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freeasinbeer
Mar 26, 2015

by Fluffdaddy

Pollyanna posted:

im considering learning SRE work which is apparently a bunch of linux work and containers n poo poo, but i always learn on the job so you need a job to get good enough for a job and aaaaaaaaaaaa

SRE stuff isn’t a mystery. it’s what I do, reach out if you want some things to read or tech to play with.

basically read the Phoenix project and play with kubernetes.

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hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

Fiedler posted:

Experience is knowledge plus cynicism.

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

Kudaros posted:

I learned a lot about dealing with people and sniffing out bullshit that year. I also learned that my pessimism was a reflection of reality -- 95% + companies talking about graphene, nanotubes, nano needles, are bullshit vaporware that will never come to fruition.

this is 95% of everything else too fyi

in regards to presenting - it’s truly amazing how terrible most engineers are at it

Coffee Jones
Jul 4, 2004

16 bit? Back when we was kids we only got a single bit on Christmas, as a treat
And we had to share it!

Gazpacho posted:

experience is the currency of the job market. if you don't wave your experience around, what else have you got?

:maga:
but srusly tho

MS has their recognized community leads program called MVPs,
monocqc would probably be that for the Erlang world if they had such a thing
Major contributors for commonly used OSS projects also have that recognition.

but that’s like 0.01% of devs

hobbesmaster posted:

in regards to presenting - it’s truly amazing how terrible most engineers are at it

low hanging fruit, as far as differentiation from the crowd

I should be presenting poo poo at meetups :frogbon:

Coffee Jones fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Feb 21, 2018

Jimmy Carter
Nov 3, 2005

THIS MOTHERDUCKER
FLIES IN STYLE
oh gently caress yeah, just found that my company has a Safari Books Online corporate account that I can just sign up for and use to cram Agile buzzwords.

freeasinbeer
Mar 26, 2015

by Fluffdaddy
ugh. starting a new job search because of changes coming down the pike that present a less then compelling future if I stick around. turns out a team at my corporation is hiring and would be a perfect fit, but I can’t move because of internal issues that would arise.

Hed
Mar 31, 2004

Fun Shoe

Flat Daddy posted:

Agreeing with the I hate working post.

Am I an idiot for reading indiehackers.com day dreaming about bootstrapping my own retarded B2B SaaS app? Has anyone in this forum done this

Never seen that site but I am strongly considering doing just that.
IF I can get past the proposal point, next goal will be avoiding the trap of going crazy if I'm going to be the one doing development work (I'm an EE and the software domains I need to tie everything together are learnable but not my forte) until I can bring on some other people to help shore that part up.

Mao Zedong Thot
Oct 16, 2008


february is the best month cause i make the most money per hour

Shaman Linavi
Apr 3, 2012

crs: redoing my resume to put more emphasis on my personal programming garbage since i haven't been gainfully employed as a software toucher for years
kill me

also wtb resume advice, i can pay in wow tokens

Double Bill
Jan 29, 2006

Shaman Linavi posted:

crs: redoing my resume to put more emphasis on my personal programming garbage since i haven't been gainfully employed as a software toucher for years
kill me

also wtb resume advice, i can pay in wow tokens

no one reads past the first page, make it count

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


cjss: im tired

4lokos basilisk
Jul 17, 2008


Pollyanna posted:

cjss: im tired

:same:

Star War Sex Parrot
Oct 2, 2003

God drat why do companies always recruit the hardest during the busiest part of the semester? I’ve got projects, midterms, research, and finding 4 hours in my week to knock out some of these phone screens is loving impossible

Two weeks ago would have been fine

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

God drat why do companies always recruit the hardest during the busiest part of the semester? I’ve got projects, midterms, research, and finding 4 hours in my week to knock out some of these phone screens is loving impossible

Two weeks ago would have been fine

vacations Christmas or summer wreck havoc on making decisions in companies. the bigger the company with more stakeholders the longer it takes to get anything, including hiring, done

qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Phone screens meh. At least they're not asking you to dedicate multiple hours a pop to write a homework project.

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

qhat posted:

Phone screens meh. At least they're not asking you to dedicate multiple hours a pop to write a homework project.

try a week

gently caress you English company in the middle of nowhere you’re not that important

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

God drat why do companies always recruit the hardest during the busiest part of the semester? I’ve got projects, midterms, research, and finding 4 hours in my week to knock out some of these phone screens is loving impossible

Two weeks ago would have been fine

will vary by company of course, but: january was tallying everything from last year, early february was finalizing the budget for this year. its now late february so teams actually know that they 100% have the budget to hire someone right now

in the fall its "we have an open slot until the end of the year, we might lose it next year if we don't get anyone"

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


how much stock should i put in glassdoor reviews e.g. https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/athenahealth-Reviews-E18207.htm it seems like theyre biased towards people unhappy with the company? but then again they have good information in them like that one review where the company called african american employees "AMFAMs" which is kinda weird

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


also if a company had big layoffs recently is that something i should bring up in an initial phone convo? or is it one of those too-awkward-to-talk-about things and i should learn about it somewhere else?

Gazpacho
Jun 18, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Slippery Tilde
no that is not appropriate for an initial contact. by definition layoffs are not subject to being refilled, your concern is not being hired into a downsized team but rather having a dependency on one

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Gazpacho posted:

no that is not appropriate for an initial contact. by definition layoffs are not subject to being refilled, your concern is not being hired into a downsized team but rather having a dependency on one

so i should be concerned not that they laid off a bunch of random people already, but that they laid off people fronting the project/team im working on or are gearing up to do so? is there a way to see that happening before i get hired?

hobbesmaster
Jan 28, 2008

Pollyanna posted:

so i should be concerned not that they laid off a bunch of random people already, but that they laid off people fronting the project/team im working on or are gearing up to do so? is there a way to see that happening before i get hired?

can you find out what the layoffs were? for example the layoffs could be sales or marketing people working with product_1 when you're in engineering making product_2.

ADINSX
Sep 9, 2003

Wanna run with my crew huh? Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?

Pollyanna posted:

how much stock should i put in glassdoor reviews e.g. https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/athenahealth-Reviews-E18207.htm it seems like theyre biased towards people unhappy with the company? but then again they have good information in them like that one review where the company called african american employees "AMFAMs" which is kinda weird

The only useful reviews on glassdoor are the negative ones, unless you really care what the HR plants have to say in their 5 star reviews (negatives? Sometimes we move TOO QUICK)


edit: for reference the lovely contracting company I used to work for had a higher review than this, 3.2 is pretty bad...

Gazpacho
Jun 18, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Slippery Tilde
in an on-site interview you can ask what parts of the company were affected by the layoffs, and whether they include teams that the hiring team has to interact with regularly

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


hobbesmaster posted:

can you find out what the layoffs were? for example the layoffs could be sales or marketing people working with product_1 when you're in engineering making product_2.

"redundant positions and middle management", including a place in atlanta

which still annoys me because a company should have loyalty to its workers over its profits but thats the socialist in me. anyway it doesnt seem engineering related

ADINSX
Sep 9, 2003

Wanna run with my crew huh? Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?

Pollyanna posted:

which still annoys me because a company should have loyalty to its workers over its profits

ahahaha

Arcsech
Aug 5, 2008

Pollyanna posted:

how much stock should i put in glassdoor reviews e.g. https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/athenahealth-Reviews-E18207.htm it seems like theyre biased towards people unhappy with the company? but then again they have good information in them like that one review where the company called african american employees "AMFAMs" which is kinda weird

they can be useful but take them with a grain of salt. any issue you see repeatedly is likely to be more or less true, newer reviews are more helpful than older ones, and always keep in mind that big companies can be effectively many different companies under the same name, so look out for the locations and titles given in the review and pay particular attention to the ones where you're likely to work. for example, at my employer, my office is pretty different than the corporate hq, and the problems are therefore different. alternatively, different parts of the org may be good: I've seen one where it was really obvious that the sales org was a complete tire fire but engineering was pretty ok.

also you can see if you can get at some of the stuff mentioned in the reviews indirectly. for example, I have this post saved from someone here (tef maybe? I didn't note the poster, oops) that gives some pretty good examples of the type of language you'd use to do this:

quote:

questions to ask your interviewer
- who do you work with on a daily basis / describe the day to day role

translation : are you working with a well-defined team that puts out consistent work or is this place a clusterfuck with people coming and going on a weekly basis because management is incompetent

- how are decisions made / how will [team] be asked to accomplish things / who makes those decisions

translation: are the people making decisions that impact your work accountable to you / your team and do you have the ability to influence them or are they dictated from on high or even worse forced upon you by a hostile entity

- what are the company's primary values? what characteristics are you looking for in a candidate in relation to those primary values?

translation: if they say 'uhhhhhhhhhh' here it's a red flag. if they throw gibberish at you it's not a red flag but it's not a good look either. this should get a human bean answer

- what would be expected of me for the first / three / six months? What will success look like in this position, how will it be measured?

translation: same as the last one.

- what sort of training/mentoring/career dev things are here

translation: they should also be able to answer this without thinking. if they hesitate or bullshit you it's a red flag

- what's the most impressive thing you've seen out of someone else you've interviewed recently

translation: what qualities are people here impressed with. what caliber of candidates are you also considering.

- What do you see as the most challenging aspect of this job?

translation: every job has some bullshit aspect to it. this is their chance to lay it on softly and your chance to decide if it's a particular brand of bullshit you can put up with

- how do you set milestones/deliverables for projects and how does your team react when it's clear they won't be met

translation: are you going to work me like a slave when we don't hit the deadline we never agreed to

- when was the last time you took pto / how much did you take / what did you do

translation: without fail lovely interviewers for lovely companies will try to deflect this one. if they try to say 'oh no don't worry about that' or respond with their actual pto policy just reiterate that they didn't answer your question. when was the last time YOU took pto

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.



yeah i know :sigh:

Arcsech posted:

they can be useful but take them with a grain of salt. any issue you see repeatedly is likely to be more or less true, newer reviews are more helpful than older ones, and always keep in mind that big companies can be effectively many different companies under the same name, so look out for the locations and titles given in the review and pay particular attention to the ones where you're likely to work. for example, at my employer, my office is pretty different than the corporate hq, and the problems are therefore different. alternatively, different parts of the org may be good: I've seen one where it was really obvious that the sales org was a complete tire fire but engineering was pretty ok.

also you can see if you can get at some of the stuff mentioned in the reviews indirectly. for example, I have this post saved from someone here (tef maybe? I didn't note the poster, oops) that gives some pretty good examples of the type of language you'd use to do this:

hell yeah i worked tef's questions into my phone screen boilerplate and it helps a LOT. anyway that sounds about right re: reviews, good point on company structure too. we'll see (if the guy ever actually responds to my proposed times for speaking :|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Captain Foo
May 11, 2004

we vibin'
we slidin'
we breathin'
we dyin'

Pollyanna posted:

which still annoys me because a company should have loyalty to its workers over its profits but thats the socialist in me. anyway it doesnt seem engineering related

jfc username post combo

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Captain Foo posted:

jfc username post combo

i like my name, it reminds me to be positive :)

The Leck
Feb 27, 2001

Pollyanna posted:

how much stock should i put in glassdoor reviews e.g. https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/athenahealth-Reviews-E18207.htm it seems like theyre biased towards people unhappy with the company? but then again they have good information in them like that one review where the company called african american employees "AMFAMs" which is kinda weird
check ur pms

Kudaros
Jun 23, 2006
Im going to change my name to cranky and cynical.

Star War Sex Parrot
Oct 2, 2003

NVIDIA at 6pm tomorrow and Apple at 5:30pm on Monday

My brains gonna be so fried before those

havent heard a peep
May 29, 2003

When Steve Jobs died it wasn't the first job I'd lost that week.
Linkedin is where I get whored out for another sales job right? Get me the gently caress out of Wisconsin or let me work from home. I have three months before dish Corp combusts.

Symbolic Butt
Mar 22, 2009

(_!_)
Buglord
I just did an online coding test and holy poo poo did I get wrecked. it was like 12 problems/questions in 1 hour, it killed me I'm dead

Double Bill
Jan 29, 2006

12 problems in 1 hour is fine, I regularly fix 96 bugs a day at work.

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Double Bill posted:

12 problems in 1 hour is fine, I regularly fix 96 bugs a day at work.

you gotta pump up those numbers

Mao Zedong Thot
Oct 16, 2008


Timed coding test is hella red flag

carry on then
Jul 10, 2010

by VideoGames

(and can't post for 10 years!)

Mao Zedong Thot posted:

Timed coding test is hella red flag

"you will be expected to meet unreasonable, unchangeable deadlines you never agreed to"

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qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Working at my current company has been a real eye opener, in the sense that every possible inefficiency a software firm can have exists. For example:

- Sales setting hard deadlines without any consultation because they oversold a product, and then blaming software for not delivering on time.
- QA overwhelmed because developers actively refuse to write unit tests, and then QA being blamed as a bottleneck in the release cycle.
- Infrastructure projects which should be high priority, such as CI and dependency management, never happen because it does not contribute directly to the fastest possible next release. Instead developers do stupid poo poo like checking binaries into git, using recursive submodules (this is just so inherently dumb it's not worth elaborating on), manually copying around binaries on disk just to get their project to build, etc.

All of these things honestly come down to incompetent management. I'll be making sure to ask questions related to these things next time I go for an interview.

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