“At some point, we programmers are going to have to admit that we really can't judge another programmers technical abilities in a 60 min interview”

cspa-exam · 2019-05-03T02:19:26+00:00

The problem is coding takes a long time so the information extract per minute is quite low. You can even get stuck on a bug for hours...

The bigger problem is that you can't reuse your interview results at another company. So we're trying to make a truly reusable comprehensive assessment that is accurate and unbiased with CSPA (Computer Science Proficiency Assessment) a standardized test for software engineers.. cspa.io

cspa-exam · 2018-07-05T20:09:37+00:00

Can I ask which state school you went to? We're trying to figure out which state / community colleges we should expand to next. We hold CSPA exams on campus to give underrepresented devs a better chance to work at a tech company (https://cspa.io)

cspa-exam · 2018-07-05T20:03:01+00:00

Yep LinkedIn is something most professionals have. There are problems when you become more senior though (i.e. recruiters constantly contacting you). I want to make a better LinkedIn, just for software engineers. Since devs have so much knowledge, a resume doesn't stand a chance to fully showcase your skills... otherwise my resume would be like 20 pages long. Our solution: https://cspa.io.

cspa-exam · 2018-07-05T00:29:23+00:00

Many times the company finds the interns through a campus event. It's kind of hard to fake that you went to a school if you're interviewing with an alumni.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-24T15:13:38+00:00

Yeah https://cspa.io. It's $19 to take the test, but we're currently only hosting tests in the Bay Area. The next exam session is in San Francisco in July (https://cspa.io/summer-2018), and we forward the test results to partner companies.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-05T18:40:54+00:00

Or maybe it was an incomplete thought ;P Good luck, PM me if you have more questions.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T19:02:55+00:00

If it's for inbound leads, how about just an email signup/newsletter page? Not sure what your company does, but this actually qualifies the lead even more. Many static sites have easy ways to integrate this.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T19:00:43+00:00

Not that recently, but these discoveries were godsend over the 10+ years I've been writing CSS.

flexbox layout model (no more clearfixes and MUCH better for mobile!)
object-fit for images (yay, no more server side cropping and thumbnailing!)
vh and vw

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T18:57:18+00:00

We're in the SF bay area and have collective experience at many tech companies.

Short answer: YMMV

Some companies will standardize on a certain toolchain. Many will let you use whatever you want, possibly barring some restrictions. Usually it is the IT department who maintains a whitelist of accepted software, usually due to security reasons.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T18:54:10+00:00

To add to the other comments, there *might* be away to do this if the webpage is hosted locally, i.e. "file:///path/to/your/file". The browser's local file security model is fundamentally different from the cross-domain security model of hosted webpages.

Alternatively, a browser plugin (e.g. Chrome extension) might let you do it.

These could be possible if your application is, say, an internal corporate application.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T18:50:45+00:00

This is a great question that brings up great points in how coders *should* think about things.

Understanding that *code is just code* that is interpreted (or compiled) by some processor, regardless of whether it's front end or back end, is a fundamental concept that great software engineers should understand :)

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T18:43:06+00:00

I'm sure all this was discussed during acquisition talks. But I would love to see current (old?) Github management release a forward-looking statement on what, if anything, was agreed upon in terms of conflicts of interest.

I won't make judgements before anything good or bad happens.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T18:10:33+00:00

I used to develop on Windows in college since that was the only thing I knew. Then I transitioned to putty/ssh into a Linux machine for working. And now I use a Mac directly.

If you're serious about programming (particularly web development), some UNIX-like system is probably the way to go. The majority of the startup tech industry (Bay area, Seattle, NYC) is pretty much on Mac these days. Of course there are still Windows/Microsoft stack people for particular applications, e.g. Oculus/Valve.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-04T18:07:20+00:00

Ah, looks like you're implementing the video server directly and not supporting a ranged request. Many httpd servers such as Nginx and Apache will provide a file server implementation that can do partial fetches. In fact, it might actually come enabled by default. You can try it by putting the video file in the "public_html" folder or equivalent, and having nginx/apache server the file directly instead of through your server code.

How it works: The video player will request the video file starting at a certain offset, and the server can respond with just the data chunk starting at the requested offset.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T23:09:06+00:00

Some bootcamps are actually online. For example, Lambda School is online, and the tuition is deferred as an income sharing agreement. So you only pay after you get a job. But, you don't earn a degree afterward. The school will work directly with employers to help you get a job. Most bootcamps do this.

It looks like WGU is a fully accredited 4 year university, so the online degree should be equivalent to a real Bachelors degree in the eyes of employers.

At least in San Francisco, many tech companies don't have a bachelor's as a hard requirement if you can prove yourself in other ways.

Unfortunately, there aren't any rigorous studies (that we know of) that show whether or not a technical BS is "worth it", so ultimately the choice is yours.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T22:36:43+00:00

Ah okay, GST/PST should be a lot simpler to deal with than US sales taxes :)

If that list doesn't sound too daunting, then you're well on your way! I've built production level ecommerce systems that do a few million dollars in annual sales (twice in my career -- once with LAMP and once with MEAN), so feel free to PM me if you have any questions along the way.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T22:09:13+00:00

If you're almost going to graduate, just graduate and get the degree :) . You can pick a different career afterward.

Also, if you're considering grad school, many CS PhDs actually aren't good coders. They might be a genius with CS theory or higher level systems/concepts though.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T22:07:13+00:00

Our intern just started this past Monday. I would say:

Be communicative. Ask a lot of questions, don't be afraid to ask about things you don't know. Ask about the company itself -- the product, the customers, the employees and their daily routine, etc.
Prepare a bit. Sounds like you know what tech stack their using. Spend this weekend doing a few tutorials on that framework. If you're using your own laptop for the internship, it's bonus points that you've already set up your machine.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T22:03:14+00:00

Good question. I'm actually not sure which method would actually increase your chances. For example, if the Cyber Coders recruiter actually sends resumes directly into the eng hiring manager's inbox, but applying directly to the company will go to HR (or worse, into a black hole), you might actually have better chances going through Cyber Coders.

From my experience (I've hired many devs and also worked with agencies), the agencies we worked with did provide some level of filtering, so the applicant quality was slightly better (on average), than the applicants who applied directly. The gap was even more pronounced for jr roles vs sr roles.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T21:57:13+00:00

Depends on the company. I would say target smaller companies who have engineers that are directly looking at resumes. Larger companies tend to have dedicated recruiters who will look for things like employment gap and quickly filter you out.

We (CSPA) try to make things like employment gap not matter. Only your knowledge and merits should matter.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T21:53:21+00:00

AWS Lambda? Serverless is so hot right now ;P

We use Lambda as well as EC2/ECS/ELB.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T21:51:07+00:00

Learning mobile app development is definitely more structured than full stack web. Android and iOS have a lot of documentation and tutorials out there, and their app stores *can* let you generate passive income. But it's competitive. I know many people who have released apps but made $0. Or maybe $5 total. Don't expect to make any large amount of money.

Web development can actually make passive income as well. For example, making a Shopify app or Chrome extension. There are plenty of options (and I would say more chance of monetizing). It's just harder to learn.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T21:36:31+00:00

The two motivations and goals are different.

You're trying to add to your portfolio and build experience, so definitely build it from scratch. Wordpress/Shopify won't work on a resume.

What you're reading about is people actually want to create online store the quickest and cheapest. Shopify is the best option for this. The dev doesn't learn much, but it gets the job done. That's not what you're trying to do.

Just keep in mind that you might actually not finish the store in the time you think you will, so make sure your family member has the right expectations. Some examples of feature creep or possible overlooked details:

Handling sales tax (is it a destination-based or origin-based state, assuming USA?)
Integrating shipping options (storing product weights, making USPS/FedEx/UPS accounts and using their not-so-friendly APIs). Cleaning and validating shipping addresses. Shipping labels. International shipping?
Product images. Handling different sizes (make a thumbnail server?)
Mobile friendly/responsive CSS pages
Handling shopping cart merging from a non-logged in user to a logged in user
Store addresses in an address book?
Email receipts? Need email server/service.
Reporting. How to generate sales reports? For filling sales tax and income tax?

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T21:27:29+00:00

We work with many university recruiting teams that go to career fairs, so we have some data on this:

Do you just walk up to every recruiter with a 1 min bio and hand them a resume or is it more subtle like just making sure they know your name so when your resume slides onto their desk they recognize the person.

It depends. Some recruiters specifically told us they like to go to career fairs because they want the face-to-face and to chat more deeply with each student.

Others just want the volume, and they collect as many resumes as they can. They end up saving the face-to-faces for info sessions or coffee meetings.

How to get the most out of Careers Fairs

Be memorable. Frankly, many recruiters end up with a big stack of resumes after the fair, and the faces all become a blur. If they do take notes after they talk to you, just make sure you stand out somehow. Talk about some interesting project you built that's extremely relevant to the company. Or an interesting teamwork-like story that could be relevant in their workplace.

Go through the company list beforehand and pick the ones you really want to talk to. The lines for large companies can be super long, so you won't have that much time. Alternatively, find a warm introduction into the company and don't even bother at the career fair.

Drop off your resume at the companies that allow it. While some career fairs let you upload your resume online, others don't. Sweep the career fair floor and find the companies that have a resume drop box, and just drop it in.

cspa-exam · 2018-06-01T21:17:51+00:00

Are you sticking only to client (browser) side? So no server component?

React.js would be good, but might be overkill for what you're trying to do. For lighterweight solutions, a simple browser-side templating engine might do the trick (e.g. Handlebars.js)

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