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Pollyanna posted:For the "skills" section of my resume, do I put things like languages I know there, or do I put fields/technologies I'm familiar with like "back-end" or "APIs"? Languages and technologies mostly. You can put fields, but "back-end" and "API" are way too vague. "Experience designing RESTful APIs" or similar would be fine.
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Apr 24, 2017 18:22
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You should prefer to list languages and frameworks rather than generic ideas. "back-end" and "APIs" don't convey specific meaning. Instead, list specific backend technologies and APIs (that a technical interviewer would have heard of) which you've consumed or contributed to.
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Apr 24, 2017 18:26
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So... I applied for a new job. I have an offer letter for that job in hand. I have a meeting with a VP tomorrow about leaving my current position. Overall, I'm giving about six weeks notice. Right now, other than the VP and one director, none of my co-workers know that I plan on leaving. As background material, I have a senior role as a principal investigator. I have a few million in R&D budget under my watch, as well as a number of programs, schedules, and engineers that I manage. I work with the US DoD, DARPA, Air Force, NASA, etc. on $SECRET_STUFF. I manage my engineers by example, so I also do a lot of hands-on engineering work in embedded systems. This is both concrete work in getting systems up-and-running on new EVMs and theoretical OS work (micro/monolithic kernel performance, schedulers, latencies, etc.) on what the limits are to different approaches. The running joke is that if a fire is burning on any of our projects, my body is used to smother the flames. I get loaned out to other programs all of the time to provide technical know-how and mentorship. My hands-on work is a necessary evil, as I have been unable to find and hire someone with the necessary qualifications to do the work. I have a few mentored engineers capable of doing many aspects of the work, but I'm the only one around with the PhD-level knowledge to do key parts of it. I'm trying to prepare a continuity plan with a realistic proposal of how to reallocate the work I was doing. Unfortunately, I have been doing the work of about three people: a researcher, a senior engineer, and a project manager. This work has integrated into my workload slowly over the past 4.5 years. I have a PhD in electrical and computer engineering and an MBA, am a native US citizen with a secret security clearance, and I have a little military experience. I can't even begin to imagine where the company will have to look for someone qualified and eager to jump into the spot I'm leaving behind. A light week of work for me is about 50 hours, with 60-65 hour weeks during proposal writing season. I often wrote papers, books, etc. on my own time, so that isn't even figured into that hour count. If any of you are coming from an academic background, this probably sounds like a pretty reasonable work-life balance and a pretty sweet deal. Industry people know the truth of it. It is not. At all. I've got ulcers flaring up and I need a change. Badly. Now for the questions: 1. I have been the primary advocate for work-life balance for my engineers. I seem to be kinda alone in this, as we always have "a lot to do." Any way I can get something in place prior to my departure to help shield them from unrealistic scheduling in the future? I want to explicitly mention this in the continuity plan to make upper management aware of the need for it. People won't quit because I leave, but they will quit if they begin to be treated poorly. Most of our staff are foreign nationals, but my crews are all US citizens with clearances working on the heavy-duty stuff. The US folks generally won't put up with the "aggressive scheduling" that the foreign employees will tolerate, but our management (VPs/directors) are all Chinese and Indian PhDs coming from an academic background... 2. I have research publications under submission in which I am the first (primary) author. I did all of the research work, gathered/analyzed the data, and wrote the papers. I will leave before I get accept/reject notifications on them. Do any of you have experience with how to handle this sort of thing? If any papers are accepted, someone still needs to attend the appropriate conferences to present the findings. I'm not worried about my pending patents, as my name was listed as a co-inventor on the filings and I can't imagine I'd be removed from anything after the fact because I left... 3. The VP I will be meeting with is not based out of my facility. He is flying here to meet with me. I will be firm on leaving, but can anyone offer suggestions on what kind of oddball requests might come my way? Demands for a longer notice period? Pressure to be a contractor to ease the transition of my existing programs? Demands that I complete X amount of work in my remaining time, and it is completely impossible to do so? Demands that I find a replacement before I leave? I don't want to be caught off guard by some bad request... I am so not looking forward to this meeting tomorrow. 
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Apr 24, 2017 18:44
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Pollyanna posted:For the "skills" section of my resume, do I put things like languages I know there, or do I put fields/technologies I'm familiar with like "back-end" or "APIs"? The word "mad" and nothing else
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Apr 24, 2017 19:52
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edit: wrong thread
Bob Morales fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Apr 24, 2017 |
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Apr 24, 2017 20:02
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hendersa posted:1. I have been the primary advocate for work-life balance for my engineers. I seem to be kinda alone in this, as we always have "a lot to do." Any way I can get something in place prior to my departure to help shield them from unrealistic scheduling in the future? I want to explicitly mention this in the continuity plan to make upper management aware of the need for it. People won't quit because I leave, but they will quit if they begin to be treated poorly. Most of our staff are foreign nationals, but my crews are all US citizens with clearances working on the heavy-duty stuff. The US folks generally won't put up with the "aggressive scheduling" that the foreign employees will tolerate, but our management (VPs/directors) are all Chinese and Indian PhDs coming from an academic background... I think the best you can do is make your case that any more "aggressive scheduling" will lead to further turnover. I doubt there's anything you can really do to enforce it. You'll likely get them to believe you, but they'll probably go back on everything they said within a few months. The only way you can continue to act as a shield for your team is for you to stay.
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Apr 24, 2017 20:07
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hendersa posted:... You might be a bit too high end for even this thread. (I'd ask if you work for Mitre, but they're supposed to have a great work/life balance.) I'd say that it's too late to change the culture. The best you can do for your employees is give them the tools and knowhow to fend for themselves after you're gone.
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Apr 24, 2017 20:38
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hendersa posted:2. I have research publications under submission in which I am the first (primary) author. I did all of the research work, gathered/analyzed the data, and wrote the papers. I will leave before I get accept/reject notifications on them. Do any of you have experience with how to handle this sort of thing? If any papers are accepted, someone still needs to attend the appropriate conferences to present the findings. I'm not worried about my pending patents, as my name was listed as a co-inventor on the filings and I can't imagine I'd be removed from anything after the fact because I left... In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience this doesn't really affect anything - if you can't continue to collaborate after you leave due to security concerns then just hand it over to one of the other authors for revisions and presentation. The author order shouldn't change.
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Apr 24, 2017 20:46
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hendersa posted:1. I have been the primary advocate for work-life balance for my engineers. I seem to be kinda alone in this, as we always have "a lot to do." Any way I can get something in place prior to my departure to help shield them from unrealistic scheduling in the future? Short of a literal labor union, no. Even at the most well-intentioned of companies a departing manager's requests are "great suggestions" until budget or contracts get in the way. The best thing you can do for your engineers is inform them: be honest about why you're leaving, emphasize that one's health should be a priority, and let them know (individually and quietly if necessary) that you'll be a positive reference for them in the future. I know it sucks because you want to do right by them, but at the end of the day your engineers will have to make their own decisions about how best to proceed in your absence. quote:I'm not worried about my pending patents, as my name was listed as a co-inventor on the filings and I can't imagine I'd be removed from anything after the fact because I left... Be sure to check back on this from time to time. I had the interesting(ly stupid) experience of leaving a company with a pending patent application that never got actually filed, despite the provisional application having being filed for months before I left and the company's patent attorney hounding me a couple months after I left for a signature on the application declaration. The company was in the process of being sold to a Chinese owner and most of the software people were laid off afterwards so I'm not sure if it was lost in the shuffle or just ignored because I wasn't around. quote:can anyone offer suggestions on what kind of oddball requests might come my way? In addition to the list you made one that I can think of is that you may get asked which of your team can be promoted to replace you. Usually* the shortest and cheapest path to management continuity is to promote from within. Be honest about their individual capabilities but emphasize to your management what you told us: you are doing the work of three people and you're leaving because even as qualified as you are it's not possible to sustain that. See my point in #1 though - you can say all that but it still may be the case that someone is just picked and told "you're the new hendersa in six weeks." As far as acquiescing to management's requests about your remaining time, remember: you want to make it as easy as possible for everyone but you don't owe your company anything absurd. If they ask for something that's impossible, well, add it to the list of reasons you're leaving and then leave at the agreed-upon date. quote:I am so not looking forward to this meeting tomorrow. I hear ya  Let us know how it goes!* I mean...your situation is not usual 
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Apr 24, 2017 21:32
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Skandranon posted:I think the best you can do is make your case that any more "aggressive scheduling" will lead to further turnover. I doubt there's anything you can really do to enforce it. You'll likely get them to believe you, but they'll probably go back on everything they said within a few months. The only way you can continue to act as a shield for your team is for you to stay. I guess the best that I can do is emphasize this point and hope that it doesn't all go to hell. csammis posted:Short of a literal labor union, no. Even at the most well-intentioned of companies a departing manager's requests are "great suggestions" until budget or contracts get in the way. The best thing you can do for your engineers is inform them: be honest about why you're leaving, emphasize that one's health should be a priority, and let them know (individually and quietly if necessary) that you'll be a positive reference for them in the future. I know it sucks because you want to do right by them, but at the end of the day your engineers will have to make their own decisions about how best to proceed in your absence. lifg posted:You might be a bit too high end for even this thread. (I'd ask if you work for Mitre, but they're supposed to have a great work/life balance.) raminasi posted:In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience this doesn't really affect anything - if you can't continue to collaborate after you leave due to security concerns then just hand it over to one of the other authors for revisions and presentation. The author order shouldn't change. csammis posted:Be sure to check back on this from time to time. I had the interesting(ly stupid) experience of leaving a company with a pending patent application that never got actually filed, despite the provisional application having being filed for months before I left and the company's patent attorney hounding me a couple months after I left for a signature on the application declaration. The company was in the process of being sold to a Chinese owner and most of the software people were laid off afterwards so I'm not sure if it was lost in the shuffle or just ignored because I wasn't around. csammis posted:In addition to the list you made one that I can think of is that you may get asked which of your team can be promoted to replace you. Usually* the shortest and cheapest path to management continuity is to promote from within. csammis posted:I hear ya  kind of day for updates.
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Apr 24, 2017 22:01
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hendersa posted:I just peeked through my records and saw that my last patent declaration (37 CFR 1.63) was signed for a patent application submitted in April 2016. If it isn't submitted by now, then it isn't going in. But, if it is submitted, it can't be changed at this point, right? I'm not an expert or a lawyer but my understanding is that if you signed the 37 CFR 1.63 and it was submitted, the application can't be changed without your and the other inventors' say-so.
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Apr 24, 2017 22:16
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hendersa posted:1. I have been the primary advocate for work-life balance for my engineers. I seem to be kinda alone in this, as we always have "a lot to do." Any way I can get something in place prior to my departure to help shield them from unrealistic scheduling in the future? I want to explicitly mention this in the continuity plan to make upper management aware of the need for it. People won't quit because I leave, but they will quit if they begin to be treated poorly. Most of our staff are foreign nationals, but my crews are all US citizens with clearances working on the heavy-duty stuff. The US folks generally won't put up with the "aggressive scheduling" that the foreign employees will tolerate, but our management (VPs/directors) are all Chinese and Indian PhDs coming from an academic background... For 1, there's a very limited amount you can do to shield teammates who let themselves be pressured to work longer hours, if you aren't there. If you are there, you can position yourself as a wall against managerial and product team pressure, and as a filter between management and developers (meaning, you stop the other devs from hearing about new work until they have capacity for it). But if you aren't there to keep replacing bricks and mortar, it's up to the rest of the team to push back. Even whatever official policy you might get into place is worthless if it isn't enforced, and you can't serve as the departmental spine in absentia. For 3, it doesn't matter what they ask. All you have to do is be firm with your exit date, and tell them you'll do your best to ease the transition in any reasonable fashion. Do not break your back trying to get all your knowledge transferred (it's flat impossible if you've spent more than a month at the company). If they start being unreasonable you can politely remind them of reality. If they start treating you badly, leave immediately, your notice is not legally binding (I'm assuming U.S. here), it's a courtesy, and you don't need to put up with any poo poo.
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Apr 25, 2017 00:49
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hendersa posted:I have a PhD in electrical and computer engineering and an MBA, am a native US citizen with a secret security clearance, and I have a little military experience. I can't even begin to imagine where the company will have to look for someone qualified and eager to jump into the spot I'm leaving behind. You really aren't doing anyone besides an employer any favors by working so much and it's ok if you're doing it out of workaholism. And if you've done a decent job as a leader, your legacy is determined through how well people understand and follow through with the direction you gave, not necessarily by your technical achievements or even work ethic. I randomly met the people that took over from the dissolution of my last job's organization and I have a mini fan club to show for my horrible drunken nights writing wiki pages in lieu of time to actually write the code to do things. Feels pretty good, and hopefully you can keep some contact with your old colleagues. If you've been a good mentor to enough people, maybe one of them will be your boss eventually that you'd even like to work under. Absolutely make sure that you're taking care of any legal red tape like patents or other potential IP disputes in terms of ownership - hire a patent lawyer if necessary. And I don't need to remind you not to do something stupid like copying tarballs of source code to an offsite server for a memento. If you're separating from the intelligence community, grats! A lot of the indoctrination and fear-mongering from the clearance and indoctrination process from the intelligence community following separation is pretty much BS. For example, almost nobody has their resume reviewed constantly unless you're writing in great detail in a CV up to like U//FOUO or C classification about your work. In fact, I actually sent a resume in for review before via letter and got nothing back one way or the other. But the cool thing I guess is that your clearance can be re-activated for 10 years since your last renewal but those of us that got a TS only have 6 years.
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Apr 25, 2017 05:24
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necrobobsledder posted:They won't have to look terribly hard IMO, no need for remorse and don't let anyone make you feel any. Defense is uniquely overweight with academicians partly due to larger contracts favoring companies with a higher percentage of PhDs on staff, and you know that academia is bursting with plenty of people that are eager to work 80+ hours / week for mediocre pay - this is where most contracting companies will scoop people up out of universities oftentimes from PhDs outside CS/EE/math (biology, chem, and physics are popular non-tech degree farming grounds). But just like you, most of these over-achievers will likely leave for greener pastures of industry research at the usual Big Tech places or found their own companies in short time when they realize how short-changed they're getting in every metric possible. What's especially difficult is the secrecy of defense work that makes it difficult to collaborate, and it's oddly similar to the problems Apple's had with its culture of secrecy and its researchers having almost no collaboration outside the company. quote:If you're separating from the intelligence community, grats! A lot of the indoctrination and fear-mongering from the clearance and indoctrination process from the intelligence community following separation is pretty much BS. For example, almost nobody has their resume reviewed constantly unless you're writing in great detail in a CV up to like U//FOUO or C classification about your work. In fact, I actually sent a resume in for review before via letter and got nothing back one way or the other. But the cool thing I guess is that your clearance can be re-activated for 10 years since your last renewal but those of us that got a TS only have 6 years.
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Apr 25, 2017 15:38
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I just got my meeting with the VP rescheduled to tomorrow morning. Oh well. So much for getting things settled today and then trying to relax tonight. 
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Apr 25, 2017 20:28
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hendersa posted:I just got my meeting with the VP rescheduled to tomorrow morning. Oh well. So much for getting things settled today and then trying to relax tonight. Don't push your leave date.
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Apr 26, 2017 09:52
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Your post made me feel small and unaccomplished wow man crazy stuff you are working on. At first, I didn't feel qualified to answer but after thinking about it well, the concerns you have are pretty much universal. It's not your responsibility to hire your replacement, you can certainly help with the process but ultimately it's not your fault if you/they can't find someone that can/want to do 3 jobs for the price of one. I've seen this situation before where management will pile up more work on people and push them to work 50,60,70 hours per week because "Work has to be completed" or other motivational mumbo-jumbo. Your bosses will mostly surely try to retain you. If you do the work of 3 peoples like you said well, they may even offer to double your salary or something crazy like that because they know the cost of replacing you would be even higher than this. What would it take for you to stay? Double salary? Tripple salary? No more than 40 hours of work per week? They will probably start by guilt-tripping you into staying and then actually offer you something when you refuse. You have to ask yourself before the meeting: is there anything that would change your mind and make you stay? If nothing would make you stay then don't let yourself be fooled by the VP offers. Usually, working conditions will return to what they were after a couple of weeks or months. Doubling your salary will stay double your salary tho so if that's what you're after then express your need clearly to the vp and negotiate (or don't negotiate, from your post, it seem like you can ask for anything and they should give it to you). Good luck with all that, and stay true to yourself. You are not the company.
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Apr 26, 2017 13:51
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It really does seem like getting into embedded, systems, generally non-webdev software engineering will get you farther in life than otherwise. I'd like to transition over to that.
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Apr 26, 2017 15:47
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So do it! I did (am still doing) and I'm enjoying my career way more than I did before.
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Apr 26, 2017 15:54
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csammis posted:So do it! I did (am still doing) and I'm enjoying my career way more than I did before. As a stupid web-dev, where should I start? Do you have any recommendations?
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Apr 26, 2017 16:25
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If you want the closest to a web-dev environment, but the least low-level, a raspberry pi would be a good start. An arduino if you want to go to a microcontroller with some training wheels. A microcontroller dev kit if you want to dive deep. You could probably get all three for around $100. Something like a Microchip Explorer board would be a good start for a microcontroller. Decent free IDE, programmer and debugging stuff built in, plenty of toys to play with on the board, and you can swap out the microcotroller module if you want. There are a ton of these boards from all the manufacturers though. Another cool one is the Nordic nRF52-DK. This has a full featured bluetooth radio/software stack. They have really good examples for all the features. But, the chip has a lot more registers and features and complications compared to a small PIC from Microchip. Do you know C? Do you want to know C? You are probably going to have to learn C. e: You will probably want to get a digital storage oscilloscope (can be older or rigol is fine but avoid the ones that hook to a phone or are little handheld ones with low bandwidth), that is the number one tool I use for figuring out what the hell is going on outside the chip. taqueso fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 16:36
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I had a phone screen last week and the recruiter asked how well I knew a big list of technologies I recognized as Microsoft-specific. So I figured I might as well dig out C# in a Nutshell, which I had to buy for a class in college. Then I realized how long it's been since I was in college and checked the copyright year. 2003. Whatever, there haven't been many updates to C# since version 1.1, right?
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Apr 26, 2017 16:42
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I guess I'm also just less familiar with what's out there outside of webdev. I've been stuck in it so long that I've become kinda blinded to non-webdev work. I know about systems programming and embedded, but not about much else. Desktop app dev is similar, but there's GUI programming involved with that and that poo poo is micropenis. There's programming libraries but that's often superseded by OSS. There's networking ala Erlang and Elixir, and that could be different enough from typical webdev to be interesting. If places are hiring Raspberry Pi/Arduino hackers then gently caress yeah, I'm up for that poo poo - would have to brush up on my C and get a few personal projects under my belt to be worth hiring, though. That's the kinda thing you need experience to ever get a job in, which puts you right back at the usual Catch-22.
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Apr 26, 2017 16:45
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CPColin posted:I had a phone screen last week and the recruiter asked how well I knew a big list of technologies I recognized as Microsoft-specific. So I figured I might as well dig out C# in a Nutshell, which I had to buy for a class in college. Then I realized how long it's been since I was in college and checked the copyright year. 2003. Whatever, there haven't been many updates to C# since version 1.1, right? BAHAHA there have been a ton. Beyond basic syntax, .Net 1.1 is barely recognizable. You start using an ArrayList at a Microsoft shop, and you'll be horribly dating yourself. You've got Generics, LINQ, Lambdas, Delegates, dynamics, etc, and that's barely scratching the surface.
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Apr 26, 2017 16:50
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don't do big data, it sux
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Apr 26, 2017 16:50
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Umbrellish posted:As a stupid web-dev, where should I start? Do you have any recommendations? Get a little dev board, like an Arduino or similar, and go to town. Build a little project with it that accomplishes a goal, however trivial that goal may be. Take photos, post to Github, put it on your resume and rhapsodize about it in interviews. I started my journey several years ago with the MSP430G2 Launchpad value line series. I learned how to program it starting with blinking the on-board LED, then fading it in and out with PWM, and from there built a Zelda-themed treasure chest for my wife that plays (really lovely) sound when opened by PWM-driving a speaker. I also got a little LCD display and learned how to use it in order to make a reef aquarium controller. That this was a ridiculously ambitious goal for a fledgling embedded programmer and the design goals would have been literally impossible with the just the MSP430G2 driving it, but it got me deeper into the UC's datasheet and driving external components like an LCD with only the chip's onboard communications (instead of using a library on a Raspberry Pi running Linux for example). Pollyanna posted:If places are hiring Raspberry Pi/Arduino hackers then gently caress yeah, I'm up for that poo poo - would have to brush up on my C and get a few personal projects under my belt to be worth hiring, though. That's the kinda thing you need experience to ever get a job in, which puts you right back at the usual Catch-22. If you mean any experience, sure, but if you mean professional experience that is not true and you're doing yourself a disservice by convincing yourself of it. Testimonial: after I got laid off last month I interviewed with a company that does embedded work, consumer devices and the like. I interviewed with three groups and they all commented on my lack of embedded experience in my professional history. I told them about my Github projects (which they looked at during the interview and asked about!), was able to compare and contrast communication protocols like SPI and I2C because of the stuff I'd played with, and wrote C on a whiteboard when asked. I start my new job with the embedded-est of those groups next week
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Apr 26, 2017 16:50
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Oh man, it might be time to revive my old RPi/Arduino CHIP-8 machine project.  csammis posted:Testimonial: after I got laid off last month I interviewed with a company that does embedded work, consumer devices and the like. I interviewed with three groups and they all commented on my lack of embedded experience in my professional history. I told them about my Github projects (which they looked at during the interview and asked about!), was able to compare and contrast communication protocols like SPI and I2C because of the stuff I'd played with, and wrote C on a whiteboard when asked. I start my new job with the embedded-est of those groups next week Hah, that reminds me of Shenzhen I/O. That game was tough, but kinda fun. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 16:56
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AskYourself posted:Your post made me feel small and unaccomplished wow man crazy stuff you are working on. I would also say to get out. This was my hell: ~7 years ago I worked for a non-profit government contractor where I basically did 3+ jobs, Sys Admin, Programmer, QA. I also had ~15-20 hours of meetings each week. I had 12-13 hour days + weekends just to keep up with everything. They also wanted me to get a security clearance, probably so I could do even more work (I always refused to do this). One meeting was repeated 4 times each week just because different stake holders had to be told the same information. I asked my boss repeatedly to remove me from redundant meetings like this or to find a better way to distribute banal information. I even started to skip them and when asked why, I told them so I could do my job. That didn't go over well. I was forced to cancel 2 vacations because the project was so far behind. Funny at a company that gave you a 5% bonus for using all of your vacation time since its employees would rarely use ANY vacation time. I started to understand why my predecessor had left. When it came time for my 2nd annual review I was burned out and done with the place. It had affected me physically Scope creep was a huge issue that I was powerless to stop, despite being the technical lead. Our review process was pretty intense. Our reviews are read by: your boss, your boss' boss, etc. all the way up to executive management. Also by selected peers if you worked with them or for them on anything. My boss and boss' boss weren't listening to me. Nobody was it seemed. I went scorched earth, I didn't just write up everything I had accomplished (it was detailed as hell because I write down almost everything I do each day), but I decided to review the company and its culture. I called out those responsible for the mismanagement of the project and scope creep (they were my selected peers) and basically announced that because of these insane working conditions I would be leaving at the end of the project. They didn't listen to me when I brought it up to them in any of the 15 meetings I had with them during the week or in side conversations. I let everyone in the company know. I simply did not care. My boss was pissed and I was put on PIP as revenge. During that meeting, they asked me what I thought and I just laughed, I knew that they wanted me to leave. HR freaked out when I told them about the forced cancellation of vacation time (they apparently missed this in my detailed review). I did, however, use it to negotiate my way out of most meetings at let me focus on completing the project, they agreed and left me to my own devices. They let me go 3 months later, despite making more progress than we had in the last year; the fiscal year was about to roll over and let me go with a nice severance plus 7 weeks of unused vacation time. I left with a nest egg that could have lasted me 6-8 months. At first I was upset because I had a end-date already in mind, but 5 minutes after I walked out of there, I felt so much better. A year or so later, a former coworker told me that it took them another year to finish the project. When I left I thought we were on track to finish it in about another 2-3 months.
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Apr 26, 2017 17:02
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Pollyanna posted:It really does seem like getting into embedded, systems, generally non-webdev software engineering will get you farther in life than otherwise. I'd like to transition over to that. What makes you say this? There's success and cash to be found in all areas. There's certainly fewer people doing embedded systems, but I don't know that that helps you at all. I think you need a better grip on what's making you unhappy. From your posts, it's sounded like it's the culture at all the places you've worked. That's not particularly tied to area of expertise.
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Apr 26, 2017 17:07
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Mniot posted:What makes you say this? There's success and cash to be found in all areas. There's certainly fewer people doing embedded systems, but I don't know that that helps you at all. I think you need a better grip on what's making you unhappy. From your posts, it's sounded like it's the culture at all the places you've worked. That's not particularly tied to area of expertise. True...grass is greener, and all that. I don't want to outright abandon webdev, but I do want to do something a little different for a while.
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Apr 26, 2017 17:14
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Pollyanna posted:True...grass is greener, and all that. I don't want to outright abandon webdev, but I do want to do something a little different for a while. It's going to be hard to jump into a dedicated embedded role from webdev. Why don't you start with some IoT type project? Hook up some sort of Raspberry PI to measure the water in some flowers and make available via REST? You'll get a lot further if you can lean on some of your previous experience.
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Apr 26, 2017 17:17
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Good Will Hrunting posted:don't do big data, it sux If you get in deep with developing a framework, it's okay. If you don't, you end up more or less a data trucker, endlessly configuring jobs and waiting for somebody to stand up a new environment so you can maybe code again.
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Apr 26, 2017 17:50
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gently caress marketing with a god drat rusty ice pick, and gently caress weasel people who try to save face, even when presented with poo poo loads of evidence and records to the contrary. Go back into your hole you piece of poo poo Marketing director. Trying to bring up a secret vote of no confidence on my team to the CEO is a dick move and I drat near lost my poo poo when I heard about it. I went right to the CEO the next day and barged into his office while the marketing director was sitting there and presented the CEO with a bunch of emails from me to marketing showing a long LONG history of scope creep FROM MARKETING. The marketing director mumbled and got out in less than 30 seconds. What a FUCKER.
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Apr 26, 2017 17:56
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leper khan posted:Don't push your leave date. The new job is just thrilled that I'm accepting the job and was more than happy to work with me on the later start date. Looks like everything is pretty much wrapped up at this point. Thanks, goons!  Skandranon posted:It's going to be hard to jump into a dedicated embedded role from webdev. Why don't you start with some IoT type project? Hook up some sort of Raspberry PI to measure the water in some flowers and make available via REST? You'll get a lot further if you can lean on some of your previous experience. As a sidenote, the local university has been asking me to teach a grad class or two on embedded development. With the new job, I'll actually have the time to do it! geeves posted:I would also say to get out. 
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Apr 26, 2017 20:42
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hendersa posted:The new job is just thrilled that I'm accepting the job and was more than happy to work with me on the later start date. Looks like everything is pretty much wrapped up at this point. Thanks, goons! Congrats! 
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Apr 27, 2017 02:18
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Apr 27, 2017 14:26
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Small storytime. So I was let go last week. No tears for me, in my six month contract I had survived two canceled projects, three bosses, and hadn't done anything useful in a month. I already had one foot out the door. I woke up yesterday to find that I had been added to a very new and very busy "Laid Off" WhatsApp group chat. I opened it up and learned that there had been a goddamn purge of all former employees of my first boss, who himself was let go a couple months ago. Like, a group conference, you have five minutes to leave the building, you will be escorted out by security, -style purge. Some, like me, never found a new place after the last project shut down, but a few were real productive people who were already delivering in their new roles. I was really surprised. I've never been a part of a group layoff before. Being able to share the anger is real cathartic.
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Apr 27, 2017 23:14
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So I started my current position a year ago. I've busted my tail for a year, said yes to every inane request from my boss, flew to every demo we had and useless event we had (useless to me because there aren't other developers and I am being a discount product director). Received stellar casual feedback from my boss. He tells me I am the top performer and the back bone of the team and that I have a terrific attitude and drive. That I am the missing piece on his team that he's spent years looking for. Annual raise time, I get a 2% raise because "company performance". A week after during a quarterly financial performance town hall, we're all told our company, and more specifically, the unit I am in, has had a stellar year of growth. I didn't give any pushback in the review, since I knew that it would be pointless. The review didn't even touch on anything about my performance. Bullshit corporate doublespeak. Well now I am trying to hang back, and avoid being the point man for traveling and generally bushy tailed bright eyed sucker, and my boss is being passive aggressive. The rest of my team is generally unresponsive, slow working, come in at 10 and leave at 5, and my boss is generally passive aggressive towards them too. I'm pretty sure everyone gets 2% raises every year. I've been doing some interview prep during hours and am generally trying to set my sights on bigger and better places where I know that bullshit raises and incentivized mediocrity are not the status quo. Sound familiar? How do I resist the urge to tell my boss to eat poo poo (in a sterile, corporate way) and walk out? I have enough financial security to not need a job for years, so there's no risk of not making rent or starving before I can get another job. The reasons I have to stay around is to get paid for suffering through interactions with my dumbshit boss, to avoid awkward conversations during interviews, and to have more negotiating power with newly undiscovered dysfunctional teams that don't know that my work situation also sucks. But it takes so many hours out of my week and is making me deeply unhappy. Anyone else been in this position before? How did it go?
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Apr 28, 2017 22:51
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Has anyone worked at both Facebook and Amazon? Can you compare and contrast the two cultures and your roles with-in them?
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Apr 28, 2017 23:00
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I have not been in this position before, but:Sinten posted:I have enough financial security to not need a job for years, so there's no risk of not making rent or starving before I can get another job. Why are you there then? Only to avoid the awkward interview questions? You're unhappy and staying at the job is not making you any better. You have the financial security, therefore "im staying here because i need to pay the rent" doesn't apply. Get out, relax for a week, and then start job hunting. You're rested and presumably happier. You will have better success, no doubt.
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Apr 28, 2017 23:07
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