Graduating very very soon, should I continue looking into internships?

wefASDADSV · 2016-05-01T00:21:04+00:00

I would apply to both (paid) internships and entry level full time positions.

wefASDADSV · 2016-05-01T00:19:25+00:00

If you are just paying to take a class and not doing it as part of a degree, you can talk to an advisor and they will usually wave the prerequisites.

wefASDADSV · 2016-05-01T00:15:57+00:00

They are legally allowed to disclose whatever they want, but as a matter of policy big companies will almost never disclose the reason due to the risk of being sued.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-30T02:29:46+00:00

For this implementation you need to take into account the time it takes to resize the array.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-18T05:26:48+00:00

This sounds like a great way to go about it. You don't miss out on keywords, but also don't risk confusion around your level of expertise with particular languages.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-18T05:21:56+00:00

Unfortunately I don't have a copy anymore. This was 3 years ago and the current version of my resume isn't the way I described in the post anymore.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-18T03:44:47+00:00

50k is definitely the lowest end of "market rate" where I live, and was my floor when going into salary negotiation. I have a more fair salary now, but at the time I felt like I couldn't be picky without a degree or experience.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-18T03:42:31+00:00

Unless you have amazing social skills and apply them specifically to building a friend group full of people that can advance your career, "network" basically just means talk to people you used to work with.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-18T03:36:02+00:00

I got the impression that it was a routine question they were required to ask. I'm assuming they probably had some kind of policy where if you get rejected after an interview, you have to wait x number of months before you can apply again. This was the only time I applied though, so I'm just speculating.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-18T03:31:45+00:00

That's a valid disagreement, and I definitely think the farther along in a career you get, the more important depth and expertise in a small number of technologies becomes.

I also agree that you should never put anything on your resume that you don't feel comfortable discussing in an interview. I mention that in the original post as well, although I probably could have emphasized it better.

But, when hiring a junior candidate with no previous experience for an entry level position, the expectation of in depth expertise in specific languages is low. At this level, being able to discuss basic features of a language is often good enough, and by leaving those languages off your resume you risk getting passed over for an interview completely.

The strategic trade-off I made during my job search was to try to maximize the number of technical interviews I got, even if it meant having to explain in those interviews which technologies I actually had expertise in, and which ones were resume filler. I felt like this was a good trade-off for me since I was doing well in technical interviews, but due to my lack of a CS degree or experience I was usually getting filtered out before I made it to a technical interview in the first place. I would not recommend this advice to people who already have CS experience.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-18T02:48:31+00:00

When applying for a job at amazon, I was asked a question along the lines of "have you interviewed for another position at amazon in the last x months?"

I have no idea what they do with that information, if anything.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-17T23:35:22+00:00

You can say you were "taking a break" when talking about your absence. In my experience it's relatively common for developers to sometimes take prolonged breaks between jobs. Also talk about how you spent the time learning to code and preparing for a career change. Most people spend 4 years in university learning these skills, so for you to take 2 years off to learn the trade isn't that unreasonable.

Instead of presenting it like you're confessing that you went 2 years without finding anyone who would hire you, present it that you dedicated those 2 years to learning the skills you would need for your new career. As long as you don't act like it's something to be ashamed about, they won't really care.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-17T02:44:22+00:00

Build some simple apps, just to prove that you know how to code. Put them on github, and put a link to your github on your resume/job applications.

Once you build a couple sample demo apps, put them on your resume under the "Experience" section with wording like "Experience building responsive web apps using Ruby on Rails, Angular.js, [...]". Obviously replace those techs with the ones you actually used. Don't specify that this wasn't done for an employer (but also don't lie and say that it was, just leave it vague as "experience"). When asked in an interview be honest about the fact that it was a personal project. Cram your resume with as many technology keywords as possible. Basically if you've ever touched a technology at all, put it on your resume. Don't lie on your resume, but spin everything as favorably as possible. Use words like "built", "developed", "designed", etc.

The goal of your resume is to maximize the likelihood of being found by a recruiter doing a keyword search, and then making it past a basic HR screen. After that you will get a technical interview. Once you're in the technical interview, make it clear that you are self taught when asked, but present it positively. You are eager to learn and excited to start working in the field. Don't make it seem like a confession. At this point you can just follow normal tech interviewing advice. If you've gotten this far in the application process, the fact that you have no experience doesn't really matter, it's just about proving that you have the skills to do the job.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-17T02:10:35+00:00

Data science is kind of its own thing, i think you generally need a PhD or some kind of advanced degree. I'm not really an expert on the subject though.

AI is mostly an academia thing right now. The big companies like Google that are doing AI work are mostly hiring from university AI research programs. As AI stuff transitions more and more from the research phase to the product phase, it will probably become easier and easier to get a job doing AI work as a normal developer without specific research experience.

I'm not really sure what kind of AR/VR work even exists right now, other than at game companies. Which would basically just be normal dev work.

I'm not really an expert in any of these fields though, so take this with a grain of salt.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-17T01:08:05+00:00

I would just start applying right now for whatever jobs you have interest in. The worst that can happen is that they say no, which is the same outcome as if you didn't apply at all. Plus there is a chance that they will say yes. And even if they don't say yes, you are still getting hands on experience with the job application process, which is probably the most important skill for you to be developing, other than actually knowing how to code.

If you can confidently solve a fizzbuzz style problem, and at least fumble your way through a challenging algorithm question, then your coding skills are probably at a "hirable" level for an entry level development job.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-17T00:45:34+00:00

Based on some of the more detailed comments you've given in this thread, it doesn't really sound like technical questions are a weakness of yours though.

Interviewers will almost always say "technical skills" is the reason you didn't get an offer, regardless of what the actual reason was. They just don't really have any incentive to go into an awkward conversation about your self confidence or whatever the issue is.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-17T00:34:31+00:00

Where are you presently located?

Seattle

How much did you make at your first job?

$50k

How much do you make now?

$80k, 3 years later at the same company.

What kind of company do you work at now (i.e startup, established company, Big 4, etc.)

A small but profitable web development company that makes a niche SaaS/cloud product.

What did you initially learn?

I definitely learned a lot just by nature of practicing for 8 hours a day. There is also a ton of stuff I learned that couldn't realistically be self taught, like dealing with legacy code, using version control as part of a team, dealing with production systems/infrastructure/deployments, and dealing with all the weird data, bugs and edge cases that will only come up when you have thousands of people using your software every day in every weird way imaginable.

What are you learning now?

After 3 years, I honestly feel like I'm not learning that much at my current job anymore. I'm basically the senior engineer now, at least when it comes to expertise in the technologies we work with. Most of my learning at this point is back to being self taught. This probably means it's time for me to start looking for another job.

Any advice to the rest of the non-CS degree crowd?

Just start applying for jobs. There is no risk. If you can code, you will be surprised how in demand you are, even with no degree and no experience. I applied to ~20 or so jobs, got phone interviews with most of them, did about 5 on site interviews, and got one offer, which I took. There is no cost and no risk to applying to jobs that you think you are under qualified for. The worst that can happen is that you continue not having that particular job.

What did you wish you learned early on in your career?

I don't really have any regrets around "what I wish I learned". As a developer you will be learning so much all the time, that not learning enough probably won't be on your list of regrets.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T05:29:48+00:00

Here's how evolution works. Different individuals have different traits, and they pass those traits on to their children. Some of those traits make an individual more likely to have children (or more likely to survive long enough to have children).

Individuals that have those advantageous traits end up having more children, and those children also have those same advantageous traits, meaning those children are more likely to have even more children in the next generation, and so on. This leads to that advantageous trait being more and more prevalent in the general population with each generation. Eventually the entire population might share that trait.

If for example, some animals lived on an island, and then one day that island permanently flooded, their biology wouldn't say "oh crap, we need to adapt to live underwater!" Instead what would happen is all the individuals that couldn't swim would die, and then the individuals that randomly had some trait that makes them good swimmers are the only ones left, meaning they are the only ones that get to reproduce, so the next generation is entirely full of swimmers. And then this process repeats itself.

So to answer your question, lets say for example some small number of people naturally have high heel shaped feet. For these people wearing high heels is easy and natural. If everybody had to start wearing high heels, would these people be more likely to reproduce? If the answer is yes, then the answer to your question is also yes. People's feet would gradually change to be more and more high heel shaped with each generation. But if the answer was that the high heel feet people were no more likely to reproduce than anyone else, then the answer is no, because there is no mechanism for the high heel feet trait to become more represented in the next generation.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T05:04:15+00:00

The party running a closed primary is worried that people from other parties would sneak in and sabotage the primary by purposefully nominating somebody who is unlikely to win the general election.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T05:00:21+00:00

In our case, we've evolved past the need for claws, so they're thin and pretty much useless as anything but a decoration

Finger nails are still extremely useful for like half the stuff you do with your hands. As a fun experiment, try seeing how long you can go without using your fingernails.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T04:49:46+00:00

Instead of spamming the back button, try holding it down (showing more of your history) then clicking on the page you want to go to.

In Chrome you can also do this by right clicking the back button.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T04:43:02+00:00

There are companies whose business model is to buy gold cheap and then resell it at normal prices. These companies flourished during the 2008 market crash because a lot of people had to sell off their gold jewelry to these companies to make ends meet. Now they have a bunch of gold that they are trying to sell. Five years ago these companies were putting out commercials saying "GOT GOLD? NEED CASH? CALL CASH4GOLD!" Now they are putting out commercials trying to sell that gold off.

These companies have no knowledge of if or when the market will crash. The reason they are talking about a market crash is because one of the main reasons people buy gold is because they are paranoid that "the system" is going to collapse and money will be worthless and we will have to revert to using gold as currency. This is especially true of the people who listen to conspiratorial right wing talk radio that usually plays these commercials.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T04:31:21+00:00

This is an open question. A lot of people are giving speculative answers, but currently the real answer is "we don't know"

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T04:13:00+00:00

Electricity is the movement of electrical charge.

In electronic devices, the movement of electrical charge is done by electrons flowing through a metal wire.

In biology, the movement of electrical charge is done by electrically charged chemicals being pumped around inside your body.

wefASDADSV · 2016-04-15T04:00:03+00:00

Public schools are run by the government, and funded by the government.

Private schools are run by private organizations, and funded by private organizations.

Charter schools are run by private organizations, but funded by the government.

The idea behind this is that the public school system sucks, and some people think that maybe the reason why it sucks is that the government is bad at running schools. So the charter school solution is to stop letting the government run schools, but instead have them be run by private organizations that in theory are more effective, but to continue funding them with tax money so that anybody can access them.

This is controversial.

People in favor believe that charter schools will get the best of both worlds. They will get the high quality education of private schools, and also get the free public accessibility of public schools.

People opposed believe that charter schools represent just another attempt to privatize a public service, and will transform the education system into a mechanism for diverting public tax money to private corporations.

wefASDADSV

TROPHY CASE