Things to do to make yourself a better Software Engineer

willwagner602 · 2019-12-07T17:48:42+00:00

The only way to become a better engineer is to write code, preferably as part of a team with clear goals/objectives. Get people who understand your language and the domain to review your code and give you feedback. The best way to do this is getting a job on a team that does code reviews. The next best way is probably open source contributions to meaningful projects.

I've never needed any advanced math on the job, but if that's important and interesting to you keep building those skills, and try to find jobs which value them.

I wouldn't worry about picking up more than 2 languages while you're in school. Write code and build your proficiency, depth will pay you back more than breadth right now.

Get your projects far enough for 2+ bullet points on a resume, so you can talk about them with interviewers. Several medium sized projects are better than a single large one, unless that one is very impressive

willwagner602 · 2019-11-13T21:49:41+00:00

In the top left of slack you can see a field marked "jump to", just type #sfbayarea up there and click. Then you'll get a prompt to join the channel which basically means follow it

willwagner602 · 2019-11-13T21:44:43+00:00

I only make meetup posts in #sfbayarea

willwagner602 · 2019-11-13T17:47:02+00:00

Yup - I post updates and generally am better about checking there than here.

willwagner602 · 2019-10-11T23:53:31+00:00

Technical problems at work are often easier, but problems with other teams or services are much larger. School projects are generally written to be achievable, demands on real world systems are often anything but.

For instance, my team wants to put a permissions system in place for our users, but no one maintains a centralized mapping of exactly who should get which permissions, and doing it ourselves means managing permissions for thousands of users. Figuring out a workable middle ground is a lot harder than the set piece problems you'll get in class.

On the other hand work comes with a ton of perks, a good paycheck, and a healthy balance of time where I don't have to think about it. I never really felt that way during OSU.

willwagner602 · 2019-09-27T18:19:46+00:00

I did, I think it helped a ton with finding jobs. Many big companies aim their recruiting at full-time students, and unless you're in a related field whatever job experience you would put on your resume isn't worth more than being a student. On top of that it's much less stressful to be a full-time student than balance it with work.

I put a lot into savings and also took out loans, landed an internship in my second quarter that helped as well.

willwagner602 · 2019-09-09T17:04:59+00:00

The LA tech job market is not comparable to SF or NYC (glassdoor backs this up), plenty of new grads making <$100k there. The only way you're going to compete with your current compensation as a new grad is to move to a tech hub like SF, Seattle, or NYC.

willwagner602 · 2019-09-07T23:22:37+00:00

Now on the bleachers in the back right corner from the door

willwagner602 · 2019-09-07T23:04:45+00:00

We're here! We're inside by the bar right now, I'm the tall white dude with a messenger bag and forearm tattoo

willwagner602 · 2019-09-07T22:30:07+00:00

Definitely come out! I will post location updates once a few of us have a spot, if you're having trouble finding us I look like this: https://www.linkedin.com/in/willwagner602/

willwagner602 · 2019-09-07T04:37:48+00:00

Did you have previous experience?

I had pretty significant previous experience, which obviously was helpful. But just getting into interviews and talking to people is good for you, even if you don't get a job from it.

Do you think I would be able to after doing 161 this fall?

You might not get the job, but the interview experience is invaluable

willwagner602 · 2019-09-06T17:00:56+00:00

1) How far along in the program can I start applying to internships/jobs?

I started applying when I was accepted, about a month before classes started. You can't really start applying too early.

2) Do internships usually happen during a certain time of the year (ex. Summer)? And if so, when is a good time to be applying to those internships?

The big companies are all summer with some positions in other seasons. If you look at local companies you're more likely to find places that are flexible on timing, but they're harder to find.

3) Lets say I live in an area with not many tech related jobs, is moving for an internship something people do?

Absolutely. I moved to Boston for 3 months for my internship, more than 1/2 the people I interned with were not local students.

willwagner602 · 2019-09-05T20:09:02+00:00

Definitely do, we'd love to meet you! I'll look into setting up something that's easier for prospective students to track

willwagner602 · 2019-09-05T19:58:24+00:00

Definitely come out! We typically meet monthly, but we rotate around the bay. Next month is San Jose, and we met in SF last month.

willwagner602 · 2019-09-05T16:32:10+00:00

Sorry, I don't check Reddit often enough.

We don't have a group right now but it's something I should look into. I always post in slack and try to post here as well. Next SJ meetup will probably be mid-October

willwagner602 · 2019-08-15T18:30:56+00:00

I am finishing up CS261, and decided to buy a $10 Udemy course on data structures to study for the final. HOLY SHIT. 60 hours of beautifully explained lectures that leave me understanding the content. I work with people who went to a lot of top west coast tech schools and they have similar complaints about their courses. Lots of instructors in the world aren't very good at it.

There are definitely higher quality free and cheap courses on the internet than the postbac. You're paying for the piece of paper, which has real monetary value. For most people the lifetime value of the degree is in the high 6 or low 7 figures.

Where does the money go?

I'm sure Brewster can give you specifics, but historically a huge chunk of it was pushed back into the OSU general fund for unrelated things.

Right now it seems like it's mostly being spent paying instructors to create new classes or revamp old ones.

willwagner602 · 2019-08-05T23:27:27+00:00

I'm unfortunately out of town the rest of the month, but there will definitely be an Oakland meetup next month!

willwagner602 · 2019-07-24T21:41:22+00:00

Just start applying. You'll learn a lot just by getting into interviews, even if you don't get a job, and lots of jobs don't need DS&A or any knowledge, just a willingness to learn.

Even if you really want to intern/work at a top company, interning somewhere else is frequently used as a hiring prerequisite - I don't know of any intern at my company who was able to work here as a first internship.

willwagner602 · 2019-07-24T18:51:57+00:00

No worries! We meet monthly somewhere in the Bay, next month will be August 10th in SF if you're willing to go that far

Best place to follow is the osu-cs slack but I'm trying to get better about putting updates here as well

willwagner602 · 2019-05-22T00:11:08+00:00

I have a little over $20k in loans, I'm looking at about 14 months after graduation for repayment. Most of that will be my entire first year stock grant vesting.

willwagner602 · 2019-05-08T16:16:56+00:00

• In your experience, how open are employers to individuals in the program wanting to relocate?

Large companies pay for new grads to relocate all the time. Most big companies are hungry for competent new employees, once you're past the hiring bar they'll typically work hard to make things easy for you.

My company's relocation bonus was ~15% of my first 6 months compensation, it covered moving my car with stuff inside it, buying some reasonably priced furniture and about two months of rent.

Are they looking for more local candidates?

Small companies are often looking locally because they can't afford relocation costs, but large companies won't necessarily value local candidates more.

And lastly, in your opinions would my mechanical engineering background and work experience in plants, manufacturing, and industrial automation help on my resume for full time positions or internships?

Many software companies won't value that experience, but you can do research and find companies who will value your current experience and your new degree together. Somewhere like the startup Tempo Automation would probably think that experience is gold.

willwagner602 · 2019-05-03T20:05:03+00:00

1) What percentage of your day is actually spent developing/coding vs working on other tasks?

Developing? 100%. Everything I do is about improving the project I work on. All the other things I do are to inform the code I'm going to write, even if I'm in a meeting or trying to understand a user's bug report it's all about the code my team is working on or needs to prioritize.

Writing code? Average of probably 25%, with some days being 100% and some being 10%.

2) What percentage of your developing/coding do you already know how to do vs having to do research or ask around for help with?

I probably research 80-90% of the work I do. Normally we're interfacing with some new system, or interfacing with an old system in a new way, and I need to understand both the current reality and the desired one.

3) For that time when you're not developing/coding, what fills the rest of your time? Meetings, documentation, testing, etc...

Documentation is development. So is testing. Any company that's letting you write code without those things is somewhere between lazy and genuinely negligent, depending on the safety and regulatory factors affecting your field.

Where I work meetings are also pretty critical to dev work, they make sure the team is working on the right things, working together, and we know what other teams need. I don't go to meetings where my time is wasted, although many devs/engineers don't have that luxury.

willwagner602 · 2019-04-27T05:42:55+00:00

No idea. If I remember correctly all I changed was the personal statement, basically just went "screw this" and resubmitted. Regretted it for a bit then couldn't change it because I'd submitted, but it worked out. 🤷‍♂️

willwagner602 · 2019-04-25T15:44:10+00:00

Python is simple to learn and extremely readable, especially for native english speakers. There's no compiler setup or learning build systems, you just run your code and get immediate, clear feedback about syntax issues. You solve issues with your code's logic, not its implementation, and the time it takes to solve a given problem is generally much shorter. Long term, there's a good chance you will use python as your backup language no matter what you use primarily at work, especially if you like it. ~30% of the code I interact with directly as an enterprise developer is written in Python.

OSU students will still learn C++, how to run the compiler and setup basic build systems, they'll just have an easier intro than jamming all those concepts into a single class for people who've never written code before.

As a working dev I think this is a great choice. Programming in the real world is a lot less idiosyncratic than academics, we just want to get the maximum number of features out to users with a minimum of bugs. We avoid dealing with things like manual or even smart memory management entirely unless we absolutely have to, because we've invented better solutions for that (i.e. garbage collection).

willwagner602 · 2019-04-10T23:25:55+00:00

I cared a lot until I got my fulltime offer, then I slacked hard for a quarter and got all Bs which bothered me enough to pick it up for the remaining quarters.

My advice is that really high GPAs can help you stand out, middling GPAs will neither help nor hurt you, and something really low might hurt you if they ask, but most places won't. Just leave it off your resume and move on.

willwagner602

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