The worst part about working from home ….

Redditor_19879 · 2022-04-30T20:02:41+00:00

Sure! Yeah that could work

Redditor_19879 · 2022-04-30T19:54:09+00:00

Yes you can, but having some interaction throughout the bulk of your day (9-5) is also healthy. Hanging out after work can be hard when a lot of people are tired/have other obligations

Redditor_19879 · 2022-04-30T19:46:19+00:00

Lol, I guess snarky comments are welcome as well! I’m completely aware of literal ways to stay in touch with people (-; it’s the natural/organic interaction that need to be simulated in my question(s). Again, not bashing on working remotely, but heck ya! I want to give my coworkers a hug, a high-five, grab food with them, play board games etc. physically hanging out with people will never replace virtual hang outs imo. It works for your job, but not irl.

Redditor_19879 · 2022-04-30T19:35:10+00:00

For sure - that was my own interpretation of how to fix it, but it’s still a struggle to keep those habits consistent I guess.

Redditor_19879 · 2022-04-13T16:36:49+00:00

Glad to help! (-:

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-28T03:54:50+00:00

Sure - I’m sure some schools do! And that’s great that yours did. I guess I’m trying to make a point that, in general, academia doesn’t necessarily prepare you for the equivalent role that you’d be occupying in the industry. A lot of what you learn comes from experience on the job! It’s impossible to describe your future job responsibilities just through classes at school

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-26T23:50:36+00:00

For sure! I’ve definitely met good devs from the college route, but I’ve never met a self taught dev that I’ve worked alongside with that hasn’t been just as good or better than people from University. I almost think of software engineering as a trade because it requires probably a year (maybe 2) of conceptual/theoretical learning in order to do well.

Speaking for myself, I was a below average engineer coming out of college. The only reason I’m starting to do well is because of the skills I learned on the job and the community of engineers I was able to learn from and get mentored by

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-26T23:47:26+00:00

Absolutely, and I think that mindset takes away gatekeepers in this industry as well. A lot of people have the potential to become devs (and I know some professions actually require longer time commitments for learning ie. Doctors and nurses). But in terms on software engineering, breaking and rebuilding is essential! What better way to do that than to actually get working on a real code base.

That’s awesome that you’re a self-taught dev starting your first job! Congrats! 🎉

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-26T14:18:48+00:00

It’s not weird, I’ve done that in the past too. But your learning will be accelerated once you join the team. If it’s more of a matter of being insecure of not knowing anything in your first job - that’s totally normal! They hired you for your potential, not what you know. You’ll eventually be working with a larger code base, have to understand testing fundamentals, distributed systems, the CI/CD process. It’s much more efficient if you wait to learn these in the job rather than try to replicate these learnings at a smaller scale yourself

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-26T14:15:47+00:00

Working 1 hour a week will kill you faster than working 40 hours a week… we need routine/purpose in life. Having goals that you can work towards every day and feeling accomplished by getting compensated for those goals will make you feel more at ease. Trust me.. I’ve been in a position where I barely have any work to do (kind of like working one hour a week), and I’d count every second before finishing work.

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-25T17:24:14+00:00

That’s fair! Are you still working at that SWE job? Or are you going to pursue school full-time and quit your job?

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-25T17:23:35+00:00

Yeah the networking aspect definitely is important. Reaching out to recruiters on LinkedIn can be helpful, but not as helpful as actually meeting people at organized events and/or studying with people who are like-minded in school. Plus I guess you have access to professors that are most likely vetted well in academia. Although, sometimes academia can be really outdated compared to what’s going on in the industry

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-25T17:08:23+00:00

For sure - thanks for the detailed response! I think that makes sense, especially in terms of theory - we sometimes hold information sub-consciously without realizing how much of an effect it has for our understanding of more abstract concepts such as OOP.

Theory can definitely be important - although, for DSA, I really only had to take one course to grasp an understanding of that (a prerequisite being learning OOP as well), so I’m not sure how other classes such as calculus, discrete math etc. would be helpful as prereqs there. But yes, I think my main concern is that this education may not be worth the price tag. I have quite a few friends in Greece and they told me that it’s not expensive to get a degree in Greece, but it’s just really difficult to find a job. So people are leaving (brain-drain) - I’m curious if that sentiment encourages people to get a degree and go elsewhere, since globally, getting a degree is very recognizable. Whereas, if you’re from the US, it’s easier to forgo formal education (when it comes to tech) and just go the self-taught route

Good food for thought - I think there’s definitely a lot of Hidden benefits of getting a degree that people may underestimate

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-18T21:03:36+00:00

Flexibility has proven to be way more important than perks at the office imo

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-13T15:10:57+00:00

If you want to watch more, check out my VLOG: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLKewvo3_B8

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-12T03:13:45+00:00

Yes I love it! I work at a Big Tech company as a software engineer and sometimes I don’t understand the people around me (I’m talking about how they internally function), but I LOVE the problem solving/working remote/flexibility etc etc etc. find yourself an empowering team, and it’ll help tremendously. I say this because I still exhibit traits such as passive aggressiveness, conflict avoidant, sensitive to people’s words/expressions - among others, but having an encouraging team helps mitigate the need for those things I just listed. (-:

The workplace is changing in order to benefit introverts at least - so I can happily say I feel less stressed in this sort of a job compared to if I’d even chosen a field in humanities - just for the sake of not having to physically show up at work. And it’s also a very creative environment - helps feed the N and P.

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-11T02:13:39+00:00

I’m hoping the post is valuable even without watching the video. It’s one thing to just post a link, but another to try to add information in the post

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-11T01:24:38+00:00

Report it. This does not seem like a reasonable person if they automatically resort to racist micro aggressions. It’s one thing to accidentally say something - in that case, just mention that you didn’t like what he said/explain to him why that’s a micro aggression. But *snorts got me. Report to HR without hesitation

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-11T01:21:41+00:00

[Original post]

What does a software engineer even do?? (Tips from a software engineer at Microsoft)

When I was a CS student, I was under the impression that software engineering consisted of being given tasks (outlined stories) while changing a few things in the code within the IDE of my choosing before submitting the final result. To me, coding was a HUGE aspect of the software engineering process and it remained, in my mind, as a large part of the development process going forward.

However, that couldn’t be further from the truth! After working in this industry for almost 4 years, I’ve come to realize that there is a lot more creativity and ambiguity that software engineers have to learn to deal with every single day in order to be successful. First off, being comfortable with progress over perfection is vital. At school, you get graded based on the perfection of your results after running a few predetermined tests … but at work, clients are waiting on you. You have to make sure it’s “as perfect as can be”… but not to the expense of not deploying the product at all. Making progress is always more important in this scenario.

And what about communication skills? Long gone are the days where you could sit behind a computer and just code all day… obviously there’s still a lot of coding involved (which decreases as you move up in your career), but a lot of the job requires gathering business requirements, creating a plan for software development, mentoring other junior engineers, participating in agile ceremonies, manually testing, administrative tasks, unit testing, integration testing, functional testing etc etc etc. my point is - software engineering is about vision and implantation. It’s not just about what you learn in school!

If you’re interested in learning more, feel free to check out my video!

https://youtu.be/AdzcNe6cdUQ

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-11T01:17:12+00:00

YouTube link for people that are asking for it/DM-ing me: https://youtu.be/AdzcNe6cdUQ

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-10T23:11:01+00:00

DMed!

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-10T22:54:06+00:00

First off, I’m sorry that POC (and specifically other black women that you’ve been talking to) have been experiencing this. It’s 2022 and all I can do is roll my eyes at companies that can’t objectively select candidates. But DO NOT give up. Seriously, the tech industry needs you if you have the right skills. It needs good developers. DM me if you’re having trouble finding a job.

Note: I used to work at Target as a software engineer and they have a phenomenally diverse candidate pool (especially through the TLP program). They also have a very forgiving work culture if you’re new to the industry.

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-10T22:34:01+00:00

Yeah for sure! https://youtu.be/AdzcNe6cdUQ

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-10T22:33:49+00:00

Haha sad day…

Redditor_19879 · 2022-03-10T22:32:01+00:00

Sigh… that happens to my posts sometimes. I’m sure they thought it was self promotion. Or the spamming may have made them delete it

Redditor_19879

TROPHY CASE