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Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

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Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#1

Post by duketon »

I'm currently in my first year of a two year masters degree in software engineering. I'm comfortable with the coursework and am really enjoying it.

Where I feel lost is in my spare time. I have a bookmarks folder with about 200 links to articles, resources, videos, etc. I'm incredibly overwhelmed with the amount of 'stuff' out there; languages, frameworks, tools, and so on. I feel a bit lost every time I sit down at my laptop and try to do something productive.

My short-term goal is to secure an internship/junior position in Europe (Poland) over my next summer break (I live in Aus).

I'm looking for some ideas on what to do in my spare time to make myself the most competitive for an entry-level position.

With only a few months of experience I haven't really been exposed to enough different areas of development to say I want to work in X, Y or Z.

I'm suffering from the fact that pretty much everything interests me. Web dev, data analysis, machine learning, databases, and so on. I think that for me I need someone to pigeon-hole me into an area so that I can self-study in depth and get an internship in this area.

Would some more experienced developers offer some advice? Where did you start? Where would you have liked to start? What are some good ways to kick-off a successful development career?

I hope this wasn't too much of a ramble. Cheers

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#2

Post by mkremer90 »

Instead of thinking about the area of study (web dev, data, etc), how about you look at the openings in Poland to see which companies are hiring, and for what languages. Then pick a few of those companies that you think are cool, and concentrate on the technologies that they are using. That way instead of shooting in the dark, your aspiring to fulfill a need in your community.

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#3

Post by qzervaas »

You need have a specific target, otherwise you're just shooting in the dark and you'll get bored easily.

But if you say, "I want to make a web site that does ABC", or "I want to make an app that does XYZ", you won't just be - as mkremer90 said - shooting in the dark at a whole bunch of different technologies

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#4

Post by valarauca1 »

Algorithms.

Yes boring old pure data and programming algorithms. This skill is more useful then learning a dozen frameworks. In interviews you'll have people asking you dozens of questions that will all boil down to, "Do you know algorithms?" And not to mention that toolset is applicable over nearly every development domain. You'll very very rarely find software teams who will scoff at somebody who knows their algorithms. You'll rarely find times in your developer life time where you'll think, "Jeeze I wish I didn't know how trees, bloom filters, hash based indexing, etc. works this has been such a determent to my career!"

Most fields of development end up needing to use algorithms at some time or another. How does your data analysis work, How is machine learning done? What are databases doing to make 10,000 queries per second? What are the pros and cons? Are you entering data in inefficient ways to slow this down? Are you or the tool the problem?

When you learn algorithms you can answer these questions. Then apply those answers to your job! Impress your friends and enemies! Demonstrate counting sort running circles around their quick sort implementations because your data is highly specialized.

Yes it isn't sexy. Its not a buzz word. Its horn rim glasses, dnd nerd boring stuff. But at the same time it isn't. Rock-stars learn music theory one way or another, how are you gonna audition for the rolling stones if you don't know what an G cord is?

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#5

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

mkremer90 wrote: post #2

Instead of thinking about the area of study (web dev, data, etc), how about you look at the openings in Poland to see which companies are hiring, and for what languages. Then pick a few of those companies that you think are cool, and concentrate on the technologies that they are using. That way instead of shooting in the dark, your aspiring to fulfill a need in your community.

Spot on.

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#6

Post by mattm »

valarauca1 wrote: post #4

Algorithms. Yes boring old pure data and programming algorithms. This skill is more useful then learning a dozen frameworks. In interviews you'll have people asking you dozens of questions that will all boil down to, "Do you know algorithms?" And not to mention that toolset is applicable over nearly every development domain. You'll very very rarely find software teams who will scoff at somebody who knows their algori…

Any recommended books or resources? I'm out of university but feel I need to brush up on algorithms.

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#7

Post by valarauca1 »

mattm wrote: post #6
valarauca1 wrote: post #4

Algorithms. Yes boring old pure data and programming algorithms. This skill is more useful then learning a dozen frameworks. In interviews you'll have people asking you dozens of questions that will all boil down to, "Do you know algorithms?" And not to mention that toolset is applicable over nearly every development domain. You'll very very rarely find software teams who will scoff at somebody who knows their algori…

Any recommended books or resources? I'm out of university but feel I need to brush up on algorithms.

The Art of Computer Programming is amazing. Its honestly one of the most difficult and impenetrable books you'll read, and that's being generous. That being said it is amazing. If you enjoy math and programming (and have post calculus mathematics skills) you can stumble your way though it mostly, it will be challenging.

But what you will learn even skipping parts, getting frustrated, coming back, leaving again. Is a lot. Knuth crams a lot of knowledge into, well a lot of pages.

Complete disclosure I have honestly haven't completely cover to covered every single volume. I skip around a lot.

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#8

Post by chris_va »

Experience is significantly more valuable than reading 200 articles (and as a result, I am inclined to view CS grad school as a waste for many people).

Build stuff. It doesn't really matter what it is, there is enough overlap between all of the disciplines to compensate.

Having said that, and as was mentioned already, Algorithms is probably the one topic that truly differentiates people.

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#9

Post by ithinkso »

mattm wrote: post #6
valarauca1 wrote: post #4

Algorithms. Yes boring old pure data and programming algorithms. This skill is more useful then learning a dozen frameworks. In interviews you'll have people asking you dozens of questions that will all boil down to, "Do you know algorithms?" And not to mention that toolset is applicable over nearly every development domain. You'll very very rarely find software teams who will scoff at somebody who knows their algori…

Any recommended books or resources? I'm out of university but feel I need to brush up on algorithms.

Cormen's Introduction to Algorithms. It is almost biblical book about algorithms. And solve online judge type of tasks. A lot.

Re: Ask HN: Young developer looking for some guidance

#10

Post by doobiaus »

Programming is the 'easy' part. To be employable learn the rest of the process, which is typically language agnostic: Dev Processes & workflow (scrum), DVCS (git), TDD, CI/CD (Travis/Jenkins/TeamCity), devops (puppet). etc

They're the things, regardless of language or project you will need, but which are rarely taught properly.

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