Oldie Programming: Career Advice, Questions, Change of Directions

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Oldie Programming: Career Advice, Questions, Change of Directions

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Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Munkeymon posted:

Do you actually have a test of 'general ability to program'? I'd love to have that before we hire anyone else.

I took a programming aptitude test like that in my senior year, when I was applying to Pariveda, a software consulting company. It just described the syntax for a simple language you haven't seen before, and then you did some very simple problems in that language. Me and the other CS major taking it (most of the people in the room were MIS) finished it very quickly, anyone with significant programming experience would find it trivial.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2014 19:43

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:02

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

geetee posted:

I need to get myself out of this place because it is clearly toxic. I'm really bad at interviewing and I think that's holding me back. I'm not a genius, but I know I'm really good at what I do. I just totally gently caress up the white boarding stuff because I'm horrible at being on the spot. I freeze up, but can solve the problems in no time after the fact under real working conditions. How do I get better at this? Do I need to?

How much have you practiced at whiteboarding in the past? Like any skill, it takes work. I know a guy who got a job coding at Amazon out of college in spite of his 1.96 GPA (and in EE, not CS), probably because he ran through 200 coding exercises beforehand.

Beyond just coding up lots of problems on your computer, I think it's also important to practice at least some of the time in the right environment: simulate phone interviews with a friend using Skype/collabedit, and in-person interviews with a friend and a whiteboard or piece of paper.

# ¿ May 16, 2014 01:54

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

revmoo posted:

You should really be able to make an informed hiring decision for any job that pays less than six figures in under four hours.

Median software engineering salaries are now six figures though (albeit just barely).

# ¿ May 23, 2014 20:54

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I'm very curious how the hired auctions work in practice. So you get the offers first and interview later? Is there room for negotiation before and/or after the interview?

# ¿ Aug 6, 2014 03:04

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Twerk from Home posted:

Is working in games as much of a brutal meat grinder as rumors say? A coworker of mine is leaving us to go work for Cloud Imperium Games in Austin making Star Citizen, and it's a $20k pay bump from an already fairly compensated developer position, 6 weeks total paid time off, and they don't start work until 10am.

Reputation in the Star Citizen thread is that CIG is a meatgrinder, yes.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2015 19:17

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Kyth posted:

Google does not.

Yeah they do. It's just not the only performance ranking they use.

# ¿ May 19, 2015 19:44

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Vulture Culture posted:

Oof, yeah, that's a disparity that's got to be at least a decade out of date. I don't think cost of living between the cities has been on an even keel since maybe 2007 or 2008. The Bay Area blew up when smartphones got into everyone's hands.

It depends on whether you're comparing SF to NYC or SF to Manhattan.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2015 20:38

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Twitter probably pays really well, I'd bet similar to Google or Facebook. Definitely don't worry about moving on from your current company. They'll live.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2015 18:54

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I think Pollyanna was at a startup incubator before, doing some (?) programming.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2015 18:23

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Vulture Culture posted:

Benefits make up ~31 percent of someone's total compensation on average, according to the BLS, so it's really more like an extra 50% to break even.

They may be factoring in job instability. You can't necessarily count as much on a contract position continuing indefinitely.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 16:05

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Post a review on Glassdoor? If companies don't get compelling (read: punishing) feedback they tend to not change processes.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2015 17:52

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I agree that it sounds like you should go to a tech hub.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2015 21:24

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Having an advanced degree can also be a bonus when immigrating, countries that use points-based systems usually give extra points for them. Probably not a terribly good primary reason but it's a useful side benefit.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2015 00:57

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Evil Robot posted:

What a ridiculous discussion. Either talking to the person or the manager is reasonable depending on the coworker, the manager, and the relationships involved. The one line of reasoning that truly makes me lol is the "labor solidarity!" within the context of your immediate team and a guy who isn't pulling his weight (or it at least appears that way). If you think the imbalance of power between software engineers and first line software managers is as high as that between a line worker and the factory owner in a Victorian England, my salary that allows me to save and live a good life and the several hundred e-mails in my recruiter spam folder would beg to differ.

Agreed. Talking to either person is acceptable. The responses about "narcing" are really weird to me. On my team, there's a calendar to mark down vacation, and people will send an email if they're out sick or going to an appointment or whatever, and you can generally be as vague as you want.

But if someone just randomly stopped showing up, I wouldn't hesitate to ask the nearest person, "hey, where's Danny?" whether they be a coworker or my manager (who is also a coworker; as in, he still spends most of his time coding). This is a normal person thing to do, it's constantly casting every mundane workplace interaction in terms of Eternal Class Struggle that's bizarre and spergy.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 02:32

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

A starting engineer can make more than that if you include bonus and stock, at the better paying companies anyway, probably can't get that for base salary though. Is the 130k total comp or just base salary?

# ¿ Oct 26, 2015 02:51

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Hadlock posted:

The position is near the Mountain View Caltrain station, so what you're saying is that as a single goon, not living in SF is social suicide? Slightly less than that one guy living in an RV at the Googolplex, but still pretty bad? The guys I talked to sounded like MV was pretty boring. One restaurant offered free swing dancing lessons near Castro Street but it seemed pretty dead by 9pm.

As far as suburbs with a population of 75k go, MTV has a lot more going on than normal, I think. But still, it's a suburb with a population of 75k. Don't expect too much.

edit: Wait, have you not actually visited the bay area yet? Because you should definitely visit these cities before making a decision on where to live.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2015 18:32

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I'm curious how often people at other companies find themselves changing managers. Just found out today, I'll be getting my sixth manager soon, and I've been here a few months short of two years (and I haven't really changed projects at all).

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 22:34

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

sarehu posted:

How To Win Friends And Influence People

I read it and look what it got me.

The ire of internet strangers?

# ¿ Dec 14, 2015 19:34

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I'm not a big fan of SF since the city is kind of dysfunctional (probably very dysfunctional looking at it from a Scandinavian perspective), but from a software career perspective working in the bay area is really great (aside from how much of your salary goes to rent).

But you should probably, like, visit first before you decide. Have you ever been to SF?

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 01:20

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

quote:

We're talking $1500/month for a studio apartment.

lol

GUESS AGAIN: http://priceonomics.com/the-san-francisco-rent-explosion-part-iii/

quote:

The median studio is $2,722

Of course you can live in a nearby city for quite a bit less and commute via BART.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 02:11

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

mrmcd posted:

Yeah, at least in NYC/SF 150k (or up to 200k total comp) isn't that unusual once you're at the Senior/Lead/Principal level.

Definitely, and comp for senior/very senior engineers can go substantially higher than that at certain companies. Like at Google, a senior engineer will probably pull in more in the 250-300k total comp range (maybe higher if they've had a bunch of stock refreshes already).

# ¿ Feb 7, 2016 08:26

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:

If you don't mind my asking how much of that is salary?

Around 60% I think.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2016 21:13

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Rurutia posted:

I know at least some of the big software companies cap salary. I know Amazon and I think Microsoft both cap at 150k. I wouldn't be surprised if Google does as well. As you go up in rank, your expected bonus (cash and stock) % increases.

That bonus/stock makes up a larger % of your comp as you increase in level is true, but I don't think it's true that Amazon or MS have actual salary 'caps' (and certainly not 150k): https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Microsoft-Principal-Software-Development-Engineer-Salaries-E1651_D_KO10,49.htm

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 23:52

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

return0 posted:

USA tech salaries are just ridiculous. I get paid a decent wage for where I live in the UK (up north far away from London) and converting my salary from GBP to USD shows I earn $65K. Is the US extremely expensive for housing or petrol something?

The places with the huge salaries are expensive for housing, yes, although London is probably roughly comparable. Petrol is cheap though, by European standards. According to some quick calculations I just did, gas in the UK is ~$5.83/gallon, here the current average is $1.80/gallon (0.34 GBP/liter).

Overall though dev salaries in the US are just higher in general, thanks to a combination of higher income inequality and a stronger tech industry.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2016 00:23

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

B-Nasty posted:

This is a problem when people start throwing raw $$ figures around. I mean Google may pay at the top end, but there's a reason why they have breakfast/lunch/dinner and barbers/dry cleaning in-house. Though I've never worked there, I doubt coming in at 9 and powering down at 4:55 would lead to a long and fruitful career there.

I think you'd be surprised. Sure, you'll move up the ranks faster if you put in more hours (intelligently). But most people I see seem to work pretty standard 40 hour weeks, except for occasional crunch time.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2016 05:45

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I've used Java (albeit mainly for Android dev) for over 4 years now professionally and I've never even heard of those hash map types before.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2016 19:18

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Blinkz0rz posted:

The more I deal with new hires and the hiring process the more it enforces my belief that an interview should be a multi-day affair, scheduled at as close to the convenience of the interviewee as possible, that lets them work on a real problem with the team and get paid to do it.

Yes, let's force interviewees to use multiple days of their vacation time to interview with us. How could that possibly go wrong?

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 18:21

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

leper khan posted:

Thread: help me evaluate a job offer. Boston, 92k base, some sort of bonus (historically ~10%), ESOP 17%, 5k signing/relo. Is this terribly low for mid-level? I have a somewhat job history; current resume skips around every ~10-15 months going back to graduation in 2011.

I'm not used to room mates, and I know housing there can be a shitshow. What would a 700-900 sq ft apartment/condo look like on the monthly somewhere close to where I would want to be? Where would I want to be?

Seems low for mid-level in Boston to me, although if your experience has been spotty somehow maybe it would be appropriate then.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 02:26

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

leper khan posted:

Related to the complaints of unqualified applicants, how do these people get into the position of hiring candidates? Who would work for them?

A better question is, "What's stopping these kinds of people from being interviewers?" Answer: nothing. Most places aren't going to get feedback from interviewees, and even if they did, they'd have to take feedback from people who got rejected/did poorly (which is potentially the most useful information) with a huge grain of salt, for obvious reasons.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 02:24

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

I think when he said "this position is contractor at 60-80k ($124,800-$166,400)" he meant 60-80/hour.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2016 19:29

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

necrobobsledder posted:

I think licenses can only help so much when much of the problems in software can probably be attributable to the same problems that we have in medicine and construction.

I don't see how licensing would help with the 'problems' in software at all. Most consumer-facing software fails at a higher rate than other technical disciplines fail because usually the failure is just not a big deal. Therefore users will prioritize more features/better UX/etc. over going from "mostly stable" to "perfectly stable". Nobody's gonna stop shopping at Amazon because 1 in a 1000 times the page kind of freaks out until you hit refresh.

There's no way you could win over users making something like Snapchat or Android or whatever by making something with fewer features/less flexibility/worse performance but higher stability. That's the cause of software instability, not programmers being generally huge dolts (which is why you will usually have more stability in cases where it does count, like health care equipment, motor vehicle firmware, etc.).

# ¿ Apr 6, 2016 23:36

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

A MIRACLE posted:

What's cool and fun to code these days?

Rust?

# ¿ May 17, 2016 06:02

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I'm curious what your source for those numbers are, since I haven't seen any numbers nearly as high as $170k. I don't distrust you, but some corroboration (even just from other people chiming in) would be welcome.

Thanks for the advice and input, though! Man it'd be nice to be making $170k...

This kind of stuff heavily depends on the company. Generally the more 'prestigious'/trendy the company is, the more it'll tend to pay. I'd say that the numbers mrmcd is talking about are slightly higher than average even for the bay area, but definitely not crazytown or unattainable.

For reference, at Google, you'd probably get slotted as a SWE 3 (mid-level; Google tends to downlevel people), probably like 135-140k base, bonus and stock on top of that would probably put you a little over 200.

Cicero fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jul 30, 2016

# ¿ Jul 30, 2016 00:12

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

kitten smoothie posted:

We're talking not even checking in a simple bug fix here.

Six months without even a bug fix? How did they even make it that far?

# ¿ Aug 10, 2016 23:04

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

B-Nasty posted:

I just view the coding challenges as a thinly veiled IQ test

Yup. Actual IQ tests are mostly illegal*, but if you test their intelligence in the context of what is ostensibly a work-related problem, then it's fine.

* IIRC to be allowed you have to prove that the test has a meaningful relationship with job performance for that job or something

# ¿ Aug 17, 2016 21:57

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Analytic Engine posted:

Googlers are reliably making 2x-3x our total comps while reaping untold networking & career benefits.

Yeah it's great! I mean, most of those jobs are in expensive places too, and that's kind of a bummer. But overall A++++ would work for Google again.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 05:43

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

b0lt posted:

The vast majority of Googlers hate interviewing.

I like interviewing but hate writing feedback for the interview.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2016 00:21

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

Bob Sacamano posted:

So yeah, 9 interviews and flight later, no offer. Pretty much confirmed why I've always turned down recruiters from Amazon/MS/etc, the interviews have no consideration for your time and are very hit or miss. I'm disappointed because the $$$/stock would've been awesome, but fortunately I like my current job.

It's not always this bad. I've interviewed at MS, Amazon (twice), Google, and Facebook, never had problems like what you described. Then again I get hyped up once the interviews start so maybe I just perceive things differently.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2016 23:56

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

B-Nasty posted:

I think sometimes it gets lost that the $90K some average software developer in Nashville, TN gets paid -- while paltry compared to the $250K total comp at Google -- is plenty for them to live a nice, upper-middle lifestyle in that area.

It all depends on what kinds of things you value. For example, if you want a big house, Nashville is obviously the superior choice, whereas if you like traveling internationally, the bay area salary is way, way better.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2016 16:28

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:02

Cicero: Dec 17, 2003; Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

apseudonym posted:

The food is nice but you can always buy food with money.

Free food around all the time is soooo niiiiiice. Now that I'm used to it I'm not sure I can give it up.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2016 11:43

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Oldie Programming: Career Advice, Questions, Change of Directions

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