Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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baquerd: Jul 2, 2007; by FactsAreUseless

Orzo posted:

Dude, you don't know anything about hieronymus, can you not accept that some employees of google actually do discriminate on education, completely ignoring all other qualifications? I am almost certain that it does happen.

It certainly does happen, anyone who thinks experience alone solves all corporate hiring decisions is living in fantasy land.

Edit: There are potentially legitimate reasons for this. A person who has been to college is probably more likely to have a group mindset that someone who rejected it does not. They are probably more likely to be conformist, and less likely to try to stick out and be that special person who goes against corporate policy because it's stupid.

baquerd fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Dec 31, 2011

# ? Dec 31, 2011 05:27

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 03:14

shrughes: Oct 11, 2008; (call/cc call/cc)

If you want a job at Google and don't have a degree just do fairly well on the Google Code Jam and live near one of their offices. They'll recruit you fairly often without having the slightest clue about your having a degree. To be fair I have not actually told them I lack a degree. Anyway, Google is not that great a place to work, or so I've heard. So it's a good thing you didn't get tricked into working there. Most Googlers, except for all the ones I know personally, are full of themselves, thinking that they're smart and special (they must be, after all, because they work at Google). Anybody who does not have the same background as them must have something wrong with them, because why would anybody not go to college and live like a poor person for several years taking trivially easy CS classes while surrounded by generic Comp Sci students who grimace at the thought of recursion and bitch about having to learn useless functional languages?

The moral of the story is that you should avoid a CS degree so as to make it difficult to get a job at lovely companies. The expected value of the company you do work for is thus higher.

# ? Dec 31, 2011 06:45

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

baquerd posted:

anyone who thinks experience alone solves all corporate hiring decisions is living in fantasy land.

I don't think anyone said that :confused:

I'm pretty sure we're refuting the notion that a cs degree is a requirement?

:

shrughes posted:

The moral of the story is that you should avoid a CS degree so as to make it difficult to get a job at lovely companies.

Works for me!

# ? Dec 31, 2011 12:07

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

Orzo posted:

Dude, you don't know anything about hieronymus, can you not accept that some employees of google actually do discriminate on education, completely ignoring all other qualifications? I am almost certain that it does happen.

Or alternatively his statement neither dispels the myth 'you must have a degree to work here' or confirms it.

# ? Dec 31, 2011 12:11

oRenj9: Aug 3, 2004; Who loves oRenj soda?!?; College Slice

Orzo posted:

Dude, you don't know anything about hieronymus, can you not accept that some employees of google actually do discriminate on education, completely ignoring all other qualifications? I am almost certain that it does happen.

I don't think he meant what was said as a personal slight against hieronymus. The people at Google must have realized that he lacked a degree before they interviewed him. Why would they have even bothered to bring him in for an interview if they are such strict degree requirements?

Their response to his interview may have been legitimate advice or it could very well just be an easy, legal way of saying that they found a better candidate for the position. It was probably a bit of both.

# ? Dec 31, 2011 12:11

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

shrughes posted:

If you want a job at Google and don't have a degree just do fairly well on the Google Code Jam and live near one of their offices. They'll recruit you fairly often without having the slightest clue about your having a degree. To be fair I have not actually told them I lack a degree. Anyway, Google is not that great a place to work, or so I've heard. So it's a good thing you didn't get tricked into working there. Most Googlers, except for all the ones I know personally, are full of themselves, thinking that they're smart and special (they must be, after all, because they work at Google). Anybody who does not have the same background as them must have something wrong with them, because why would anybody not go to college and live like a poor person for several years taking trivially easy CS classes while surrounded by generic Comp Sci students who grimace at the thought of recursion and bitch about having to learn useless functional languages?

The moral of the story is that you should avoid a CS degree so as to make it difficult to get a job at lovely companies. The expected value of the company you do work for is thus higher.

From what I've heard it really depends on the particular Google office. Some middle-aged dudes from the Pittsburgh office came to my school and they said that yeah, at the Googleplex in Mountain View it's all young hotshots working tons of overtime, but in Pittsburgh it's all guys with families who leave around 5.

# ? Dec 31, 2011 19:04

Orzo: Sep 3, 2004; IT! IT is confusing! Say your goddamn pronouns!

tef posted:

I don't think anyone said that I'm pretty sure we're refuting the notion that a cs degree is a requirement?

For the record this is what initially started the discussion:

A A 2 3 5 8 K posted:

In my experience, education hardly ever comes up in the hiring process, on either side. Companies I interview at don't care. Colleagues I discuss candidates with don't care.

So, yeah, I was responding to the assertion that 'education hardly ever comes up' and used Google as an example. So, the argument was not ever 'a CS degree is a requirement', it was 'a CS degree is sometimes a requirement', to which you actually replied 'nope'

Anyway I think everyone can agree that a CS degree isn't always a requirement, and the prevalence of education-based discrimination probably varies from city to city.

# ? Dec 31, 2011 19:18

Picaresque: Dec 1, 2006

Graduated in December from a top five CS school, had internships at both Google (dev) and Microsoft (PM) and happy to answer questions about either.

To contribute, Google recruiters at my university openly abolished a GPA requirement and heavily scout for contributors to open source projects, but whether you need a degree heavily depends on your interviewer. From anecdotal experience, the interviewing process at Google is very inconsistent because the questions your interviewer asks stems from their own specialization, experiences and everyday work.

From friends' experiences at Facebook, Twitter and similar companies, there were a large number of employees without CS degrees. I would say that most start ups look much more heavily at your projects and how comfortable you are discussing and thinking critically about code. Typically, the attitudes I've encountered at these companies are that, if you were self-disciplined enough to independently teach yourself how to code, you'll be able to teach yourself other needed languages & concepts.

# ? Dec 31, 2011 20:11

Bruegels Fuckbooks: Sep 14, 2004; Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

Picaresque posted:

From friends' experiences at Facebook, Twitter and similar companies, there were a large number of employees without CS degrees. I would say that most start ups look much more heavily at your projects and how comfortable you are discussing and thinking critically about code. Typically, the attitudes I've encountered at these companies are that, if you were self-disciplined enough to independently teach yourself how to code, you'll be able to teach yourself other needed languages & concepts.

You also have to consider that HR/recruiters arbitrarily set requirements for candidates. It's very hard for HR/recruiters to vet candidates... They do better if they set hard requirements and act as a filter - hence the proliferation of job postings asking for CS degrees.

A lot of start-ups won't have HR and will have development teams/managers vet future employees personally, and that's a situation where people are a lot more likely to be open-minded requiring hiring decisions.

# ? Jan 2, 2012 17:44

FamDav: Mar 29, 2008

shrughes posted:

taking trivially easy CS classes while surrounded by generic Comp Sci students who grimace at the thought of recursion and bitch about having to learn useless functional languages?

The moral of the story is that you should avoid a CS degree so as to make it difficult to get a job at lovely companies. The expected value of the company you do work for is thus higher.

Maybe you should've gone to a better school?

Edit: Though I do agree that a lot of programs provide very easy classes because they have to cater to who they're teaching. If you go to a top 10 uni or lac you're going to get a much better again. If you can't get in well whelp hope you can teach yourself.

FamDav fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jan 4, 2012

# ? Jan 4, 2012 02:09

Doc Hawkins: Jun 15, 2010; Dashing? But I'm not even moving!

This seems like a toxic subject, and I highly doubt there are unified trends for recruiting practices even just across the US.

Just got off a second-hurdle call and where I had to live-write my own String#to_i, which was a new one on me.

I don't think I did very well, because for a while I thought the interviewer didn't want me to use recursion, so I just stared at the screen wracking my brain for what felt like too long, silently asking myself "What the hell else can I do?!" :saddowns:

I feel like the trend away from in-person interviews may not be to my advantage.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 02:23

kitten smoothie: Dec 29, 2001

FamDav posted:

Maybe you should've gone to a better school?

Edit: Though I do agree that a lot of programs provide very easy classes because they have to cater to who they're teaching. If you go to a top 10 uni or lac you're going to get a much better again. If you can't get in well whelp hope you can teach yourself.

The better CS programs buy into the "computer science is about computers as much as astronomy is about telescopes" school of thought. So you graduate knowing a heap of theory but not a lot of practical stuff unless you tried exploring it yourself.

Which is for the better, because I have seen plenty of people with "CS" degrees where the core coursework was making stuff in MS Access and so it's all irrelevant right off the bat.

One such person told me they knew C, "but I totally do not get pointers, I don't use them at all." :ughh:

kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jan 4, 2012

# ? Jan 4, 2012 04:56

Thel: Apr 28, 2010

Doc Hawkins posted:

This seems like a toxic subject, and I highly doubt there are unified trends for recruiting practices even just across the US.

Just got off a second-hurdle call and where I had to live-write my own String#to_i, which was a new one on me.

I don't think I did very well, because for a while I thought the interviewer didn't want me to use recursion, so I just stared at the screen wracking my brain for what felt like too long, silently asking myself "What the hell else can I do?!"

I feel like the trend away from in-person interviews may not be to my advantage.

I was told (as an in-passing comment from a lecturer) that if you can implement an algorithm recursively, you should be able to do it iteratively too (obviously this is assuming an imperative language, not a functional one). That said, I'm sure there are things that can only be done recursively, but none come to mind.

e:

kitten smoothie posted:

One such person told me they knew C, "but I totally do not get pointers, I don't use them at all."

On one hand, someone who can admit what they don't know is good. On the other hand "knows C" + "doesn't get pointers" = :psyboom:

Thel fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Jan 4, 2012

# ? Jan 4, 2012 06:51

Nippashish: Nov 2, 2005; Let me see you dance!

Thel posted:

That said, I'm sure there are things that can only be done recursively, but none come to mind.

If you can solve the problem recursively you could always stick all your context into a data structure and then hold on to a stack of those structures. Replace all the recursive calls with "push context onto the stack and set up a new context" and all the "return"'s with "pop context off the stack and extract the result" and stick everything in a while (not termination condition) loop. This is roughly what happens under the hood when you use recursion anyway, but having the language implementation handle the bookkeeping is nice.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 08:08

kitten smoothie: Dec 29, 2001

So just for grins I tried the String#to_i thing out myself. This would fail spectacularly if this was signed or had decimals but I wonder how far off I am here for a 2:30 am attempt

code:

class String
    def fake_to_i(base=10)
        k = 0;
        (0...self.length).each do |i|
           k *= base
           k += (self[i].ord - '0'.ord)
        end

        return k
    end
end

a = "31337"
puts a.fake_to_i 

b= "101"
puts b.fake_to_i(2)   # should give 5

# ? Jan 4, 2012 09:44

Fiend: Dec 2, 2001

I had a phone interview with a hiring manager for a job that required C# experience, but they weren't aware of the subtle differences between C and C#. They sent me an example in C to talk about, became annoyed when I told them they sent me a sample in C and not C#, told me to 'just pretend the code sample is in C#', then became irate when I asked what 'stdout' meant.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 16:58

Orzo: Sep 3, 2004; IT! IT is confusing! Say your goddamn pronouns!

Well, you probably already know this, but you really don't want to be working for a company that doesn't understand the difference between C and C#.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 17:06

No Safe Word: Feb 26, 2005

Fiend posted:

I had a phone interview with a hiring manager for a job that required C# experience, but they weren't aware of the subtle differences between C and C#. They sent me an example in C to talk about, became annoyed when I told them they sent me a sample in C and not C#, told me to 'just pretend the code sample is in C#', then became irate when I asked what 'stdout' meant.

"Okay, sorry for the confusion, thanks for your time."

You're done there, do not pursue.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 17:30

Pweller: Jan 25, 2006; Whatever whateva.

Haha just had my kid wake me up and hand me the phone, impromptu telephone-to-speakerphone interview.

Don't need coffee this morning now.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 18:44

Che Delilas: Nov 23, 2009; FREE TIBET WEED

Pweller posted:

Haha just had my kid wake me up and hand me the phone, impromptu telephone-to-speakerphone interview.

Don't need coffee this morning now.

Reminds me of my first phone interview this job hunt cycle. They told me ahead of time when they would be calling, but they used words like "interview," which implies conversation, question-and-answer, maybe some simple describable code/pseudocode problems to make sure you know what an if statement is. That's what I had in mind.

Day for the interview rolls around. "Hi, Che, I'm <lead programmer> and on the call with us is <head DBA>. Okay, you have 10 minutes to tell us about yourself and why you think you would be good for this position. Go."

:stare:

Cue eight minutes of me making an unrehearsed speech into absolutely. dead. silence. No feedback or questions or anything, just dead air the entire time. I was lucky in that I had written down some talking points that I wanted to make sure to touch on during the "interview," which transmogrified into a speech outline once I realized we wouldn't actually be having a conversation. They said I did well and I made it past the phone screen, but oh man did it suck being blindsided like that.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 19:18

ryde: Sep 9, 2011; God I love young girls

Che Delilas posted:

Day for the interview rolls around. "Hi, Che, I'm <lead programmer> and on the call with us is <head DBA>. Okay, you have 10 minutes to tell us about yourself and why you think you would be good for this position. Go."

These kinds of phone interviews are terrible from a hiring perspective. I'd be a bit concerned about the kinds of people I'd be working with in that environment, as an interviewee. For quite a lot of people, a phone screen such as this is pretty much a "gimmee" opportunity (in your case, you happened to be prepared for an actual competent phone screen).

# ? Jan 4, 2012 21:06

Bruegels Fuckbooks: Sep 14, 2004; Now, listen - I know the two of you are very different from each other in a lot of ways, but you have to understand that as far as Grandpa's concerned, you're both pieces of shit! Yeah. I can prove it mathematically.

I'm hesitant to start up the education argument again, but I saw this today:
http://careers.epic.com/byedu.php. It may be only a medical company thing though.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 21:15

Plorkyeran: Mar 22, 2007; To Escape The Shackles Of The Old Forums, We Must Reject The Tribal Negativity He Endorsed

Epic is an argument in favor of companies which require degrees are companies you don't want to work for.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 21:42

Fiend: Dec 2, 2001

Plorkyeran posted:

Epic is an argument in favor of companies which require degrees are companies you don't want to work for.

Epic is an argument in favor of lying on your resume so you can have the distinction of working for a company named 'epic' on your resume.

# ? Jan 4, 2012 23:03

Adahn the nameless: Jul 12, 2006

Plorkyeran posted:

Epic is an argument in favor of companies which require degrees are companies you don't want to work for.

What's wrong with Epic?

# ? Jan 5, 2012 00:51

mobby_6kl: Aug 9, 2009; by Fluffdaddy

They haven't made an Unreal game worth playing in more then 10 years.

# ? Jan 5, 2012 01:07

gotly: Oct 28, 2007; Economy-Sized

hieronymus posted:

I'm hesitant to start up the education argument again, but I saw this today:
http://careers.epic.com/byedu.php. It may be only a medical company thing though.

As someone who currently works in this industry, but not this particular company, I would strongly advise a different career path.

Related: cross posting my resume from the general resume thread in BFC. I'd appreciate any feedback (in that thread, don't want to poo poo up this one any more than I already have).

# ? Jan 5, 2012 02:19

Sab669: Sep 24, 2009

mobby_6kl posted:

They haven't made an Unreal game worth playing in more then 10 years.

I think you're thinking of http://epicgames.com/ ?

# ? Jan 5, 2012 02:35

hobbesmaster: Jan 28, 2008

mobby_6kl posted:

They haven't made an Unreal game worth playing in more then 10 years.

I just thought of a graphics engine written in MUMPS and will now have nightmares for weeks. :argh:

# ? Jan 5, 2012 03:06

Milotic: Mar 4, 2009; 9CL apologist; Slippery Tilde

Here's a tip, especially if you're a graduate. If you put something like Haskell on your CV, not once, but twice, expect to be able to answer rudimentary questions on it. In fact, if you put anything under the programming languages section in your cv, expect to be able to talk about it. "I haven't done it for two years" won't cut it.

(P.S. it's me, I'm the interviewer from hell)

# ? Jan 5, 2012 22:57

Pweller: Jan 25, 2006; Whatever whateva.

nvm

Pweller fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Jan 5, 2012

# ? Jan 5, 2012 23:21

Fiend: Dec 2, 2001

Milotic posted:

Here's a tip, especially if you're a graduate. If you put something like Haskell on your CV, not once, but twice, expect to be able to answer rudimentary questions on it. In fact, if you put anything under the programming languages section in your cv, expect to be able to talk about it. "I haven't done it for two years" won't cut it.

(P.S. it's me, I'm the interviewer from hell)

To add to this, if you put an analogy between Haskell and the the culinary niche of Sandwich Artistry on your resume, you should also be able to validate this as well. If you can't accurately relate the subtle nuances between creating a sandwich and functional programming, don't try to compare the two as it's highly inappropriate.

If you're trying to give your resume a broader exposure for Haskell opportunities, learning Haskell would be much more rewarding than a mere SEO optimization of your resume. On the same topic, have any of you put "I have an MBA in street smarts with a cum sum loud in crack smoking" to put your resume in an "MBA" result list?

# ? Jan 5, 2012 23:24

Aredna: Mar 17, 2007; Nap Ghost

Milotic posted:

Here's a tip, especially if you're a graduate. If you put something like Haskell on your CV, not once, but twice, expect to be able to answer rudimentary questions on it. In fact, if you put anything under the programming languages section in your cv, expect to be able to talk about it. "I haven't done it for two years" won't cut it.

(P.S. it's me, I'm the interviewer from hell)

And if you do put it in your resume and don't know it - don't say you use it all the time when I ask you about a specific feature. Not programming related, but I get asked to validate the Excel chops of candidates of all levels in interviews and I've people applying middle-upper management positions say "I use pivot tables on a daily basis" be completely stumped when I ask them to give me a specific example of when they would want to use a pivot table.

I'm the rear end in a top hat who will make you verify random claims you make during the interview and sit there in awkward silence for a minute while you think about what you just told me.

# ? Jan 6, 2012 04:48

tef: May 30, 2004; -> some l-system crap ->

Milotic posted:

(P.S. it's me, I'm the interviewer from hell)

Aredna posted:

I'm the rear end in a top hat who will make you verify random claims you make during the interview and sit there in awkward silence for a minute while you think about what you just told me.

If checking their claims makes you an rear end in a top hat, I think it's safe to assume most of us are assholes :v:

# ? Jan 6, 2012 06:02

horse_ebookmarklet: Oct 6, 2003; can I play too?

I need some jerb advice.
I've just completed a BS in CS. I've got a good GPA, I went to a smaller state university, I have had a software engineering job for 2 years (concurrent with school), and I had an internship with a major US research institution doing software engineering for space systems. I have a few thousand in savings, and I'm living at home, so cash flows for the next 6 months aren't an issue.

Through 'networking' I have located a job at a small tech WISP startup. I'm currently on a 1 month 'trial' contract with an option to renew for 12. 90% of their software development is outsourced. My duties are things like maintaining networks, deployment, and being the US side of the outsourcing.

The problem is simple; It isn't a software engineering job. I feel like more of a network monkey.
I feel like I've put fourth very serious effort to get my CS degree and really made my education my own. Taking a job doing NOTHING I've studied for is really disappointing. I'm not applying my eduction or past experience to my job.
Beyond that, I am worried that not doing any software development for any significant period of time will make me unemployable as a software engineer.

My family doesn't see the issue and think I should take it for a longer term.
I want to turn this down to peruse a job I want.

Am I just being an rear end in a top hat? Should I take this because "a job is a job"? Are my concerns about being unemployable in software engineering after working at this job legitimate?

# ? Jan 9, 2012 04:21

unixbeard: Dec 29, 2004

NotHet posted:

The problem is simple; It isn't a software engineering job. I feel like more of a network monkey.

Beyond that, I am worried that not doing any software development for any significant period of time will make me unemployable as a software engineer.

These are legitimate concerns. If you can afford to, I would throw it back and keep looking. Just say to them "I think you're all great people and this is all a great opportunity for someone but I really want focus my career on developing software, so for this role I think someone else is going to be a better fit". No-one worth caring about will hold that against you. Even in the unlikely event it turns out to be the greatest mistake of your life, you are young with no real commitments (assuming you dont have a wife& kids) so it'll be pretty easy to bounce back. It's also probably pretty easy to find another job that isnt really what you want to do.

# ? Jan 9, 2012 05:52

wolffenstein: Aug 2, 2002; Pork Pro

NotHet posted:

Am I just being an rear end in a top hat? Should I take this because "a job is a job"? Are my concerns about being unemployable in software engineering after working at this job legitimate?

Living at home is nice and all, but living on your own feels so amazing and liberating. I think you should take the job so you can afford a decent place and start living on your own. When you're not working, do the extra hustle and contribute to open source projects or make your own software. While you'll get questioned about it at SE job interviews, knowing your poo poo plus showing you were writing code outside of your job will make up for it.

# ? Jan 9, 2012 06:13

dizzywhip: Dec 23, 2005

NotHet posted:

I need some jerb advice.

Personally, I'd definitely look for a development job. If you're in a decent location, you shouldn't have any trouble finding one.

It definitely won't be impossible to get a development job if you stick with IT for now, but it'll be a bit harder. But there's not much of a reason to stick with IT when you have the skills to do development, especially if it's not what you want to do.

# ? Jan 9, 2012 06:52

unixbeard: Dec 29, 2004

If you're not in a decent location another option would be to sign on for 12 months, save up as much as you can and use that to move to a better location.

# ? Jan 9, 2012 11:51

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 03:14

akadajet: Sep 14, 2003

NotHet posted:

Am I just being an rear end in a top hat? Should I take this because "a job is a job"? Are my concerns about being unemployable in software engineering after working at this job legitimate?

You're within the window of time where it's easiest to get your foot in the door at a development company. Interviewers looking for college hires are going to assume that you have limited experience and will cut you more slack accordingly. Not doing development for a year is going to raise some eyebrows and you're going to have to explain why you went IT instead.

That said, it's not a career killing deal but it will make the road more difficult if your heart is in software. Though you actually may find it insurmountable depending on where you live.

You really want to do what you're passionate about anyways. Nothings worse than being stuck in a job you don't enjoy.

akadajet fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jan 9, 2012

# ? Jan 9, 2012 14:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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