“So, if a company is just a group of people who want to be happy,”
That’s not what a company is. That’s what a private party is. Have one after work. Win-win.
"What a demeaning comment about “back office IT” from @1Wife1Kid. "
I merely said that it is relatively low skilled and will be outsourced/offshored first. If you take that as demeaning, then that’s your choice. But someone rolling out HR software doesn’t need the same level of skills as someone designing software for the F-35. That’s not demeaning, that’s a fact.
I’d be wary of following the advice from newsmedia without further verification by actually asking the companies/folks you know who works for such companies whether that’s actually true and whether this is for very specific niche areas rather than the computer technology field as a whole.
IME working in the computer technology industry and observing colleagues/relatives in the field, a Masters without some post-college experience does not always necessarily mean one will trump those without the MS.
Also, keep in mind that not all CS Masters programs are created equal and some may be little better than glorified CS bachelors degrees or worse…one from a dubious for-profit college.
In some cases, it could actually make them less compelling as some employers may feel the candidate may have much higher than warranted salary expectations. Especially if he/she has no meaningful post-college work experience.
Not to mention that if one manages to get hired with a good employer post-undergrad without grad school, one employee benefit is having the employer pay for that CS Masters. That ends up killing three birds with one stone…no need to go further into debt for a CS Masters, Masters is actually added value with meaningful post-college work experience, and this is another datapoint to proving one was a reasonably good employee if the employer’s willing to spring for the grad degree.
Incidentally, most folks I’ve known in the computer technology field have gotten their Masters in CS/engineering for free through their employer after working for a few years and demonstrating they’re worth the employer investment. One of the few exceptions I know of had a hard time getting hired with his MS for almost a year and admitted he ended up nearly $100k in debt for it. And that’s from a local public college.
I’ll re-post my answer to this question from a previous thread:
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Have quality code samples and projects at the ready [at the interview]. Don’t make them wait for you to go assemble something for them a week later. The best interviewers love that, even if they have to pass it back to engineers for analysis. A good portfolio will take you a long way. Can’t stress this enough.
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Most programmers, even the quiet ones, find it easier to talk about what they do that who they are. We love to hear the answer to this question: “What programming do you do outside of school/work?” There are two types of responses, generally: The “stammer”, which to us means “none”, and the “suddenly can’t shut up” which means “your hired”. Even if it something crazy like setting up a raspberry pi to feed the cats when you can’t get home, or making a Wii controller work the coffee machine.
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Be prepared for problem solving questions. such as “how would you approach x?”. Here’s the good news: the right answer is to not be glib and answer immediately; rather, stop and think, consider the problem and choose your words. Ask a follow up question if you have one. Unless you are interviewing for an SE (sales engineer) job, the thoughtful way is the best. Interviewers can see the wheels turn and you don’t need to be Stephen Colbert-fast.
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Keep working these phrases into you answers: “I like to work hard. I like to work long hours until it is done. I like to learn new things. I like to be around smart people I can learn from. I like figuring it out myself. Just give me the problem and I will solve it.” Standard stuff, but always works.
Your son picked a field where only the incompetent can’t succeed. And yet many of them still do. He’ll be fine!
I don’t have a lot to say here, but I found a lot of the back and forth very interesting. My friends are largely either going into finance or tech. They have a wide selection of opportunities available to them now, with very high starting salaries. However, the CS classes are becoming increasingly crowded at my school and my friends are complaining that the value of their skills are going down.
My friends that have programmed forever are typically taking more mathematics heavy classes and are interested in applying quantitative analysis to trading, i.e. algorithmic trading, and are likely going to grad school for stats or applied mathematics or CS. My other friend who coded a bit in HS but did most of it in HS is looking at data analytics and tech consulting. Everyone seems to have an ear to the long term trends; I actually asked a girl who was at FB for a few years (interning) whether she plans on becoming a SWE/developer and she’s also going for grad school, so.
If you are a CS student, companies would expect you to have a GitHub account with samples of your work posted. You have to show you are on the cutting edge of the technology and tools being used by your peers in the industry. As with many other technical fields, having an internship or co-op experience before graduation is almost de rigeur for a job seeking.
Days of algorithmic trading being done in the USA are numbered too. There are really no new algorithms, it’s all about faster execution. This can be coded everywhere and executed physically close to the market. I have even heard of some crazy things about locating the servers so that the rotation of the earth provides benefits of speed.
@fragbot, that “do I want to spend another 45 minutes in a room with you?” sounds like another version of “let’s hire guys I want to be buddies with”. Unless the person has a truly grating personality, that’s not a good test of their ability to do the job.
Very well said, intparent. I routinely chastize more junior people on my teams post interviews when they try to apply the “Will I want to spend 10 hours in an airport with this person?” test. No, hire the most capable person who will deliver the most value, and not what’s comfortable for the team. You are not choosing your bowling team here. You are hiring for your employer so that you employer makes the most profit. Keep that in mind.
@1Wife1Kid: “Days of algorithmic trading being done in the USA are numbered too. There are really no new algorithms, it’s all about faster execution.”
You are correct that trading based on algorithm without deep understanding of how financial world really works is not going to work. The average performance of quant-based hedge funds has been very disappointing for quite a few years. Institutional investors have learned a lesson and pulled money away from them. Many quant shops are now facing head wind.
By the same token, high frequency, fast execution is not going to feed too many people either. When one tries to locate his/her machine as close to to the exchange’s server as the only competitive advantage, it will be easily matched or outdone by another. The result is that any inefficiency in the market will be driven away by this type of competition that is not based on deep understanding of how assets are or should be priced.
Eh, my friends have showed me something with genetic evolution of algorithms. I think their understanding is that they will be highly skilled in multiple types of quantiative analyses which they think will be helpful in some capacity. They seem largely interested in industrial research like for FB AI and stuff.
Anyway, the 10 hour strategy seems to have held for IB and other finance recruiting. I can see why the attitude might carry over into other industries.
It is one of the barriers to building a diverse workforce.
Why there are many unemployed SC graduates? Because -
- They are POORLY educated!
- Any community college, any Corinthian College or any Scam-Internet-Online university graduates thousands of "IT specialists", who are, essentially, advanced secretaries, with the basic knowledge of the MS office and (sometimes) a marginal ability to connect printer to a computer.
- Many CS degrees in USA do NOT require any classes in Physics! Barely any math! Is it a CS education?
- Too many "IT specialists" just learned one/two languages and somehow think that they know computer science. They do NOT!
- It is very difficult to hire an H1B. It takes a considerable effort to put all paperwork in place. It is not cheaper for a company to hire an H1B. It is far more expensive, in fact.
<can you="" imagine="" that="" the="" us="" film="" movie="" market="" will="" be="" easily="" taken="" away="" by="" global="" competition?="">
Actually, movie production is often outsourced (Canada, New Zealand). Special effects units, computer generated effects, etc. are often co-developed with Asian partners to lower production costs.
<I have a daughter in high school right now and “Go into STEM!!! Huzzah for STEM!!” is being shoved at them front, back and sideways, eight days a week.
And I read this thread and I think, “Why the hell should any of these kids let us force them into such a nightmare?? Why should they want to go into IT (especially girls)? Why pursue coding or CompSci? Just so they can be chewed up and spit out? THAT is why they should be doing all-nighters at 15, 16, 17 years old, so they can get that great ACT/SAT score, so they get into that great school, in order to beat out some H-1B applicant?”>
Relax. ALL computer science graduates from reasonable colleges, all that I know, all of them, had no trouble finding a job. Typically, 60K+ job out of college and over 100K in 10 years.
There are lot of “computer science” specialists, who got God-knows-what degree from some online college and knows barely anything. These people do have problem finding a job.
That is a generalization. I used to be in tech before moving into finance. Our company’s senior back-end IT workers can make $300K with bonus, considerably better than most of the engineers writing software for the F-35.
@californiaaa : “<can you=”" imagine="" that="" the="" us="" film="" movie="" market="" will="" be="" easily="" taken="" away="" by="" global="" competition?="">
Actually, movie production is often outsourced (Canada, New Zealand). Special effects units, computer generated effects, etc. are often co-developed with Asian partners to lower production costs."
I think you did not include the following qualifier of my statement: “When was the last time we watch a movie in which most actors do not speak English?”
My earlier statement was about the difficulty of outsourcing production that requires a high degree of cultural understanding. As a result, even the production is in Canada or New Zealand, the script and the actors cannot be easily outsourced to those who do not have a high degree of cultural understanding.
Of course, as you pointed out, those film production aspects that are rather tech-based, such as computer generated effects, are like other fields of the tech industry; they tend to be easier to be outsourced because these tasks tend not to require the same high level of cultural understanding as script writing and acting. This is exactly the point that I was trying to make.
<@californiaaa : “<can you=”" imagine="" that="" the="" us="" film="" movie="" market="" will="" be="" easily="" taken="" away="" by="" global="" competition?="">
Actually, movie production is often outsourced (Canada, New Zealand). Special effects units, computer generated effects, etc. are often co-developed with Asian partners to lower production costs."
I think you did not include the following qualifier of my statement: “When was the last time we watch a movie in which most actors do not speak English?”
My earlier statement was about the difficulty of outsourcing production that requires a high degree of cultural understanding. As a result, even the production is in Canada or New Zealand, the script and the actors cannot be easily outsourced to those who do not have a high degree of cultural understanding.
Of course, as you pointed out, those film production aspects that are rather tech-based, such as computer generated effects, are like other fields of the tech industry; they tend to be easier to be outsourced because these tasks tend not to require the same high level of cultural understanding as script writing and acting. This is exactly the point that I was trying to make. >
Agree 
I think a lot of people think of the comp sci industry as ubiquitously (sorta) like Silicon Valley. It’s not. Those figures count tech jobs open at a bunch of “unlikely” and sometimes undesirable* workplaces.
- A lot of kids major in cs thinking they'll get to work at a cool, open floor plan company changing the world, with free coconut water and snacks. When in reality huge corporate megafirms are also hiring huge(r) numbers of graduates.
Just as a student, I also think (without sounding too elitist, because that’s not what’s intended), that there’s a big gap between most cs students and the cs students who go to the poster child companies – you really need to be taking data structures and algorithms as a freshman or early sophomore to be competitive for the top internships, but most students take it later (often due to prereqs).
It’s kind of like this: if you graduate in cs, you can have a job, but probably not the job you want. The job you want is still going to go to kids who’ve been interning since they were 13 and have 5 years of combined experience. Landing the most desirable full time jobs in cs is just as cutthroat as any other industry right now.
(And because of the glossy/unrealistic idea people have of the cs industry, a LOT of unqualified applicants apply to top companies (and only top companies). This is sorta similar to how a lot of unqualified applicants get pushed into applying to the Ivy League by parents/schools without resources or a clue. And cs graduates, like many others, often have that “I’m not going to SETTLE for this job, I’m going to get the one I want” attitude once they have a degree, which unsurprisingly just ends up with many of them having no job at all.)