EBoard 10: What I wish I knew …

Approximate overview

• Administrivia
• Alumni bio talk (+ questions)
• Alumni general talk (+ questions)

Administrivia

• I know even less than you about what is going on with registration.
• Next week should be another “practice interviews” day.

Questions

Alumni biographical talk

• Feel free to ask questions as we go.
• Went from philosophy major at Grinnell to a programmer at WoTC.

Before Grinnell

• First gen student. Only child.
• Interested in CS before Grinnell. Taught themselves CSS to customize MySpace (10 years old or so).
• Took AP CS in high school.

At Grinnell

• Thought they would be a biochem major.
• Didn’t get into intro Bio. Took CS instead.
• CS was hard. Chem was hard.
• Didn’t stick with a CS major b/c didn’t want to get B’s.
  • No one has every looked at their grades. Or almost no one.
• Ended up choosing a philosophy major.
  • “I can teach myself CS. I can’t work with great minds in philosophy outside of Grinnell (or not so easily).”
• Studied abroad in Rwanda. (Peace and Justice.)
• Did an externship (nonprofit), taught in Grinnell Prison Programming.
• Graded for CS. Slow. Sent out grades at 2am (sends a bad message to students).
• Ended up taking CS for fun.
• CS students used to fail MAT-218. We’re nicer now.
• Worked on the CSC-151 curriculum one summer.
• Worked at CMU one summer. Used knowledge of other languages.
• Worked at DASIL one summer.

Post college, phase 1

• Did Americorps after college. Did not do well and quit early.
• Use Web skills to get job at Dice. (Gamble with your employment?)
• Worked with wordpress.
• Eventually outgrew the position. IMPORTANT: It’s okay to switch jobs; realize that you don’t have to do everything.
• Started Georgia Tech online masters. Realized that it wasn’t worthwhle for them. IMPORTANT: Think about why you want to get more degrees.
• Online work for company in Portland. Pay was lowish.
• Started at small financial startup. Didn’t pay attention to red flags. IMPORTANT: If everyone is a junior engineer, there’s no one to learn from.
• Next: A consultant. Got placed at HyVee.
• Next: Pioneer. Worked on digital agriculture. (Using sattelite imagry to assess crop health.)

Post college, phase 2

• Hired by Target. Target paid to move her to MSP.
• Ended up working on Target cloud team. Not enough Dev.
• Then on to network engineering. Ended up becoming a project lead. Set up API standrds, etc. Did the role above them.
• Downside of working for a company: Ready for promotion, but no promotions avalable/permitted.
• Invited to apply to WoTC.
• Working on background at WoTC.
• WoTC is a print company, but need to work in the digital world, too.
• Working on an API.

Detour: APIs

• “Application Programming Interface”
• A program that talks to data (e.g., in database) and sends back information based on particular requests.
• Sometimes returns the data in JSON format.
• Might also provide secrets and such.

What is a work day in operations?

• Things break and then you go fix them. (Some people love this; others prefer to write things.)

What is a work day as a network programmer?

What is a work day as a program lead?

• Writing
• Meetings
• Convincing others of things.

What is a work day as [whatever your are at WoTC]?

• Working from home.
• 6:30 - 3:30.

What is a good work-life balance?

• Saying “I’m done” after 8–9 hours of work each day. (Even though they are starting at 4:30 am west coast time, they stop at 1:30 pm west coast time each day.)
• It can be hard to convince others that work-from-home is equivalent to in-offce work.

How did you move into a new role?

• Read O’Reilly books on the concepts you need for work.
• Ask lots of questions. It ends up beng an assset.
• The more your work, the more natural things become.

What’s the coolest project you’ve worked on?

• Satellite imagery
• Not how we normally think about the data.

Have you sold out?

• Used to enjoy the Des Moines hack-a-thons.
• As an adult, needs a more reliable income.
• would build web sites but it]’s not in their best interest; somewone will have to monitor it.

Writing vs. Researching vs. Drawing vs. Meeting vs. Coding

About half/half writing/research/drawing vs. coding.

OMG. So many meetings. Not much happens at most meetings. But some are necessary: E.g., gathering requirements, setting up timelines.

How did you find your jobs?

First job: Head hunter/search firm/head-hunting firm.

Note there are advatages to having multiple firms bidding on you.

Networking (e.g., at conference)

Networking also helps with finding ou what a compny is like. Recommended.

How do you prepare for interviews?

Made resume. Had friend read over it. (A non-technical friend is also a good thing.)

Went over sample question

Come up with answers to standard questions, such as

• “How do you teach yourself a new technoloy?”
• “Tell me about an unsuccessful team experience and how you dealt with it.”

Ask good questions of the people you meet with.

• “What is your favorite part of working at this company?”
• “What are the challenges of your job?”

Some jobs don’t ask you the scary technical questions.

“I just import the right package in Python.”

Alumni general talk: What I wish I’d known

• “Click to add title.”

Interview tips

• Behavioral Interview Tips
  • Know your interviewers - If you get names in advance, look them up on LinkedIn. Identify things in common, ways to talk about them.
  • Look up the company - Find out the company values; someone will be tasked to find out whether you meet the company values.
• Three types of technical interviews
  • Take-home assignment followed by a “walk through the code”
  • Whiteboarding interviews; syntax is less important
  • Pair programming interview; sit and program in real time
• State assumptions clearly (or ask about them)
  • “I assume we’re working with US currency. Is that okay?”
  • Call out edge cases. “Be careful! You might cut yourself on that edge.”
  • Talk about future/related work. “With more time, I would have …”
  • Keep talking. They want to hear someone think aloud. Articulate what you’re doing.
• Enthusiasm can help. Bring yourself to the interview.
• Make eye contact.

Kinds of jobs:

• Contractor: Usually has a fixed-term contract. No benefits, but more money.
  • Less job security; easier for companies to let go.
• Full-time normal employee. Gets 401K, matching, medical, other benefits.
  • They’ve invested in you, so they are less likely to let you go.
• Consultant vs. (Independent) Contractor:
  • In one model, you are hired by a firm (and get benefits) and then they sell your time to others.
  • In the other model, they connect you to the firm, the firm pays you, and they get a fee for making the connection.
  • Or not.

Whiteboard questions

• Higher-level design questions. How would you design this API?
• What’s the logic/protocol for one elevator? For multiple elevators? How would you assess the success of your solution?
• Logic qustions.
• [Not usually algorithms.]

Promotion tips

• Be active. Talk to your manager. Make it clear that you want to move up in the organization. Make your goals known.
• State your goals.
• Ask questions.
• Check in.
• Visibility. Make sure that people know who you are (and have a good impression with you).
  • Typical promotion decision process: All the managers get in a room and decide which K of the N people up for promotion get a promotion. It helps of people know you.
• Annual reviews. Make sure that you know the expectations for your position as well as the expectations for the position above you; show how you are fulfilling the position you are trying to get.

How did you find internships?

• Looked for REUs. (Research Experiences for Undergraduates.)
• Connections helped: Applied for an REU, they recommended that they apply for another program.

What should you do about mental-health issues?

• Tell people about your anxiety.
• Take mental health days.
• Make sure that you are awesome enough that people accept those things. (This may depend on the company you are at. Find the right company.)
  • A good boss will want you to succeed.
• Take care of your health.

Networking

• Networks are good; Networks can be supportive.
• Networks are mutual; you may be getting something from someone, but they are likely getting something from you.
• Networking helps the company in that it helps you do better.
• How do you build a network?
  • Reach out to Grinnell alumni.
  • Facebook groups can be awesome (including Grinnell-specific ones)
    • GrinNetworking
    • Grinnell mental health
    • Everyday class notes

Other notes

• Keep a mock resume recording everything you’ve ever done.
• Don’t burn bridges.
• Keep records.

Should I get certificates?

• Maybe
• AWS certificates used to help; they may still
• SamR’s amazing serucity course, probably not, especially since security is misspelled.

The elevator question …

• What is the input? (Our subject chose “desired floor”; I’d care more about “up” or “down” button outside the elevator as well as the Firefighters’ button.)

Administrivia

• I know even less than you about what is going on with registration.
• Next week should be another “practice interviews” day.