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Is there a good, well-known databases book?
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Mar 5, 2013 04:37
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JOHN SKELETON posted:I have an interview soon for an internship at a start-up in NYC. I already read some discussion earlier in the thread about salary in NYC, but my situation is somewhat funky so I'm not sure what kind of salary should I be able to negotiate. The fact that it's an internship.. that's a tough one. I'm not sure they'll pay you enough to live in NYC on your own. You'd likely need to look at bunking with roomates or something to cut down on that expense. It may be worth talking to the program that helps set students up; I'm sure they've placed people in NYC before, and might be able to offer some tips.
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Mar 5, 2013 09:21
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Thanks for the advice, I figured they might expect to pay very little but I'm confused since they know their applicants don't have an apartment or any other financial aid in NYC. I'll ask my contact person in the program after the interview I guess. Also thanks for that salary negotiation link, it's good stuff!
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Mar 5, 2013 15:23
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Apparently I've got some talent with interviewing managerial types, and my most recent interview went very well. What I haven't done yet is to interview with a developer, or over the phone; I'm expecting a call from the lead dev of the place that's interested in me in a few hours. I can't do it in person since he's about 500 miles away! What should I do to prepare for such a phone interview - a phone interview at all, and the fact that it's a dev, not a boss, asking me. Obviously I'll have a copy of my resume pulled up to look at, and I'll turn everything off and shoo the dog away, but what else can I do to make the most of this?
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Mar 5, 2013 22:34
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Apparently I've got some talent with interviewing managerial types, and my most recent interview went very well. The last phone interview I had was with a developer and the hiring manger together on a conference call. They said, "You have 10 minutes to tell us about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for this position. Go." Cue me talking into absolutely dead air for about 7 minutes. I'm not saying that that's what your phone interview will be like. I expected an interview with questions and a back-and-forth and all that normal interview poo poo. The only reason I got through it as well as I did was that I made a bunch of notes to reference ahead of time. So yeah, it's probably a good idea to make an outline of all the talking points you might want to hit. Vaguely chronological order might be wise in case they want you to basically make a speech, as happened to me. If they ask you questions about your past work, accomplishments, projects, etc., it's nice to be able to look down and have all the important poo poo right there so you don't miss anything important or impressive. Make sure your phone is fully charged and you're in a good spot for reception. Make sure you're comfortable (desk-comfortable, not bed-comfortable). Having a pencil/paper and space to write is always smart. Edit: Since you're talking to a dev, I'd go light on the bullshit. If he asks about a point on your resume that you have in there for padding or to satisfy the keyword spiders, be truthful about it ("I took a Java class 8 years ago, so the experience I have with it is not very up-to-date. I'm confident I could train back up in a relatively short period of time if necessary, though.") If the job is going to be primarily concerned with a skill that you bullshitted on, a developer is probably going to be able to smell that fact within a few questions and probably won't be very pleased. If that skill isn't very important to the job, it won't be a big deal that you aren't an expert. Che Delilas fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Mar 5, 2013 |
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Mar 5, 2013 23:44
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Che Delilas posted:The last phone interview I had was with a developer and the hiring manger together on a conference call. They said, "You have 10 minutes to tell us about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for this position. Go." Cue me talking into absolutely dead air for about 7 minutes. If they did that to me, I'd respond, "Well, I don't suck at programming." And that would be it.
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Mar 6, 2013 00:21
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2banks1swap.avi posted:Apparently I've got some talent with interviewing managerial types, and my most recent interview went very well. What makes a great boss, is almost completely the opposite of what makes a great developer. For instance, charisma, negotiation skills, friendly disposition, etc, all are great traits for a boss. Those skills will get you nowhere as a engineer. You can't sweet talk a computer. The act of programming a computer is pretty much the exact opposite thing as negotiation. Basically bosses exist to pick up the slack that engineers leave. Engineers pick up the slack that bosses leave. As a non-engineer, it will be very difficult for you to determine who will be a good engineer and who will be a bad engineer. Its like if you put me in charge of hiring a great chef. I don't know poo poo about food. I can't tell the difference between world-class soup and something heated up in the microwave that came out of a can. That said, good engineers make things. Ask the candidate to speak about the things they've built. Focus on hobby projects over stuff they worked on for a job. If they have nothing they've built that wasn't assigned in class or assigned for work, be weary. Also, dig deep into one thing, rather than broad. A gerat engineer is someone who can teach. Have him explain something to you that you don't understand. Ask lots of questions. Really try to have the candidate teach you about something, and really be honest when you don't understand what he/she is saying. The best interviews are the ones that are genuine. The worst interviews are when the candidate asks fake questions like FizzBuzz and other retarded puzzle questions.
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Mar 6, 2013 01:40
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Did you even read his post?
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Mar 6, 2013 01:44
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how!! posted:What makes a great boss, is almost completely the opposite of what makes a great developer. For instance, charisma, negotiation skills, friendly disposition, etc, all are great traits for a boss. Those skills will get you nowhere as a engineer. You can't sweet talk a computer. The act of programming a computer is pretty much the exact opposite thing as negotiation. Basically bosses exist to pick up the slack that engineers leave. Engineers pick up the slack that bosses leave. ♪♫ One down, one to go. Another thread, and one more show!! ♪♫
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Mar 6, 2013 01:45
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Rello posted:Did you even read his post? WARNING: THE PROGRAMMING INTERVIEW ADVICE CONTAINED HEREIN WILL NOT LIKELY GET YOU HIRED
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Mar 6, 2013 01:46
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No Safe Word posted:WARNING: THE PROGRAMMING INTERVIEW ADVICE CONTAINED HEREIN WILL NOT LIKELY GET YOU HIRED For real, is that copy pasta from somewhere or a how!! original out of the blue? I love that in this bizarro universe you can't be a capable manager and engineer at the same time. It just doesn't happen!
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Mar 6, 2013 01:58
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I think how!! is just a markov text generator.
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Mar 6, 2013 01:59
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Having a boss that has no clue about software engineering would be great. "You want to add a new data field to display on the annual report? Well, I can do this but it's not going to be easy. I have to work with the SQL database to modify roughly 10 million rows, and if I can update a row a second I'll be done in 4 months working round the clock. I know some tricks that should cut this down to roughly a month though! And, if you let me work from home I can cut down on travel time and cut that down to 3 weeks.".
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Mar 6, 2013 02:33
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I didn't have time to read these posts until after the interview, go figure. He managed to be good at people skills and programming, believe it or not. how!!, you can too actually have both. Anyway, things went good, my direct experience is exactly what he'd need me to do, and I managed to show I knew my poo poo when I asked him how I would deal with invalid data, given that the data we parse directly goes into millions of dollars changing hands all drat day. We had a pow-wow about such things and making people who send us checks do it right. The one thing now I'm considering is how to negotiate for wage. It's a part time job, and since I'm in school, it's what I want - and a reason I might get this is because the other applicants are moonlighters who want something on the side, since this job can be done almost entirely remotely, but I actually want to go into the office. Mr CEO and the dev both hinted they were interested in me putting down roots and growing me, respectively, and I only have 3 semesters left until graduation. So, what should I ask for, if it's a salary? (hours_week / 40) * average starting salary for a non degree holder? Something per-hour? Blah. Nobody has mentioned a number yet.
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Mar 6, 2013 03:10
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Rello posted:Did you even read his post? The first sentence reads like he is interviewing people, and has never interviewed a developer before. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Mar 6, 2013 03:13
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how!! posted:The first sentence reads like he is interviewing people, and has never interviewed a developer before. So no.
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Mar 6, 2013 03:15
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Che Delilas posted:
This is basically what I did. It's a .NET shop, I've done .NET, and actually had all of his questions about the job I'd be doing within my direct experience. I found a good match and didn't have to bullshit myself to "fake it until I made it." Honesty seems to be a really good idea, just wanted to make a point of that to the thread.
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Mar 6, 2013 03:17
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Thanks to everyone that replied to my post last page. Apparently, I was actually mistaken and I didn't get an interview after all? Their HR rang me after I submitted my resume, asked me a few questions and then said that they would like to interview me. It would be on Wednesday morning sometime and I would get an email with the exact time from their "technical guy". I never got an email, I rang midday before and spoke to HR again and they said yes, they would make sure I got an email with the exact time. Then nothing? No email or phone call. Am I wrong in thinking that this was pretty loving cruel? I've been looking for a couple months now for graduate jobs and I've never been told that I've got an interview before and then not heard back from them again.
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Mar 6, 2013 08:32
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how!! posted:What makes a great boss, is almost completely the opposite of what makes a great developer. For instance, charisma, negotiation skills, friendly disposition, etc, all are great traits for a boss. Those skills will get you nowhere as a engineer. You can't sweet talk a computer. The act of programming a computer is pretty much the exact opposite thing as negotiation. Basically bosses exist to pick up the slack that engineers leave. Engineers pick up the slack that bosses leave. I mean you don't have to be a great public speaker or leader of men, but you should be nice to people, keep your customer in touch with how your work is going, always answer emails ASAP and follow up later if you can't go into detail this moment... Things like that make a huge difference. pigdog fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Mar 6, 2013 |
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Mar 6, 2013 08:46
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You can't answer emails ASAP if you don't check them all the time, and you shouldn't do that.
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Mar 6, 2013 09:02
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That would imply you don't take breaks while coding, and you shouldn't do that.
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Mar 6, 2013 09:13
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Breaks don't mean you context-switch every hour.
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Mar 6, 2013 09:16
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The point I was trying to convey was that your responsiveness, or "ping" time as seen from the customer, should measure in minutes or hours, not in days or weeks. Even if you're busy and CBA to context switch to deal with whatever the issue is, it helps to acknowledge it with "I'll get back to you with that" ASAP, and deal with it later. Afterall, the customer is more / feels more / should feel more important than the computer.
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Mar 6, 2013 09:24
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shrughes posted:You can't answer emails ASAP if you don't check them all the time, and you shouldn't do that. ASAP doesn't imply any sort of time technically  And you really should reply to them as soon as possible in the literal sense
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Mar 6, 2013 09:24
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2banks1swap.avi posted:I didn't have time to read these posts until after the interview, go figure. He managed to be good at people skills and programming, believe it or not. how!!, you can too actually have both. Biggest question to me is where. Wages in NYC are going to differ greatly from somewhere in the Rust Belt.
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Mar 6, 2013 12:05
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pigdog posted:Computer doesn't pay your salary. Everything is a people issue. Good people skills are very important for a developer, ESPECIALLY if his work isn't CS and math heavy, but mostly about solving business problems. Well, I think you hit on the math heavy part right. There are going to be some CS jobs that are heavily theory, science, math, algorithm - etc based. For those, people skills might play in to it less. But... most things do involve collaboration. And collaboration revolves working and playing nice with others. At the end of the day, it's not always the best solution that wins. But the one that can be explained, and pitched the best. I'm not saying every programmer needs to be a sales guy. But he needs to be able to convince his boss, the product team, product manager, whatever - on the merits of his approach. I'm sure someone out there is going to say... well, they should stay out of it and let the programmer do their own thing. While I am not suggesting a heavy handed bureaucracy by any means, giving programmers too much free reign is most times a bad thing. You need to reign people in. I've worked with a lot of smart people. I consider myself, fairly smart. In the end, Me + you > me, or you, individually. And you aren't going to get me + you without good communication skills.
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Mar 6, 2013 12:09
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Suspicious Dish posted:OK, so dependency injection is basically "implementing interfaces". No, it's more a method of decoupling the consumer of an interface from the source of objects implementing them -- putting that responsibility on the container you're running in There are many methods, but this is one of them and has a name its very own. Some DI frameworks give you other bells and whistles since they are the middleman for your dependencies (e.g. interception or decoration of method calls).
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Mar 6, 2013 13:03
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Doghouse posted:Has anyone ever heard of Catalyst IT Services? It's a company in Baltimore and Oregon and apparently they have some kind of program where they take people with limited background and train you for 20 weeks for free in exchange for you working for them for two years afterwards at a (minimum of) $15 an hour. I was planning on doing a starting CS Master's program (designed for non-CS majors) this year anyway and was hoping to work along the way anyway. It seems better than not working at first and hoping to find an internship, no? And the training would only help with the schoolwork. Any Goon thoughts? Let me guess, if you decide to bail on the training you have to pay some exorbitant fee to recoup their costs?
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Mar 6, 2013 16:59
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Wasse posted:Biggest question to me is where. Wages in NYC are going to differ greatly from somewhere in the Rust Belt. Jacksonville, FL. I probably should have mentioned that. No offer yet, though the CEO responded to my thank-you-for-the-interview email with "You are welcome, Chris..." verbatim. Do some people just never get thank you emails after interviews? That's probably the most awkward communication I've ever received in the course of looking for a job or working at one.
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Mar 6, 2013 18:25
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I didn't do a huge number of interviews, but even though a number of candidates asked for my e-mail address, I never actually had one send me a thank you e-mail. I did get a thank you card, once.
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Mar 6, 2013 19:14
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Zhentar posted:I didn't do a huge number of interviews, but even though a number of candidates asked for my e-mail address, I never actually had one send me a thank you e-mail. I did get a thank you card, once. I never got a thank you email, either.  I hated getting asked "How did I do?". If the answer is positive, trust me, you know. If the answer is negative, congratulations for making it awkward for me. If the answer is "borderline," you just moved yourself into the "poorly" category.
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Mar 6, 2013 19:20
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We don't have an "experienced people get a job thread" so forgive the hijack as I ask a question from the perspective of someone who's got 10 years under their belt. I feel like I'm coming up to, or maybe even past, my half-life as a developer and so I am looking for some other paths. I have a phone screen Friday for a product owner position at a Scrum shop. Anyone have any insight into what might come up in an interview? I've got past experience as a functional lead on ERP deployment where we operated under a system similar to Scrum (parse out the project into individual inventory items, kanban boards, standups, 4 week sprints, etc) but the PM didn't call it that. I was brought on to pretty much own a huge slice of the system and, knowing what the customer wants, facilitate dev and test and make sure we're building the right stuff at the right time. From googling around that seems to be close to what this position would entail. But does anyone have a good quick read on Scrum concepts & terminology? I'm sure they'd use their terms for stuff when asking me questions; I want to be able to honestly say what I've got experience doing in the workplace (and how that worked for me) versus how I haven't.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:33
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kitten smoothie posted:We don't have an "experienced people get a job thread" so forgive the hijack as I ask a question from the perspective of someone who's got 10 years under their belt. I feel like I'm past my half-life as a developer and so I am looking for some other paths. "Product owner" is the job title? I wouldn't worry about the terminology too much -- most places, in my experience, don't even really understand "Agile" or "scrum", they just toss them around as buzzwords. You'll probably just end up describing how you managed past projects, using your own terms, and defining them as appropriate. I'm sure you've been to wikipedia; their Scrum page has all of the terminology defined.
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Mar 6, 2013 20:40
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Ithaqua posted:I never got a thank you email, either. Really? Your opinion of someone worsens when they ask for information or feedback?
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Mar 6, 2013 20:40
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Che Delilas posted:Really? Your opinion of someone worsens when they ask for information or feedback? When they just ask "How did I do?" Absolutely. If you have a sense that the interview went poorly, asking that does nothing to help your chances. It just makes me feel uncomfortable because I have to come up with a non-insulting way to say "lovely"
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Mar 6, 2013 20:52
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Ithaqua posted:When they just ask "How did I do?" Absolutely. If you have a sense that the interview went poorly, asking that does nothing to help your chances. It just makes me feel uncomfortable because I have to come up with a non-insulting way to say "lovely" They were probably doing it in the interests of self-improvement and expected you to be honest with them so it could help them in the future at other interviews. I'm sure that making you feel "uncomfortable" wasn't high on their priority list.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:27
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Che Delilas posted:Really? Your opinion of someone worsens when they ask for information or feedback? No. My opinion of someone worsens when they ask for feedback poorly. If they ask for it well, it improves my opinion.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:42
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So in the future don't send thank you emails? I was hoping politeness would be well received. I did do it early at any rate, though.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:48
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Xik posted:They were probably doing it in the interests of self-improvement and expected you to be honest with them so it could help them in the future at other interviews. I'm sure that making you feel "uncomfortable" wasn't high on their priority list. If I give feedback at the interview you aren't getting the job. Ask for feedback if you think you did badly at an interview but aren't sure why - I've done that and it was very useful. Won't get you the job though.
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Mar 6, 2013 21:51
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| # ? May 9, 2024 14:51 |
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2banks1swap.avi posted:So in the future don't send thank you emails? My view is that if the person you're sending the thank-you email to is such an rear end in a top hat that they take offense that you're thanking them for their time and the opportunity, you don't want to be working anywhere near them anyway. A post-interview thank-you letter is also a good opportunity to re-emphasize that you're still totally jazzed about working at this super-duper company, etc. Just don't make it too gushy. It's a little something that says you're serious about this job and aren't just spraying resumes everywhere. Even if you are.
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Mar 6, 2013 22:24
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