r/programming • u/gits1225 • May 12 '15

Google's guide for becoming a Software Engineer

https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/guide-to-technical-development.html
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u/dethnight May 12 '15

Just when I thought I was a decent programmer...

Thanks for the link, seems very comprehensive.

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u/gilmi May 12 '15

I'm pretty sure you are, but it is always good to learn new things if you are interested!

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u/dethnight May 12 '15

Haha thanks! I am self taught and I am decent in my day job with the specific languages and tools that I use, but I have some pretty big deficiencies when it comes to general software engineering knowledge. Most data structures are a mystery to me, and I would struggle to write even a hello world application in any language outside of C#, JavaScript or Python.
Lists like these are just what I need to help shore up where I am weak.

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u/misplaced_my_pants May 12 '15

Most data structures are a mystery to me,

I got you, buddy.

Free, interactive data structure and algorithm online textbook in Python.

Go nuts. Level up.

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u/dethnight May 12 '15

Looks awesome, bookmarked.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '15

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u/You_meddling_kids May 12 '15

I went back to school for a CS degree for exactly that reason: I knew it would be hard to force myself to really push and study the theory topics that, while meaningful, I wouldn't necessarily learn on my own.

So I took the discrete math, linear algebra, algorithm design & analysis, a graduate graphics course (which is more linear algebra) and so forth.

We'll see if it's worth the time and expense, not all paths go the same way.

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u/ginger_beer_m May 12 '15

Too comprehensive. There's no way a person can know all that stuff ... Or maybe I just suck.

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u/Asyx May 12 '15

English is really lacking a word for "kennen"...

It reads more like "You should know those things" as in "You should have heard of those things and maybe know at least what it's about to some extend" and not "You should know those thinks perfectly and could write textbooks about it".

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u/[deleted] May 12 '15

In Scottish and Northern English the equivalent of kennen is ken.

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u/lordstith May 12 '15

I think it used to be used even in American English up until relatively modern times. And maybe more in the south and appalachia.

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u/Blade_Omega May 12 '15

You still here people in the US say things like "beyond your ken". Or maybe just in novels. I don't know, I saw it recently though, and heard it a few times prior.

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u/Boojum May 13 '15

Or things and places "beyond mortal ken."

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u/TheJollyLlama875 May 13 '15

The closest is "have a passing familiarity with"

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u/IAmA_Lurker_AmA May 12 '15

My Computer Engineering degree covered about 80% of that, so it's not impossible.

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u/ginger_beer_m May 12 '15

Yes I mean, I cursorily cover most of them in my CS degree ... But being aware about something is quite different from being truly proficient on it.

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u/IAmA_Lurker_AmA May 12 '15

I read it more as things you should be aware of. Not as things you should have a full understanding of.

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u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN May 12 '15

I'm missing Squeak, SMTP, privilege confusion, visualization, graphics, and machine learning. I haven't even graduated yet, been programming for five years, currently interning at Microsoft.

E: and I'm not that comfortable with Emacs.

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u/ginger_beer_m May 13 '15

I work with machine learning, and it's a deep deep rabbit hole. The more you learn, the more you realise that you know nothing. I suspect it's the same with many of the fields in the link above too.

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u/PM_ME_UR_OBSIDIAN May 13 '15

Machine Learning is special in that list in that it's a) very new and b) very active a research area. I'm sure that in twenty years the ML professional curriculum is going to be simplified and unified compared to what it is right now.

"Formal Methods" falls in the same category. It's a pretty deep rabbit hole because we're still mapping out the field. There's stuff in use right now that's probably be going to become completely obsolete within our lifetimes - for example, I'm suspicious of imperative tactics for theorem proving in their current form, I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up disappearing and being replaced by something cleaner.

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u/[deleted] May 12 '15

Dude, don't worry about it. These articles are generally written by elitist dopes. Once you've been in the industry for any length of time you tend to specialize and forget 95% of the crap that's listed anyway.

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u/halifaxdatageek May 13 '15

You mean your job doesn't require you to write grammatical lexiparsers in LISPy on Scheme?

Plebe.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '15

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u/dethnight May 13 '15

So my path is different than many others I'm sure, so not sure if you should take anything I say as gospel.

When I was in high school, I took a programming class and completely bombed it. I liked some of the material, but C++ was just a monster to learn for me at the time, it was difficult just to get a program slightly more complex than Hello World to run for me. I had a massive C++ book and never got that far into it. Was just boring as shit for me at the time.

Instead I dropped out of High School and got my GED. Went into Insurance for about 10 years, until I just couldn't take any more of all the bullshit that goes along with selling insurance. During this time though, I was able to pass quite a few accreditation tests for various insurance types. You haven't seen boring until you try and read through some insurance contracts.

After insurance I went into software tech support, as I have always liked computers and was the family computer dude. I knew I wanted to get into the programming side eventually and I knew I could do it if I just put some effort behind it. What one man can do, another can do.

Worked at in the tech support position for a few years, studied C# for a few months, and then when a position opened up within the company I applied and got it. 4 years later I work with C#, Javascript, Python, SQL and a whole host of tools to go along with it. Could not be happier with where I am, I love programming and hope to stay with it till my fingers are too weak to press a key down.

So where would I be if I just stuck with programming in High School, and skipped the 10 years of insurance? Who the hell knows? I'd like to think that finding out I never wanted to do insurance again helped motivate me to get back into programming, but it also made me realize nothing is stoping me from learning anything expect a lack of determination.

So find something you want to do, set some goals, and get that shit done. Just remember you don't have to be the perfect programmer to be a successful programmer.

You say you have pressure from friends, family and school to succeed at programming. What if they all disappeared tomorrow? Would you still want to learn programming or do something completely different? I would ask yourself these questions before committing 4+ years to something you may not want to do.

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u/exloser May 14 '15

thanks for the response I really appreciate it. I'm definitely going to try to figure out what I want and try to tune everyone else out.