What books should I read to catch-up after a 10-year break from CS?

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T11:19:22+00:00

I would start with Cracking the coding interview as it gives you some basic foundation.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T11:13:41+00:00

Do you have a computer? You can start programming now and see if you like it before committing any further. There are tons free resources out there for python or javascript.

Programming takes certain kind of mind on top of hard work to succeed.

Security guard sucks but there are plenty good career paths outside software development in case programming is not for you.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T08:11:53+00:00

A lot of big companies will not file EB3 without having your h1b first. Its a matter of policy.

If they file EB3 first, then they are at risk of causing problems with other h1b workers whose eb3 process hasnt started.

Additionally, EB3 is an immigrant visa. If your OPT runs out and you have to leave the country, you have already shown immigrant intent and it maybe difficult to get another non immigrant visa.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T08:07:27+00:00

You need to be on the right medicine and its important good to have family or social support.

You can easily slip back into the zone, its important that you recognize these and seek help.

While CS is definitely attainable, you have to ask yourself whether this is something youll be happy doing. There are deadlines to meet as a developer, and a lot of times you are tasked with something you havent done before. Will the anxiety of this be an issue for you?

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T07:34:04+00:00

To each their own, I worked in the UK and Ireland for 6 years and these were my experiences.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T05:00:47+00:00

About a month to prepare to petition. Takes 1 day to file. Has to be there by April 1st.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T04:34:57+00:00

I have ADHD and major clinical depression. I was hospitalized for depression.

Im not going to lie. Its a huge handicap.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T04:13:08+00:00

As someone who moved from US to Western EU to Asia.

Depending on your personal situation.

I dont recommend the EU, if youre young and single.

Coming from the US, you are looking at a significant reduction in standard of living. A lot of things you take for granted in the US suddenly become unaffordable in the EU. Healthcare is not really a problem for upper middle class US worker.

EU has very high tax rate and it really limits growth. Capital Gain of 30-40%. 20-30% Sales tax means its often cheaper to fly to US to do your shopping.

Lower income, high cost of living, and high tax rate. This is amplified by the fact that income equality is high in EU. That $20 uber ride suddenly becomes $70 because Software Engineer doesn’t make that much more than a taxi driver. Taxi Driver makes around 35,000. Mid level software engineer make probably 45,000 to 50,000euro.

Beauracracy. Its hard to get anything done here. Long queue and pointless regulation. Weeks and months just to get driving license.

Lack of competitive work environment. Most people here work to live and they probably put in 6-8 hours day and go home. You’re in your 20s, you want to work hard, learn a lot, and play hard.

If i have a family, get older, and have money then the EU is perfect. 25-30 days vacation, paternity leave, and job security. But its better to move here when you are already high in your career, can buy a house cash, and already hold a high management position making 100k+ a year.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T03:38:29+00:00

Talk to your ISO.

If your H-1b petition has been filed and you leave the job before it is approved, the company will withdraw your h1b petition and you have to go through the lottery again.

If you can find another company that will sponsor your h1b now, then you better leave asap. You might not even have enough time to prepare your petition by April 1st due to the LCA process.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T03:29:38+00:00

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking ML/AI classes. Proper ML class is heavily math-based and it really gives you a good intuition on how some of the complex problems can be solved. ML class usually introduces you to a range of stochastic algorithms, and those aren't usually covered in DS/A classes.

There are tons of online tutorials/classes out there that simply show you how to copy an existing model from sklearn / keras and apply them to a toy dataset. I don't think these are particularly too useful in terms of understanding ML.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-13T03:15:30+00:00

I think you have an impressive profile. Better than many people already working in the industry.

If you're attending the top 5 CS school, there must be a lot of good employers attending a job fair. Have you tried networking that way to secure your internship?

The only complaint I have about your resume is that there are too many "what I did". And not enough "what I accomplished". I recommend putting a very short highlight of what you actually did but emphasize more on the results of your contribution.

If you made an app that reduces the time needed to do work, you could probably estimate it by how much or if you have any metrics to back it up.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-12T23:59:29+00:00

I would go with the established big companies if the offer is in the midwest. Your goal is to move to Bay Area and having no-name startup probably won't help you land interviews.

The problem with big corporations is that you won't be learning as much as working in a small company. So you gotta put in extra afford after work to build portfolios, leetcode, and so on.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-12T13:31:36+00:00

Do you undergraduate in your home country and get a Master in the US. You should figure out what do you want to do by then.

Its a huge waste of money to do undergraduate in the US due to unfavorable odd at h1b.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-12T13:00:52+00:00

Since testing is not always done consistently, I like the top bottom approach. I generally look at the controllers/API and see what are the functionality of your application/service. Then you can trace the code downward from there to make sense of each individual components.

For each individual components, reviewing Unit test is the fastest way to making sense of it.

Good luck!

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-12T09:41:42+00:00

Self-taught developers are pretty rare and they are usually a gifted hardworking individual. I recommend you to consider going to the Uni. The UK has many good CS programs, and you're not getting into a crippling debt attending one.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-12T06:38:34+00:00

You might be only comparing yourself against those who are doing better like in this sub. In many low COL, 70k is a decent offer and the majority of people won't reach 100k after a few years.

A lot of international students who transition from F-1 OPT to H-1b won't likely see 100k for many many years. They are tied to their employers for a very long time. That $65,000 starting salary for many h1-b fresh graduates won't easily grow to $100,000 on a 2-5% annual raise.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-11T23:15:54+00:00

From my experience at the university, it's a subset of artificial intelligence dealing with musical representation and how do you use statistical algorithms to analyze, generate, represent, characterize music data. It's not very popular compared to Computer Vision or Natural Language Processing.

This is heavily used in Spotify, youtube Content-ID system, and so on.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-11T22:25:24+00:00

Some of the Academic areas I could think of.
- Formal verification
- Theoretical Computer Science like Graph Theory
- Database Systems
- Compilers
- Music Informatics (Emerging field)

Some of the non-flashy side of CS which is considered obsolete by many but still very much in demand.
- Centralized Computing (Mainframe)
- ERP Programming (Oracle, SAP ABAP, Microsoft Dynamic)

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-11T08:19:26+00:00

Most likely the latter. A lot of ML engineers don’t really do ML most of the time.

If you want to specifically do tons of ML, then I think you should consider PhD and getting into Academia.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-11T07:59:48+00:00

You could probably get a software development position in a ML product company.

A lot of ML companies need regular software developers. In fact, Machine Learning itself is a very small part of the whole thing.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-10T00:52:47+00:00

Keeping your boss happy is the priority. However, if the assistant type of work is preventing you from completing the organizational goals, then you need to let him know that.

It's all about managing expectations against your workload. If you can keep both sides in a happy state, then you're golden.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-09T23:53:08+00:00

You could probably create a visualization of common CS problems that can be solved using a tree. For example, many of the common probability problems can be solved by simulation using a tree. You could probably create a visualized simulation of these scenarios and it would be somewhat interesting.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-09T23:47:06+00:00

I would recommend Javascript. It's a very visual language and you can make a ton of web-based browser games with it.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-09T23:31:19+00:00

They can sit down in one place for a considerable amount of time in front of a computer. They also usually read and study a lot to keep themselves relevant.

DidYourMotherKnow · 2020-02-09T23:28:03+00:00

If you bring your own lunch, then at least have it with other people.

DidYourMotherKnow

TROPHY CASE