career-advice

[past gull]

S-adly

[summer roost]

If your friend is considering a job that's trying to pay below minimum wage, your friend should instead report that employer to the authorities - it would literally be criminal to pay that little.

it sounds like they're trying to offer a job that's exactly at minimum wage if you were to work 40 hours per week, and then asking your friend to underreport their hours.

which would result in your friend being paid only 2/3rds of minimum wage.

[past gull]

lets leave it man

he has done an appoinment with some guy

[summer roost]

if someone is trying to trap your friend into a below minimum wage job, that is not a good guy, and they should absolutely not accept that job, and they should absolutely instead report them to the authorities.

[serene kindle]

these underpaying things are really common...

i mean sure it's bad but it's not a shocking rare thing

[summer roost]

for things like dish washers or fruit pickers, unfortunately, yes. For things like web developers, I've never heard of it.

[serene kindle]

they just have different ways of doing it, for example, if you have seen the internships of people who work 2 days a week, and study 3 days a week? it's the same math

'part time internship new grad' = same numbers and logic

i seen it a lot of times in different places, for example: ' if you didn't put in hours outside work you'd be dropped out of the internship' etc, being 'expected to put in maximum time outside the work hours'

[summer roost]

Outside of internships, it would be criminal to ask someone to work 60 hours in a week and pay them $301/week

[serene kindle]

yes it's criminal but its a common practice i'm not defending it but it happens a lot everywhere

[summer roost]

... it seems like you are defending it?

I'm saying that, if an employer has offered a job that is paying below minimum wage, you should a) not accept that job, and b) instead report them to the authorities

you seem to be arguing otherwise

[past gull]

We will file an FRI

[summer roost]

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/contact/complaints is the relevant way to report that.

[past gull]

The average job in my area for a web developer is above 900$

[brittle thorn]

Good luck and help stop these evil employment schemes

[past gull]

It's basic rights

[serene kindle]

then what about these that pay even less
1.Account Manager $200 p/mo
3.Busieness Associate 357.00 Euro p/mo
5.UX designer $450p/moth
6.Animator (Not WFH) $700p/month

[summer roost]

those would also be criminal, if they're in the US.

[past gull]

He is not even well qualified he is mainly drop outs in different places

[summer roost]

Nevada's minimum wage is $9.75/hour, in fact. Someone getting paid $5/hour in Nevada would be getting paid only about half of what they're legally required to be paid.

[serene kindle]

full time $200/month is $0.15/hour

oops nvm it is $1.25/hour

[past gull]

Theese all are waste

Mostly government jobs

[summer roost]

I'm assuming that's either not in the US or not full time - but if it were in the US, and that were full time, that would be illegal.

[past gull]

Who cares

[summer roost]

I do - I'm strongly opposed to people being victimized

[brittle thorn]

Market drives prices...maybe there is too much labor chasing too few jobs

[smoky quest]

lots of people actually. Especially if you want a livable wage.
Also the government do care

[brittle thorn]

Yeah we should care

[past gull]

Guys don't rage

we will sort out

[summer roost]

I find predatory employers enraging. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

in most places in the US, it's quite difficult to survive on a full time job at minimum wage. Paying someone less than a minimum wage is completely unconscionable.

[smoky quest]

They would also set themselves up for abuse. If someone is willing to pay below minimum wage, then they have no idea how much further they will skirt with the law and the implications on them (employee), their taxes, retirement and healthcare

[past gull]

TRUEEEEE
PLS STOP GUYS I WILL TAKE BRUTAL ACTION AGAINST THE COMPANY

[brittle thorn]

There is the gig economy to consider too freelancers and those classed as contractors not employees to skirt benefits

[ivory sluice]

what's "gig economy"?
and is it really "skirting" if the company specifically hires someone as a contractor?

[delicate bane]

my friend is studying undergrad physics and they forced him to go through a python summer program

[smoky quest]

uber, door dash, etc.
They keep the benefits and upsides while pushing the costs and risks onto the "contractor"

[ivory sluice]

ah gig

not what i had in mind when i thought of a contractor lol

[delicate bane]

@vapid jay but for astrophysics you might have to do some matlab for image processing. it just depends on your research tbh

[smoky quest]

See also https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/11/25/bay-areas-doordash-to-pay-2-5-million-after-being-accused-of-stealing-drivers-tips/ as an example

[ivory sluice]

yeah. i was thinking more of the type of contractor that charges $200/hr

[smoky quest]

Not that type unfortunately

[summer roost]

the highly paid contractor is a mutually beneficial arrangement for both companies and contractors - it lets the company get experts to work on a problem without needing to maintain a team of in-house experts, and it lets the experts work on the problems they're best at while getting higher pay than they'd likely to get paid as an FTE, since they can charge a premium for the risk they're taking on by not being paid full time hours or benefits

[brittle thorn]

Yeah I had good side gigs like mentioned above

[ivory sluice]

in your experience did you ever have to deal with devs your employer contracted with less-than-normal competency? my dad recently offloaded one and was really frustrated with them. couldn't explain what they were working on, just always said they were debugging, didn't bother to learn the code base..

but debugging what they could not say

[brittle thorn]

But there is a downside for others in the gig economy

[ivory sluice]

he'd give them a task or small problem to solve and have to babysit them and coach them thru a solution, and they'd implement it incorrectly

[summer roost]

totally, but the gig economy isn't really on topic here - Uber and DoorDash "contractors" are definitely being taken advantage of by the companies, but that's not really software or Python related.

[summer roost]

I haven't personally had to deal with that, @ivory sluice, but I've had similar experience with in-house devs. It's not too uncommon to find someone who has successfully managed to acquire and (at least temporarily) retain a job that requires skills they don't have.

[smoky quest]

Are they from a large services company?
I have seen some form of negative correlation between the size of the company and the skill levels / returns of said contractors

[ivory sluice]

he was convinced they were a fraud lol. and yes iirc they were placed in his team by another company, not sure of its name or size

[summer roost]

they might have been a fraud, indeed - the number of frauds in software jobs is nowhere near as low as you'd wish

[ivory sluice]

hmm

[summer roost]

not least because it's not always easy to quickly tell where the line between, for instance, a reasonable amount of debugging and a complete lack of ability is.

[smoky quest]

it's also easier to conceal your shortcomings in a larger structure

[ivory sluice]

so my takeaway from this is "fake it til you make it but actually make it"

[summer roost]

and since contractors are brought in exactly when the company lacks in-house expertise, you might not have anyone in-house who's accurately able to judge the contractor's competency.

[smoky quest]

tbh, that works also for good reasons. It helps you convey more confidence and for people to trust you more and feel more like you know what you are doing and in control

And since you then get exposed to the problem at hand, you get more experience with it and actually do better at it

[summer roost]

one great takeaway here is that if you ever feel like a fraud, just know there are real frauds out there who are absolutely crushing it at defrauding people, and you probably shouldn't worry about being an accidental fraud

[ivory sluice]

oh, i also learned that he never had to use git until this company which he only joined a couple years ago. previous employer used cvs

i see that git was released in 2005, so fairly recently(?) but was still surprised to hear it's not universal

[summer roost]

DVCS's like git are a relatively recent invention, but SVN was the most common VCS before git took hold

[smoky quest]

perforce also has had a historical penetration in the enterprise

[ivory sluice]

what does the D in DVCS stand for ?

[summer roost]

Distributed

With git and hg and perforce (?), every checkout of the repository is itself a full copy of the repository with its complete history

[smoky quest]

(perforce isn't distributed)

[summer roost]

(my bad)

[ivory sluice]

hg=mercurial?

[summer roost]

Yeah

With CVS or SVN, you'd only have two copies of any given file on your local disk - the one that you checked out, and one containing your local modifications.

Checking in changes required a talking to a server, there was no such thing as a local commit

[ivory sluice]

ah

are there situations or industries that would benefit from that type of version control? or is it just a relic of the past?

[smoky quest]

binary files heavy projects like games, graphics, sounds, etc.

[ivory sluice]

i guess bc in those cases you don't want multiple copies taking up disk space ?

[smoky quest]

yeah, and doing a diff of them would be quite difficult or not really as beneficial as pure text like source code

There are also some cases about security and access control

[summer roost]

CVS was probably the most common VCS in 2000, but it had fallen out of favor by 2010, and I'd be surprised to hear about anyone using it in 2020

[swift pike]

Hi

can any1 help me with some questions??

@molten spoke ? @rare sand ?

[craggy wave]

@swift pike I'd appreciate it if you were not to mention random individuals unless you were already actively engaged in conversation with them or know them personally. This is a large community, with many active members, and if everyone were to start pinging the first people they see in our member list, it would become unmanageable for those individuals rather quickly. Instead, ask your question in a relevant channel and wait for an answer, although not all questions will be answered.

[swift pike]

Ohh okay

[vapid jay]

XD that's cool

[pastel thunder]

are there still some schools that require scanned LOR
instead of sending email to recommenders at their personal email

[vapid jay]

hey guys

how can i start learning a programming language not just from youtube videos but for a professional level

[grand quartz]

anyone got any sources to recommend where I can learn generic data type and algorithm questions to as a refresher before technical interview

[vapid jay]

help donut pleeeeeeeeeeeeease

its been 50 minsssssssss

[pastel thunder]

competitive programming or proficiency in programming in general

[vapid jay]

proficiency in programming in general

[pastel thunder]

do you have a language in mind to start?

[vapid jay]

python

[near ocean]

this isnt relevant to the channel, please use an offtopic channel

[vapid jay]

its career innit?

[near ocean]

yea i wouldnt say competitive programming is a career

[vapid jay]

mate scroll up i didnt say competitive programming

[near ocean]

oh, i guess reading is hard
the tip is to just practice with real world projects
videos or even textbooks arent gonna help you with real projects

and you shouldnt only focus on the programming language, learn some CI/CD, learn to write documentation, learn to use mypy, debuggers, build tools, etc

[vapid jay]

ok tnx

[near ocean]

you could for example write a small library for anything, write some tests, write a readme, write some docs, put it on github and then try to build a Github action to run your tests automatically every time you push

thats probably closer to a real world project than writing hard code without any of this

[vapid jay]

kk

can you help me out with smt in #help-donut

[neon zephyr]

CS50 course then do Competitive programming

[true harness]

competitive programming does not help you code at a professional level, at all. the best thing to do is make projects that you're interested in or contribute to OSS projects you're interested in

[grave hawk]

Hello ... I wanna learn python.. can anyone recommend me a tutorial where I can learn

[vapid jay]

☝️

[short ore]

HI

[sharp thunder]

Would learning flask and doing projects with it along with python be better for jobs compared to learning Django?

[short ore]

do you need a college for data science, my parents really want me to get into one, ik machine learning and similar things but not exactly a lot of data science like not in depth understanding with maths & stuff

[vapid jay]

Actually getting a jr job is way easier

[gilded valley]

Yes. To find employment as a data scientist the vast majority of companies will require at least a bachelors, with many also requiring a master's or PhD.

[short ore]

can you get into data scicence college after high school

[vapid jay]

data science is statistical analysis

[short ore]

Yes but it has a lot of other fun things

[vapid jay]

you don't need a CS degree to work in it

but you do need some sort of education

[sharp thunder]

@vapid jay for junior python devop?

[short ore]

so i can get into a Data Science college at 18

[gilded valley]

There isn't really any such thing as a data science college.

[short ore]

I see

[vapid jay]

The shortage in jr positions is so big that they even teach you everything as long as you have the profile they look for

[short ore]

what is it called then statistical ananalysis ?

[vapid jay]

whats a data science college?

@short ore i have a friend who is an industrial engineer, he works in an industrial plant, but he doesn't do industrial engineer things, he does data science, and he was employed in that position because he had a certificate of a data science course + a degree in industrial engineering

[short ore]

a college which teaches you in depth machine learning, statistics, mathematics, database, python, and my fav java

[sharp thunder]

@vapid jay hmmm so what would you recommend I know to ensure I get a jr position? I already know python and learning Django at the moment

[short ore]

ohh

[vapid jay]

My brother is a journalist, and he was offered a job in data science by a newspaper and by his school, without having CS education, but because he had a journalist degree and also knew data science

i hope that makes my point clear

[vapid jay]

Id recommend you start actively hunting for a job

[short ore]

ohh, so you can be an android developer & then a data scientist

[vapid jay]

?

[short ore]

I understood you don't really need a degree but a course for data science?

[vapid jay]

Programming jobs have more demand than offer

So, in the case of @sharp thunder, where he wants a JR dev position, he doesn't need a degree nor experience

[short ore]

oh

[vapid jay]

You are looking for a data science position, a data science position is an analyst position

[short ore]

I see

[sharp thunder]

Just need to do projects though for your portfolio since I’m just a sys admin

[vapid jay]

@short ore imagine i am a hamburger seller, and i want to start doing data analysis in my business

Because there is more demand than offer for tech jobs, i might not be able to find a CS major to be my data analyst. Then, my next best position is somebody who is a burger major, but also has a data science course, if i can't find that, then i'd look for any guy with a data science course, if i can't even find that, i'll pay anybody to go to a data science course and then work for me

[short ore]

ohh

[vapid jay]

Theres a sort of intersecting curve between experience/education and job demand

At this point, its on our favor

[short ore]

yes also by more demand than offer you mean companies want that position but they don't get less people wanting that position

[vapid jay]

They can't be pickers

[short ore]

for now

[vapid jay]

For now yeah, they have been pushing "everybody learn to code" for some years now lol

In the future everybody will need to know at least some basic level of programming

[short ore]

yes its like a 2nd language

[vapid jay]

Yep. Unless they actually solve how to make computers semantically able, all careers will have to bend to be able to interface raw data

[short ore]

oo thanks for explaining all of this now i gtg

[vapid jay]

So in your case

If you like computers go for CS

That way you will end up working for something cool like a spaceship's code instead of some grunt work

[short ore]

can you tell me the difference between CS & BCA (Bachelor in Computer Application) are those totally different fields

[short ore]

that sounds interesting:))

[vapid jay]

Nope, each UNI and each country has their own degrees

CS is the real deal, i'd call it the philosophy of computation, but probably many people here would be against that definition

[short ore]

ohhhh

[vapid jay]

anything else, imo, except something like communications engineering, EE, etc, is most probably a cope

at least its here, here you have a bunch of random engineers and business+programming degrees that are a joke tbh

[short ore]

will CS have a lot of theoritical stuff & memorization, im not against it just curious

[vapid jay]

The real ones are CS, EE, and comm eng, but they are very different things, CS is maths, EE is hardware engineering, and comm eng is telecommunications shit

CS is maths, its the logic behind how computer works, its not a science and its not about computers

[short ore]

cs is maths?

Wait I will look into its subjects

[vapid jay]

yes CS is maths, CS is about computation

[sudden quartz]

How do you know machine learning and not know data science? A good data scientist will be good at statistics and databases. A great data scientist will be good at math and programming.

You probably know little about machine learning.

[short ore]

Yes scikit-learn library and tensorflow.js

[dense mesa]

You can learn machine learning and make models without understanding the underlying data science that is being automated

[frosty terrace]

how much should i be asking for salary-wise as a new python developer?

[dense mesa]

Depends on your experience, location, company, role, loads of things

[frosty terrace]

NYC area, 2+ years in python, never worked at a job doing it though

[dense mesa]

Check levels.fyi and Glassdoor for similar roles in Nyc

[frosty terrace]

Also best place to find a job? Indeed? LinkedIn? Anything else or recommended?

[dense mesa]

LinkedIn is pretty good if you're not already getting inmails

[sudden quartz]

ML is statistical inference. Running a script someone made for you is not machine learning competency

If you cant write a paper on machine learning, or code your own unique solutions in application, you probably arent competent in it.

[dense mesa]

People are employed as ML engineers without those things

[robust wolf]

What kinds of programming jobs are in highest demand?

[sudden quartz]

Guess thats why there is a demand for good ML engineers!

[sudden quartz]

75% of machine learning is just learning to get the data the way you want and the other 20% is knowing what to do with it. 5% left for anything scikit offers you

[frosty sail]

So there's I think some confusion (in this channel and the industry as a whole) about what "data scientist" means. It's kind of a broad term, used to describe people who are doing really fancy difficult work in deep learning or novel model types, and also used to describe people doing entry-level data analysis work (basic SQL and pandas stuff, generating reports/dashboards for managers, up to some simple ML with sklearn) and everything in between

so you probably don't need a specific degree to work in the latter, entry-level, category. Domain knowledge is key, and you only need to know a little bit of maths and software. Could probably break in w/o any college degree at all, but a degree will make things easier.

If when you think "I want to be a data scientist" you're picturing Deep Learning, image recognition, predicting stock prices for big investment firms, you almost definitely need a PhD in STEM.

Many companies are nice enough to label the more entry-level work as a "Data Analyst" job, but many call it "data scientist" b/c they'll get more applicants

the in-between range of "data scientist" is pretty broad. You can find people with all levels of degrees and experience working on that somewhat-challenging-SQL-and-ML maybe some easy deep learning problems type of work. However, the higher position above entry level you go in the industry, the more and more that the expectation is you will need a graduate degrees in STEM.

[gaunt elbow]

in my experience lower level data scientist jobs are more programming oriented, at least mine was and some others I know

know how to choose the right model, know how to choose and interpret the right metrics

the rest is making backend apps (web api, console app, whatever...)

[sudden quartz]

Its a field, generalizations are pointless. data engineer, data analysis, ml engineer are all within the data science domain

[frosty sail]

it's very confusing honestly

I really wish the industry would get it's story straight

[gaunt elbow]

once I had to interview junior job candidates for data science and tried to make it a balance between math and programming

some linear algebra, some calculus concepts, some OOP

but nothing advanced

[frosty sail]

senior/staff level software jobs are crazy right now. Particularly for people with some flavor of ML Ops in their skillset. At least in my personal experience. There are way more openings than skilled people to fill them as far as I can tell

[gaunt elbow]

lol yes

companies I applied for ages ago are calling back

and I'm a 36yo guy with like 4 years XP in tech

[frosty sail]

as far as entry level stuff, I don't really know. I'm at a relatively small company and we've no interest in hiring any junior engineers any time soon. The cost in time and money of training someone up is just way higher than the cost of paying a more experienced person more. That equation can change for very large companies with better setup onboarding and continuing education

[gaunt elbow]

imagine the really senior ones

[frosty sail]

indeed

[safe loom]

Isn't a masters degree enough? Mine was pretty science-y although I haven't majored in buisness, finance or medicine.

I've noticed PhDs often had the upper hand in these fields and I don't want to try and get a PhD

[frosty sail]

I think with a masters degree in STEM, a serious hunger for self-learning, and some luck you could probably break into like "Serious Deep Learning Data Science"

but IDK, really. I'm not a hiring expert or whatever. And I'm in like a pharmaceuticals adjacent industry where degrees matter, A Lot. I would not be comfortable hiring someone for a "actually developing models that make business predictions" data science job in my industry if they don't have multiple legit peer-reviewed published works demonstrating significant chops in both the domain knowledge and statistics/data science. So they don't have to have a phd, but the person who has that publication record w/o a phd is pretty rare indeed. I don't know if other industries are more or less strict.

I've worked in more traditional business/finance, and the people with masters degrees who were in the data science groups did some interesting analytics work, but were not trusted to drive projects creating new and interesting ML/deep learning models. PhDs led every project in that space.

[delicate bane]

same but it seems like itll take a while for roles to delineate/differentiate - i mean you saw how long it took software dev to do the same

[frosty sail]

Once the models were down the research & development pipeline a bit, more people got involved to help with operationalization. The people with bachelors/masters were mostly entrusted with data sourcing, data engineering, and monitoring the models in production.

[frosty sail]

for sure. Maybe in 5 or 10 years all these data-science-adjacent terms will actually mean anything.

[slow sail]

it will help the bigners in learning basics of DSA

[frosty sail]

Cool thanks, that probably belongs in #algos-and-data-structs on account of how it has those words in it

[frosty sail]

I know of a few people doing "Serious Data Science Work" who don't have phds, but they didn't start their careers in data science - they started in junior-level analytics work, did a masters degree or two, had a seriously impressive ability to self-teach the statistics/ML/software stuff, and after like four or five years of work got into the data science teams officially. This was at a single employer. I don't know if moving employers in that five year span would make it easier or not. Trust is the key component behind being given the reins to a data science project, and it can be easier to build that by staying at one place. But that all happened a few years ago, and expectations may have changed.

[safe loom]

True and especially since I'm becoming more and more a nobody in my previous field where me and a few others have been purged from the PhD race because we were too many for not enough grants (in France at least). There was one in the bootcamp wanting to attend Stanford college so she sacrificed a lot of hours of sleep and ended up looking like a ghoul, but she made it.

I still think it's not worth it to sacrifice your physical and mental health to catch up with master degrees and PhDs. I'd like to take it slow as in doing a side hustle during the job, but not cramming hundreds of hours.

[frosty sail]

yeah I 100% would not recommend anyone doing a PhD for any reason other than "I love doing scientific research and reading scientific journals and want to spend 5 years doing only that". Even for people who love it, it's very hard. The dropout rate in the USA of phd students in STEM is like 50%. I'd say from my personal experience literally every single STEM PhD student seriously considers quitting and/or suffers from some kind of mental breakdown at least once. It's a very intense experience.

plus long-term money wise, it's almost always a net loss, compared to just working in a normal job for those five years (note- at least in STEM. entry-level engineering jobs pay a lot compared to a PhD salary - 2.5x-5x roughly, depending on CoL in your area)

It also restricts your career options in most cases, so you better like the field you're in.

[safe loom]

One of my friends just finished his a few days ago and I just realized his only options were finding a postdoc position or going in education.

I've overheard some questions and analysis is often praised (like in data science). Some master degrees often do a PhD to have their name on a paper.

[frosty sail]

so actually something like 98% of STEM PhD graduates go to work in industry. Only the people who have insane work ethics, are very lucky, and very very unusually smart can win the truly insane competition to work in academia in the USA

[safe loom]

In my case I can't really show my potential to recruiters since they only see a resume instead of a living person. I got my apprenticeship just because I showed off my knowledge in live.

[frosty sail]

but if your friend did their phd outside of STEM, situation is probably different

[safe loom]

No it was a STEM PhD in France and usually the only gates are more postdocs till you become a researcher, bank work or education (and that field sucks more and more here in France)

[frosty sail]

hmmm

[safe loom]

Not even shitty IT Consulting companies want my profile. Guess they prefer software engineers though I'm not sure how a data job would qualify.

[frosty sail]

I think this is a pretty common experience. I got my first job out of an in-person chance encounter at a career fair with someone who I got along with really well

and it wasn't even like, a real job. It was like "we fucked up our internship budget and have like $40K leftover, want to work here for a bit and we'll give it to you? Do you care what your job title is cus it's not gonna be "data scientist""

[honest pivot]

There are more doors than that. But you may need to demonstrate some real coding skill. Plus think very carefully about how to highlight the "soft skills" you acquired while doing a PhD on your CV. You need to sell what advantages you bring, not assume hiring managers just know because of a title.

When I see "scientific programming", I tend to think "Great, another person who learned to code just barely enough to get by, who doesn't know what they don't know, and we'll have to teach them everything or hope that they're self-motivated enough to seriously learn."

[frosty sail]

well I hope I helped some @safe loom . Now back to manually reviewing tens of thousands of rows in a database after a fucked up migration... the less sexy side of data science

[safe loom]

I enjoyed that conversation. Ty 🙂

[frosty sail]

this is also a difficulty in hiring for data science positions ya. The flip side of the "not qualified enough in domain knowledge and statistics"

IDK you (the employer) have to accept some shortcomings w.r.t. The Perfect Candidate or you can't hire anyone tho. It's about which shortcomings are truly deal-breaking, and I find more often that not those fall on the side of domain knowledge and statistics knowledge, not software skill

[honest pivot]

Yeah, I've been brushing up on my statistics, might be interested in jumping to data science or machine learning. Statistics is a very tricky field and full of pitfalls for the unwary.

[frosty sail]

like IDGAF if you can train a model to get 98% f1 score on mnist if you can't explain to me what an f1 score even is and why it's different than accuracy

but if you do understand the fundamentals/ problem domain, I can link you to sklearn/tensorflow/pytorch documentation and you'll have something up and running in a few weeks.

[honest pivot]

Python packages make it easy to do impressive things in data science without having any idea what you're doing.

[frosty sail]

yep

I think the thing that gets lost is that data science isn't about the models or impressive stats that get headlines. The whole point is figuring out the "have any idea what you're doing" part of the problem

the fancy model is just the automation once you've already solved the rest of the problem

[safe loom]

Wish I could find a way to get an easy masters degree cert without doing the master cursus

[ancient star]

With a little Photoshop/GIMP....

[fringe pine]

Sorry @slow sail, I deleted your link. Please get permission before promoting within the server. Contact @severe widget to do so, but bear in mind that we rarely allow promotion.

[safe loom]

And then they open a case on your tab

[ancient star]

Haha, I'm entirely kidding. If I were going to attempt to fake it I wouldn't be going after an A.S. @_@

[delicate bane]

every podcast ive heard where the host came from a phd background, always recommended against getting a phd 💀

[honest pivot]

I have a PhD and I don't recommend against getting one. But I do recommend thinking about whether that's what you really want.

[frosty sail]

yeah I'd recommend getting one if you love research. It's hard but I think for most people who really want that experience, it's worth it. There's no other situation in life where your only task is to think deeply about a single problem (or closely related family of problems) for five years. I don't regret it

I would not recommend going for a PhD for any reason other than pure love of the study material tho. You'll hate it if that's not the motivation.

[honest pivot]

I also have 6 years of postdoc research experience. I was headed full tilt into academia. But there aren't enough permanent jobs, so I had to leave and adapt.

[frosty sail]

woah

that's a lot of years of postdoc

that must've been a tough decision

[honest pivot]

Unfortunately it's normal in my field, unless you are one of the exceptional few who get early job offers for professorships.

It wasn't a decision. I applied for every academic job I was qualified for in Europe and North America, and didn't get any. 🙂

[frosty sail]

yeah. well that is the "completely insane competition for jobs in academia" I was mentioning.

I think the moment I realized I couldn't make it as a professor was in my second year of PhD when I asked for help applying to an NSF GSRF grant from one of my peers who got one - I read her resume and she already had first-author publications in cancer research when she was in high school. I just thought to myself "there's no way in hell I can compete with this. I guess I'll get a real job lol".

[honest pivot]

Imagine a field where you're considered unworthy of a permanent job unless you are literally among the top 20 people in the world applying. It's quite toxic actually.

[frosty sail]

for sure

[steep crescent]

yeah that sounds quite toxic

but i think they are doing you a favour in telling us how toxic they are as they are the ones that aren't worthy to have anyone if they are gonna be that toxic in my opinion

[honest pivot]

What I mean is there are only 20 permanent jobs in academia, in the field I was working in. That's just what it's like.

[safe loom]

There's actually a low percentage of PhDs getting a research career. I remember one from the labs I was working in. He spent his last 10 years getting postdocs after postdocs.

Besides, most researchers came from schools with a high rep like ENS in France, good luck landing anywhere if you're from university.

[smoky quest]

The compensation is also not comparable to what you could get in companies

[vital skiff]

🙂 i think there are def some people that are born with 1. a natural talent either raw skill (academic/sports), 2. hunger to be a 'go-getter/entrepreneur' or 3. have 100% passion and know what they want from a young age which all 3 IMHO helps when in the career stage of life!

[sudden quartz]

All three of those are determined by your parents/environment.

[frosty sail]

well, it is not a secret that factors of one's birth completely outside of one's control can contribute to future career success

[sudden quartz]

This sounds like bs. Source?

[frosty sail]

let me look

[ancient star]

nono

[true turtle]

yeah, gimme a sec

[pastel thunder]

is it grammatically correct to mention "name, a bachelors of technology student at xyz university"

in internship certificate

[frosty sail]

so it seems it mostly depends on how you interpret the word professor - the 2% or less stat I'm thinking are for "tenure-track career professor at a research university in the US/UK/EU". Note the linked report by the royal society there ratio of PhD graduates becoming professors in the UK in 2010 was actually 0.5%, or 1 in 200. This stat does not include people who go back into academics later in life after working in industry, but that is a relatively rare career transition. Apparently if you include part-time teaching positions, the stat rises to something like 10-20% of PhD Graduates become professors as the upper bound of the statistic. But I know most STEM PhD students do not want to pursue part-time teaching as their career, and instead would like to end up in a research-oriented position. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17431/what-ratio-of-phd-graduates-in-stem-fields-ultimately-end-up-as-tenured-profes

In the US it's pretty well-known in academia that if you didn't receive either your PhD from a top-5 institution in your field, or a phd from somewhere not quite so great but still well-known- and your postdoc from the #1 or #2 institution, you won't be getting a job as a research professor in the US.

so maybe 25% or more of CS PhDs from Stanford will become research professors - but <<1% of CS PhDs from most state universities will

[toxic venture]

So this is my first ever job in the industry and also first time working from home. I'm confused about how many hours I should put in. I feel like this is stupid question but I'll be brave to ask lol

Do I put in only how many hours I put in working on the project or can I include that 30 mins break in there as hours "worked"? Lol

Is that illegal?

[frosty sail]

Sorry, but please consult your local labor laws, we're not lawyers here.

[sudden quartz]

If youre hourly probably not but this isnt the place to ask

[toxic venture]

Ahh gotcha. It's because I finished my task couple hrs early and it's Friday so don't really wanna do anything hehe. Thanks for the responses though!

[frosty sail]

note that, at least in the US, probably only somewhere from 25-50% of STEM PhD students have any intention of working in academia after finishing their degree. So the "about 1% become professors" is only crushing the dreams of somewhere from 24-49% of PhD graduates, not 99% of them.

[visual summit]

Hi, guys! What is fastest way to start earn money from Python coding? I guess this is QA testing, yes? Or there are another fast ways? Sry for my bad eng.

[sudden quartz]

Like seriously talk to your manager on it you should know this information. When I did remote I was supposed to work a certain number of hours each week

[summer roost]

This will depend on your country, but in the US lunch breaks are unpaid but other shorter breaks, like coffee breaks, are paid.

[toxic venture]

That makes sense

[summer roost]

https://www.employmentlawhandbook.com/employment-and-labor-laws/topics/wage-and-hour/meal-and-break-laws/

Also https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/breaks

[safe loom]

I feel like number 2 and 3 are the most romanticized points in success stories from linkedin and other job hunting blogs. That led to people unironically believing sheer will can achieve anything.

Oh, sweet, sweet propaganda.

[smoky quest]

it can achieve a lot though. While it's not everything, we shouldn't discount it either

[ancient kindle]

?av 143878644169834496

[delicate bane]

idk if this is just my experience, but i tend to see people who study physics move into the cs/software world.

one guy i knew got a phd in experimental physics then moved on to create software for mechanical engineering companies.

[summer roost]

One of the Python steering council members has a physics PhD

[delicate bane]

interesting. one of my AI profs had a whole former academic career in physics at her former uni

[dawn leaf]

I did physics -> ml

its pretty common

[ancient star]

One of my good friends has a BS in Physics and is currently doing data analysis for automated vehicles. It does seem common

[summer roost]

Physics requires advanced math, and theoretical physics often requires a non-trivial amount of programming for simulations and the like.

[ancient star]

He works with C++ on occasion. I'm trying to talk him into learning Python.

[lapis monolith]

hlw

no one

[sudden quartz]

Someday people will realize jobs arent computer science, theyre just jobs, that require a skill.
Math/CS/Physics same domain. Except I have not taken a single physics course in my life.

[delicate bane]

didnt know we were getting so metaphysical 💀

[charred furnace]

Hi does anyone know of any good progaramming internship?

please ping me

[vapid jay]

If you live in the nordics or southern europe try Elekta or philips

[smoky quest]

It's also interesting to consider the etymology. Computer has for instance https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-35428300
And in french, computer science is translated as informatique, which relates more to information and was chosen over ordinatique which was also about putting order into things.
But that's going a bit far from the topic of this channel :p

[rough patrol]

I am very upset about my Career.
I lost confidence to sit in an interview

[brittle thorn]

Maybe take a short break from your job hunt then practice a bit. I think you maybe burned out.

[rough patrol]

😓😓

[brittle thorn]

Dont stress about it too much if you go on interviews feeling stressed and appearing to lack confidence people will see it.

[rough patrol]

Okay

[brittle thorn]

Its ok to take a break and regroup before attacking the problem when you are mentally prepared.

[copper pawn]

Hello my beautiful friends. I earn money in Turkey by writing software as a freelancer with Python. Unfortunately, the Turkish economy is getting worse and worse. So now I have to earn dollars or euros. How can I do business abroad?

[delicate hinge]

hey

I'm a full-stack python-dev using Flask, HTML, CSS, JS. I have 5 years of coding experience and I'm also good at maths. I am currently not working rn because i am LOST IN FICTiON

[river ivy]

lost in fiction lmao

[fleet forge]

Lost in fiction.
Nice.

[native leaf]

hey all, quick queston..

how long does it take to learn python sufficiently in order to start learning django? *(i'm a beginner)

[brittle thorn]

Reading fiction or lost in an alterate reality with a war and a pandemic going on..
Oh wait its our reality...

[hushed wedge]

How do you know machine learning and not know data science?

like the diff between them

[peak halo]

machine learning is a subclass of AI, which is a subclass of data science.

"data science": using computers to leverage large quantities of data
"AI": programs that solve knowledge problems/emulate the application of knowledge
"machine learning": AI programs with a variable internal state that is adjusted ("learned") from data.

[gaunt elbow]

well if there's some semi obscure tech area for people competent in math that does not require a phd please mention

any area where the norm is a more abstract style of coding would interest me, say design-pattern style like in csharp but python

because what I'm doing at the moment (spark) is boring af

[boreal flume]

I need to make a quick website to sell consulting stuff (doesnt have to be great since the product sells itself) I dont want to expend much time as i dont really like front end? wordpress or is there something like that to make quick prebuilt sites?

[gaunt elbow]

dude just make a webapi and forget frontend

[summer roost]

That's what Squarespace is for, according to literally every podcast I've ever listened to

[summer roost]

More seriously, if you want the website for a business, you might find that the best option is to pay someone with frontend expertise to build the site, and then you take over running and maintaining it once it's built. That's probably more up front cost than something like Squarespace or WIx, but much lower maintenance cost over time (at least, assuming you won't need to change the site often), and you'll probably get something that looks more professional.

[fresh wadi]

anyone here work in distributed systems (back end)?

[summer roost]

yes

[fresh wadi]

you?

I am asking because I am thinking about pursing that career path or at least learning about it

[summer roost]

It's not my current position, but I've done distributed systems backend stuff in the past.

[fresh wadi]

Where did you go to start learning about it? Or where would you now, for a online resource?

[summer roost]

no idea. Things you'll need to know about include ACID databases, BASE databases, eventual consistency, message brokers like RabbitMQ and Kafka, pub/sub messaging, at-least-once message delivery, data replication and sharding, caching (Redis/memcached), backpressure, graceful degradation under load, and log aggregation and monitoring and telemetry

[fresh wadi]

Wow okay well at least I know where to get started, are these concepts language agnostic?

[summer roost]

yes

[summer roost]

What's your current education level/experience?

[fresh wadi]

Not at that level I can tell you that much, I come from a network engineering background and learned python 3 or 4 years ago.

[summer roost]

so you're a working professional - are you currently working as a network engineer or a software developer?

[gritty rivet]

There's a server called "DevOps, SRE, & Infrastructure" you might find more relevant. Also, check out https://roadmap.sh/devops and https://roadmap.sh/backend

[summer roost]

the topics I listed for distributed systems are a subset of what's listed on roadmap.sh for backend developers

(I actually skimmed that list and picked out the ones that are most relevant for distributed systems to type my message, heh)

[frosty sail]

This book is an excellent resource on managing data in distributed systems https://dataintensive.net/

[smoky quest]

https://www.manning.com/books/microservices-patterns Is also a good intro at giving you an overview of all the pieces fit together

And it may be interesting for you to also experiment and learn through a project.
Pick an idea/project and go through it step by step:

• You are gonna need a starting set of API to support
• You may then want to add accounts/users/profiles, which will require a DB
• You may then want to add some caching
• You may want then to add some asynchronous processing (ie. event/message broker)
• You may want then to monitor your services
• You may want then to introduce CI/CD
  ...

Backend as a domain can go pretty deep and wide, so do not be concerned about how overwhelming it can be. You just need to start somewhere

There are also some theoretical aspects to distributed systems (ex: consensus, vector clocks, etc.), but I wouldn't worry too much about it unless you go pretty deep in the field.

[delicate bane]

interesting. what about cloud skills?

[smoky quest]

They are useful and definitely worth learning, but it wouldn't be at the top of my list when you start out

[delicate bane]

makes sense

[delicate bane]

oh nice reference. you recommended microservices > monolithic starting out?

[smoky quest]

I recommend: what makes sense for the stage you are at
Microservices zealots tend to go overboard into femtoservices.

When you are at a brand new startup, your product is not established, your customers are non-existent and you may iterate very frequently. Thus you want to optimize for velocity of development. If you have 50 different services for your app, that could translate in a lot of friction whenever you need to propagate some chances. So in that world, you would err more in the side of monolithic. You may still have multiple services, but you want to have a bias against too much maintenance.
As your product and services and thus api stabilize, then it makes more sense to split them as necessary as it will make it easier to maintain stable services and scale them separately.

In terms of play projects, you want to demonstrate enough microservices mindset without adding too much burden to yourself when upgrading/maintaining them.

[delicate bane]

ah thank you for clarifying this. makes more sense when you lay it out like this

[summer roost]

as a quick rule of thumb, adding a new feature shouldn't require you to touch more than two microservices - one to provide a new service, and one to consume it. If you find yourself needing to touch more pieces than that, then either your services are too small or their responsibilities are too vague

[smoky quest]

In the context of career and orgs, note also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law as it becomes relevant when different teams own different services

[smoky quest]

exactly!
And that's exactly the case when you don't have product market fit or are exploring the product space

[delicate bane]

this is really good info since ive been quite interested in product

[stark phoenix]

Anyone here work in a company as a software engineer where they care now deploying M1 macbooks to the employees?

[smoky quest]

yes

[stark phoenix]

and this is for python development?

[smoky quest]

no

[vapid jay]

idk how people do multiple lanaguages at once

python is already too much for me, i need to be fluent too

[red heron]

Once you pick up one, it becomes easier to keep picking them up. At least for the high level stuff. I would recommend becoming really fluent in just one though to start. You can branch from there as you need/want to.

I like doing quick scripts and stuff in Python because... cybersecurity degree got me into it.

I work professionally as a so-called "full-stack" C#/ASP.NET developer though. For websites, I prefer .NET and getting to use Entities and stuff for database access. Python, is alright but for me it doesn't feel like it hit rights the marks when it comes to OOP as C# does. So I use C# for that (I'm also not as experienced in Python as a professional Python guy who would probably run circles around me in his domain).

[keen locust]

I want to start learning python so suggest me some tips

[red heron]

Why do you want to learn Python? What lead you there?

[keen locust]

I think that is necessary for start coding

[devout berry]

Any advice for a 13 y/o? I can code in many different languages and I have been doing it since I am 7. I wan to make some pocket money, to upgrade my setup and try out more stuff in the robotics industry

[keen locust]

I am 17 years old

[devout berry]

No, it isn’t. Python is pretty easy and it’s filled with features, but you don’t necessarily have to start with it

Like I started with C

[keen locust]

is it necessary for web development

[devout berry]

No

[red heron]

I don't think it is necessary to start here. Since this is the career section, I will assume because you want to code as a career.

Python is easier to start in because of how "simple" the language reads.

It is not necessary for web development and if that is your goal, start with very basic stuff like HTML/CSS... then maybe some JavaScript down the road. You can do A LOT of cool stuff with just the basics.

[devout berry]

JS is better for webdev, python is used as the backend Lang often

[keen locust]

I almost cover html full

[devout berry]

What about JavaScript

[keen locust]

I am in css

[red heron]

The benefit of doing HTML/CSS is you get to see a tangible benefit arguably better. It's the front of the internet. Once you need functionalities that go beyond showing some graphics, and you need things to do things automatically, get some backend programming knowledge. Python is fine for that. However, you can also learn JavaScript that is built into the web and doing script pages that handle Events and such.

[keen locust]

after css I should start js

[red heron]

My point is, code with a purpose. Figure out what your purpose is, and take little steps towards that goal.

There's a guy in Oak Harbor, WA who pulls in $13k/mo doing nothing but primarily HTML/CSS static websites.

[keen locust]

if I complete html,css, js then I will only frontend developer????

[red heron]

Yes, that would be primarily frontend.

[keen locust]

so what about backend

[devout berry]

Expressjs or Flask

[red heron]

Backend is generally for some kind of automation or logic driven purpose. Since this is a Python server, I would recommend Flask as it is very lightweight and can get you running easily enough to learn. Django would be my opinion of the next logical step for backend-driven frameworks.

[keen locust]

so how much time should spend on coding as career

[red heron]

This is entirely individual-based.

Some can push a bunch in a short time. Some can do a little at a time. People progress differently. Do what fits your needs.

[keen locust]

what is better font or bakend for beginners

[summer roost]

If you can afford the time and money to get a Computer Science degree, that is the best thing you could do

[keen locust]

i think so

[red heron]

Don't burn yourself out. Eating, sleeping, brain-breaks are all important things.
@summer roost - there's always CS50 as well if you want the free route.

That is a full degree of courses one can do on their own without plopping a fat chunk of change down.

[keen locust]

I can't understand about the degree

plz explain me

[red heron]

I personally did a bootcamp and am nearly finished with my degree while working professionally.

Well, going to university for 2-4 years is a costly endeavor. CS50 is all the coursework (I think from MIT?) that they use to teach their CS degree.... but it's hosted online for free. You won't get the degree, but you'll have the knowledge if you're serious about it. You won't pay anything either... sooooo

[summer roost]

CS50 covers a very small fraction of what a CS degree covers, so far as I know

and having a degree from an accredited institution is far more valuable than self-teaching the material.

[keen locust]

which country you belong

[summer roost]

Like I said: I understand that not everyone has the option, but if you can afford the time and money, getting a degree is the best thing you can do.

[summer roost]

I'm from the USA

[keen locust]

ooo

[red heron]

I won't disagree. I find value alone in the fact that a degree will open doors that were closed previously.

[summer roost]

yeah, exactly.

[keen locust]

I am from india

[red heron]

However, once you're in... you're in. Only experience really matters from there on unless you're trying to climb a corporate ladder.

[summer roost]

it's not that it's impossible to self-teach and get a job, it's that it's much easier to get a job if you have a degree, and it's likely to lead to a better, higher paying job as well, doing more interesting work.

[keen locust]

Have you heard about India

[summer roost]

I'm aware of the existence of India, yes 😄

[red heron]

I've never heard of India. Where is it?

[keen locust]

in asia br

so I am a indian

[red heron]

Take what we say with a grain of salt as locality makes a big difference.

[keen locust]

in my country, it is known as MIT

[devout berry]

Look, I’m Indian aswell and I moved to Germany

[red heron]

grain of salt... being it could be misleading because your locality is very different. However. I think coding is a great career if you enjoy it.

[keen locust]

really are you Indian

[devout berry]

Yessir

[keen locust]

all are you coder

[devout berry]

100% true. I started loving it since I am 7

[keen locust]

oonooo

[summer roost]

I know less about the Indian job market, but from what I know of it, degrees are highly valued in India as well. I believe not having a degree in India would make it much harder to get a good coding job.

[devout berry]

Yes, they are.

[devout berry]

A degree isn’t really necessary. There are many Startups that let you in without one

[keen locust]

NO, now coding is normal but lack of coder in India

[vapid jay]

You don't need help, I'm the one that need help lol you already could speak in tongues

[summer roost]

alright, well, I'm happy to bow out and let someone more knowledgeable on India take the lead.

[devout berry]

What??? No, the Indian tech market is highly competitive, so a degree will help, but it isn’t necessary

[vapid jay]

A degree is worth it. I never got my degree unfortunately... wish I did tho

[keen locust]

now in India many engineer made every year

[devout berry]

:), I don’t really know that much. I moved to Germany, so I can only speak about what I knew at that time, and what my relatives told me, and what I see whenever I go there

[summer roost]

that's still more than I know, as someone who has worked with a ton of Indian expats but has no family or friends living there. 🙂

[devout berry]

I’m trying to make some pocket money to explore robotics. I’m 13 and I can code in many different languages, and I have been doing this since I am 7. Any advice on how I could use these skills to make some pocket money?

Oh oops, I accidentally had the reply mode on

[vapid jay]

@red heron what do you recommend after python? Besides javascript and I don't want to do anything with html/css

[vapid jay]

Freelancer.com and upwork.com

[devout berry]

Rust maybe? The future of web3 is going there

[devout berry]

Can’t, I’m too young for that

[summer roost]

What country are you in?

[devout berry]

Or if you want to do some low level stuff, c++ or C?

[devout berry]

Germany, however I registered my account in India

[vapid jay]

I'm in California - USA

I think ima do SQL, is that good?

[devout berry]

Sure

[vapid jay]

What about R?

[red heron]

Honestly? Dig into Python more! It has leeeeevels based on what you wanna do. You like math and data? Numpy/pandas, etc.

[summer roost]

as a general rule, I don't think anyone younger than 14 can legally work in Germany

[vapid jay]

Somewhat lol, what's numpy?

[devout berry]

For what? Python can do the same stuff, mostly, if you want to go in to data science, try tensorflow

[red heron]

Does that keep someone like a parent from selling a kid's product to someone else?

[vapid jay]

Pandas sound like a antivirus lol

[keen locust]

which software you prefer for html,css

[devout berry]

I’m not sure about that. My parents would be ready to do that

[red heron]

It's basically a large library for doing scientific computing.
https://numpy.org/doc/stable/user/whatisnumpy.html

[devout berry]

It’s a mathematics library written in python

[devout berry]

Code editor?

[vapid jay]

Oh okay, I used to bet on sports and take data so that's would be interesting!

[keen locust]

vs code is good???

[vapid jay]

I use spyder

[keen locust]

for beginner bro

is vscode are outdated

[red heron]

If you mean editor, vs code is fine and done well for HTML/CSS stuff with all the extensions that are available (it's a rabbit hole).

If you're going to do Python professionally (or plan on it), learn a more well endowed IDE like PyCharm or WingIDE

[summer roost]

I'm not going to make any attempt to give German legal advice.

[red heron]

I don't think so.
It's actually my preferred editor to use for scripting in Python or mocking up static pages.

[devout berry]

No

[keen locust]

so I can continue with vscode

for app development what to study

[vapid jay]

Numpy vs pandas?

[keen locust]

for app development what to study

[devout berry]

Flutter or react native? I use both of them, but I prefer react native

[red heron]

App is such a broad term.

[keen locust]

hmmm

[devout berry]

I think he meant mobile apps

[keen locust]

can I start my career with only web development

[devout berry]

Which state do you live in?

[red heron]

Yes.

[keen locust]

Uttar pradesh

up

[devout berry]

Everyone starts their tech career differently. Web dev is an option, that works pretty well and that can land you a job pretty quickly

[keen locust]

how do you know indian state

[devout berry]

Nice, I’m from Karnataka, Bangalore the Silicon Valley of India

[keen locust]

are you heard about lucknow capital of up

[devout berry]

Yes, my classmate is from there

[keen locust]

ooo nice

what's your age

[devout berry]

13

[keen locust]

are you serious ??

[devout berry]

Yes

[keen locust]

you emigrate to Germany???

[devout berry]

Yes

[keen locust]

with your family

[devout berry]

Yes

[keen locust]

when you start coding

[vapid jay]

A couple of days ago

[devout berry]

At the age of 7

[keen locust]

amazing

because of war any effect has to seen in germany ???

[devout berry]

Gas prices go brrrrr

[keen locust]

how much

[devout berry]

I don’t know, but a lot more

[keen locust]

In india also

[devout berry]

In Europe a lot more, 80% of the gas is imported

[true harness]

I think this has drifted a bit off topic

[keen locust]

India is safest country in perspective of war

[devout berry]

Yes you’re right, sorry

[vapid jay]

One of my fears as a future programmer is forgetting how to code something while on the job. I'm wondering if this is common in the industry? Or are you seen as incompetent if you forget how to write something every now and then?

[devout berry]

Stackoverflow

[vapid jay]

What is that? A program?

[devout berry]

No, a Forum for tech questions. You Google the error, and that appears

[vapid jay]

Interesting, thanks. Any other resources you recommend?

[devout berry]

GitHub, people share code and projects there

[summer roost]

jobs don't generally expect you to have solutions memorized. They expect you to remember what tools exist, and to be able to look up how to use them as needed.

You'll spend a lot of time looking up the particular arguments that some function takes, even though you already knew that function existed. Or things like that.

you'll be expected to know generalities but be able to look up specifics, if that makes sense.

[smoky quest]

It's a feature, not a bug. So embrace it.
There are way too many things to know about than you can ever remember. On top of that, the field moves so fast that a lot of things can become obsolete very quickly.
However concepts rarely change. While the details of the perl standard library have become irrelevant, the concepts around rational expressions and algorithms haven't changed.

Another way to think about it is to look back to what was relevant 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago. As a human, it's very likely your career will span 40 years.
note also that your career will evolve over time and is likely to evolve from focusing on the nitty gritty details to the more strategic and group/company/org level

[summer roost]

"regular expressions", you mean?

[smoky quest]

so yes 😉

[summer roost]

TIL!

I assumed that was an autocorrect failure, heh

[smoky quest]

I have seen it more used in a more theoretical context when you get into state machines and stuff. And I did wanted to imply a more theory aspect.

but yeah, it's the same thing in practice

[radiant oak]

Good afternoon everyone. I am new to docker and kubernetes, Could anyone suggest me few resources for beginner level?

[smoky quest]

definitely!
However this channel is named #career-advice and is dedicated to #career-advice . You would greatly increase your chances for a meaningful answer by checking out #❓｜how-to-get-help

[tepid zephyr]

Guys when a FAANG company is hiring for a “Software Engineer, Security” role thats supposedly entry level. What is expected of the person to know. Like what is the interview process? Same leetcode stuff or is it different

[crude fern]

Mostly leetcode stuff. DSA and low level design

[tepid zephyr]

Anh nothing special for security

[narrow kettle]

Where do companies need python the most, like AI or web dev or other?

[vapid jay]

Hi there

[sudden quartz]

AI, Automation

[robust wolf]

Hi, i got a question. If i choose to self teach myself coding instead of going to college for it, will it be alot harder to find a job and if i find a job, would i be paid less because i dont have a diploma even if i would be just as knowledgeable as someone who does?

[true harness]

yes

[ivory sluice]

it will be a lot harder to get your foot in the door, and "climbing" the ladder will be harder too. if you search college in:#career-discussion or uni you'll get a lot of hits on explaining why

[narrow kettle]

If you prove that your better than the guy with a diploma, don't worry of being paid less

[ivory sluice]

why? you should worry if your potential life earnings are limited, if that's something you care about

[peak halo]

This post from godlygeek addresses your question very well: #pedagogy message

[safe locust]

Hello is anyone here. I need help

[vapid jay]

Hello I have a question, so I started doing a course on Python through Udemy, it's one of them most popular courses, but I am wondering, how viable is getting a job after completing such a course?

[finite fractal]

good luck knowing about formal languages and automata without a diploma 😛

and other stuff like that, sure you can self teach whatever, but you will lack breadth of knowledge

[summer roost]

generally, companies hiring for entry level positions don't require anything but a CS degree. If you have other relevant experience - like having taken some security classes in university - that would be a definite plus, but not a requirement.

[summer roost]

Depends on a lot of factors, but most importantly: what is your level of education, and what work experience do you have?

[tepid zephyr]

So I guess it would be a normal data structures and algorithms interview with complexity analysis

[summer roost]

yep. If you know stuff about, say, SQL injection and XSS and CSRF attacks, I'm sure it would be helpful.

[tepid zephyr]

Yeah I guess. Ugh I keep getting out of shape when it comes to leetcode stuff. I keep finding myself relearning everything. Sux

[peak halo]

when I had interviews for data scientist positions, the only technical questions I was asked related to data science or domain knowledge I hinted at having in my resume. So I would expect questions about the fundamentals of cyber security. I say this as one who has never participated in an interview for a cybersec position.

[summer roost]

entry level positions don't require deep domain knowledge, by definition. If you know something relevant that would be a bonus, and might make you more likely to get hired than someone who doesn't.

[tepid zephyr]

Time to get on the grind again

[summer roost]

or, to put that slightly differently - they don't expect expertise in the domain, but anything that you can do that shows interest or aptitude in the domain would be helpful.

[tepid zephyr]

Yeah showing interest and that you have an idea what you’re getting yourself into basically

[sudden quartz]

Even if you manage to find a job, it wont be secure nor would you have opportunity to "move up". If youre good the company may pay for your degree though

There is saturation. Meaning you are useless. Even moreso without a degree. At this point most hiring is based on quotas and personality.

[summer roost]

"quotas"?

[frosty sail]

And the claim that the job market is saturated for software is AFAIK totally false- https://www.daxx.com/blog/development-trends/software-developer-shortage-us

Tho as far as personality goes… like yes, obviously that’s a factor. People talk to their coworkers every day. Being able to be friendly is a necessary condition, and getting along well is a definite plus.

[robust wolf]

What coding languages are most in demand? Just wondering as to what i should learn after python.

[ancient star]

This might be of some use to you: https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/python-developers-survey-2020/

[summer roost]

Depending on what type of work you're interested in, I'd either suggest JavaScript (frontend) or C (backend) as a second language.

[ancient star]

What backend work do you have in mind that makes you recommend C? Newbie here. 🙂

[summer roost]

most backend stuff isn't written directly in C nowadays, but major, important things still are (the Python interpreter, whatever database you're using, your operating system, etc), so knowing C is tremendously helpful when debugging stuff or reasoning about how some backend tools behave. And C is a small language that makes for a good introduction into statically typed languages with manual memory management.

C is also still quite high on the TIOBE index, and learning C is a stepping stone on the way to learning C++, which is only slightly behind C on TIOBE

[ancient star]

I have to learn C++ for my degree, so perhaps I'll start with C before those classes come. I don't know what career field I want to be in yet, so I don't think it really matters, but still. 🙂

Python was used by my Programming Essentials class, which is the only reason I started with it, tbh.

Another edit: I know my heart is somewhere in backend, though.

[summer roost]

C is a much, much smaller language than C++, which I think makes it quite a bit easier to learn - and since C++ is nearly a superset of C, learning C will help you learn C++ faster.

[sudden quartz]

There are quotas to look good and qualify for things. Thats one of the main reasons why employeers pay for degrees and certificates

[summer roost]

I don't understand what you mean, still - quotas based on what criteria?

[summer roost]

it sounds like perhaps you're talking about affirmative action, but to say that "most hiring" is driven by affirmative action seems wildly untrue

so if that is what you'd meant, I'd like to see some supporting evidence for that claim

[smoky quest]

That's a pretty cynical take on things.
It also does not reflect my experience

There is no incentive for quotas when it comes to degrees. The benefit for a company to have a more educated workforce however would be to have better qualified employees who are also most likely to stay longer, either through their happiness or finishing up their degree(s)

When it comes to under represented groups, there is also no quota. Companies want to measure how they are doing so that they can understand where and how they could improve. But that's not a quota. It creates a better culture overall since more diverse teams can be more effective.
And that would not translate in discrimination, as it would go against the point. But it would translate in either increasing the top of the funnel in recruitment by reaching under represented groups for the job ads, or by bringing up the people who should be better compensated.

[summer roost]

When it comes to under represented groups, there is also no quota.
In fact, in the US, having a quota would be explicitly illegal.

[smoky quest]

I am sure that here and there, there is probably a bro culture where they would quite liberally say things like "oh we need more <derogatory term> to look better", but that comes down the specific individuals than an organized cabal against non-minority people

[summer roost]

and if they did refuse to extend a job offer to someone because of their race or gender, that would be illegal.

[smoky quest]

that would also undermine the minorities too since it would be assumed they are hired for their age/sex/sexual_orientation/color/etc rather than being the best candidate for the job

[summer roost]

indeed.

I'd also add that in my experience, companies are very careful to train people who will be in any way involved in the hiring process on this information. Anyone who hasn't been told that it would be illegal to base a hiring decision on race or gender has no business being involved in the process in any capacity.

[smoky quest]

yeah and even with the training you can come across some interesting situation.
If you have candidate showing up at an interview with a maga tshirt and the interview panel contains some people who are part of the target groups of the maga crowd, how much risk do you want to take to expose the interviewers to unpredictable reactions?

[summer roost]

I saw someone recently make an argument against allowing Indian managers to interview Indian candidates, to avoid the potential for caste discrimination to bleed into the hiring process. I haven't decided how I feel about that idea.

[pseudo bone]

is it possible to get cv review here?

[summer roost]

yes

[smoky quest]

feel free to anonymize it and send it here

[smoky quest]

yeah it can be pretty bad. I am renting out some rooms and did have someone looking to rent but decided against it because one of the roommate was Indian but from a different caste.
That said, most of the Indians in my network do not care about these things.

But if we go into these topics, the same could be said for countries/ethnicities with long standing issues. At some point people need to be able to put their biases aside and if they cannot, then they should indeed be dealt with.

[inner wren]

Hey @pseudo bone!

It looks like you tried to attach file type(s) that we do not allow (.pdf). We currently allow the following file types: .gif, .jpg, .jpeg, .mov, .mp4, .mpg, .png, .mp3, .wav, .ogg, .webm, .webp, .flac, .m4a, .csv, .json.

Feel free to ask in #community-meta if you think this is a mistake.

[gilded valley]

@pseudo bone take a screenshot of the PDF and paste that here

[summer roost]

or upload it to github, or to some other site, and share a link.

[gilded valley]

Image is easier because it can be seen in client

[pseudo bone]

Hello everyone i am uploading my cv here please let me know what you think and how i can improve it.

[summer roost]

I'm not sure what the norm in Germany is, but in the US an applicant for an entry level job would definitely be expected to have a resume that fits on one single-sided page - so overflowing onto 2 pages would be a problem.

[smoky quest]

• Make it one page. You don't have enough experience to justify 2 pages
• Avoid multi-column formats. They aren't well parsed by ATSes
• The items should be in reverse chronological order
• In the descriptions, describe a bit the goal/context and outcome. It can be useful to call out important points (ex: you were leading the project or something you want the reader to be aware of) or the scale/numbers around it (ex: processed 1,000 event/second)
• For the pong project, I am not clear if you only wrote the pong game or also did write the NEAT part
• I would assume your name/phone number would be at the top of the first page but isn't there to preserve your anonymity
• If you have the source code online, it can be helpful to link to it for our projects. Make sure the code/repos are clean though

[smoky quest]

As a rule of thumb, Imagine the person reading your resume will only have ~30s to decide if they want to go further and call you back or not. So be mindful about what you want to say about yourself and how.
So I recommend a top down approach with the most important bits first and the most recent stuff first.
It's a tool for you to sell yourself and communicate your value in a short amount of time. The good part is that since you are the one writing the resume, you are in total control of what the reader will see

[summer roost]

some of your bullets start with lowercase letters, others start with uppercase letters. They should be consistent - normally they should all start with an uppercase letter. Likewise, some end with a . and others don't - you should be consistent.

I also wouldn't share the URLs for the certs - those take up space, and no one is likely to care about them (at most, they'd ask you to prove you have the certs when they make you an offer; they'll just trust you on your qualifications before that)

[pseudo bone]

what should i remove

[smoky quest]

Whatever you think is not relevant to a job.
The number of project is pretty large though. But it will probably come down to changing the format and removing a few things here and there

[pseudo bone]

should i remove interests?

[summer roost]

that's the first section I'd drop if you do need to drop a whole section.

those interests have lower value than anything else on there

You can certainly shorten "Professional Working Proficiency" down to "Business Proficiency" to convey the same meaning.

[sudden quartz]

@smoky quest affirmative action not what I mean, and that is a ridiculous concept btw precisely because of what I actually meant: I know someone who didnt get a job solely because they werent the MBTI they wanted, despite being one of if not the smartest I know. And I know someone else who got a job at a certain big name right out of college and they were probably one of the least knowledgeable/skilled at CS i know. There is almost 0 reason to even consider someone without a degree with a market like this that seems to accept the fact that almost everyone is qualified for entry level, so they base hiring off primarily personality

[sudden quartz]

So about your data science projects, they seem very "hello world". I am far from hiring manager, but as a peer, theyre boring projects

[summer roost]

ah, I see. Well, MBTI is pseudoscience, so it's a bit ridiculous for a company to take it into account, but 🤷
Interviewing well and having a personality that the interviewers find likeable does count for an awful lot, though.

[sudden quartz]

also, i also mean they want to meet a certificate or ms degree quota to look good

[pseudo bone]

what would u recomend i fdo

[sudden quartz]

if you have a MS degree you should be able to think of that yourself tbh, its a research degree.
do something you think of or help a professor with a project

[pseudo bone]

any resources that you feel might be helpful for me?

i am personally not in a position where i can be very innovative right now

[summer roost]

I'm not quite sure why people assume that FAANG hires the best people, though. They get the most applicants, so it's not at all surprising to me that their selection criteria winds up being largely arbitrary. They could start by throwing away 9 out of 10 resumes at random and still have plenty of qualified people to choose from.

[sudden quartz]

Participate in Kaggle, and try reading some research papers in data science and machine learning.

Use more interesting data sets, try more interesting analysis attempts.

[summer roost]

this is @peak halo's area, he might have some suggestions about your projects

[pseudo bone]

at this point i dnt even know if i should be applying for jobs

[summer roost]

Why not?

[pseudo bone]

cz of the weak resume i have

[sudden quartz]

Youre fine to apply for jobs for sure, im just saying your data science projects are common, boring, and easy, but at least you have some.

[summer roost]

it could use a little bit of work, but it's not so bad. I've hired people with worse resumes 😄

resume writing is a skill like any other. Not everyone is equally good at advertising themselves.

[pseudo bone]

i apologise i dnt want u to feel like i am fishing for sympathy

[native narwhal]

hey guys
I haven't done much coding just basic Py course a year ago
I am interested in learning some back-end development with node.js possibly, since I have also took a basic JS course on codeacademy
I have also worked with debian linux a bit so I am familiar with linux (a little bit)
So my question is about a machine I should use since I've got a choice
I own a desktop windows machine with Ryzen 5600x and 32gb Ram which I built for video effects editing
I also own a generic i7 Lenovo laptop with 16gb of ram
And I also have a MacBook Pro M1 (13'') 2020 with 8gb of unified ram 😄
So is backend heavy on RAM usage?
I mean I'd like to hook my mac since its unix based and just use that for learning and work to be honest
but I have no experience in this so I don't lnow if Node.js backend developers use Macs
Someone mentioned that most coders that work with databases use windows machines...
Please any advice is welcomed

[pseudo bone]

so if u have to be blunt would you say i send out to current resume with recomended changes and over time make projects to make it better on the side?

[pseudo bone]

could u point me to resources that could help me sharpen these skills?

[native narwhal]

google

[summer roost]

I'm sorry, but I don't really know of any

I'm sure you can find some advice on writing good resumes on Google, but I don't know of any specific sites.

[native narwhal]

Listen I am 34 and I have had 10s of jobs - its not about your resume its about showing your skill, I can walk into a restaurant go to the kitchen prepare a meal and become head chef WHY? cuz i have skill no resume needed

its same with coding jobs you don't need a pampflet just contact any company with a job position you can fill you CAN fill can you do it?>

[ivory sluice]

uh

[summer roost]

How does someone with no prior work experience show their skill, if not a resume? How else do they even get their foot in the door, short of having a preexisting relationship with someone who already works at that company?

[native narwhal]

I just told you that, you don't need resume to show your skill just start working for the man, you might have not experienced it like I did but going straight to the job on-site or in this case starting to code by any means necessary is your only chance. I used to go and work for a week with no pay just to prove that my skill is what I say it is. To get you must give.

[true harness]

uh

[summer roost]

having someone work for a week with no pay is, like, illegal

[native narwhal]

I even got a manager position without prior experience

[smoky quest]

Ah yeah. I subscribe to demonstrated set of skills.
Not pseudoscience. And to be honest, that's the first time I hear about a company using them.

[native narwhal]

There are people that can sell you a ice cubes in the middle of the north pole. There is no exact science in selling yourself. It doesn't mean you really have to go work for no money my friend. Use that as an example tell your employer that they must give you a chance.

[summer roost]

If someone applied for a job at my company and didn't go through the trouble of preparing a resume, they would not be interviewed.

unless they were someone well known in industry who we were actively poaching, or something like that, at least.

[smoky quest]

That's an interesting take.
Definitely a positive one, but which can be difficult to put in practice:

• A position can receive 100s of applicants. I simply do not have the physical time to bring them in the kitchen to have them try out
• A lot of applicants are also applying to multiple companies besides their day job and simply do not want to go through long or exhaustive interview processes.

[sudden quartz]

how about website or github but no pdf?

[true harness]

if you have the skills to make a website, you'd have to be avoiding making a resume

[smoky quest]

that would demonstrate a lack of communication skills and empathy by putting all the efforts of figuring out if you are a good fit on me

[summer roost]

hm - non-traditional resumes can be fine, but it still needs to check the boxes of a resume. If your github doesn't tell me prior work experience or education history, then your github isn't good enough.

[native narwhal]

yeah 😄 well I am not the master of getting employed I have had a lot of rejections and its still a numbers game but yeah positive persuading attitude to just get that single chance that can get you employed is what matters at least to me. I am not saying people shouldn't make resumes - they should but you can also GET IT without a resume 😄

I wasn't always like that, I had a sales job and massive sales training that made me this way 🤦‍♂️

[brittle thorn]

Ok that explains it

[native narwhal]

If you go to a sales training you are a changed person you can sell anything to anyone 😄

[smoky quest]

yeah, it can feel like an inhuman process at time. And trying to balance it out can be difficult on both sides.
But similarly to leetcode, if doing a resume can yield me a much bigger salary and interesting position, that's something I am gonna do

[summer roost]

Even if you don't like the game, it's still a good idea to show that you know the rules.

[smoky quest]

With regards to your question, the backend can start to be heavy once you start having multiple services running at the same time, especially if you want to add some load.
To be comfortable with a dev environment + services running, I would recommend a 16Gb at least. Running a DB, event/message broker, backend and a cache can add up pretty quickly.
(but also getting outside of the topic for the channel)

[native narwhal]

Yeah well I clearly have a lot to learn and thanks for the input yep sorry to the channel for going bit off-topic 🙂

[rose oracle]

[fleet stream]

if anyone wants gfg dsa self paced course they can dm me

[rare wing]

pancake

[graceful mason]

8gb of RAM isn't great for development and you're probably best off using macOS or Linux (learning them at the same time will be great experience), maybe get a VM running on your 32gb PC?

[kindred wave]

Hello, I’m currently about to finish my first cs fundamental course in uni after which I’ll be learning object oriented programming. I’m kinda stressed over internships/filling out my resume as I’m not sure what projects I should be going for. I’m currently learning python but I feel like projects would need some sort of web development so I’d have to teach myself html/css/JavaScript. Should I teach myself those or are there other options for projects?

[native narwhal]

Okay but I can just install Linux why is everyone saying use VM?
I have additional SSDs nVMEs I can put linux on

[graceful mason]

That works too, dual boot systems are pretty convenient

[native narwhal]

yep and if I try hard I can even maybe make it a Hackintosh and tripple boot all OSs on 1 PC loool

[smoky quest]

I am a full time GNU/Linux user for a decade or two. Haven't had any problem

[summer roost]

Typically whatever company you work for would furnish your development machine

[native narwhal]

maybe in2024 currently I am contact person for business development with a contract i just spend the rest of my time after work on my computers. I decided to make it productive and give myself year or two to learn full stack web dev to be opportunity ready, don't even know if Il work for me or a company or even be web dev 😂

[summer roost]

fair enough, but small scale learning types of tasks, you don't need much hardware.

8 GB ought to be plenty if you're just playing around, though more RAM never hurts.

[native narwhal]

yep the mac has 8gb of unified memory and also swap, I am amazed by the M1 performance migt even suffice a production level work with a little lag of course

[thorn bobcat]

what is the scope in learning python????

[native narwhal]

what scope

[thorn bobcat]

like where i can apply for job with python

[native narwhal]

web developer
data scientist
machine learning
artificial intelligence
and many other things

[brittle thorn]

I know of a person that went from biz dev to tech and then eventually done his own startup

[native narwhal]

that is great, in the end of the day startups may fail or succeed and make you a lot of money
working for established businesses is also an option

[smoky quest]

it comes down to a combination of factors

(going through it myself)

[native narwhal]

starting your company may be a nice lifestyle but i think it's more then I'd like to handle 😅

[smoky quest]

you can always join an existing one 😉

[brittle thorn]

It is I tried co founding startups ....you have to have a bit of financial security first then a flair for taking risks

[brittle thorn]

Your profile thou of a techy that can sell the tech is ideal for an early stage startup

(Im an introvert and not good at sales lol)

[dusty anvil]

Hello guys,
Could use some help with a career change....
I've been a TelCo engineer for the last 12-years and finished a bootcamp en Python last year with a Data Science baseline (ML, DL, Decision Science, Scipy, Matplotlib, some Docker and Heroku, GCP, etc etc).
I'm having some issues changing career. Apparently every thing company out there sees me as a Junior/Freshman and chooses to ignore my 12-years XP.
Is there anything I can do about it? Feeling desperate -.-

[brittle thorn]

Target smaller startups with a moar flexible hiring policy....also maybe try applying in the telco sector where your previous job experience is valuable

[rotund mango]

Is there any such thing as entry level python where they will train you for exactly what they need if you have little experience?
I doubt it, huh?

[dusty anvil]

I do believe one of the problems with startups is startups is that they never want juniors. Not in Portugal anyway.
They are always searching for people who "do it all". Also they don't really have a "teaching mindset".

As for the TelCo sector........I tried. Don't even get to Technical Interviews at this point. Unsure if the main problem is asking salary (20% below my current one) or age or something else....

[brittle thorn]

I have been in startups that have a teaching mindset and prefer juniors since they are cheaper lol

[dusty anvil]

US?

[brittle thorn]

Philippines

[dusty anvil]

Guess I need to change countries.
Although Philippines wouldn't work even working remotely :x

[brittle thorn]

Yeah age can be an issue I was in and interview once with your exact predicament and the interviewer blurted out loud on how he hated seniors blah blah...

[dusty anvil]

I'm 37. Not 60 ahahah

[brittle thorn]

No stay in europe

[brittle thorn]

Lol same during that time

Ageism in IT is rampant

[summer roost]

Unless you're able to find a job where your telco engineer skills are relevant experience to the work you'll be doing, you will be a junior from the company's point of view

[brittle thorn]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/we-hire-old-people-ageism-tech-inudstry-2021-8%3Famp

[dusty anvil]

This is sad yeah 😦

[brittle thorn]

Consider moving up the ladder to management

[summer roost]

Someone might be a master carpenter, but they're not getting hired as a senior software developer based on that

If you want to retain roughly your current level, your best chance is to find some sort of software dev job within telecom, where your past experience is at least somewhat relevant. Or possibly someplace that does network engineering.

[dusty anvil]

I've been offered a few times....I don't want to. When changing fields from TelCo (Network Optimization) to insert field here (Data Science) I wouldn't gain anything from going to Management

[smoky quest]

management skills?
it's literally a different job

[dusty anvil]

You misunderstood me.
I don't want to retain it. I just don't want to be make the same a freshman does. It would be like throwing 12 years out the door

[dusty anvil]

Yes. But not an IT based one

[summer roost]

Why would they pay you more if you're not bringing any extra skills they need beyond what other junior devs have?

[smoky quest]

youwouldn't be going for IT manager then

[dusty anvil]

Being on a work environment does account for something :/

[summer roost]

A bit, yes.

[smoky quest]

What does it mean to you beyond interacting with people who have jobs?

[summer roost]

Familiarity with how to behave professionally, how to communicate requirements, meet deliverables, etc.

[dusty anvil]

You do get experience from work methods, methodologies, how you deal with people, etc

[summer roost]

But, hey - a carpenter might have all of that.

[brittle thorn]

Eg. Agile, Scrum

[smoky quest]

any engineer with 2-3 years of xp got that. So why would I pay you more than that?

[dusty anvil]

Paying me what a 2yr XP gets....I wouldn't mind that

[smoky quest]

that's also not where the value added is

[brittle thorn]

You might have to take a hit in salary then hope for the best unless you can find that startup in the telco field

[summer roost]

Put yourself in the company's shoes: if you want to get 50% more money than a junior dev (just to put some number on it), you'll need to convince the company that you'll provide them at least 50% more value than that junior. If you can find a job in telecom where your past experience might occasionally be relevant, you can probably justify that. Possibly in some other fields, like network engineering. But it's pretty unlikely in data science, I expect.

[dusty anvil]

This again.....
As I said!!! :p
I'm expecting a hit on the salary. A big one.
But not expecting the salary of a guy just out of university 🙂

[summer roost]

Why not?

[dusty anvil]

On one hand it's a small gap. I'm not asking for more 50% in this case.
We're talking like....10% Net (to be practical).

[summer roost]

Well, that's a small enough amount that it could be negotiable, if you're an attractive enough candidate

[dusty anvil]

That depends on the country though.
Around here it can be big :/

[smoky quest]

You also have to be prepared to articulate why you are worth it to a specific company

[summer roost]

I think you need to spend some time thinking of a good answer to this question. If you want a company to pay you more than they'd pay other juniors, you need to be able to explain why.

[smoky quest]

That can make your arguments stronger

[summer roost]

It's not just "I'm older and wiser", and it's not "I've worked in an office before". But maybe familiarity with debugging complex problems, or knowledge of network protocol debugging and experience with Wireshark, or something like that might give you some leverage

It depends on what exactly your current skills are, and which of those might be useful to the job you're applying to

(and that's why jobs closer to your current field would give you a better chance at success, since they're more likely to find your current skills useful)

[brittle thorn]

Take the hit in salary if you really really want to move to a new field...it can be a temporary thing

Or move up the career ladder in your old one

[dusty anvil]

Thinking up of an answer for it makes sense.
Although up to a point I do believe it's implied that Work XP brings ..... XP.

I don't mind taking a hit. Just not that far of a hut like I said

[summer roost]

Work experience counts for something, but any fresh graduate who had an internship would have some work experience as well.

[brittle thorn]

You need to differentiate yourself from the other candidates ...do you have relevant projects

[dusty anvil]

Nothing decent in Github yet :x

[brittle thorn]

Work on that

[brittle thorn]

Try freelancing

Gain experience that way while retaining your old job

Then make the shift when your value can be justified in the new role

[dusty anvil]

How do I freelance without relevant Work XP? :/

[brittle thorn]

Try meetups and freelance sites
..bid low

[dusty anvil]

To clarify.
All I did was a 6month bootcamp in Python/DS.
Freelancing with this kind of XP would be nearly impossible really.
What I've looking for is a small team where I can "help" and "learn" at the same time.
Don't really have the confidence to take on a project solo

[brittle thorn]

Do personal projects and build a portfolio

Build your skills and confidence to go solo

Nobody wants to spoonfeed a senior

[dusty anvil]

Yeah the portfolio is a work in progress

[brittle thorn]

Good luck

[dusty anvil]

Thanks a lot

Might still try to get some help from a headhunter or someone who can steer towards the right path.
I feel like it's not enough

[brittle thorn]

Sometimes you get lucky ...be prepared for that

https://asymmetric.pro/luck-favors-the-prepared/

Do a personal SWOT

Know yourself

[pseudo bone]

I find myself to be creative, yet result-oriented, professional with strong communication skills in English. I have been actively developing and maintaining websites within my university. Robotics, Data Analysis, and Deep Learning in Python are some of the vital courses that made me well acquainted with different machine learning Clustering and Classification techniques and algorithms

this is the description i have written on my resume any feedback would be appreciated . i am a fresh graduate

[pseudo bone]

when applying for a job should i sent my transcript of grades?

[analog sun]

I think overall GPA is probably enough, I included my major's GPA as well when I was applying years ago

[honest pivot]

Use more active voice

Don't offer your humble opinions. Make statements. "I am creative", "I took these courses to build my skills", etc.

[brittle thorn]

Maybe give examples to demonstrate creativity that go beyond the courses taken

[peak halo]

I've never heard of anyone doing that. If you state your GPA on the resume, they'll probably take you word for it, but they might later request a degree verification (different from a transcript) with your GPA on it.

[honest pivot]

I haven't included my GPA in a long time. But is it not useful for someone just out of school?

[peak halo]

my guess is that employers only sometimes care with respect to new graduates. I think I was only asked my GPA by one interviewer (though it was for the job that I got).

that isn't to say that doing well in the courses isn't important, however.

[tame forge]

Hey so a general question.
As a computer science student, should i learn web dev even if I dont wanna become a web developer (probably)? I got suggested by people to learn atleast intermediate web dev.
I am looking into cyber security and blockchain field rn. not sure if i wanna go into them tho. my curriculum on the other hand has a bit of focus on data science.

[peak halo]

what level of web development? I wouldn't bother with any amount of front end development unless web development is what you want to do. knowing some amount of how web services work is useful for pretty much every developer, but I'm not sure I'd dedicate time to learning it explicitly.

[tame forge]

i really dont know
as i said intermediate
personally was looking into backend as i already know some python too.

idk how much time would learning front end take. is javascript even worth learning or not 🤷‍♂️

[peak halo]

"intermediate" isn't formally defined. javascript is worth learning if you want to do front end. Otherwise, not really.

[tame forge]

oh
i saw web dev in a roadmap for blockchain too actually
tbh i really dont know what stuff to do for sure (like many others). I am in year 2.
i know dsa using java.

everyone i know is learning web dev so was kinda curious :p

[frosty sail]

If you're interested in the blockchain space you'll definitely want a little backend web dev knowledge

the how and why of using web-based APIs to get and create data

you won't necessarily be creating a webserver backend, but it'd be helpful to be familiar with the concepts b/c you'll most likely be interacting with a lot of webserver backends

[tame forge]

for backends, should i learn backend in python only or learn js
i already know a lot of python but no exp. with js

[frosty sail]

python is sufficient IMO for backend experience. It's a commonly used language for professional backends

[buoyant seal]

Tbh it would make sense to learn js for backend too

Market is overwhelmed by js backend vacancies. Half of backend is made in js
Plus js is requirement to know anyway, because there are no front alternatives

Add in addition that js is ten times faster than Python

[frosty sail]

yeah JS is also used in backend code. If you're going for a second language after learning python it's a popular choice - with the combination of the two you can handle almost any problem. Go is also gaining a lot of interest in particular for webserver backends

[light radish]

First day at new job looks like my official title is Data engineer. I will be doing python development here. On LinkedIn what is a better title to list? Data engineer or Python developer?

[frosty sail]

data engineer

default to your official title unless you have a good reason not to

[peak halo]

the roles of all these data* positions aren't consistently defined. is there a reason you need people to know you're developing in Python?

[thick pendant]

What do I need to study (like Python, SQL, Git…) if I wanna work with Data Science?
I work with molecular biology and I’m interested in bioinformatics but lately it has come to my attention that Data Science in the Healthcare area is growing a lot and it may have better opportunities where I live. Any career tips?

[peak halo]

what credentials do you have currently? it's likely that this sort of career change is feasible for you. (I work in a data science-adjacent position and have worked with bioinformatics professionals, so my experience doesn't strictly apply to your question, necessarily.)

[frosty sail]

python, sql, git, are all good starts. If you're specifically interested in the healthcare/pharma space, it would also be a good resume booster (if you're willing to work with it... many aren't) to learn SAAS. There is a ton of legacy analytics code in these industries specifically built in SAAS, and having that as a skill on your resume will get you to the top of a lot of hiring piles

[thick pendant]

My background is Biomedical science and I work at a molecular biology lab (did I understand your question correctly?), but I study bioinformatics and now a bit of data science thinking about changing my career or maybe complementing it.

[peak halo]

what degree do you have?

[frosty sail]

Depending on what exactly you want to do - machine learning for drug discovery based on dna, for example - you may need to get a PhD in biology or bioinformatics to be taken seriously as a scientist in the pharma and healthcare industries.

[thick pendant]

BSc. I’m starting the MSc this year.

[peak halo]

Is the MSc going to have a programming component?

[frosty sail]

If your interest is more generic, and youd be happy with less scientific analytics tasks like process monitoring, data munging for patient data collection, whatever, a PhD is probably unnecessary

[thick pendant]

I will have to analyze sequencing data so probably there will be some bioinformatics and I want to present a Power BI dashboard or something like that. My advisor really likes to work with data, so we probably will insert something like that in the project.

[peak halo]

I'll defer to those with more experience about what you would need to do to make the career change, but SQL and git are both very good things to know for data science. You'd also need to become familiar with the Python data science stack (numpy, pandas, whichever are relevant for bioinformatics), though I don't recommend "learning libraries".

[thick pendant]

You mean it’s best to learn how the libraries work instead of only learning how to apply them?

I’ve been learning pandas and Biopython but I’m only starting. I appreciate the advices though! Thanks a lot

[peak halo]

not quite. my point is that each library is a tool (or set of tools) for certain problems, and it's better to learn how to do different things and just pick up the libraries bit by bit as they apply to each problem. and after a while you'll have a sense for how to use the docs for those libraries when you need them.

you'll probably never use most of the functionality in each library anyway

[edgy summit]

Hello I'm learning python ! Where I can I ask my doubts in the community!!

[peak halo]

see #❓｜how-to-get-help

[edgy summit]

Ohky thanks buddy !!

[kind cove]

Ohky thanks buddy !!

Ohky thanks buddy !!

Ohky thanks buddy!!

[peak halo]

@kind cove please don't shitpost in topical channels.

[vapid jay]

Hey, does anyone know how to get a job oversees as a new graduated student with their undergrad? I'm from South Africa

[ancient star]

I list my GPA on my resume, but only until I have something more impressive to put there.

Oops forgot to @ the person from above. Oh well.

[frosty terrace]

Before trying python developing, should i do data analyst instead?

how do i get my foot in the door to doing a job which revolves around python

like whats a good entry level job title i should be searching for?

[smoky quest]

Depends where your interests are and your qualifications

[frosty terrace]

I enjoy game development but that's not a real think it seems for python, so i will probably eventually move to another language. Right now I'm interested in anything. I am fine with web design, software design, literally anything at this point.

I want to do back-end software development mainly

[sand prairie]

hey what are the conditions of job market about programming in india?
what all things do I need to do for that...

[sudden quartz]

Computer Science is a large, large, focus domain. It depends on your goals. This is for everyone, computer science is a degree to prepare you for computer science research and it becoming "the degree to get a job" is a happy accident. Its the degree of the 21st century I do agree though. You can definently ignore the department focus unless it offers some extra accreditation, then its nice to pick it up for data science. But data science feels like a cheap easy money grab for most departments imo.

[smoky quest]

https://roadmap.sh/ has some examples of skills for backend and python.
In terms of jobs, a degree goes a long way in increasing your chances

[vapid jay]

is it easy to become data analyst ?

[graceful mason]

I kind of disagree with avoiding learning libraries in data science - pandas, numpy, and matplotlib are must haves

[vapid jay]

what are the reasons for not learning libraries ?

[graceful mason]

Stelercus' point is I think to learn how to solve problems and the libraries you need will come naturally through googling, but for me since pandas/numpy/matplotlib are so commonly used for data that they should be your go to for any solutions and you should only look up other libraries for things they don't cover

[pseudo bone]

when applying for a job there is option to add my resume thats understandable but there are other fields with

the option to upload files

i dont know what files to upload their mydegree , my transcript etc?

[pseudo bone]

i dont understand why people emphasize degree all of the skills related can be learned online.

am i missing something

[frosty terrace]

in all honesty it seems like they dont even look at your skills or github

[smoky quest]

It's a pretty long topic. But the tl;dr:

• A degree means you have spent 3-5 years full time studying it
• A degree implies a well known set of studied topics
• A degree help you create your first professional network
• A degree prepares you for a career in CS, not a code monkey

[smoky quest]

Companies receive 100s of resume for each position. They can't just peruse through random gh profiles to figure out your skills.
So in practice, your resume has 30s to convince someone to dig deeper. They may look more into the details later, but they are still limited in time

[frosty terrace]

You'd assume a github would be the only thing they would look at

[smoky quest]

You can't assume that. They just don't have the time nor the interest

[amber notch]

I'm thinking of doing some freecodecamp certificates. Any likelihood these are resume worthy?

[smoky quest]

it's better than nothing, but it's also relative to your qualifications or the alternative.
Depending on the domain, they may also not matter

[summer roost]

How much can you learn from someone's GitHub in 30 seconds?

[frosty terrace]

A lot, you can see if they can make workable code. Way more important than previous experience and education

[amber notch]

@smoky quest Thanks! I'm just looking for some progression after learning the basics

[smoky quest]

That's not been my experience.
When I click on someone's profile, I typically get hit by a wall of random projects of various level of quality and completeness

You would also rely on your luck of the reviewer to find the right repo and right code

[gilded valley]

you can definitely get positive confirmation about someone's ability from their github in 30s
but you can't find anything about the negative

[true harness]

sure you can. it takes much less than 30s to see if there's no readme, or if it's lacking tests

[gilded valley]

yes - but the fact that someone doesn't have a good github doesn't mean they're a bad programmer

[kind cove]

so anyone can become a programmer but a programmer can't become anyone right?

[true harness]

sure, but then why look in the first place

[smoky quest]

so we are talking about a curated document to highlight one's set of skills 🤔

That would also assume that everyone can showcase their skills on public repositories

[gilded valley]

a reason why you might look is that the 30s time investment for the chance of finding out that they are good is worth it - even if when the github doesn't immediately show them as good, you can't be sure that they're bad

[frosty terrace]

just keep hearing so many different sides of this, by the time I get hired as a developer, I would have my own projects and company

"Just learn to code bro" now its... "go back to school, again, and again"

[smoky quest]

These are just different optimizations. They also depend on your age and situation.
If you are in high school, go for a degree.
If you are 45, then you may want to pick a different route

[amber notch]

What if you're 30 lol

[smoky quest]

then it could go either way 😉

[summer roost]

I can't imagine how I could judge whether someone's code is workable in 30 seconds. When someone on my team sends me a pull request to review for a project I'm already familiar with, it takes me a minimum of 10 minutes on most feature PRs to figure out if their approach is sane and if they've got any major bugs. There's no way I could glean anything meaningful from looking at a project I've never seen before for 30 seconds, beyond maybe "if it doesn't have a pyproject.toml it's probably crap"

Likewise for LICENSE.

Seriously, 30s is barely long enough to skim the README and figure out what the project is supposed to do

[safe loom]

Trying to apply to US companies in case I can get an opportunity to go overseas. Should I write a cover letter for an open application? It looks like a colossal waste of time to me.

[shell cradle]

I have a bit of a dilemma. I am in my early 20s, college dropout , and want to go into programming. I purchased codecademy pro. I have been coding everyday for the past three months. I have a good understanding of html, css and Js fundamentals. I’ve noticed how much i haven’t been enjoying it. I dabbled in python. I like it far more but I’m not sure about an entry level job. I choose front end web dev due to how it’ll be easier to find a job compared to python. I’m not sure. What are your thoughts? What are entry level python dev jobs?

[peak halo]

without a degree, web development jobs are probably going to be most available to you.

but if you're doing html, css, and js, you're talking about front end. when it comes to web development, python is one of the languages you can use for the back end.

[summer roost]

If you're serious about pursuing programming as a career, going back to college and getting at least an associate degree in CS or a Software Engineering would be tremendously helpful to you long term, if you could afford the time and cost.

Otherwise, your best option will likely be web development. A boot camp might be helpful, because boot camps often partner with local businesses to funnel graduates into low skill programming jobs

[frosty terrace]

so what is the title im looking for, python web developer?

I'll learn django if i have to.

[ancient star]

Yes, and yes. To start! Unless you can think of more specific areas you're interested in.

[frosty terrace]

I honestly don't care for web development but anything is better than my current job

[summer roost]

"full stack web developer" is the job you'd be most likely to get. It would involve frontend HTML/CSS/JavaScript code, and some sort of backend code, possibly Python, possibly Node.js, possibly something else.

And, again: the more education you can manage to get, the better your chances of managing to escape from web development into a programming career you find more interesting.

[cunning heart]

I don't know the answer to this, so genuinely curious which carries more weight these days. A degree/degrees, or a robust portfolio, such as GitHub.

[summer roost]

At the junior developer level, a degree, hands down.

[ancient star]

Why not work on both? I am. Although my current repo of "beginners python" isn't very interesting. One day!

[cunning heart]

Good to know. I have just seen so much more mention of self taught coders these days, but all things being equal, a degree would certainly be a deal sealer.

[cunning heart]

Oh, absolutely. Anything you can do is beneficial.

[summer roost]

Once you have ~5 years of professional experience, many people won't care whether or not you have a degree. But getting 5 years of professional experience without a degree is not easy.

[cunning heart]

Yeah, the age old "How do I get experience if no one will hire me".

Though years of experience via community projects would be great, but obviously a slow start to a paid position.

[summer roost]

Terrible programmers with degrees often manage to land entry level jobs, and excellent programmers without degrees often struggle to get interviews.

[cunning heart]

Unfortunate, but true.

[safe loom]

What do you think of open letters? Pointless or not? Everybody tells me it's better to apply at one position because most companies never read them.

[amber notch]

Any advice on how to get involved with community projects?

[hybrid oyster]

is going to competitions gonna help for university?

[frosty sail]

Write one or two standard/generic cover letters you can use, then find-replace the company/hiring manager's names and send it out. Add an extra paragraph if you really want to. Then your time investment for a good cover letter is amortized over the many times you use it. Just make sure you don't screw up the find-replace...

[frosty sail]

I think most hiring managers & interviewers do look at github, personal website, linkedin profile, etc.. But only for final-round applicants. The HR person you do your first interview with in most setups doesn't give a shit, and if the company does coding tests they're gonna wait until after you pass that. The issue like has been pointed out by others is just limits on time. We have other jobs than just interviewing people.

[safe loom]

Would something like that work? I used the templates on JobSeeker (although i'd need some personification to stand out).

[frosty sail]

As far as skills keywords go, make sure they are on your linkedin/indeed/glassdoor/whatever job board you use and are topical to the job you want. Recruiters use them for targeting.

[frosty sail]

way too much detail edit: I guess the detail level is fine overall, but in the wrong places. IMO this is not a very good cover letter - no offense intended -

put yourself in the shoes of someone who has 6 hours of meetings the day they read this

your cover letter is getting read on a smartphone while walking between meetings. Most likely just before your interview.

So, make the sell in the first sentence, build on that in the first paragraph, and elaborate on stuff like "I'm not currently employed" only if you think it makes your story better, and do all elaboration after the hard sell

as well, remove the redundant info

they know what job you're applying for. They know everything else that's on your resume, they read that first. Remove all of that info from the cover letter. So sell your personality, and tell the hiring manager how giving you money is a good investment

[safe loom]

Yeah that's what I'm doing for regular cover letters. But what about the ones that are called spontaneous letters where you just leave a message when the position isn't available in the career page?

[frosty sail]

... what?

I've never heard of such a thing. So the idea is a company decides to open up headcount, and you hope they remember to find your resume out of their database?

[safe loom]

That's basically the thing yes 😬 I don't really want to write a letter for that but I was told to except I know they never bother to respond back.

https://www.welcometothejungle.com/en/articles/spontaneous-applications-how-to

[frosty sail]

In any case, I don't see why that would be different. You're still aiming for the same goal

[frosty terrace]

the biggest issue is that i never worked for a job with programming, so my resume is pretty useless, how do i make it stand out?

[frosty sail]

That seems like a very low chance of success option. There's so many open positions for software jobs, I don't understand why you'd spend time on this method instead of just using the time to apply to open jobs instead

[safe loom]

I was asked to even if I know it's a complete waste of time

[frosty sail]

... interesting.

[safe loom]

Can't be helped. Gen X and boomers are so out of touch they think the job market is always available. Then they cry and wonder why nobody replies to them.

[frosty sail]

If you've got experience/valuable skills that aren't software in a particular industry, it can be easier to get in the door as a more novice software engineer in that same industry. It's hard to tell what your exact situation is from your messages, but it sounds like you're self-taught and trying to career transition into software?

If you've no work experience in software, you need some other proof of knowledge/skills. STEM degree is best, bootcamp is something, certifications are better than nothing. If you have none of those three, a hiring manager has no ability to validate you're not lying about your skills.

[frosty terrace]

Yes, I'm wondering if i should apply for a data analyst, since im good with excel, loads of background experience in business, and sql seems easy. But obviously it's not something I want to do forever.

[frosty sail]

yeah sounds pretty reasonable

if you've any management experience, (or are willing to do an MBA) you could probably move towards a project manager role quite quickly once you get your foot in the door in the tech side in your industry you've already got experience in

[frosty terrace]

i have a degree is business management, bachelor's

is it possible to go from data analyst to a software engineer?

[frosty sail]

yes.

data analyst -> data engineer (software engineer but more focused on managing and sharing data... sometimes. Some companies use the data label to mean whatever they want it to mean) is a transition I've seen a bunch of my coworkers do when I was at two different F500 companies

[frosty terrace]

what is a good starting pay?

[frosty sail]

depends on too many factors, ask glassdoor or some other similar resource about your industry and region

[frosty terrace]

is it wrong to ask what they're offering?

[frosty sail]

I bought linkedIn premium and glassdoor premium for a few months when I was hardcore job searching and IMO was worth it b/c I was able to demand the right amount

[frosty sail]

no, but they may say they can't tell you, and while that's likely total BS, you just have to nod and accept that. They have no obligation to you.

except in some states/countries where job listings have to include pay range

I think only CA in the USA for now, and some EU countries

[sudden quartz]

Tbh there isnt a big reason to ask until they offer the position, and by that time theyd have given a pay offer.

[frosty terrace]

I've had people call asking for how much I expect already

yeah i think ill take my shot as a data analyst

[frosty terrace]

are hiring agencies a good idea to deal with?

[summer roost]

They can be... They've got pros and cons. Their incentives align with getting you the most possible money, since they make a commission based on your salary if you keep the job for 6 months or some such. But on the flip side, that means that they're trying to find the best paying job that they think you'll be able to make it 6 months in, not the job that fits you best. Bad recruiters will lie to both the company and the candidate to try to make a match happen, or do things like tip you off in advance to interview questions previous candidates were asked to try to help you land a job that's above your level

[summer roost]

Would you decide against interviewing if the pay is lower than you're aiming for? If yes, asking the salary range in advance could be a way to avoid wasting your time and theirs. If not, then I can't see any benefit to asking.

[honest pivot]

What do you think is the ideal number of people to involve in a hiring decision?

[summer roost]

My company generally does 5 or 6. Seems to work fine.

[honest pivot]

Do you sit down together and discuss in order to make the decision? Or do you pass your opinions along and one person makes the decision at the end?

[smoky quest]

hiring manager typically has the final word.
They decide however they want the process to go about it

[honest pivot]

Was kind of a question about specifics. How do you do things in your team?

[smoky quest]

• No one talk to each other until we actually meet at the end as to avoid any bias
• As mentioned above, unless it's clear no, we will all meet to discuss the candidate
• If some areas are unclear or contradictory, I may schedule another session to dig into it
• I will in most cases reject a candidate if there is any no. But I do reserve the right to not listen to it for specific conditions
• I also force people to say yes or no, regardless of the candidate pipeline. If you are about to say things like "I am not too sure but let's see the next candidate", that means you would not hire them and thus shouldn't go forward anyway

[summer roost]

the process for my company when I was last involved in external hiring (which was pre-COVID) was basically:

1. HR does initial resume filtering. This step is pass/fail.
2. Candidates who pass are put on a queue for a technical phone screen. One screener out of a pool is randomly assigned, and spends about half an hour on the phone with the candidate. This step is also pass/fail, but biased towards passing - it's "is there any chance this candidate could pass an interview", essentially.
3. HR reaches out to candidates who pass the phone screen and schedules in-person interviews
4. Four senior developers are assigned to do the interview, in pairs. They discuss in advance what questions each group will ask, to ensure no overlap.
5. First two developers interview the candidate for an hour, then hand over to the second pair. They give some very brief feedback about areas to dig into more, or areas where the candidate seems more comfortable, but no decisions are made yet.
6. Second pair of developers interviews the candidate for an hour
7. All four interviewers meet back up and discuss amongst themselves for about 5 minutes. Unanimous agreement is required to go forward with the candidate. If they decide not to move forward with the candidate, the hiring manager never gets involved, and step 8 is skipped.
8. The manager for the team that the candidate would work on sits down and talks to them for an hour
9. HR talks to the candidate, handles questions related to the company/benefits/comp, and walk them out.

And after this point, unanimous agreement from senior devs and hiring manager is required to extend an offer. We decide whether or not we would be willing to make an offer. If we'd be willing to extend an offer, we'd interview any other candidates already scheduled, and then extend an offer to whoever we liked best.

and up until that very last step, the process is biased towards accepting rather than rejecting. In step 7, if someone says "maybe", we treat that as a yes. But as @smoky quest says, after step 9, a "maybe" usually becomes a no.

[frosty terrace]

If someone was a data analyst looking for a programming job, would you take that seriously?

[ancient star]

Lord, I'm getting nervous just reading about interviews, and I don't have any in my near future. Hah.

[near ocean]

Honestly that sounds like entirely too many steps for an interview process

[summer roost]

they'd get the same interview as anyone else would. If they do well at it, sure.

[summer roost]

for context, we're quite a large company, though non-FAANG. That seems to be pretty much standard for companies our size, in my experience. What does your company do?

[near ocean]

Mine is a small startup, our eng team is in poland so im not entirely sure what they do
Im the only eng person in our uk offices and i was given a task to do in python, then had a phone call with the head of engineering about the task. Finally i had an in person interview and presentation with the entire team, or whoever was around at the time of my interview

[smoky quest]

that's actually pretty common.
There may even be an extra step somewhere between 1-4 where the hiring manager will sell the job to the candidate. Sometimes doing the technical filtering along the way

[near ocean]

So pretty much a call and an in person thing

[summer roost]

My guess would be that small companies optimize their pipeline to fill positions quickly, and larger companies optimize their pipeline to make it rare to regret hiring someone

(possibly because it's much more difficult to fire someone at large companies)

[summer roost]

two tips: 1) do a bunch of interviews. Interviewing is a skill like any other, and you'll get better at it with practice. 2) remember that the people who are interviewing you would, by and large, rather be doing something else. Most of the interviewers I've known would rather be coding. Interviews can be awkward for everyone in the room.

[frosty terrace]

should i be doing these little tests on indeed and linkedin?

[summer roost]

Our process has a lot of steps, but if someone passes them all, it's ~4 hours of interviews total. Do you think all of your steps added up to less than 4 hours, even including your Python task and preparing and giving a presentation?

[near ocean]

Yes
The phone call was 30' and the in person interview was 1h approx presentation included
Prepping for the presentation didnt take that long and it for sure wouldnt take as long as grinding leetcode for all the silly technical questions big companies ask nowadays

[summer roost]

I don't think I've ever prepared a presentation in less than 4 hours in my entire life 😄

[near ocean]

It was a 5min thing

They wanted me to talk about my favourite/most used app for 5mins, i guess its to see if i can talk in front of people

[summer roost]

I just had to do a 13 minute presentation for my department on one of my team's tools, and spent ~8 hours preparing it, and rehearsed it 4 times before giving it. But I really hate public speaking.

[summer roost]

oh, bonus tip @ancient star: It's terrible for the interviewers when the interview isn't going well. It's not fun to watch someone sit and get stressed out and fail to solve a problem or answer a question. So, if something isn't going well, your interviewers will almost certainly try to either change the topic by asking something else and moving on, or try to give you hints to get you onto the right track. For the love of god, let them.

[ancient star]

Haha I have had a mechanical interviewer do that. I was trying to fix something he intentionally broke and he about cringed watching me before he started giving me hints.

[indigo helm]

For computer vision, is it worth studying the traditional contents of digital image processing or is it better to start learning and diving into deep learning?

[ancient star]

Idk, I passed the Python skill assessment there and have nothing to show for it so far. I'm also not actively applying for jobs, so there's that.

[summer roost]

that might be a better question for #data-science-and-ml unless you're specifically asking in the context of what would position you better for a career in computer vision

[dense mesa]

I've done a uni project on CV without needing too much image processing knowledge

[summer roost]

when I say "I think you'd have an easier time if you used a queue", what I mean is "I can't imagine any way you could solve the problem the way you're tackling it, and everyone else uses a queue", heh

[dense mesa]

Although you really need to know the basics at times when your model/whatever isn't working and there's no clear reason why (such as convolution masks being too big or small etc)

[calm dawn]

Guys, im a python noob doing LC mediums, is there anything else i should be doing or is grinding more LC meds/hards good? I come from a finance/econ background. I am currently the data guy in my company but all we use is excel... i do want to grow and get into software or data, what do yall think is the path to take? feel free to @ me

[smoky quest]

reading books and articles about data structures and algorithms can help. That is in addition of doing more LC

[calm dawn]

imreading through Elements of Programing Interview i believe it is

yea, i will be focusing on bfs/dfs this week, hope they dont break my tiny brain

[smoky quest]

You may be interested in books like https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-MIT-Press/dp/0262033844 . They help pin down a lot of the stuff

[calm dawn]

i can feel my brain melting

[smoky quest]

There are other books more interview oriented though. But haven't read them

[calm dawn]

but yea, i will add that one to the list... for sure!

[smoky quest]

if BFS/DFS are that painful to you, you may want to take a step back from leetcode and focus more on learning the material

[true harness]

there's Cracking the Coding Interview

[calm dawn]

i can conceptually understand them, im just new to the language and cant code them lol

[smoky quest]

Because they aren't really considered advancesd

[calm dawn]

as in, i know what they want to achieve, just that i have never coded them and im spooked of the syntax i guess

[true harness]

bfs and dfs are the building blocks for more advanced graph algos. if you're stuck, bashing your head against it won't help, you need to learn it first

[summer roost]

they're pretty simple to code. If you're not able to regurgitate the code for them, you probably don't know them that well.

[smoky quest]

that's my point.
Learn them first, do some small exercises to understand and master them. Even going as far as mini-projects

[true harness]

algorithm problems aren't a beginner topic. if you're new to programming I recommend focusing on learning the syntax and getting used to solving simpler problems

[summer roost]

for what it's worth, DFS and BFS can be implemented using identical code, except one uses a stack for storing the states still to be searched and the other uses a queue

[calm dawn]

@true harness i am doing just fine on array/lists/sorts LC mediums, but i do agree, my fundamentals are very weak. Trees and graphs i just havent played with yet

[summer roost]

you'd probably get better returns by reading an algorithms book than by continuing to grind leetcode

[calm dawn]

So i guess i will read up on them and see what comes out of my brain... @summer roost i will keep the stack vs que tip

[true harness]

+1 on CLRS, the book recursive sent. very rigorous and covers pretty much everything

[calm dawn]

welp

i guess i have the book for the rest of the month(s?). I will come back later i suppose

[summer roost]

if you get stuck on anything or need help wrapping your head around anything, there's #algos-and-data-structs

[calm dawn]

for sure, my brain is tiny