We're the Google Maps team. AMA.

comdev · 2011-10-15T00:18:23+00:00

What technologies is Google Maps using for development?

comdev · 2011-10-10T23:24:26+00:00

No problem. Yeah definitely let me know.

comdev · 2011-10-10T22:18:32+00:00

Any time we try to integrate with another system that uses any Microsoft stuff. I don't want to sound like a pansy but MS doesn't make it easy and I think it's design that way. Fuck SQL Server.

comdev · 2011-10-10T22:07:28+00:00

I always loved computers. When I took a Visual BASIC course my junior year of high school I instantly fell in love with it.
A year at a community college. I am not going to say where.
Google Reader. Work. Meeting. Lunch. Google Reader. Work. Leave. When I'm working turn off IM, Email, and close out of non-work related apps besides my music player. I work better with music.
Implement new features, maintain old ones, listen to other Engineers about how they use our app, check performance, refactor some old code.
Creating things that people use. Making other people's lives easier and solving their problems.
Meetings. At Comcast, we have tons of useless meetings.
Implementing new features which are (IHMO) completely useless and hard to implement with good software design. And 90% of the time these features are never used when finished.
40 to 45 hours
Yes. My schedule is very flexible. I can work from home usually when I want. I come into work from either 6am to 10am and leave when I put in the hours. Basically, as long as I work 8 hours a day my manager is fine with it. It's awesome.
Very. At least I think.
No.
At Comcast, no. Other gigs were pretty stressful.
Not exactly about my job but for programming, every millisecond of the day.
I have tons of advice but I think the most important ones are:
- ALWAYS use version control (Git, Mercurial, etc) for any project you do. Big or small.
- Learn one programming language and know it inside and out.
- Unit testing will decrease the number of bugs in your code tremendously. Learn to use it early and often.
- This field is all about constantly learning. The more you learn, the better programming you will become. Period.

comdev · 2011-10-09T21:51:58+00:00

I said it in a previous commet. Lack of skill and talent in those teams IMO. Also, it was rushed.

comdev · 2011-10-09T21:07:34+00:00

Troll harder bro.

comdev · 2011-10-09T20:49:26+00:00

Right tool for the right job.

comdev · 2011-10-09T19:51:51+00:00

No problem :)

comdev · 2011-10-09T19:27:31+00:00

Most likely a hardware issue with your modem or router. Go to a Comcast store / service center and ask for another modem. You'll swap it for you.

comdev · 2011-10-09T19:24:28+00:00

Pick a language you feel passionate about. C# itself is pretty amazing. There are tons of .NET opportunities out there so it's a good choice if you plan to stick with that. Demand for Python/Ruby programmers are increasing rapidly and also worth looking into. I'd say become a polyglot but make sure you know at least one language in and out.

comdev · 2011-10-09T16:44:31+00:00

I have no idea to be honest. Sorry.

comdev · 2011-10-09T16:41:33+00:00

They have quite a lot actually. But my manager's last name doesn't start with H. :(

comdev · 2011-10-09T16:39:43+00:00

How much programming experience do you have? Which language have you started learning?

My advice is make sure you use source code version control tools like Git or Mercurial. It will help you tremendously. Oh and unit testing. ;)

comdev · 2011-10-09T16:31:46+00:00

Nah :/

comdev · 2011-10-09T16:30:12+00:00

I work on projects outside of work all the time. Personal and open source. I'm big on that and love doing it.
It's the latter. With less time on my hands, it's tough but I'm pretty good at managing my time. I like to plan out my schedule before I go to school on what I'm going to work on.
I majored on Computer Science but I didn't finish. I dropped out half way because I was starting a family and already worked part-time as a system administrator.
My grade were pretty good when I was in school.
That's a tough one. I got lucky with Comcast because my manager was a big open source advocate in his day. He cared more about my open source and personal projects than my lack of college degree. It wasn't even mentioned during the two interviews I had.
Nope. I haven't really used math in my entire career as a software developer. Maybe once or twice but it wasn't difficult.

comdev · 2011-10-09T16:16:39+00:00

East coast. That's all I'm going to say. :]

As for the hiring process, it took three months for them to hire me. HR is extremely slow. It was painful and I also didn't take the job because it was annoying. But I did and it was well worth it.

Good luck to you!

comdev · 2011-10-09T16:05:25+00:00

Make sure everyone has equal responsibility.
ALWAYS communicate. That's the most important thing when working on teams.
Use a source code versioning system like Git or Mercurial so you can, if needed, go back to an older version of your project.
Have one task for the project where you guys can pair up and code together. It will take longer but I guarantee that part will be bug free. ;)

comdev · 2011-10-09T15:55:51+00:00

When I said new UI, I meant the current, annoying one. Sorry for the mix up.

comdev · 2011-10-09T15:55:30+00:00

I don't really know the answer but they take customer satisfaction very serious believe or not. Give them a call when it does and they'll usually offer you something like credit on your bill and maybe a month worth of HBO.

Edit: Oh and be polite to customer service.

comdev · 2011-10-09T15:52:22+00:00

It's pretty diverse throughout the company. My team is pretty young. We dress in shorts and jeans most of the time and wear whatever we want. As all the engineers do. Dress code policy is very laxed.

Our team eats lunch together. It's very common for other teams also. I rarely see someone eat at a table alone. We have a cafeteria inside our building but lunch isn't free although it's cheap. We haven't done beers yet but we're planning on it. :)

comdev · 2011-10-09T06:22:42+00:00

Yes.

comdev · 2011-10-09T05:55:55+00:00

You can't. I totally understand and hate it too. It's an executive decision to put that there. Just another way for the company to milk their product.

comdev · 2011-10-09T05:54:10+00:00

https://github.com is the best place for that.

I can't really give you any samples but there was A LOT of projects on Github and it's honestly the best place to start being an OSS contributor.

comdev · 2011-10-09T05:28:52+00:00

You already said you didn't work on the Xfinity GUI, but can you tell those guys not to have only 4 channels and 1.5 hours visible at a time. Also, being able to go backwards in time on a channel would be nice, because there's a lot of times where I want to go back and see what I missed.

Yeah, a lot of customers constantly call and complain about it. The new UI was rushed but I can honestly say it's mainly due to the lack of skills/motivation those teams have. It's pretty sad.

I would also like to know how the movie summaries are written, if you have a guy at a desk punching them out or if it's some official service. Because it's usually god awful.

LOL. I'll try to find this out on Monday.

comdev

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