career-advice

[elder talon]

they collect all data from your PC/phone when you visit their site.

That's just not true

[little prairie]

That is actually incredibly true

[radiant moon]

yeah, they don't wait until you visit their site to collect it

[elder talon]

Also they hardly collect all of it

maybe Alexa, but not AWS or amazon

[little prairie]

Just letting someone use your computer who was banned as a seller on Amazon will automatically make you banned as a seller on Amazon as well (even if they never visit amazon on your computer). If you don't think they are collecting all of your data you are extremely naive to put it lightly

[elder talon]

I think you are using "all" to lightly

maybe the NSA collect everything but not amazon

[little prairie]

Amazon is bigger than the NSA, The US government actually ask Amazon for their data instead because they collect so much more of it.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/01/amazon-prism-transparency-data/

[elder talon]

Not suprised, Alexa is a wiretap that people pay for

But it is convenient

oops, I just realized this is not the off-topic channel, forgive me 😄

[heavy plover]

is there a general chat channel?

[little prairie]

#python-discussion

for general python talk

[elder talon]

@heavy plover the off-topic ones are good for general non-python chat

[heavy plover]

ok, I wasn't sure if they were specifically off-topic for something else

or if those channel names were just memes

[vivid dock]

Anything specific I should ask in a informal interview when I have a job and need them to convince me if its worth making the switch? Besides salary

[shut geyser]

That's kinda up to you i think

[vivid dock]

I'm just blanking and need brain food

[shut geyser]

Maybe there is stuff you'd like to do more, so you can ask about it

Maybe more responsability or some fancy tech, maybe teaching juniors

Also Life/Work Balance

[vivid dock]

I just have a list of development practices like code review, git etc i just want to ensure they follow before i sit there emailing zip files around

Guess i could ask about thr onboarding

[shut geyser]

not sending excel sheets with v0.3_UrInitials_13JAN2020

Yeah

Did you get an offer or is it first call ?

[vivid dock]

First call

But in person, on site

Some recruiter did the whole pitch while i just kept on my merry way at my current job, only considering it as its a potential 30% salary increase

But i do enjoy my current job 🤷‍♂️

Money's tight

[elder talon]

30%, thaat's a big jump, would you have to move?

[vivid dock]

No, it's within walking distance of current job

[cobalt acorn]

Not directly Python related, but programming related. I passed a phone interview for the company today and they've requested me to pick a time on their online calendar. They have some suggested times for "this week", but i'd like to push it to mid next week to prepare, will that seem odd? Is 1 week delay from phone to inperson okay?

I have a certification exam Tuesday, would like to prep for that + give time to prep for the technical interview

[mild zenith]

I would think that they'd be understanding about it if you're able to email them with a good explanation about it. And it'd show good skills in prioritizing, and working on your education rarely looks bad to an employer.

[cobalt acorn]

Thanks, i'll shoot them a email and ask if next week is a potential option

Nothing wrong with asking, worse they can say is there on a deadline to fill the position

[mild zenith]

Exactly

Communication is always the best option

[magic belfry]

Yeah, asking for next week because you have a certification coming up sounds like best way to ask for more time

[cobalt acorn]

Thanks guys, email sent. We'll see what they say

[radiant moon]

@cobalt acorn kinda late, but: I personally wouldn't think it odd (being the guy who does some phone screens)

life happens

[cobalt acorn]

@radiant moon thanks, i was starting to 2nd guess myself after this email

[torpid bolt]

i also agree, it's fine to brush up for an interview and needing time to do so is totally normal

[cobalt acorn]

@torpid bolt @mild zenith Well it looks like they didnt explain it right, i was under the impression its technical. They said its just a exploratory interview with a Team Lead. Now im confused if i get blindsided with a technical interview

[mild zenith]

Just take it as it comes. Did they at least understanding the reason for delaying?

[cobalt acorn]

Yeah she replied saying its just exploratory and maybe had the impression that I needed time to prep for technical.

[torpid bolt]

well, if they blindside you you'll know that's not a good base for honest interactions

[hushed jungle]

Hi. Does anyone have thoughts on courses on coursera or udacity etc? Like, would it hold weight in an interview to have a few of those under one's belt?

[mild zenith]

I generally think it wouldn't. They'd more likely want to see projects you've worked on and what not

That carries a lot more weight

[hushed jungle]

I hear you. But for someone just learning, could those carry the same weight as a CS degree?

[mild zenith]

Not in the slightest

It's incredibly hard to compare even a 2 year Associate's degree to one of those online course's. Those online sites like that would be roughly equivalent to a couple courses at a college, if that. They also wouldn't account for all the other courses you would have had to do to get the degree, which shows a willingness to study and work hard to get the degree.

[hushed jungle]

Gotcha. I guess I'm trying to not go through the degree route. It's not about the work but the length of time to finish it that annoys me

[mild zenith]

No and I totally get you. And it's entirely possible to get hired without that formal education, but it certainly will look good on a resume. If you don't want to go down that path, you have to make up for it with a solid portfolio of projects

[hushed jungle]

My thinking was that I could self study with the moocs, and maybe do a boot camp. During that process I'd have some decent projects. And it could all be done within a year.

[vapid jay]

@vivid dock if youre considering a job switch then think about the things that make you not love your current job and ask about those things there. And the things you enjoy, ask about those as well to see if you'd be missing out

gonna be pretty subjective

[vivid dock]

They did a pretty good job of making me realize what I dont have.

Aka, what I'm missing out on

[vapid jay]

The grass is always greener on the other side

but sometimes it really is

😆

[vivid dock]

Ayay

There's even 100 cows there and still grass left for me!

[vapid jay]

lol

[heavy plover]

On a lot of software engineer applications it looks like they want SQL as a skill

What exactly are they looking for though?

I assume more than just writing a query

[shadow moss]

sometimes that

generally ability to do joins is good

[dry sapphire]

ability to design schema?

query-writing can be fairly involved too, though

like two queries can have the same output but drastically different performance characteristics

[shadow moss]

maybe

I've found performance isn't always terribly important at some places

[burnt tiger]

@heavy plover @shadow moss @dry sapphire Yeah that's going to vary depending on what the database is specifically used for. Better performance is never a bad thing (assuming functionality and stability is retained), but it's certainly not the same priority in all cases.

That being said, a substantial amount of the performance tuning is typically done by database specialists. For most entry-level Software Engineer positions, the ability to write queries that involve multi-table joins, aggregate queries, and basic familiary with subqueries should be adequate. I'd also recommend having some hands-on experience of working with database drivers, but that's fairly straightforward.

[novel bay]

any senior backend developer here? i need an advice!

[pulsar drum]

!ask

[inner wren]

ask

Asking good questions will yield a much higher chance of a quick response:

• Don't ask to ask your question, just go ahead and tell us your problem.
• Don't ask if anyone is knowledgeable in some area, filtering serves no purpose.
• Try to solve the problem on your own first, we're not going to write code for you.
• Show us the code you've tried and any errors or unexpected results it's giving.
• Be patient while we're helping you.

You can find a much more detailed explanation on our website.

[novel bay]

Things i have to learn to get a job as a senior backend developer? I have googled but found no good answer! Can i get a list of things i should master?

[heavy plover]

Ok, with that being said does anyone have a good SQL Crash course that'd be beneficial? I'm using PostgreSQL in one of my apps rn but I have never really gone wild with it lmao

i'm just like getting users ids and stuff

[elfin phoenix]

I've generally done fine just searching through the docs and stack exchange as-needed for various tasks.

[vast shoal]

@novel bay Learn the things you need to get a job as an entry-level backend developer, then work in the industry for 5-10 years.

[vapid jay]

@heavy plover https://mystery.knightlab.com/ it's a game.. that teaches you sql

[halcyon plank]

Hey! I was planning to learn devOps

So I must know how to develop softwares before learning it?

Or I can start with just basic knowledge of Python?

[shut geyser]

nice @vapid jay

so i will have a coding test for my interview that will be parsing data with python and some sql question

is there some reads with parsing data you would recommend?

i usually just import into pandas and manipulate my data there

[keen scaffold]

Hello guys, I've got a question, hoping some of you might help me with. I am a first year cyber security student, however, I really want to start doing some "junior" programming work, and hopefully get paid. The tricky part is that, I really need to do the work from home, which I don't really find as an issue for a programming job. Do you have any tips on how to start doing that?

[opal perch]

do you have anything to show for yourself? To show why a company would want to hire a 1st year student completely remote

[keen scaffold]

Well, I've got a lot of unfinished python projects, one of which is a flask website, which i guess is kind of worthy for that purpose. But, I am a noob, I love learning new things, but at the moment, I'm not sure just what to learn, as I don't have a set task, and that is what I need.

And yeah, my main programming language is python, however I know the basics of C#, and of course, I know HTML and CSS.

[opal perch]

Can I ask why it has to be remote? you dont have to answer if you dont want

[keen scaffold]

No worries, it is because I need to travel a lot.

I must*

[gilded valley]

Remote work for what you're looking for doesn't really exist. The closest would be either something unpaid or contractor work like upwork

[opal perch]

Idk, maybe I'm cynical but I find it hard to believe that a company will want to hire a 1st year student, completely remote, with not much to show. Like they can't train you up or mentor you, so taking on a "noob" (like you said), its not really beneficial for them

[gilded valley]

Pretty much your only hope is if you live in a big city

[keen scaffold]

Yeah, kind of expected that, just wanted to ask. Thank you, guys.

[opal perch]

maybe @rare sand can give you his take, he worked completely remote from my understanding

but I think he had previous job experience at that point, I might be wrong

[keen scaffold]

Yeah, you can do anything with job experience. :/

[opal perch]

how does being at uni allow you to travel a lot?

[keen scaffold]

I only have to be at uni 3 days a week. And its like September-May, with time off between semesters.

So

I manage it

[vapid jay]

@shut geyser understand how to handle different formats and how to structure it so you can load it to something like pandas, or numpy etc where you can manipulate

the idea is to be able to aggregate data you need to be able to handle structured and unstructured data formats

[shut geyser]

do you have a reading with concrete example available?

[halcyon plank]

Hey! I was planning to learn devOps

So I must know how to develop softwares before learning it?

Or I can start with just basic knowledge of Python?

[vapid jay]

1. reading compressed log files 2. csvs, txt, tsv, json 3. web scraping 4. parsing dates 5. handling big data file formats - feather, parquet, hdf 6. read/write on object storage @shut geyser

[shut geyser]

i meant, i can do this kind of things by myself usually but i'm not sure, it's the "right way"

usually i just extract/read data put the part i needs into pandas, treat the pandas, blurt data

but what is good practice/efficient practice i'm not sure

i believe the coding test will be parsing something

(quite sure)

and i was wondering, how i can show i can do it, but do it good

[timid mirage]

@shut geyser http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920039846.do

[shut geyser]

i think you meant @halcyon plank

[timid mirage]

Yup. Thanks

[shadow moss]

Don’t start with Effective DevOps

For python, read automating the boring stuff as a lot of DevOPs is automating deploys and such

Effective DevOps is for management to read and implement 20% and call it DevOps

[hushed kestrel]

AWS Jenkins and other tools typically is what people want for devops jobvs

[shut geyser]

Is Ansible different?

[hushed kestrel]

Dunno

[shut geyser]

i was under the impression it didn't mix with other devops thing when i look at job posting

i often see Ansible alone

others is often the potato salad word of GoogleCloud/AWS/Azure/Docker/Kubernetes

with some CI a bit there and there

[halcyon plank]

Devops engineer both develops the software and do operations of deployment right?

[shut geyser]

The meanings depends a bit depending on the company

Afaik

[shadow moss]

yea, each company is different

it's similar to cloud, it's a buzzword most of the time

[halcyon plank]

Oh

[heavy plover]

That executive office view

Also, no DevOps engineers do not always develop software. Super variable based on companies

I've had 2 DevOps Engineer positions and 1 was almost entirely Ops Automation and Kubernetes management and configuration

And then the other one was mostly scripting and writing internal tools

Ansible is not the same as Jenkins

Ansible is for configuration management

Travis and Jenkins CI is for continuous integration and building pipelines to help automate builds

You would use Terraform to provision cloud resources and Ansible to configure specific resources that Terraform builds at the cloud level and connect resources

[shut geyser]

Yeah, i just felt that Ansible was in another bubble than "usual" CI/deployement from the job posting i see

[heavy plover]

No

Ansible is the most popular configuration management tool right now by a long shot

I would say that is one of the best tools you could learn if you want to get into devops

It's bigger than chef, puppet, etc

[shut geyser]

Alright, it was just a proxy feeling anyway

[heavy plover]

Basically DevOps tooling right now has several major categories

You have cloud management (Terraform is the clear winner here), config management (Ansible, chef, puppet, salt), container management (Kubernetes, swarm, nomad), container registry (lots of options), and then a few other categories but those are variable based on companies

If you Google those terms you should get a pretty good idea of what each actually does and why it's important

[vapid jay]

@indigo sleet sup bro. i asked my teacher and told me if you want to do computer-science you will sutdy hard maths ?

he said 'maybe as i think'

is that true ?

[indigo sleet]

Computer science does involve some math, I don't know that it's necessarily hard, at least not to start with

but you shouldn't let that put you off

I imagine the later years do have more challenging math

[vapid jay]

am scared of maths

huh ? challenging math

[indigo sleet]

I mean again, I only did the first year

most of the math there involved binary logic

[vapid jay]

@indigo sleet you chosen computer-science ? (Python and things ...) ?

[indigo sleet]

They actually had us doing PHP

but a lot of computer science isn't directly related to writing code

[vapid jay]

what is the secret of maths ? doing exercices whole time ?

[rigid spruce]

basically yes. A lot and lot of practise

[vapid jay]

but. what if you find a trape in exams ?

[heavy plover]

A what

Math is literally studying it and practicing until you understand how to do to, not really much more to it

For Diff Eq I would study like 3 hours a night for the days leading up to exams

Not really anyway around it

[cobalt acorn]

Applied for a SWE Infra position, they tend to focus in Python, Ruby, Go. Some example questions i've found from their previous interviews was questions such as:

• enter link in browser, what happens?
• check 2 strings are Anagrams
• function to return True if string is Pallindrome

What are some other data/algo stuff I should brush up on given the context above?

[gilded valley]

some list stuff might come up. An example might be reversing an array in place. Its possible they might ask for more advanced datastructures, so something like inverting a binary tree. They could also ask you broader design questions, such as how would you go about building a modern web app

Given that its specific to infrastructure, they probably want to know about your knowledge in that area as well.

[cobalt acorn]

@gilded valley thank you! I'm not a SWE at all but my experience has been coding and focusing around Infra as Code. I somehow got lucky and landed this interview so trying to brush up on as much as I can. This helps a lot

[radiant moon]

I did a community-college CS thing, and they made us take "discrete math"

[mint citrus]

discrete math was great

[elfin phoenix]

Don't remember if I took discrete math per say, but actually going into the math program covered it anyway. 😛

[radiant moon]

I recall it being a waste of time. I was good at it, but a lot of people in that class struggled, and I didn't think it was useful

[mint citrus]

its important for proving algorithms

you end up using it there

also if you go into data science its useful there

[vapid jay]

hello cat

[mint citrus]

o/

[hushed kestrel]

Uh

[burnt tiger]

Yeah I remember taking discrete math. IIRC, my course was titled "Discrete Computational Analysis". It was pretty useful for foundational information on computer science concepts, particularly with boolean algebra, set theory, and permutation/combination

For the final exam, we had to build a few series of logic gates based on a problem scenarios

It's one of those courses that vary in quality greatly depending on your instructor, my professor was pretty solid

[shut geyser]

@vapid jay the company answered and it's parsing with pandas test

I'm blessed

Still need to repractice a bit more obscure pandas but i'm happy

[toxic crypt]

if anyone has any pointers for someone trying to start a career in this industry i have completed an online python bootcamp and have some experience with javascript, any type of help in the right direction is much appreciated heart️

[gilded valley]

In the pins there is a reddit post of a guy who managed to go from 0 to landing a job

Its UK based, but I imagine theres lots of commonalities between different countries

[neon moat]

👋

[obsidian parcel]

how worth it is going to uni to major in comp sci?

[neon moat]

depends on your situation and trade offs

[fervent hamlet]

whats your alternative

[onyx sluice]

It's a safe option.

Plus you gain a ton of benefits outside of just education - Such as the social life and networking opportunities.

[gilded valley]

As a student, I think the "other benefits" of university might be oversold

[fervent hamlet]

same

[gilded valley]

The only thing that seems good is oppurtunities for things like internships that could lead to landing a full time job more easily

[fervent hamlet]

but realistically, whats the alternative

[gilded valley]

Yeah, I can't see any better alternative for the UK/EU at least

[opal perch]

piers doesnt attend his lectures and stuff, unis boring mate

[neon moat]

haha

[zenith inlet]

@gilded valley depends on the school and country

if you get into a research lab and get into the authors list of a paper, it can look good

[ember prawn]

If you know python, you can land a networking job?

[shadow moss]

No, why would you think that?

[ember prawn]

https://gns3.teachable.com/p/python-3-for-network-engineers

[toxic crypt]

@gilded valley thanks!!!

[shadow moss]

this is for network engineers wanting to interact with new Cisco APIs

you will still need to know Cisco IOS pretty good to make heads or tail

I wouldn't recommend it either

[vapid jay]

is there a zero to network engineer book or course somewhere

I need to understand a lot of basics..

[shadow moss]

depends if you trying to become zero to generic network engineer or something specific

[radiant moon]

there are companies that will teach you online, for enormous amounts of money

[mint citrus]

really?

[heavy plover]

@vapid jay you wouldn't go 0 to network engineer

You would A) Pick a language (Python probably being the preferred one) and learning that with a course

Then, you're gonna need some networking skills down as Network Engineers can come from SysAd backgrounds (almost always) and are pretty familiar with Linux networking

[vapid jay]

I just need to understand the concepts.. so I can use it elsewhere

[heavy plover]

I'm not following you

[vapid jay]

say I want to set up an environment for development or testing an application.. and need to launch that on a cloud service..

sometimes I need to configure how the environments talk to each other.. so concepts like vpc peering, private IPs, subnetting, certificates.. I need to know those

[heavy plover]

that's not network engineering

that's basic cloud concepts for AWS

You need a AWS course

[vapid jay]

hmm ok then.. let me pick up a networking on the cloud course..

[heavy plover]

those are network things, but knowing how to setup an AWS environment is definitely not network engineering

right, I have one I can recommend

The LinuxAcademy AWS one was pretty damn good

it's like 44 hours I think

and has hands on labs

you go through setting up private and public subnets, VPCs, VPC Peering, RDS, S3 buckets, EC2, AMIs, NGW, Route tables, etc

[vapid jay]

yep that works

[heavy plover]

I would do the "AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate Level" course

[vapid jay]

one thing I'm worried about.. if I don't use everything, how can I still remember

I'm studying for the GCP professional data engineer certification now..

[heavy plover]

have you never used AWS?

[vapid jay]

planning on picking up one more.. either Azure or AWS after I finish this exam

[heavy plover]

wait

what

why

[vapid jay]

I have used EC2 a couple of times

[heavy plover]

what are you doing?

[vapid jay]

what do you mean

[heavy plover]

getting cloud certs from multiple clouds makes no sense unless you have a specific purpose

especially because cloud certs are a meme

[vapid jay]

you think so?

[heavy plover]

as someone who has multiple cloud certs, they're a meme. They only look good on my resume

I literally do not remember anything from the first exam I took

[vapid jay]

well that was the reason lol

[mint citrus]

Are there certs for devops?

[heavy plover]

I remember AWS stuff that I use everyday

[mint citrus]

But not like aws specific?

[heavy plover]

sorta

I have my Docker cert and that's a "core DevOp" cert

but what the fuck is a "core DevOp"

like, this is my point. Don't get certs just to get them because you won't remember anything unless you're using it

[mint citrus]

I know how to set these things up but I don't have any certs for it

[heavy plover]

Docker is a good DevOps cert because it's pretty much industry wide

[mint citrus]

Oh ill be using them

[heavy plover]

and I actually use Docker so I pretty much can apply all the knowledge from my cert

[mint citrus]

I've been doing Dev ops stuff for a while and kinda wanna go into it fully

[heavy plover]

Cloud certs are good for the cloud you use at work, but don't just get random cloud certs

so if your company uses AWS the AWS Solutions Architect is great

[mint citrus]

I wouldn't get the cert for the paper

I actually want to learn how to set these things up properly

I've only self taught and experimented

[heavy plover]

I mean, what technologies do you use right now?

That's what it's gonna come down to

I got docker certified to show I have a high competency with it

I used docker for 1.5 years before getting it

[mint citrus]

It's all bare metal here

[heavy plover]

mmmmmm

VMWare?

[mint citrus]

And I'm using docker swarm for production rn

[heavy plover]

how are you doing bare metal though?

Like literally just linux boxes?

or are you using VMWare?

[mint citrus]

Bith

Both

Internally it's esxi

[heavy plover]

do you ever setup the VMWare stuff or is that completely handled by a different team

[mint citrus]

But our production is on a ubutu server

[heavy plover]

Do you use Terraform, Ansible, Chef, etc?

any of that stuff

[mint citrus]

It's handled by a guy but I had to do it myself cause he didn't know how

I don't use any of that

[heavy plover]

Uhhhh

uhhhh

I don't think you're doing DevOps???

[mint citrus]

What am I doing then?

I've setup a router and 3 servers on esxi

[heavy plover]

do you code?

[mint citrus]

And threw docker on them

[heavy plover]

like, at work not in your free time

[mint citrus]

Yes I'm a software engineer

But I'm also setting up the servers there as well

[heavy plover]

Ok ok cool. So you're a software engineer, you've got some experience setting up stuff with ESXI

so like, how do you deploy your code?

you write code, what do you do next

[mint citrus]

Oh I have droneci run tests and push the image to an image repo

[heavy plover]

okokok word

so you're sorta there

[vapid jay]

can you tell me something about container registry

[heavy plover]

CI/CD is part of DevOps

[mint citrus]

Then docker swarm using swarmpit automatically pulls new images

[heavy plover]

ahhh ok I got ya

[mint citrus]

So its all automated

[heavy plover]

so, you do CI/CD for your application it sounds like

and you use docker for your application

[mint citrus]

Yeah

[heavy plover]

is that correct?

ok

but now your VMWare infrastructure

it does not sound like you have any of that as Infrastructure as Code

[mint citrus]

Yes that's correct

[heavy plover]

okok

[mint citrus]

It's fairly basic tbh

[heavy plover]

you're sorta there devops wise

so you said you setup 3 routers on ESXI

[mint citrus]

One router

3 servers

[heavy plover]

here's how you'd do that in a "DevOps" way

use hashicorp terraform (it's free and open source)

[mint citrus]

Well 4 since the router is a server itself

[heavy plover]

you're going to write a module that deploys 3 ESXI servers and your router

and now you have infrastructure as code

you could actually do that in just 1 terraform file to start, and then go back and do it by best practices with modularization

but just to start learning infrastructure as code you wouldn't need to do that

I'd say CI/CD is about half of work in DevOps, but the other half which is really important is Infrastructure as Code

you need to be able to tear down entire environments and stand them back up in under 15 minutes (that's the google standard iirc)

and I understand you aren't Google, neither is my company. I think ours would take around 2-3 hours total. But, you get the idea

[mint citrus]

Yeah I do

[heavy plover]

that'd be something cool to look into if you wanna go full on devops everything

pretty soon you'll automate the SysAdmin out of a job ;)

[mint citrus]

I guess I know how to do it but not through the things like terraform

[heavy plover]

Terraform is pretty dangerous because it is really really easy once you learn the basic layout

it also lets you have multi-environment setups

so you can replicate Prod, Test, Staging, and Dev very easily

which is a big point of devops

[mint citrus]

Wdym by multi environment?

Oh I see

[heavy plover]

the whole entire goal of DevOps is that your Development environment is exactly the same as your Production environment

and all the inbetweens

[mint citrus]

Well yeah that's why I'm using docker

[heavy plover]

right, so in your case docker alone might do that and you're ok

[mint citrus]

Before docker there was vagrant

I've used that and whatever was with it to set it up

[heavy plover]

wait, so does your company not care about the underlying OS?

[mint citrus]

They actually wanted to use windows

And I told them no

Their deployment before I came was copy pasting code to a Windows server running iis

But yeah I guess they don't really care

[heavy plover]

lmao this is the third time I've been told about iis today

[mint citrus]

We are still using iis

[heavy plover]

my buddies company is too

[mint citrus]

I just moved the actual code to docker

But iis still in front

[heavy plover]

the docker iis image?

there's a official microsoft docker image for iis

i found it for my friend haha

[mint citrus]

Ew

No iis is running on a Windows server that's running in esxi

[vapid jay]

I have questions

I'm not fully aware of what jenkins is for.. afaik it's for running build tests on versions of code
so I want to ask, if I use autodevops from gitlab for CI/CD, will it be an issue to use jenkins later if I migrate out of gitlab?

also.. what's a container registry..

[mint citrus]

A registry of containers

ducks

[vapid jay]

so images on a repo sort of?

[heavy plover]

No it would not be a problem to migrate out of Gitlab for CICD

but GitLab CICD is better than Jenkins imo

it's easier to modify/use, is feature rich, big fan of GitLab

[vapid jay]

when doing such a migration.. what exactly is being migrated?

[mint citrus]

Gitlab is great

[heavy plover]

you wouldn't be migrating really

[mint citrus]

It's slow tho

[heavy plover]

you'd be switching

[vapid jay]

I was of the opinion that pipelines are set up in the UI.. and only code is migrated

[heavy plover]

your gitlab code will not transfer to jenkins

[vapid jay]

so how to configure pipelines on jenkins again

[heavy plover]

gitlab uses a specific yaml format with keywords for it's configuration

[mint citrus]

Circleci is great

[heavy plover]

yeah you'd have to re-learn how to configure pipelines in Jenkins

[vapid jay]

configuration for? the CI/CD?

ahh ok

is that hard

[heavy plover]

nah

[mint citrus]

It takes time tho

[heavy plover]

few days of work to learn the syntax

[vapid jay]

ok

[heavy plover]

then just doing all the pipelines you need

depends on how complex your CI/CD is as well

[vapid jay]

ok.. so when do I actually need a container registry

[heavy plover]

when you have containers

GitLab has a built in container registry

[vapid jay]

do I need one if I'm building applications on containers on a private cluster..

[heavy plover]

yes

[mint citrus]

Wait wait

[heavy plover]

container registry is just for container images

[mint citrus]

What exactly is a container registry?

[heavy plover]

it lets you source control your images in a private way

[mint citrus]

Is that like your images?

[heavy plover]

Dockerhub.io

[vapid jay]

can you show me where on gitlab I can see the container registry

[heavy plover]

that is the worlds largest container registry :p

[vapid jay]

I just like.. need to keep stuff private

[heavy plover]

a container registry is literally just a place to store your images

[mint citrus]

Oh ok

So image repo

[heavy plover]

yes

[vapid jay]

why dont they just call it a repo

[heavy plover]

that is a container registry

[vapid jay]

goddamit

[heavy plover]

because you're registering the container to specified users

people who have access to it

and can put meta-data on it

[vapid jay]

hmm no comprende

[heavy plover]

a repository can be a lot of things

but a registry is just a bit more concise I presume

[vapid jay]

ok then..

[heavy plover]

doesn't matter though

[mint citrus]

Makes sense

[heavy plover]

I actually just got to do some cool stuff today I think for DevOps

I'm on an SRE team and we have an issue of too much silo'd information

and idk but this idea just sorta came to me

break up work on our Jira board as follows:

Messaging/Logging
Internal Tooling/Programming
Operations
CI/CD
Release

and so our new rule is 1 person is an anchor on each "silo" and they determine workload/scope of their silo for a sprint. And you cannot be an anchor on a silo for more than 2 consecutive sprints

I don't know if this is already a practice or not, but I think it's pretty neat

[mint citrus]

my current job doesnt even use a ticket system 😭

they use local excel files that they have 😦 🔫

[heavy plover]

hey, excel is the original Kanban board :p

[mint citrus]

but its so un organized

[heavy plover]

oo I got one more section in my Python deep dive course before I build my first app

👀

[mint citrus]

we dont share the excel files. everyone just uses it for themselves

[heavy plover]

what

lmao

what's the purpose then

[mint citrus]

ikr

thats the whole issue I have

im using a ticket system for mine (similar to jira)

I wish they would follow

[heavy plover]

your job sounds wild

[mint citrus]

it is pretty wild

I look forward to leaving

[heavy plover]

my buddy is a fullstack dev rn at a company who hired and fired a devops engineer in the same week

lmao

so now he's stuck doing his own devops stuff and he doesn't know any of it

i told him he just needs to come to the Valley in a year and make $300,000

[mint citrus]

I was doing devops stuff for fun

I had my own dedi for a while and learned mainly from that

[heavy plover]

if you like the fullstack + devops stuff have you ever looked at Google SWE in SRE

or Netflix?

[mint citrus]

SRE?

[heavy plover]

site reliability engineering

it's a Software Engineer who cares about infrastructure and devops processes

google it, they made it :p

they have a pretty good guide on it

[mint citrus]

ah i see

ive been moving around lately

im planning to move back to the US and get a good job there. im not sure if I want to work at a huge company tho

Im curious how to get into a devops role. because ive just been software engineer the whole time but have nothing really to prove for my devops stuff (except maybe now that im setting it all up at current company)

[shut geyser]

"I have nothing to prove for my devops except all the devops stuff i do"

[mint citrus]

i just cant show any of it

i could technically be lying on my resume

[shut geyser]

It's not really showable no ?

[mint citrus]

I mean I could tell them how I would setup something but my job description says nothing about devops stuff

I think my title is actually "Application Developer"

I think thats the trouble ive had because before I got this job I was applying to a few devops positions and got 0 call backs

[shut geyser]

Just put in your CV what you actually done

If you've been hired to do X and you do also Y it's not lying that you did Y

[vapid jay]

yeah, you could list them under projects.. the keywords are gonna show up on the parser anyway

[mint citrus]

yeah thats what ive been doing

maybe not enough buzzwords

[heavy plover]

I went from Jr Software Engineer to DevOps Engineer

it's fine if you're app developer or whatever

[mint citrus]

i think it might be easier to move within the company

or maybe its because im applying in another country. that probably has something to do with it as well

[shut geyser]

Yeah my partner is in Paris and she was planning to move to NL but kept getting offers from Paris.

In the end she just got a remote job from a Parisian startup hue

[mint citrus]

I wasnt able to get a remote job

I was thinking that might be best. Most of them I was turned down because of my location

[torpid bolt]

people in interview will usually have questions about the relevant experience in your CV even if you can't show the details, being able to discuss problems you encountered, decisions you took and their consequences, is probably even better than just being able to show the thing.

[shut geyser]

You have to pass the HR screen for that

I pass the HR screen because they're like WTF

[torpid bolt]

haha, that's one way of doing it i guess 😄

i've not experienced it first hand, but i've read devs/lead/cto express their surprise when discovering perfectly good profiles never passed the HR filter because they didn't understand them

(sometime people they had themselves recommended to apply, because they knew they were good fits)

[shut geyser]

That doesn't surprise me

A friend of mine shared me an offer of his

Had to find the HR add

just random buzzwords

full dutch with no english

He was like "it's nothing that i asked!"

[frigid cradle]

I thought of getting a job at IBM since my uncle works there in a high position. but i'd have to move in order to

[timid mirage]

Cold call recruiters are the worst.

[hushed kestrel]

They are

I signed up for an interview 1h long phone screen with a technical recruiter for zoox for 20 minutes ago

It's a video call, they didn't provide a conference link, and when i called the recruiter just now asking what's up, they didn't pick up their cell / office phone

They just called and were like "Traffic " Like, jk, okay.

[half knoll]

does anyone here make mobile apps

i have question about uploading to app store

[opal perch]

just ask mate but probably not here, this is careers @half knoll

[ember prawn]

Looks like all IT roads would lead to cybersecurity

[half knoll]

ok

[heavy plover]

New game I'm playing with my employer

Everytime I have to "sit tight" because I'm stuck waiting on other people so I can finish my tickets I do algorithm practice

Google here I come

[grand tinsel]

@heavy plover Are you familiar with http://AdventOfCode.com ?

[heavy plover]

The Advent calendar with programming questions and puzzles

[grand tinsel]

just thought it might be worth pointing it out if you didn't know it existed, I had a lot of fun with it in the run up to christmas

[mint citrus]

I find it hard to pass HR filters for larger companies

[little prairie]

How to express experience to clients in situations in which I haven't built something similar to what they need. But I have extensive knowledge in the tech stack required to achieve what they want built.

[zenith inlet]

@vapid jay are you asking how much a job in NYC can pay, or how 100k isn't a lot?

[vapid jay]

The first, but would u be fine with explaining both?

[zenith inlet]

for the first, the answer is "it depends on the job"

for the second, the issue with big cities is cost of living

even if you make 100k/yr, rent will cost more

[vapid jay]

Oh

[zenith inlet]

so will other things

[vapid jay]

What would be a good place then?

[zenith inlet]

that depends on what you want out of life

i can't tell you that

you have to figure it out and re-evaluate it all the time

BUT

you said you're not even in college yet?

[vapid jay]

Yeah

[zenith inlet]

basically for now study, get good grades, have fun doing some projects

[fleet wharf]

all of what pushfoo, said. i just wanted to point out that an arbitrary wage number isn't the whole equation. a six-figure salary is nice on paper, but when you're broke because life costs 98K/year...its not so nice.

[vapid jay]

Yeah

[zenith inlet]

once you get to college , you might decide you want to do something else

[vapid jay]

I guess how much does the avg softwhere engineer pay a yr?

I’m p set on it tho

[zenith inlet]

"avg softwhere engineer " is a meaningless phrase

[vapid jay]

I’ve changed it a lot b4, but I like doing this the most out of everything I’ve tried

Sorry

[zenith inlet]

its ok

theres people who do extremely fiddly work with assembly in embedded areas

[fleet wharf]

what level are you thinking? entry, senior, senior VP... those are often lumped together in "avg salary" numbers, but they are vastly different.

[zenith inlet]

some of that is management, not eng,sommer :p

but yeah

[fleet wharf]

right...but it carries the title. 😉

[vapid jay]

Entry level

[zenith inlet]

a specialist in a dead language that is the only one who can fix the COBOL systems banks use? they can demand 600k/yr

but theyre rare

and most of them are retiring

and nobody wants to do that work

[fleet wharf]

honestly, i'd surf locations you think you'd like on a job site, then look into cost of living, quality of life, etc.

hehe. COBOL will never die.

[zenith inlet]

i think they're too early to even be thinking about that salary stuff

like way too early

[fleet wharf]

i agree, mostly. get into software because you enjoy it. but, understanding what life will be like in that situation isn't a bad idea.

[vapid jay]

Due to personal reasons I want to move out and get a job in software engineering as soon as I can, so I wanna know a lot of stuff in the future

[zenith inlet]

if you have issues with family rn and can't rely on help for college, imo do your best to keep grades up

[fair sky]

I am also currently at high school and I also think about which IT company should I join

😁

[zenith inlet]

if you're in the US, a lot of private colleges aren't worth the money. you'll end up with a lot of student debt

state schools generally have good value for the dollar

and if you count as an in state student, you can often get a great price on tuition

[fair sky]

Hmm

[zenith inlet]

the other thing you can do is get some prereq classes out of the way at a community college and transfer later

[fair sky]

Thanks for the advise

[zenith inlet]

but you need to be driven and organized to pull it off

[vapid jay]

I plan to go to community college 2 yrs for associates then transfer to SUNY

For my bachelors

[zenith inlet]

if you end up dead set on a specific school and its not in your state, read up on what in-state tuition rates are, and then figure out how long it takes to count as in-state for that state and school

@vapid jay do research on the courses at your uni ahead of time btw

figure out which classes are hard and which are easy

[vapid jay]

By uni you mean community college right

Bc I habe already

[zenith inlet]

any

[vapid jay]

Have*

[zenith inlet]

you can often soften the pain from brutal classes by taking a bunch of easier ones at the same time

and try to game the classes that satisfy prereqs

[vapid jay]

Yeah

My senior year in Hs I’m in a college program so I’m taking one of the electives this yt

Yr*

I just got worried since finding a job that pays well when I graduate college since I rly want too

[zenith inlet]

if you focus on getting good grades and doing projects, i don't think you'll have issues finding a job that pays well

well, if oracle wins their court case then things might get a bit chaotic for a bit

seriously though, focus on the fundamentals for now, and build stuff you find interesting

maybe study up on algorithms early

[vapid jay]

Algorithms?

I’m in the almost middlepart of learn python zero to hero on udemy

And I’m up to tulles

Tuples

So I’m still learning

[zenith inlet]

get more comfortable with python first

its a good first language and will let you do a bit of everything

[vapid jay]

Oki

[zenith inlet]

algorithms & data structures are a more general set of ideas about how to describe and solve problems, but imo its a good idea to be solid on a language before you start studying those

[vapid jay]

I’ll try to get a udemy course on algorithms then after I finish this

And then How much would entry level software eng pay on avg a year?

[zenith inlet]

it depends on the company, region, and specialization

and other factors

i don't know why you're focusing on the money. if its a means to a larger goal that really matters to you, thats one thing.

if it's because you've been led to believe that the money alone will make you happy, i have to warn you that just chasing a number is a great way to end up miserable

what sort of work and problems do you find interesting?

[vapid jay]

Not really, it’s just I want to have a nice place to live and have a job I rlly like

Wdym?

I don’t want to end up miserable, but I don’t want to have an underpaying job U know

[zenith inlet]

then try things and figure out what sort of work you enjoy doing, and be sure to work on your negotiation skills

[vapid jay]

What do u mean by work and problems tho? I’n python?

[zenith inlet]

much more generally than just python

try doing something web related at some point, see if you like it. try different roles in a team, and different technologies.

python is a good start since it can help do a little of just about anything

[vapid jay]

How would I be able 2 do that?

[fair sky]

hey I have developed a website using HTML, CSS3, Javascript how should I add python to it

[mint citrus]

import 'python'

hides

btw this doesnt belong in #career-advice

[fair sky]

in html file only

oh yes

[vapid jay]

Can u check dm? @zenith inlet

[zenith inlet]

@vapid jay was in another window, i think that question can be fielded here tbh

@fair sky use the same skills to feed data to a site from python on the server side

look into flask

@vapid jay you mind reposting that question here?

[vapid jay]

No

What r some activists or projects I can involve myself in to learn more? And what’s a good way a job as one right out of college?

[zenith inlet]

activists or activities?

[fair sky]

ugh leave it that will be complex and I'm not afraid of trying but of being dissqualified for using these things

[zenith inlet]

what

[fair sky]

as I'm not taught about flask and server side things

[zenith inlet]

what do you mean disqualified?

[vapid jay]

Activities* my bad

[fair sky]

the website I am making for my HS project

[zenith inlet]

well theres not much for python to do on the front end directly

[fair sky]

huh I know

[zenith inlet]

if the school project has requirements and you think the teacher might dq you for using something not covered by the class, meet the reqs and nothing more, enjoy the good grade

then build something you like afterwards using the same skills

@vapid jay imo build some sort of interactive site that gets data from a flask back end

[vapid jay]

Is it bad I don’t know what u mean by that besides the word website?

[zenith inlet]

you're just starting so ofc not

[vapid jay]

Should I finishes learning python before I do that

[zenith inlet]

work on learning the python basics definitely

theres a lot of the python language and included libraries, so don't feel like you have to learn all of the stuff that ships with the interpreter

how much html and css have you done before?

[vapid jay]

None :<

I’m really new

[zenith inlet]

thats fine

take some time to do that eventually one day

generally to do web dev in a "full stack" capacity (disclaimer: I kinda hate the term tbh) you're going to want some experience in:

1. a back end language
2. html/css
3. javascript

if you do nodejs , js can also be your back end language

[little prairie]

You hate the term full stack?

Why?

[zenith inlet]

because companies turned it into a buzzword and excuse to try to hire 1 person to do the jobs of an entire team

[little prairie]

That's what the term is though..

I hate it when people need a Wix or wordpress done and ask for Full stack devs though

[zenith inlet]

yes

thats the point

[little prairie]

It is a buzzword i guess that most people don't know what it means

[zenith inlet]

yes, like "big data" or "machine learning"

[vapid jay]

wut

[zenith inlet]

A lot of people misuse those words

and try to apply the ideas where they have no place because it's trendy

[vapid jay]

sure.. and they can't handle it because it involves advanced math or solid experience in programming + cloud

[zenith inlet]

no you misunderstand what I mean

some business person will say "we need AI to understand our customers" when they really need a spreadsheet and linear regression

the buzzwords are sometimes so overused that they've lost meaning

@vapid jay the point is that you shouldn't be too hard on yourself while you're still learning, and remember that job listings can kinda be a wish list, not who'll they'll actually hire

[vapid jay]

Yeah

I think I’m just overthinking bc I feel a bit pressured to have one after college

[zenith inlet]

its a bit early if you're not even in college yet

[long meteor]

I need to find a job but im 33 and got my degree 2 years ago and I'm strugling to find work. I'm trying to teach myself DJango would this be a good start or is Flask the new daddy?#

[cosmic crow]

django @long meteor

[long meteor]

Okay Thanks 🙂

[cosmic crow]

np, gl :)

[little prairie]

I'd say both are good to learn. But a lot of companies are switching to Flask for python development.

[torpid bolt]

Both are good to learn and get work imho

[zenith inlet]

@long meteor IT support positions might be easier to get into depending on what your degree is in

[long meteor]

My degree is in Software Engineering

I was doing IT support before my degree and I don't really want to go back into it unless I have to.

[zenith inlet]

hm

[maiden carbon]

for a programming career am I better off learning C# or C++ or continuing woht Python or Kotlin?

[heavy plover]

Ooo are we shutting on buzzwords

Today all of my coworkers and I were making fun of our own job titles: DevOps Engineers or SRE

The further you get from the quality of a company like Google (the people who invented SRE) the worse it fucking gets

@maiden carbon you just named 3 highly used languages. You don't build a career around a language though

You build a career with your skillset

[maiden carbon]

I know but I saw a lot of jobs in the fields I want ot pursue ask for C# or C++ so I was wondering about the practical advantages ill get elarning python or kotlin

[heavy plover]

Python is currently the most popular language in the world and basically used in every sector of CS

But it doesn't matter. You're asking about learning a language not learning how to program or learning how to build good software

Which is what you should worry about

[gilded valley]

Its not unambiguously the most popular language in the world, but it is very popular

[heavy plover]

I don't think it's ambiguously the most popular

[gilded valley]

I mean, its not clear that its the most popular at all. I think its quite likely that a lot more lines of Java are in production and being written than lines of Python

[heavy plover]

Yeah, and it really isn't relevant anyway

[gilded valley]

Additionally, Python when it is used is often used to interface with other systems moreso than something like Java

[heavy plover]

It's a meme metric

My point stands, don't learn a language learn to program and how to build apps

[gilded valley]

I think its important not to sell Python as this all encompassing thing that is used everywhere

But yeah, that point is very true

and if you're going to do that, you may as well do it in a language you enjoy, then let someone pay you to learn the language you don't enjoy

[heavy plover]

Python runs everywhere except 3 billion devices

Those run on Java

[zenith inlet]

2.7 still can run on the java devices with jython

@maiden carbon depends on what sort of work you want to do

[heavy plover]

lmaoo, touche pushfoo

[zenith inlet]

its true though

some industries lean toward microsoft products

others might prefer Java but are OS agnostic

others use a huge mix of stuff

[torpid bolt]

If some of these 3billions are android i have news for you

[marsh wind]

Like... Kivy? xD

[high coyote]

re: above, jython doesn't work on the android java virtual machine, it could probably target it but I don't think anyone ever did the port

[indigo sleet]

It couldn't target it before because Dalvik didn't have JNI

But ART does

[high coyote]

That does't sound right, unless there's more than one jni

[torpid bolt]

yeah i'm pretty sure we used jni in dalvik days, even before we had pyjnius, we used it just a lot more manually,

[shadow moss]

There is a ton of java and C# jobs, python tends to be more the language used by non programmers to program

And a lot of it just first mover advantage

[radiant moon]

harrumph

that may be true, but I still don't like it 🙂

[zenith blade]

Then don't do it

[shadow moss]

Java is crazy popular at my company because you can hire a bunch of offshore who know it

[zenith blade]

It depends what you are doing

[shadow moss]

And we are older company so there is a ton of java around already

Depends on what?

Java can do just about everything

[zenith blade]

Like what the company does

Data science is hella easy on python

[shadow moss]

You can do data science on java

[zenith blade]

But I guess it's too much for the company to switch

[shadow moss]

Just most data scientists don’t want to learn java because screw that

[zenith blade]

Python doesnt have brackets

Takes up less memory

Clearly a good reason to switch

[shadow moss]

And we do a ton of data analysis

[zenith blade]

/s

[shadow moss]

But either python that writes to JSON API for application

Or programmer turns data scientist algorithms into java code

Programmers are “cheap”

[radiant moon]

we are?

[shadow moss]

They are when you are American company using 20k/USD/ yr offshore programmers

[zenith blade]

I mean if it works it works

Don't need to pay 100k salaries if you can get the same work for 80k less

[shadow moss]

It “works” for that quarter

All about that stock price!

Look at how “cheap” our costs are!

It takes you a year to launch products but you tell the board it was active 3 quarters ago

[zenith blade]

Huh

[radiant moon]

I'm sure a 20k/year programmer produces excellent code

backs away slowly

[shut geyser]

I would like to see a code quality metric per K spent on devs

[radiant moon]

I'd expect a very rough, but noticeable, positive correlation

[gilded valley]

Code quality is relatively unimportant compared to overall structure. I think its very possible for a team of 1/2 good devs, and the rest a bit rubbish to still produce very high quality software

[shadow moss]

Charlie, high quality software can be fudged a ton too

esp with cloud these days

[gilded valley]

I'm defining high quality by how well implemented it is, rather than what it seems like to the end user

[shadow moss]

meh, it runs, doesn't matter

[gilded valley]

If its gonna sit in production for 10+ years, it really does matter from a business perspective

[shadow moss]

ha ha ha

no business person give a crap about 10 years

What about this quarters profits!

just throw more compute at it, cloud is cheap in short term!

and yes, this business stuff developers should at least understand

take one semester of business, it's enlightening and frightening at same time

[torpid bolt]

the relationship between user experience and code quality is less strong than we wish it was, and sometime it's the opposite, as efforts that go in code quality could have gone in solving bugs and doing better features

but yes, code quality does help with maintenability

just make sure that "clean" doesn't mean "so specificaly designed for the task that it's basically impossible to extend or refactor"

[vapid jay]

thinking ahead while coding is big, yeah

if the time complexity doesnt need to be optimized then no reason to spend time on it really

but if youre writing soemthing thats dogshit and cant be maintained by anyone other than you in this current time and not even you in 30 minutes then yeah prob should spend some time on that

[vapid jay]

Is it possible to get an internship while you’re still a freshman vs sophomore? My uni offers a chance (1 year) to have an internship in companies but it’s in junior year. I kinda want to have more experience and improve my portofolio, what’s my best bet to do that?
P.S. Pet Projects are one of the best way to improve my portofolio but my communication and teamwork skills suck, so that’s one of the thing i’m trying to improve through an internship

edit: freshman or sophomore*

[solemn valley]

at least here in germany its quite a common practice for universities to offer a semester or more where you do an internship. The only way to get more experience and improve your protfolio is to do practical work. If you get to a nice company your colleagues are prolly gonna help you out with the stuff youre missing out on and you can improve based on that

[gilded valley]

From the UK perspective, its quite feasible to get an internship between year 1 and 2, and I think the same is true in the US. Lots of companies will have postings online.

[vapid jay]

Ok thank you guys for the comment! I hope i will find it in my country 🙂

[abstract vine]

from unique import comment

[vapid jay]

how do you guys find the motivation to do stuff at home?

I didnt know where to put this

since I figure it's tied with doing work and burning out

[inland seal]

oh, like learn code by yourself at home?

[vapid jay]

just working on projects at home

idk I think this is wrong place actually

[inland seal]

well, if youre at a loss of motivation or you feel burnt out after coding for a while, you should take a small break

(unless its your job)

maybe try to make something youre interested in? or something that might seem fun to you

[vapid jay]

If i want to be a software engineer would I be able to get a job in Britain even tho I’m in America?

Or computer engineer

[shadow moss]

Working for American Division of UK company is no problem

working for UK company directly would generally require a visa unless you are EU/UK citizen

you might be able to get around it by setting up US sole proprietorship and "contracting" to UK company

but you will still be living in US

[vapid jay]

Would there ever be a possibly of living in UK/EU?

[shadow moss]

no idea

that's entirely personal

[cedar knoll]

@shadow moss you mentioned that taking business classes would be enlightening for software devs, can you give me a few pointers of topics... I am very interested

[shadow moss]

coyote, just how business think

like why they will fire you in instant to make some numbers even if it seems long term dumb

[cedar knoll]

Ah I see, i thought that "taking a business class" consisted of something more substantial

like taking a semester, or hours to learn it

[shadow moss]

coyote, funding, accounting principles and like

[cedar knoll]

thanks, i'll look into it

[vapid jay]

@vapid jay could look for international companies and see if theyd send you out..

[shadow moss]

it's also exposure to your possible future bosses

[vapid jay]

we have guys in switzerland that are americans but moved to the swiss office

[shadow moss]

they think differently then you do

[vapid jay]

Is it harder than it sounds?

[cedar knoll]

That's for sure

[vapid jay]

How hard would it be compared to like

it depends maddie

Getting a job in America as software engineer

it depends what company youre working for, how much swing you have with them to get things your way

honestly i dont know anything about european markets

[shadow moss]

maddie, what is your citizenship now?

[vapid jay]

maybe there are less out there because everyone wants to come here

would you call yourself a cynic rabbit?

[shadow moss]

coyote, that's why I recommend it really, exposure to different side of business you never considered

brian, completely

[vapid jay]

it seems like you really hate The Man™️

US @shadow moss

[shadow moss]

I'll also note I left college when blackberries were the "smartphone" and only carried by executives

[cedar knoll]

I think enlightening yourself on how business people make decisions would help devs and vice versa for business

[vapid jay]

it should be the opposite

that was @ coyote

[shadow moss]

I work for "The Man" and live really well for it, I'm just saying, I've been on teams that completely let go to make profit targets, I've watched companies offshore divisions because it's cheaper despite code we were getting was not all that good

[cedar knoll]

what do you mean opposite? I said vice versa

[vapid jay]

“The Man”?

Wdym

[cedar knoll]

The government

[shadow moss]

No

like big corporations

I don't like to think of myself as cynic but realist thank you very much 😛

coyote, understanding the business side only really helps as dev if you move into management/"product owner" role

as true developer, it just helps you understand what is going on and mainly the signs that you might be personally affected

[vapid jay]

Which types of companies would give an option of being able to work in the UK/EU

[shadow moss]

any company with UK/EU presence

generally they don't move over junior developers

so you will need to get some experience since you will cost them money in visas and like

[vapid jay]

Yeah

[shadow moss]

get hired with international company

get some experience in multinational team and if you do well, express desire to move internationally

[cedar knoll]

Yes, as much as I enjoy programming, it will only get you so far career wise

[shadow moss]

and maybe it will happen

you can go pretty far as programmer making decent money, I have as SRE/Ops guy

it's more when your boss is like "Do really stupid technical thing" you will understand

but management isn't a bad way to go either

[cedar knoll]

I was a little worried about not doing what I enjoy

[shadow moss]

work can be work

[radiant moon]

I suspect my job is about as enjoyable as I'm likely to find -- and I really only enjoy maybe half of it

the rest is kinda tedious, lotta meetings, etc

[golden trail]

anyone here live in newzealand ?

asking about careers while studying university

[limber rampart]

its best to just go ahead and ask the question

[faint plover]

Hey guys I have been planning on going into a CS degree for quite a while. However, I talked to a local software developer and he stated that employers will often prefer someone who worked on courses through Udacity, collaborated with other starting developers and who has a portfolio to show experience. I was just about to enroll in the program tomorrow but now I need to re-evaluate whether I should go this route instead.

Anyone's thoughts on this are welcome.

[radiant moon]

depends on the employer. Personally, as someone who has done some interviews, I'd be impressed by someone who skipped school, and instead went to work in a computer-y job.

ymmv.

[faint plover]

Hmmm. I do have a masters in a completely unrelated field (I have been a teacher for six years). So I didn't necessarily "skip" school.

[zenith inlet]

i think they may have meant they prefer someone who has an unrelated degree but taught themself

it probably varies by company

[radiant moon]

no, I meant I think education is largely a scam.

I'm mostly serious

granted it's a minority opinion 🙂

[zenith inlet]

i meant the employer, not you

[faint plover]

Well, offby1 I am with you on that one, though I don't know what employers think.

[radiant moon]

I'm talking as the representative of an employer.

[faint plover]

Oh.

[radiant moon]

I do hiring interviews occasionally.

[marsh wind]

that employers will often prefer someone who worked on courses through Udemy
I am not sure how valued is Udemy, since you can pretty much buy most courses on sales for 10-20$ and in 10m get a certificate by checking all videos 😂 So I think it is a tiny bonus which matter only if you have these:
collaborated with other starting developers and who has a portfolio to show experience.

[faint plover]

Sorry, I meant Udacity.

[radiant moon]

I personally would skip right over Udemy and stuff like that on a resume.

HR, on the other hand, might pay attention (they filter stuff before I see it)

[zenith inlet]

some schools are worth it but they're usually cheap state schools with hardcore depts that drill people in CS stuff, and you need to want to do research or highly theoretical stuff for that

and yeah HR is uh

[marsh wind]

That is not to say tere are no good udemy courses - there is indeed quality content there

[zenith inlet]

not great at making judgements on technical skill

[faint plover]

I am taking an actually Udemy course right now (but yeah, I meant Udacity)

[limber rampart]

I think the general consensus is that theres a lot you can learn from those courses, but just having done them is not enough to prove your ability

[marsh wind]

not great at making judgements on technical skill
that is understatement when it comes to so many of HRs.... On one phone screen HR dismissed me entirely because they kinda did not understand that programming skill != programming language, and that language is a tool to get job done

[zenith inlet]

im trying to be polite

and yeah i've had that too

well, similar

[faint plover]

@limber rampart So I suppose the question is, should I spend money on a formal degree to prove my skills or should I develop a portfolio to develop my skills?

[zenith inlet]

where would you spend your money? if you're in the US and can get into a cheap but good state school that can hook you up with good recruiting events, it might be worth it

if its a private college don't waste your money

[faint plover]

WGU

[zenith inlet]

never heard of it

[limber rampart]

I cannot answer that question, I can tell you my experience - I have a BSc in CS and it has taught me so much, given me incredible opportunities and made me love the field, but I also know people that have gone through the course and either dropped out in the second year because they weren't willing to put the work in or somehow finished with a 2.1 / 3rd barely having learnt anything

In my opinion getting a degree is extremely worth it if you're actually interested in learning

It also depends on how financially viable it is for you given your situation and where you live

[faint plover]

Good input @limber rampart thank you.

It is an online univeristy.

[zenith inlet]

hm idk then

access to recruiting events is one of the big things that makes uni worth it imo

[heavy plover]

I'll 100% say getting a BS in CS changed my life

Not to be too sappy, but I grew up in a single family low income home and getting a degree has already got me to a point in life where I make more than my parents

[radiant moon]

of all the majors you might take, CS seems most likely to actually teach you something

[heavy plover]

yeah

Accounting, CS, and medical stuff

really the only college degrees that can change your life overnight because those degrees all translate directly into amazing careers

[radiant moon]

where by "overnight" we mean "four years and many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars"

[heavy plover]

Kinda

it's not like you're only spending those 4 years to get a job after

there's a lot more you're doing in college than just that

college as a whole was a important place for me to mature and grow as a person

but also, a lot of other college majors require more work than the degree

[limber rampart]

yes this is another aspect, university is just a cool place to be

[faint plover]

But I mean, it's online so I feel like that is kind of different.

[radiant moon]

I loved everything about college, except for the classes

I personally suspect I'd have matured and grown a lot more had I chosen to just get a job, instead of going to school. But maybe that's just me

[faint plover]

Where would I go online to collaborate with other people for coding projects?

[radiant moon]

well, github, obviously; but I doubt that's what you meant

[faint plover]

I mean, maybe it's what I meant. Are there forums where I can go "Hey I am working on this project." there? @radiant moon

[radiant moon]

not that I can think of

[faint plover]

OK.

[radiant moon]

traditionally, you (somehow) find a project on github that interests you, and you submit a bit of code

you can of course put your own projects up there, but I don't know that they provide a nice way for you to advertise it, and call for contributions

[limber rampart]

you are always more than welcome to contribute to @flat anvil or @inner wren , or the website, all repos are on github and have plenty issues open that welcome contributors

and you can ask for help in #dev-contrib any time, we'll be happy to help you get started

[radiant moon]

one of these days I need to get over my fear of async, and write a discord bot, like everyone else

[torpid bolt]

it's easier to find a project that needs collaborators, than collaborators looking for a project

(and i mean, a lot easier)

[tired hill]

Yes!

[torpid bolt]

if someone knows how to do async network, i'd love some help with implementing an asyncio api to my oscpy lib for kivy, as of now it works very well, but the server is only working using threads, you don't really have a choice, last time i looked i didn't find references on how to use select with async, and maybe it's just the wrong way to look at it, but hey, that's offtopic so i'll cut here 😛

[tired hill]

and you probably learn a lot more by contributing to an existing project rather than making something from scratch

[vapid jay]

Can I ask u a question in a dm? @heavy plover

[shadow moss]

@faint plover For sure don't go back for CompSci with masters in something else

offby1, I mean, you don't have to use async with job queuing system 😉

Take some Udemy courses, and apply for Jr Developer jobs, you will have hard time at first, but most HR departments have "Do they have bachelor from University?" Checkbox

[faint plover]

@shadow moss so what are you saying I should do?

[shadow moss]

do cheap bootcamp

you have masters, you are in really decent position

there are plenty of companies looking for diverse educational backgrounds because a bunch of CS majors coding results in really good code that users hate to use

like our UI guy has BA in History from Purdue

[gilded valley]

I know specifically IBM likes to hire people from a wide range of backgrounds - or at least their PR is that they do - music and history are two which I remember being draws for them

[vapid jay]

IBM is having a hard time hiring talent

they're looking internally at non technical people to fill technical roles..

[gilded valley]

I'm not sure how happy I'd be as a grad working alongside someone from a music background. The idea is that they're more creative, but I feel like implicit in that is that someone from a STEM background isn't creative

which I strongly disagree with

and I can definitely see a world where someone with a music degree is largely uncreative

[torpid bolt]

a student of musicology can certainly be more a technical than creative person.

[dry sapphire]

I wouldn't really mind either way about a coworker's background

[gilded valley]

The background is irrelevant for once you've been working a while. But as grads, normally its just a program where all people are on equal footing, which is giving the CS grad the same work as people from non technical backgrounds

[shut geyser]

hurh, my home test didn't go well ; - ;

i completely panicked and lost my brain

wrote baby python

[marsh wind]

Happens

[shut geyser]

ah yeah but i'm bummed out, the job seemed in my skillset

i fumbled on the Python and took too much time when i could have done this normally in 10 lines and there was a biffy SQL part

Recruiter told it was just theorical

but turns out theorical meant "Write 10 SQL request on word with JOIN on 3 to 4 table simultaneously in the given time"

dissapointed in myself

[marsh wind]

oh.

[shut geyser]

inb4 oh meant you know what company i'm talking about

i was not fluent enough, i'm so frustrateeeeed

[marsh wind]

My probably most negative exp with interviews was the guy on tech interview who asked me why I even applied to the position

all seems like total fuck-up between recruiter and tech guy, since it should have been a recruiter's call to not send me on tech interview

rather then saying me that you seem a really good fit

[shut geyser]

ah yeah

i got a "did you even trained" when i resolved something on a whiteboard in a interview i thought i succeeded at

[marsh wind]

well mine was video call interview

and guy was just asking about my skills/experience

[shut geyser]

ah

Did he still gave you a chance ?

[marsh wind]

no

did not even give me a take-home test

he asked me something like "why have you even applied to this position?" and after my, imo rather logical answered in like 5 min he dismissed my candidature

[shut geyser]

still harsh, but didn't make you lose your time with a home test

[marsh wind]

well idk, I mean if I would ace home test maybe he would reconsider

[dry sapphire]

once I had a take-home test that required me to install software that would record me and my screen

that was dodgy.

[marsh wind]

huh

but.... why?

[dry sapphire]

presumably to prevent cheating.

oh, and the test was one of those where you have to read input with input and "return" results with print

good thing I was totally not interested

[shut geyser]

Home test should just be screening purpose

[shadow moss]

ColdEmber, don't count yourself out yet

and GM, we use company that requires software like that, just know that tech people hate that stuff as well

[shut geyser]

Ah i couldn't finish and i cringe everytime i think about my code

But erh they're recruiting Junior so competition might be worse