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Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


anatoliy pltkrvkay posted:

life is suffering and we are all trapped in samsara.

so yes.

if life is suffering and reality is cyclical why not break the cycle and reduce it all to nothing

#YawningAbyss2020

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

comfortable is a lot more achievable than happy

i have learned this :smith:

i miss my friends. i want more cats. and a gf


that is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die

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Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


palate cleanser

https://twitter.com/Shpigford/status/994583740943929346

https://twitter.com/duretti/status/995070687516680192

https://twitter.com/alicegoldfuss/status/994971564868190209

https://twitter.com/fembotswana/status/995246312491597825

never trust the boss man

Hed
Mar 31, 2004

Fun Shoe

Progressive JPEG posted:

those engineers should've lost their stamps for this!

ADINSX
Sep 9, 2003

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

Pollyanna posted:

never trust the boss man

"Serial Founders" are just the worst in my experience. The early years of a company are basically fake it to you make it: lie, embellish, whatever you gotta do to convince the world that you and your two friends really are the market leader in dog boner analytics or whatever your business is. Then once you sucker some early customers or VC money you could (in theory) develop a real product.

Serial founders are either bad at this, or enjoy the process of lying so much they make it a full time job. Neither one is good.

TimWinter
Mar 30, 2015

https://timsthebomb.com

Both of these things are simultaneously true.

Except for the conspiracy part. Overt conspiring with competitors to keep pay low is mostly limited to big name incidents like the Apple / Google scandal. In general, it's more like an incidental game of prisoners dilemma than secret midnight agreements.

Mao Zedong Thot
Oct 16, 2008


ADINSX posted:

"Serial Founders" are just the worst in my experience. The early years of a company are basically fake it to you make it: lie, embellish, whatever you gotta do to convince the world that you and your two friends really are the market leader in dog boner analytics or whatever your business is. Then once you sucker some early customers or VC money you could (in theory) develop a real product.

Serial founders are either bad at this, or enjoy the process of lying so much they make it a full time job. Neither one is good.

Extremely true

Notorious b.s.d.
Jan 25, 2003

by Reene

TimWinter posted:

Except for the conspiracy part. Overt conspiring with competitors to keep pay low is mostly limited to big name incidents like the Apple / Google scandal. In general, it's more like an incidental game of prisoners dilemma than secret midnight agreements.

it's just a normal business practice to pay women less

changing jobs more often means more raises, at the expense of a checkered resume and less impressive projects

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

it's just a normal business practice to pay women less

changing jobs more often means more raises, at the expense of a checkered resume and less impressive projects

you can't eat and live in impressive resumes tho

Notorious b.s.d.
Jan 25, 2003

by Reene

Boiled Water posted:

you can't eat and live in impressive resumes tho

no it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation

switching jobs frequently more closely aligns your pay with the market, but it can damage your career development.

if you have no chance of getting a fair shake on raises then you are pretty well screwed either way

fritz
Jul 26, 2003

TimWinter posted:

Except for the conspiracy part.

the conspiracy is patriarchy

fritz
Jul 26, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

if life is suffering and reality is cyclical why not break the cycle and reduce it all to nothing

Creations are numberless, I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them.
Reality is boundless, I vow to perceive it.
The awakened way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it.

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

no it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation

switching jobs frequently more closely aligns your pay with the market, but it can damage your career development.

if you have no chance of getting a fair shake on raises then you are pretty well screwed either way

:smith:

qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Tbh though if you've really got the plot, the new employer will catch on soon enough. The opposite side of the bed is an employer views you as too dogmatised to a company you spent say ten years with. I don't think switching companies is a big deal as long as it's not every couple of years and you stay focused on what you're good at and don't try to do everything.

TimWinter
Mar 30, 2015

https://timsthebomb.com

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

it's just a normal business practice to pay women less

I can't tell if this is sarcasm but there's no need for it to be. In my (limited) experience women get significantly more bullied around on salary than men, without the need for a conspiracy behind it.

Space Whale
Nov 6, 2014
Salary bullying is terrible but it seems to be a good way to know how a maybe employer will think of you.

That said do employers ever not act like shitheads then want you to commit to them?

Holy poo poo

Fiedler
Jun 29, 2002

I, for one, welcome our new mouse overlords.

Space Whale posted:

do employers ever not act like shitheads

nope.

Space Whale
Nov 6, 2014
So it's a matter of how they treat you once you negotiate?

Meh

Progressive JPEG
Feb 19, 2003

ADINSX posted:

"Serial Founders" are just the worst in my experience. The early years of a company are basically fake it to you make it: lie, embellish, whatever you gotta do to convince the world that you and your two friends really are the market leader in dog boner analytics or whatever your business is.

i wondered what 'pugspot' might be

Notorious b.s.d.
Jan 25, 2003

by Reene

TimWinter posted:

I can't tell if this is sarcasm but there's no need for it to be. In my (limited) experience women get significantly more bullied around on salary than men, without the need for a conspiracy behind it.

not even a hint of sarcasm

The MUMPSorceress
Jan 6, 2012


^SHTPSTS

Gary’s Answer

TimWinter posted:

I can't tell if this is sarcasm but there's no need for it to be. In my (limited) experience women get significantly more bullied around on salary than men, without the need for a conspiracy behind it.

Your posting makes me like qhat more.

ThePeavstenator
Dec 18, 2012

:burger::burger::burger::burger::burger:

Establish the Buns

:burger::burger::burger::burger::burger:
help I'm getting an intern how do find the happy medium between micromanaging and explaining everything down to where the power button on the computer is vs leaving them to the wolves

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


fritz posted:

Creations are numberless, I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them.
Reality is boundless, I vow to perceive it.
The awakened way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it.

Tao called Tao is not Tao.
Names can name no lasting name.
Nameless: the origin of heaven and earth.
Naming: the mother of ten thousand things.
Empty of desire, perceive mystery.
Filled with desire, perceive manifestations.
These have the same source, but different names.
Call them both deep - deep and again deep:
The gateway to all mystery.

ThePeavstenator
Dec 18, 2012

:burger::burger::burger::burger::burger:

Establish the Buns

:burger::burger::burger::burger::burger:
Background:

I'm pretty young and the intern goes to the same school I went to so I have a pretty good idea of where they're at in the curriculum, even if it's probably changed a little by now. The team I'm on is working on a new product that's a globally-distributed platform built on top of microservices so I'm thinking that teaching the new intern about some of the architectural decisions we've made and why we made them is a good place to start.

They probably don't know a lick of C# but they know Java so I'm not worried about them being unable to even start writing code. I could teach them about some C# features like Linq, or maybe details about the CLR and JIT.

TimWinter
Mar 30, 2015

https://timsthebomb.com

jit bull transpile posted:

Your posting makes me like qhat more.

Heh, in this particular instance I'm talking about how my wife was successfully promoted to a position to replace someone who was paid 50% more, and myself witnessing the subsequent year and a half of amazingly underhanded bullying and dodging of salary discussions. I haven't seen anything like this at my current workplace, but there aren't many women employees in any of the teams I've been in (a different problem that the company has been trying to address, albeit with mixed results).

TimWinter
Mar 30, 2015

https://timsthebomb.com

ThePeavstenator posted:

help I'm getting an intern how do find the happy medium between micromanaging and explaining everything down to where the power button on the computer is vs leaving them to the wolves

I've found that just planning for the latter is a good move.

Ellie Crabcakes
Feb 1, 2008

Stop emailing my boyfriend Gay Crungus

ThePeavstenator posted:

help I'm getting an intern how do find the happy medium between micromanaging and explaining everything down to where the power button on the computer is vs leaving them to the wolves

Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine

Jimmy Carter
Nov 3, 2005

THIS MOTHERDUCKER
FLIES IN STYLE

ThePeavstenator posted:

help I'm getting an intern how do find the happy medium between micromanaging and explaining everything down to where the power button on the computer is vs leaving them to the wolves

congrats you get to learn how to be a manager without having any real complications of you failing at being a manager because hey they're just an intern

MononcQc
May 29, 2007

ThePeavstenator posted:

help I'm getting an intern how do find the happy medium between micromanaging and explaining everything down to where the power button on the computer is vs leaving them to the wolves

0. Have a chat with them to see where they're at, learn to know them a little bit, see what gaps there may be in their knowledge.

1. set expectations on the kind of work they'll be doing. High level objectives of what you'd consider them to be demonstrating good progress over time. Is it okay for them to ask questions, and if they do, will you think less of them as an intern (the answer should be no, especially not early on; as time goes you may expect them to be a bit more self-directed but it's okay to feel lost at first). When is it okay to ask questions and interrupt you? What kind of work they might be doing, and so on.

2. ask them whether they have expectations, what they'd like to learn or push into. It's possible you'll get a shy answer like "well I don't know" or they may be stumped because what you had in mind for them isn't what they thought they'd be doing. It's possibly a good point to get that clear with them, see if there's any common ground

3. tell them about the tools you usually use, any standards you may have in code or procedures, and give them a tour of the tools. If you have relevant docs, send them links, and make sure they'll have time to get through a bit of them. Present them to the team so they're not afraid to talk to other people either even if you're their main point of contact

At any step, let them ask questions or discuss things. If you find out you all develop on platforms they're not familiar with, you'll have to adjust your expectations and provide a different amount of guidance.

If there's areas where they don't necessarily know stuff, you can probably show them the basics and broad lines, and then give references to more advanced docs if they need it.

Really, talk to them, keep objectives and expectations clear, and also make it explicit that you want to help them succeed. Let them get comfortable with that kind of relationship and it might become a lot simpler to answer their specific needs rather than trying to balance more abstract concepts like over- and under-managing or explaining.

qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Welp just spent 3 hours on leetcode trying to come up with a good algorithm for validating a binary tree, managed it, then checked other people's solutions and realised I could've just done in order traversal and checked the current value against the previous. I guess I'll be putting off that Amazon assessment for another day.

FamDav
Mar 29, 2008

qhat posted:

Welp just spent 3 hours on leetcode trying to come up with a good algorithm for validating a binary tree, managed it, then checked other people's solutions and realised I could've just done in order traversal and checked the current value against the previous. I guess I'll be putting off that Amazon assessment for another day.

three hours does seem long

my favorite way for validating a bst is you start at the root with a clopen range [-inf,inf), verify that the root is in the range, then split the range by the root for the left and right nodes respectively and recurse

Space Whale
Nov 6, 2014

FamDav posted:

three hours does seem long

my favorite way for validating a bst is you start at the root with a clopen range [-inf,inf), verify that the root is in the range, then split the range by the root for the left and right nodes respectively and recurse

How often is remembering in-order traversal and validation truly useful. Or what you suggested useful?

I've literally never done anything with trees directly, just used collections that used them to do things like make it easy to search or get highest/lowest from a set. Databases have Trees but I don't interface with them directly. :shrug:

As far as codefights type poo poo finding the kth lowest was fun/interesting but nothing I've ever really done. Hell the one time I was playing with resorting a sorted or mostly storted list vs using heaps it was faster to do it the former way in practice :q:

Sapozhnik
Jan 2, 2005

Nap Ghost
Not that I want to turn this into a freestyle shoelace-tying contest but

https://ghostbin.com/paste/bdzdu

am I missing something here? :confused:

Though speaking of cycles poo poo you'll never ever have to deal with in practice, loving tortoise and hare is something that literally never gets used outside of programming interviews. You end up with a linked list that may or may not be circular and you break out the memory debugger son cuz you really hosed up somewhere.

qhat
Jul 6, 2015


FamDav posted:

three hours does seem long

my favorite way for validating a bst is you start at the root with a clopen range [-inf,inf), verify that the root is in the range, then split the range by the root for the left and right nodes respectively and recurse

I literally never do this poo poo. And even when I do (only for interviews) I forget it in a few months because I never do it (on the job).

qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Sapozhnik posted:

Not that I want to turn this into a freestyle shoelace-tying contest but

https://ghostbin.com/paste/bdzdu

am I missing something here? :confused:

Though speaking of cycles poo poo you'll never ever have to deal with in practice, loving tortoise and hare is something that literally never gets used outside of programming interviews. You end up with a linked list that may or may not be circular and you break out the memory debugger son cuz you really hosed up somewhere.

You are missing something btw. This is the naive solution which is also incorrect. The root node has to be sure that every single node on the right (for example) is greater than itself. Your algorithm will report true on a right subtree even if the minimum value for the subtree is less than the root node.

The Leck
Feb 27, 2001

i saw a twitter post a little while back about questions to ask at startups for people who have only worked at large companies. i'm talking to a company that's much smaller than anywhere that i've worked so far and was wondering if anyone had opinions on these questions or anything else they would make sure to ask. source below, but copied and pasted because twitter sucks for this kind of thing.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jensenharris/status/988967889330819072

tl;dr version:

quote:

1) How much money does the company have in the bank?
2) Tell me about a time the founders disagreed. What happened?
3) What is the role of the company’s board of directors?
4) Tell me about the changes you’ve experienced at the company over the last year.

quote:


When you're leaving a big company to interview at a startup, there are some hidden questions you might not know to ask.

Not all startup jobs are created equal; without the right info, you could make a bad choice.

Here are 4 questions you should ask in a startup interview loop:


1) How much money does the company have in the bank?

OK, yes: this sounds super crass... an embarrassingly direct question. But it is also incredibly crucial, because without this info, you have no idea what kind of situation you are potentially walking into.
You would never ask this question at a megacorp because, well, the answer is usually "infinite money." The cash position of a public company is also usually freely available. Besides, you probably wouldn't be talking to someone who could give you a direct answer anyway! 🤑
But at a startup, everything is impacted by money. For example:

* How free is the company to build towards its vision?
* How likely is the leadership to make desperate/rash decisions?
* Will you have access to the resources you need to do a good job?
There are lots of less-gosh ways to ask this question, like: "how strong is the company's financial position?"

And be prepared, the answer might sound more like "here's what % of our Series B is still in the bank" or "here's how many more months of runway we have." These are ok!
But by not asking, you have no idea what you are signing up for.

And if a founder/senior member of the team isn't willing to give you *some sort of answer here*, that is a big red flag. They may be hiding something you won't find out about until you start work.


2) Tell me about a time the founders disagreed. What happened?

In any startup with multiple founders (most of them!) the founder working relationship can make or break the company. If it is wonderful, the company may thrive whereas if it is toxic, nothing can save it.
Notice the phrasing of the question. As a candidate, just like as an interviewer, you must practice behavioral interviewing.

Don't ask "how do the founders handle disagreement?" Any smart person can answer that well: “They talk, hear each other's perspectives, and work it out!”
Instead ask the question the behavioral way: "Tell me about a time..." This forces the answer to be specific and real.

Founders always have some disagreement; if they own that and show they know how to handle it, it is a powerful positive signal about the company.
Note: Be especially wary if you are interviewing with a founder and they repeatedly answer your specific questions about this by taking the topic back into the abstract.

This could show that they are not transparent, not self-aware, deceitful, or all three.


3) What is the role of the company’s board of directors?

I'll be honest. During the 16 years I worked at Microsoft, I am not sure I could have named anyone on the board. Bill Gates? The Netflix guy? 🤷🏼‍♂️

It just wasn't in any way germane to the day-to-day of working there.
In a startup, however, the company's relationship with its board could have a huge impact on whether you want to work there.

If you are talking to a founder or senior exec, look for words of alignment and respect. Not snark or 🙄 or "ugh, the board, don't get me started.”
If interviewing with a more junior employee, a great answer might well be "No idea, I’ve only seen them in the office once.”

A board that is out of the way operationally, helping behind-the-scenes but not interfering, is a good sign that there's a healthy relationship there.
Fun story: I once interviewed for a senior job at a tech startup. I went with the CEO to meet the board for a last round of interviews.

The first board member got me into a room and started with: "Hi! FYI. you can't tell him, but we are firing the CEO." AWKWARD. Um, kthxbye. 🛫


4) Tell me about the changes you’ve experienced at the company over the last year.

A big company is pretty much the same year after year. Working there in 2017 is the same as working there in 2018.

The best startups, on the other hand, are growing, changing, strengthening.
The single best way to predict the future is by analyzing the past.

And so by asking your interviewer not "where do you expect to be in a year" but "what have you experienced in the last year", you get a window into what the actual the pace of growth is at the company.
A great, thoughtful answer about the ways the company is growing is a huge plus. A positive is often: "wow, I can't believe how much we've done/grown/changed/built when I think about it."

A worrisome answer is "honestly, it's about the same." When startups stagnate, they die.
Hear the stories about what the last 12 months were like, and use that to gauge whether it would be an exciting place to spend your next few years.

Companies that are thoughtfully growing employ people with a strong growth mindset, creating an amazing place to learn and build.
Last thing: Don't be afraid to ask these things. 💪🏼 You have the right to ask direct questions in your interview. As a founder, I relish being able to share info about our company.

If you get vague answers/hostility, especially from senior people, this is a bad sign. Run away!
Startup interviews require you to probe differently than megacorp interviews. This is a good thing! What you learn will help you find the place that's a strong match for you.

Be prepared to ask the right questions, and you'll be one step closer to landing your dream startup job.

TimWinter
Mar 30, 2015

https://timsthebomb.com
Good enough to add to the OP.

I've been trying to push my company in the direction of having better answers to "The Questions" that are already there- they're good guidelines for a healthy organization, and startups have a notable, additional set potential pitfalls.

Notorious b.s.d.
Jan 25, 2003

by Reene
just don't work at startups unless you have no other choice

the pay will be lower than corporate america, the benefits will be crappier, the options are a crapshoot at best, leadership is invariably troubled, and startup business cultures are often toxic

startups are bad places to work

edit: the only reason i would ever advise anyone to consider working at a startup is that they are trying to dip their toe in the field, and they're starting from behind. e.g. someone coming in from another industry, or a fresh grad who hosed up and didn't get any internships

startups are less picky about hiring, and they'll take a chance on a marginal or even flat-out bad candidate

Notorious b.s.d. fucked around with this message at 20:06 on May 14, 2018

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Notorious b.s.d. posted:

startups are less picky about hiring, and they'll take a chance on a marginal or even flat-out bad candidate

I'm currently working at a startup.

This is probably why :v:

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qhat
Jul 6, 2015


Not forgetting that the SDLC at startups very often sucks rear end completely.

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