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hendersa posted:Speaking of a masters degrees, I've always been of the impression that they're good and cool if you get them at the right time. So, I guess the question is "when is the right time?" Some folks like to get them while still in the school mindset. 4 + 1 programs (graduate with a masters degree in just one year after your undergrad) are good for this. This is OK and convenient, but you're missing out on a few things by doing it right away: Yep. Several years later I went back and did an MBA. I paid for most of it with Other People's Money and I had years of seeing the "how" under my belt so I had a frame of reference for learning the "why." As an engineer it's been quite valuable in terms of helping me speak better with product managers and such, understanding business numbers and forecasts, and being able to put together a strategy and communicate it to others.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:14
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about an MBA
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The reason people with ADD are useless without medication is that our prefrontal cortexes are damaged or underdeveloped in some way such that our executive functions are impaired. That means we have a hard time sticking to long term tasks, but that also means our short term memory is shot, we're terrible at organizing ourselves, we have trouble keeping to a regular schedule e.g. cleaning our apartments, etc. That's why I'm so dependent on project management and direction and why it makes such a big difference. Ritalin helps me focus on one-off tasks and day-to-day stuff but that doesn't solve the "I opened a letter and completely forgot to respond to it until 10 days before my COBRA renewal deadline is up" problem (  ).this is also why it's a terrible idea for me to smoke weed
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Feb 7, 2018 18:38
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leper khan posted:Wait it’s unusual for people in this profession to be able to just sit down for 10-15 hours and focus on work? /without/ medication? It is for some of us! Modafinil is great if you can use it responsibly though. Don't dose too high, don't take it every day, and just make sure you don't do stupid stuff like stay awake for 40 hours at a time. Actually exercise and sleep like a healthy adult.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:38
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Pollyanna posted:this is also why it's a terrible idea for me to smoke weed Pollyanna get the reefer madness
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Feb 7, 2018 18:41
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Man if I'm scatterbrained now imagine me on  .
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Feb 7, 2018 18:44
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I am and it's great!
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Feb 7, 2018 18:47
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B-Nasty posted:Very, very prevalent. No Adderall on weekends. No more than 7 doses per two weeks. Never more than two in one day, and don't do that in general. ultrafilter posted:Slate Star Codex did a piece on Adderall recently that may be of interest: Thirty minute mark? For me, I can't not check it every two or three minutes. I frequently stand up and walk every fifteen minutes because I won't be locked in for that amount of time anyways. leper khan posted:Wait it’s unusual for people in this profession to be able to just sit down for 10-15 hours and focus on work? /without/ medication? minato posted:People on the far right of the ADD spectrum are totally useless without medication. They enter a room and forget why they went there. They frequently lose important stuff like their keys. They don't clean their apartments. It can take them hours to read a letter they got in the mail, so they forget to pay bills. Forgetting important stuff: √, only mitigated by a couple of strict routines. Don't clean my apartment: √ Have missed bills because I would get my mail but wouldn't open it: √ Once I even went a month without taking out the trash, even, which I'm not super proud of, though it was partially mitigated by the fact that my trash output is low on account of the company pampering me with three meals a day five times a week. minato posted:"Normal" people suffer from it too to a far lesser extent. Everybody has some tasks they want to put off or have trouble getting into. It seems natural and normal to easily focus on tasks you enjoy (coding your own projects, reading your favorite books), and be easily distracted or procrastinate by tasks you don't enjoy (tedious work projects, house cleaning).
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Feb 7, 2018 18:50
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:Burn the neurotypical witch! Nah, that's not neurotypical.
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Feb 7, 2018 18:53
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Portland Sucks posted:Sitting at a desk for 8 hours straight thinking through logical abstractions is not a normal state for the human brain. You aren't broken if you can't do that. I would consider myself to be a reasonably successful software developer, and I don't remotely even try to do that. Productivity isn't generated just by spending time heads-down at your desk. There are many times where I'll find myself temporarily stymied by a problem, and I get up, walk around, eat something, get some exercise, talk to a coworker, etc. and by doing so get unstuck. Whereas if I stayed at my desk and just hammered at the problem I'd make zero progress because I wasn't stepping back and looking at the larger problem as a whole. The times I have tried to just hammer through a problem are the ones where I've produced the worst code, too, because it tends to consist of a lot of "just tweak it until it works" kind of coding and vague comments that are trying to document a system I don't really understand to begin with. EDIT: something I will say has been a great help to me is to get a standing desk (and an anti-fatigue mat), and to do my best to use it all day -- if I need to take breaks, I just grab my laptop and do emails or docs or similar. Standing makes it easier for me to think for some reason. TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Feb 7, 2018 |
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Feb 7, 2018 19:04
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I would consider myself to be a reasonably successful software developer, and I don't remotely even try to do that. Productivity isn't generated just by spending time heads-down at your desk. There are many times where I'll find myself temporarily stymied by a problem, and I get up, walk around, eat something, get some exercise, talk to a coworker, etc. and by doing so get unstuck. Whereas if I stayed at my desk and just hammered at the problem I'd make zero progress because I wasn't stepping back and looking at the larger problem as a whole. best part of a sit/stand desk for me has been adjusting table height. i can spend 20+ hours at my desk without any wrist pain, etc. or i can lower it to put my feet up. i only occasionally stand at it anymore.
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Feb 7, 2018 19:16
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I really wish I could use a standing desk, but after trying a bunch of stuff it just hurts my back too much. What I did instead was get a fitbit which reminds me every hour to take a break and then I go get on an elliptical for 10 minutes and try to hit a good, high heart rate. Not only is this a healthy thing to do, but it's a great way to step back and break through whatever roadblocks you're coding through at the time.
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Feb 7, 2018 19:57
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I work for a company that makes activity trackers (not fitbit) and on your new employee orientation day they give every single new hire a tracker that does almost nothing *but* beep to get you off your rear end once an hour. At first I thought it was just shameless self-promotion - and it surely is that - but drat if I didn't feel better when I started listening to it. Even doing a lap around my floor is an excellent physical and mental break in routine.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:02
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I just had an HR rep/internal recruiter get extremely loving mad when I declined to share my previous compensation. When I relented and threw out "I'm looking for a typical market range for an engineer in Boston, let's say maybe $150k?" (random bullshit-high number) just to get something out there they started grilling me for five minutes about my reasoning behind that number and wouldn't take "I have no major perspective on that, I wanted to just throw a number out, I understand that this is something easier to talk about towards the end of the process and that the number can change" as an answer. They started saying poo poo like: - "I don't want you to oversell yourself" - "Do you think that's a good strategy?" - "I want to be your friend" - "If you answered a question like this, it doesn't sound smart and like you didn't do your homework" - "We like it when folks come with an educated level of communication on their salary" - "I'm sorry that your response to me helping you was like this", and - "I need you to tell me your previous compensation and please prove it to me" Let's just put aside the fact that requiring a prospective employee to give up their previous compensation is illegal in Boston. That right there really colored my experience with the company and I don't have a good feeling about the place if that's how they're gonna go about speaking to prospective employees. That said...how much did I gently caress up? I clearly didn't handle that as best as I could. I tried to remain calm and have a level voice in the matter and remain reasonable, but I've never had somebody blow up at me like that - they always just say "okay, we'll talk later" and never push the previous comp/give-me-a-number poo poo. Was it even the wrong thing to do to decline answering the question? What do I need to know to deal with these kinds of situations in the future? Maybe I'm just an rear end in a top hat. gently caress.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:09
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I would consider myself to be a reasonably successful software developer, and I don't remotely even try to do that. Productivity isn't generated just by spending time heads-down at your desk. There are many times where I'll find myself temporarily stymied by a problem, and I get up, walk around, eat something, get some exercise, talk to a coworker, etc. and by doing so get unstuck. Whereas if I stayed at my desk and just hammered at the problem I'd make zero progress because I wasn't stepping back and looking at the larger problem as a whole. Yeah, anyone actually thinking that developer is supposed to keep mashing keyboard for 8 hours a day is... not very smart at best. 
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Feb 7, 2018 20:11
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Recruiters are not your friends. I have pretty bad social anxiety and I mostly use them to get as many interviews as possible, because I know I will be terrible for a while.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:20
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Pollyanna posted:What do I need to know to deal with these kinds of situations in the future? You have the power to end a conversation that isn't going the way that you want it to. Just say "Based on this conversation, I don't think your company is a good fit for me at this point in time. Good bye," and hang up the phone.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:23
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^^ AgreePollyanna posted:Maybe I'm just an rear end in a top hat. gently caress. Nope. The recruiter is a manipulative shithead.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:23
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fantastic in plastic posted:You have the power to end a conversation that isn't going the way that you want it to. Just say "Based on this conversation, I don't think your company is a good fit for me at this point in time. Good bye," and hang up the phone. I very nearly did that, but I second-guessed myself. CPColin posted:^^ Agree I seem to be a magnet for abusive and manipulative people. Ostiosis posted:Recruiters are not your friends. I have pretty bad social anxiety and I mostly use them to get as many interviews as possible, because I know I will be terrible for a while. Technically, this was an internal employee at the company rather than a random-rear end recruiter. But I do the same, I need a ramp-up time to socialize on a regular basis myself.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:24
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Pollyanna posted:I seem to be a magnet for abusive and manipulative people. Bullies are not like kung-fu masters looking for the ultimate challenge, they are like hyenas looking for easy prey.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:27
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So what you're saying is I need to become the Drunken Master? 
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Feb 7, 2018 20:28
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Pollyanna posted:I just had an HR rep/internal recruiter get extremely loving mad when I declined to share my previous compensation. boston money chat my friends at amazon robotics make something like 140-160 with a very generous RSU package (with terrible vesting terms). 150 is probably on the upper end of base for 5-10 years experience.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:40
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leper khan posted:boston money chat Yeah, what I meant to say was more like "I'm looking for typical Boston market pay @ 3.5 years exp (because you never give a number first), but if you want a number, let's say $150k" - not "I am worth 150k".
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Feb 7, 2018 20:43
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Pollyanna posted:So what you're saying is I need to become the Drunken Master? Maybe not? It doesn't end well for him in the 2nd movie...
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Feb 7, 2018 20:46
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If you give a number that's too high, the other party will balk, while if you give a number that's reasonable, the other party will use it to anchor the offer in future negotiations. Maybe that's why you don't give a number even when a recruiter is being really mean to you.
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Feb 7, 2018 20:48
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"I am not going to give you a number, if you require a number or this conversation involves you keep asking me for a number, I will hang up."
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Feb 7, 2018 20:55
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Pollyanna posted:Man if I'm scatterbrained now imagine me on Hey, millions of
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Feb 7, 2018 21:09
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Aren't the setiva-heavy varieties supposed to be good for focus? Honestly don't know - I'm square as all hell
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Feb 7, 2018 21:26
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High CBD weed can help with focus if the problem is that you're thinking of ten things at once and can't prioritize them. In my experience, it doesn't help so much when the problem is that you would rather be doing something other than what you're doing.
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Feb 7, 2018 21:40
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hendersa posted:Good luck! JawnV6 posted:What's the biggest layout differences between I2C/SPI, which one is faster, why do we use the lovely one anyway. csammis posted:Let us know how it goes! Thank you for all your help! They asked me literally none of that but I told them on the phone screen I usually worked on top of other people's device drivers so they may have felt inhibited.I think it went really well. Lunch was 2 hours long which is a pretty good sign that at least my future potential boss liked me. Hardest questions were from their project managers. Got asked to describe the end to end behavior of a joystick control and stumbled my way through it. Asked how I did afterwards and he said there was no right or wrong but I learned a few things from his answer for next time. The other hard question I got asked was what I thought my job responsibilities would be; which I hate. Its the company's job to set expectations, not mine  So I rephrased the question to asking about how I'd brought value to previous employers and talked about some big wins and savings my software/expertise had created in the past. Stuff that was mostly in my resume, but the more I interview the more I believe that nobody actually does more than skim the first 2 seconds worth anyways. One interviewer today actually misread the name of one of my previous employers in such a way that he thought I had experience in a totally different field  Weirdly, no whiteboard questions at all.
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Feb 7, 2018 22:31
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leper khan posted:boston money chat 5-10 years is too big a range to say that. I've got 9 years and 160 would be low for me as a base. (Maybe your friend's RSUs are good enough that base is meaningless to them, though. I would take a big cut in base in exchange for a better 401k/RSU package...)
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Feb 7, 2018 22:31
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Haha oh yeah, that reminds me - at some point in the call the rep gave me poo poo for working at a previous company, saying that their VP "hates that place" and thinks the product is poo poo. Then they proceeded to poo poo-talk their own VP, calling them snobbish and overly critical. That was super weird, too.
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Feb 7, 2018 23:20
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That's great data -- it tells you "do not work for these people".
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Feb 7, 2018 23:23
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Skandranon posted:Bullies are not like kung-fu masters looking for the ultimate challenge, they are like hyenas looking for easy prey. qft On a related note, here's a cool essay I found on HackerNews last year that was written in 1922: https://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/1922-why-i-quit-being-so-accommodating/
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Feb 7, 2018 23:29
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Anyone want to give some advice on mentoring? I have a more junior coworker who's trying to transition towards the software ladder (from a somewhat less-technical ladder whose name I forget  ). They're basically getting dropped into the middle of a large codebase in a language (Typescript) that they've never used before, and they're struggling. Obvious things I can do include being verbally supportive, doing pair programming, answering questions, and checking in regularly to make sure they aren't blocked and/or despairing, but what else can/should I do?
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Feb 8, 2018 02:23
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Anyone want to give some advice on mentoring? I have a more junior coworker who's trying to transition towards the software ladder (from a somewhat less-technical ladder whose name I forget Do you do code reviews? If so, you can also pull them in to ‘review’ some of your code that does something you’d like them to see. You can also rubber duck them a couple times to provoke them to seek help when they need it. If all the other engineers are getting lunch, make sure they’re invited along. 
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Feb 8, 2018 03:06
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Good Will Hrunting posted:It's a shame the bottom line would be impacted so much from working less. People would probably be healthier. 
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Feb 8, 2018 03:17
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Anyone want to give some advice on mentoring? I have a more junior coworker who's trying to transition towards the software ladder (from a somewhat less-technical ladder whose name I forget The best mentoring I ever got was a frequent pairing partner. As a junior I always felt like I was bothering someone so it was nice to have an older coder offer to pair. Got me up to speed on the codebase way faster than I would've on my own and (according to them) actually helped them work a little better, too, as they basically had a permanent rubber duck. Make sure to switch whose hands are actually on the keyboard, though. I'm convinced you learn by typing.
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Feb 8, 2018 03:24
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Anyone want to give some advice on mentoring? I have a more junior coworker who's trying to transition towards the software ladder (from a somewhat less-technical ladder whose name I forget I developed and managed an internship program at a past employer, and the way that I approached that is that I broke each week of the internship down into lessons with concrete goals. So by the end of week one, they should be comfortable with foo and I tried to guide their learning so that they understood foo better. During week two they should be able to do bar, so I gave them resources focusing on bar, and so on. I didn't formally tell the interns that was what I was doing, but instead used the lesson analogy to structure the program and provide some accountability and measurement for myself. For less formal mentoring, I'd figure out what skills the person would need to demonstrate to me in order to prove they're ready for prime time. Then, I'd find tasks to give them that, during the course of accomplishing, they would have to practice those skills. Then I'd determine what a reasonable schedule would be to learn everything, and present that to management (if necessary, so that everyone can be informed of how I was proceeding with the mentoring and to confirm that my plan isn't working at cross purposes with the organization). In this case I would be upfront with the mentee about the goals and schedule, since I would be worried that they would feel overwhelmed by being lost in a strange codebase and wouldn't know how to focus their learning.
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Feb 8, 2018 03:30
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fantastic in plastic posted:For less formal mentoring, I'd figure out what skills the person would need to demonstrate to me in order to prove they're ready for prime time. Then, I'd find tasks to give them that, during the course of accomplishing, they would have to practice those skills. Then I'd determine what a reasonable schedule would be to learn everything, and present that to management (if necessary, so that everyone can be informed of how I was proceeding with the mentoring and to confirm that my plan isn't working at cross purposes with the organization). In this case I would be upfront with the mentee about the goals and schedule, since I would be worried that they would feel overwhelmed by being lost in a strange codebase and wouldn't know how to focus their learning. This definitely sounds good. The trick is finding tasks that are approachable and self-contained, because like you said, I don't want them feeling overwhelmed. I guess that's a skill for me to practice. vonnegutt posted:The best mentoring I ever got was a frequent pairing partner. As a junior I always felt like I was bothering someone so it was nice to have an older coder offer to pair. Got me up to speed on the codebase way faster than I would've on my own and (according to them) actually helped them work a little better, too, as they basically had a permanent rubber duck. Right, my big concern is that they'll just keep to themselves and quietly fail because they don't want to bother anyone "more important". But on the other hand I don't want to be intrusive either. IMO for pair programming the less senior developer should be the typist and should always get first crack at any implementation (after discussing approaches of course). Then the more senior dev can point out cleaner approaches if necessary. leper khan posted:Do you do code reviews? If so, you can also pull them in to ‘review’ some of your code that does something you’d like them to see.
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Feb 8, 2018 04:01
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Thermopyle posted:I really wish I could use a standing desk, but after trying a bunch of stuff it just hurts my back too much. You're doing the right thing to work on your core a bit and strengthen your abdomen / torso. That takes a lot of stress off your back. You don't even have to do that much, even 5-10 minutes in the morning evening does a lot. What sucks is even just ~20lbs extra on your frame can cause havoc on your back - I can speak from experience.
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