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raminasi posted:
Wtf? That's some of the dumbest poo poo I've ever heard. Weirdly it sounds like you may have dodged a bullet of that's the sort of bizzaro idiotic stuff they do there.
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Aug 8, 2018 00:06
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but for me it wasn't a VP, it was some people I'd never met in a different state on a completely different team who didn't think the tone of the interview process recap I posted on their internal forums (mandatory step, it's a weird process) was a "communication style fit" for the company.
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Mega Comrade posted:Wtf? That's some of the dumbest poo poo I've ever heard. Weirdly it sounds like you may have dodged a bullet of that's the sort of bizzaro idiotic stuff they do there. Yeah that was definitely my sentiment (after I got over the initial disappointment, the place seemed cool until then).
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Aug 8, 2018 00:08
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raminasi posted:interview process recap I posted on their internal forums (mandatory step, it's a weird process) This is a good idea actually. raminasi posted:it was some people I'd never met in a different state on a completely different team who didn't think the tone of the interview process recap I posted on their internal forums (mandatory step, it's a weird process) was a "communication style fit" for the company. Bullet dodged.
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Aug 8, 2018 10:10
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When evaluating an offer that contains RSUs from a public company, how do you all tend to assign value to a potential equity/cash trade-off in either direction? One could simply assign the RSUs a cash value based on the stock price at the time of the offer but that's not quite right. Points for cash include easy liquidity, no dependence on company performance, and no cliffs / vesting schedules. The main point for RSUs would be that if the company does well you receive an automatic raise and if the stock goes down you can always bail and leave for another company.
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Aug 15, 2018 17:03
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opposable thumbs.db posted:When evaluating an offer that contains RSUs from a public company, how do you all tend to assign value to a potential equity/cash trade-off in either direction? One could simply assign the RSUs a cash value based on the stock price at the time of the offer but that's not quite right. Assuming that the vesting schedule is at least quarterly after the cliff, I treat them as equivalent to cash divided out by year so the norm would be dividing the grant by four to get yearly compensation. The company is public so they are liquid and I wouldn't be joining a company that I didn't think was going to do well. You get the benefit of leverage and the drawback of higher risk that is partially offset by the fact that you can leave if the stock crashes. Past performance of most public tech companies would indicate that the upside is generally much better than the downside, but yymv. I might rethink this if there was drastic differences but the offers I've had to compare are offering 30% to 40% equity so the difference between offers hasn't been that large. I'd personally lean towards equity but I seem to have a much higher risk tolerance than most and no issue switching jobs.
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Aug 15, 2018 17:22
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I mostly treat it the same as other compensation. It is more volatile than a salary, but if the stock tanks I'm probably going to be looking for other employment anyway. Unless it is the entire tech sector crashing in which case 
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Aug 15, 2018 17:33
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That's all fair. The examples I was talking through with the recruiter were in the range of 32-48% equity. With the numbers he gave me, equity had a 2.5x multiplier--giving up $10k in salary for $25k of RSUs each year ($100k over four). Given that and with quarterly vesting after the one year cliff, that part of the decision would be easy. As an aside, I really wish that I had left my current job before beginning this search. There's just only so much time in the day.
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Aug 15, 2018 17:59
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Xarn posted:This is a good idea actually. The weird part was that the “interview” was three days of (paid) onsite work with the team that I was interviewing for. Great for candidates who can spare the time, like I could, and completely impossible for everyone else.
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Aug 15, 2018 22:33
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My entire career has been me looking for jobs in postings or working with recruiters, applying, interviewing, working, and moving on for whatever reason. I've always had jobs through this method, but I always balanced the positions I was offered on their own merits and decided accordingly. Some offers I turned down after going through the process, some places I couldn't do the commute to and didn't pursue the job, other offers I tried to negotiate and didn't go with, and the ones I took were the ones I took. I'm in a job-search working group with a friend and some other people, with the objective being that we go through our networks, expand them, and try to work our way to get into introductions with hiring managers for the places we'd love to work, and asking their thoughts about the companies, their departments, etc. The logic here is that if there's ever a position being considered, you might stand out in their minds and get the heads-up, or you at least have a network in place for a referral if you don't have that direct contact. What I've never really faced - and this is going to sound pretty goonish - is looking for a job that I would like to do. I've come up the IT food chain and am a senior sysadmin. I've got a pretty strong array of Microsoft certs with a VMware Certified Professional cert (expired, but I can hit the books and get the newer version) and lots of experience. I interview well. I think I can do the networking thing with the help of the group. But the thing here is that I have no jobs or companies that I'd really love to work for. What I've done recently was just go geographically - I live in northern NJ and presently work in Manhattan, so I tried going down the tenant lists of a few buildings near commute hubs, but all that produced was long-rear end lists that I then have to figure out if they even have an IT infrastructure worth needing an engineer or senior sysadmin. Then I gotta see if I know people, or reach out through the network, etc. I had this in A/T and got referred to this thread, so let me know if this is more BFC-related. What methodology should I use to look for a job I'd love? As far as I can tell, I'm best set at looking through Inc's list of top companies to work for (or other media organizations) and then cross-checking their Glassdoor pages for the NYC area to get an idea. I'd take Glassdoor with a grain of salt, whether positive or negative, but I am fully open to ideas and suggestions on how to conduct this search.
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Aug 17, 2018 19:30
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MJP posted:What methodology should I use to look for a job I'd love? As far as I can tell, I'm best set at looking through Inc's list of top companies to work for (or other media organizations) and then cross-checking their Glassdoor pages for the NYC area to get an idea. I'd take Glassdoor with a grain of salt, whether positive or negative, but I am fully open to ideas and suggestions on how to conduct this search. Since you're looking to work as a sysadmin, I'm guessing that you don't expect to be inherently interested in the product of the company, and just want a culture that you appreciate and to feel like you can be proud of what's being done by proxy. You may also try for different technical roles if you're willing to go down the pay grade temporarily and you can do the work. Interviews are basically a way to find out for free. If you relocate to somewhere like North Carolina the cost of living will help you out too. It's hard to think "what do I like?" about anything and get an answer, because our brains work on association, and GOOD is spread too thin to trigger what you do like. You could try looking at a big company like Google or Apple or Toyota and look at all the different things they do, which they explain in blog posts, and let those things inspire associations to what you do like, and then you will have some keywords. This blog mentions games, wildlife, blood donations, public transit, and food on the front page. Now you can think about whether you'd want to find organizations or companies that work with any of those things, or if they remind you of something else. I hope that helps you get started.
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Aug 17, 2018 20:01
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Stinky_Pete posted:Since you're looking to work as a sysadmin, I'm guessing that you don't expect to be inherently interested in the product of the company, and just want a culture that you appreciate and to feel like you can be proud of what's being done by proxy. You may also try for different technical roles if you're willing to go down the pay grade temporarily and you can do the work. Interviews are basically a way to find out for free. If you relocate to somewhere like North Carolina the cost of living will help you out too. Relocation is 100% not happening - Jersey pride, babyyyyyy (but we also have a house here, and all our family and friends are here). You're right in that I don't really have an attachment to a particular industry or product. I guess that what you're describing is good if I know of a company, but these days the only reason I'd be looking at a company is if I get a search agent match for a position. I'd be OK taking a title change back down from Senior Sysadmin to just Sysadmin. I want to do the technical work I used to do before all the crap happened at my current job. Titles are meaningless in the end anyway. How does one find companies worth feeling good about? Just go down all the top-companies-to-work-for list and whatnot?
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Aug 17, 2018 20:33
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MJP posted:Relocation is 100% not happening - Jersey pride, babyyyyyy (but we also have a house here, and all our family and friends are here). I mean, looking at what the business does or things like commute distance is probably a good place to start. I think on some level figuring out what you like in an environment, what you dislike, and figuring externalities like "where I live" and "how much do I need to be paid to continue my current lifestyle". Frankly, so much of that is hidden until you start the interview or negotiation process you probably won't be able to just apply an algorithm to search listings. I tend to think of finding a new job to be a lot like dating. It's messy and confusing and sucks for the most part. But, there are things you can do to help filter at least. Figuring out your red flags or things that make you hard pass is probably the best place to start. Like, for example, is there a work process you absolutely hate? Make sure to ask about that at the interview. Do you want to work in an established business or are you looking for something smaller where you might have to work a little harder but have a bigger impact on things? BuiltIn<place> is a site I used pretty extensively in my last job search. Like, when you decide to look for a new job, there is probably some aspect of your current employer that you dislike. Maybe the quick answer there is to find a way to change that at your workplace. If that seems impossible though, find a way to filter against that in the search. I don't think there is really a quick cure-all for figuring that out in the job application process. Maybe just find some sources you trust to talk about the current status of the company, submit an application if you have a decent feeling, and then trust your gut when the interview rolls around. For me, if there is even remotely any big scheduling shenanigans (like say, if your phone screen gets rescheduled the morning of) or major pain points in the interview process outside of the actual interview (like say, no recommendations on a place to park or how to best get to the office) I feel like that's usually a good point to go "no thanks". If a company misses details like that when they are external facing, the internal mechanics are also probably bad.
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Aug 18, 2018 07:49
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So, it's likely time for me to move on from my current position. Nothing personal; I'm paid well and like the people I work with, but there's been some questionable decisions and I'm skeptical that things will get better in those respects. C'est la vie. I'm getting a bunch of bites for data engineering jobs. I do a lot of general data pipeline work (and as a machine learning guy, I have a reasonable understanding of what data scientists and analysts might want/need), but I expect I could have a stronger background in various ETL processes, rather than just winging it. Anyone have any good articles/videos to prep me for some of the problems I might encounter? I expect to be asked about SQL, various NoSQL databases (I do have some solid background in databases, though my SQL could be sharper), Hadoop, and streaming logs, but I don't have a grasp of the big picture, or of where I might have lacunae in my knowledge. A book would be fine too. Ghost of Reagan Past fucked around with this message at 01:36 on Aug 21, 2018 |
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Aug 21, 2018 01:23
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LinkedIn messages from recruiters are at least good for comedy:quote:How are you doing today? Your background looks very impressive. Are you currently considering Junior Software opportunities in NYC at this time? Must have 1-5 years of experience. A financial services company is hiring. (And it's weird for firms to use recruiters for junior positions, right? That seems like a sign of a place no one wants to apply to.)
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Aug 31, 2018 01:12
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ultrafilter posted:(And it's weird for firms to use recruiters for junior positions, right? That seems like a sign of a place no one wants to apply to.) There's nothing saying the firm engaged the recruiter. The recruiter could have independently caught wind of the position and is trying to represent you in exchange for the finder's fee.
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Aug 31, 2018 04:14
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So I'm pretty happy in my current job, feel well paid, etc., and have been there about 10 months. It's an established and growing company of about 150 people. A guy I've worked with in the past contacted me maybe a month ago, telling me he and a cofounder have a startup, and are looking for someone to lead software development. The founders are domain experts, not coders. I told them I wasn't interested because I have a good thing going right now, but I'd be happy to do some consulting for them to help them get rolling. Anyway, I did that, and apparently their board really liked what they saw of what I did, and they're making one final push to get me to come on board as employee 1. I'd be the head software guy, and one of my first jobs would be to hire a team. They have 12-15 months of runway in the bank, a commitment for more from their investors when they need it, and their board has told them they want them to spend a year developing their platform before they worry about selling it. They've offered me a $10k bump in salary from what I make now, plus a bit over 1% equity. I'm actually really tempted, but
Am I crazy for thinking about taking this job?
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Sep 3, 2018 14:32
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Handsome Wife posted:I'm actually really tempted, but Have they ever sold a startup before? What's the founders' history w/r/t running a business (not just being domain experts)? I really enjoy working for startups. You get a lot of freedom to shape the codebase in a way you just can't at a larger company, and you get a lot of chances to stretch your skills. If you have a little cash in the bank and are pretty sure you can get another job, it's not particularly risky, especially since you know how much runway they have. It sounds like they have their poo poo together - but do you believe in the product?
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Sep 3, 2018 14:49
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I got the MIT Introduction to Algorithms book because so many interviews these day are bullshit algorithm programming questions. Some things: 1. I am enjoying reading this much more than I thought. 2. I really did get a lovely computer science education. Then again, I was a computer engineering major . . . 3. I'm not grinding through the math but I'm surprised this book hasn't murdered me yet. 4. I still don't know how much this would help me with bullshit programming problems. I'm just hoping a little fresh exposure will help me think of solutions that are not n-squared. I just finished up on heapsort after learning that the concept of a heap in regards to that algorithm is unrelated to the heap as we think of it in memory management. Whoops. Handsome Wife posted:Am I crazy for thinking about taking this job?
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Sep 3, 2018 18:01
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Handsome Wife posted:So I'm pretty happy in my current job, feel well paid, etc., and have been there about 10 months. It's an established and growing company of about 150 people. Several things here: 1. *knocks on wood* Software engineering as a core business competency isn't disappearing anytime soon, and experienced engineers will be needed EVEN more so IF there was a downturn in the market. 2. Boomerangs are definitely a thing. Don't burn any bridges with your current employer. If/when the startup putters out, you have an easy in back with the company. 3. If/when the startup putters out, having an early stage startup under your belt like that (even if failed) will look great on the resume and you'll learn a TON. 4. You will be wearing ALL of the hats, and be on call most of the time. I don't mean production support on call, I mean chatting/answering questions and being the tech-guy on calls/presentations/pitches. It won't just be "throw Handsome Wife into the corner to let them code 100% of the time". tl;dr go for it if you're willing to put the work in.
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Sep 4, 2018 00:27
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I just finished up on heapsort after learning that the concept of a heap in regards to that algorithm is unrelated to the heap as we think of it in memory management. Whoops. IIRC if you're storing your heap in an array in-memory (instead of a structure with pointers), it can look passably similar to a program memory heap.
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Sep 4, 2018 17:50
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Nah. It is just a naming collision. 
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Sep 4, 2018 18:07
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Handsome Wife posted:They've offered me a $10k bump in salary from what I make now, plus a bit over 1% equity. Do you understand how, at least in theory, equity slices of a startup grow up and turn into money? On each round, you're getting a thinner slice of a bigger pie, and the math should work for everyone. But it's good to be aware.
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Sep 4, 2018 18:11
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JawnV6 posted:I can't speak to the topics others have covered, but the 1% seems on the low end for employee #1. Beyond the founders, the first hires should be splitting about 10-15% of equity. I was employee #1 at a startup and negotiated for sub-market-rate salary and 2.5% equity. I was laid off because they ran out of money before my first year was up. Real salary + 1% is pretty okay, maybe a tad bit low for #1. I worked at a company that had a fixed offer (sliding scale) for employees 1-5: you could pick your preference from 90k+3% - 150k+0.25%, IMO it was a good balance
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Sep 4, 2018 18:14
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Mao Zedong Thot posted:Real salary + 1% is pretty okay, maybe a tad bit low for #1.
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Sep 4, 2018 18:19
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JawnV6 posted:I can't speak to the topics others have covered, but the 1% seems on the low end for employee #1. Beyond the founders, the first hires should be splitting about 10-15% of equity. I was employee #1 at a startup and negotiated for sub-market-rate salary and 2.5% equity. I was laid off because they ran out of money before my first year was up. Yeah, this is something I'm basically aware of. For context it's 1.25%, which I know is on the low end for employee #1. I'm probably already paid at least 10% above-market, and this would be a bump from that (much closer to the 150k end than the 90k end of the sliding scale mentioned above). I think the founders had a (correct) sense that I'd rather take lower equity rather than trading up with substantial salary drop.
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Sep 4, 2018 20:40
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I don't post in this thread often, but my company just had a big meeting today and I wanted to get some opinions / advice on what I'm doing with my career. A little background on the company: The government mandates that certain medical facilities follow a product my company developed. We do have competitors, but because we founded this product it cemented us as the experts on how other businesses use it. This has enabled us to maintain 80%+ of the market. Next year, the gov will no longer mandate our product. What this means is that we will no longer be the "experts" in the field, but rather just another vendor. (Currently, our customers have a few choices, but since we came up with the fundamental idea why would they go to anyone but us?) The CIO just called a meeting to asked if any of us were scared for next year or anything like that. He said he doesn't think we have any reason to be scared because we aren't *just* the experts but our software is the best in the business and we need to express that to our customers. That said, I've been with the company for 3 years and while I am mostly happy here I'm often very bored and have some concerns for my future. Pros: * Fairly relaxed, often not a ton of work to do * Excellent health insurance * The retirement contribution is 9% of the first $16K you make, then 12% of the rest of your salary. And that's not matching; they just give you that  * I get along really well with my coworkers Cons: * Sometimes the relaxed atmosphere makes it difficult for me to get motivated / focus * Very unfriendly towards working remotely (ie you better have a reason for it) * Our code quality could be described as OK at best, and "should be criminal" at worst. * I'm not learning anything here * No room for growth; my "team" is me (programmer), a DBA, and my boss who doesn't do any code work (his boss is the CIO) I've been pretty bored here for about a year now, but the list of Pros has kept me from looking for a better job. I don't think I could succeed in a role that would pay enough for me to continue to pad my retirement account like this company does, and I spend only a few bucks a month for excellent health coverage. I have 6 years of experience: * 1.5 years for a tiny company, working individually making custom desktop applications for local businesses * 1.5 years for an international bank. I feel like I was very under-utilized here. I was the last person to get hired on a team before the company forcefully pushed my boss into a new project a few months after I joined. My new boss gave me very little work before they ultimately chose not to renew my contract (massive budget cuts and they were opening new offices in cheaper parts of the world) * 3.25 years at my current company. A good amount of web app dev I definitely suffer from a bit of Imposter Syndrome, and I do have ADHD which can make it really hard for me to focus. Especially on a project that I don't like. I also have very high student debt ($1K/mo) which makes me afraid of job instability. I suppose I can at least take interviews, it's not like I have to accept an offer. But yea, I don't know what the gently caress to do. Life is weird and work sucks. Part of me wants to leave, part of me says, "but that retirement account!" and then another part of me says, "Do you really think you'll be content anywhere long term?"  Typically, what are the responsibilities of a Senior developer? I've read job descriptions but I don't think they ever give a clear picture and are hardly any different than junior or mid level descriptions. Financially I feel like this is the sort of role I'd need to maintain similar levels of retirement contribution, but my imposter issues make me afraid I wouldn't be able to cut it, get fired, and then be financially hosed as my student loans burn through what meager savings I've been able to put together. Sab669 fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Sep 7, 2018 |
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Sep 7, 2018 19:49
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What city do you live in? If it's not SF/NYC/etc would you be interested in moving?
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Sep 7, 2018 19:53
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I'm in western NY. I'm not entirely opposed to relocating, but it would be difficult: * just signed a new lease in June * have a dog * I'd like to stay in the north east - so NYC / Boston are options * I just moved to NY from MA 5 years ago and only recently feel like I've made friends, so having to find a new social circle all over again would kind of suck
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Sep 7, 2018 20:21
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Sab669 posted:I'm in western NY. None of these seem like issues except the last. Any company worth relocating for will pay for all your moving expenses including breaking a lease. I'd also expect you to make more in NYC or Boston than western NYC even accounting for CoL. The only definition for senior that is remotely consistent is being able to work with minimal oversight. At over six years experience I would definitely be applying to senior positions. Anyway you're bored and that only is a good reason to move on as when you're bored you aren't learning and improving.
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Sep 7, 2018 22:27
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So I am about to finish a degree in CS this year and I am kind of freaking out because I can't decide what the gently caress I should be doing. I used to work in the IT world doing systems engineering poo poo and while I have been in school I started doing a lot of extracurricular stuff in High Performance Computing. This has included a bunch of competitions and I think I am going to be presenting some of my work as a first author at a pretty important conference in the field later this year. I have a job offer upon graduation for ~120k working in the HPC world for a government lab doing some pretty cutting edge poo poo but it is totally like systems engineering and the like which is not exactly why I went to school. It also looks like I can go study at a pretty prestigious doctoral program but it is in Singapore. The problem is that I am worried that if I take the govt job it will provide stability but very little growth. I would essentially start as the second rung on the ladder with an opportunity to rise maybe two steps above unless I want to do management poo poo, which I don't. The location also sucks a lot... I also am not sure that I want to do HPC poo poo. I also have a first author research paper in parallel computation of a specific type of graph that has been accepted into a conference. I am unfortunately at a pretty cruddy state school where it is hard to get good advice on this sort of stuff... I guess my big worry is that since I am in my late 30s, I feel like I need to make as much money as possible right now. I am pretty sure I could get a gig as a software engineer but I worry that it will be tough on my since I am older. I am torn between essentially a known stable gig, continuing my education with no real guarantee that I will gain from it overall, or trying to work in the private sector somewhere and make more cash. I think it might prove hard to get more than 120k to start though. Maybe I am wrong about this? EDIT: The govt gig is 120k straight salary with a pretty generous 401k match but nothing else. It is not a pension gig unfortunately. Also the vacation time is loving horrible. Demonachizer fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Sep 8, 2018 |
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Sep 8, 2018 06:05
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asur posted:The only definition for senior that is remotely consistent is being able to work with minimal oversight. At over six years experience I would definitely be applying to senior positions. Anyway you're bored and that only is a good reason to move on as when you're bored you aren't learning and improving. Agreed. You're still early on enough in your career to where (it sounds like) you still enjoy the type of work you're doing, just not the work you're able to do at your job. Stagnation now will have a much larger impact down the road.
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Sep 8, 2018 13:27
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Demonachizer posted:...I used to work in the IT world doing systems engineering poo poo... First thing: are you sure their "systems engineering" work is the same as the systems engineering poo poo you did previously? That term is so vague. My own take at this point is that systems engineering is some attempt to glorify the work of a systems administrator. The definition doesn't necessarily mean that, but all my runins with it at places that have used the term for awhile use it that way. However, I was technically in a systems engineer role in my current job for two years or so, and it was all about software integration. I was doing software design work there, except that it was still mostly a lot of talk talk talk bullshit so I switched roles. However, having it on my resume lead to some very awkward interviews. There was one Amazon interview where I got hammered about the shell, iptables, web servers, cron stuff, ext3 filesystem operations with inodes, database administration, and poo poo like that. I'm assuming the stuff you did is more in that regards, but you don't necessarily want to assume this new job is pushing that right away--although it probably is.
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Sep 8, 2018 17:27
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:First thing: are you sure their "systems engineering" work is the same as the systems engineering poo poo you did previously? That term is so vague. The systems engineering stuff I did before is definitely very very very different though it is sort of what opened me up to doing HPC stuff at university and competing on teams and doing internships at labs. The stuff I did in industry was very much integration work. Meet with client to do needs assessment then propose a system design to satisfy etc. Lots of work with vmware. I have already done an internship and done the work that I would be doing at the new gig. I would be in a super interesting group as I would be helping to design and spec out new clusters that are often 100+ million dollar projects. Like it would be the top of the HPC field from a systems perspective. It definitely wouldn't just be software integration or just being a janitor for the systems but it also isn't really the stuff I find interesting from CS. I mean I could probably put time into developing software for the HPC world and work on some pretty important projects for that but it wouldn't be my primary job. I am just sort of frozen by having a good enough offer on the table. It might be easier for me in a weird way if I didn't even have it. In regards to the interview you mentioned, that is like 100% my fear that if I do HPC stuff I will be pigeonholed completely into roles where stuff like that matters most. It will matter a huge amount in the work I would do. I am more interested in pure CS. I reread what I wrote last night and today and I apologize because it really feels more like a blog post then a question... I feel like this would be a super easy decision if I was 15 years younger. I would totally say gently caress it and take the risk of further school and working in private sector. I am applying for an NSF graduate research fellowship also and if I get that it probably will change things for me yet again anyway.
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Sep 8, 2018 20:31
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Demonachizer posted:In regards to the interview you mentioned, that is like 100% my fear that if I do HPC stuff I will be pigeonholed completely into roles where stuff like that matters most. It will matter a huge amount in the work I would do. I am more interested in pure CS. This is the right thread for this kind of thing so there's no reason to be sorry about anything. I kind of wonder what people think "pure" CS and software engineering are, and how much of it somebody gets to do in a regular job. Like, outside of working on either some kind of algorithm or pattern-based framework, I don't imagine the kind of problems people think of as pure make up anywhere near the majority of a anybody's time that majored in either discipline. Now, you have a point if the issue is that you want to create things instead of analyze things, then yeah, that's a different problem.
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Sep 8, 2018 22:15
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Demonachizer posted:The systems engineering stuff I did before is definitely very very very different though it is sort of what opened me up to doing HPC stuff at university and competing on teams and doing internships at labs. The stuff I did in industry was very much integration work. Meet with client to do needs assessment then propose a system design to satisfy etc. Lots of work with vmware. When you say pure CS do you mean algo development and theory or do you mean software development? What's your end goal? Tenure-track at a R1? Google? What would you be able to do with a CS PhD that you couldn't do with your BS? Do you have kids? Do you want them? From the budget I assume you're looking at a DOE lab. IMHO the safest approach is to go to Dallas and do your presentation and network network network. Do you know any PhDs at the national lab that you can talk to about this or can refer you to folks there?
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Sep 8, 2018 23:15
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Demonachizer posted:It also looks like I can go study at a pretty prestigious doctoral program but it is in Singapore. quote:I guess my big worry is that since I am in my late 30s, I feel like I need to make as much money as possible right now. PCjr sidecar posted:What's your end goal? Tenure-track at a R1? Google? I recommend taking a look at this post from this thread, where I was asking the thread for advice on getting out of government research work. It's not all that its cracked up to be. If you have a job offer and it works well with the cost of living at the lab's location, maybe give it a try for a few years. Get some experience and then get a better job elsewhere. The important thing is to start building up retirement funds. You've burned a lot of earning potential runway already, and you need to make up some ground ASAP. FWIW, I was 33 when I started my PhD in electrical and computer engineering and it took me a little over 5 years to finish it. But, I also had my BS in CS when I was 21 and had gained a lot of industry experience in those 12 years between the BS and PhD. So, you can get a PhD that late in the game and still do something with it. But, will what you gain be enough to offset what you're giving up?
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Sep 9, 2018 00:42
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Sab669 posted:The CIO just called a meeting to asked if any of us were scared for next year or anything like that. He said he doesn't think we have any reason to be scared because we aren't *just* the experts but our software is the best in the business and we need to express that to our customers.
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Sep 9, 2018 03:41
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Please tell us that the extra money made the other company's offer more expensive than yours.
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Sep 9, 2018 03:45
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ultrafilter posted:Please tell us that the extra money made the other company's offer more expensive than yours. No, but they hired a bunch of people, and then burned through their money before the end of the contract. So the government was right: they couldn't do the work for the money.
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Sep 9, 2018 19:30
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Sab669 posted:I've been pretty bored here for about a year now, but the list of Pros has kept me from looking for a better job. I don't think I could succeed in a role that would pay enough for me to continue to pad my retirement account like this company does, and I spend only a few bucks a month for excellent health coverage. It's hard to really know without actually seeing you at work, but I feel like "I'm bored" and "I'm not learning anything" are not a good combination. Why isn't this something you can fix? Two ideas: 1) You say the code quality is bad. Try out SonarQube or some other code-checker and verify that it catches some shittiness and suggests improvement. Make a proposal to your boss that you'll set up SonarQube, get it to monitor code as it comes in, and improve overall code quality by x% over the next y months. This will make it easier to onboard new developers and your company will be able to advertise that you use a code-quality tool to avoid mistakes. (This is a pretty back-end-y task since that's the stuff I like, but you could do something similar on the front. Or, like, move to React or some other popular library.) 2) A more selfish option. Find some open-source library and get it into your code-base. Now spend as much of your time as possible fixing and improving that library and pushing your changes upstream. If things are stable, repeat with some new library. If your problem is that you're bored but also so micro-managed that you can't make up more interesting work, then that's a problem and you should leave. Maybe you should leave anyway, but I don't think you should rely on your job to just hand you interesting work. Especially if you want to make senior-level money, you should be able to find and articulate a problem to solve.
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Sep 9, 2018 23:02
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