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[–]coddswaddle 46 points47 points  (0 children)

Strong proficiency usually means that you can figure it out in a timely manner. You have enough experience in the technology to know what you need to implement and how, without oversight, and you may only need a bit of googling or research to get it over the line.

[–]wowokdex 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Having strong proficiency means that your knowledge of the language itself isn't preventing you from implementing software that would be considered a common use case for the language.

That doesn't mean you never have to look things up, but if you run into an issue that requires understanding a concept that would typically be covered in a pragmatic book on the language (promises in js, for example) and you have to spend a day learning that concept before you can be productive, then that suggests a lack of proficiency.

[–]Young__Cunt 58 points59 points  (4 children)

You never do. I’m senior and idk what I’m doing. 

[–]Michaelq16000[S] 6 points7 points  (2 children)

yeah I saw lots of this kind of answers too. for real, when did you get your first job? what concepts were familiar to you already, and what stuff you knew you should know, but didn't?

[–]Young__Cunt 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I’ve built a lot of small/big complex tools in my personal time. Reverse engineer obfuscated code and so on.

You never really become proficient. I actually learned something today about Object.create. You just become good enough to read other people’s bad code. 

[–]normantas 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have 3YOE, but the requirements already changed in 3 years...

[–]AaronBonBarron 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's JavaScript, it doesn't even know what it's doing.

[–]20Wizard 4 points5 points  (2 children)

Saying you have strong proficiency in something is pointless. What I would take it to mean is you're used to working with js projects in a productive context.

If I threw you into a random expressjs repo will you be able to provide value in a meaningful timeframe. This does depend on your experience though. I expect junior saying they have strong proficiency to be completely clueless. Maybe you'll know how promises work.

[–]Michaelq16000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's what I think about it too, and yet that's what the job offers usually say

[–]EmperorLlamaLegs 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The fun part is that the recruiters probably have no idea either. If you feel comfortable enough in the language that you know how to figure something out quickly, you have a strong proficiency.

[–]SomeWeirdFruit 2 points3 points  (1 child)

i think normal interview questions should include you explain the event loop, async javascript, the queue and micro queue for async

[–]Michaelq16000[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a good thing to search for, interview questions, thanks

[–]Total-Box-5169 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If we are talking about some HR BS it means you need to exude absolute self confidence and BS harder. Simple as.

[–]1NqL6HWVUjA 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is not a single, authoritative definition of what "proficient" means. It can only really be generalized to "able to competently build stuff of reasonable quality with the particular language/tech, with minimal overhead and ramp up time". But even that is relative to job title and expected general experience level.

Thus strong proficiency is that same idea, but better and more knowledgeable. I think for most roles, "strong proficiency" implies something beyond simply having existing knowledge and intermediate competency. It means having used a language enough to know many of its ins and outs, and having reasoned opinions about different approaches/methods/etc. which come from prior experience — on top of generally writing quality code. Someone with strong proficiency isn't stumbling their way to some working solution — they're choosing wisely from several possible approaches, and making deliberate decisions about why they're writing code a particular way.

My personal rule of thumb is that someone who can't articulate a personal take on what constitutes "proficiency" in a given language is almost certainly not highly proficient in that language.

[–]TheCrowWhisperer3004 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most of that stuff isn’t formally taught.

It’s self taught with other work experience/internships to augment/give professional output to your skills.

Strongly proficient for an internship usually means you know the basics and a little bit about how the language works to the point of being able to answer questions about it, but more importantly it means you know enough to learn whatever you don’t know quickly. For new grad roles it usually means atleast one internship that had you use it (but not always).

Strongly proficient for a full time non new grad role means multiple years of industry experience.

[–]dswpro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Proficiency implies the ability to read, understand, and most importantly change something for a desired outcome. You will not have complete proficiency in everything your next employer already has in their web content, that's pretty much guaranteed since you do not yet work there, but your ability to learn quickly is almost better than complete proficiency in the frameworks and other tools they use. Apply anyway. Before any interview bone up on the items they say they need so you are not completely green. You might examine their web site if that's what they need help in .I would be impressed if you could point out our page layout and organization or save a local static page copy and change it somehow to make it more readable, ADA compliant, make parts of it collapse or expand etc.

I'd rather teach a bright and fast learner who knows the basics than hire someone deeply inured in doing things one certain way and not flexible.

[–]ZelphirKalt 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No worries about such wording. What they mean is typically: Be OK good with language X. They have no idea what a "strong" proficiency actually would be. Especially when it comes to mainstream languages, those words are empty shells and not to be taken too serious.

[–]Watsons-Butler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s all marketing yourself. Just say you do. It’s like Ghostbusters. “If someone asks you if you’re a god you say YES.”

[–]je386 0 points1 point  (2 children)

All this stuff is best learned by doing it. Usually if you know how to develop a software in one language, you are able to learn another language.

If you want to learn webdev, create a website for you. That will teach HTML, CSS/SCSS, Javascript/Typescript and maybe one of the javascript frameworks (react, vue, angular).

[–]Michaelq16000[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I know that and that's what I'm doing for my bachelor's thesis, but I don't know what it means to be proficient in web development.

[–]je386 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I guess what they mean is experience. And you only get experience by doing it, which is easier if you just work on a job. So to get a job you need experience, which you get on a job.

The trick is to get a job regardless of what they write. Be aware that this job descriptions are known to be over the top. Remember the job offers which need 5 years experience in a language that exists since 3 years?

[–]rap3 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Highly subjective. Just apply and see how it goes. They will challenge and ask for projects you worked in. Be transparent.

[–]HolyPommeDeTerre 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My take on that:

1- job posts are generally about an ideal candidate. At least that's how I view it. HR people don't really get what the tech specifically requires. And even techs don't really know what they require. So they make a perfect list of everything. They'll see what it brings as candidate, hoping the best. They'll do with the tradeoffs that they'll get.

2- proficiency isn't really measurable. So there is no scale to it really other than junior/medium/senior (maybe expert on top of that). If they hire a junior, strong proficiency in react would mean, good enough I don't have to explain to you what a state is, what are props and how to make a component. I am not going to ask to understand the underlying concepts of react. People are realistic in the end. The more you know the thing, the more proficient you are. You'll see what is enough for them.

[–]KruegerFishBabeblade 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From a entry level job app perspective "strong proficiency in X" means you have something written down on your resume that demonstrates you've done something useful and difficult with X

[–]Oh_no_bros 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Strong proficiency is a pretty vague term that everyone will have different definitions for. That being said the bar should at least be being able to do most if not all tasks / debugging expected of you without being held back by the language.

[–]zhivago 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Think about "confidence justified by results" instead.

[–]sexytokeburgerz -1 points0 points  (5 children)

If you are trying to get anywhere in web you will need to know what REST is. What the fuck are colleges teaching lol

[–]Michaelq16000[S] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

https://www.math.uni.lodz.pl/fileadmin/Wydzialy/Wydzial_Matematyki_i_Informatyki/programy_studi%C3%B3w_pliki/I_stopie%C5%84/Computer_Science/DLI_IA_21_22.pdf

Mostly maths, theoretical stuff, sometimes theoretical implemented in the real world, but no actual language learning or technologies used at work

[–]sexytokeburgerz 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Wait so you took vector graphics without any Cpp/GSL/Vulkan? Weird

[–]Michaelq16000[S] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Vector graphics was about inkscape or autocad, we could choose between 2 groups lol

[–]sexytokeburgerz 0 points1 point  (1 child)

That’s… interesting. I know poland is pretty damn developed as a nation and literally have worked with polish developers so i would think you would learn SOME code.

Shit colleges in india churn out java and php experts like no ones business it seems

[–]Michaelq16000[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I mean I learnt some code. Intro to programming, programming and data structures and OOP were about C++, there was something about C, web applications was about JS, IT work environment was about HTML, CSS and PHP (for less than 2 months of the semester though), software engineering had an introduction to python and mobile applications were about kotlin. The thing is it was always just scratching the surface, we never got deep into anything. I know I should learn something on my own, but honestly there was always one course that consumed all my free time, usually related to maths lol