career-advice

[smoky quest]

that can be.
In these cases, I tend to reply things like "I need some time to review the offer. I want to commit to it without any regret and invest myself fully and do need a few days."

they may be afraid you are shopping around or something, but that's on them to make their best offer

Note also that if a company is already a pain to meet your initial expectations, that won't get any better in a year when it comes to performance review/compensation update

[junior ocean]

@smoky quest Thank you for the advice. I still don't know which way I'll go but you did confirm the red flags.

I might pass on them, but I'm unhappy at my current job...

[smoky quest]

the market is still hot right now and there are many interesting companies out there 😉

[honest pivot]

Since you already have a job, you have the biggest advantage, which is the ability to say no.

[junior ocean]

Yeah I might take option 3 which is accept the job then keep looking @smoky quest

[smoky quest]

I wouldn't do that. That's not professional and would burn some bridges.
If you sign, that means you are intent on joining

[junior ocean]

I agree thats true and its something I've never done, but if you got a new job and another company finally got back to offering 30% more, are you saying you would turn it down? @smoky quest

[smoky quest]

I would.
If I commit to something, I commit to it

A job is not just about the cash.

[jagged glade]

there's a possibly that the second company would find out about this, and there's a possibility that their offer will go from 30% more to nothing at all

[junior ocean]

@jagged glade I've never heard of this ever.

[smoky quest]

note also that if you can easily get a better 30% offer, it means you haven't looked much at the market.
Don't jump at the first offer and don't interview at a single company at a time

[quick rapids]

Should I get a second full-time job, if i have a good amount of free time from my current job? (Both remote)

[smoky quest]

that is not advisable. That would not be professional, would very likely go against either contract you signed and is not worth the risk

[quick rapids]

Should I attempt to renegotiate my job as a contractual position then? A lot of people in my circle are doing 2-3 jobs and I feel like I'm missing out

[junior ocean]

@smoky quest a job can have a lot a meaning, but at every place I have ever worked including FAANG they don't hold anyone in high regard. Your just a cog and they will toss you aside if it means their stock will go up by a quarter of a point. So why be loyal for years when they can drop you at any moment?

[quick rapids]

I recently interviewed and accepted one of the three offers i got. I could easily accept another one

[smoky quest]

you can try.
but that would also demonstrate your lack of motivation and lack of ability to take responsibilities

[smoky quest]

that's a big leap from the original discussion 😉

[junior ocean]

Yeah I'm super tired and my mind is starting to drift @smoky quest

[smoky quest]

We were talking about signing a job offer. That has no bearing with regards to how many years you stay

[junior ocean]

@quick rapids Its very common now to have multiple jobs just a bit taboo. If your young and can handle it why not. If the company is happy with your work why shouldn't you have a side hustle?

[quick rapids]

Is it not common to renegotiate a full-time position as a contractual position

[junior ocean]

I would check your employment agreement to see if you are in conflict.

[quick rapids]

Yea I'm young and feel like i can handle it easily.

[smoky quest]

it's not common, but think about it from your manager's perspective: so you don't have enough work and aren't trying to take on more responsibility

[smoky quest]

I can bet they would be in conflict. That's the definition of full time

[junior ocean]

Its probably not a big deal if your not working for the competition.

[quick rapids]

The offers I have are from wildly different companies

[smoky quest]

that would be a big deal in the circles I run.
note also there may be some impact in terms of background checks and reference checks

[quick rapids]

These are very early stage startups. ~10 people

[smoky quest]

yeah, that's even worse

[quick rapids]

Don't startups have loosely defined policies

[smoky quest]

contracts are pretty much the same since it all comes from lawyers

[quick rapids]

Yeah that's true

I'll go through the contracts tonight and see if there's any room for renegotiation

[smoky quest]

you can renegotiate everything as long as both parties sign

[quick rapids]

But I'd say multiple full time jobs is a growing trend

[smoky quest]

not from what I have seen. It's more ground for being fired on the spot

it would be safer to moonlight or a micro-saas than having another full time job

[marsh wind]

it might be in certain countries/places and might not be at all in others

[quick rapids]

We are based in california

[true harness]

how can you have 2 full time jobs. isn't one of them supposed to take up all your time

[clever vector]

Hi, I am new in Python. Can someone suggest me any resources from where I can learn? I have a roadmap from roadmap.sh. I am willing to follow that. Currently, I am in search for a good resource from where I can follow my roadmap and learn

[marsh wind]

!resources in fact has lot of stuff

[inner wren]

Resources

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

[clever vector]

I can't find it

where is i

[marsh wind]

click on the link in the embed that Python bot has sent

[vapid jay]

hi

[grim steeple]

hey! i want to learn python

[delicate bane]

apparently not

[south shard]

stonks

can you get a job at 13?

[peak halo]

you'd probably need to check the labor laws in your jurisdiction, but at least in the US, you can usually only get a programming internship if you're a university student, and you can only get a programming job if you have a relevant degree or tangible experience.

I'd also keep in mind that programming is great because anyone with a computer and internet access can start learning how to do it. but this low barrier to learning gives people false impressions about where the barrier is to employment. If you're just starting out with programming as a teenager, it's likely that you still have several more years of learning to go before you're able to develop anything that a business would be willing to pay for.

[solid plover]

Majority of the laws state that, 13 years of age and employment is a type of a labour. You can make a good amount in crypto but that's not for teens atleast from aging 13. Although some game developers allow employment of a child at the age of 13 for example roblox teams.

And if they are targetting towards programming, you are absolutely correct.

Also for programming jobs, they ask for expireince. Atleast 3 years of it.

[true harness]

that's not true, no one would be able to enter the field if that's the case

[solid plover]

As a matter of act, they were asking because they wanted to buy robux.

I don't know why when I see working I think of FAANG, lol. My bad.

[jade bough]

what's FAANG?

[solid plover]

Facebook, Amazon, apple, Netflix, google.

[jade bough]

Ive heard of some of those, but never heard of Facebook or Google, only Meta and Alphabet

shouldn't it be AMANA

[solid plover]

Meta is Facebook Alphabet is google wdym

Alphabet owns google and meta is the new name for Facebook

[solid plover]

Absolutely not.

[raven yew]

I have problem I have learned basic of python but when it comes to coding it's just like it's empty I can't create anything but I can do well if I follow instructions did u guys dealt with something like this and how do u overcome it

[solid plover]

#python-discussion

[mystic jungle]

me too ..... i just keep watching tutorials and searching ralated stuff on google 😄 ...like i know most of the concepts but i don't know when to exactly use them . So i just search for projects related to that concept

[delicate bane]

interview today. im usually not nervous, but i guess i am for this one

[true harness]

gl!

[delicate bane]

thanks!

[dense mesa]

Good luck 😃

[mystic jungle]

gl sir! 😉

[tacit yew]

Good luck! you got this!

[sudden hatch]

Can you guys tell me how much programming knowledge is required to get a job?

[near ocean]

That depends on the job

You'd have to be more specific if you want a better answer

[sudden hatch]

I want to become a deep learning engineer

I can code basic ANN and CNN

What else should I learn to get a job?

Or how much knowledge ahould I have to become a basic python engineer

[fast hearth]

I was curious about this as well. I'm wondering if there's any specific types of projects I should focus on to put on my portfolio that would be a good fit for a python developer job.

[near remnant]

i learned frontend (javascript, html, css, scss, a bit of react) made some project last year then switched to python like a month ago but got an internship offer. they told me that i shouldn't be scared, they will give me at least 3 months to learn everything. but im really scared bcus i literally just started learning python. i mean, yeah, i have programming experience but in a different language and area

do you guys have any advice?

[smoky quest]

don't be scared and continue learning about python.

The most difficult part is learning the algorithms and first language.
Afterwards, it's pretty much the same.

With time and effort, you will be fine.
Give yourself also some time since you will also be overloaded with information specific to their domain/product/team/company and it will take some time to digest and make sense of it.

[near remnant]

Sure. After learning / using js, understanding python is not so hard tbh

currently working on the OOP side of python but i learned OOP for js so yeah

actually I'm just glad they gave me a chance

[sterile hare]

Random topic - So I have a job interview this friday. The role is DevOps for a company called DataKind.
They are offering 90,000 - 120,000 for the job in the posting: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=aec3de60841e1817&from=serp&vjs=3

However, am used to only 53,000 a year. So I think I am going to ask for 60-70k instead of 90k.

I am reviewing the job description now and it seems like something I would TOTALLY be about. 🤞

[smoky quest]

Let me repeat what you just wrote:

• The company offers to pay the hired person at least 90k/year
• You want to ask for less than the minimum they are willing to pay

Is this correct?

[near remnant]

wtf

[graceful mason]

Keep quiet and act like you're worth 90k a year, if you pass the hiring stages chances are you're worth that much

[near remnant]

We hope you are just joking @sterile hare

[near ocean]

I would ask for the top limit tbh
If youre offering up to 120k for a role, i'll take it thanks

[smoky quest]

don't undersell yourself. If you pass their interview, it means you are better than every other candidates, and thus deserve the pay for that role.
The 90-120k would also be the market range for early engineers in that market from what I know

In terms of negotiations, don't start lower than their minimum. Try (and act) like you are worth 120k. Worst case, they say no and you can lower a bit. But don't start from the get go from even below what they are willing to offer

[near remnant]

"However, am used to only 53,000 a year. So I think I am going to ask for 60-70k instead of 90k. "

this actually made me laugh, im sorry 😂

[smoky quest]

also, one last bit of advice, don't hesitate to say or ask for what you want.
They won't pull the offer on the first ask (unless you go about it in a very obnoxious way).

[near ocean]

90-120k for new york, 3-5years experience doesnt sound like a lot tbqh
Whats the rent going to be like

[dawn leaf]

2-3k/mo

[honest pivot]

This is in NYC? You'll starve on 70k, definitely don't suggest that

[delicate bane]

i-

[silent abyss]

I have no idea why you would do that. they already posted a range so it's unlikely they'll ask you for a salary. if they do, you can just say "the 90-120k range in the posting sounds good. I trust you'll give me a competitive offer"
the first 2 rules of salary negotiation are:

1. don't give a number
2. don't lowball yourself
   https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/

[dense mesa]

This is one of the best blogs for careers

[delicate bane]

[sage crater]

Ahhahahahahah

[near remnant]

I forgot to use commits with my latest project bcus i was too focused into it 😭🤣 would it be really bad if i just uploaded the whole thing to github with 2-3 commits? Lmao. Im planning to deploy it with docker-compose on heroku.

Guess im overthinking it

[summer roost]

There are, of course

[sage crater]

Me after every successfully runned line of code

[stiff olive]

Is there any channel here where the jobs will be posted?

[graceful mason]

Not on this discord

[stiff olive]

@graceful mason Do you know any other channels?

[graceful mason]

Nope

[stiff olive]

Thanks

[lucid vapor]

There are a couple links in the channel description for Python jobs.

[delicate bane]

update: there was a surprise whiteboarding session and i flubbed up bc i was so nervous

oh well at least i explained my thought process

and they seemed like they appreciated that

also

is it just me or like it seems many companies are experiencing either layoffs or hiring freezes lately

whats up with that

[smoky quest]

the stock market is a bit jumpy and there are some fears of recession and stuff

[delicate bane]

oh shoot. that is def not good news. t'was focused on finals so i missed that

probs going to be slightly harder then to get a job in this market if that happens

[vapid jay]

What is everyone’s thoughts on neck tattoos in the tech industry so like Cloud Computing, Software Engineering, DevOps, and Web Dev?

[blissful hollow]

What is required for jobs with SQL and DevOps experience? I know basic operations (Sorting, selects, views), and I leave rest for other technologies to take care of (Django REST).
For DevOps I guess it's a matter of saying of services I made on cloud?

[buoyant seal]

DevOps assumes you learn cloud infrastructure tools
U have experience with AWS / Terraform(optionally Pulumi) / Ansible / Kubernetes / CI CD tools like Github/Gitlab/ArgoCD and etc

SQL is not technically under domain of DevOps. In the past people had DBA person to handle database, and if they are old fashioned and not having in their backend tools database migrations instruments... then it could be your responsibility to setup stuff with version controlling like FlyWay. But SQL is Backend first obligation anyway. It should not be under DevOps. You should go into Backend role if u wish to work with SQL

So... go for SQL to backend role, go for DevOps to Devops role.
Go to startup to get both at the same time ;b

[blissful hollow]

Great, thanks for help. I do wander between Data Science & DevOps I see offers with nice to have's both SQL DevOps . Backend is generally plan B and side projects tech for me

[buoyant seal]

Quite opposite choices tbh. And requiring entirely different skill sets which are like nowhere crossing themselves.
The closest bridge I can make... Data Science assumes it is good to know a bit of Backend, and Backend infrastructure is made by code from DevOps.

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/data-science-learning-roadmap/
https://roadmap.sh/devops
Well, you can compare the roads on your own

[blissful hollow]

Yes, my main road is Data Science, but I enjoy working with Linux. The problem with Data Science I hear is theres not much programming. DevOps is just a bridge between Security and Management. Currently making project with Terraform so nothing serious

[buoyant seal]

Data Science and ML further is quite merged with Backend
I see often job positions for backend requiring ML at least

[buoyant seal]

technically MLOps is a thing too. So we can say there is direct crossing from ML to DevOps

[buoyant seal]

I have a feeling DataScience and ML will make better synergy with Backend though.
Because general Software Engineer experience/education is like... Highest education in IT, generally applicable to synergize strongly any other field related to IT
You will be able to express your Data Science in a code in the best way

[fossil tulip]

Hey guys I'm pursuing data science currently and have good experience on data analytics i am confused that should I learn implementing of data pipelines too can they make a good diffence in job applications

[buoyant seal]

Company offered to go through their interviews...
...xD if to be honest I go through their interviews to find out if I can score better salary (there is chance I can strike 2x or more)
but after some thinking i did not name those reasons, because... it does not sound like a good reason to name
Honesty vs Common sense in thise case, and common sense won

Tbh current company could raise a salary during next performance review, but I doubt that it will be anything drastic like that
It makes more sense for them to use them me in the minimal salary as long as possible.

Anyway, I feel like i striked really poor deal with current company, because i did agree to first offer that offered me go get out of country.
Plus the deal was made in a really poor market situation.

[delicate bane]

@buoyant seal @blissful hollow data engineering would use both SQL and DevOps skill set

[vapid jay]

Uhm hi

[delicate bane]

well maybe only half devops skill set; less configuration, more cloud

also not just SQL, but NoSQL expected too

[vapid jay]

So one of my dev friends told me to get a name in dcs because i asked him how he got social in the dev network but what is he referring to?

[buoyant seal]

May be in some startup. (Where everything can be united and made by one person)
But in reality/enterprise I see at the moment data science as a set of skills and duties entirely different from infrastructure

When i joined enterprise company, I discovered that Frontend person is actually not necessary needed to know at high level CSS/SCSS and making layout stuff. Imagine my surprise 😕 They have special layout-coding people, which are distinguished from frontend people.

[delicate bane]

data science =/= data engineering though

data engineering enables data science and backend

[delicate bane]

yeah some places here have dedicated design teams

[buoyant seal]

Roger that

[delicate bane]

its a newer field tbh (kinda). data ingestion, data warehousing, data pipelines, cloud infrastructure, data transformation, etc.

[neon zephyr]

my dream job would be compiler development

[fast hearth]

Anyone know any resources for python security jobs?

[delicate bane]

idk about python specific ones but this was neat https://www.cyberseek.org/pathway.html

[fast hearth]

Thanks for the help.

[wispy pagoda]

slaps roof of stock market this baby fits so much fears of recession and greedy expected returns

[sage crater]

Wow so many data satanists lately🤔

[delicate bane]

oof. why the hate

[buoyant seal]

xD

i am not related to this field, but funny anyway

[sage crater]

I'm wondering is there any sense to learn for Data Satanism, I mean is there enough job vacancies in this field?🤔

Anyway if I learn python+cpp I can easily jump into backend🤔

[buoyant seal]

how is cpp related to backend? 🤔

[true harness]

uhh, if you learn backend tech for those languages, then you can jump into backend with them. doesn't just need to be web backend

[buoyant seal]

javascript / java / php / golang / C# / golang / python / ruby are known backend langs to me
C++ is not among langs for backend applications to my knowledge

[sage crater]

Backend tech huh?

[buoyant seal]

checked out of curiosity local to me job hiring market. No jobs are present for C++ backend

we can check something like indeed hiring web site for final statistics

[buoyant seal]

Check your local hiring web sites 😉
Just check amount of positions for Data Science and compare to other fields
nothing gives better and actual statistics

[sage crater]

I wanna go for something that need a lot of knowledge and math,maybe like application architect🤔

[buoyant seal]

application architect is a top level of Software Engineer career. Not really involving math. It is more... understanding Code Quality / Clean Architecture of the code stuff / Infrastructure stuff / Database planning

Math exists in pure Software Enginering only as a domain subject, like applicable in applications dealing with games and data science

[sage crater]

Oh that makes me wanna dance,I suck at math. So you are saying that for one of the most payable jobs, I don't need more than basic calculus and linear/matrix algebra?🤔

[buoyant seal]

xD why did you say you wish a job involving a lot of math before then

[sage crater]

Because I was ready to dive into math,but if isn't that necessary,I won't Xd

[buoyant seal]

Yes, Software Engineer does not need to know more than basic calculus and some linear/matrix algebra in rarest cases. (only when dealing with 3D games and data science stuff)
BUT! math is necessary to get CS degree usually 😉 So you need to know it at least at level necessary to get degree. In order to have better and more competetive resume

[sage crater]

Yeah guess I won't have a choice.What about some AI degrees? Are they worth of it?

[buoyant seal]

at the moment AI is Machine Learning, which is Neural Networks, which are assumed to be extension of Data Science stuff. Yes, you are usually expected to know math well when going into this direction. And preferably having Master+ degree. Neural Network stuff works on math resembling biology stuff. And involves using data science as part of task digging process to my knowledge.

[woven glen]

For the job itself u don't. But u need math to get the degrees, I love CS and IT, but I can honestly say, I suck at math, all the High paying jobs require math

[buoyant seal]

Huh. High paying jobs requiring math as general rule? 🤔 I did not encounter stuff like that yet, any example?

[woven glen]

Well for the degrees .... Every IT job requires an IT degree.. and for the degree u need math..

The some goes for architecture. The building one not the IT one, u don't use it everyday on the job but for the degree u need math

[sage crater]

Where do you work and what do you know/which degree you have?

[sage crater]

Even if u need it rarely,I guess after 6-8 years of asspain in uni, you will have just to Google the things you need and quickly come up with an answer🤔

[buoyant seal]

So High Paying jobs do not require knowing math then, just CS degree which requires math. But you know... the stuff you learn in school/university you forget if you don't use. So when u reach senior rank level u already forgot all math if u did not use at the job. Which means math is not required

[buoyant seal]

Master's Degree, although it does not help me a lot, I had thoughts that I needed to get just Bachelor's degree.
But .... Master's degree comes useful to me in non-job env, for relocating/beraucracy actually

I worked in a startup, now I work in outsourcing big company.
I am backend first (middle rank), devops second (middle rank) and having juniorish knowledge in Frontend
having experience as software architect for a few projects in startup

[sage crater]

And languages? Maybe any big topics I should cover to be a software architect? I mean it isn't enough to know just languages and their specifics, also I should know how computer work/anything else?

[buoyant seal]

just Python language, starting to learn Golang as second Backend lang. Learned syntax, but learning ecosystem at the moment. needing more practice
knowing Javascript at basic level in order to accommodate my juniorish Frontend knowledge

[buoyant seal]

https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Analysis-Design-Alan-Dennis/dp/1119496500 just read this book, and you will understand what means to be software architect and what you need to learn in order to become better in this

[buoyant seal]

mean it isn't enough to know just languages and their specifics, also I should know how computer work/anything else?
sounds like a general CS degree education. Some parts are required and basics of IT knowledge, some are not. Depends on exact details

[sage crater]

Wow all the time on python! Poggies, how do you optimize it's slow speed?🤔

[buoyant seal]

Caching at client side, Caching at CDN, Caching at server side before entering framework, Caching inside framework with Redis

everything speeds up ;b If the request did not reach framework and returned cache before eaching python, python is not even working

[woven glen]

@buoyant seal okay so you're experienced? If u went back to ur younger self what whould u choose to major in? Whould u change anything about ur studying habit?

[buoyant seal]

plus you know... most of the time big speed in web dev is not really required. 99.99% of the time we spend in waiting for network requests to go which aren't related to language

[buoyant seal]

yes, I would attempted to get internship experience as early as possible
I would have participated in programming competions
I would have learned on my own necessary subjects related to generic Software Engineer education.
I would have dealt with more pet projects
I would been reading books like Head first / O'Reilly and etc, and certainly I would have read Manga Guides stuff in order to pass math much easier

there are 40+ books covering all math subjects.... much easier to learn on your own ;b

And if I would be able to choose my Software Development Area sonner (I chose Web Development), I would have learned relevant stuff sooner perhaps

[woven glen]

My only issue with math is that I don't learn maths in English. So even TRYING to learn math from books/YouTube I whouldn't get it yk

[sage crater]

Oh yes manga

[buoyant seal]

English is not native for me too. Yet, I had times finding that learning Math in English is easier for me
because in my native language I already gave up to understand it. Bloody useless lections. In English I am more enthusiastic and believing into quality material

[woven glen]

It whouldnt help me. If i choose to learn more math I'd just choose it to pass highschool... You understand what I mean?

[buoyant seal]

well, I learned math just enough to get Bachelor's degree with major in math. Something definitely attached to me. And then I quickly forgot all of it.

[woven glen]

I 100% agree with the two last lines.. like if I had to choose to learn math in English or in my native language I whouldve chose English 100%, but theres no choice

[woven glen]

I will try doing that , but idk.. although alot of my relatives are math geniuses and teachers I ain't got their DNA for sure. I hate math since middle school

[sage crater]

Why would you participate in programming competitions? They kinda make you think and make decisions faster?🤔

[woven glen]

They help u practice. Test what you've learned:)

[sage crater]

I thought pet projects are way better for this

[buoyant seal]

All matters is getting more practical experience. Not really important if you win or whatever. It matters to get more practice. That's it.
Training yourself to learn Code Quality aspects of Software Development as soon as possible
they all require some level of philosophy to get / mind to break

[sage crater]

Btw,what will you recommend as first per projects on python?Bots or whatever?

[buoyant seal]

Whatever u wish, as long as you are passionate about it and willing to commit time into it

When you make projects, you eventually realize you are missing some aspects of something to do better. And u start to seek how to fill specific aspect of development.
It just matters to ask the right question, what am I missing to code better? And finding some way to get the answer and then learning it and practicing

Only with practice you start to understand the real need for the new stuff
Otherwise... we encounter a lot of people who say... Git is not needed, testing is not needed and other bullshit

xD only when you made an application which becomes a fragile mess that breaks when you add any line of code anywhere, you start to understand that you can do better

only when you made an application which grew to the unreadable size and mess, which even you don't understand what does any longer (especially few weeks later), you start to understand, that code can be somehow written better

[sage crater]

I like the idea of reading books, if only I wouldn't forget all I've read in several weeks if not days Xd. By the way which one IDE do you use?

[buoyant seal]

reading books, then practicing 80% of time with applicating learned stuff. Then reading again, and practicing more. Eventually you learn. Sometimes from first try

[buoyant seal]

I am a fan of VSCode. With enough installed extensions, this transformer can become any Optimus Prime.
Plus just universal tool for any language, be it Python / Golang / Javascript / Html / CSS/ Yaml / Terraform / Docker or anything else

[sage crater]

Oh great you said that, would search for useful extensions🤔

[buoyant seal]

Plus it is just lightweight, which allows me to work with multiple instances in multiple projects
and no licensing problems. Free in all features.

[sage crater]

Btw what about soft skills, do you achieve those in uni?🤔

[woven glen]

Wallah I missed my chance, some colleges here start teaching CS from 15. My parents always knew I liked software. My parents asked me if I wanted to inlist in one of those colleges. I said I didn't want to. I regret it everyday.

[buoyant seal]

Erm. I was able to remove negative soft skills at least. I was much more socially awkward broken person before university.
In University i had part time job, and just speaking often with colleges, opened me considerably. I worked at a part time job Sys admin at the same uni

[woven glen]

Did u do uni in the us?

[buoyant seal]

nah. I am from the terrorist country of 2022.

[woven glen]

Ahh I see, u also work there? Jobs are still available?

[buoyant seal]

yeah, the market really transforms into bank related/gov jobs though. I was able to get myself into one of the still left foreign companies
relocating to Serbia to open myself further

[sage crater]

Wow sys admin. You had a Cisco certification or how did you applied for it?

[buoyant seal]

it was a really low in requirements job. I was capable to reinstall OS, that was already enough for them. It was more like a help desk sort of job. Computer help one

[sage crater]

I'm from suffering country of 2022🤔

[woven glen]

Inshallah brother, whould u say you'd have a gotten a different education if u DID do uni in the us? (As in did uni in the us and returned to Russia) whouldve a better company accepted you?

[sage crater]

Sure thing

[buoyant seal]

Sure. Anything would have accepted, but I would not have done it highly likely
Because... US uni costs money which you can't possibly repay with job in Russia.

[sage crater]

Return in Russia after studying in USA is kinda dumb lol

[woven glen]

No one whould do that, I just asked cuz of the education yk

[buoyant seal]

Russia was economy outsider country even before the events of 2022. Poor market of low paid jobs. Not really a chance to repay US level loans

[sage crater]

My friend from Russia, u can ask him whatever you want about computers:Linux issues,windows issues, connections and protocols, everything you can have a problem with, but even though he is super clever,he gains like 30000 rubles per month, in dollars/euros it's just hilariously little

[buoyant seal]

mm yeah... being born in the good country is already silver spoon of sort. People from poor countries need to climb longer ladder if they wish to reach wealth.

and often this ladder is available to them only if they are only from certain... job field / cast. All other regular jobs don't have the chances for that

adding here that relocating requires person to be not having strong attachements to the home / requires certain set of mind willing to go boldly forward, and the percentage of people moving out of poor countries becomes quite low

[woven glen]

I actually feel really bad for the russian people... Russia's a great country , only if it wasn't outcasted by NATO and the us

[buoyant seal]

I would have tried to say what is wrong with Russia country, but you know, we have the law that forbids freedom of speech and gives up to 15 years of prison here now

[woven glen]

There's wrong with EVERY country. No country is "perfect" for me I'm an Arab Muslim from Israel. Do you think I think Israel is the worst country? I don't. It is a great country per say, but in some fields I do hate it.

[buoyant seal]

something wrong is definitely with EVERY, but the percentage and depth is totally different

[sage crater]

Same goes for me being born in Ukraine,I'm super lucky cause I've got a close relatives in Italy,so here I am now, trying to apply in unis🤔 but Ukraine isn't a country you wish you were born in

[woven glen]

Good luck my guy:)

[buoyant seal]

yay. good luck.

I am going to fly out of Russia in nearby week/weeks, hopefully it will go good too

[sage crater]

Yeah hope it will

[woven glen]

Inshallah, I will pray for u too

[buoyant seal]

Thanks. I would comment though, that yeah, God can will, but we are the ones who need to see and grab the opportunities. The sleeping fox catches no chickens.
a matter of combination of hard work, luck and open mindness I guess.

Though may be your phrasing was not meant to be translated 🙂 Anyway.

[woven glen]

Welp, god WILL NOT help u if ur not trying . It wasn't meant to be translated. As in, inshallah does me in god will, but it also means if God wants it to happen it'll happen yk?

[buoyant seal]

Lets finish here probably, or it will be potentially much longer discussion. 🙂

[woven glen]

Mhm I agree, goodbye!

[sage crater]

See ya

[strong quartz]

Guys is there anyone here that actually has a job?

[buoyant seal]

it is not really a valuable question that can be answered, perhaps you will ask the question you really wish to ask? Don't ask to ask questions. Read the short guide how to ask good questions https://pythondiscord.com/pages/resources/guides/asking-good-questions/

[strong quartz]

It’s not supposed to be funny I’m asking this because i have project and need to interview someone from the computer eng/sci industry

So I was wondering if someone has a job that’s willing to help with my project

[buoyant seal]

So you ask to help developing your project, or u ask to interview for your project, or you have questions you wish answered how to make better process of interviewing by you better?

[strong quartz]

My project requires me to interview someone and i have a list of questions to ask the interviewee

[buoyant seal]

and your question to us is... ? interrogating

[strong quartz]

Is there anyone here that has comp sci or eng job that’s willing to help

[buoyant seal]

Helping with what? What kind of help you wish to receive?
getting lamp closer

[strong quartz]

I just need someone so I could interview them

[buoyant seal]

So u wish a willing person to participate in your video conferences as third person monitoring the situation?

[strong quartz]

I’m not sure why i need the third person but yeah

I could conduct the interview by myself no need to be monitored lol

[buoyant seal]

So much effort... to find out that the person is not even knowing what it wishes to be helped with.

[compact walrus]

explain me the situation if i found it interesting i'll definately join

[gilded valley]

Has your teacher given you homework to find someone employed in IT and interview them about their job?

[strong quartz]

Like i said i have a project that requires me to interview someone that is close to my major, i have a list of questions that i will ask the interviewee on zoom or discord and then i have to write an essay about it

My major is comp eng

[gilded valley]

What country are you in?

[compact walrus]

seems suss

[strong quartz]

I’m in California

[compact walrus]

this is kinda weird project

[true harness]

it's not sus lol

[buoyant seal]

Oh, I finally get it now.
He wishes the person to be interviewed from us. xD The project is the interviwing.

[strong quartz]

Well not really it’s like so we know how the industry is before we go in to it

[gilded valley]

This is a terrible assignment. It's pretty much forcing the students to go and bother someone else. Shouldn't be given.

[compact walrus]

hmm hmm

[strong quartz]

Y’all are just making look weird af and I’m sorry if I’m bothering y’all

[compact walrus]

which university?

[strong quartz]

UC Santa cruz

[compact walrus]

fine

[true harness]

why does it have to be bothering? why can't the interviewee agree to it?

[buoyant seal]

I think I am actually willing to participate in this

[compact walrus]

no one has such kinda assignment

[strong quartz]

It happens it’s college

[compact walrus]

think technically

[gilded valley]

The question has been asked multiple times before in this channel, it definitely happens

[compact walrus]

ohhkayy am sorry ! may be you guys are right

[buoyant seal]

i can participate but later. like... in 11 hours from now I have few hours interval of time I am willing to participate for a not less than half of hour time
Or alternatively in a time, 21 hours from now

[gilded valley]

It is implicitly bothering. Of course the interviewee will have to agree to it, but the motivation from the student is to complete the coursework, for a substantial portion of the students there will be no genuine interest to learn

[compact walrus]

i dont have much knowledge bout this sooo !! sorry

[strong quartz]

May I dm you?

[true harness]

fair enough

[buoyant seal]

sure

[dapper depot]

!rule 9
@odd pebble

[inner wren]

Rules

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

[odd pebble]

Sorry!

I didnt know that wasnt allowed

[hallow oak]

I really need your assistance because there is no one in my immediate vicinity who can assist me. I want to code like a pro but don't know how; the only thing I am good at is programming.

Suggest some besk books for data structures

[true harness]

programming isn't coding? my favorites are cracking the coding interview, CLRS. grokking algorithms is apparently good, but i haven't read it

[buoyant seal]

as far as I know coding interviews and programming are two both totally unrelated fields. Or at least the coding interviews made in this FAANG style.

[gilded magnet]

Rul

[shut dome]

#python-discussion

[hallow oak]

Ya my mistake,how can I gain problem solving abilities.

[true harness]

solve problems. use sites like leetcode, codewars

[delicate bane]

[delicate bane]

good luck bud. lmk how it goes and hope you have a safe trip!

[hallow oak]

From now on I gonna dive in in python.

[delicate bane]

im biased towards codewars myself but ive been using hackerrank lately for SQL questions

[hallow oak]

Can share ur sql resources, like books names,utube channels,blogs.

[delicate bane]

you can check out alex the analyst or tina huang

Sudden experienced leaders departing is another warning sign. People who have been in leadership for over 10 years know how to read the signs. Others have been part of layoff planning meetings. No one wants to be the hatchet person through multiple waves of layoffs.

[mental tapir]

Hi! I'm new to the server and I'm starting to learn Python. I know a bit about html, css, SQL, VBA and MS Access, but I have no formal programming education. Does anyone know about python challenge events online? It can be group or solo. It's because I like project-oriented learning. In a resume how much a recruiter usually values seeing challenges and placement?

[near ocean]

I wouldnt say that much but it definitely helps in more ways than one
You could build up your skills through puzzles, if you get really serious with competitive programming that would certainly help

[mental tapir]

That will work, thanks!

[sterile hare]

I was going to skip over this but I feel I have to say something. However after I say this, I will probably leave this group for a while or appear by a new name.

I have been through a lot in life. I think its impossible for people to understand I don't work that way. I have always done way more work than what I should get paid for but its the ONLY way to ensure I get the job. EVERY SINGLE IT job I EVER GOT, I had to go very low just for them to choose me out of the tons of people. I don't value myself by money. - I value myself that when I die people will remember my work.

Like seriously, I was homeless for about 3 years straight, hoping to make my life mean something. I actually started to become more happy homeless, as I was able to focus DIRECTLY on learning new technologies. (I had a laptop and a tent, and that is it). The ONLY reason I decided to get out of homelessness is because I got a girlfriend and its unacceptable for a person I love to be homeless. (It still took another 2 years to get out of homelessness. so it was from 2012 to the end of 2017)

However - THE ONLY WAY I got out of homelessness is to request the lowest amount possible. It was the only way I got EVERY SINGLE IT job I ever had. I would talk to the employer and talk to them about the technology they were working with. They would be interested in me but they aren't sure if I am the perfect fit. Then they ask about the money and I specifically ask for the lowest amount, then I get hired that same day.

[sterile hare]

Continued - However this is only part of the issue the main one being - I really looked at this job BECAUSE OF THE WORK NOT THE MONEY. Regardless of my past of being homeless or not, I am person who genially cares about the work not the money. If you are asking for more money, you only care about the money. Money and value of yourself should never be the same. If that was the case, I would have killed myself a long time ago because I wouldn’t have valued myself if I saw that I was homeless and making no money.

Now - this whole topic is my fault. I was just excited about the job, but I hated seeing the money. So was just mentioning what was on my mind but I regret it. I don't want people to think I made my post because I wanted to talk about the money. I just wanted to mention the post because I am super excited to talk to this company. Do you know they have AI/ML that deals with hate speech online!!?? I am so interested in how they made that work. Like seriously seriously, the work is what makes me feel alive not the money. I just need atleast 53,000 to maintain what I have no but I could care less. My girlfriend now has a job as a cad engineer, so I don’t have to worry about money. I just want to care about the job itself.

[earnest sluice]

this chat was just what i needed

[honest pivot]

You can have noble intentions and still get paid fairly

[near ocean]

Youre not homeless anymore, you have the potential to be making double what you are now, dont throw it away for some weird impostor syndrome episode

First thing i think of when i see someone undernegotiate like this, is theyre trying to overcompensate for lack of skill by making whatever lower level of skill they have cheaper
Dont be that guy

<@&831776746206265384> NSFW

[vapid jay]

Ive been using python for about a year and 2 months which i mostly work with OOP which i make api wrappers and ive worked with flask, sql, html, ruby and other stuff. i mostly like backend and was thinking of being a back end software engineer as i really do like back-end related stuff, which i was thinking of maybe working with the backend of applications like working with official clients of an app, etc. What would you guys recommend and why? i mostly want to explore everything and really find the topic which suits me and the one i love the most.

[silent abyss]

fullstops, mostly

[vapid jay]

pardon?

[silent abyss]

I recommend using periods in your wall of text

[vapid jay]

ah thanks!

[tidal talon]

Alguem br?

[delicate bane]

go ahead and continue to explore different fields. you said youve tried backend extensively; what about other fields?

[vapid jay]

not really interested in other fields tbh

[delicate bane]

oh okay, well then best of luck

[vapid jay]

Thank you, you too!

[dense comet]

Ask this question for discussion, As fresh graduate in CS major, what are the basic requirements of technical knowledge that expected to found in this candidate besides his/her internships ?

[peak halo]

what sorts of positions are you applying for?

[twin pendant]

I was offered a summer internship with snapchat for augmented reality, but I specialize and practice in programming for data science.

I'll be attending school for data science in the fall. Another internship opportunity for ds fell on my lap, but snapchat already wants me. idk which is better.

[frozen flame]

What are some good strategies for finding a mentor after I decide what area of software engineering I'm interested in ? Should I go through my school's facilities ( ie. career services ) - they seemed clueless last few times I reached out.

[peak halo]

did you already agree to do the Snapchat internship? if both companies have extended you offers, I would go with whichever relates more closely to your interests. I probably wouldn't take pay as strongly into account as internships are more valuable for the experience.

Would you work for Snapchat if they offered you a full-time position doing augmented reality in the future? Would Snapchat hire you to do something that relates more closely to your interests if this internship goes well?

[twin pendant]

the second internship that relates more to data science is still in the interviewing process with me. I started the snapchat process way before they reached out.

I think augmented reality is interesting because it does somewhat merge with my interest in machine learning and ai, but as for doing it full time, i'd have to see.

I have been in a data science program for about a year now though, and am majoring in AI and Data Science in the fall, so i'm not sure how much of a loss i'd be at if i take snapchat for the experience and the name.

[smoky quest]

In the grand scheme of things, an internship can help you get a job at the end or helps you give you a boost. But their absence won't stop you.

Not having an internship in data science won't prevent you from finding a job in DS later on as the main vehicle for attention will be your degree (bs/ms).
Doing an internship in a different area can also be a positive experience as a way to give you some insight in something different and seeing the other side.
So it's up to you to weigh the pros and cons as you know the situation and yourself better.

That said, I would highly discourage you from taking the snapshat internship and then reneging on it. That would not be professional and would burn some bridges. In addition, internships are a bit more like charity work and require a lot more effort for little to no reward (except in the case of a full time position at the end) and thus would sting even more for the people spending time and effort to offer one.
So if you know that you won't take the snapchat internship, then don't accept it

[heady narwhal]

Hey guys what course should i take if i want to be a software engineer

[smoky quest]

what does your university recommend?

[twin pendant]

I’m thinking that I’ll go for Snapchat because of the name and the guarantee. The pay also isn’t very bad. I do know augmented reality has some applications in machine learning so this could be a positive experience relating to that.

All in all, I think it might not be worth pursuing the other application process if I have this opportunity in front of me.

[smoky quest]

That's fair.

Two notes:

• For internships, optimize for learning, not $$$. The money from your internship won't have any impact on your salary
• By when do you have to answer snapchat? Have you told the other company you got an offer on hand and would like to see if they are willing to accelerate the process on their end as you are also quite interested in them?

[twin pendant]

I have to answer Snapchat by Friday. The other company is aware that Snapchat was interested in me.

[smoky quest]

and what did they say?

[twin pendant]

Not much really. They didn’t seem to have a strong reaction. The other company is pretty much unknown but they were willing to pay well. In terms of accelerating the process, I think they said the process would go relatively quick anyway after I send in my tech assessment, but seeing as it’s not a guaranteed position, I’m unsure if it’s worth going through the process and letting snapchat go.

I am also coming out of a year long data science and machine learning apprenticeship. That in and of itself is valuable experience.

[smoky quest]

oh yeah, that apprenticeship already brings tons of experience.
If I was in you shoes, I may have very well looked at internships exclusively not in DS/ML just to broaden up my resume/skillset

[twin pendant]

True. And seeing as I’m going to college for it, it might just be worth broadening my horizons.

[smoky quest]

makes sense

[delicate bane]

yeah and who knows like you said you might be able to find opportunities for ML/DS in the augmented reality space too

i think that would be a very interesting problem space and you could pivot to either one afterwards if you find you like one more so than the other

[twin pendant]

That could be very cool!! Augmented reality and AI have been sort of coveted as of lately and more so together. We’ll see how it shakes out.

[oak saffron]

please help me in #help-apple

[smoky quest]

Please, don't spam other channel

[red pagoda]

coding bootcamps what you all think about that

[smoky quest]

It depends on the context and comparing to what.
Do you have a particular context in mind?

[red pagoda]

going there after high school?

for Javascript

[smoky quest]

It's definitely not an alternative to a college degree. People don't go to bootcamp because they want to, but because that's better than nothing.

So if you are in high school, I would strongly recommend you to aim for a college degree in order to get a great career

[red pagoda]

college teaches u things that you will never need. its all about theory there. not enough practical experience .

[smoky quest]

That's plain wrong though

[red pagoda]

yeah explain

[smoky quest]

Not sure how.
College teaches you things you will use throughout your entire career. It has a strong focus on the theory because the theory will help you throughout your 40 years career.
The practical skills can be learned in one afternoon and are much easier to learn once you understand what is going on. So there little value for college to spend much time on that.

Ideally, the best engineers coming out of college are the ones who have learned the theory and have had side projects to practice. That makes a nice blend.
But people who only know the basics of the tools won't go much far because they can't keep up.

As an example, look at javascript. The javascript from 15 years ago looks very different from the one 10-5 years ago and even today. But the fundamentals remain

And in terms of recruitment, if not going to college was strictly equivalent to the 3-5 years people spend there to get a degree, that would not be so popular.

[red pagoda]

outdated concepts . no exp. no job guarantee. and hows chemistry part of cs

forget bootcamp. what bout self taught

[smoky quest]

What makes the concepts outdated?

Just to be clear, having a degree makes your career in easy mode comparing to not having one.

[red pagoda]

it shouldn't cost that much money and time on useless things

[smoky quest]

And for context, I just put out a job ad for a full stack with 2+ years of xp. In less than 24h I got 20 applicants, all of them with degrees and nice projects.
How do you plan to stand out?

[red pagoda]

4 years are wasted there

[red pagoda]

knowing more than them

[smoky quest]

I am not sure where this hate for college come from, but I also don't understand how you can judge it without having been there?

[red pagoda]

having SKILL

[smoky quest]

In real life, you would not have the opportunity to demonstrate anything because you wouldn't be at the top of the pile and thus wouldn't be called back

[red pagoda]

my projects can stand out in the portfolio. my skills. certificates

thats all it takes i think

[smoky quest]

How do you plan on having better projects standing out?
It's not like college educated people don't have interesting projects

[red pagoda]

cer from online platforms

[smoky quest]

they get ignored

[red pagoda]

but they are dipped in theory and im dipped in exp

[smoky quest]

they are dipped in both 😉

[red pagoda]

so your telling me college is the only way

[smoky quest]

There is nothing absolute.
But skipping a degree is like doing life in extreme hardcore mode. You will have less opportunities, paid less and less able to go up and keep up

[red pagoda]

bro thats not how it works bro. they need learn other things and shi thats why most graduates don't shi about their jobs

[smoky quest]

People will literally pay you less for the same job, just because you are less educated

[red pagoda]

what about online college?

[smoky quest]

I exactly know how it works. I hire, mentor and manage people

[smoky quest]

yeah that's cool.
The only thing that matters is you go ta BS/ms, not where and how you got it

[red pagoda]

bs / ms?

[smoky quest]

bachelor/master

[red pagoda]

so 4 years must be wasted

[smoky quest]

your assumption is they will be wasted. And I can assure you they aren't wasted

that's the difference between code monkey/pissing code and a software engineer who starts out with a 6 digit salary

[red pagoda]

isn't there like any exam for getting that?

[smoky quest]

depends on state/college/specific program. A lot are just based on grades

[red pagoda]

i could get a small position and work my way up

[warm steeple]

Seems like there is an argument going on here I’m on @smoky quest side

[smoky quest]

• People more educated tend to know more and go further and faster. So there is a correlation with going up further/faster
• With a degree, it may take you less than half the time to reach the same position than without

[smoky quest]

I tend to see these more as friendly discussions 🙂

[red pagoda]

what about studying a thing that is required for the job in 1 year say. then i got 3 years to work my way up

[warm steeple]

Sure thing 😉

[red pagoda]

so college dude and i could get there at the same time

[smoky quest]

If you are that good, then it's just faster and simpler to get your degree.

But again, without a degree, you will lack the experience, knowledge (including what you need to know), the professional network and a bunch of other things

[smoky quest]

That won't happen.
If things were that easy and everyone could save 3-5 years, why wouldn't they do it today?

I also see a lot of self-taught who just can't keep up and will max out at a lower level

[red pagoda]

alr college it is

[smoky quest]

So again, you can survive without a degree, but do not expect the same outcome as someone who has one

[smoky quest]

you will see that it's tons of fun.
The college is also very much focused on CS comparing to HS. HS was about forming citizens while the college will be about teaching you everything there is to know about CS. So for instance the math will be more down to earth and more focused on something useful

[frozen flame]

did you go the college route @smoky quest ?

[red pagoda]

online colleges are cheaper. what about that

[smoky quest]

yeah I did

[frozen flame]

I'm trying the same...sometimes if feel like the math classes are overshadowing everything I'm interested in with programming! did you ever get that feeling?

[smoky quest]

online college are fine.

I still recommend to get some on site experience to build your first professional network and enjoy a bit the student life, but the main thing that matters is the degree at the end

[smoky quest]

At the beginning I may have been confused in terms of "why would I care about that?" but would typically clear up later as it starts to fit together (ex: encryption, compression, signal processing, etc.)

[mortal wedge]

I am submitting a programming challenge that I really enjoyed to a company I'm applying for, but not sure what to say.
"Here's the assignment, I had a blast looking at the data"?

[frozen flame]

great point! my first foray back into CS was learning a bit about signal processing and then ML but I froze up when I saw basic integrations and whatnot. Now I'm definitely ready to check that all out again after calc 1.

[smoky quest]

that would be fair.
I would not add anything that could hurt your chances, but giving some color could also make you more friendly or appear motivated

[summer roost]

I agree with recursive: that's not all it takes. The job will go to the candidate who is most successful at quickly convincing the company that they're worth the investment. 9 times out of 10, that will be a candidate with a degree.

It's pretty common to see self-taught people here who are getting frustrated after applying to >100 jobs and getting zero interviews offered to them.

[smoky quest]

Also note that life is unfair. The great candidates will have multiple offers on hand (or close to it). Which makes companies more eager to accelerate the process for them.
FOMO is real (as well as page rank)

[inland tundra]

Has anyone ever had a practical coding interview? I have a 1 hour practical coding interview where I’ll be fetching data from a database. Not sure what to expect though. Any advice or insights?

[mortal wedge]

I am submitting one right now, lol

[summer roost]

sounds like you should expect SQL

[smoky quest]

typically, that would look like a small API or db connection that you have to use to implement their made up scenario

[mortal wedge]

Practice coding under time pressure. It's not as easy or as simple as you might think.

[inland tundra]

Lmao, how is the problem framed? I was expecting SQL, but good to know

Do they expect me to use some framework like flask or fastapi to connection to the DB? Or request?

[smoky quest]

you could ask them

[summer roost]

if they listed a framework like flask or fastapi in the job description, it's a reasonable bet they'd like you to use it. Doubly so if it's also listed as one of your skills on your resume

[inland tundra]

I also have a system design interview right after the practical coding question. I have studied system design and distributed systems, but never been asked a system design question before. Any resources that you guys found helpful for studying and preparing for system design?

[smoky quest]

the "system design interviews" books are great.

They will come up with something like "how would you implement youtube/discord?". Then expecting you to ask questions around the requirements and constraints and to come up with something reasoable

[mortal wedge]

My suggestion is, if you have time and you're able, try to implement the sort of strategy you might use in production. Some companies throw random problems at you for fun, but I've found that most companies that offer a practical it's highly related to work they're actually doing. If I were to give a coding challenge, it would would likely be on a topic/problem I either recently solved or am trying to solve. I would expect an engineer to use some sort of supported framework as opposed to a one-off.

[summer roost]

systems design questions are often about scaling, so it's helpful to think about atomicity guarantees, eventual consistency, queueing, backpressure, and such.

[mortal wedge]

YEah, scalability is huge

[inland tundra]

That’s the right mindset to have. I always like to solve questions as if my implementation will go into production

[mortal wedge]

Scalability and maintenance are two big concerns with system design

[inland tundra]

Ahhh I love that book. Only went through a couple chapters, but I’ll head back to grinding the book

Awesome, thanks for the advice guys!

[smoky quest]

indeed!
The second volume came out recently and I highly recommend it as well

[inland tundra]

Ahhh yes, I have it downloaded. Are there any repeated content from volume 1?

[smoky quest]

nope

[inland tundra]

Oh dam xD I know how I’m going to spend my weekend

Would you suggest I read volume 1 before volume 2? Or either is fine

[smoky quest]

I would say so since it's a bit more basic

[vapid jay]

which programming field is fun

[mortal wedge]

All of them or none of them depending on the person

[vapid jay]

so how do i find out

[smoky quest]

you learn about them and try them out as a self discovery journey

[vapid jay]

but how

[smoky quest]

Take mobile apps for instance. Try making one and see how it goes and if you like it

[vapid jay]

hmm ok

[mellow oracle]

Hello there mates

[still prism]

Hi there!!

[pseudo glade]

hi

[bronze mesa]

hi everyone my name is Djiby Thioub. I' m software developer and i live in west side Africa. i do lot of angular and java and now i would like to have some notion in python

[gaunt yarrow]

Hi All, I live in NZ and I was looking at doing some study into Python, my work has agreed to pay for me to get a qualification, any suggestions of where I should study?

[red pagoda]

how much can i ask for a personal webpage

im using html and css btw

[dense mesa]

There's not any useful qualifications for Python really, unless you're looking to get a certificate which won't have much meaning

[gaunt yarrow]

Yea, that's true

[solemn canopy]

So, guys. I have an idea I wanna do at this job I got earlier this month.

I want to reduce paper consumption. So I want to use Data bases and Python to make forms which people can fill out and sign with a digital signature.

These documents can vary in type. But it's usually the same people.

Any suggestions on how I can start? Or what I can look at doing?

For instance

[vernal birch]

Hello guys, I hope that this is the right channel to ask (if not, please redirect me). So I'm at an intermediate level in python right now (self-taught with online material mostly) and I'm hoping to start a Data Science career in the future sometime. Since I have consumed a decent amount of youtube videos on python and data structures, and have practised on some projects that I found online, what further suggestions do you have for me to introduce myself in the DS? Any books, YT channels or a platform like CodeAcademy/DataCamp will be sufficient? Any suggestion or advice will be much appreciated. Thank you in advance for your time! 🙏

[dense mesa]

While it's related to your job, I think this is more of a general python question since it isn't connected to your career

[dense mesa]

It also seems extremely risky to post this if it's sensitive information to your employer

[gilded valley]

What do you mean by start data science? If you're looking for resources purely to learn, then check out the resources page, or for more specific requeests maybe try #data-science-and-ml

[solemn canopy]

Yes. You are correct. In my case I just wanted to give a motivated reason behind my python related question.

As for this particular document. It is not sensitive. Although the others may be. But I'm just trying to give a visual idea. @dense mesa

[gilded valley]

!resources

[inner wren]

Resources

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

[vernal birch]

I will definitely check this out, thank you!

[tranquil phoenix]

Didn’t ask

[ivory sluice]

?

[ember cave]

is anyone else interested in interactive design/IT jobs?????

[fast hearth]

I am, do you have any resources for that?

[vapid jay]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[untold sedge]

Yeah

[vapid jay]

One message removed from a suspended account.

[tired vale]

What is the general census on Linkedin? I am behind on my linkedin tenure but so many people reach out from different countries and my anxiety cant help but take over and recall the 5-10 phone calls i get everyday from india or some asian country about my declined amazon purchase or extended car warranty

and what about "recruiters". I mean...are there any scam ideas to be aware of? Or should i just stupid be a bitch and just entertain them all

[dense mesa]

You don't have to call people on LinkedIn? And you don't have to respond to their messages

[dense mesa]

Like with anything online, there's a few scammers and a lot of decent people. Not sure how entertaining recruiter offers is being a bitch but a lot of people do it

[tired vale]

didnt mean it in that context. I meant it in the "anti social" aspect of not wanting to chat about employment only to figure out its bogus. Thanks for the info though.

[smoky quest]

Same than any other social network:

• Having connections in common indicates they are more legit (but does not prevent stolen accounts)
• Being in the same country is a good start
• If they have sales or realtor or finance manager in their titles, they aren't there to talk employment
• If they have connections within the company they represent, chances they are more legit

Tbh, having been on linkedin for a while, I don't recall any scam.
The most annoying ones are the people trying to use it to sell you things but that is typically obvious

[blissful hollow]

Thanks for you insight. Manga guides are great. I've had "The Manga guide of Microprocessors" (years after studying it) and it made me understand how things work.

Is Competitive programming worth starting when I'm on entry level Dev?
I've heard that it's generally desired thing for top rated jobs, but I can only assume top % only can benefit from it.
I can do Easy/Medium questions on LeetCode

[dense mesa]

You can start competitive programming whenever you want without any prior experience. It's not gonna be that useful for senior roles

[silent abyss]

@blissful hollow what do you mean "I'm on entry level dev"? if you already have a job as a developer, I wouldn't bother

[dense mesa]

Competitive programming is fun, I'm self teaching Leetcode hards in order to have a shot at doing some competitions. Some people do it for fun

[smoky quest]

as an entry level engineer, there are better use of your time. They would not benefit you.
It's mostly useful to learn about algos (which you are beyond), and prepare for interviews. Or as Anz mentioned, if you find them fun

[sonic moss]

I have faked my way through data science and have been promoted to now a lead ds in a decent named brand tech company in relatively short amount of time. Im not good at any of the core DS skills but I keep climbing. My knowledge of statistics is not nearly as strong as some of the jr & sr ds on my team. My background is not even in computer science or statistics. I need help in getting better at practicing foundational statistics and applying to my data. Also want to get better at coding in python. Online courses get my head spinning and I keep going down a rabbit hole. Any recommendations on what I should do?

[silent abyss]

since it's a name brand tech company, my first 2 thoughts are

1. ah, imposter syndrome
2. find a mentor (preferably outside your reporting chain) at the tech company and ask them (so they can talk you out of the imposter syndrome, heh)
   the direct answer to your question (about improving skills) is to just keep working; no better place to gain skills than at a job where you actually need to do data science

[sonic moss]

appreciate the prompt response. I have found some online datascience coaches but haven't found enough reviews on how its worked for other people. Its also a bit of a commitment price wise. Do you have any tips on how to approach ppl outside reporting chain and how to ask them to mentor me? I've always had difficulty in having those kinda conversations

[silent abyss]

I really don't think jumping to a paid external skills coach is the way to go at all

m... be shameless?
think about how you would feel if someone cold-messaged you asking for some help. in general, people are happy to make new connections and help
one thing I did when I started was just browse the reporting chain and slap a 1:1 on adjacent team leads' calendars and then DM them letting them know I put some time on the calendar and to feel free to decline

[novel pine]

That sounds like the biggest bout of imposter syndrome I have heard.

But the biggest thing is probably learning by doing. Find projects to challenge your skills and do them. Especially if you have a base to work off of.

[blissful hollow]

I believe i can find a job. Just not a good one. I was offered few jobs that are ... not satisfying (like working with Excel, or long internship for minimal pay afterwards). I decided to push myself into making projects to show (all my university projects are private).

[smoky quest]

time to pay up your debt. It won't be that bad and can be fun.
That means hitting the books, kaggle, some projects, finding mentors.

[novel pine]

Working with Excel doesn't sound bad and if it's remote. Could honestly probably make a program to automate whatever your task would be and then do something else the entire day.

[blissful hollow]

That's impressive. Do you understand linear algebra well? If not i enjoyed reading "Linear Algebra: Theory, Intuition, Code" by Mike Cohen

[blissful hollow]

Its not remote(and in hard to access area), if i had remote job i would connect it with my last university semester. I know some people in Backend that are doing exactly that. But they got years of practical knowledge.
But I'm on good track polishing skills, might take few internships to learn which field might be best for me

[fluid fern]

does anyone have knowledge in terms of how it is to work at a silicon fab as a devops engineer?

or just devops engineering in general, imo the description of jobs for devops engineering seem to be really similar to software engineering so what is the difference

[blissful hollow]

DevOps sets up environment for application, developer works inside that environment. DevOps makes sure project works on client.
Its something like sysadmin on smaller scale
I'm not a devops engineer, just a member of a club

[smoky quest]

devops are a bit of hybrid between ops (ie. managing services, deploying stuff) and dev (writing code). The cursor may slide heavily on either side depending on the company though.
The main difference is the focus is less on the product itself and more about how to make the life of the devs and ops better at the company

[fluid fern]

interesting, what does the day and life of a devops engineer look like? it seems like majority of their time would be spent like a sys admin but i may be wrong

[smoky quest]

pretty much. Some time spent like a sys admin to manage some internal services, and some time developping tools or plugin or script

[stuck helm]

Can you use leetcode at work(at big tech companies and defense companies(NASA, Boeing, Northrop Grumman)) in your downtime and not get in trouble?
My company is pretty small, so I can leetcode in my downtime.

But I dont know what it looks like at big companies. And I read somewhere that defense companies like Northrop Grumman dont even let you take your phone inside.

The concern isnt more so doing leetcode at these big companies in your downtime.
But logging into your personal account (in this case leetcode) on company machine.

[zealous dirge]

things are falling apart for big tech. Anyone know a super solid company?

large marketcap

[smoky quest]

the optics would certainly not look into your favor.

[stuck helm]

Sorry, what do you mean?

[blissful hollow]

There are big established companies like SAP, but they might be not best option in regards to new technologies

[smoky quest]

if you came across your coworker doing some leetcode. What would come first to your mind?

[stuck helm]

That they were probably leaving the company soon.

[silent abyss]

places with titles like "sysadmin" generally are on the pets side of https://www.hava.io/blog/cattle-vs-pets-devops-explained
(I personally don't like "devops" as a title because I think it implies you aren't adhering to the devops philosophy of having the people who develop the code also operate it, but that's neither here nor there)

[smoky quest]

and that's how your manager and coworkers would react to seeing you doing leetcode 😉

[restive birch]

what is import main do guys please tell me

[smoky quest]

Sorry, I misread your question.

Either way, your question is not related to #career-advice .
You should check out #❓｜how-to-get-help to get better help

[jade thicket]

Anyone in here ever switch from "data engineer" (more like a data analyst) to an SWE job? Sick of building Power BI reports all day at work and want to move into some kind of SWE role. Been focusing on python lately + finally graduated with my master's in computer science. Most recruiters in my linkedin inbox are asking about data analyst type roles and any leads I get on SWE roles either don't pay enough or want more SWE experience than I have

[smoky quest]

Switching shouldn't be a problem with a ms in cs.
What type of swe roles have you been applying to?

And did they tell you they wanted more swe experience before or after talking to you?

[jade thicket]

mostly any backend dev, django dev, and API dev roles. And some data engineering roles if they have more technical job descriptions.

Of all the SWE roles I've applied to, the majority of them haven't reached out to me. I've spoken with a ton of recruiters who have reached out to me about data engineering roles, and I've had several interviews in the past month, but I've only heard back from one company after the first phone interview and they said they wanted someone more experienced

also had a few companies tell me they weren't willing to pay what I'm asking for, so we didn't take anything further after that

[smoky quest]

got it. But that's enough data points for you to draw any conclusion.

Some things you could do:

• Make sure your resume and linkedin are up to date
• Feel free to anonymize and post your resume here for feedback (I am about to step out so I may or may not reply now, and others may chime in too anyway)
• When a recruiter reaches out to you, let them know you are more interested in SWE roles and you would be more than happy to work with them if they have some roles that fit better your career goal

[smoky quest]

What are you asking to get that type of answer? What's your location too?

[jade thicket]

I do plan on switching up my linkedin a bit to make it more geared towards SWE specifically. I'll see about anonymizing my resume when I get the chance. I've definitely been letting recruiters know I'm looking to go down the SWE path though.

My current TC is around 104k. I'm also going to have to pay back around 15k in student loan reimbursement if I leave the company any time soon (that will drop to 7500 if I stay another 6 months, won't go to zero unless I stay 2 more years). So I've been asking for 130-140k and then trying to negotiate down to 120ish. But there's been several companies who were only willing to pay 80-100k and I'm definitely not interested in taking a pay cut.

Located in the Detroit, MI area

[smoky quest]

oh yeah, 130-140k in MI would definitely be for more senior people.

[jade thicket]

yep, that's what it's looking like. Seems like I'm either going to have to move to some HCOL tech hub or settle for a lateral move

although I do know at least one person with under 3 YOE who is making 130k+ in the area

[smoky quest]

they probably have the chops and experience to back it up

[jade thicket]

Yeah, I suppose so

[smoky quest]

but yeah, switching role and asking a big bump comparing to others is certainly a bold move.
As you mentioned, moving to a hcol is an option though

[jade thicket]

Right. I suppose it's not so bad to take a lateral move if I'm going to have more potential for career growth elsewhere

[smoky quest]

also if your concern is the student loan pay back, you can try to ask for a sign in bonus.
So your salary expectations aren't too much and can still get a one time bonus to help you out

[jade thicket]

True. I haven't done that yet, I could try that

[merry mauve]

i got a question about freelancing people keep telling me to find something else than web development cause its hard what would be easier to do

[harsh quarry]

I've been to some freelancing sites myself and found a lot of other options which you might discover yourself if you do a lil bit of searchin' category wise

That aside, i personally think its better for freelancers to build a clientele in something specific... that would need you specializing in something

[vapid jay]

heyy I need some guide for starting programming... any professional who can help me.. pleasee dm me it's important😭

[smoky quest]

Sounds like a question for #python-discussion where people will be better equipped to answer.
Otherwise https://automatetheboringstuff.com/ is a great resource to start

[near ocean]

<@&831776746206265384> lame jokes with racist undertones dont belong here

[karmic merlin]

!cban 962179324948140032 not sure why do you believe that racism joke is going to fly here. it won't

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @void island permanently.

[marsh locust]

Heello I Need help with game developmwnt community

[amber plume]

https://tenor.com/view/what-happened-chaos-gif-14104955

[dense mesa]

@marsh locust @amber plume this channel is for career discussion

[sudden yacht]

@marsh locust we have a #game-development channel 🙂

[marsh locust]

@marsh locust

[frail dune]

hi

[glacial ivy]

im someone who honestly barely remembers the basics of python

i really want to learn it this summer, where would be a good place to start?

[dense mesa]

@glacial ivy this channel is for career discussion, try asking in #python-discussion

[delicate bane]

this is from Community right?

[wanton wharf]

i want to become a computer man when i grow up

[delicate bane]

what type of computer man though. there are many types

something to look into for sure

[vagrant flare]

is BEng(hons) computer systems same like SWE?

[peak halo]

what are the names of the courses in the BEng in Computer Systems that you refer to?

[slow locust]

python circle thing lol

[smoky quest]

Hi!
That's nice!
But that's not the appropriate forum for it as it does not relate to #career-advice . #media-processing or #python-discussion would be more appropriate

[slow locust]

thanks

[dense mesa]

No

[lavish wing]

Computer Science < Information Technology?

[smoky quest]

Can you expand a bit on the question?

[lavish wing]

comsci can give you better opportunities to higher salary?

[peak halo]

you said "computer science is less than information technology"

IT is usually a business degree, and an IT degree holder would manage the computer systems and provide technical support.

[lavish wing]

my bad typo

[smoky quest]

that would be the general rule

[ocean sandal]

Had a recruiter reach out to me after finding my resume online. I have no idea why but they suddenly changed tune and concluded I didn't fit the role because of my recent job title then told me I should go back to help desk to try and get promoted to this role internally. Makes no sense... is this a common thing for recruiters to do?

[smoky quest]

That can happen.
Not everyone is nice.

And if they are recruiters, their job is to sell people. So anyone who doesn't fit the mold would be more difficult to sell and thus may not want to spend time on.

So I would just ignore them and persevere

[ocean sandal]

Thanks, yeah I felt like it was kind of insulting and also discouraging. The search continues...

[smoky quest]

I forgot if you are still at school or not.
But there is also a mental shift when you join the workforce in terms of where you put your ego. In school you are used to having the teachers evaluate you and to be the source of truth about your value/skills.
In the enterprise world, there won't be anyone with that much insight, knowledge and power over you (ok, maybe your manager and lead). But in general, everyone you meet will have a different background and point of view. So while I do recommend to listen to every single feedback, you should always put them in context and take them with a grain of salt.

[inner marten]

Hey Ive seen a ton about an incoming drop off of hiring in tech right now for software devs and all, what does that mean for everyone learning? The field is gunna get even more competitive if thats the case I suppose

Like if I have the opportunity to get a degree in computer programming or something, should I take that opportunity because it would give me a huge advantage? Or can I still self teach ??

[true harness]

if it's going to be more competitive, and you're able, why not get a degree? if everyone will have one, you don't want to be the one person without one

[inner marten]

Thats very true

[smoky quest]

The rule of thumb is to study during the hard times so that you are ready by the time the economy gets better.
The number of applicants is growing but so is the market as a whole.

[sour dock]

Has anyone become software developer or programmer just with python?
I am a python automation tester but its so hard to make a transition personally
any advice?

[smoky quest]

Look at the job ads for your ideal jobs and work backward from there: what are you missing? And then work on these skills

[sour dock]

Usually for python developer position, I often see cloud: aws, kubernete, working API, and probably devops

[smoky quest]

sounds like SRE/devops. In which case, you now got your roadmap 🙂

[ocean sandal]

I graduated and still trying to get back into the workforce.

For sure, I took a mental note of the recruiter's explanation for why they recommended going back to a help desk role. Logically, I get it because the state of the job market is wack. There's high competition and companies give preference to internal workers for retention purposes.

[delicate bane]

i feel like that advice is slightly outdated tho. surely, there are other roles that could help you pivot better

sorry, i shouldnt say anything bc i dont know what role you are aiming for lol

[ocean sandal]

No need to apologize. These are the following roles I've been going for: DevOps, SRE, Network/ Systems Engineering

[delicate bane]

ahh i can see why they would say that then, but tbh i feel like you just need that initial opportunity since those roles are def in demand

[ocean sandal]

Yeah exactly that. Initial opportunity. I don't see any reason for Entry Level or even Junior roles being out of reach without that hard work exp as long as the degree is equivalent or similar and I'm learning the required skills

[delicate bane]

yeah, i think its just harder to demonstrate the necessary experience with projects since you cant do that as easily with those types of roles

i mean i guess you could get some cloud certificates maybe

[ocean sandal]

Yeah, I was thinking Python wise I can at least write my own scripts to do some cool automated stuff and put those on github.

Aside from that, I'm working towards DevOps cloud certs and CKAD. I made a mistake getting AWS Cloud Practitioner as my first one because that ish is not marketable at all

[delicate bane]

def not. you shouldve gone for the solution architect cert at the very least

but hindsight is 20-20. i only know this myself bc my friend told me all this info lol; she was a java developer before grad school

[icy berry]

!cban 719171008128614452 racist icons is unwanted, go away

[inner wren]

:incoming_envelope: :ok_hand: applied ban to @sullen patrol permanently.

[icy berry]

thanks @jagged glade

[jagged glade]

no, eivl, thank you

[sturdy solar]

Very open question but short answers accepted. I have just started learning Python and have started an online guided bootcamp that is 100 days of training in the language. What else should I be doing besides this to be as efficient with my time as possible. I’m a dad in a different profession but can commit to 2 hours of coding a day on weekdays and 3 a day on weekends.

日本語理解できるからでもいらっしゃるなら何かアドバイスがあるなら宜しくお願い致します。

[viral sail]

guys what is the diffrence between int and str??

[sturdy solar]

@viral sail int are written as numbers bad strings are closed inside “”

@viral sail https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-an-integer-and-a-string

[dense mesa]

I've recently had recruiters who said my idea of total compensation for new roles was "crazy" despite already being offered it elsewhere. Some of them can be very unprofessional, especially for tech roles that are in high demand

[dense mesa]

Go through projects as much as possible, I would recommend starting with "Automate the Boring Stuff"

[dense mesa]

This is a channel for career discussion, if you need help with Python then ask in #python-discussion or look at #❓｜how-to-get-help. @sturdy solar people try not to reply to off-topic messages as it just encourages people

[near ocean]

Recruiters are basically sales people and like any good salesman, 50% of the job is theatrics
Ignore them and keep applying

[wind steppe]

Should I follow the career path of front end developer, I'm going to college soon where I'll be programming in C#, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP

It's always been a dream of mine to get into game development but I'm a complete novice

[vagrant flare]

BEng computer systems is the name of the course i believe.. Im not sure what sub courses are you referring to? im gonna be joining uni this year so i was just checking out different courses and came across this one

[peak halo]

Must be a difference in terminology. Perhaps someone can tell us what "degree program" and "course" translate to from US English to your variety.

[rose shale]

Somebody mention me rq

[honest pivot]

Sounds like British English, where a "course" is a degree program and a "module" is something like a course, I think.

[vagrant flare]

does this help? xd

[vagrant flare]

right i think.

[vapid jay]

a module is a part of a course

that's what It's like in my college course anyway

[subtle relic]

fuck python

[wind steppe]

What??

[tranquil crest]

Hi!

[scenic rose]

@tranquil crest hi

[wind steppe]

Bruh my question was ignored entirely

[dense mesa]

Why would you do front end to be a game developer?

[bright swan]

How can u make money from a python code?

Is there any way?

[vivid ore]

Find somebody who would pay money to have a problem solved, solve it with Python code, get the money in exchange of the code.

[wind steppe]

I was just describing how I've always been interested in game Dev but I'd rather have a career in front end as I have zero experience in game dev

[vivid ore]

You need to make these kind of decisions for yourself, we cannot know what's good for you.

Try both.

You can make good games with html and javascript.

[wind steppe]

True

And I guess I can use my time at college to learn more about game development and front end at the same time

[ornate gulch]

Hi can anyone help me with a question?

what does variable = "" mean?

[dense mesa]

This channel is for career discussion, try #python-discussion

[subtle relic]

fuck python

[near ocean]

Do you have experience in frontend?

[wind steppe]

Not at the moment, but I'm about to go to college to do an Level 3 extended IT diploma

[near ocean]

So why wouldnt you get with gamedev from the start? You have the same experience in gamedev as frontend

[upbeat geode]

Yo do yall think getting a comp sci degree vs getting a specialization (eg: software engineering) would impact the "strength" of my degree? I wanna get into comp sci- software engineering but people are just saying go with regular comp sci cause it holds more "weight" (repost from general)

[jade thicket]

I would say computer science would be better. Computer science will cover all aspects of computer science, including software engineering, while software engineering will only cover one subset of computer science. It's not as useful if your degree is a bottleneck like that in terms of what kinds of jobs it will qualify you for

I switched my master's degree from data science back to computer and information science for this exact reason

[graceful mason]

At least in the UK SE and CS courses are pretty much the same with a couple of different mandatory modules (that you can pick as optional on the other course), but that varies by university.

[upbeat geode]

Hmm but dont you think the specialization helps in the long run in terms of being within the software engineering space?

I get that it would be constricting myself, But at the same time do you think theres a larger benefit within that?

[gilded valley]

I don't think it matters at all in the long term. The course content matters relatively little, the only difference is how it affects your employability immediately after graduating

and SWE vs CS will have very little impact on that. Something that would have a bigger impact on thatwould be Data Science or Cyber Security

[jade thicket]

yeah once you land your first job and get a few years of experience, whether your degree is in CS or SE won't matter much

[wind steppe]

Is gamedev easier, more worth it than front end??

[jade thicket]

Game dev companies are notorious for paying significantly lower salaries than other fields of CS. It's also common for them to make you work long hours with terrible WLB, so the job can be stressful

[near ocean]

No, gamedev is notorious for being essentially slavery
Long hours
Insane crunches
Much stress
Little pay

[wind steppe]

So maybe I should go with front end??

So that I don't die from the insane hours

[near ocean]

You should go with what you enjoy, if you hate frontend why would you do it

[wind steppe]

I like the idea of front end

[near ocean]

Give it a try, its probably the easiest area to break into

[wind steppe]

Sounds like a good first job for me 👌
Thanks for the info 🙂

[ocean sandal]

Yeah this one thought I was asking too much. I learned to ask for this range based on past interviews for similar roles and will continue to ask for it lol

[wind steppe]

bro, just explain why you're saying that instead of saying it

[gilded valley]

Doesn't belong in this channel. Go to #ot0-psvm’s-eternal-disapproval

[buoyant seal]

you chose the wrong server to compain about it
imagine compaining about how bad is alcohol, while being in a bar
or how bad football while at a football stadium

[gilded valley]

This server has tonnes of people who prefer other languages to Python and a lot of people who dislike Python. But it is definitely not relevant to this channel

[ivory sluice]

🧹 troll is gone

[delicate bane]

have you also considered data engineering? since you seem to have some cloud skills

[ocean sandal]

I haven't actually but I can definitely look into it. It's in high demand?

[delicate bane]

extremely so.

def take a look into it, and see if its something you might be interested in. at the very least, worth checking out for sure.

[delicate bane]

https://youtu.be/jpzDA90EuQ8

[safe marsh]

what data engineer doing?

[buoyant seal]

@delicate bane count me in to receive the answer to this question
i ve read the brief description, so far it sounds sus to me

[gilded valley]

The main thing data engineers are doing is building ETL pipelines - extracting data from messy and often disparate sources, cleaning it and transforming it into some standardised format, and loading it into a data warehouse

also often building out the infrastructure to do the above steps - so managing spark clusters and various storage platforms

[buoyant seal]

I am just afraid that they are web scrappers in the end
web scrapping is bad, mkay (and boring)

[ocean sandal]

Thank you that's thoughtful to share. I will watch now.

There's a Python script I have somewhere that I had to write for a class that "cleaned" a file by removing certain key words and replacing them with the correct one that I thought was cool

[smoky quest]

it has nothing to do with web scraping.

If we take any product, there will be disparate source of data, be it billing, login, usage or specific features. Since they are typically managed by different teams and DBs, they are in different locations and formats. That makes it difficult to analyze that data. So that's where the ETL pipelines come into play as a way to move, unify and make that data available for further analysis

[gilded valley]

They're usually not, and web scraping is insanely tedious, but it's not "bad. It's often things like Spark and Luigi and the orchestration that they're concerned with

[inner marten]

https://usfbootcamps.com/programs/software-engineering/?utm_source=coursereport&utm_medium=schoolpage

Can someone take a look at this coding bootcamp? It seems pretty good, its through a college in my area and they are well rated for computer sciences... But I cant really find any reviews of the bootcamps they offer... Although the descriptions seem legit and they seem to teach an even amount of front end / back end / full stack languages and whatnot

Sorry if thats a lot to ask I just want a second glance opinion

[gilded valley]

I don't know anything about any specific bootcamps, but as I understand it one of the biggest things you get from a bootcamp is the networking opportunities - you lose out a lot on that front from the fact it's online, if they offer any in-person alternative, that might be worth looking into

[smoky quest]

• The salary numbers seem off
• Learn the sorting and search algorithms most likely to appear on a job interview is cringe
• I didn't see any numbers about placement and success
• 9months is better than 3 or 6months. But at that point, may as well go for a degree?

Also just to make sure it's out there: if your choice is between college and bootcamp, college is the one with the most opportunities and value

[gilded valley]

• 9months is better than 3 or 6months. But at that point, may as well go for a degree?
  ???

[smoky quest]

If you are going to spend almost a year and pay as much as for a year in a college, you might as well go for the real thing?

[gilded valley]

associates is 2 years full-time and not worth that much. Bachelors is 3 years. This is 9 months part time. The two are leaps and bounds apart

[smoky quest]

So are the outcomes

[gilded valley]

the outcomes are all about probability of landing a job
once you have one - the outcomes are pretty similar

[smoky quest]

they aren't similar at all though

[gilded valley]

Really? It seems to me that once you have a years experience, almost the only thing that matters is said experience

but what I was going to say is that - exactly how a bootcamp affects your employability is very difficult to judge

I've heard everything ranging from "completely worthless" to "makes landing a job very easy"

[inner marten]

Additionally - what about a "cyber security" bootcamp that is from the same institution that is 6 months, about the same price, and also does not explicitly say they can "guarantee" a job... However they do have "job hunt assistance"

That almost seems more risky

[gilded valley]

cyber security bootcamp sounds like a bad idea to me

[smoky quest]

First, a disclaimer: It's correlation vs causation. Nothing is guaranteed in life and there are tons of other factors (how rich is your family?)

But overall, years of education have a much higher value than years of experience. It should not come as a surprise that more educated engineers can go deeper and faster into the problems, which tends to get to faster growth for both compensation and responsibilities.
Also the fact someone does not have a degree will be used a lot to underpay them

[inner marten]

All to basically just pass the security+ - right? That sounds like a load of BS

Im not opposed to further education but I would kind of like to have a job while Im in school. So that way I have a job in the field, then I can continue with my career

[gilded valley]

It should not come as a surprise that more educated engineers can go deeper and faster into the problems, which tends to get to faster growth for both compensation and responsibilities
This does not match my anecdotal experience and doesn't seem like something I'd accept as a given. IME self-taught engineers are more motivated precisely because they've had to put more effort into learning rather than just following a course that was laid out for them

[smoky quest]

cyber security is also pretty vague.
If you want to maximize your chances, webdeb is the most common route for bootcamps

[smoky quest]

That does match my experience though :p
Self-taught engineers don't know what they don't know. They also lack a lot of the abstract reasonign skills. Plus all the part about being scared of math and higher level analysis which will hamper their growth

[smoky quest]

Be careful of not falling for "penny wise but pounds foolish".
So explore all your options, even if it means working part time at starbucks

In general, people skip college not by choice, but because they have no other choice

[smoky quest]

also, not trying to scare you, but as a data point, I put a job ad out for a >2 years xp full stack position and got 20 applications in less than a day. All the candidates having degrees and projects. So you would have to plan for you can stand out among the applicants

[inner marten]

Very true, Ive got the opportunity to do college but I would be switching majors which isnt the end of the world but it is slower than Id like, I think

[smoky quest]

(crap, am now at 60 candidates)

[delicate bane]

no one watches the video

ben rogogan says theres a variety of data engineer types just like data scientist types. what coffee says above is like 2 types. another type also works on data warehousing, especially building cloud data warehouses and related systems. some work on helping to deploy/operationalizing ML models (some overlap with ML Eng). the goal is to create systems that can enable people to use data effectively whether that be data analysts, data scientists, or even devs sometimes

[gilded valley]

The median salary for a Computer Science graduate aged 25-29 was 70,000 as of 2018. The overall median salary for all software developers was 120k. I can't find any data about non-graduate software developers. But the salary growth difference would have to be pretty damn large to back up the idea that a degree pays for itself beyond the fact it makes it easier to get the job in the first place

(https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/coe_sbc.pdf https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm)

[delicate bane]

rip 🕯️

[gilded valley]

it looks like some listicle clickbait is why

[smoky quest]

it's a good problem to have, but I know how I am going to spend my whole Monday now

[delicate bane]

the YT algorithm only likes that is why

[delicate bane]

how

[gilded valley]

The fact YT caters to the lowest common denominator doesn't mean that people are going to watch lowest common denominator content

[smoky quest]

reviewing 60+ resumes 😉

[delicate bane]

one of these days, hiring will become less broken than its current state

maybe

[gilded valley]

I think I've been persuaded that it's completely fixable in the current climate. As in, if you're looking to hire someone you can make sure you get someone pretty damn good. The two things that matter for a software developer are: technical ability and communication/empathy/being able to work in a team. You can test for the former by focusing on Github activity a lot, which right now almost no one does

then that leaves a lot of room to test the latter in interviews

[smoky quest]

That would cut off a large part of the candidates who do not have such portfolio or even the time to maintain and curate such portfolio

[delicate bane]

but what if youre not hiring for a cookie cutter software developer

[gilded valley]

If you're not hiring for a cookie-cutter software developer then open source contributions are absolutely huge

[smoky quest]

There would be some implications with regards to bias as well

[gilded valley]

if I'm looking for someone to build out my cloud platform, the fact they've committed to XYZ linux project or building out toy stuff with K8s for fun, it shows they're passionate and spend their time thinking about things that incidentally make them better at their jobs

[gilded valley]

focus on those with a portfolio first. If none of them have anything beyond create-react-app stuff, then wait longer or widen your net

[gilded valley]

how so?

[delicate bane]

ehh i meant more roles that arent software developer focused

[gilded valley]

ah I see. Yeah, the further you get from actual software development the less relevant this becomes, yeah, I agree

[delicate bane]

aka hiring as a whole

[smoky quest]

Interviews are designed to validate and test an explicit set of skills that are important for the job. And the questions will be crafted as such.
This also means that every candidate will go through the same interviews, which makes it easier to assess uniformly and without any bias. It becomes about whether you demonstrated the skills or not.
If you have to go fishing on github/gitlab/bitbucket, then it comes down to luck and other biases because each candidate will be evaluated differently

[sturdy solar]

@smoky quest have you ever considered a self-taught engineer? And if you did how did it turn out? Sorry very general q

[smoky quest]

I did

[smoky quest]

That would still put at a disadvantage a bunch of folks who could have been great candidates otherwise

[gilded valley]

what are the other biases? I think by focusing on not-resumes you remove a ton more biases, you stop focusing on schools and their natural language, both of which have large and often unaddressed biases on reviewers

[gilded valley]

The goal is to find the best person for the job - GH activity seems clear cut a best indicator for whether or not someone is a great software engineer

[smoky quest]

You would be surprised to hear all the weird stuff you can hear in interviews, and from both sides 😉

[smoky quest]

GH activity introduces a bias and selection for people who do have the time to put into that

[gilded valley]

I'm not saying you don't have interviews. I didn't imply that anywhere. I'm saying you focus on GH instead of CV content

[vapid jay]

question yall

what does a professional web dev do? I'm going to apply for a web dev job, so how is it actually going to be like

[gilded valley]

It puts parents at a slight disadvantage I guess, that's an issue, but it's still a tradeoff that seems worth making

[vapid jay]

i know reactjs and express js and rwd design

[sturdy solar]

Is this true? GH over CV? Again, sorry very generalized but in my case I’m working in another field and have a child so I don’t have as much time to craft my pickaxes you know.

[gilded valley]

Right now almost no one hires this way. I'm saying that this seems like the better way to go about hiring

[smoky quest]

Maybe we are looking at CVs in a different way. For me, the CV is like the flyer for a politician or an ad. Its purpose is to say "look at me! I am so good, you should hire me!".
So if you have some interesting projects on GH, you should totally point me towards it and the specific parts I should care about, as a buyer. And in that case, it's a clear advantage.
That also leaves room for people who do not or cannot have GH projects to also apply and demonstrate their value in other ways.

Another way to phrase it is I would rather have the GH portfolio as an add-on to give an advantage rather than solely focus on that and cut off other folks

(that also excludes the fact I don't have the physical time to peruse through the GH profile of 60 applicants. So one pages are life savers)

[gilded valley]

Maybe we are looking at CVs in a different way. For me, the CV is like the flyer for a politician or an ad. Its purpose is to say "look at me! I am so good, you should hire me!".
That's exactly what it is, and just like flyers or ads, the main thing it tells you is how good they are at advertising

[smoky quest]

Also in the context that conversation, a lot of my arguments are more directed to the younger population of this server where you have a lot of kids trying to skip college thinking they won't miss anything.

If you are already a working professional, your situation would be different

[smoky quest]

yeah, people are trying different formats for interviews, and I am convinced we cannot make everyone happy. If you ask for a take home exercise, people bitch about it. If you ask them to write code on zoom/whiteboard, they bitch about it. If you want to look at their portfolio, they bitch about it.
So it's difficult to find something that is fair but gives enough flexibility to adapt with the needs of everyone

[sturdy solar]

That’s good to know that the situation would be considered! Awesome! That’s motivating!

[smoky quest]

At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is: How good of a fit are you for that role?

The trick is how to set yourself up for success so you are that person

[pseudo bone]

what would you call a machine learning professional?

[delicate bane]

depends on what they are doing with ML.

data scientists are (usually) doing different things with ML than ML engineers, applied ML scientists, etc.

i guess thats akin to asking "what would you call a finance professional?"

there are many roles that use finance in different capacities.

[sturdy solar]

Man y’all have been a much needed help. I’m on to continue my Python bootcamp exercise. Have a wonderful day! I’ll be in here asking more questions at some point I’m sure!

[delicate bane]

good luck bud.

[near ocean]

Machine Learning Professional sounds good enough to me tbh

[delicate bane]

tragic

do you want said professional to do ML algorithm development? solve business problems using ML? create ML libraries? put an ML model in prod? these are vastly different skill sets

all of the above?

[near ocean]

Well yes but as a general umbrella term i think its fine, if youre asking about it you probably shouldnt be using anything more specific

[delicate bane]

probs

[wispy pagoda]

I was honest about teaching myself python/sql over the past 2 years and interviewers (not recruiters) actually seem to value that effort. Fwiw.

[sturdy solar]

@wispy pagoda thanks for sharing that! I’m on the same route! How far are you in?

[wispy pagoda]

I'm in pretty deep trying to get into the industry. But it helped me a lot I think in my own field (finance), skills and confidence wise going into interviews. It's a negotiation at the end of the day so anything we can do to improve our position.

[arctic arrow]

mba student huh...

[wispy pagoda]

Undergrad. Traditional finance path wasn't appealing to me

[nova mural]

Hello everyone are you doing great or not

[wary briar]

Hi
I'm Senior Python Developer
And Advanced in WebScraping Using :
Playwright - Beautiful Soup- Selenium and more tools and libraries

You can count on my help

[sturdy solar]

Matix!
What do I need to jump on as a Junior dev?

[fossil spear]

I am preparing for the SRE interview and I don't have coding expertise, I am hesitant of coding, looking for a start or group of people who are preparing for coding interviews

[sage crater]

is there any online courses I can pay for to learn smth useful or to get some useful certificates?

[amber plume]

Coursera is a good place if you're looking for paid courses

[sage crater]

are those courses worth of it? I mean will they help me to get knowledge and to find a job?

[wary briar]

Hey

[wary briar]

Step 1 : Start with python fundamentals

[wary briar]

Step 2 : Learn beautiful soup from bs4 doc or youtube videos

that's enough

[amber plume]

yes. Most of them are top university lectures and having them would impact your resume a lot

[gilded valley]

You don't need to pay for access to good courses, and having certificates or Coursera courses on your CV won't make any difference. Don't pay for something unless you're sure that that thing will help your learning more than free options

[sage crater]

🤔

[honest pivot]

Having certificates from something like Coursera will definitely not make up for a lack of degree, however, I've seen it as a plus as just a way of saying "I've taken an interest in learning this or that thing", kind of equivalent to saying you've worked through a textbook on the topic.

[gilded valley]

You can get that exact same plus by putting free courses on your CV

[amber plume]

op asked for paid courses. It's true to a lot extent that you can learn everything online without paying a single dime and there are great resources as well but I think op wants to cover up their degree or maybe they have an irrelevant degree and want to switch careers. In that case having a paid course could impact the resume but not what op might think. Having good skill set is what matters the most.

[gilded valley]

They asked if they were worth it, I strongly disagree with you, but they can decide for themselves

My advice would be to just head to MIT open courseware and go at it

[amber plume]

haven't took a single paid course in my life 😆

[sage crater]

does it make a lot of difference whether my degree is from uni in Ukraine or Italy/Germany or wherever else? Cause I don't really have an option except of studying online in Ukraine,cause got no money for any other

[amber plume]

no.

just focus on your skills

[sage crater]

but degree is important🤔

[amber plume]

if you can get one then get it from somewhere and just focus on core computer science concepts & programming cuz most unis don't teach you programming in the way you might need to get a job.

I got my first job without having a degree. most companies are looking for skills than what you scored in you exam last semester.

[sage crater]

wow how'd u get a job?

[amber plume]

basically, by making projects. My college didn't teach me anything about programming so I learnt it myself and it wasn't easy but It took me around 6 months to learn to code and get my first job.

[dense mesa]

The companies aren't necessarily interested in your grades, they're more interested in the structured education you've received, and how it lets you use this for work

It still means getting some form of higher education makes the job hunt easier, at least for the first one

[sage crater]

which language is the most beginner friendly? would be better if I switch from learning cpp along with my unis curriculum to python?

[dense mesa]

Python is typically recommended as the most beginner friendly

[amber plume]

I started with javascript as it had the most amount jobs in my locality. You can do your research and choose which one suits best for you.

[honest pivot]

Yes. Don't pay money for them, just say you went through the material.

[heady narwhal]

Can i get a internship at the age of 14?

[dense mesa]

Unless you have a family friend then no

[proven crest]

I'm really interested in a career in coding or development, does anyone have any advise how to work towards this?

I'm currently learning Python and working on little projects, doing basic courses as I have only started learning a week or so ago (Currently doing Angela Yu's 100 day bootcamp)

Would it be worth doing an online CS degree at all? I think one of the benefits (other than a degree) is I'd know a lot more over all and have more direction as to what I want to learn to develop myself (You dont know what you dont know)

[gilded valley]

Having a bachelors in a relevant major is probably the path that's most likely to lead to you getting a job. Landing a job without a degree can be very difficult

[proven crest]

Hm, disappointing as its a 3 year long process

[vapid jay]

hassan kareem:
Hi
I have problem
I want to import data from excel file and print on id card .
But i want to let users to input the file

Who can help me pls?

[gilded valley]

It's not impossible to land a job without a degree. It's just a much less sure path

[gilded valley]

#❓｜how-to-get-help

[proven crest]

I understand that, if I was to do a degree it would only be part time whilst working a full time job

My hope would be that I could get an entry level developing job whilst doing the part time online degree

I feel like a job in any other path would just limit my learning

[gilded valley]

It's difficult to judge the value of them, but I've heard both good and bad things about bootcamps. It could be worth looking into that as an option. Apparently the biggest source of value is the networking you get from having attended one, so in person definitely seems more valuable than online.

Here's a hackernews post with a fair chunk of discussion about them https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31229504

leesec

My experience getting a tech job with no degree or relevant work experience

Hacker News · May 1, 2022, 10:50 PM

[heady narwhal]

Do i need CS degree and experience to work at big company like facebook

[gilded valley]

no, but you need to be very exceptional without one or the other

[near ocean]

May as well say yes tbh, people need to acquire realistic views of themselves and their ability
You're probably not a genius that can get into a faang type without a degree

[gilded valley]

You're not wrong. You pretty much need to have started some huge FOSS project or done something similarly exceptional to have a reasonable chance, and the fact that the question is being asked implies that that's probably not the case

[near ocean]

The bot should just autorespond with "Yes" when detecting a question like that, its just far too common and people dont like reading chat history.
PRs welcome!

Though i guess its only fair to also reference this pin here
#career-advice message

[gilded valley]

The bot should just autorespond with "Yes" when detecting a question like that, its just far too common and people dont like reading chat history.
IMO this isn't on people - it's just a fact of Discord. Discord is shit for being searchable, mostly because it's not indexed by google, so people don't really think to do it at all

It could be addressed by the server in different ways, but clearly there's no drive for it

[wispy pagoda]

The search at least works much better than reddit's.

[gilded valley]

well - the way to search reddit is via google, you don't even have that option with Discord

[wispy pagoda]

Oh

[near ocean]

It'd be really nice if maybe we could make use of threads to "pin" discussion topics related to careers, but this is more meta talk

[peak halo]

pretty much, yes. though you don't necessarily need to work at a big-name company.

[sage crater]

What languages to learn as a software architect🤔

[peak halo]

what kind of software?

[lavish wedge]

hello guys

im new, i wanna learn python so fast as rabbit.

[proven crest]

@lavish wedge Remember the tortoise and the hare. Slow and steady wins the race

[pseudo bone]

I want to to do python, data analysis and hopefully become machine learning engineer what entry level jobs should i look for ?

[lavish wedge]

yes true👍🏽

[peak halo]

what's the rush? you can learn the basics of Python in an afternoon, but beyond that, it takes years of experience to master.

[lavish wedge]

i think soo...

[peak halo]

do you have a degree? if you don't have a degree, and you're a young person, you should enroll in a computer science degree program with a data science/ML focus.

[lavish wedge]

who knows how to generate random numbers?
help me

[peak halo]

this is the career discussion channel. see #❓｜how-to-get-help

[pseudo bone]

i have a masters

in computer science

[brazen linden]

the random module

[sage crater]

I dunno, what kinds are there?🤔

[summer roost]

Software architects often don't write any code at all. Their job is higher level than that.

Similar to how a traditional architect doesn't actually do any construction.

Instead, they focus on design at a higher level, where the building blocks are services, databases, message queues, message brokers, and so on. They focus a lot on the organization and flow of data.

That's not to say that they don't know a few programming languages, since they almost certainly do. It would be hard to gain the expertise required to perform a software architecture job without starting as a software developer. It's just to say that, once they've risen to that level, they're paid to tell other people what to code, rather than to do any coding themselves

Note also that there's no such thing as a junior software architect, at least to my knowledge. It's not a job that exists at the entry level, it's quite a senior position

[delicate bane]

my SWE prof said that usually software architects have approx. 10 years of experience. does that track?

[summer roost]

I'd say that's a minimum. You're unlikely to meet anyone younger than mid thirties whose job title is "software architect"

[peak halo]

Did you do anything related to ai/ml during that? If so, what?

[pastel thunder]

should projects in resumes be some kind of elaborate projects?

[dense mesa]

It depends

[pastel thunder]

i have 2 elaborate projects and 2 high end but not at all time taking

should i mention the so called 1 minute recipe projects?

[sage crater]

so basically what do I need to do is to learn 2-3 languages, do lots of projects,have a professional experience like working for some companies and do some collab projects to understand how every block,every line of code on my chosen languages works and then I could become a yoda of architecture? If that's so,can u recommend some books that will be useful to read or whatever to dig in.

[delicate bane]

lol idk if planning 10 years out is the best idea...you should plan for the immediate future since plans can easily change...

later on, you can reassess and see if you still want to go down the software architect path

[sage crater]

yeah sure but knowing how to perform effective architecture is good for everyone who is coding

[delicate bane]

ofc, but that and this are two separate matters

two relevant books ive heard recommended for beginners are: software architecture patterns by mark richards and designing data-intensive applications by martin kleppmann

[sage crater]

thx a lot

[summer roost]

I haven't read all of these, but this list might be a helpful starting point: https://realtoughcandy.com/system-design-books/

[rough elm]

Is python used more as a data scientist or data analyst?

[novel pine]

From what I know someone could totally correct me a Data Scientist would use more as they are about gathering, organizing, and other things with data. Whereas Data Analysts focus more on finding takeaways from Data.

[vast field]

im gonna be a teacher

[rough elm]

DS does more machine learning

[peak halo]

There's a lot of overlap. Two people called "data scientists" could have entirely different responsibilities in two different companies. And then there might be a "data scientist" and a "machine learning engineer" who essentially do the same things.

Generally speaking, a data scientist is someone who knows how to use computation to leverage large amounts of data.

[jagged glade]

!rule 4 7 9

[inner wren]

Rules

4. Use English to the best of your ability. Be polite if someone speaks English imperfectly.

7. Keep discussions relevant to the channel topic. Each channel's description tells you the topic.

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

[hard pebble]

Can i get high packages of salary even without clearing IIT ?

[peak halo]

what do you mean, without clearing ITT?

[ripe pagoda]

any data engineers in the chat

[harsh quarry]

Yes.

[harsh quarry]

IIT is a premier indian technical institute that lot of people associate with high paying packages (sadly)

[harsh quarry]

Open YouTube and search for your query, there are literally thousands of channels (and their videos) about getting high packages as a non IITian.

[still condor]

What's a polite way of declining a job if I just really disliked the interviewer (who's going to be my supervisor)?

[honest pivot]

Don't give an actual reason

Do you actually have an offer or are you dropping out midway through the process?

[still condor]

midway

[honest pivot]

Something generic like "Thank you for your time, but I've decided to withdraw from this application process and focus on other opportunities at this time."

You can also just do nothing. There's no need to tell them you're no longer interested unless they invite you back to the next interview

[still condor]

good point

[lavish wedge]

thx

[wispy brook]

Hi i want to learn how to make bots using python

[dapper trail]

Hello here, I am looking forward to learn coding, I am in my vacation of my 10th std board examination and yeah.. waiting for my results. But idk where to start it could anyone help me withis query pls..

[wispy brook]

Can anyone help me

[near ocean]

Ask in the appropriate channels #python-discussion #discord-bots
This is career discussion only, read the title and description of the channel

[humble harbor]

Hello! Can anyone give me advice for my career ? I don't know anything about programming but I'm really interested in this .I'm 18.I found a lot of videos on Youtube but I don't know where to start .

[dense mesa]

What is your background and what part of Python has interested you so far?

[vital dune]

Hello everyone! I have any question, how put numbers in variables like this

not like this

I know I can do this use split, but I need converter split in int or float

[gilded valley]

this isn't the right channel for this question - check out #❓｜how-to-get-help to see the right one

[vital dune]

ok thanks

[humble harbor]

I love to play games and I wanted to create new games. I have no one to guide me in this field. My parents run a business (something like a big shop) .I don't usually talk with my friends . So I can't find anyone to study together too.

[pseudo bone]

I got the result for 5 personality traits test result from the from my potential employer. would someone have experience in how I should discuss the results?I am a little worried about my results and i dnt know how companies asses these results or how much weightage they are given

[harsh quarry]

Assuming you want to work in the gaming industry (for a company or indie), pick some aspect of game dev you want to work on (you can check the different profiles in any gaming company like Ubisoft, Rockstar, IOI etc).

Since you're claiming to be 18, you can pick any job profile in game dev and check out its requirements (Youtube search might be fruitful once you have some job profiles in mind). You can enroll in a college for any required degree and start building on the skills required from day 1 in your college.

[humble harbor]

oh..thank you

[humble harbor]

But I'm not sure to enroll in a college or university for some reasons .Then can I still have chance?

[near ocean]

personality trait tests are scams, i hope they didnt have you pay for them

[delicate bane]

people pay for these?

bruh

[near ocean]

of course they do, how do you think they make money

[delicate bane]

ads? idk

[delicate bane]

[harsh quarry]

You might have a chance if you can connect with people in the gaming industry (on any professional social media platform) and showcase relevant skills somehow to them. You can explain your situation and ask for help to start your career somehow (they'll know best about any positions not needing a degree)

[humble harbor]

Ok..
Thank you so much!

[dense mesa]

I would not recommend reaching out to people for mentoring/help without credible proof you've tried learning and building something yourself

You're indirectly saying their time is less valuable than your own, and should be spent guiding you. It can damage those critical first relationships and cut you off from the right help

[ebon elk]

Why does everyone here push for college/university when the skills needed can be learned on your own relatively easily, and there are lots of bootcamps to choose from which help you break into the industry.

Sure companies may low ball you on your first few positions, but as you get more work exp, you won't be. And who cares about being low balled on your first few jobs as you likely spent half the cost compared to getting a degree (less to pay back, if anything). Especially for working adults (like myself), university is a long drawn out, expensive process.

I've also read/heard from many senior developers who have interviewed junior developers fresh out of college can't code their way out of a paper bag, but bootcampers can, and they tend to me more motivated (probably because they learned by doing and weren't burnt out by the hurdles of semesters of university).

[summer roost]

#pedagogy message

[inner bramble]

I'm currently at college and I've tried making coding partners but most of them don't know how to code. Or are just not into coding in their free time. They still pass their classes though.

[gilded valley]

Why does everyone here push for college/university when the skills needed can be learned on your own relatively easily, and there are lots of bootcamps to choose from which help you break into the industry.

A fair few people in this channel disagree that the skills can be acquired as easily or to the same level via self-teaching. (@smoky quest being one of them).

Second of all, self-teaching is an incredibly precarious route to a job, there's plenty of people who have picked up a very high degree of skill and not been able to find a job through the self-teaching route.

Thirdly, a lot of people asking the question here seem to be teenagers looking for an easy path to a high paying job - which doesn't really exist - they just want someone to tell them it will be easy

[ebon elk]

Sure, if you're a teen, maybe. But even then. I did the coding dojo a few years ago (had to drop out) and there was a high school grad doing the program because he realized it was a quicker and cheaper way to get the creds to get a job in the industry. He was really good and breezed through the program. He was one of the first to get a job in the cohort after completing the program.

He was clearly self taught and used the bootcamp for creds

[gilded valley]

realized it was a quicker and cheaper way to get the creds to get a job in the industry
Realised is the wrong word. He formed that opinion, but I don't think anyone thinks it's a good idea to take the opinions of a high-schooler as gospel.

[ebon elk]

😂 True.

But his logic was sound and it worked out for him

He was also very motivated to learn on his own

I think that's the key factor tbh

[honest pivot]

A bootcamp is like one or two courses of material compressed into a few weeks. It will leave massive holes in understanding.

[gilded valley]

There's a huge amount of survivorship and selection bias at play. More extroverted people are more likely to get a job just because they tend to be better at networking, so you're more likely to encounter them in your own networking. And then there's survivorship bias because almost no one is going to write a blogpost saying "I spent 3 years self teaching programming, felt miserable for all 3 years, gave up and am now staying at Walmart"

[ebon elk]

This was a 3 month intensive

And you'll continue to learn on the job

[honest pivot]

Everyone will continue to learn on the job, including people with PhDs

[gilded valley]

You will continue to learn, but only the things you stumble across. There's a very high chance you'll end up missing out on a lot of things that you won't know that you're missing

An easy example would be something like database normalisation - it's very easy to just run at a database and throw some stuff together, but if you do that there's a ton of fairly important concepts you'll probably never stumble across

fwiw - I'm fairly convinced that if I was 25+ and decided I wanted to become a software developer, I'd definitely go down the bootcamp route. I just think it's a high-risk high-reward path

[near ocean]

Have you tried applying to jobs without any formal education? How is it going?

[gilded valley]

This is where the value in the bootcamp comes in - the main thing you're getting out of it is the networking, much moreso than the education

[ebon elk]

Either you have the motivation to learn everything you can, or you don't. I think a lot of the time, university is overvalued.

[gilded valley]

This is a ridiculous oversimplification.

[ebon elk]

And so is an employer who thinks just because an applicant went to college that they are automatically a better applicant than the self taught individual who went to a bootcamp.

[analog sun]

It shows they are willing to work towards an end goal, and have a similar basis of knowledge

[true harness]

university also gives a lot more resources than bootcamp does. you network with much more people over 4 years, you have career counselors, professors to talk to, etc. going to university isn't just the piece of paper at the end

[gilded valley]

Most employers don't think they are better applicants because they went to college - just that filtering non-college applicants filters out more trash than not-trash

and I don't disagree with them - even if I think that filtering approach is the wrong way to go about hiring

[ebon elk]

If anything, I think there is a location bias as most bootcampers in my area have gotten jobs.

[ebon elk]

And a bootcamp doesn't?

[near ocean]

a 4 year degree is more consequential than a 2 month bootcamp

[ebon elk]

So taking a bunch of unrelated classes is more important because it adds more time to your educational resume.

Got it.

[near ocean]

Unrelated classes?

[true harness]

that's another thing. bootcamps teach you how to code, they don't give you any theoretical underpinnings

[ebon elk]

Electives

[gilded valley]

Taking a bunch of unrelated classes improves your overall ability to learn and to have a broad skill base

[near ocean]

I did not have any class unrelated to the degree ever

[ebon elk]

Coding dojo extensively focused on algorithms and understanding them

So I dunno, depends on the bootcamp

[gilded valley]

there's more to computer science than leetcode questions

[honest pivot]

I think it you already had a degree in something else, especially something STEM, then a bootcamp could be useful. But I've also heard the results can be quite hit or miss. And you will definitely have holes in your knowledge that you're unaware of, so make sure you target roles that are closely related to the bootcamp's focus.

[ebon elk]

And project based learning is more engaging

[gilded valley]

watching star wars is more engaging than watching a math lecture - they have different outcomes.

[ebon elk]

This is valid advice

[true harness]

university students can't do projects?

[ebon elk]

And then focus on learning your holes and filling the gap on your own.

[ebon elk]

They do, but it's not solely learning through doing. I much prefer learning through doing.

[near ocean]

this isnt about you, its about general advice for people considering degrees or not

[dense mesa]

@ebon elk you seem very personally biased towards one side, are you advertising this bootcamp you keep referring to?

[ebon elk]

No

I had to drop out of it, it is simply a personal frame of reference.

[analog sun]

Hmm? I can only speak to the bachelors degree program I went through, which was through an accredited university. I can definitely say that the pre-reqs were basic, but the engineering courses were very high quality, and was definitely a good bit of work. I can safely have some basic assumptions about what other people's experience level and depth of knowledge is who have also been through that program. With the plethora of bootcamps and certification programs out there, I can't make that same assumption.

[true harness]

oh another thing. there are often many internships that are only for university students

[dense mesa]

Fair enough, just to mention that there is significant pedagogical research to suggest that higher education across industries and geographies will "train" (for lack of a better word) people better than autodidactic methods. Yes, there are some people who would not thrive in a university environment, and would be better off doing a bootcamp and self teaching. But for many, many people, the strategy that mitigates many of these risks is to invest the money into higher education, self study during that time, and come out with some authority that you know how to learn and apply things

[ebon elk]

Yes yes, university has all sorts of economic rents tied to it. Fix that, and maybe I'd be more open to going to uni

[dense mesa]

I would highly recommend looking into the financial structures of educational institutions

[ebon elk]

Yeah, tuition and cost of classes is a form of economic rent

[dense mesa]

They are messes of grants, funding and other sources of capital. It's not as simple as fixing one thing

[dense mesa]

That's an opportunity cost you have to absorb, same as self teaching has opportunity cost

[ebon elk]

Honestly just exacerbates the economic rents of enrty