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Gazpacho
Jun 18, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Slippery Tilde

Smugdog Millionaire posted:

Goons I'm trying to find a job but I must be doing something wrong because I've applied to dozens of places and the best I can get is a rejection email. I'm applying to places all up and down the West coast because I'm looking to relocate. I think I'm a smart and productive programmer but clearly employers don't see that. Is my resume garbage? http://gobiner.github.io/
Your resume needs to be out there in a form that automatic scanners can make sense of. A LinkedIn profile is one such form, but a web page that you wrote freehand is not.

Your job descriptions don't really indicate how your work was worthwhile, e.g. how did it benefit ISITE to have UPS shipping? Answer quantitatively, if you know. What did you accomplish by "bridging codebases"?

Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Apr 29, 2013

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Wasse
Jan 16, 2010

shrughes posted:

What kind of crazy deranged companies require an official transcript?


evensevenone posted:

People do that? That's even more ridiculous than asking for a transcript.

I guess it depends on how far out of college you are. But for someone on their first/second job out of college, what's wrong with requesting the transcript?

Not to mention, that tends to do things like - guarantee a person actually graduated college.

My own experience: I've asked for transcripts when the person has a somewhat flawed academic past. Maybe they have a really low GPA, or it is taking them 6 years to graduate college. But - they have a story - that they explain well, and its something I can get past. Honestly, the fact you failed calculus and spanish doesn't matter so much to me. On the other hand, seeing that you failed databases twice (and then passed with a D) is a bit more of a problem.

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

I'm involved in recruiting and we ask for transcripts to provide another data point on candidates.
I'd ignore shrughes when it comes to anything related to hiring.

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

Gazpacho posted:

With regard to the bay area job market, being local is also important. Very, very, very important. Employers have an unbelievable pool of local talent before they have to think about relocating someone.

Not really. I don't even live in the States and I've been contacted through my alumni network or recruiters for positions in the area.
Demand is so great that they're desperate for half-decent candidates from anywhere in the world.

No Safe Word
Feb 26, 2005

shrike82 posted:

I'd ignore shrughes when it comes to anything related to hiring.
B-b-but the red title

Gazpacho
Jun 18, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Slippery Tilde
e: deleted

Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Apr 29, 2013

Rurutia
Jun 11, 2009

Gazpacho posted:

A recruiter contact is only a first step and doesn't necessarily reflect the company's hiring intentions. The larger companies do relocate people to the bay, of course, but it's expensive for startups to do so.

The friend I'd mentioned previously only interviewed from start ups for the equity and they were all in the Bay Area. All offers included relocation.

Gazpacho
Jun 18, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Slippery Tilde
Well fine then, I guess everyone who contacts me about a job is asking where I am for no reason at all!

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

Gazpacho posted:

A recruiter contact is only a first step and doesn't necessarily reflect the company's hiring intentions. The larger companies do relocate people to the bay, of course, but it's expensive for startups to do so.

Like I said, I've been contacted directly by friends from college who are hiring managers at firms in the area.
They're desperate for hires.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
gaz maybe you should get a job first before you start lecturing people about how getting a job works.

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)
If your interview process can't thresh out somebody who needed three tries to squeak by databases or some other class, then you need to fix your interview process.

QuantumCrayons
Apr 11, 2010
On skimming this thread, I'm seriously worried that my CS degree isn't going to worth much to employers in terms of a variety. I'm currently studying a four year degree in Scotland and I'm about to finish my third year (which gives me an Ordinary in about 2 months time). I've specialised in networking, but it's kind of a half and half degree, following on from a software engineering focused course for two years, so I'm becoming a jack of all trades.

I've never covered algorithms at university. In fact, I've studied more about algorithms at high school than I have in my three years here. I'm also worried about not knowing anything about optimisation and stuff like that. There's been a big focus on other things, though; for example, I've been taught to program competently in three languages (C#, Java and Python), various web technologies (HTML5/CSS3, PHP, JavaScript, ColdFusion), Linux and Windows networking, some embedded etc. It's just beginning to concern me that things that are seen as elementary CS topics haven't been examined.

Would anyone be able to give a quick list (or give a page or link back to or something) of stuff that should be taught in a CS degree that I can go and read up on before I get thrown out into the big wide world? I've already begun on algorithms with a book out the library, but would appreciate other people calling out things I've missed. Thanks folks.

VVV That's exactly the one I got from the library on a whim! Awesome.

QuantumCrayons fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Apr 29, 2013

Tres Burritos
Sep 3, 2009

Pretty sure this is one of the standard textbooks for teaching / learning algorithms and data structures.

Gounads
Mar 13, 2013

Where am I?
How did I get here?
I can't really comment on the job landscape in Scotland, but I can about the US market... Build something interesting. The right specialization in school is nice, but if you've got one personal project that you can point to, and if that project is even mildly interesting, you don't have to worry. That, plus a degree, will be enough.

Steve French
Sep 8, 2003

shrike82 posted:

I'm involved in recruiting and we ask for transcripts to provide another data point on candidates.
I'd ignore shrughes when it comes to anything related to hiring.

I have never once been asked for a transcript, nor would I probably ever bother asking a candidate for one either. And I would not ignore shrughes.

BirdOfPlay
Feb 19, 2012

THUNDERDOME LOSER

QuantumCrayons posted:

I've never covered algorithms at university. In fact, I've studied more about algorithms at high school than I have in my three years here. I'm also worried about not knowing anything about optimisation and stuff like that. There's been a big focus on other things, though; for example, I've been taught to program competently in three languages (C#, Java and Python), various web technologies (HTML5/CSS3, PHP, JavaScript, ColdFusion), Linux and Windows networking, some embedded etc. It's just beginning to concern me that things that are seen as elementary CS topics haven't been examined.

Not that I'm a college grad or anything but a CS program without algorithms or data structures is fairly odd. Most here in the states have an intro one as part of the initial round of classes. Would you mind saying where you're studying or just list the names of the core courses for your program? If I asked you about Big O notation, heaps, and Bubble Sort, could you explain any of them? Do you at least recognize them?

For those in the States, what's the expectation for algorithms and data structures and the ones to know? I have some college experience and aced the core class, "Data Structures." It was one of a two-course algorithm sequence at Pitt and I didn't take the followup. I only ask because to flesh out my education on my resume I make sure to write out that I've completed the core class for the CS program. Another thing is about using model-view-controller. A friend of mine made a comment about how understanding model-view-controller is what makes or breaks you for software engineering. Is this a bit of a stretch?

Lastly, any Amazon devs or hiring people in this thread? Not trying to call anybody out, but the friend mentioned above is just having a string of bad link with his phone interviews with Amazon and I don't to know if it is a bad sign or not. By bad luck I mean stuff like his recruiter/HR person at Amazon was fired during his last interview attempt. Are they understanding of these kinds of things are do they just move on to the next candidate? This isn't his first job and he's got some good creditentials, but it's also been rough on him. If you don't want to speak about it on the open forums, hit me up at my SA Gmail of BirdOfPlay61000. And no, I don't know what part of Amazon he was looking at.

Crazy Mike
Sep 16, 2005

Now with 25% more kimchee.
I just had an interview where I didn't do too well. One of the questions was what's the difference between a struct and a class. I answered that a struct is a value type and a class is a reference type. The interviewer wanted more. While I was struggling thinking how to answer better he offered that one has something the other doesn't. We skipped that question and moved on. At the end I wanted to get back to that question thinking the answer was classes having inheritance. Before I could get there he offered another hint that the answer had to do with functions, and which one had them. I said that I was unsure of the difference between functions and methods but we know classes have methods and I'm pretty sure structs have them as well. He said no, structs have fields and properties but no behavior. That seemed odd to me. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa288471%28v=vs.71%29.aspx shows a struct with a method. When I got back to my desk I made a simple windows forms demonstration.
code:
 public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }

        private void btnClass_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            ClassMan c = new ClassMan();
            c.Name = txtC.Text;
            txtCResult.Text = c.SayName();
        }

        private void btnStruct_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            StructMan s = new StructMan();
            s.Name = txtS.Text;
            txtSResult.Text = s.SayName();
        }
    }

    public class ClassMan
    {
        string name;

        public string Name
        {
            get { return name; }
            set { name = value; }
        }

        public string SayName()
        {
            return String.Format("I am {0}.", Name);

        }

    }

    public struct StructMan
    {
        string name;

        public string Name
        {
            get { return name; }
            set { name = value; }
        }

        public string SayName()
        {
            return String.Format("I am {0}.", Name);

        }
    }
Does this not show that structs have behavior? What am I missing here?

baquerd
Jul 2, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

BirdOfPlay posted:

For those in the States, what's the expectation for algorithms and data structures and the ones to know? I have some college experience and aced the core class, "Data Structures." It was one of a two-course algorithm sequence at Pitt and I didn't take the followup. I only ask because to flesh out my education on my resume I make sure to write out that I've completed the core class for the CS program. Another thing is about using model-view-controller. A friend of mine made a comment about how understanding model-view-controller is what makes or breaks you for software engineering. Is this a bit of a stretch?

It's going to vary incredibly, but some basic knowledge of time/space runtime complexity is mandatory for a developer. Some places will want you to make problem optimized B-trees, and other places will be happy if you simply know when to use sets over lists and vice versa.

As for MVC making or breaking you, that's probably the case where your friend works, but it's one of those things that an entry level developer only really needs to know the idea behind in most cases, because a senior developer will be architecting the overall program design.

shrughes
Oct 11, 2008

(call/cc call/cc)

Crazy Mike posted:

Does this not show that structs have behavior? What am I missing here?

Your interviewer is loving retarded, give me his email address so I can tell him that.

Jmcrofts
Jan 7, 2008

just chillin' in the club
Lipstick Apathy
E: nope I'm dumb

Gazpacho
Jun 18, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Slippery Tilde

FamDav posted:

gaz maybe you should get a job first before you start lecturing people about how getting a job works.
That's a reasonable point to make however I've had software dev jobs in the past and I've had various companies tell me that someone looking remotely is at a disadvantage compared to if they were searching locally and I believed them. Disagree if you want. You don't have to tell me that there are other reasons I don't have a job, I've had recruiters telling me that for a long time.

Gazpacho fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Apr 29, 2013

Rurutia
Jun 11, 2009

Gazpacho posted:

That's a reasonable point to make however I've had software dev jobs in the past and I've had various companies tell me that someone looking remotely is at a disadvantage compared to if they were searching locally and I believed them. Disagree if you want. You don't have to tell me that there are other reasons I don't have a job, I've had recruiters telling me that for a long time.

Gaz, don't take it so personally. I only posted because I didn't want people to get the idea that they need to be local to be competitive for Bay Area companies. To be frank, Bay Area companies have stellar devs throwing themselves at them because the potential for return on equity is so high.

I'm sure it's a boon if you don't have to relocate, but in the grand scheme of things relocation costs are going to be less than a tenth of what they pay you in a year - and usually equity means you'll be staying for at least a few years.

Mystery Machine
Oct 12, 2008

Thanks for the info, along with anyone else who gave me the time of day. I'm just going to leave out things I feel uncomfortable talking about, and I'm going to try to do a better job highlighting my accomplishments/projects/awards. After that, I'm going to get an art minded friend to help me format it better, and will start sending stuff out.

Mystery Machine fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Apr 29, 2013

BirdOfPlay
Feb 19, 2012

THUNDERDOME LOSER

baquerd posted:

As for MVC making or breaking you, that's probably the case where your friend works, but it's one of those things that an entry level developer only really needs to know the idea behind in most cases, because a senior developer will be architecting the overall program design.

I think he meant in sense of overall design work and software engineering almost in the academic sense of the term. And no, I'm not worried about it being something I'm weak on, costing me a job. The thing was that it come about as a compliment to me since I just had a sense of how to run things like this. I'd recognized the controller aspect from my (crappy) modding experience with Source and my one graphics class. The model and view separation just came about cause, why should they be bunched together?

To be fair, he's been helping me on this project in the since that he's giving me objectives and making me look at things at various levels, but not providing code support. Basically it ends up with us getting on video chat and going over what needs to be done next and explaing why certain design decisions are a Bad Idea. C++ programs throw exceptions like it's going out of style, right? :eng99:

Sarcophallus
Jun 12, 2011

by Lowtax

Rurutia posted:

Gaz, don't take it so personally. I only posted because I didn't want people to get the idea that they need to be local to be competitive for Bay Area companies. To be frank, Bay Area companies have stellar devs throwing themselves at them because the potential for return on equity is so high.

I'm sure it's a boon if you don't have to relocate, but in the grand scheme of things relocation costs are going to be less than a tenth of what they pay you in a year - and usually equity means you'll be staying for at least a few years.

Having just been turned down from two interviews because 'they were only interested in local applicants', I can say that distance is certainly a factor in an application.

And why wouldn't it be? Most places already get hundreds of local applicants; why spend extra money to bring someone to interview and later move them to your location?
I'm 100% positive that most companies hire beyond their area all the time, but being local absolutely helps. I have gotten a roughly 75-90% response rate from companies within 50 miles of me, and probably 20-30% from those across the country.

shrike82
Jun 11, 2005

Sarcophallus posted:

Having just been turned down from two interviews because 'they were only interested in local applicants', I can say that distance is certainly a factor in an application.

And why wouldn't it be? Most places already get hundreds of local applicants; why spend extra money to bring someone to interview and later move them to your location?
I'm 100% positive that most companies hire beyond their area all the time, but being local absolutely helps. I have gotten a roughly 75-90% response rate from companies within 50 miles of me, and probably 20-30% from those across the country.

Why? Because the expense of relocating an employee is peanuts compared to the total comp package for a half-decent dev.
Paying 20-30K for a relocation package is on the level of a headhunter's fee anyway so I'm not sure what the fuss is about...

QuantumCrayons
Apr 11, 2010

BirdOfPlay posted:

Not that I'm a college grad or anything but a CS program without algorithms or data structures is fairly odd. Most here in the states have an intro one as part of the initial round of classes. Would you mind saying where you're studying or just list the names of the core courses for your program? If I asked you about Big O notation, heaps, and Bubble Sort, could you explain any of them? Do you at least recognize them?

Would rather not state the institution and our course structure is kind of distinct from what I understand. Each year we take eight modules, four in each semester and they're all CS related. In first year I did a little architecture, C#, static web development, databases and basic embedded systems. Second year was more C#, dynamic web development, more embedded systems, some networking theory and project development. In my third year, I began specialising in networking which has been taught along with Java (with Android architecture), further dynamic web development and further project management. Something that tends to shock people is that I haven't ever studied any maths in my course.

I know Big O (worst-case time for algorithm to execute relative to parameter size?) and Bubble Sort (for each adjacent pair of values, if left > right, swap. Repeat until every left > right for a greatest-to-least series), but from my own investigations after realising I wasn't being taught them. Heaps, beyond the memory location, I couldn't explain.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008
Well, in the interest of fairness there is a real reason why companies try and look locally and that is because there is a greater chance of a local applicant accepting a job offer vs. non-local. I have to imagine the difference is also correlated to age and living situation.

If a company really won't consider non-locals then they either a) haven't been searching for very long b) have been burned by too many people wasting their time c) could care less about the quality of dev d) so cash-strapped they actually cannot afford to relocate you.

a/b are reasonable (though myopic) but c/d are just places you don't want to bother with in the first place.

Anyways, here's my advice to everyone.

1) Get a job at a company known for having a stringent interview process (Not necessary, but they usually have more interesting work to boot).
2) Do grunt work. Own it, do it well.
3) Do more interesting work. Involve yourself at the planning stage. Take on long-term projects and complete them.
4) Surprise! You can put that on your resume and everyone will want to talk to you.
5) Hopefully when you open your mouth you don't sound like a complete idiot.

step 0 is go to a top ~30 ranked uni/lac, have a good gpa, have high test scores (SAT,AP,IB,GRE,etc.), but even if you're like me and end up sick for 3 years you can still get back on track with these 5 steps.

WhatBigCSDoesn'tWantYouToKnow.docx

Good Will Hrunting
Oct 8, 2012

I changed my mind.
I'm not sorry.
Anyone worried about their data structures or algorithms background for whatever reason, look into Coursera's two Princeton offerings. They're both fantastic in terms of lectures, assignments, and sample interview questions. I did the first as some review before starting my job search and it certainly helped in the interviews.

Strong Sauce
Jul 2, 2003

You know I am not really your father.





My first job required me to submit my transcript. Not really sure why.
I am now working in the Bay Area after working in LA. No one qualified gets denied just because they're not local. They may get denied if they don't want to move though.

Strong Sauce
Jul 2, 2003

You know I am not really your father.





Smugdog Millionaire posted:

Goons I'm trying to find a job but I must be doing something wrong because I've applied to dozens of places and the best I can get is a rejection email. I'm applying to places all up and down the West coast because I'm looking to relocate. I think I'm a smart and productive programmer but clearly employers don't see that. Is my resume garbage? http://gobiner.github.io/


I feel like you should spend more time going through it editing your resume. Have your family take a look, your girlfriend or wife, your friends. You should be giving them a look first before you post it on here since a lot of problems can be caught right away doing that.

You need to go over your entire resume and really go over it with a stern eye. I'm just going to focus on your description of your current job since it is probably the most important part of your resume.

It seems you have only 3 bullet points at a job you've spent 5 years working. Those three points don't sound like tasks that would take up a large amount of time to complete. If those three bullet points were big tasks that actually did take 5 years to complete, then you need to describe them better because they don't sound like something that takes 5 years to do.

1. You need to change the first line to use an action verb, and shorten it down.
2. The second bullet point sounds like the equivalent of someone installing Wordpress, but with C#. If you did something like wrote new modules for those CMSes you should probably mention that.
3. The last bullet point is probably the one that needs the most improvement. You need to trim the "Engineer Fat" in that line. By that I mean you need to cut down on terms that only become important once you are actually interviewing and talking with a Software Engineer.

"Reverse-engineered a vendor's library to add UPS Freight Shipping on client's e-commerce platform." is probably close to what I would write for that bullet point. Maybe tweak it to match what you actually did.

Also,

quote:

My history is all C# but I don't feel like learning a new language for a new job is a big deal so I've been applying to places that use other technologies, though not to jobs that are "[X] Engineer" expecting 3 years of experience with language [X].

You only write in C#/.NET, even all your hobby projects are written in C#. If you want to have a job that isn't C# you'll need to do something that shows you aren't a one trick pony.

evensevenone
May 12, 2001
Glass is a solid.

shrughes posted:

Your interviewer is loving retarded, give me his email address so I can tell him that.

Maybe the interviewer was talking about pod structs in c++, which is why he said functions and not methods? I'd be more concerned about Crazy Mike apparently not knowing what a function is myself.

Do people ever use struct methods? Or non-POD structs at all for that matter? It seems like a class would make more sense at that point.

greatZebu
Aug 29, 2004

evensevenone posted:

Maybe the interviewer was talking about pod structs in c++, which is why he said functions and not methods? I'd be more concerned about Crazy Mike apparently not knowing what a function is myself.

Do people ever use struct methods? Or non-POD structs at all for that matter? It seems like a class would make more sense at that point.

What? Yes. You say "struct methods" like they're something significantly different from the methods of any class. The only difference between structs and classes in C++ is the default access level of their members and the default type of inheritance for derived types (public for structs, private for classes).

Edit: sorry, I didn't notice that the context of the question was C#, which I don't know much about. Please ignore.

greatZebu fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Apr 30, 2013

JawnV6
Jul 4, 2004

So hot ...

shrike82 posted:

Why? Because the expense of relocating an employee is peanuts compared to the total comp package for a half-decent dev.
Paying 20-30K for a relocation package is on the level of a headhunter's fee anyway so I'm not sure what the fuss is about...

If you've got an alumni network that's actively soliciting your services, you might not be in the same class as the self-taught PHP devs stuck out in the midwest who may also use this thread. Repeatedly furrowing your brow while dropping increasing dollar figures and/or recruitment methods isn't going to get you to the bottom of this one.

QuantumCrayons
Apr 11, 2010

Good Will Hrunting posted:

Anyone worried about their data structures or algorithms background for whatever reason, look into Coursera's two Princeton offerings. They're both fantastic in terms of lectures, assignments, and sample interview questions. I did the first as some review before starting my job search and it certainly helped in the interviews.

I'm doing this now. I'm determined that if I don't get taught this stuff, I'm going to learn it in my own time 'cause damnit I want a job in this sector. If there's much else CS on there, I might just continue studying it over the summer as something to do.

Blotto Skorzany
Nov 7, 2008

He's a PSoC, loose and runnin'
came the whisper from each lip
And he's here to do some business with
the bad ADC on his chip
bad ADC on his chiiiiip

evensevenone posted:

Maybe the interviewer was talking about pod structs in c++, which is why he said functions and not methods?

"Member function" is normal C++ terminology and arguably more correct than "methods"

unsanitary
Dec 14, 2007

don't sweat the technique
For managers:

What would you rather see when hiring a college graduate: a year-long internship as a software engineer with no github/personal code to show you (due to internship/schoolwork being proprietary code), or no internship/job during college and a github of personal projects?

armorer
Aug 6, 2012

I like metal.
I would rather see internship experience. Demonstrating that you can do meaningful work in a work environment roughly approximating mine is more important to me than seeing that you have written some little utility thing. That said, if you have something particularly impressive on github that would be great. Most undergrad github code I've seen is remarkably bad, mostly because they worked on it on their own in a bubble.

tef
May 30, 2004

-> some l-system crap ->

unsanitary posted:

For managers:

What would you rather see when hiring a college graduate: a year-long internship as a software engineer with no github/personal code to show you (due to internship/schoolwork being proprietary code), or no internship/job during college and a github of personal projects?

Depends on the internship, and the code on github. Contributing to a large open source project would be fantastic, but an internship in general would look better than a bunch of half baked learning projects.

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Chasiubao
Apr 2, 2010


Otto Skorzeny posted:

"Member function" is normal C++ terminology and arguably more correct than "methods"

Probably, but it feels really really nitpicky to hold that against a candidate.

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