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How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

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Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#321

Post by e4e78a06 »

mrexroad wrote: post #318
e4e78a06 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't aware that "elite of the elite" included many public schools that aren't even that difficult to get into. If you're a California resident UCSD, UCI, UCB, UCLA, UCSB are all accessible schools that give you a very solid shot at a FAANG job out of college. If you're a Michigan resident, same goes for UMich. Illinois, UIUC. Georgia, Georgia Tech. Texas, any number of great state schools. These schools are not t…

Fwiw, while Ga Tech is not that difficult to get in to, their undergrad CS program is that difficult to graduate from.

Which again supports the idea that it's about applying yourself and not about privilege or any other excuse that people use to justify their own shortcomings.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#322

Post by known »

raincom wrote: post #253
AmericanBlarney wrote: post #151

When I was interviewing developers from a very large offshoring firm, they covertly had an account manager listening in to take down the questions for future candidates. Each interview, I'd ask a slightly different variation and it became obvious what was going on when a candidate gave a textbook answer to the question I'd asked the previous candidate, including references to tables I hadn't mentioned and that had no…

Indian offshoring companies like Wipro, TCS, etc pay $500 per month for fresh graduates from the engineering colleges, where lecturers are incompetent. In a team of 10, only two are capable, all others are for billable hours for these companies. Some of these newbies can learn and improve skills and jump to other companies in a couple of years. In the end, what matters is the cheapest labor, and billable hours. Accou…

No post body was provided.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#323

Post by _wldu »

mrexroad wrote: post #317
_wldu wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Georgia Tech is consistently ranked a Top 10 CS program (worldwide) and their OMSCS program now accounts for 10% of all MSCS degrees issued. It costs about 6,000 to 7,000 USD total: "OMSCS started in January 2014 with 380 students. Enrollment increased each semester (excluding summer terms). In 2019 I believed that we were very close to the peak, since we are graduating more and more students. But then, the pandemic…

Paging George P. Burdell…

George was the first graduate of the program.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#324

Post by TMWNN »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #211
robbyking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note, I dated a woman who was promoted to vice president of a small start up when she was in her 20's. She had to hide her title on her resume when she left because no established firm wanted to hire someone whom they assumed they'd need to pay a quarter million dollars to be competitive. Sometimes grandiose titles can work against you.

> had to hide her title on her resume when she left because no established firm wanted to hire someone whom they assumed they'd need to pay a quarter million dollars to be competitive That's bizarre given Wall Street has been abusing the Vice President title for generations now. (VPs at American banks report to Managing Directors, a middle-management level of which there are hundreds if not thousands. It's the tier a…

The European equivalent is "Executive Director". (That is, someone at Goldman who was promoted to VP from Associate in the US would have been promoted to ED in Europe.) That's even worse title abuse, if you ask me.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#325

Post by kodah »

ok_dad wrote: post #295
kodah wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question, and one I've answered here before. > why didn't you use the GI bill to get free college? I did. I went back for a semester, but the money wasn't enough in my area. I found myself working part time and going to school full time, then eventually doing both full time. The stress got to me and I dropped out again. > Most universities will accept any veteran who has a GED or HS diploma Maybe now, but this i…

That's horrible and I feel for your struggle. I've gotten lucky to be able to navigate the VA very easily, or I had good guides when I was separating and filing for disability and other separation concerns. I was in the Navy as well, but I was always in non-combat zones so I was lucky my disability was not related to combat injuries. I wish I could do something about the VA, but alas I'm not a powerful person or poli…

I was in the Marines, but my medical care was entirely provided by the Navy, with a few exceptions.

I'm not sure what to do about the VA. I gave up using it and any passive improvements they've made will not be enough, in my mind, to make me a customer again. The VA isn't the only problem, imo, though - really the problem is societal. People will give lip service and outrage to these problems, others will decry any form of action or empathy as hero worship. Basically, veterans became both aliens and political chess pieces to larger society. We have the reputation of being ghosts, in the form of never speaking about our pasts, and it allows people to make up mythology about us and our struggles.

My way of combating this, is sometimes I'll share "war stories", but they're usually funny ones. The real war stories I share are the stories of me coming back, where I'm not wearing a uniform anymore. Mundane stories about mental health, substance abuse, lack of opportunity, medical problems, etc are what the public really needs to hear; lest they get to thinking you're just a bum.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#326

Post by bradknowles »

shard wrote: post #189
camhart wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's interesting, these titles," Musk said. "You know that there's actually only three titles that actually mean anything for a corporation? It's president, secretary, and treasurer. And technically they can be the same person. And all these other titles are just basically made up. So CEO is a made-up title, CFO is a made-up title. General counsel, a made-up title. They don't mean anything." https://www.youtube.com/…

I thought General Counsel means you have a JD?

Nope. I don’t know that you necessarily even need to have passed the bar exam in a given jurisdiction, much less have any kind of actual degree.

IMO, you’d be stupid to take a job like that if you didn’t have the degree and have passed one or more bar exams in the appropriate related jurisdiction(s), but I don’t know that it’s actually required.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#327

Post by bryanrasmussen »

danielvaughn wrote: post #120
ska wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes grandiose titles can work against you. Early stage startups can be especially hilarious that way, especially when young founders/early stage employees mistakenly feel they need a "big" title to be taken seriously...

Yep, indeed. I'm technically the CTO of the startup I'm helping to found. And even though I'm 37, I haven't been in tech long enough to feel like I've earned that title, so my LinkedIn says Chief Software Architect (I made it up).

I was one of the technical guys on a Danish standardization project called OIO - Offentlig Information Online (offentlig means governmental in this case) - at one time they decided that we needed 'titles', so I and one other guy decided we would call ourselves XML Architects as a piss-take on another part of the project. Got the business cards and everything, but ADHD me lost mine.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#328

Post by Dudeman112 »

beauzero wrote: post #300
Dudeman112 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just what is it with extra privileged people and being allergic to admitting it. You seriously, honestly, from the bottom of your heart, think that 90% of the 70k people living in the Complexo do Alemão are just lazy and don't fix their lives due to sloth? Before you start, I'm happy with my life and my circumstances.

As I have gotten older I regret the opportunities I didn't take or passed up because I was focused on others. Don't let my regrets be yours.

What does that have to do with the discussion?

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#329

Post by AmericanBlarney »

anononaut wrote: post #262
AmericanBlarney wrote: post #151

When I was interviewing developers from a very large offshoring firm, they covertly had an account manager listening in to take down the questions for future candidates. Each interview, I'd ask a slightly different variation and it became obvious what was going on when a candidate gave a textbook answer to the question I'd asked the previous candidate, including references to tables I hadn't mentioned and that had no…

I presume something must have caused you to start giving slightly different questions, right? You did so because you wanted to see if they were collaborating in this fashion. What was that "something," if you don't mind me asking?

I generally like to base my interview questions on the candidate's resume, asking questions of various levels of difficulty about the areas they claim to be skilled. I find it gives a better sense of their abilities than strictly asking about the tools/languages/algorithms being used on the hiring project. As such, each interview was already unique to an extent - and I might have noticed something like a person whiffing the easy questions but then getting an advanced one that didn't add up.

Also, the "architect" I inherited on the team seemed totally incompetent in a variety of ways, and insisted on using a fixed set of questions without deviation. To He kept flagging people through who seemed totally inept when I'd dive into their background, so they was also probably a tip off that they figured him out.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#330

Post by silicon2401 »

ratorx wrote: post #124
silicon2401 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, if you're looking for a new job and are still a junior, you're probably switching far too quickly. couldn't disagree more. people should change jobs every week if they're able to. why stay at company A making X, if company B is willing to hire you now, for 1.5-3x? if you stay at a company for an arbitrarily long period of time, you're just throwing away tons of money

From a pure immediate money perspective, sure changing immediately to a higher paying job makes sense. However, generally each new job comes with a ramp up time before you become useful and then a further ramp up before you can develop new skills (in my limited experience). I don’t think I could properly progress in my career by building higher level skills if I had to learn new organisational practices and technical…

That's a fair point but to me that's already built in to job hopping. If you're not able to secure a new job (or hold down an existing job), then you keep progressing, but at a higher salary. I work for money and nothing else (I couldn't care less about software) so I gain no benefit from doing the same thing (growing my skills) at a current job than at a new job with a much higher salary.
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