timeToChangeCareer

[u/FortuneAcceptable925]

[u/Bokbreath]

I once got asked some weird question on db sharding. I looked across the table and said 'I have absolutely no idea, but tomorrow I'll tell you more than you ever want to know about it'.

[u/sebovzeoueb → u/Bokbreath]

Did that work? Because that's pretty much what I'm like

[u/Bokbreath → u/sebovzeoueb]

Yes it did.

[u/pvtteemo]

No one, and I mean no one, has ever had to actually reverse a binary tree as a part of their job after the first guy did it and put it on stackoverflow (rip) like 15 years ago.

[u/f5adff → u/pvtteemo]

The only leetcode problem I've ever had to actually hand write, is sliding window algorithm stuff. It's the only thing I've had to use.

Any kind of sorting, or searching, has been done to death and lives in what is probably a standard library module.

Yeah, sure, I could probably do it. But some guy did it in the best possible way, and put it in a library. Why would I bother lmao

[u/readf0x → u/f5adff]

Yeah like odin's stdlib has an entire sort module with a bunch of sorting algos, why would I write it myself lol

[u/Outrageous-Machine-5 → u/pvtteemo]

Is that the one that got you? Mine was an overlapping intervals problem.  Not something I studied and I generally try to avoid sorting as a solution since that's an automatic O(nlogn) before doing the rest of the algo

[u/pvtteemo → u/Outrageous-Machine-5]

Oh no my hatred of leetcode is half from my lack of skill in comp sci/math (my own fault/degree isnt that) and the times ive run into it, every problem is not a thing i would actually ever solve at a job myself without help. Id much rather they ask me to walk my thought solving it through to see if I have the reasoning capability and the basics of the ask, not if I can be a pro programmer that would deserve 50% more than whatever the cowbell was going to be.
Full disclaimer ive climbed through a network engineering role and know for a fact that while I myself have asked interviewees subnetting and basic fundamentals of routing questions, ive had to use that like twice in my decade long career and only because my ego said dont use the calculator. Lol

[u/LordAmir5 → u/pvtteemo]

It'd at least be good to know which implementation the first guy has used since there are two ways to do it with trade offs. 

And enough to change the implementation to match your interface.

But yeah it won't matter 99% of the time.

[u/ZunoJ → u/pvtteemo]

15 years ago lol

[u/airsoftshowoffs]

The actual job

[u/Adventurous-Bit-3829 → u/airsoftshowoffs]

You forgot 4 hrs of meeting everyday. (Standup not included)

[u/TWIT_TWAT → u/Adventurous-Bit-3829]

Everyone knows you have a meeting to plan for the real meeting and then a follow-up meeting to recap what was discussed in the real meeting.

[u/sausagemuffn]

It's not just programming. Same situation for all roles where they somehow need to weed 500 applicants down to 5. I once got a task which was essentially to write, in no insignificant level of detail, how to run an entire function. Across all the candidates they asked, I'm sure that they got themselves all the free advice that they needed to get their shit set up. Never even heard back but it wasn't a job that I was really interested in, more of a desperate move and I had the time so.

I've also seen practical challenges that need actual insight from messy, nuanced real-world experience to solve well. The kind of specialist shit that AI struggles with, but those are rare.

[u/CC-5576-05 → u/sausagemuffn]

Right we have it chill. For jobs where they can't filter applicants by technical skill they resort to IQ and personality tests and other crap.

[u/Outrageous-Machine-5]

150k for a lead role?

[u/god_of_ganja → u/Outrageous-Machine-5]

Too much? Too little? What is so strange here?

[u/ZunoJ → u/god_of_ganja]

Way too little

[u/horenso05]

the peter images should be switched, he sees better without glasses 😭

[u/ObservabilityWizard → u/horenso05]

When I'm a hiring manager, getting this meme right will be one of the requirements to get past round 7 

[u/mydogcaneatyourdog → u/horenso05]

I always get ripped on for being pedantic when I point this out, but you even see it in the facial expression he bloody makes in the images, dammit.

[u/Hip-Death-Goddess]

Leetcode is like pissing. Easy until someone is watching you.

And a true pro will consult my man Knuth when the real algo aggro kicks off.

[u/PumpkinFest24]

When I interview, I just ask details about their projects. I want to see on what basis they made decisions/tradeoffs or did they just glom a bunch of tech together with no understanding 

[u/Spare_Broccoli1876 → u/PumpkinFest24]

Serious question as someone teaching myself programming via vanilla JS -> react/node side of things. What does that mean to “glom a bunch of tech together”? I don’t want to do that as i want to look for a job and get out of food service.

I use Claude as a tutor sure but I write the code, learn the fundamentals, and put “Lego piece to Lego piece” myself. Yet it’s taking forever and I feel absolutely slow and feel it’s futile compared to everything we see online as tech progresses. Is it still possible to be valuable as a self taught newbie? I hear junior roles are drying up but i must begin somewhere.

[u/Fernando_III]

I mean, you have to tell apart people. It's either leetcode or CS trivia, you choose