Maybe they've read "Designing Data-Intensive applications". (Semi-joke)
I'm reading it right now. Does that mean I get a pay raise? :D
How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
271–280 of 332 posts
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#272I remember when I was in high school, I had some friends who studied karate, and they were like, "I finally made it to black belt." Meaning, they were a master now. They were 16 years old, and had maybe 3 years experience. In Taiwan, in the 1890s... uh, they would not be regarded as black belt. Even then it was clear that there was a lot of "belt inflation" happening. The karate schools like the children to feel like…
> In Taiwan, in the 1890s
Karate is Japanese, but I get your point.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly my point, folks with privilege like yourself don't even understand what privilege they have and have taken advantage of their whole life. I did (apply myself). I did work my ass off to get into, and out of, (good) engineering school and pay for it also. It simply wasn't an option for me to go to an expensive private or out of state school with a price tag of a couple hundred thousand dollars. So I went to the…
Please stop using that word. It sucks the life from you because you think it excuses you from self analyzing why you aren't happy where you are. Life is not fair if you are a human, cat, squirrel or mouse. We are born into a specific set of conditions...look around and move but please stop using the word privilege. Everyone and everything is different.
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Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish the world would've been that charitable to me. Instead, had I failed I'd be a +1 on another DOD statistic. I wouldn't have even registered in turnover for most software companies. Nobody would've missed the SWE without a degree beyond my friends. There are few, if any, DEI dashboards that would've tracked a SWE without a degree or an enlisted veteran. On one hand, I hate that people seek accountability so much…
Honest question: why didn't you use the GI bill to get free college? If you were in and have the "post-9/11" bill (most veterans do if they were in the military at any point in the past 20 years) then you could get a monthly allowance and free college at many good state universities. Most universities will accept any veteran who has a GED or HS diploma, regardless of grades, as long as they take the SAT or ACT (ACT i…
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 is not true as far as my experience goes. The only college that would take me at the time was a community college. I assume this is because I had dropped out mid-semester before. Some context, I was in the DEP and was selected early, so I left with about a weeks notice (This was 2009). When I applied to four year universities I was rejected fairly quickly.
> I find it alarming how many veterans never use the benefits they earned in their service.
Same, however, I think there's tell-tale signs of why.
Loss in institutional trust is one:
- The VA provides pretty abysmal care in most places with long waiting lines and subpar coverage. I, up until recently, have been missing a tooth that they extracted in-service and told me the VA would replace with an implant. They would never agree to finishing the work the Navy started.
- I've also had the VA fight with me over what bills need to be covered under disability and which I needed to pay for, with them pursuing my tax return at one point (When I really needed that money.)
- Proving disability with the VA was litigious. Around they time I gave up they started demanding I show up at some court in Waco, TX which was hours from where I lived. If I went to an outside doctor, I needed to have cash to cover whatever they wanted to do because the VA would frequently protest paying my medical bills - even at VA locations.
Another is the lack of post-service programs. I really needed help getting my life back on track, dealing with issues in mental health, etc -- these services were either sparse or did not exist where I was at the time. In the military I was given a week long course called "Seps & TAPS".
Last, and maybe not least, I was exhausted. I spent a total of a year in country and returned to civilianhood right around a year after I got back. Having to go to school full time and having to make up for what the Post 9/11 GI Bill wasn't covering wore me to the bone, along with dealing with the VA - who would always insist I skipped work to come see them.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
No duh, but a city of a million people is a pretty fucking big city. It’s not that rare.
On a planetary scale, I wouldn't actually consider that 'pretty fucking big'. For comparison (metro areas, figures from Wikipedia): San Francisco: 4.7 million Berlin: 6.1 million London: 14.3 million NYC: 20.1 million Shenzhen: 23.3 million Tokyo: 37.5 million
I never realized how big Tokyo is. Wow.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#276Maybe they've read "Designing Data-Intensive applications". (Semi-joke)
I'm not sure I get the joke... that's actually a great book. Is the joke that they read that book and no other book?
I read it like: Someone reads (skims?) that book, vaguely grasps the power of the concepts therein and then begins to treat everything like a nail that needs their hammer...failing to realize that many times and at many companies a simpler approach is good enough and the better choice for many definitions of better.
That insistence to see everything as a nail once you learn the hammer is the hubris of the not-actually-senior software engineer. Those who can determine when the complex approaches are warranted versus when they are not is the real senior.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly my point, folks with privilege like yourself don't even understand what privilege they have and have taken advantage of their whole life. I did (apply myself). I did work my ass off to get into, and out of, (good) engineering school and pay for it also. It simply wasn't an option for me to go to an expensive private or out of state school with a price tag of a couple hundred thousand dollars. So I went to the…
Please stop using that word. It sucks the life from you because you think it excuses you from self analyzing why you aren't happy where you are. Life is not fair if you are a human, cat, squirrel or mouse. We are born into a specific set of conditions...look around and move but please stop using the word privilege. Everyone and everything is different.
I actually agree with this, if only because of the political connotations the term “privilege” has acquired.
I think a better term would be “advantages”. It adequately describes the meaning that’s being conveyed without carrying the implication that it’s necessarily completely outside of the individual’s control.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#278Earlier 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.
This is hilarious because I recently had a junior dev come to me to discuss issues they were having with their (incompetent) software manager. She said "I don't understand why he doesn't understand the technical aspects. It must be me...I must be bad at communicating because [the manager] was a CTO at a startup!" I literally laughed out loud. Her communication skills were fantastic, but she was so new and naive to th…
While it might have been a young CTO at a small startup, the field of technology is vast, it's not the job of the CTO to understand all aspects of it.
Similarly, when I started in Engineering, I didn't understand quite how much complexity existed in all the other areas of running a company, I've since learned much about them and have much more respect for CEO's who have to manage all of those issues.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#279Earlier 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?
I think this quote is actually about a different point. The President, Secretary and Treasurer don't need any actual credentials for their role like a council needs a JD, but they have specific responsibility/liability in corporate legal structures.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#280> I accepted a job offer ... They promised they would
When an employer you don't know promises something other than in writing, ask them to put it in writing. If they don't, you might still take the offer, but it would be an offer _without_ said promise.