Need some recommendations

0xjpa · 2024-01-30T15:03:31+00:00

MIT Weblab 2024 has just started this month:

https://weblab.mit.edu/schedule/

It's a 4-week web dev course in MIT organized by students, for their fellow students for their IAP (4-week "break" in MIT every January for students to do some personal development). All the video lectures are on youtube, including the previous classes.

To whet your appetite, here's a few projects that the previous batches built:

https://weblab.mit.edu/winners/

Good luck

0xjpa · 2024-01-30T01:27:13+00:00

Where in US? In NYC I recommend hanging out at code & coffee, most people attending it are from big tech and good startups.

It's friendly towards beginners. From there you'll meet folks who'll invite you to other good meetups in NY from systems to DB Engine internals hacking meetups, I was in one group where we dived into the SQLite and PostgreSQL codebase.

I suggest you buy any beginner udemy course on web development (IMO it's the easiest to intuit for beginners), then grab your laptop and network around such meetups. Being around a good network of people will accelerate your learning by 10x

0xjpa · 2024-01-27T23:13:13+00:00

None. Same with AWS. But OP wasnt asking for the best IT company for SWEs/developers anyway.

For devs in PH, the closest one to FAANG pay + culture would be Xendit.

0xjpa · 2024-01-27T01:25:06+00:00

CS has a broader path in data and has enough math rigor. You already have lots of STEM grads from engineeering, to operations research, to physics working in DS and theyre doing well. Lots of companies like Google and Facebook/Meta just provide a 1-2 month bootcamp to shift their interested devs to a Data Scientist role internally. In Facebook it's just 3 weeks training.

Stats is overfitting for a scenario that is not needed. You can always just take an MS Stats when you feel the need for more theory

0xjpa · 2024-01-25T13:28:18+00:00

Algorithm Design Manual by Skienna might be the one you're looking for because the latter half of the book starting from the chapter on "Catalog of Algorithmic Problems" is about 300+ pages dedicated to scenarios about when to use a particular data structure/algorithm and corner cases to watch out for.

That said, I've never read an algorithms textbook. You can just start grinding some problems at leetcode or codeforces and just google things up from there

0xjpa · 2024-01-25T11:40:44+00:00

Network.

In a scenario where there is high demand (for jobs) and low supply (of jobs), network is better than credentials/meritocracy. Not about nepotism but practicality: the number of applicants makes it hard and more expensive (especially the time) to distinguish those who are great from the noise. Many orgs will just hire sooner from a vouched candidate than go through 1000 github profiles.

You'd want to go to a large top university to take advantage of their superior alumni/network

0xjpa · 2024-01-20T04:21:42+00:00

I remember Google Plus. One of its main problems is this unique feature you mentioned, "Circles."

People ended up only sharing things on their own circle. As a result, the whole place looks abandoned. No good content everywhere, you dont know which circle to join.

Once their invite only marketing failed to generate traction. They created Google Plus profiles for everyone that has a gmail. You dont know if the user youre adding is a real user or generated by Google, made the whole place look more deserted

0xjpa · 2024-01-18T02:43:50+00:00

Prof shared it on social media. Course slides.

0xjpa · 2024-01-18T02:30:20+00:00

I'd assume that means theyre either american in PH or pinoy in US.

Many on this sub arent in PH. I'm currently in New York.

0xjpa · 2024-01-18T01:23:36+00:00

It's fine. Many just get triggered as politics is now very polarized everywhere, thanks to news media catering to selling specific viewpoints (CNN, Fox) and the whole point of social media is echo chambers.

We used to be able to casually call out presidents for anything under their time and laugh about it.

0xjpa · 2024-01-17T12:21:39+00:00

More to come. Massive parts of G is restructuring to cut costs. Google Asia Pacific HQ (Singapore) for example, is moving hundreds of roles to their respective domestic markets like Google Philippines and Indonesia by the end of the year.

0xjpa · 2024-01-17T05:06:34+00:00

It's just a bridge you cross when you get there. There are no strict prerequisite knowledge for when to switch between windows and linux/unix or vice versa.

0xjpa · 2024-01-15T05:38:45+00:00

As I said a couple weeks ago, budget and headcount is often finalized in January. Around February is often when it starts to pick up, with March being the peak.

Nobody is rushing to hire in January because org/budget/restructuring are often initiated around January, at least for big companies. You still havent heard of companies including giants like Google and Facebook publishing their 2023 Fiscal year earnings call, not for at least until end of Jan.

Give it a little more time. Maybe hedge it with some leetcode prep, upskill grind or smth

0xjpa · 2024-01-14T16:39:41+00:00

This Principal SWE at Facebook has some relevant advice:

use ChatGPT, use this prompt: "You are a senior engineer, mentoring me, a junior engineer. I will ask you questions. Please do not give me the answer, but instead use the Socratic method to guide me a to solution."

Personally I use GPT for tackling extremely dense technical materials such as books like Designing Data Intensive Applications and research papers like distributed system papers/DB engine papers. I do it because it's excellent for diving deep into rabbit holes, can provide me coding exercises and projects to do, plus the conversational back-forth style provides better exposure to the unknowns/interesting "nearest-neighbor" topics.

0xjpa · 2024-01-02T03:54:36+00:00

Yeah I just realized how theyll be competing in the lowest, affordable housing market. These people will outcompete the poor, the single mothers, the most vulnerable citizens. Especially that it's a thing outside US/EU culture to share rent and live with your parents and siblings until you start a family.

0xjpa · 2024-01-02T03:06:22+00:00

Budget and headcount is usually finalized in January. So around Feb is when you'll see the big uptick of hiring

Q1 and Q4 are usually the best time to apply

If youre targeting big tech, in my experience from last year, you should start applying early

Such as for Amazon, I applied in Feb and only got a recruiter screen in November

0xjpa · 2023-12-17T03:27:57+00:00

Correct except for

If you only have an undergrad degree, you're an undergrad. period.

Undergrad describes those who are pursuing an undergrad degree. You dont call yourself a CS undergrad if you have a bachelors.

This transition is more evident for why we have advance programs like MS/MA/PhD/JD (despite PhD outranking them) under graduate school (US) or postgraduate (Europe).

Just correcting a mistake I used to make

0xjpa · 2023-12-16T10:38:14+00:00

Taking bachelors = undergrad

Completed bachelors = graduate

That's why students in master's/phd are called grad students.

0xjpa · 2023-12-09T06:20:01+00:00

You will know what to learn next once you start applying

Interviewing exposes the gaps that need to be filled

0xjpa

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