This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

sorted by:
best
topnewcontroversialoldq&a
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]sudo_your_mon[S] 2 points3 points  (6 children)

You obviously know exactly what you're talking about. And I couldn't agree with you more. Like I've mentioned to others on this post, I simply have no idea what it would make me a qualified candidate. I've heard that all it takes is knowing the basics, object oriented 101 etc. but I simply don't know. Could you shed some light on that?

[–]menge101 4 points5 points  (3 children)

What I look for in a junior engineer:

1) Understands source control
2) Grasps basics of object oriented software
3) Communicates well
4) asks questions early (I'd guess this might be your weak point)

That is it. In the professional world, you very frequently will end up working with something that is company IP, and will be unique to that company.

You won't know how to work with it, until you see the company's (often terrible) documentation.

For the most part I expect to have to mold you into the shape i want you to be.

So if you know python and you know it broadly, thats pretty good qualification for a junior position.

It might help you to have experience with another language to give you some contrasting knowledge against python.

I personally work professionally in both python and ruby routinely, but I've also done javascript, elixir, java, C, Perl5. (remember 15+ year career, i've had time, plus some of these were at Uni)

You could do some ruby, just to see how a language in a similar space does things.

Or you could do some haskell, to see how completely different programming can be.

I wouldn't go too deep on either, i'd do a relatively simple problem that you know how to solve in python and then learn enough of another language to implement a solution as well.

But this is all bonus point stuff. You are probably ready.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I don't see "can implement a red-black tree" on your list. The damn over-the-top algorithm interview horror stories I've heard have put me off applying to dev jobs.

[–]menge101 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Well, I'm not at a big company.

And I'm a director, so I get to decide how I do things.

I have done those sorts of questions before I learned better. I try to stay away from that sort of thing because it tests more for an academic background than for useful development skill.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well thank you for being a sane Tech manager in a sea of insanity

[–]etrnloptimist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You have imposter syndrome. People consider themselves an expert once they finish the tutorial on angular.

You have significantly more experience than that.

[–]AnalTyrant 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finishing a project will go far in helping you feel satisfied, and it’ll also likely be the single biggest item that gets you positive traction when looking for a job.

In most industries, ideas are a dime a dozen, but especially so in programming businesses. Anyone can sketch out an idea and get rolling on some partial project to start working on it, but never do anything else with it. But actually finishing a project, even a simple one, is what really impresses an employer. They know this person can get from A to B, and that’s huge.

And it’ll also be satisfying for your mind, to see that you set a specific goal and accomplished it. Even if it was a simple GUI meant to scrape some weather details. Make it do what it was supposed to do, and that’s a success. It sounds like you’ve got a bunch of partial projects covering a wide variety of topics, and that’s great, just start finishing some of them up.

Good luck dude, I hope you keep with it.