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On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

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Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#81

Post by seanmcdirmid »

jarek wrote: post #80
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From SEA, you have the whole west coast at your doorstep, but you'll need a car and time to enjoy it. It's also a good place to get to Beijing or Tokyo, though it won't usually be cheap. After spending 4+ hours in an immigration line the last time I went to London via heathrow, I am probably never visiting there again.

> From SEA, you have the whole west coast at your doorstep, but you'll need a car and time to enjoy it Well luckily you'll have lots of time off from your Amazosoft job... What's the most exciting weekend city break out of Seattle, Portland? SF if you fly, and the selection tapers off after that. Weekend breaks are a lot more fun when you choose from 20 places to fly to for under a hundred. > After spending 4+ hours…

When I was living in Seattle, I would visit Rainer, North Cascade, or Olympic every weekend in the summer; how many cities are 2 hours away from some of the best national parks in the world on 3 sides? There is a reason seattle has the highest sales of sunglasses per capita in the states.

US immigration is fast with or without a usa passport, well, at least it never takes four freaking hours; in Seattle its max 20 minutes even for first time Chinese visitors. Even Bali is only an hour if you don't pay the bribe.

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#82

Post by jarek »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #81
jarek wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From SEA, you have the whole west coast at your doorstep, but you'll need a car and time to enjoy it Well luckily you'll have lots of time off from your Amazosoft job... What's the most exciting weekend city break out of Seattle, Portland? SF if you fly, and the selection tapers off after that. Weekend breaks are a lot more fun when you choose from 20 places to fly to for under a hundred. > After spending 4+ hours…

When I was living in Seattle, I would visit Rainer, North Cascade, or Olympic every weekend in the summer; how many cities are 2 hours away from some of the best national parks in the world on 3 sides? There is a reason seattle has the highest sales of sunglasses per capita in the states. US immigration is fast with or without a usa passport, well, at least it never takes four freaking hours; in Seattle its max 20 mi…

Well that is a fair point. From Seattle you can choose from mountains, mountains, or mountains, from London you have to settle for city, country, or mountains :)

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#83

Post by bshimmin »

gambiting wrote: post #72
peteretep wrote: post #9

That's a pretty impressive starting salary range for a junior. a) You must have interviewed exceptionally well, and be in practice "not really" a junior (which would imply Ada are doing an incredible job, and is freakin' awesome), or be bringing to bear some other skills and/or b) Salary range where you are is broken You said the range you got offered was $75-$95, which in Great British Pounds is £47-£60,000, and I'v…

I am a junior C++ programmer and I make ~27k USD/year in the UK. Those salaries in US make me question myself what I am doing with my life(but then again, I have mandatory 25 days of paid leave a year + unlimited sick days + free healhcare + have no student debt, so maybe it's not that bad )

That can't be London, can it? £17K would have been low even 10 years ago in the capital...

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#84

Post by gambiting »

bshimmin wrote: post #83
gambiting wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a junior C++ programmer and I make ~27k USD/year in the UK. Those salaries in US make me question myself what I am doing with my life(but then again, I have mandatory 25 days of paid leave a year + unlimited sick days + free healhcare + have no student debt, so maybe it's not that bad )

That can't be London, can it? £17K would have been low even 10 years ago in the capital...

North East.

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#85

Post by bshimmin »

gambiting wrote: post #84
bshimmin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can't be London, can it? £17K would have been low even 10 years ago in the capital...

North East.

...and you work in the games industry, I glean from your other comments. I guess your location and that industry are just about the worst possible combination in terms of salary. Sorry!

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#86

Post by Bahamut »

trentmb wrote: post #27
pookieinc wrote: post #25

This article was interesting to read from my standpoint. I'm currently unemployed and am currently looking for a jr. dev position as well. Background: Received CS degree, have worked for 3 years as a full-stack developer internationally with lots of code written, and am now looking in the Bay Area for front-end developer position. > Red Flag 1: Asking me to dedicate over ten hours to a code challenge before meeting a…

I don't know how to get on the radar of any companies. I'd love to be given a coding challenge. Background: Received Math degree this past summer, 0 years as a full-stack developer. I had supporting coursework in CS, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with programming. All I want is an entry level job...

If you're in the Bay area (or any major city), go to the meetups, talk to people, and eventually you'll find someone able to help you as long as you're personable.

Most of all though, you need to teach yourself the programming used in practice though - web development is probably the fastest ticket to a job. This means some Git, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a backend language (PHP, Ruby, Python, Java/Scala are good choices) & framework (WordPress, Symfony, Ruby on Rails, Django, Node.js, Play framework are examples) or few. Try going through courses offered on sites like Code School or Treehouse. Scour the web for online tutorials, and try to veer from them to get yourself more comfortable with working with the technologies.

An aside, if you live in the Bay area, I've run into plenty of fellow Illini here - I am one myself. I am a math PhD dropout from U of I ('06 - '10).

Good luck - I started my career 2 years ago after 2 1/2 years of searching, so I understand the pain of the first search. A recruiter I met at a meetup helped me land my first job in 2 months - I spent a half a year attending several meetups a week before I ran into him.

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#87

Post by atmosx »

trentmb wrote: post #27
pookieinc wrote: post #25

This article was interesting to read from my standpoint. I'm currently unemployed and am currently looking for a jr. dev position as well. Background: Received CS degree, have worked for 3 years as a full-stack developer internationally with lots of code written, and am now looking in the Bay Area for front-end developer position. > Red Flag 1: Asking me to dedicate over ten hours to a code challenge before meeting a…

I don't know how to get on the radar of any companies. I'd love to be given a coding challenge. Background: Received Math degree this past summer, 0 years as a full-stack developer. I had supporting coursework in CS, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with programming. All I want is an entry level job...

Networking can get you a job even with no experience at all (seriously, it's very much possible). Then of course, you will have to pay the piper probably (e.g. work more hours then the rest of the team to keep up) but from what I see here, most people learn programming on the job and stick to their specific company needs (internal policies, stacks, language, etc.)... Except from exceptional programmers, consultants and some other categories who love their job contribute to open source, keep their own projects and so forth..

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#88

Post by RestlessMind »

>... when someone at a very early stage startup approached me....

> When the developer mentioned her pregnancy as a negative to her potential employment, I immediately froze up and didn’t know how to handle the situation. It felt like I was supposed to agree that she might not be as dedicated or invested in the role because of her status as a mother.

I have a genuine question about this - "very early stage startups" seem to be the kind of places where every single employee can make or break the company. Are pregnant women a really right fit for such setting? I am a father myself and after watching my wife over the last few years of her pregnancy + motherhood, I can see the following reasons where pregnant women and an early stage startup can be a bad mismatch:

1. Women are allowed to take 15-17 weeks of leave in CA by law (2-4 weeks before delivery, 13 weeks after). If one of your employee is unavailable for ~4 months, won't that affect an early stage startup?

2. Early stage companies seem to be a high stress environment (my first hand experience, maybe anecdotal), where as pregnant women / new moms are advised rest (or at least avoid stress).

I might have my own startup one day, when I can come across candidates who are pregnant. So it would be good to know if there is any flaw in my thinking, or if I have missed anything.

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#89

Post by davesnothere »

tomlock wrote: post #74
Perdition wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not using a different challenge Like what? Even something like maths can be claimed to be "viewed generally as a male domain". And once you start accounting for ethnicity and social background I think you would find it incredibly difficult to come up with something that had no possibly offensive cultural baggage. Actually, maybe the challenge could be to design a challenge that was neutral. P.S. Considering soccer's…

We may very well find it very difficult to come up with something that has no possibly offensive cultural baggage. Do you think soccer was one where someone made even an attempt to mitigate that baggage?

I agree with the author that it would be better to have alternative coding challenges, even though interest in soccer is obviously not a male-only thing.

Re: On Interviewing as a Junior Dev

#90

Post by davesnothere »

gedrap wrote: post #50

What I sometimes don't understand, is the emphasis on being a female / ethnic minority like in this post. Sure, some people are intolerant, but if you go with 'maybe: being the only female / minority' it gives me a feeling that you expect some special treatment because of your gender or ethnicity. It gives me a feeling that it is an employee who is a potential liability (e.g. the paragraph about sports 'asking a fema…

Re: "potential law suit": Maybe just calm down and don't assume people are litigious by default...?
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