I'm starting to send out resumes for a Summer internship. What I'm looking for are some easy ways to set myself apart from the competition. I'm kind of looking at this from a "work smarter, not harder" standpoint as of now. Yes, the best way to set myself apart from the competition is to contribute to an open source project, join a ...
Any advice for making the transition from propriety / corporate development to open source? I really believe in open source and try to use it whenever possible, and I'd like to get involved, but I don't have time to do it for free. I've mentioned my desire to a few colleagues and they were thought it was pretty funny that I expected to...
Hi, I am interested in transitioning to a career in the IT field. I have no formal training of any kind with regard to computers. At this point I would consider myself a really strong end user of windows based programs and OSs. I know I have the technical ability but at this point, not the knowledge or training. I'm sort of the guy t...
Some projects shouldn't exist in the first place. They have no useful purpose, or have no possibility of succeeding. Or if they did succeed, the consequences would be negative for the stakeholders. Have you worked on such a project, and what did you do? What should you have done? ...
For personal reasons, I'm hoping to get a new job and relocate, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what to ask for in terms of salary. There is a pretty decent difference in cost of living between where I am now versus where I'm hoping to go (+15% vs -15% compared to the national average), and I just don't know how to deal with it....
Suppose that you have a student who went through the traditional path of an IT/CS degree without significant experience beyond school projects and maybe an internship. That person graduates, goes to the industry for an entry-level developer position, and is considered a novice. What is the learning curve from there? How long is the pers...
I think you can tell within a very short amount of time in terms of people's problem solving abilities, ability to think in different layers of abstraction, in asking good questions... do you agree? ...
I'm just curious how many people are out there like me. I have a degree in History and Computer Science. Who else has a second degree or maybe the equivalent in experience in something other than a technical field? How has it prepared you for your software engineering career? (has it?) What advantages, if any, do you feel you have gained...
What was your objective/reason behind choosing programming as a profession.? ...
I'm currently breaking into the job market and see lots of applications that request code samples. I have lots of code to show, but what would be the best: Code length, I have anything from huge to tiny. What specifically do I want to show with my code? Lots of comments? Self commenting? What do they look for? Would something like a fi...
I suffer from bad test anxiety and when it comes to programming tests in interviews I do horrendously. A few months ago I interviewed with a company I was interning at and bombed pretty bad, i.e. it took me a while to solve a simple linked list problem because I was so nervous. For those of you who have done interviewing, do (or have) ...
I was wondering what is considered to be a "good" undergrad GPA in the industry for new grads? I understand it is a vague question and involves lots of variables, but say you graduated from an average college (University of Minnesota) what would your GPA have to be to give you a solid shot at getting jobs at decent companies. I am in my ...
I've been looking to get out of my current gig (apps programmer) for a while now. Been turned down at least once by each of my top-5 interesting places to work, so I'm thinking maybe I'm going about this wrong. One of my big want-to-haves is a reasonable amount of travel. In the modern business climate, remote access seems to have bas...
I've been working as a Software Engineer for around 2 year for a company, and I'll be leaving soon. This was my first job out of college and was a bit of a disappointment, since it didn't require so much coding and I didn't learn much related to software development. Now I feel my skills need some "updating", and I have some side project...
How would you go about requesting a transfer to a different team/role within your company? I've been at my job for the last year or so, and I really like the firm, the pay and the people. Without going into specifics, I'm really not enjoying my actual work and my department is a real mess to work in*. Though there is plenty of scope fo...
I have been a SW developer for some 10 years, and then I was promoted to a Management position for the last 3 years. Not quite happy with my Management role, I looked for job alternatives, and accepted a software development position in a small company. In short, in my new role I will be responsible for SW architecture decisions, lead o...
How do you personally handle unrealistic schedules? Currently I have a high workload (who doesn't) but I am still getting projects added to my list. I am trying to stay positive and motivated but the workload is killing my performance. Mainly due to the fact that I trying to think about all the projects at once and the task switching ...
I am a freelancer. I have been working on and off for the past 2 years for a client, through the headhunter who got me the job originally. Over the past two years, I've done about 700+ hours of work for the client. My question is: If I continue to work for this client as I have been, is it reasonable to expect the headhunter to let me ou...
I've graduated from college last May with a CS degree and have been working for a state-government agency ever since. This place, however, isn't like how I imagined the "real world" would be: I've been put into a small conference room (my bedroom is bigger) with 3 other programmers. The four of us just sit together, all day long, on th...
I'm a developer at heart, but it seems to me that to get ahead in this career, one must at some point become a manager. Is this true in your experience or do you think that it is possible for a developer to become as important and as well compensated as a manager? Would you leave development for management just for the compensation aspec...