Should I just go on and take a different ITCS class, while start to get back into python programming in my free time?

The python class was online, while the C++ was on-campus, but then again, I honestly think that I am terrible at programming and getting into that certain mindset

[vernal lily]

its hard to say cos C++ and python are pretty different

some people might be more suited to languages like C++, C, Rust

and systems type programming

[exotic dagger]

I feel, though, I was never really able to accomplish anything in both languages

[vernal lily]

did you make projects

[exotic dagger]

like- I sure know how to do some inputs and outputs, but in both courses I never fully understood the capability of OOP, and never got to use some of the coding-mindset knowledge

I think so- but they were always heavily bugged to no end- or I was walked-through them

out of class.. no I haven't made a programming project yet

[vernal lily]

I think that's probably the main issue
making lots of little projects is a really good way to improve

takes a lot of practice

[exotic dagger]

Alright

[vernal lily]

programming isn't just about the theoretical, putting in many hundreds of hours actually making projects, typing out the code and checking by eye, is important

you can't get good at making things just by theoretically knowing the language well

[exotic dagger]

For educational wise, I think that I obtained a good- amount of programming knowledge with how things begin to form and what they are utilized for, it is putting them into practice and actually developing something out of those beginning platforms- and such

[vernal lily]

yeah

[exotic dagger]

Alright- so I guess that should be my main objective going into this semester of college, Thank you!

[vernal lily]

no problem 😃

[topaz fog]

on the math thing, it's not always easy to everyone, I struggled with algebra back in highschool, despite having to stay after school every day for "teacher hours" and two tutors outside of school. I've just always been absolute shit at math, I could handle my statistics class and whatnot alright because it was mostly handled for me, but otherwise I didn't have to take any math related classes for all of university and now that I've been out of school for 4+ years it'd be even harder for me to re-learn even simple math, not to mention even begin to get into calc or deeper. As someone else said, it's not easy for everyone!

[indigo sleet]

Yeah, I'm pretty garbage at math

But luckily you don't need much for most areas of programming these days

[topaz fog]

or you can code it so it does it for you which is nice lol

on a slightly different topic, and not sure if it should be asked here or in one of the helps or somewhere else, I've had a bot I've been working on for years, I've done several refactors and tried to clean it up during those points, but in general if it works how I want it to then thats good enough for me. I'm sure you can see glaring issues with this such as not following pep-8, not fully utilizing classes as much as I should, shitty commenting (trying to fix now), etc. Is there anywhere thats good for review or something to see whats been missed/needs to be worked on?

ideally I would like to get it to a point where I could show it to a potential employer as I would like to go down the dev route if given the chance

[indigo sleet]

You need a linter

are you using git?

[topaz fog]

yeah

[indigo sleet]

have you ever used pre-commit?

[topaz fog]

that I have not

[indigo sleet]

Basically a linter is a tool that inspects your code

pre-commit ties that together by making your linter run before every commit

as an example

https://github.com/comect/Syndicord/blob/master/.pre-commit-config.yaml
https://github.com/comect/Syndicord/blob/master/.flake8

then you just pip install pre-commit and pre-commit install to set up, and you can pre-commit run --all-files if you need to run manually

[topaz fog]

hmm alright interesting, I'll work on getting this working, getting a couple errors trying to install with both pip and conda

I'm going to assume because I went up to 3.7 and there isn't a package for it yet

[indigo sleet]

I use 3.7

anyway, we're getting off-topic for this channel

you can ping me in #tools-and-devops if you get stuck

[main thicket]

@topaz fog Well duh, if you dont do math for a long time it's gonna be hard to learn. But also, if you dont do maths properly, it's going to be hard. Not everyone knows how to learn maths properly and high school teachers are garbage and have completely flipped priorities

Very little focus on understanding

Maths is not that fundamentally different to what you do in a lot of programming

It gets a bad rap because maths at a secondary education level is taught in a boring way, tests the wrong things, and the teachers themselves have rarely done maths themself

I've learnt enough maths and taught enough maths to know maths is very rarely hard because "some people arent made for maths"

[formal sedge]

in your experience, raggy. that's anecdotal evidence ;)

[main thicket]

I mean, at least I have a sample size of >20 tutored students in maths as opposed to "I found maths hard when I was young"

[vernal lily]

would rather draw conclusions from actual journal articles where studies were done

[lunar harness]

@main thicket agreed. secondary teachers dont tell you why shit works

[main thicket]

journal articles can find correlations (not causational relationships) in how people do in standardised tests (not necessarily accurate or valid metrics)

[vernal lily]

what if we had data in a study that look at results on actual university exams like Calc 2 etc

I understand that high school math isn't really comparable

[main thicket]

Calc 2 is still in that weid standardised testing area. Everyone and their mum doing anything mildly related to STEM does it

Maybe once you get to Real analysis

It's when you leave behind subjects based on practicing arithmetic and algebriac computation that you can focus on mathematical maturity

[vernal lily]

hmm I haven't yet found a decent study that looked at more advanced pure modules like Real Analysis

I'm still lacking data for my conclusion TBH

the data for high school is pretty solid but finding data for beyond that is tricky

[obsidian acorn]

If you are doing an actual study, speaking to Uni Professors in order to get those data should not be hard

you can talk to them, and let them know bases of your study, and letting them know how the data you are requesting would be used, and they would be glad to help

because they do their own research that requires data from other parties as well.

Additionally, For the Uni level standardized tests, you can look at companies that have those tests as well.

[main thicket]

Yeahhhh I doubt a lot of profs will just hand over data like that simply because of privacy concerns and such. And there's no uni level standardised tests really other than maybe GRE but GRE is a very very different kind of test than the average math test

[valid flume]

Hi guys, how do you keep motivation while working on big projects?

[vernal lily]

take lots of breaks

and try to have written down steps for what to do and goals

you might like Pomodoro Technique

but yeah uh with big project the real thing is avoiding burn out

take breaks don't even just blast work for like 12 hours

it feels good at the time but then next day you feel bad

[wraith quest]

Goal management and breaks tbh

[valid flume]

i had weeks when i was working for 12 hours per day

[wraith quest]

IMO much if it revolves around maintaining progress. even incremental

[valid flume]

but after two weeks i was burnt out

[wraith quest]

That's insane

[valid flume]

i know but i thought that i was improving

[wraith quest]

Thought?

[vernal lily]

12 hours per day is super high risk of burnout yeah

[valid flume]

but some of my friends even told me that its not ok

[obsidian acorn]

yeah, unless you have a deadline, 12hrs a day is alot

like, too much

but working with a partner, if you can find one can be quiet helpful

That helps with accountability

[wraith quest]

Its fundamentally unsustainable. 1 day is fine. But every successive day takes a psychological and biological impact

[obsidian acorn]

Even on actual work, unless you work in game dev, it is not that often to find people working that long hrs

so, there is no point in doing it on your free time

[wraith quest]

Intb4 on motivation for large projects. They key ImO is breaking it down into manageable chunks. Then every successive chunk of work you complete ahas a clear progression you can see and reward thereby keeping motivation

[valid flume]

Thanks guys

[languid sundial]

long hours increase risk of stroke too https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100045.htm

[sonic girder]

wow look another reason not to do my homework

[obsidian acorn]

lol

I don't think that's how it works

[sturdy hearth]

Long work hours help feed my family

[charred compass]

Hey guys. I was looking into the Learn Python Programming Masterclass on udemy. Was wondering.. what are the chances of getting something entry level with this course and a bit more?

[vast shoal]

Very slim.

Or at least, they should be.

It might be a good starting point, but it's not even remotely enough for a real job.

[vernal lily]

if you have a degree and are applying for graduate schemes

then some companies will take complete newbies

but this is specifically for graduates

[vast shoal]

Looking at the course content, it seems like a programming 101 course.

[celest anvil]

is body shop/consulting firm a viable business in small towns/further from major cities?

or do they rely alot on networking in person

[charred compass]

I see

[vernal lily]

@celest anvil consulting involves travelling all over

[charred compass]

Based on what the instructor is saying.. I should be able to apply for an entry level python job.

Guessing thats not it huh?

[vernal lily]

I don't know how good at python you are ivan

[charred compass]

I'm not good. Just starting.

But have idea of how coding works and can read a fews lines here there of a few diff langs

[vernal lily]

this is not enough for pro job

are you a graduate?

cos that changes things

[charred compass]

https://www.udemy.com/master-python-programming-complete-python-bootcamp/

yes

[vernal lily]

I mean try and apply

and see

maybe you will get somewhere if you have degree

[charred compass]

I guess I have to learn first

I mean is a degree necessary? Spoke to a few and said.. no not at all. But, you must know and support your knowledge when it comes to any field in IT.

So thats why I was wondering

That above course.

[vernal lily]

its not neccesary its just an enormous help

[charred compass]

I see

[vernal lily]

I'm personally more a fan of a progression of books

than Udemy videos

[charred compass]

Well for books I'm starting with Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming

https://www.amazon.com/Python-Crash-Course-Hands-Project-Based/dp/1593279280/ref=dp_ob_title_bk <

Actually started with this. But the udemy is just backup

[vernal lily]

okay that seems nice

if you like Udemy its okay too

[surreal niche]

Is it okay to post job listings here or is that considered bad practice?

[vernal lily]

not allowed

[charred compass]

Is it for a newbie with no programming exp? 😄

[surreal niche]

Okay sorry! That's why I asked.

[rugged blade]

Hello everyone! I have a question, is there any companies out there that I can apply to that lets me work online?

[vivid dock]

Quite a lot i'd imagine

[vapid jay]

What Floppy, said. There are companies that allow emplyees to lay on a beach drinking beer - as long as they deliver what they are supposed to

[vast shoal]

@charred compass I don't know any decent position that could be filled by someone who just took a single online introductory programming course. You don't need a degree to get a job in programming, but that's only if you are able to demonstrate that you have an equivalent amount of self-taught experience. That ideally means that you can show off a portfolio of personal projects of the same caliber as the type of work you are applying to do. Even better if it's something you've published and that is used by others. Or, you can show that you have been contributing to open source software projects in a significant way.

The latter has the added benefit of showing that you have experience working on a bigger project with other people, and you've learned to use tools which facilitate that, which is something you will have to do in almost any professional position.

[vapid jay]

I bombed an interview today.. v.v thing is, I knew what they were going to ask, I could've prepared but didn't want to because I didn't really think much of what the company was doing

my only regret is missing out on the higher pay that could've come with the job..

[wise elbow]

Why did you even apply then

[vernal lily]

I didn't really think much of what the company was doingwhat does this mean

[vapid jay]

the position was nice, it was related to what I do now, but easier.. and the higher pay..

the company is in mobile insurance.. I interviewed for an nlp position

I never thought mobile insurance was a big industry, but I was surprised..

[vernal lily]

mobile insurance companies use NLP ?

[vapid jay]

see.. I was surprised too lol

they analyze reviews and stuff, reports from customers.. bla bla

[vernal lily]

they use an open source python lib for this ?

[vapid jay]

some computer vision stuff to analyze device condition and extent of damage, because they also support through repair, etc..

yeah.. that was also surprising

[vernal lily]

I'd be really suprised if they can accurately tell device condition using computer vision TBH

[vapid jay]

I feel like it's going to be hard.. I wish I had never worked at a FANG company.. now everywhere I go, I'm afraid I'm going to underestimate things..

[vernal lily]

its that experimental or currently used?

[vapid jay]

experimental, but I think there are some companies doing that in the UK

[vernal lily]

what do you mean by underestimate things

[vapid jay]

because, they offer $ for buybacks at devices that look like ATMs

underestimate things, as in.. small companies solve problems that cater to some small segment of a market.. they provide a service or goods..

small as in relative to FANG companies

the scale at which these companies operate.. and the codebase + existing infrastructure available to freely work with.. plus the free food T.T

[vernal lily]

so when you say you are afraid to underestimate things\

you are afraid the companies operations will be bigger than you think?

or smaller?

[vapid jay]

hmm good question

i'm afraid I won't appreciate the opportunity that they present..

[vast shoal]

How exactly did you manage to bomb the interview by underestimating the company?

[vapid jay]

it's like.. there's this company doing all this better and they're like a decade ahead with near infinite resources, so how will what I do here matter anyway

[vast shoal]

It sounds like you insulted their business concept or something.

[vapid jay]

nono.. I didn't say anything about that to their face.. lol..

[vernal lily]

there's this company doing all this better and they're like a decade ahead with near infinite resourcesI mean really
almost all programming is not at the frontier of the field

[vapid jay]

I walked in without brushing up on the basics, like if they asked me about precision and recall for example, I would give like the conceptual definition instead

well, you know that.. I don't..

it's a catch22.. there are these geniuses sitting in the row in front of me, they barely need to work because they are in research teams and it's so highly valued.. sometimes I feel like crap when im here (impostor syndrome) because everyone's a genius.. and worried i'm going to feel like crap when I leave for other reasons XD

[vernal lily]

you're talking about the FANG that you are currently at

?

[vapid jay]

yeah

[vernal lily]

I mean being in a research team does sound cool
but that's like 0.001% of programmers really

[vapid jay]

there's some people making AI in the row in front of me

and the programmers sitting next to me are smart too..

[vast shoal]

What kind of feedback are you getting on the work you do in your current position?

[vapid jay]

not that they do much, because they mostly get assigned menial tasks, because the company can afford it

current feedback? well I've done some pretty cutting edge stuff, things that haven't been done before.. helped support analytics work for a lot of projects

so never gotten any bad feedback, aside from on my code quality.. lol

[vernal lily]

is there not a possibility of you making it onto a research team

?

[vast shoal]

I mean, do you have any concrete reason to believe that your current employer thinks your work is subpar compared to your peers?

[vapid jay]

oh no, I don't want to do research, those guys are on another level.. coding + theory + phd from reputed schools + dozens of papers

my employer doesn't think my work is subpar.. no..

the imposter syndrome is more self imposed

which is why im leaving

and interviewing with other companies

[vernal lily]

okay yeah

are you leaving a lot of money on the table

or will the move be okay in that regard

[vapid jay]

the move will be ok, I stand to make more than what I do here if I move

[vast shoal]

How long have you been at your current employer?

[vapid jay]

a little more than a year

[vast shoal]

If you're very unhappy I guess moving on is a good idea, but the more experience you have at such a prestigious company and doing such interesting work, the better it would look on your resume , I guess.

And it sounds like you get pretty unique work experience, in terms of your personal development.

[vapid jay]

yeah, I want to work here again when I feel more prepared.. but will leave for now..

[vast shoal]

Do you think it's going to be easy to be hired back after you leave?

I would've thought your position is quite sought after.

[vapid jay]

personal development sort of slows down because it's so stable, I work on new projects, apply methods, but also grow reliant on internal infrastructure.. I also don't work on improving other aspects while im here

it is, but it's hard for them to fill too.. and it will be easy for me to come back

[indigo sleet]

I'm not sure that's a safe assumption

The developer market is looking kinda saturated

If your job pays well and you're good at it, you shouldn't leave until you secure another position somewhere

And then you can leave with the assumption that you won't be back

You can't rely on the unpredictable

[vapid jay]

it's not a developer position.. it's NLP and advanced analytics

[indigo sleet]

Definitely a related field

[vapid jay]

@indigo sleet Where does developer market look saturated? There's a huge thirst for devs in all of Europe.

[indigo sleet]

There's a huge thirst for good devs

But I wouldn't say there's a shortage of devs

[vapid jay]

I'd say there definitely is

We can't even hire people because everyone competing even for just students

Here in Finland we are lacking like 20,000 IT jobs

[indigo sleet]

Interesting

for context, I'm speaking from Ireland

[vapid jay]

And we can't get any foreigners because we live in Finland

[vapid jay]

I'd love to go work in finland.. so much ice, and sun..

and hockey

[dry sapphire]

@indigo sleet how do you show that you're a good dev though?

lots of the positions I apply for I get rejected just based on the resume screen

it's like they don't look @ anything other than the fact that I don't have a CS degree

[indigo sleet]

That's a big problem, I agree

I'd go by portfolio myself

But a lot of hiring staff aren't necessarily developers themselves

[vapid jay]

average salary of a python developers?

[charred compass]

US$110,021

As of 2019

[slim island]

"But a lot of hiring staff aren't necessarily developers themselves" no but one of the ultimate decision makers will be

[charred compass]

@vast shoal thank you 😃

[slim island]

the first level or two will be HR drones blindly ticking boxes against the JD, feel free to lie here. After those boxes are ticked the actual individual who requested the job will come into play

lacking a CS degree is bad but not show stopping. Have a strong portfolio

[vernal lily]

And we can't get any foreigners because we live in Finland :pepe~2:I think this is a Finland problem though
London Paris Berlin can attract a large supply of foreign devs

[torpid bolt]

in my experience, in france currently, if you say you are doing python, you don't really need to go look for jobs, the offers come to you, of course, you have to demonstrate some working knowledge after that, and if you have projects to show it'll definitely help, but the struggle to recruit devs is real

[main thicket]

@dry sapphire How would you know they rejected you because of lack of CS degree?

Doubt you have a perfect resume or something that would get eliminate all other reasons

[stark wasp]

It's perfectly possible, and in fact reasonable to assume, that they have an automatic filter-and-sort scheme of some sort where they rate resumes/CVs based on how much they match the expected qualifications, and pick the top 100 matches to have an actual person manually review, out of the 3672 resumes that were uploaded on their Career page.

So in that example, if there were 100 other candidates who had a higher % of match in their CV with the requirement than you did, that'd be why no one even looked at the application.

[rare sand]

maybe for jobs that actually get 3672 applications, but that seems like a huge given.

I'm sure that's the case in certain developer hotspots around the world but it sure as hell isn't the norm.

here in Norway most developer positions are probably lucky to see a dozen applicants. I can assure you there's no automated screening in those cases.

[stark wasp]

Heh, I don't know if I would call Montreal a "developer hotspot". But we're also talking about entry-level software developer postings that go everywhere online, on linkedin and jobboom and monster and other job-search sites.

Those are the ones I'm told get thousands of applicants on a regular basis

last software dev job I applied to was internal-first, and was only posted on the company website, so it got 11 applicants total, 5 were picked to interview, 2 were considered for a second interview, and the team lead wasn't super happy about either of us

[vernal lily]

when people say "developer hotspot" I think San Francisco, New York etc

[stark wasp]

and Austin, TX

[surreal niche]

I don't know, in Denver CO, every time I post a job, I see 300+ applicants. Normally however 250 are from India and clearly ignored the US only.

[vernal lily]

Denver is pretty dang big

its over half the population of Norway

[shy pollen]

UK is pretty boring for jobs

[vernal lily]

are you in some random area though

come to london

[shy pollen]

It's all pretty standard corprate stuff

[vernal lily]

corprate stuff is good though

not sure what's ur actually looking for

london has a big startup scene also

[shy pollen]

Some startups then more corprate jobs

[vernal lily]

I strongly prefer big corp to startup 🤷

I haven't drunk the startup Kool-aid

[shy pollen]

Just doesn't sound right for me, moving to a bog standard office job in the middle of london away from all family at like 19

[vernal lily]

I agree, why not go to university

?

[shy pollen]

Oh yeah true

GCHQ apprentiship I am hoping for

[vernal lily]

yeah that is a great scheme

👍

[shy pollen]

So that'd be 22 office job

Bit better

¯_(ツ)_/¯

[vernal lily]

if you don't want to work in this industry you don't have to

not everyone likes office jobs

and that's okay

[shy pollen]

I just don't want my first job to be stuck in a gray office, i'd rather do something like a startup for my starting job(s)

[vernal lily]

yeah see this is the thing
I think people have an overly positive view of startups

[shy pollen]

Yes yes

[vernal lily]

startup work isn't always more interesting

it can actually be a lot more grindy

[shy pollen]

Startups fail and are shitty

[vernal lily]

yeah some of my friends got mistreated at startups

or at least exploited anyway

and the work didn't sound particularly great

this was at web dev places

[shy pollen]

I can't really explain my pov

I don't want my entire life to be a plain office job for years as my first job, not really experiancing anything (living to work and working to afford to live)

[vernal lily]

👀

IDK if office work is for you rly

[shy pollen]

"Boring office job" as in the work enviroment and menial work content

I would be ok with that once I am more experianced professionally

[vernal lily]

everything is subjective

to some people the entire field of programming is "boring"

[shy pollen]

Ok time for tv refrencing

I don't want to be stuck at dundermiffin for the prime of my life I guess

I'd be ok with it later on

[vernal lily]

oh yeah dundermiffin is garbag

[shy pollen]

Side note: I thought dundermiffin was both the uk and us version, intresting..

[vapid jay]

tbh office work in this field seems much nicer than office work in other fields

i'm only a student but i know so many of my friends doing placements at startups at the moment are talking about how relaxed and fun the work environment is

[dry sapphire]

@main thicket if you were in a hiring position and you got an application for someone who hit top 200 on Stack Overflow yearly reputation a few months after picking up Python, wouldn't you at least give that person an interview?

[vapid jay]

i get the impression lots of new startups are more t-shirt and jeans than suit and tie

[dry sapphire]

@vapid jay yeah, I'm at a startup now; sometimes people wear shorts too

[vapid jay]

yeah that sounds great

my placement is going to be somewhere much more suit and tie but still fun

[dry sapphire]

hours are good and flexible, too

[vapid jay]

that's chill

[dry sapphire]

the flip side is that company structure is a mess

[vapid jay]

haha

[dry sapphire]

no performance reviews, no feedback channels, etc.

[vapid jay]

that sounds pretty rough

[main thicket]

@dry sapphire Sounds interesting by Stack overflow reputation doesn't mean much to me, or many other people

Helping beginners is an entirely different thing from actually having software development skills

[vernal lily]

Stack overflow considered harmful

[main thicket]

Honestly, I've helped hundreds of people across Discord in everything from maths, physics, engineering, computer science and programming. It's not something I put on my resume because while it's good for your own development, it is meaningless as a skill

[vernal lily]

also the SO karma system can absolutely be gamed

just like most other karma systems

[dry sapphire]

okay, what about GitHub then?

I'm pretty sure the technical recruiter (who does the initial screen) doesn't have sufficient ability to assess skill @ software architecture/mathematics/anything else.

[vernal lily]

well github stars are valuable because they are attached to a project

so the project itself has weight, if its good

but also, project work is more relevant to real dev work that answering SO questions

as its a more similar activity

yeah I agree that initial screenings are very likely not by someone with a lot of technical knowledge

maybe for startup

[vapid jay]

anyone wanna help me on my project? It's just I just need to structure my code with classes and stuff..

it's a CNN based sequence classifier that captures short text context awareness

[dry sapphire]

yes, I also have a fair number of projects that I'm pretty sure are beyond the level of a fresh CS graduate, because whenever I actually get to discuss them @ the technical interview stage people are impressed

it's getting there that's problematic

[vernal lily]

yeah I see

some projects are hard to sell to the non-technical recruiter people

but you gotta get through that layer first

[dry sapphire]

there's literally no human interaction between application and rejection

that's what sucks

[vernal lily]

yeah its an unfortunate side effect of large applicant pools

although even some startups act this way sometimes

[dry sapphire]

yup

usually startups are the ones willing to hear me out

[vernal lily]

yeah seems like startups are better for personal connection during the recruiting stage
and getting to talk to a technical person earlier in the process

[main thicket]

@dry sapphire Most people won't be looking at your github to begin with

They'll be looking at your projects

What projects do you list?

Do you have any experience?

[vernal lily]

what if you described the project on your resume
and it was hosted on github

[main thicket]

Can you send an anonymised version of your resume here?

Might be able to spot the problems

[dry sapphire]

@vernal lily I generally describe the relevant ones

@main thicket sure, is it okay if I PM you? (I remember some discussion about PMs being banned on this Discord; is that why you said send here?)

[main thicket]

Sure

DMs are fine if given consent

[tepid cave]

PMs banned? wut?

[unkempt ferry]

if you're asking for help with a programming issue, you shouldn't dm. but for smth like this dming isn't an issue

[river hollow]

Hello guys!

So, I have a company that's starting an interview process with me. after the first round, I was given an assignment to develop a program.
Have been programming for a while now and that part didn't take look to get it done but now, am at the last phase of the assignment system design I was also told to include a system design and for the first time, am completely blank on how to even begin with.

Any live example will be appreciated. I haven't done system deign before

[vernal lily]

do they mean a UML chart?

or do they mean system as in the hardware+OS you will deploy on?