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Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

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Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#181

Post by barry-cotter »

torginus wrote: post #171
barry-cotter wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Master’s degree in CS, like a bootcamp, is a negative signal about an applicant.

I feel like you're doing the exact same thing the article's complaining about.

Yes, that’s kind of the point. Recruiting is hilariously broken in every industry. Tech is unusually open, transparent and meritocratic. If you can somehow internalise Cracking the Coding Interview or otherwise grind leetcode hard and get an interview you have a good chance at a very well paying job. But there are many, many people chasing those jobs so people use coarse heuristics to winnow down the piles of cvs, among them ranking Bachelors degrees in CS above Masters degrees from the same institutions.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#182

Post by pseudalopex »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #179
jletienne wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it does though, ages are right skewed. The median is likely under 29 in this example

The median probably is 29, that seems a lot more reasonable than the average being so.

Both median and mean are averages. An age discrimination suit in 2013 said the median was 29. Forbes in 2017 said the median was 30.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#183

Post by wombat-man »

nicolas_t wrote: post #178
EdwardDiego wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the "state degree" vs. "Ivy League degree" thing that common in US society? I ask because I've just joined an American company, and a person mentioned that they'd been hired and given a chance to excel "despite only having a state degree, much to my Mom's disgust", which surprised me. In my country, there's not much difference between the respective universities in terms of 'prestige'.

Anecdotal, but as a hiring manager, I've interacted with only one person from Harvard, he was very impressed with himself and knew how to talk but when we asked him to do a small test project (we paid him for), the work he did was really not great. He took a long time to deliver something that barely worked, didn't follow best practices/common idioms of the framework he was using (framework that he selected by himsel…

People sometimes get the impression that Ivies are about admitting only the best and brightest. But there are exceptions. Legacy admission, donor influence diversity picks. Also, I say diversity but I don't just mean race based picks. They are trying to build a student body that isn't made of people who all like the same sport for example. They need to fill out the various clubs.

I think the engineering based elite schools like MIT, Caltech or Stanford are probably a safer bet.

I also think being great in the academic world way different from the "real world" and there can be an adjustment period. I know there was for me!

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#184

Post by wombat-man »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #151
anonymoushn wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colleges are less impactful for trendy tech companies than they are for finance or whatever. I went to a no-name state school and could get into these things. If you really did an internship programming at Walgreens, it's easy enough to omit it from your resume.

Is the "state degree" vs. "Ivy League degree" thing that common in US society? I ask because I've just joined an American company, and a person mentioned that they'd been hired and given a chance to excel "despite only having a state degree, much to my Mom's disgust", which surprised me. In my country, there's not much difference between the respective universities in terms of 'prestige'.

It's easy to get caught up in the game of college admissions as a parent. It's actually kind of a problem where kids get encouraged to shoulder a bunch of debt instead of just going to the also great state school that would be a fraction of the cost.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#185

Post by tbran »

germinalphrase wrote: post #127
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #5

I generally enjoy Dan Luu’s advice, but IMO it’s best approached with the understanding that his professional and social network is somewhat of a bubble that doesn’t reflect the average person. Specifically, he cites a statistic that 50% of the people with “no experience” he knows are getting ML and other such jobs at Big Tech companies. In this case, I think he’s likely pre-filtering his sample set to people with si…

Transitioning out of a career in HS education and seeking a path in PM. Looking for useful prep references and remote referrals if anyone is willing to extend a hand.

This website [0] might be helpful. Guy says he went from being a kindergarten teacher to a marketer at Apple. The website is meant to sell his courses. I bet there is some useful info, and at the least it should be a confidence boost that it's possible.

[0]: https://www.breakinto.tech/blog/2015/10/14/how-i-went-from-t...

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#186

Post by germinalphrase »

tbran wrote: post #185
germinalphrase wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transitioning out of a career in HS education and seeking a path in PM. Looking for useful prep references and remote referrals if anyone is willing to extend a hand.

This website [0] might be helpful. Guy says he went from being a kindergarten teacher to a marketer at Apple. The website is meant to sell his courses. I bet there is some useful info, and at the least it should be a confidence boost that it's possible. [0]: https://www.breakinto.tech/blog/2015/10/14/how-i-went-from-t...

My target is not FAANG, but I will check it out.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#187

Post by cupofpython »

em-bee wrote: post #177
cupofpython wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME from doing general work at 3 companies in different industries (which might not be fully representative): Also sorry, turns out i ended up venting >someone has to do it, and if the pay is adequate, it's a matter of attitude. the pay is adequate for the value of the work (which is low), and it eats up your time which actually lowers the average value of your work to the company. it isnt anything other people cant…

it seems the primary problem is the mismatch of pay is adequate for the value of the work (which is low) and it seems better fit for someone near retirement then someone with goals of trying to buy a house and raise a family because the latter tend to expect a higher salary due to their accumulated experience.

>the latter tend to expect a higher salary due to their accumulated experience.

i was thinking people who are probably capable of retiring, but still want to work a job with more soft perks than pay. but yeah, maybe the work doesnt really suit anyone. Just a temporary type of work until you figure out what kind of specialization you want to do, or to build up experience for consulting maybe

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#188

Post by cupofpython »

fhrow4484 wrote: post #124
em-bee wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

generalists tend to get stuck with all the most tedious work from every department that simply no one wants to do someone has to do it, and if the pay is adequate, it's a matter of attitude. not getting credit (appropriate $ compensation) for your influence i don't understand this part. you already have your salary, as negotiated. are you saying that such a positions are always underpaid? and if such a position reall…

> i don't understand this part. you already have your salary, as negotiated In FAANG your salary is only a small part of your compensation. At end of year, based on your perceived performance, you get: - a bonus (10 to 20+% of base salary) - a stock refresh (80 to 120k over 4 years for instance for entry level/mid-level) - a merit increase of your base salary All these 3 influence your compensation significantly. You…

does FAANG employ generalists on a ladder? I feel like they would just hire a consulting group instead

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#190

Post by simiones »

barry-cotter wrote: post #169
kragen wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just speculating, but maybe people interpret "Master's degree in CS" as "dropped out of a Ph.D. program because it was too hard"?

The enormous majority of Master’s degrees awarded in most fields are for taught Master’s that bear far more resemblance to undergraduate study than Ph.D. preparation. Unless you know someone has a degree that is only possible to get if you were admitted to a Ph.D. programme the assumption should be that it’s a cat cow. There are exceptions, like GA Tech’s OMSCS, but unless you have excellent reason to believe otherwi…

I'm assuming then that you're talking about someone with a bachelor's degree in something other than CS, but then a master's degree in CS?
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