Oldie Programming: Career Advice, Questions, Change of Directions

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Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

My employer just switched to those stupid "unlimited" vacation systems for exempt employees. I'm rather glad that I'm non-exempt.

I currently get 20 vacation, 6 sick, plus whatever holidays.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 04:30

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 22:32

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

sarehu posted:

Losing a single well-paid employee will cost you under $10k in accrued vacation time, so the money is a non-issue.

It's not the paying out that's the issue. It's the cash liability on the books of all the employees' banked time.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 20:54

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

Yeah, I mean like, working from home more often to double-up on applications on my personal laptop, not literally doing it while in the office or anything. It's just become really hard to focus on or care about my current job and I wanna be productive in a better way instead. It might be selfish to say that, but I genuinely think the best thing for me is to move on as cleanly and quickly as possible.

Then quit.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 17:28

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

VOTE YES ON 69 posted:

This is dumb advice.

Pollyanna does a lot of other dumb stuff, let's keep it rolling.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2017 17:33

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

baquerd posted:

Interestingly, at the engineering manager level, I've been through two jobs over the last six years and no one has even mentioned references.

My employer won't give references and instead just has a hotline that verifies dates of employment and title.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2017 23:29

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Seriously, look at the non-traditional student thread in SAL some time.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2017 01:23

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Is anyone besides Mozilla using Rust?

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 02:52

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

baquerd posted:

a 48-hour coding binge where you scream at your co-workers, ignore all of the existing code, use notepad as your IDE, only save your work to a single USB flash drive from 1995, and pass out in the closet covered in vomit

same

# ¿ Jan 3, 2018 05:09

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

So that opportunity I thought was a 1099 is actually a W-2 through a recruiter agency - is that a thing?

Yeah they�re called temp agencies. Though nowadays they like to be called �staffing solutions.�

# ¿ Jan 10, 2018 17:40

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

Somehow Amazon is at least passingly interested in me (I have no idea why)

Don't take this the wrong way, but Amazon will usually throw a coding challenge at anyone who claims to be able to program.

Pollyanna posted:

If it's some graph theory stuff, hardcore C, or complicated algorithms, I'm probably doomed - I've heard they're really hard.

Amazon's usually not too difficult, at least not for the first round. Basic data structures, basic graph and tree algorithms, threads, etc. -- typical CtCI stuff.

Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Jan 16, 2018

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 01:56

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

quote <> edit

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 01:58

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

I don't think I'm prepared for this screening - is it still worth a try?

Always. Best case scenario? You move on to the next round. Worst case scenario? You get experience at a task you want to get better at. It's not like they'll put you on a "do not call" list or something. You can always reapply.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 04:28

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

I feel like I should get a CS degree in the future just in case a Big 4 style interview happens.

Figure out what you want to do first, and if you can�t get those jobs without more education only then pursue school � especially if you don�t currently have an employer who will pay for it and would carry the cost yourself. Having been a non-traditional student myself and mentoring others in similar roles, school later in life is typically not something you succeed at if you impulsively decide to go. Think through your reasons, your potential obstacles, and the real costs.

Also it sounds like you�re talking yourself into school for the Big 4, when as far as I know you�ve never had an interview with any of them. Try that first.

Pollyanna posted:

It can only help, right?

It depends on the costs: time, money, and opportunity.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 16:21

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

The March Hare posted:

Sure but Pollyanna already has a job.

Nope.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 19:58

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Skandranon posted:

If she can't take herself through CTCI enough to pass further interviews, I don't think spending another 4 years at school will help.

I agree. I'm just correcting the "Pollyanna already has a job" comment.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2018 20:10

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Loutre posted:

Any hot tips for a webcam interview?

Make sure you won't be interrupted (roommates, kids, pets, whatever). Test your setup first. Don't have anything embarrassing or incriminating in the background.

I often suggest people book a study room at a local library for webcam interviews, assuming it has reliable Internet. You get privacy, space to spread out materials (notebook, whatever), and usually a whiteboard.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2018 01:09

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

I haven't had any technical epiphanies or published any whitepapers or anything.

Is this actually what you want?

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 15:06

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

I'm not dying for a whitepaper specifically, but it would be good proof that I've advanced in my career. And I think technical epiphanies should come with working on something challenging, right?

How have you prepared yourself for an employer to put you into a position to solve these "challenging" (let's say publishable or patentable, but others will define it differently) problems? Why would anyone hire you for that? They're generally not gonna let you learn on the job for that sort of stuff. You have to bring something to the table.

As best as I can recall, you have a BS in BME, an online MS (incomplete?) in Bioinformatics, and 3 years of spotty web-dev experience. I'm not doing this to poo poo on you, just trying to evaluate you from the perspective of a large company (which you've said you want to work for now) solving interesting problems.

What are you doing to work toward these sorts of problems? They're not going to come to you because you're not an expert. Let's put aside the idea of going back for more school right now. What else are you doing to prepare yourself to solve interesting problems? Are you reading white papers in the field you're interested in? Do you know what field you're interested in? If you went to a relevant conference, are you prepared to have a deep conversation about the topic and maybe impress someone enough to hire you?

Your situation isn't hopeless, but at this point I don't know what you want. Maybe you don't know either, which means you're unlikely to get it.

Mniot posted:

As far as CS goes, I can't think of any long-term opportunities that need an advanced degree. Except for "being a tenured college professor".

In Software Engineering, probably not. The ceiling is determined usually by what your capabilities and experience are. In CS, academic barriers still exist for good or bad. Public and private labs (Microsoft Research, etc.) are usually still selective enough to only talk to applicants with PhDs. True, that's a very small segment of the market, but they exist. Those applicants generally know what they want and though don't just stumble into it.

Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Feb 5, 2018

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 15:59

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Jose Valasquez posted:

This is completely normal. You're only a few years into your career you don't have to know what you want to specialize in.

In isolation, yes this is completely fine. Combined with this however...

Pollyanna posted:

I basically haven't. I've just worked on what I've been given and never really done a deep dive into anything. That's all on me.

...she's stuck in a loop. If she's doing nothing to broaden her horizons and discover what she likes, she's unlikely to discover it. Expecting an employer to hand it to her is foolish.

Pollyanna posted:

As for CS and academia, that assumes I have a particular passion or interest that I want to hone in on. Right now, I don't have that, so there's really no compelling reason to go for it. I'm a stumbler, I don't think I fit that mold.

Do not pay for more grad school. This sounds like a recipe for failure.

Pollyanna posted:

The argument I hear from my parents is "the companies that you really want to work for will not select you without a Masters or a PhD", so their response to your point would basically be "the very specialized roles are the only good ones". Which is pretty lovely.

Get a job that pays the bills, and seek therapy.

Pollyanna posted:

But I've got it in my head that whitepapers somehow equal success.

Get a job that pays the bills, and seek therapy.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 16:57

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

mrmcd posted:

In my experience, CS masters programs are useless, and exist only as cash cows for milking foreign students, or for people with non-technical degrees to get academic cred.

This is hyperbole and an over-generalization. Different employers value different things, and lots of people have different backgrounds. Good programs exist and serve a useful purpose for some people.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 16:58

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

I don't really know what to tell you. I'm not a super self-motivated individual, that's just how I am.

It seems like you have a chicken and an egg scenario: you're not motivated because you're not interested, and you don't know what you're interested in because you're not motivated. Get a job to pay the bills, and seek therapy.

Pollyanna posted:

Why get therapy when a dead gay comedy forum does the job _{also every therapist I've been to bar one or two has been utterly useless, though maybe it's just me}

Just like jobs, there are a lot of bad therapists or just ones that aren't a good fit for you. Keep trying when you have the means to.

Pollyanna posted:

And I don't think it's so strange to specifically seek out companies, projects and products that might expose me to new and interesting things.

I genuinely wish you well and good luck, and have no more advice for you on how to help you get one of those jobs.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2018 17:43

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Pollyanna posted:

Y...yeah I should probably practice now that I know what I�m dealing with I think I got a book of common interview questions so I can work through that.

I mean you were told what to review already, but sure, act surprised.

Pollyanna posted:

Somehow Amazon is at least passingly interested in me (I have no idea why), so they want to set up a phone/online interview to cover "coding, data structures, and operating systems fundamentals, as well as design questions". I have no idea what this will cover and I'm not exactly expecting to pass it, but has anyone done Amazon's phone screens? What do they usually cover?

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Amazon's usually not too difficult, at least not for the first round. Basic data structures, basic graph and tree algorithms, threads, etc. -- typical CtCI stuff.

CtCI isn�t very fun to work through. If you don�t have the background already that some employers are looking for in their interviews (justified or not) and you still want to work for those companies, then you just have to sit down and do it.

Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Feb 15, 2018

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 16:42

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Good Will Hrunting posted:

There's nothing better than feeling like you "get" problems you've been working to get comfortable solving for a while.

I�d argue that nailing said problems in an actual interview is a better feeling.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2018 17:02

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

ultrafilter posted:

Can you write a thread-safe queue?

Now do it lock-free :getin:

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 16:50

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Good Will Hrunting posted:

I'm going to write a thread-safe queue without locks when I get home tonight or during lunch but I don't think it's actually that difficult to do? Isn't it just a matter of using something similar to the atomic updates in Java already?

Yeah a queue is pretty simple. Lock-free data structures get more interesting when you try to do more complex things like preserve order, range scans, fast random access, reverse iteration, etc.

It�s a pretty big research area for DBMS indexes at the moment as they finally try to supplant the cache-unfriendly B+tree.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 17:22

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Xarn posted:

RB trees can suck it, AVL or B-tree.

gently caress you, splay trees forever.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2018 23:14

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

b0lt posted:

One weird trick to tell if someone went to CMU and took a class from Daniel Sleator.

Splay trees are garbage.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 04:59

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

I was rather happy with my recent rounds of interviews for NVIDIA: they tailored the technical questions both to my resume (asking about the languages and experience I have on there) and to the job (systems programming stuff mostly concerning C, kernel programming, etc.)

I was really expecting at least a first round of generic string manipulation or graph traversal questions but was pleasantly surprised. Way to go, NVIDIA.

Star War Sex Parrot fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Mar 16, 2018

# ¿ Mar 16, 2018 16:52

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

JawnV6 posted:

I've got a sneaking suspicion you're studying like the guy in my chem class who didn't want to understand math and memorized all 18 flavors of PV=nRT rather than just do the symbolic manipulation on the fly, just doing every single CTCI problem with the handicap of a whiteboard rather than breaking those into distinct areas of practice and doing the CS bits on a computer.

Yeah, without knowing the actual time breakdown, progress metrics, etc. Hrunting's study process seems more like rote memorization than proper understanding to me. I feel like with that much time you're better off studying a proper algorithms class (poo poo get your employer to pay for an online CS masters at that point). Learn how to categorize problems and architect solutions based on more conceptual knowledge of topics like linear programming, dynamic programming, graph algorithms, data structures, among other CS topics.

I honestly haven't spent that much time with CtCI or Hackerrank or anything but anytime one of those problems is thrown at me, I typically feel comfortable deconstructing the problem space and applying the tools I have from a thorough CS background. Maybe I don't always get the perfect, "ha, I saw this in CtCI already!", regurgitated answer but my interviewers generally seem happy with my ability to discuss the problem, implement solutions, and let me identify shortcomings in the solution I present.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2018 20:09

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Keep doing whatever works for you then. :shrug:

You asked how people get by without spending 2 months reviewing almost every day, and then people responded "not doing what you're doing." I'm not really sure what advice to offer for your studying process if you're saying that's what's necessary for you to succeed in interviews.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2018 20:17

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Good Will Hrunting posted:

One I really struggled with last time was Towers of Hanoi. Regardless of being able to solve most of the other recursion problems I saw - that one still kicked my rear end to conceptualize.

Play a Bioware game :haw:

# ¿ Mar 20, 2018 20:32

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Keetron posted:

in memory database

I�m curious if they gave you any more direction on this aspect.

Also good luck!

# ¿ Mar 21, 2018 13:48

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

ultrafilter posted:

Spend some time learning Haskell or OCaml. You'll get a lot of practice writing recursive functions, and that will translate into an easier time doing imperative programs.

Yeah I was gonna say, implement some data structures in a functional language and that poo poo becomes easy.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2018 15:16

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Good Will Hrunting posted:

E; http://learnyouahaskell.com/ this is... something

It�s actually decent.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2018 03:42

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Please not Fizzbuzz again, please.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2018 22:08

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Good Will Hrunting posted:

I'm guessing it really depends on the team?

More or less, yeah. It's a big company. They've also made efforts to improve over the last few years, and I think newer teams might reflect that more than other entrenched teams/managers.

Amazon's pretty easy to get through. Just review their leadership principles beforehand and you'll be fine.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2018 17:30

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Xerophyte posted:

Trie chat made me want to see if my old algo textbook (Kleinberg & Tardos) bothered mentioning them and the structure doesn't have an entry in the index at least.

What about suffix trees (compressed tries)?

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 00:53

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

(Adaptive) Radix trees are awesome.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 17:37

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Good Will Hrunting posted:

I'd rather be asked harder questions that are more about coming up with solutions and explaining them than the same poo poo over and over but I guess that doesn't happen.

Weren't you the one talking a few months ago about all of the hours you were spending in CtCI and other whiteboard prep for these exact scenarios, or am I thinking of someone else? You knew what you were preparing for, and now you're going to hopefully reap the rewards. Why are you complaining now when the game is exactly what you expected it to be?

# ¿ Jun 20, 2018 20:53

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 22:32

Star War Sex Parrot: Oct 2, 2003

Good Will Hrunting posted:

I was the one who said "yeah this is how it is, it sucks but it's how it is" and people said "no it's not like that" so I'm circling back now that I'm literally experiencing it and saying "yeah it's exactly how it is".

I don't recall that being the discussion, but perhaps we internalized it differently. Regardless, it sounds like you have good problems.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2018 21:00

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