|
^^^ This is a good breakdown The other thing to do is just start working, don't make a big stink about the IP-related documents, simply don't sign them. Since it's usually an HR person you never deal with day-to-day who's tasked with gathering all those docs up, and there's probably a lot of them, it's usually pretty easy to give them a soft runaround by sending over documents piece by piece. They'll eventually forget about you or decide it's not worth battling over when you've already been working for a month and a half.
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2012 16:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 06:24 |
|
|
My last job I just outright forgot to sign any of the contracts they wanted me to sign and no one ever bothered me about it in the 18 months I was there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2012 17:19
|
|
|
So I'm not a newb by any means. I've been at my current job almost 10 years. I'm smart, write good code, and have moved up to Project Manager (that still codes) in my time at my current job. So, I think I am going to try and get back out there and start interviewing. My concern is that it has been quite some time since I've had my college CS courses. If someone asks me during an interview how I would implement a huffman coding tree I would answer "with a library". So, I'm worried about interview questions on implementations of algorithms, big O, graphs, etc. Give me a 'real world' software problem and ask me to solve it and I'll pass with flying colors. Any suggestions on how/where to brush up on the interview 2.0 crap? Edit: See, with my current job, when I have to solve a problem, I have the luxury of researching the tools that are out there and coming up with an informed decision based on my ten years of development experience. In an interview when it's just me and a chair, I don't have that. In my opinion these questions don't do a good job of determining a good candidate, but if someone asks them, I want to be prepared. idolmind86 fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Sep 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 16:29
|
|
|
idolmind86 posted:See, with my current job, when I have to solve a problem, I have the luxury of researching the tools that are out there and coming up with an informed decision based on my ten years of development experience. In an interview when it's just me and a chair, I don't have that. In my opinion these questions don't do a good job of determining a good candidate, but if someone asks them, I want to be prepared. I think that's your answer for any programming questions. Seriously, you've got (at least) ten years of experience in a company and have demonstrated the ability to take on more responsibility. That's why a company will hire you. Honestly I'd be worried about working for a company that asks you the same questions they ask a 22 year old fresh out of school with zero experience. I've got maybe half the experience you do and even then my past interviews have shifted away from "show us you can implement foo on the whiteboard" and instead have focused on what I've done at my last few jobs.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 17:13
|
|
|
Johnny Cache Hit posted:I think that's your answer for any programming questions. That's what I'm hoping I will find, but just want to be prepared for whatever may arise.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 17:42
|
|
|
If you know Big O running times, why you use a hash, binary tree, array, or a linked list then you should be fine. I don't think I ever got asked how to implement quick sort. Did get asked questions like take a number and print an english formatted name. I was never asked anything that would require implementing it into a library in an interview. I have been asked to write somewhat complex programs for tests but not in a whiteboard interview. Of course I applied for Sr Engineering positions and not Director or VP Engineering positions so if you're looking to be higher up you might get drilled harder on these subjects. Edit: I disagree that they won't ask you more technical questions because of your experience. Unless the position is more managerial than technical you are going to be asked to show your technical expertise. Maybe if you seem to know all the basic stuff they will skip some of it and just chat with you to see if you fit within the company but you're not going to get by just because you were a manager. This is assuming you are going into without any association to the company Strong Sauce fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Sep 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 18:44
|
|
|
I'd expect an experienced dev to be able to answer big O questions and to be able to talk about basic data structures and such. You do tend to forget a lot coming out of college, but there are certain things that are basic enough that you can't really get around without knowing them.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 21:42
|
|
|
NovemberMike posted:I'd expect an experienced dev to be able to answer big O questions and to be able to talk about basic data structures and such. You do tend to forget a lot coming out of college, but there are certain things that are basic enough that you can't really get around without knowing them. I mean, I know when to use a hash, tree, array, linked list, etc. And I know roughly how to calculate big O notation and how a function would end up with different values (n, logn, n^2, etc.). But if someone asks me to sit down and right a quick sort my answer would likely be "why".
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 21:57
|
|
|
unixbeard posted:There are some things they will buckle down over, but stuff like "we own the rights to everything you do in your spare time" is not one of them. Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Sep 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 22:09
|
|
|
People don't ask you to write a quicksort. [Properly chosen] technical interview questions generally ask you to solve some problem, not to know some algorithm by name. Given that you worked at a place for 10 years and apparently don't aren't familiar with any technical interview questions you ask there, I'm very curious about the [in]competence of the engineers there. At my previous job we asked people to write code that makes a mirror image of a binary tree, and then write code that counts the number of distinct tic-tac-toe games. If you'd be comfortable doing that I'd say you've got enough technical acumen. Edit: And if you consider it "crap" you must be ignorant of how worthless non-technical interview questions are. What exactly do you do in interviews, ask them to interpret ink blots? You might as well, it'll be just as good as asking any clown to bloviate about what they did in the past. The marginal utility of non-technical interviews drops pretty quickly after 0.7 interviews unless you're hiring for a managerial position. shrughes fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Sep 26, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 22:16
|
|
|
shrughes posted:People don't ask you to write a quicksort. [Properly chosen] technical interview questions generally ask you to solve some problem, not to know some algorithm by name. Given that you worked at a place for 10 years and apparently don't aren't familiar with any technical interview questions you ask there, I'm very curious about the [in]competence of the engineers there. I'm actually very familiar with the technical interview process where I work and we do have a technical aspect where we ask interviewers to write several small programs. We do this by giving them a set of requirements, and leave the rest up to them. We then analyze what they wrote... we don't expect any one 'correct' way to fulfill the requirements, just that the person interviewing can read, comprehend, and code to a set of requirements. You'd be surprised how many people with a masters in CS can't do this. Anyway, the entire point of my question was to ask for resources on preparing for interviews, not discussing the merits of said interview questions. Edit: In short, I know what my company does... what do other companies do?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 22:33
|
|
|
I was indeed asked to implement Quicksort at VMWare. I didn't remember how to do the partitioning and I don't feel bad about it. Recitation is the worst method of learning.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 22:42
|
|
|
idolmind86 posted:I'm actually very familiar with the technical interview process where I work and we do have a technical aspect where we ask interviewers to write several small programs. We do this by giving them a set of requirements, and leave the rest up to them. We then analyze what they wrote... we don't expect any one 'correct' way to fulfill the requirements, just that the person interviewing can read, comprehend, and code to a set of requirements. You'd be surprised how many people with a masters in CS can't do this. We have an interview test where the applicant is required to write a C# (or VB?) .NET application that does a file copy from one user-specified location to another. Basically, wrapping File.Copy(src, dst) and some file pickers in a GUI. The test length is 30 minutes. Out of the two people that have taken it so far, none have actually finished. I've been kind of stunned. Even if you have literally no idea about anything in .NET, these people couldn't even slobber together a quick trip to  ".NET file copy example".(As a programmer myself, and with a boss who notoriously copy-paste cargo-cults everything, I habitually plug code into Google to see if it's obvious copypaste. In this case, I really wouldn't care if they took a basic example and built off of it to make something useful with the extra 25 minutes or so they'd have, but I'm not in charge of the interviewing.)
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 23:34
|
|
|
idolmind86 posted:I'm actually very familiar with the technical interview process where I work and we do have a technical aspect where we ask interviewers to write several small programs. We do this by giving them a set of requirements, and leave the rest up to them. We then analyze what they wrote... we don't expect any one 'correct' way to fulfill the requirements, just that the person interviewing can read, comprehend, and code to a set of requirements. You'd be surprised how many people with a masters in CS can't do this. Sorry for being a semi-rear end in a top hat.. it's one trait that can be covered up in a non-technical interview  So.. your process sounds good. VMWare's sounds dumb, being expected to know the dictionary-definition of an algorithm is dumb. But then, VMWare is a reputedly bad place to work so I'm not surprised. Other companies have something similar to yours, or a mix. My previous employer had people write code to specs for a simple contrived problem -- finding a solution to a maze. There are some people who are perfectly fine at writing code that reads from a database and shows paginated output, but some teams want a bit more than that. So.. resources. Practicing the questions for qualifying rounds of the Google Code Jam are probably more than enough.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 23:39
|
|
|
Zamujasa posted:We have an interview test where the applicant is required to write a C# (or VB?) .NET application that does a file copy from one user-specified location to another. Basically, wrapping File.Copy(src, dst) and some file pickers in a GUI. Are you hiring people for writing C# GUI applications?
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 23:41
|
|
|
VMWare is a big company with several groups that have different needs and I didn't say that having candidates write Quicksort was a company-wide practice.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2012 23:57
|
|
|
shrughes posted:Are you hiring people for writing C# GUI applications? Actually, no. Most of it is just automated crap that does deal with some Windows crap using command-line arguments, but the chances of any end-user actually touching one of these programs is slim. It really doesn't make much sense any way it's sliced. E: I'm just surprised that these people have trouble with it. I know they're from ITT Tech (  ) but even then...I haven't had any formal training in C# or VB.NET and even my limited experience in Visual Basic for Applications* helped me enough to write something fairly complex (by our standards here).  * Also known as "that lovely VB-wannabe in Office 97" Zamujasa fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Sep 27, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2012 00:07
|
|
|
That C# GUI test could get rid of a lot of competent people. It sounds like it's more of a library knowledge test than anything, and if you have somebody that doesn't want to google stuff on an interview test on a computer the company owns then they're going to have problems.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2012 00:52
|
|
|
quote:they're from ITT Tech It's funny, I've been working at Amazon since graduation and most of the time I just kind of feel like a dunce who's gonna be fired any minute now, but then I read stories like this, and I just... 
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2012 01:19
|
|
|
Cicero posted:I've been working at Amazon since graduation and most of the time I just kind of feel like a dunce who's gonna be fired any minute now To be fair, Amazon is terrible with employee turnover - both push and pull.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2012 02:14
|
|
|
shrughes posted:VMWare's sounds dumb, being expected to know the dictionary-definition of an algorithm is dumb. But then, VMWare is a reputedly bad place to work so I'm not surprised. I decided to scratch VMWare off the list of companies I would like to work at.
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2012 06:33
|
|
|
Fun fact: SAP's recruitment brochure says that 88% of their employees are proud to work at SAP!
|
|
#
?
Sep 27, 2012 07:06
|
|
|
I swear I'm going to start reporting these insurance companies for spam. Why in the world do you think a computer technician is going to be a "great fit" for your sales team? Quit clogging up my inbox with false hopes for jobs 
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 18:17
|
|
|
In keeping with the Amazon discussion from a couple days ago, I'm a current CS undergrad (senior) and Amazon is flying me out in a couple days for an interview at their campus in Seattle for a full-time position. The interview will consist of the candidates being grouped into small teams and being given a coding project for the day. We weren't given any other information, but I assume we'll have a staff observer or supervisor to watch how we all work. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing? I've never done a group coding event (hackathon etc.) before, so I'm not entirely sure what to expect.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 18:43
|
|
|
I work at Amazon and this is the first I've heard of such a thing. But then again I haven't been directly involved in recruiting.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 18:56
|
|
|
Relambrien posted:We weren't given any other information, but I assume we'll have a staff observer or supervisor to watch how we all work. My only interview at Amazon was your typical rotation interview, no open-ended coding. Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Sep 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 19:48
|
|
|
Cicero posted:I work at Amazon and this is the first I've heard of such a thing. But then again I haven't been directly involved in recruiting. My interview in April was the normal style, and the ones I've heard of since were the same. That's the first I've heard of a group interview for any company.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 20:44
|
|
|
Well, I might be selling myself short here but I didn't get any other offers so a job is better than no job. Start at $36K, but I should expect about a 10% raise at the end of the year. Roughly a $500 quarterly bonus, which is decent too. Company will pay for my phone and the internet each month, so that saves me an extra $1200 per year. For Rhode Island, that's actually about what I was expecting (after I get the raise, anyways). It might not be great, but I'm mostly happy here so I don't know.  ?
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 21:58
|
|
|
Sab669 posted:Well, I might be selling myself short here but I didn't get any other offers so a job is better than no job. You're being criminally underpaid, just FYI. Get some experience under your belt and you could switch jobs in a year and get 75% more. Rhode Island is actually one of the most expensive states to live in -- it's actually more expensive than New Jersey (where I live), and 36k is insultingly low for a software developer here.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 22:15
|
|
|
Sab669 posted:but I should expect about a 10% raise at the end of the year. Roughly a $500 quarterly bonus Never count on any money that you don't already have. Bonuses and raises have a habit of not materializing for one reason or another.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 22:22
|
|
|
That's a very fair point, but I'm pretty sure it will be there. The company has had a steady growth, year after year for a while now. But definitely good advice to keep in mind. And I know it is underpaid, I think I might just be trying to convince myself so I can stay in my comfort zone instead of trying to push out into Boston where I don't know anyone or anything Ahhh, life 
Sab669 fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Sep 28, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 22:25
|
|
|
Ithaqua posted:You're being criminally underpaid, just FYI. Get some experience under your belt and you could switch jobs in a year and get 75% more. Haha. As a "Lead Developer" doing PHP, I wonder what you'd say if you found out I was making about $30k/year ($14/hour).  (I was hired on making a mind-boggling $11/hour.) I need to brush up on my MVC skillset, but at least I can understand and learn quickly, I guess.NovemberMike posted:That C# GUI test could get rid of a lot of competent people. It sounds like it's more of a library knowledge test than anything, and if you have somebody that doesn't want to google stuff on an interview test on a computer the company owns then they're going to have problems. My idea was that anybody who had used IntelliSense for more than a few minutes would intuitively, at the worst, figure "File copying... File.Copy()?" and let IntelliSense provide the autocompletion (or at least suggestions...) Then it'd just be hooking it up to a basic GUI. The other .NET developer apparently intended it to be "read in an entire binary file, then write it out again somewhere else", but... eh. Personally, I've never felt shame in outright Googling for help if I'm in over my head, but then I'm interested more in the concepts and examples than outright plagiarism. I deal with that enough at work. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 22:48
|
|
|
Sab669 posted:Well, I might be selling myself short here but I didn't get any other offers so a job is better than no job. Zamujasa posted:Haha. As a "Lead Developer" doing PHP, I wonder what you'd say if you found out I was making about $30k/year ($14/hour).
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 22:51
|
|
|
Star War Sex Parrot posted:Holy poo poo maybe I don't want to go into software development. Or just work for market-level wages. Anyone doing software development in the US for under $40k/year either doesn't know what their skills are worth, is consciously deciding to take much less money than they could get elsewhere, or has a serious employability problem that has nothing to do with the market for developers.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 23:02
|
|
|
Star War Sex Parrot posted:Holy poo poo maybe I don't want to go into software development. On the flipside, I live in a very cheap market and we hire folks out of college making well over twice what the folks above were talking about. Granted, we're fairly picky but it's not impossible.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 23:20
|
|
|
I'm billing out WordPress coding at $50/hour. Half of it is just building HTML and CSS templates. My best clients are web designers who don't want to write code anymore. However, I recently left a full-time job developing custom WordPress and CodeIgniter applications for $36,000/year in Minneapolis. The key is to keep learning and improving your skills. Eventually I'll be up to $100/hour.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 23:43
|
|
|
greatZebu posted:Or just work for market-level wages. Anyone doing software development in the US for under $40k/year either doesn't know what their skills are worth, is consciously deciding to take much less money than they could get elsewhere, or has a serious employability problem that has nothing to do with the market for developers. There isn't much I can do at this point, but I'm looking into it. $150 is a bit steep to drop on the resume service, but it might help me be taken seriously. It doesn't help that the people who run this place are assholes, though; apparently I'm a "social misfit" and those "have trouble finding and keeping jobs", so we "can be paid less". That comment was followed up with the recruiter bragging how he hired a programmer on for minimum wage somewhere else. You just have to find a place to work that isn't poo poo and be willing to stake it out until that comes along. I didn't have much choice and took what I could get. Honestly, follow the guidelines of other people and don't shoot yourself in the foot by saying anything about prior wages or salaries and you should be a little better off.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2012 23:56
|
|
|
Why the hell would he eve want to hire someone at min. wage? That's his pay
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 00:00
|
|
|
Zamujasa posted:Haha. As a "Lead Developer" doing PHP, I wonder what you'd say if you found out I was making about $30k/year ($14/hour). You're also criminally underpaid. I started my career in a similar situation, and I don't like seeing it happen to other people. People who start out at a low salary tend to make less throughout their entire careers. I managed to avoid that (my salary is pretty much dead median for my level of experience nowadays), but it was mainly through luck. Don't let employers take advantage of you. Star War Sex Parrot posted:Holy poo poo maybe I don't want to go into software development. You can make a very good living writing software. I do it, and I know a lot of other people in this thread do it as well. The only downside is that developer salaries tend to cap out at around the six figure mark, depending on the industry. Obviously some industries will pay a lot more for developers, but even if you're worth it, it's a "magic number" that will scare hiring managers. Luckily, you can transition into management, architecture, or non-HR "team lead" roles that will break the ceiling. New Yorp New Yorp fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Sep 29, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 00:09
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 06:24 |
|
|
Sab669 posted:Why the hell would he eve want to hire someone at min. wage? That's his pay Probably the same reason as here. The company was cheap and I'm assuming nobody else wanted him or he couldn't find work or otherwise. I don't know any other details. Ithaqua posted:You're also criminally underpaid. I started my career in a similar situation, and I don't like seeing it happen to other people. People who start out at a low salary tend to make less throughout their entire careers. I managed to avoid that (my salary is pretty much dead median for my level of experience nowadays), but it was mainly through luck. I know. I'm looking at leaving as soon as possible... One big problem with my current job is that we're micromanaged and our project manager has no experience at project management, and promised a big project for a month deadline. Said big project being a total rewrite of our (now over 1 1/2 year-old) code, none of which he understood at the time, and moving it live before a really, really big client moves onto our platform. We're moving everything live by Monday (without testing it or getting it set up first, of course) and as far as I know nothing is actually finished and ready, and the manager has constantly said "I'm feeling really confident now!" and "We can meet that deadline no problem!". 
|
|
#
?
Sep 29, 2012 00:20
|
|