> I think if I learn how to program with an aim to work as a software developer and make games on the side, is this viable after just turning 20?


There's nothing wrong with the age of 20. I started school at 20, graduated in four years, and found work as a software engineer right out school.


What you have to figure out is how to make the best of your time left in school: should you take a class or two on programming and graduate on time, or (more dramatically) change your field of study to computer science and spend a few more years in school? That's something only you can decide. If you want to finish your architecture program and graduate in a reasonable amount of time, I can assure you that your math and physics background will be enough to get you work as a software engineer, but only if you can actually program.


Part of working as a software engineer means being able to program in multiple languages. That's because it's not really about the language, it's about the logic. All languages follow certain patterns and while syntax or wording may change, they all share ways to implement the same logic.


It also means knowing what data structures to use for what scenarios. The phrase "There's no such thing as a free lunch" comes to mind. All data structures have advantages and weaknesses and no data structure is perfect for every occasion. Know the differences, know the performance impact, and be able to speak to them. This won't just help you write better code, it will help you land a job. Interviewers love to ask questions about data structures.


As a corollary to data structures, you also need to know your algorithms. You need to know the performance impact of different ways to search and sort, traverse graphs, and find the shortest path (particularly relevant for game programming).


You said you're learning Python and that's great. Python is a great way to learn how to program. It's dynamic, it's friendly, and it has a rich library. Learn Python inside and out, then pick another language and figure out how to do the same things. C++, Java, and C# are all pretty popular in the industry, pick one of those. Once you know how to program in a few languages, you focus less on minute implementation details specific to one language and more on high level abstraction shared across multiple languages. By that point, you'll no longer be speaking in code, you'll be speaking in plain English, and that's the goal.


I don't know many good free online resources for learning languages, I learned mostly out of textbooks and lecture slides (along with lots of practice). There are some links in the sidebar to some tutorials that are worth checking out. Beyond that, I can recommend some books you may want to read.

• Algorithms in a Nutshell - one of the best quick references on algorithms you can read
  
• C# 5.0 in a Nutshell - excellent language reference, aimed more at advanced programmers, though it's comprehensive in scope, covering everything from language syntax and structure of a program to more complex tasks like threading, multiprocessing, and networking
  
• Learning XNA 4.0 - a great game programming book, teaches 2D and 3D game development using Microsoft's C# and XNA framework
  
• Java in a Nutshell - another great language reference
  
• Starting Out with Java - introductory programming text, has end-of-chapter problems for reinforcement, a little pricey so see if you can find a used older edition
  
• Starting Out with C++ - another good introductory programming text from Tony Gaddis
  
• Python in a Nutshell - I can't speak to this one as I haven't read it, but I have been extremely happy with O'Reilly's "... in a Nutshell" series so I suspect it's as good as the others
  
• Learn Python the Hard Way - free online book about learning Python, begins with simple examples then teaches you how to break it so you know both sides of the story, wasn't as comprehensive as I'd hoped but it taught me the basics of Python
  
• Programming Interviews Exposed - sort an all-in-one book covering lots of different topics and giving an insight into what to expect for that first interview
  
  EDIT: I added Programming Interviews Exposed because it's a good reference for data structures, algorithms, and interview questions

I am going to give my perspective, but as always, your milage may vary.

>When and how did you start?

I didn't start programming until I started in college. I knew I was good at Math, and good at Science, and that I was interested in Computers. I pursued a CE degree (I was 18 at the time), and am now pursuing a Ph.D. in CS. My wife started her CS degree 1 year ago (she's now 25), after being dissatisfied with (and subsequently abandoning) a degree in Marketing. For the sake of mentioning it, we both started with Java.

My real point is: I don't think it's ever too late to start. If you're sincerely interested, your passion will take you far.

> What are some daily things you do that drove/drive you to your goals?

I consider programming a type of carpentry, and so, I strive (and don't always succeed) to program as much as I can, in as many languages as I find interesting. So far, I've programmed in Java, Python, Javascript, C#, C, Objective-C, and Lisp. It can be daunting to learn new programming languages, but I wouldn't worry. I got around to playing with each one because I found they were good tools for things I wanted to do. In academic circles, I believe that's called "project-based learning," where you learn as much as you need in order to complete some project or task.

> What books do you recommend, ones that have had a huge positive impact in your professional career?

I absolutely love the Head First series, and it made me value my own unique learning style (which in turn led me to discover that I learn better through projects). I own 6 Head First books, and I absolutely love each and every one of them.

My wife recently discovered (and I also really enjoyed) the book Cracking the Coding Interview, which is a concise review of the fundamentals of programming, as well as very good guidelines for doing well in your coding interview.

> What advice do you give to junior programmers that want to plunge into open-source community but are just overwhelmed by the amount of complexity in most of this projects?

If you're just starting out, I would start your own project to do something you want to do. The chances are that, in doing so, you will leverage someone else's tools, and in turn, you may discover that a tool you're using...
...has an obscure bug, or
...would be really great if it had this one other feature

You then contact the project lead (or project board of directors), and state your case, and then...BAM. You're an Open Source contributor.

> Which work-related fields are you most interested in?

I am a fan of artificial intelligence, and I think it's the bees knees. I also do game development, which I enjoy very much.

> What was your first big investment after your degree?

I bought a car, mostly because I needed it. Bear in mind, I am on a graduate student salary, which isn't necessarily the most financially rewarding position out there.

If you have any other questions, or if you would like me to go more in-depth into some of the previous questions, do let me know. :)

I've posted this before but I'll repost it here:

Now in terms of the question that you ask in the title - this is what I recommend:

Job Interview Prep

1. Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
   
2. Programming Interviews Exposed: Coding Your Way Through the Interview
   
3. Introduction to Algorithms
   
4. The Algorithm Design Manual
   
5. Effective Java
   
6. Concurrent Programming in Java™: Design Principles and Pattern
   
7. Modern Operating Systems
   
8. Programming Pearls
   
9. Discrete Mathematics for Computer Scientists
   
   

   Junior Software Engineer Reading List
   

   
   

   Read This First
   

   
   

10. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

11. Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction
    
12. Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
    
13. Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
    
14. Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
    
15. Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software
    
16. Perfect Software: And Other Illusions about Testing
    
17. Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application
    
    

    Understanding Professional Software Environments
    

    
    

18. Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
    
19. Software Project Survival Guide
    
20. The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky
    
21. Debugging the Development Process: Practical Strategies for Staying Focused, Hitting Ship Dates, and Building Solid Teams
    
22. Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules
    
23. Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

24. Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency
    
25. Against Method
    
26. The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
    
    

    History
    

    
    

27. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
    
28. Computing Calamities: Lessons Learned from Products, Projects, and Companies That Failed
    
29. The Deadline: A Novel About Project Management
    
    

    Mid Level Software Engineer Reading List
    

    
    

    Read This First
    

    
    

30. Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth
    
    

    Fundementals
    

    
    

31. The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers
    
32. Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
    
33. Solid Code
    
34. Code Craft: The Practice of Writing Excellent Code
    
35. Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative
    
36. Writing Solid Code
    
    

    Software Design
    

    
    

37. Head First Design Patterns: A Brain-Friendly Guide
    
38. Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
    
39. Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
    
40. Domain-Driven Design Distilled
    
41. Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design
    
42. Design Patterns in C# - Even though this is specific to C# the pattern can be used in any OO language.
    
43. Refactoring to Patterns
    
    

    Software Engineering Skill Sets
    

    
    

44. Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems
    
45. Software Factories: Assembling Applications with Patterns, Models, Frameworks, and Tools
    
46. NoEstimates: How To Measure Project Progress Without Estimating
    
47. Object-Oriented Software Construction
    
48. The Art of Software Testing
    
49. Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
    
50. Working Effectively with Legacy Code
    
51. Test Driven Development: By Example
    
    

    Databases
    

    
    

52. Database System Concepts
    
53. Database Management Systems
    
54. Foundation for Object / Relational Databases: The Third Manifesto
    
55. Refactoring Databases: Evolutionary Database Design
    
56. Data Access Patterns: Database Interactions in Object-Oriented Applications
    
    

    User Experience
    

    
    

57. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
    
58. The Design of Everyday Things
    
59. Programming Collective Intelligence: Building Smart Web 2.0 Applications
    
60. User Interface Design for Programmers
    
61. GUI Bloopers 2.0: Common User Interface Design Don'ts and Dos
    
    

    Mentality
    

    
    

62. The Productive Programmer
    
63. Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
    
64. Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming
    
65. Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering
    
    

    History
    

    
    

66. Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software
    
67. New Turning Omnibus: 66 Excursions in Computer Science
    
68. Hacker's Delight
    
69. The Alchemist
    
70. Masterminds of Programming: Conversations with the Creators of Major Programming Languages
    
71. The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood
    
    

    Specialist Skills
    

    
    In spite of the fact that many of these won't apply to your specific job I still recommend reading them for the insight, they'll give you into programming language and technology design.
    
    

72. Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book for the IBM PC
    
73. Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets
    
74. Enough Rope to Shoot Yourself in the Foot: Rules for C and C++ Programming
    
75. The C++ Programming Language
    
76. Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
77. More Effective C++: 35 New Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs
    
78. More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#
    
79. CLR via C#
    
80. Mr. Bunny's Big Cup o' Java
    
81. Thinking in Java
    
82. JUnit in Action
    
83. Functional Programming in Scala
    
84. The Art of Prolog: Advanced Programming Techniques
    
85. The Craft of Prolog
    
86. Programming Perl: Unmatched Power for Text Processing and Scripting
    
87. Dive into Python 3
    
88. why's (poignant) guide to Ruby

Yes! Also, quite honestly I don't know that many CS majors who took linear algebra at my school for whatever reason.

Where do you get started?

• If you're the type of person who likes an organized class to learn concepts, consider checking out coursera or other similar websites which offer free online learning courses! Check out their CS offerings and start from the intro.
  
  
• I must be known for spamming this SR with this, but check out CLRS, it pretty much contains most of the "CS math" you need to know for algorithms. As well as pretty much all you need to know about Algorithms and Data Structures for any basic job.
  
  
• REALLY make sure you understand your Algorithms and Data Structures, nearly every interview for a basic position centers around these topics. As well as some others, depending on the company: Bit manipulation, multi-threading, TCP/IP, etc.
  
  
• You want to learn some mainstream language as a lot of other people mentioned: C++, Java, C#, Python are a few that come to mind (though there are more like Ruby!). Side Note: Some people have differing opinions on whether C++ is good to learn as a first language. I don't know C# (but from its apparent similarity to Java) I would say C++ is probably the most difficult language to learn of the four I listed, but I feel that it also provides the most flexibility, because once you understand C++ it's easier to trainsition from C++ to Java, than say Java to C++ (similar for the other languages).
  
  
• Practice! Start working on some Project Euler problems, or other practice problems. Bonus: Someone in another thread mentioned that they made a blog post for each problem they solved and explained every one of their design decisions. This seemed like a bit over the top, but it really is a good practice for an interview and a job! You can even put a link to this on your resume to share.
  
  
• Find an Open Source to contribute to, come up with your own projects and post them on your github! This can show off your skills to a potential employer!
  
  Bonus for programming:
  
  
• When coding alone it's easy to get lost and start "hashing" together code. When you get to big projects, you'll find that this causes a lot of problems (and when working with other people it can cause even more). Some things to keep in mind when coding:
  
  
• Make sure your code is maintainable.
  
  
• Make sure your code is scalable.
  
  
• Test, test, test!
  
  Maintainable kinda means that your code is easy to test, easy to comprehend (by others) and easy to modify. Read up on different design patterns to learn more about this.
  
  Scalable is something you'll learn more about later, but basically it's kind of thinking about whether your code will be "good" enough to handle a lot of users (how fast is it how much memory will it take up)
  
  Testing is very important when coding. You want to try to write small pieces of code then test it (i.e.: make sure it works).
  
  All three of these things show up a lot in interviews, and if you can relate why you made your code the way you did to one of these three points (or something else) you should be pretty well off :D
  
  How do I land an interview?
  
  
• In your resume make sure to list any CS projects you want to mention, a link to your website (if you have one) or to other work. As well as Operating Systems you're familiar with (Linux is a big plus, but not absolutely necessary), IDE's you're familiar with (things like Eclipse, Visual Studios), and Languages you know. If you can, make sure to relate those three bullets to your project and work somehow to reiterate your experience with each language.
  
  
• A lot of recruiting is done on-campus, but there are other options, like applying online or even better...
  
  
• Network your way in. This gets your resume through the massive HR screen
  
  
• Edit, edit, edit (ask friends who are in the industry).
  
  How do I study for an Interview?
  
  Typcially, an interview will have you and the interviewer. The interviewer will first ask questions about you, what you're majoring in. And then maybe ask questions about your previous projects, and then he'll throw you a programming problem. Sometimes these can just be questions like "Which is faster: quicksort or mergsort?" or something like that, but other times they'll have you code something. If the interview is online, this will either mean you'll need to tell them the code you're writing or you'll code online on some collabarative envirionment (i.e.: you type the code online). If it's in-person they may have you write on a whiteboard. There are other formats of interviews as well, so make sure to research. Typically, for most larger companies, they won't care what language you code in (hopefully though it's mainstream!), but if you don't code in a language which they use, they may test you later for proficiency in one of their languages.
  
  
• As I mentioned before, Algorithms and Data Structures are usually go-to's for interviews, but other topics may come up so check out the req's for each job specifically.
  
  
• It may have been a while at this point since you studied your material, to brush up on interview questions, Cracking the Code Interview is a great book to brush up on your topics for an interview, it also has some resume advice, etc. if you choose to follow it.
  
  
• Be sure to practice talking out loud while you're coding, as this can help you during interviews. If you're stuck but your thought process is good an interviewer can help push you in the right direction.
  
  
• If you struggle with interviews, try having a friend who you know has experience and having him ask questions, better yet if you know a friend at the company, ask him to mock interview you.
  
  
• If you have time ALWAYS make sure you run test cases through your code mentally, and mention the test you're running and what it's supposed to catch (expected behavior) to your interviewer! If you have time and choose to ignore these, it can give the interviewer a wrong impression :\ (it also makes you look really good if you come up with all the boundary cases)
  
  Sorry, not sure if this helps or not!
  Good luck!

OP! Super late reply but i hope you have the time to read. /u/ProphetThief and the children comments for that have awesome advice so I'm not gonna reiterate everything. But I just wanna give you a bit of my own experience, etc. and hope it helps!

Good job on signing up for the gym membership, I think thats the best thing for anyone who is trying to change their mindset. It's not about getting the best body or "GETTING SWOLEE". From my experience going 3-4 times a week lifting heavy weights, really changes your brain (yeah it sounds weird) and you'll feel more positive. Personally, prior to going to the gym, there would be times throughout the day when something "bad" happens, and I'll get all depressed and shit. But after going to the gym consistently, now when something "bad" happens, it's really easy to "force" my mind in a positive direction. IMO it's the best way to break out of a bad mindset.

Secondly, I read below that you like programming. Someone below gave you the link to www.freecodecamp.com which should be pretty good. I believe they teach HTML/CSS/Javascript, which is good for front-end and back-end, which means if you like web development, that's literally the most minimal amount of languages you'd need to learn. Maybe a goal you can have for the time being is to learn these skills while thinking of a cool web application that you can make. That way by the time you feel comfortable developing in those languages, you can build a project. Then you can learn new tools and build more projects with those new that. And you just keep doing this. After while you'll have a bunch of awesome projects you can put on a resume and you'll have the skills to back it up. I'll link you to some of the stuff that I found useful:

-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB0WvcxTbCA (So you know what technologies you should learn. Yeah i know it says 2015, but it still applies)

-http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Edition/dp/0984782850 (So you know what it takes to get a dev job)

I hope you get the chance to read this and I hope it helps! GL MAN!

Disclaimer: I teach at a bootcamp in the midwest.

Here are some things I'm noticing:

1. Your job sounds like it sucks quite a bit.
   
2. You're feeling a lot of pressure to make a big move right now.
   
3. You're feeling afraid that you don't currently have what it takes to make a big move.
   
4. You've got some funds saved up.
   
   I'm going to suggest a couple of things to try before you enroll in a boot camp.
   
   
5. Spend a few hours researching job boards in your area. Make a list of jobs where you've got 50% or more of the qualifications listed, or where the thing listed is close enough to what you already know that you could learn it sufficiently quickly. Make another list of things that appear pretty frequently, and see if you can categorize them. What's in your area? In my city, we've got lots of graphic designers who mostly build out Wordpress sites, a small but growing number of startups who mostly use Rails or an MVC Javascript framework, and a whole bunch of big finance corporations who mostly use Java. Your city is probably different, but it's also got some trends.
   
6. Reach out to your network. You surely know some folks from college, from meetups, etc. Don't tell them that you need to escape your current terrible gig, but do tell them that you're looking for a change and see if they know anyone who's looking for a junior dev, especially one with a CS degree. Be frank -- you've been working mostly QA and support for the last year and a half, and you'd like to move to development instead.
   
7. Take a few days off. They can even be unpaid days (if you can swing boot camp tuition, you can swing not getting paid for a few days). Doesn't even matter if you code on those days off. Just give yourself a chance to be a person.
   
8. Pick up a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview and practice. Don't know Java? No problem. Do the exercises in a different language. Do one-sided mock interviews and record your answer with your webcam, then watch it. Don't worry about 'ums' and 'uhs' -- instead worry about clear, concise, and precise responses. (NB: almost everyone hates watching themselves talk, and almost everyone finds it excruciating. Don't worry about that part. You don't suck anywhere near as much as you think you do).
   
9. Once your finances are set (i.e. at least 6 months worth of living expenses in the bank. Even better if you've got a year of living expenses, as that'll help if you've got an emergency), quit your job.
   
   From here, it's a matter of learning. You're never going to learn everything (there's too much out there), but you can definitely learn quite a bit.
   
   If you've got a CS background, you should be able to pick up the basics of Ruby on Rails. Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial is pretty commonly cited; if you want to do web development, go through this tutorial twice. Maybe three times. Then start building projects on your own. Alternatively, Daniel Kehoe's Learn Ruby on Rails is also pretty commonly cited.
   
   A good understanding of Rails, plus a solid foundation in HTML, CSS, and Javascript/jQuery will make you a reasonably compelling junior developer for a company that builds web applications. Doubly so if you can show off a few good personal projects. A good bootcamp (like the one where I teach) will give you a structured and guided opportunity to learn these skills. A terrible boot camp will also give you this opportunity, but you'll have to work a lot harder on figuring out how to make it all happen.
   
   In addition to self-study and building projects, start attending meetups and actually talk to people.
   
   If you do decide to start looking at different boot camps, here are some questions to ask:
   
   
10. What will we be learning?
    
11. What sorts of jobs do graduates have?
    
12. What are your placement rates? How many graduates have internships after graduating, and how many go into full-time jobs? What sorts of support do you provide graduates who are searching for jobs? How long does it usually take for all the graduates from a given class to find jobs?
    
13. What is the typical experience for new graduates in their first 6 months as an employee?
    
14. What are some examples of student projects? What are some examples of average work? Some examples of really stellar work?
    
15. What opportunities will I have to design and build a project of my own determining? How many portfolio pieces can I expect to have by the time I graduate?
    
16. What are some examples of typical days?
    
17. Who's the instructor? How long have they been teaching? What are their qualifications?
    
    Of course they can lie to you, or use weasel-words to obfuscate, or make stuff up, or.... Of course that's the case.
    
    A good boot camp will give you lots of opportunities to practice AND will help you find your first job. We (where I work) do a lot of talking with recruiters and companies in our network, and we work really hard to make sure that our students get jobs that offer lots of opportunities for growth and development, and, when possible, that align with strengths and interests (there's not usually too big of a disjunct there). So far, we've had quite a bit of success in terms of our students finding employment, and even the companies that have been resistant to hiring students like our grads have started coming around (albeit slowly) as more and more companies hire our grads and have good experiences with them. But it'll be at least another year or two before our grads reliably get hired as junior devs in the bigger corporations (as their first or even second job) without first having a CS degree.
    
    There are lots of different ways you can find success, and almost anything you do (quit your job and self-study, stay at your job and self-study, go to a boot camp, backpack around Europe, and so on) can be reasonably explained in an interview, especially if you can demonstrate that you are someone who is smart and gets things done.
    
    Even your current job can be explained. Sure, your dev skills aren't what you want them to be, but you've got a ton of practice fixing code, which means you've got a huge list in your head of all the different mistakes you might make while writing code (which then means that you can, given adequate leeway, build systems that help you avoid or at least catch those mistakes). Don't discount that. It's important stuff that you learned, even if the way you learned it makes you feel really terrible.
    
    Hope this helps.

I'm doing EE/CS at a top uni. as well, and I was able to land a PM job after some hard work. Some tips I'd give:

1. Make sure you really want to be a PM, really research what it's about, and imagine yourself working everyday as one, will this make you happier?
   
   
2. Dedicate a technical class worth of time to do applications, interviews, emailing, and interview prepping. PM jobs are harder to find, particularly for new grads. You want to maximize your chances. I was spending nearly 3 hours each day on recruiting-related stuff during my peak month, going to at most 3 on-site interviews per week.
   
   
3. Taking business/entrepreneurship classes definitely helps, but make sure to not waste too much time learning the wrong things. For most new-grad PM jobs, you don't need to learn complicated economic mathematics or MBA-level management methods. You'd rather spend that time studying for interviews and analyzing the market.
   
   
4. Framework, market knowledge, and interview prep can only get you so far. You really need to like thinking about this stuff and have a good product intuition. My friend wrote a great blog post about new grad PM and she has some great tips. I'll paste her "why PM" here:
   
   > - If you have a creative vision
   > - If you love to talk about or review products
   > - If you like wearing many hats
   > - If you like shaping the big picture
   > - If you have a keen eye for design, but also the technical chops to run with the engineers
   > - If you are a technical person who doesn’t see yourself simply coding all your life
   > - If you are double majoring in computer science and [business, psychology, economics, etc]
   > - If you enjoy getting messy with data
   > - If you don’t shy away from problems but instead actively look for solutions
   > - If you can explain ideas well
   > - If you are interested in what the users have to say
   > - If you enjoy people
   > - If you send well-written, actionable emails
   > - If you are the master of your inbox
   > - If you like to move around and not sit at your desk all day
   > - If you can stay organized and on top of deadlines
   > - If you are passionate about what you do
   
   If this list doesn't sound like you at all, then no amount of interview prepping will come through as passion, good vision, and intuition.
   
   Lastly, get the book called Cracking The PM Interview. I won't try to parrot some great interview and company specific knowledge in this book, it helped me a lot.
   
   TL;DR: Make sure you actually want to be a PM, spend a lot of time writing emails/applications and studying for interviews, only take classes useful to PMing, and read that book.

TL/DR: Know what you want to be paid, be specific, show off your work, your resume isn't graded, and interview the company as much as they interview you.

Got my first industry programming job by posting on here about a year ago. I'd just graduated uni and was looking for a serious gig.

It took three or four posts over two months before I finally was starting to get decent offers. The ads that failed were generic, didn't market my skills well, and weren't specific enough as to what I actually needed, thus I got lots of Rev-Share-only offers, lots of $400 a week offers, and lots of "exposure" offers. There were a few offers for positions I was in no way qualified for, either.

For reference, this and this were my unsuccessful ads, this was my successful one.

I'm actually just now starting to look for a new job (my contract is up), and revamp my portfolio site, and my general advice is:

1. Know your worth up front. Figure out what your time is worth to you, and then ask for a little more than that (because you'll probably settle for less than your up-front offer). Make it clear what you won't accept, too. On my ad one of the things my boss said had caught his eye was that I was extremely explicit that I was looking for a job, not a quick gig. I have loans to pay off, a family to support, and rent to pay. Rev-share-only was not okay, nor were tiny $400 a month contracts. He could tell I was more than just a student looking for a meal ticket, but that I was ready to start my career.
   
2. Market a particular specialty, not general expertise. A character artist or engine programmer will get way more targeted offers than someone who markets themselves as a generalist.
   
3. Words mean nothing. Visuals are everything (or sounds if you're an audio/music/sound person). Have demos on your website (get a website for free on github.io if nothing else) that people can see, touch, play with. This is whether you're a programmer, artist, designer, or sound person. If you can point to a project, talk about what you worked on, and point to specific things you did in an interview, all the better. If you're a programmer, make public projects on GitHub.
   
4. Don't sweat your resume. More specifically, don't feel like you're a slave to one format or another. It's not a paper that's going to be graded by a teacher. It might spend 5 minutes in front of a recruiter or potential employer, so you want to get the most important information up front. If you're not super experienced, functional resumes are a great asset, because you can list unpaid projects (like ones you did at school, or just for fun), and forego unhelpful work experience like that retail job you had for five years that has no bearing on your programming/artistic/musical/design ability.
   
5. Interview the Interviewer. They need to be happy with you, yes, but you need to be happy with them. Ask lots of questions. Show interest. Listen. Find out their scope, and whether it's the right amount of work for you. Make sure that your expectations and theirs are crystal clear.
   
6. Finally, one third of Kickstarter projects succeed. Let that sink in. While your chances of successfully Kickstarting a game are nonzero, and there are tons of things you can do to affect the outcome of your Kickstarter to give yourself a better chance of succeeding, it should be clear that you should not accept "payment after Kickstarter" as a possibility, unless you're confident that you can get paid (or okay with not being paid).
   
   Bonus: If you're a programmer, get "Cracking the Coding Interview". It is amazing and will help you figure out what potential employers are looking for.
   
   edit: ._. oh. This is a bit old. Oh well. Hopefully someone'll see it and get something from it.

It sounds like you're in great shape so far. In terms of breaking into the research arena, taking a behavioral research class is an excellent start. Like I said in my previous post, do well in the class, express your interest to the instructor, and get to know him/her. This will open up doors for you. They are not teaching that class for no reason. They will have, at the very least, some connection to the research world. Once you show the instructor you can do well and are interested, approach them about any research opportunities he/she knows and you will hopefully get some leads.

Unfortunately, instructors at community college usually don't do their own research (I don't know where you live, but that's generally how it is where I am in the US). So you may not get a lot of opportunities out of that course (though you'll probably learn some great stuff).

However, once you transfer to a university, those opportunities will be far more plentiful as professors at big schools focus on research. Their jobs depend on it. So again, once you transfer, get to know all of your professors, express your interest, and approach them about participating as a research assistant. This will open doors for you.

Another good practice, once you're at university, is to look up the faculty members in the psychology department. Even if you haven't taken a class with them, you can email them and ask if they need help in their lab.

As for hospitals, there are definitely research opportunities there. However, at least where I'm from, most of those positions in hospitals are paid and require some previous experience. So those may be out of reach for you right now. Most everyone I know cut their research teeth at a university volunteering for professors.

Another thing that's very helpful is to figure out what you're actually interested in doing both clinically and research wise. That is, having a specific focus will help you immensely. The earlier you know this, the more of an advantage you have.

In my case, I knew I wanted to do drug and alcohol research. So I targeted professors at my university who did research along those lines. By gaining pre graduate research experience in that sub discipline of psychology, my application for grad school was stronger because it showed the schools I was applying to that I had a long standing interest in the topic and had actual lab experience to back up my interest (it's easy to say that you are super interested in a topic, but to be able to actually say "Hey, I've done work in this area!" is invaluable. I would argue that this will get you into a program more than your grades or GRE scores (though those are certainly important).

I would also recommend that you get this book. It really breaks down what you need to do to get admitted to solid programs.

Review your basic algorithms and data structures. Sorting, graph traversal, linked lists, structs, arrays, and multi-dimensional arrays.

Know about memory management, know about orders of magnitude in runtime, know about pointers, know about debugging and what to test.

You almost certainly won't be asked one of those wacky brainteasers you hear so much about -- we've found over time they do little else but tell us how good you are at brainteasers.

If you can do every problem in this book then you'll be more than prepared.

Also, give a quick read of our general interview tips.

General advice:

Pay close attention to providing thoughtful, reasoned approaches. Don't get so tied up in providing a clever solution that you forget the simple answer. Points are definitely awarded for really clever or innovative solutions, but that isn't the only way to get through.

Additionally, RELAX! This is definitely easier said than done, I realize, but understand that most interviewers really do want you to succeed. They aren't there to scare or intimidate you, and interviewing isn't even their day job! They're engineers who once sat exactly where you were, answering the same things they're now asking you.

Try and think of your conversation with your interviewer as being a chat with a really good friend of yours that you haven't seen in a really long time. You used to be best buddies, but moved away and you haven't seen them since. You know you've both changed in all that time, so you're being a little restrained, but there's still a foundation of mutual trust and respect -- one that puts you at ease.

Lastly, verbalize your answers. We aren't asking you to write an algorithm to sort a linked list because we're curious how it's done -- we're asking you because we want to know how you think. Verbalize your thought process. Verify all your assumptions. And, if you get stuck, don't be afraid of stating your thought process to your interviewer and asking for some feedback on where to take the solution (this is a heavily team-oriented company, after all).

Hope this helps! Best of luck!

Source: I do interviews at Microsoft, both general technical interviews as well as PM interviews.

I don't think I could do a mock interview exactly... not sure that would be kosher. But I can definitely offer you some tips from my experience with both the intern and full-time interviews.

How to prepare:

• Study algorithms and data structures as much as you can. Google doesn't ask the type of questions where the answer is just "a hash map!" or "depth first search!". But those things will be the building blocks of your solutions, so know your tools.
  
  
• Pick a language you're comfortable in ahead of time. Python is my favorite for interviews, since it's pretty terse and clear. But you can pretty much choose anything. The coding questions aren't language-specific.
  
  
• Take some problems from a textbook or something and practice coding in a plain text document, or even on paper. No IDE, no compiler, no running your code, etc. You won't have any of those tools in the interview, so you should practice without them.
  
  
• If you can beg, borrow, or steal the book "Cracking the Coding Interview" and read it in the next two weeks, do it. The author, Gayle Lakmann McDowell, worked at Google, where she interviewed a ton of candidates and was on a hiring committee. She also has an interview prep website, CareerCup, which I haven't explored.
  
  
• There are some YouTube videos going through the interview process and providing some tips. I linked two but the "Life at Google" channel has more.
  
  
• Feel free to ask the recruiter if there's anything in particular you should study or how you should prepare. They really want you to be ready and do your best, so they should be happy to guide you in the right direction.
  
  How to interview:
  
  
• Take a deep breath first! (literally... you can mute for a moment so you don't sound creepy.) You can do this. You've studied for this and you're ready. Once you've got a problem in front of you, stop thinking of it as an interview at all. It's just coding, and that's your thing.
  
  
• You may get a few easy questions first, but sooner or later you'll be faced with a problem you don't know how to solve. That's exactly as intended. The interviewer wants to know how you approach a hard problem, to get an idea of how you think. In fact, solving the problem is not necessarily the goal.
  
  
• Ask for clarification about the problem. What does the input look like? What does the output look like? How big is the data? How should you handle a certain edge case? The interviewer will be happy to answer, in fact, sometimes the problem can only be solved by asking the right questions first.
  
  
• If you're stuck, your interviewer will likely toss out a hint or nudge you in the right direction. Definitely pay attention to that hint, because the interviewer is honestly trying to help you succeed.
  
  
• Think out loud. As long as you aren't typing, describe what's going through your head. "Well, the naive solution for this would be [...], but that would take O([...]) time, and I think I can figure out something better..." The more you say about what you're thinking, the easier it is for the interviewer to help you. Having been on the interviewer side, it's really hard to think up a hint for someone who's just going "hmmmmmm" over an empty doc.
  
  
• No matter how interview #1 goes, you have a clean slate with interview #2. So stay calm, and whatever happens, let it go and focus on the next problem.
  
  What's next:
  
  
• For interns (at least when I was an intern), they don't do onsites. So this is the main part of the interview process that is basically intended to assess your technical abilities. If it goes well, the rest will be placement interviews where you'll talk to potential hosts and try to find a good fit for an intern project.
  
  Good luck!! It's always really exciting for me to hear about young women applying to Google. Hopefully I'll see you rocking the propeller beanie this summer. :)
  
  P.S. I love your username. Avocados are amaze balls and I don't know what I would eat if they didn't exist.

My Story

Hey pal, I was in a similar boat about 8 months ago. It was my senior year as an Economics major, and after taking a programming class, I instantly fell in love with it. I crammed a few more programming classes in before graduating, but in the end, I sure as hell wasn't employable as a software engineer.

​

I had a choice: become a data analyst (the path I was currently on) or follow the software engineering dream. I chose the latter.

​

I decided to go to a (remote) coding bootcamp after college. The program was 6 months. It taught web development (Node, React) and some very basic CS fundamentals. I spent my free time outside the bootcamp inhaling all the computer science and industry information I could. I did this because I wanted to be a competent programmer. I found it fun.

​

This week I had my second onsite. I expect to receive a full-time software engineer offer (my second offer so far) later today, and I have 4 other onsites in the near future (a big 4 + a few startups). It has been a heck of a lot of work to get here, but if you want it badly enough, it's possible.

​

My Tips

• Try not to be intimidated by these tips. Software engineering is something that you take little bites out of. You cannot become an employable developer in one bite, and sometimes the field can be intimidating.
  
• Your options right now are self-teaching, a coding bootcamp, or a CS master's degree (might be hard to get into a good program without a bit more relevant experience, tbh.).
  
• It's going to be pretty difficult to break into anything other than web development for your first programming job without a CS degree. Titles like Front-end Engineer, Full Stack Engineer, Backend Engineer, and Software Engineer (at a web company) are within reach. More specialized titles probably aren't very realistic.
  
• Basic toy projects (i.e., simple HTML/CSS or similar) probably aren't enough to get significant attention. You need things more complex, like full-stack applications built from scratch. This means a working backend, a working database, a modern front-end (using a framework like React, etc.). Here's my portfolio if you're curious about the type of apps I mean.
  
• Other types of programming applications outside of web dev are also fine, as long as they are sufficiently complex and interesting.
  
• Put your projects on your GitHub no matter what. Learning how to commit code to GitHub is an important industry practice. Having a green GitHub history makes you look better.
  
• Try and build a portfolio once you get better at coding. Don't kill yourself making it look amazing, but do try and make it look good. Not everyone will care about your portfolio, but some people will. I got an interview just based on having a nice portfolio.
  
• Your university course sounds like a great primer, but you need to go deeper to be competent enough to pass interviews. I took similar courses at my university, but what really helped me was going through a few textbooks (1, 2, 3 -- some suggestions) and watching MIT 6.006 lectures. You will still have gaps in things like web security, scaling systems, networks, and operating systems, but I wouldn't spend a ton of time learning those topics as a new grad. Knowing the basics can be helpful though, because these things do definitely come up in interviews.
  
  ​
  
  Happy to answer any other questions you may have. I'm not an expert or an experienced software engineer yet, but I've walked the path you're considering, so hopefully my tips are helpful.

I looked at the FreeCodeCamp curriculum, it looks good for an entry level javascript developer, so since you already started it, you might as well finish it (since, like I said, everybody implicitly expects you to know at least one of python/js/perl as well as HTML+CSS).

2 hours per day is a bit too little IMO - but I understand that it's hard to find time when you have a demanding job and a family that needs time and attention. Just study as much as you can, 2h being the mininum (do keep in mind that CS students, your competition, will be studying at least 8h/day for at least 4 years with tons of homework and more advanced material). So you should probably focus on studying more in the weekends (just typing and thinking about this, I'm actually lucky I started when I was a kid, with all my bills paid for!)

Anyways. You should focus on getting a job first - do keep doing the FreeCodeCamp, as many hours in the day and weekends as you can. Explain to your significant other, if you haven't already done so, your plan - that you're studying hard to upgrade your career, that it might take some time away from them but it will pay off in the long run, etc. Ideally you should be studying at least 4h/day, so try to keep close to that, study more on weekends if necessary. Check this guy for reference on his plan and what he's studying (and note that he's studying full-time - a luxury, I know, but just to put your 2h/day into perspective). This guide is helpful too. Note that you don't need to know all that to get an entry-level development job, but keep that plan in mind for the long run (as you progress your career).

Once you finish the FreeCodeCamp, or even before (I would say, once you finish "Basic Algorithm Scripting"), try doing some local interviews if you can do it without jeopardizing your current job just to get a feel of how interviews work. You won't be trying to get a job (but hey, if you do, awesome), this is just to get your feet wet on interviewing (which is a skill in itself). Since you're not shooting to get a job right now, you won't be as nervous, which is the state of mind you want to be in. If you're relaxed you can talk better, think better, make jokes, be more presentable, which is great - this will put you in the right mood for your future interviews. Try finding people online that can do mock interviews with you in the area you will be focusing on (web/javascript/frontend initially).

Once you're past the basic HTML/CSS part and you start studying JavaScript, I suggest you look into Python as well at the same time. It is a very simple language, quick to learn, and will double your opportunities for employment. As you study both at the same time, you might notice that you like one or the other better - if that happens, focus more on the one you like better, this will accelerate your learning and get you ready for a job faster in your chosen language.

At one point you'll finish HTML/CSS and JavaScript+Python (finish as in be comfortable with them - you'll see that you'll still learn new things as years go by, it will take a few years for you to "master" them). After you're comfortable with JavaScript and Python (and hopefully gainfully employed in development), start studying that book (where you'll learn a GREAT deal about many important things, it will be a dense read, and you will come out of it knowing assembly and C) and then you can focus on algorithms and exercising your thinking with algorithmic puzzles and how computer networks work, operating systems and everything that is generally on this list.

Then after studying all that and with 2-4 years of experience under your belt (and still studying 4h/day), you can start thinking about the next level in your career and preparing for it (larger companies, mid to senior positions, etc) - add a couple more years of experience and you'll be ready to interview for large Valley companies (Google, Apple, FB, etc).

If you plan to self-study all the way through and never join an University, you can look into full-fledged CS courses online and follow that to get a complete theoretical background on CS (that all your colleagues will eventually have and expect of you, at some point in the future).

Employers like degrees, but employers also like people who know how to get things done. At the very least, teaching yourself is a good start for whatever else you're thinking of doing.

I've thought about it a lot: if I were trying to learn to program, today, from scratch, what tools would I want? Well, here are a few of my favorite things...

Free VS 2010 Professional for @edu accounts:

https://www.dreamspark.com/

Free Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers:

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

Free team tools worth understanding:

http://www.perforce.com/ (version control)

http://subversion.apache.org/ (version control - pretty much the same thing as perforce, but not as good)

http://git-scm.com/ (version control - a VERY different way of doing things, but powerful and gaining popularity)

http://www.rallydev.com/ (task management - kind of a pain, but good to play with)

Tutorials:

http://www.khanacademy.org/science/computer-science?k (probably a very good place to start)

http://www.khanacademy.org/exercisedashboard (math - the value of this cannot be overstated)

Online course-ware:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/#electrical-engineering-and-computer-science

http://www.stanford.edu/online/

http://edudemic.com/2012/04/the-25-best-places-to-take-free-online-computer-science-classes/

Problem solving challenges:

http://projecteuler.net/ (we should go through these together)

Community:

http://stackoverflow.com/ (Q&A forum)

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming (some good links, okay place to ask questions)

Books:

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Programmer/dp/047012167X (once you're ready for a job, this is good to work your way through)

Possibly a good discussion about finding a software job, later in life:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4350827

And then...

Depending on the kind of development you're interested in, there are a TON of other valuable resources, tutorials, tools, etc:

Free Cloud Services - depending on what you're doing, these might be SUPER valuable... Might not want to make an account until you're ready, because the clock starts ticking:

http://aws.amazon.com/free/

https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/free-trial/

Free cloud development tools:

https://c9.io/

Sorry to hear about your situation. I'm not sure on the focus of Infomatics, but by the sounds of your post you are well equipped and looking for a programming (web dev) job. So I'll focus on the job part because realistically it's the only thing I feel I have any (possibly) useful advice for. I'm sorry to hear you haven't found a job yet. But you are quite fortunately (unless I mis-read what you want) looking in one of the most in demand, albeit competitive industries around.

So here is my (hopefully semi-useful) advice. Most are things that I was told to do when interviewing that I thought helped me quite a bit. I hope they help you too. You may be doing all of this already so I am sorry if it is obvious things you've been doing.

I strongly recommend buying this book if you can. Read it cover to cover and do as many of the exercises as you can.

https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Next I recommend applying to any and all tech companies you can find, it doesn't matter if they are asking for a specific framework or language or more experience than you have. A lot of people are put off by the 2 to 3 years in x that most postings have. Usually they just care that you have some experience and seem smart enough to learn. The fact that you have side projects is a giant plus for you, they love seeing that.

These sites are great ways to practice for interview questions:
https://www.hackerrank.com/
https://leetcode.com/

Doing these questions really help with interview questions in my opinion.

From there just cycle, continue to read the book, apply to as many places as you can, do practice problems. Work on your own side projects, the experience gained from them is extremely important.

If you have any public repos on github clean them up. If you do not, register for an account and put your personal projects on some (if you can). That way you can start to include the account on your CV. (If you aren't already)

Practice explaining your projects (what you did and why) and try to think of the questions they could ask you.

In terms of financials/housing/immediate work, I would look at moving out of the downtown core and try to find a basement suite or something affordable. Maybe try to get a roommate. I would try to find a job (starbucks, best buy, london drugs, etc) to support yourself in the short term. If you have a friend that might be willing to let you stay with them while you find a place talk to them now, and let them know the situation. That will help them prepare for you if you can't find a job/place.

Also, don't be afraid to post your resume to subreddits that focus on that sort of thing (remove all personal info!) or feel free to pm me yours and I will be more than happy to try to provide some constructive criticism.

Sorry for the book, I hope at least some of it was useful to you.
Also sorry for the grammar/spelling/shitty writing style I am a programmer, but not a good writer.

If you're working on your math and might pursue a CS degree I'd recommend Cracking the Coding Interview. I actually haven't read it myself but it's a highly recommended book often mentioned on subreddits like /r/cscareerquestions

EDIT: Perhaps pair it up with books on algorithms and data structures so you get comfortable in working with, lists, arrays, trees, graphs etc :)

EDIT: (currently 0) Why would someone down vote this? I just don't understand why?

EDIT: Someone mentioned that it could perhaps be because I hadn't read it myself so I thought I'd add a heartfelt recommendation by /u/amputect that I just read in the authors AMA:

> Gayle, I don't have a question, but I wanted to say that your book helped me get two programming jobs. I used to push grocery carts in the arizona summer, now I work for Google. I also, like, went to college and learned and stuff, but your book was a huge help in prepping for interviews. Thanks to you, I felt more confident and more prepared, and I was able to interview with several major tech companies without fear vomiting a single time which for me was a pretty big deal.
Seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your book is great, I recommend it to everyone. You are a fantastic writer and a brilliant human being. Thank you!

You're GPA is great so you don't need to worry about that, IMO I'd list it on your resume.

I would recommend the following:

1. Do this book, attempt all the chapters if you can (you might be able to leave out threading, but I still recommend it): https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850 (Note: there is a better book but this is a good starting book)
   
   While concurrently (har har) reading the book, any data structures you don't know, learn. Program them and test that they work.
   
   Further, check out CSC263 materials and see if you can implement the data structures. You should also at the end of CtCI be able to attempt some of the assignments from CSC263 and complete them.
   
   Also try coding problems on hackerrank or leetcode or w/e the sites are called -- note they can be demoralizing on hard but it's worth it and you learn a lot
   
   
2. Now that it's the summer time, try to create some bigger projects. If you're going to make a smaller project then make sure you learn something inside and out... for example if you're learning Java and do something with reflection, go absolutely ham on learning how reflection works
   
   Pick a language and learn it well, again if you do Java, then know how garbage collection works and other core language features (ex: If I ask you what a GC root is, do you know? [ask yourself this in 4 months] Can you compile from the command line? Do you know what Maven is and how to use it? Can you use lambdas and the new stream API? What is type erasure? etc)
   
   C++ is great at removing your hair, but you'll learn a lot... and if you ever have to work on a C++ project you won't want to kill yourself when you accidentally do object slicing or something funny like this.
   
   
3. Learn SQL/databases/one ORM framework, and interface it with your language of choice (will make CSC343 much easier for you)
   
   
4. Try to learn some web stuff so if you come across it you won't be confused by what to do. Making your own personal site from a template is a good start
   
   
5. Learn either Git or Mercurial well, and good practices (ex: always branch and pull to the master), which will dramatically save you headaches when you get hired. You do not want to be 'that guy' who fucks up the repo...
   
   
6. Learn C or assembly if you can, this will give you the bigger picture and make CSC209/CSC258 also A marks for you (I recommend NASM but MIPS or ARM can work great too)
   
   
7. Get someone to proof read your resume, I don't know anyone who had a proper first resume.
   
   
8. IF YOU CAN... try to contribute to a massive project. Committing even a one line bug fix to a massive project can be a significant amount of work and looks really good on a resume. In fact, I've been told by multiple employers that seeing someone do work on a massive code base that isn't theirs is great brownie points for getting hired since that is what you'll be doing.
   
   Obviously put your work on github or somewhere, though I think you know that this is implied
   
   As you can see, attempting the above will directly benefit the following courses:
   
   

• CSC207 (if you do Java)
  
• CSC209 (if you do C, or C++)
  
• CSC258 (if you do any assembly)
  
• CSC236/240/263/265/373 (from CtCI, general experience, etc)
  
• CSC301/302 (if you do contributions to a large database)
  
• CSC309 (if you do any web stuff)
  
• CSC343 (databases)
  
• CSC369 (threading, other misc stuff)
  
  Sounds good doesn't it? Though this is probably only possible if you are doing literally nothing over the summer ;)

...continued...

> Test plans - When you apply for QA roles, you'll almost certainly be asked "how would you test ____?". The correct answer is to be methodical. Don't just spew out a stream of test cases as you brainstorm them. Understand the different scopes (unit, functional, integration, maybe end-to-end) and what the goals of each is, and how they differ. Understand that there are different areas of testing like boundary, happy path, special cases (null, " ", 0, -1), exceptions, localization, security, deployment/rollback, code coverage, user-acceptance, a/b, black box vs white box, load/performance/stress/scalability, resiliency, etc. Test various attributes at the intersection of a compenent and a capability (borrowed from the book How Google Tests Software), and I believe you can see a video that goes into this called The 10 Minute Test Plan. Understand how tests fit into your branching strategy - when to run bvts vs integration vs regression tests.

> Test methodologies - Understand the tools that make you an efficient tester. These include data driven tests, oracles, all-pairs / equivalency class, mocking & injection, profiling, debugging, logging, model-based, emulators, harnesses (like JUnit), fuzzing, dependency injection, etc.

> Test frameworks - Knowing all the tests you need to write is good, but then you have to write them. Don't do all of them from scratch. Think of it as a system that needs to be architected so that test cases are simple to write, and new functionality is easy to implement tests for. I can't recommend any books for this because it's something I learned from my peers.

> Test tools - Selenium / WebDriver for web ui, Fiddler for web services (or sites), JUnit/TestNG, JMeter (I have to admit, I don't know this one), integration tools like Jenkins, Github/Stash, git/svn.

> System design - As you're entry-level, this may not be a huge focus in an interview, but know how to sensibly design a system. Know which classes should be used and how they interact with each other. Keep in mind that the system may evolve in the future.

> Whiteboarding - Practice solving problems on a whiteboard. The process is more than just writing the solution, though. This is the process I follow (based loosely on the book Programming Interviews Exposed):

• Clarify the problem - resolve any ambiguities, determine behaviors for special cases (throw an exception vs return null?). Look for gotchas (like if you're doing some string manipulation with overlaps)
  
• Give a couple test cases to demonstrate your understanding of the problem, to make you think of other special cases, and because they want someone who's test-focused if you go into QA. Give a happy path scenario and a couple negative or special cases
  
• Propose a solution - do this verbally, and give its runtime complexity (and less importantly, its memory usage). If the runtime complexity is bad (polynomial, exponential), then say so and think of a better solution (there will almost certainly be one)
  
• Implement the solution - verbalize your thought process while doing so. If you don't know something, say so. The interviewer will likely help you out without penalty. Listen very carefully for clues, because the interviewer will be giving them. Really understand everything the interviewer says, and understand his motivation for saying it. If you see potential bugs, say so ("I want to be careful that I don't go out-of-bounds in the last iteration of this loop").
  
• Debug the solution - walk through it as if you're a debugger, using the happy path test case that you made earlier. Oftentimes, the interviewer will give you a test case with the problem. Use it - he probably selected it for a reason (the numbers are in an interesting order that will find the most bugs, for example).
  
• Test the solution - Add to the handful of tests you gave earlier. Think about the different types of tests, and if they apply.
  
  Resources:-
  
  > Learning to test:
  
  
• How Google Tests Software
  
• Guice, and another
  
• Google Test Automation Conference
  
• Netflix's Simian Army
  
• Google Testing Blog
  
• Hermetic testing
  
• The Art of Software Testing (I've only skimmed it)
  
  > Learning to interview:
  
  
• Programming Interviews Exposed
  
• Programming Pearls
  
  > Learning to program:
  
  
• Design Patterns (I'm embarrassed that I don't have more recommendations for this...)
  
  > Miscellaneous
  
  
• Meetup
  
• Inventing on Principle
  
  > What sort of skills should I really hone? I realize I gave you a ton of stuff in this post, so here's a shorter list:
  
  

1. Read How Google Tests Software
   
2. Understand dependency injection
   
3. Understand unit, functional (use hermetic environments), and integration testing
   
4. Understand mocking (Mockito's a good one for java)
   
   > Examples of projects that make you look valuable
   
   

• Refactoring product code to be Guice-friendly
  
• Tool to profile method calls simply by adding annotations
  
• Tool to automate bug filing/updating/closing - assign to the right person, re-activate when they repro, give good steps, close when they're fixed and don't repro
  
• Tool to automatically quarantine flaky tests that aren't caused by product bugs
  
• Aggregation of distributed logs into central, indexed location (I didn't write the solution, just did the work to integrate an existing one (Logstash/Kibana))
  
• Automatically display the picture of the team member who checks in code with the highest coverage (I didn't do this, just something cool I read about)
  
• Tool that logs messages with contextual information, so for example you can see all messages associated with user 123
  
• Tool that captures inter-server traffic, associated with the user-request
  
• Tool that provides metadata about test cases in your web proxy
  

> However, something pulled me away from Marketing, and I decided to try and go the tech route. I took two basic programming courses (Java/C++ & SQL) at school however because of lack of time did not do a minor/major.

From this I would suggest data science, but it looks like you're already into that. If you like programming, maybe find a marketing position that needs some programming rather than going for a full-on programming position. That way you can ease yourself in.

> I consider myself pretty creative, and I think about things deeply/logically

That's great!

> however even when I programmed I never felt like a smart/clever programmer, more so watching what others do and replicating.

Don't worry about that too much. Programming is a trade--a very sophisticated and exacting one, but it's still a trade. There is no silver bullet to gaining great programming skill. You need to make 10,000 mistakes to be a master.

I've been programming for ten years now, others have told me I'm clever or a good programmer so I suspect it's more or less true. All of my clever tricks, good ideas and ability to make difficult things simple come from others. When I see something I like, I remember it. When I build something later I can pull out my bag of tricks and build elegant solutions to complex problems. Study other people's code and learn from it. Try to figure out why they chose to make every decision they did; every line tells a story.

If you want a good place to start with that, look at the JavaScript source files for 2048 (ignore the ones that end with polyfill). It's one of the most beautiful pieces of code I've seen.

To quote this

> Every programmer occasionally, when nobody's home, turns off the lights, pours a glass of scotch, puts on some light German electronica, and opens up a file on their computer. It's a different file for every programmer. Sometimes they wrote it, sometimes they found it and knew they had to save it. They read over the lines, and weep at their beauty, then the tears turn bitter as they remember the rest of the files and the inevitable collapse of all that is good and true in the world.


> I did receive a Data Science internship, as I knew the answers to basic programming questions and was able to think through a problem logically. However, today I had a technical interview where I had to join a chatroom and write pieces of code for the person. I struggled with 2 out of the 3 problems and they were fairly simple-- a little embarrassing.

These types of things are designed to trip you up and separate the people who can't program at all with those that can. The link is short and worth a read. If you want to practice read Cracking The Coding Interview by Gayle McDowell.

> So now I am really doubting going to programming track as maybe I am not 'talented'/capable of really performing that type of thinking, especially for an entire summer & career. Any advice or tips is greatly appreciated!

Impostor Syndrome runs high in CS. There's too much to keep up on and it's impossible to know it all. In a way, we're all constantly beginners. Learn as you go and don't be afraid to ask questions, nobody knows everything.

> He has had one junior developer interview that I found for him (another client of mine, after I talked up his progress and how proud I am of him) but he froze up and didn’t get the job. Since then it’s been mostly daily auto rejection emails. I can tell he is starting to lose hope and shut down because he is very ambitious and hardworking (much more than I’ve ever been).

> So, what actions, steps, courses, books, words of support, etc did the people in your life share with you or do for you that made a long, difficult job search bearable or better or easier? Or what do you wish they had done or said differently?

So I don't know your BF, but one thing to keep make sure is that he welcomes your help. I know some people take offers of assistance as a sign of weakness. It's great you're trying to help him, but it's best to make sure.

I've been through the same process - albeit single at the time. But I understand the stress and fear of uncertainty he's going through. One of the best thing you can do is not involve this in your interactions/dates/etc. Just being a good girlfriend/boyfriend is usually more than enough when someone is going through a stressful time. Having small moments with you where he can destress will do wonders for his mental health.

More than anything - be understanding. I've known some couples that have broken up because the other party didn't understand the stress the other party was going through. For example, having issues with not spending enough time together, closing up, etc. Being understanding and being there for him is really one of the best things you can do even if you don't directly help him. If he needs time alone, don't make it a personal issue - he's probably dealing a lot within his head and he will come to you after he's had time to himself. If he lashes out at you due to his stress (which is quite common since he's trying to find an outlet), try to defuse it or just shrug it off. Of course, don't take it lying down if he crosses the line - but know that it's coming from a place of fear and assuming it's no big deal, just letting it go will work wonders.

When this is all over, he will know all the things you've done for him and will appreciate you that much more as a girlfriend/boyfriend.

One book I do recommend is Cracking the Coding Interview. It's been basically my bible when I went through the interviewing phase and it's helped out tremendously. It goes through in-depth about how to change your mindset during an interview and what to expect. Having more knowledge builds confidence. Having confidence will prevent him from freezing up. I don't know if your BF already owns this book, but it would be a great gift - assuming he's welcoming to your assistance.

> Why even have your own charity if you're going to funnel to other charities. By time it gets to people what is left?

To answer this, it is quite common for one non profit to be focused on the raising of money for a related cause. They both raise and then research the best way for that money to be distributed by doing the necessary analysis of the programs in that areas, and then go on to fund them. By donating to their fund you are trusting that they will do the best job in this endeavour.

It makes sense because companies like MAC are not equipped to actually handle AIDS related issues. They are very well equipped to handle fundraising for AIDS related issues.

What is funny is your complaint against MAC of "why even have your own charity if you're going to funnel to other charities. By time it gets to people what is left?" is exactly what the Clinton Foundation doesn't do. They are both well equipped to raise money and create and implement successful programs. They still give grants to other programs as well, so they are a unique foundation in the philanthropic world.


I would recommend to you the book "Doing Good Better" by William MacAskill. He does a fantastic explanation of how normal people can analyze programs and charities and how we can utilize small amounts of donated money to do the most amount of good. Easy read, very compelling and challenges the way most people blindly donate.

They seem a like reasonable starting point I think. Repetition is the mother of mastery, the more books the better (in addition to applying what is learned).

Since Mosh is calling out learning fundamentals as important to becoming a good C# developers, I would personally also recommend some general (non C# specific books) too for who are starting out in software development:

1. Design Patterns (Amazon) - also known as the "Gang of Four" Design Patterns, it was originally published in 1994 and is still relevant today. When people talk about design patterns, they're referring to the book more often then not.
   
   
2. Soft Skills (Amazon) - Not a book on programming actually... it's a software developers life manual. The reason I like this book is it covers the other parts of the life of a developer that I haven't seen covered anywhere else. Everything from learning strategies, time management, career advice, and even some health and fitness. It was an enjoyable read and I think other developers would enjoy it too.
   
   
3. The Passionate Programmer (Amazon) It's been a while since I've read this one, but I remember it giving decent advice for building a career in software development. Not to be confused with The Pragmatic Programmer (Amazon) which should be read at some point too.
   
   There's a ton more, but those are a few that stood out to me. Essentially the more the merrier in my opinion - books, courses, videos, tutorials, and so on. The books I'm recommending here focus on adopting the developer mindset and being successful at it. That's part of the puzzle.
   
   The other part is understanding the technical details including the programming language and frameworks you intend to use.
   
   And finally, for learning about C#, I do highly recommend Mosh's videos/courses (some are free on YouTube, others available on Udemy). He's got a unique ability to explain things clearly and simply in a way that beginners can pick up quickly.
   
   What I'd do is check out his free content first, and if you agree his style is ideal for learning, an investment in one of his courses is well worth it since he'll cover a lot more breadth and depth on each of the topics and they're organized into a super consumable package rather than scouring the internet for various topics.
   

This is a great start! I'm going through a similar process of resume refinement right now, so I understand how much work is involved. I'm including a bunch of feedback based on what I've learned so far and had success with. I've also hired a couple of PMs as a part of my current role, which has helped with seeing what "clicked" for me when on the hiring-side of things. Apologies for the length in advance, hopefully this is useful.

• Emphasize the tech aspects of your current work instead of mentioning construction. Was there any software involved, maybe the marketing website? If so, include how you optimized the site (A/B tests, Analytics, heatmaps, whatever). If you mention construction, tie it back to general product management.
  
  
• As a PM, I can see that you contributed significantly to growth. 60% YoY growth is awesome! Your skill set potentially aligns with the role of a Growth PM at a SaaS company. Look into the metrics those type of PMs use and see if you can structure your resume around them. Note: Growth is a very specific skill set and a potential selling point. It might also pigeonhole you, so consider having a growth focused version of your resume and a general PM version.
  
  
• Adapt phrasing of your accomplishments. Instead of "contributed to 60% YoY growth", consider phrasing like "generating 60% YoY growth". I know that normally you want to emphasize that your product's success is a team effort. With a resume, however, you need to set aside that humility and realistically look at the outcomes that you made happen. This will feel weird at first if you're not used to taking credit as a leader. That's a good trait to have most of the time, but your resume is one of the places where it's 100% okay to brag about the great work you've done.
  
  
• Continuing the previous point, adapt each line of your resume to be focused on the outcomes you've delivered to your company as a PM. What were the results of your different responsibilities? How did you move the needle on key performance indicators? You might need to do some additional research to discover this, particularly if your company is less data informed. You're already doing this for a number of points in your resume, which is awesome.
  
  
• I would check on this with a couple other people, but you should use present tense verbs for your current role and past tense verbs for previous roles. Both should have an active voice, not a passive one.
  
  
• "aggressive timelines and multiple roadblocks" sounds really negative. I can tell that was a stressful project for you, but also something you take pride in. Restructure this line so it focuses on what you're proud about instead of what stressed you out. It will show you're resilient and don't hold grudges.
  
  
• Revamp your background section, it reads a lot like an old school objective field. Optional: Consider bullet points.
  
  
• Consider taking a scrum certification course for Product Owners. It will show you have a strong grasp of agile concepts regardless of your industry. Your existing certs for Google and Facebook Ads are great. Make sure to use the exact names of each product if you aren't already. (eg Google Adwords)
  
  
• If you haven't already, read "Cracking the PM Interview" by Gayle McDowell and Jackie Bavaro. It will help structure how you think about your accomplishments as a PM and also prep you for interviews. Here's a non-referral link to it on Amazon.
  
  
• Remove the blue hyperlinks from URLs and your email.
  
  
• As a final note, you've only been a PM for about a year and a half. This might make things more challenging since you're still fairly early in your career. It's not a deal-breaker, you just need to show you've learned quickly and rapidly grown into the role. Focus on applying to roles that don't require too many years of experience. Most entry PM positions say 2-3 years, but companies are often flexible. APM roles tend to focus on recent graduates as a sort of apprenticeship. With your skillset, it seems like you should be able to get into a standard PM role somewhere.
  
  Keep at it and don't get discouraged! Your next opportunity is out there.

I'll address your #1 below, but I want to focus on #2 for a second.

The feedback you've gotten regarding your degree choice is correct -- all of it, even though it may seem contradictory. You'll have a tough time finding a job in Art - and artists probably won't appreciate a degree in CS very much. The reverse couldn't be further from the truth.

It is a very rare individual that has the logical and mathematical nature to code efficiently and with broad scope but then uses their artistic creativity to inspire cleverness. Code, or more generally put a system, is a piece of art just like any other. A wide array of pieces which need to cleverly and harmoniously co-exist. The creativity of an artist is essential in recognizing the potential of an application.

I want you to look at this role. Read the job description, and picture it applying to a product where you design the User Interface and the User Experience. Understand that you will work with graphics artists, but it's your vision that determines what the user experiences.

If that feels right, chase it.

----

As for your #1 question, another very good one.

When I'm interviewing SDEs, I want to see mastery of concepts and, to an extent, cleverness of a solution. There are a few things, though, which make me almost immediately discount a candidate:

Starting before you have all the information. Make sure that you have a very clear vision of what the problems is before you begin. Understand that any assumptions you make must be checked first. For example, if I say take a pointer to the head of a linked list and then do X on it, and you assume that the pointer will never be null, you will fail my test. Either code for the case where the ptr is null, or ask the interview "Is it a fair assumption that the pointer will never be null?"

Being satisfied with a naive solution. When solving a problem, it's perfectly fine to give the naive solution -- but don't stop there. Once done, talk with the interviewer. Say things like "Now this is the naive solution, because it finishes in O(n^2) time. We can make this more efficient by doing 'X'" and then press forward.

Internalizing your thoughts. This is weird to do for candidates, but it's critical for a team environment. When you're solving problems, think out loud. I'm not asking you to solve these problems because I'm bored and need a show, I want to know how you think.

There's so many of these I could write a book (and others have). I highly recommend reading Programming Interviews Exposed. It's an awesome resource with spot on practice problems.

TL;DR Improve yourself, invest in your future, don't worry about the mistakes...read the books listed at bottom, and practice!

Few months ago I royally fucked up an interview at Microsoft. A really simple question. But I had no experience doing coding on paper instead of a computer.

I spent a lot of time studying various books and paper coding to make sure it wouldn't happen again.

I then had an interview for another (in my mind at the time) dream job. I did fine for all the phone interviews and they flew me over to the west coast for an in person interview for the day. I did well for the first bit until they started pulling out dynamic programming and integer programming questions on me and expecting me. Once again something I didn't prepare for, and f'd up. Didn't get this job either. For the longest time I was really hard on myself at fucking up on both these interviews one after another. Especially this second one since a lot more was riding on it than just the job (another story).

But then I decided I didn't want to have this sort of experience again and expected better of myself. I made myself further improve and brush up on all those concepts as well. Did a few mock interviews with friends, spent some time working on interview type questions on both the computer and on paper. A month or two later I started interviewing again. By this point I was an interviewing machine - and I'm now able to do just about anything thrown at me. I've had my choice of employers and until just recently, was in the situation where I had so many offers I didn't know which one I wanted most. I'll be heading to silicon valley soon at one of the top tech companies in the world with a fantastic offer considering I just graduated.

The point is - learn from the mistakes and improve yourself. I realize you don't want to be that guy spending heaps of time coding outside of work or whatever... but this is an investment in yourself and your career. Do it once, and then just brush up on your skills from time to time. Get into the interviewing mindset and just rock them so you can have your choice of job - and then you can go about your thing once you have the job locked. The up front investment will be worth it!

Things that helped me:

• www.hackerrank.com - practiced a lot of questions on here
  
• www.careercup.com - another great site for questions
  
• Cracking the Coding Interview More help on questions, but also some great insights into the interview process for the larger tech companies and many hints and tips on how to go about solving the more complex problems
  
• Code Complete A great book for helping you to refresh or learn about software design
  
• Eternally Confuzzled Great resource to learn how to think about common data structures and algorithms
  
  Having trouble with Algorithm design/analysis? These are some of the go-to books for that:
  
  
• The Algorithm Design Manual Probably the defacto for learning about algorithm design and analysis
  
• Introduction to Algorithms A great book with many different algorithms and data structures to learn about
  
• Algorithm Design A great book if you want to dive deeper into more complex subjects like graph theory, dynamic programming, search algorithms, etc.. etc..

Throwaway account because I'd rather not have my current coworkers knowing about this.

About a year ago, I heard about Google Foobar from an article on Hacker News. I had never seen that before but it sounded interesting, and I'd always wanted to work for Google (sent my resume some years ago, heard nothing). Long story short, I found a backdoor way into Foobar, and went through the coding challenges until I got past level 3, at which point they ask if you'd like a Google recruiter to contact you. I said yes and gave them my details.

Fast forward to about two months ago. I finally got an email from an internal Google recruiter asking to talk. I freak out a little bit and start madly researching what a first contact entails (as it turns out, just an informal phone call about your career and what you might want to do at Google). During my research I also looked into what the infamous Google technical interviews might look like, and discovered that I needed to brush up on my algorithms and data structures, and fast. I told the recruiter I needed two to three months to prep (this is apparently not too uncommon, thankfully). She said that when I was ready, I should send her my resume and the jobs I'm interested in (probably in the Pittsburgh office so we can stay close to my wife's family), and she'll get the ball rolling. She also mentioned that it's possible that I could skip the standard video tech screen (since they already had a coding sample in the form of my Foobar submissions) and proceed directly to the onsite interviews.

The thing is, I've been primarily doing PHP web development for ages. I've done a bunch of freelance work previously and I've been working for a great startup for the last few years after immigrating to the US from Canada in 2009. But as far as I know, Google doesn't do much / any PHP, and we all know the general opinion on the language. I have, thankfully, done many other languages throughout my career... Javascript (lots), Java (college / some Android development), C++ (in my college days), C (when I was first teaching myself to program in a real language). But my professional experience has been dominated by PHP.

As far as education goes, I have an associate's degree in programming and about two years of a CS program (interrupted to move to the US). I always thought Google had a hard Bachelor's requirement but that's apparently not the case (you just have to show that you have the aptitude, skills, and experience necessary).

My prep so far has been reading through The Algorithm Design Manual (at least the theory part of the book), and more recently, reading through Cracking The Coding Interview and doing the questions, on paper first, and then verifying on my laptop. I am doing these questions in Python, which was the language that I did Foobar in, and probably the language I will interview in. That said, I learned Python for the first time going through Foobar, so I'm far from an expert in the language. I'm doing this prep while managing my current full time job and caring for a four month old, which I wouldn't even come close to managing without my wife's amazing support.

Doing a search here, I found the MIT Hacking a Google Interview site which seems like a goldmine, and Pramp which also seems like a great resource once I'm done with CtCI. Considering Interview Cake but only if people think it's indispensable ($200).

I have about one month left in the original timeframe I gave the recruiter. I am incredibly excited by the prospect and also incredibly intimidated. Do you have any advice for me on how to maximize my chances?

Also, should I apply as a SWE or a SWE-Frontend? My full stack web development experience seems relevant to SWE-Frontend but I don't want to only end up doing frontend work and I don't want it to be career-limiting; I like the backend stuff as well, and I'm definitely not a designer.

Thanks!

Edit: For those looking for the Foobar backdoor, it no longer works. It was a crossword you could solve that randomly generated (easy) CS and crypto clues, and was accessible from an IP apparently found in promos for The Imitation Game, but the crossword entrance has since been shut down. However, I figured out why I couldn't get in through the main method (searching Java- or Python-related CS queries). You have to both be logged into Google, and, crucially, you have to have search history enabled. Once I reenabled search history, the Foobar break-in came right up after a couple Python searches.

This is just my 2 cents, but the first thing you should be asking when learning any language is what problem are you trying to solve with the language?

C# as a language doesn't amount to anything, but it's real potential comes from the frameworks it is associated with.

​

If you're wanting to:

web develop then you would need to look into .NET Core + WebApi + MVC or a front-end framework (Angular, React, Vue).

This is a great course to get you started with. It'll create a basic web application you can modify and play around with from the database to the front-end:

https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/aspdotnetcore-efcore-bootstrap-angular-web-app

​

desktop development then look at Wpf (window presentation forms) or use electron and c#

mobile development then take a look at xamarin

​

from your use of Unity though, it seems as if you are more into game development which I would advise then to go a bit lower and really learn algorithms and good implementations. For this, there are some greats books you can use to help you get started:

Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions by Gayle Laakman - Even though this is an interview book it's a great intermediate book to algorithms. The book does assume you have a basic understanding of elementary data structures.

The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skiena - This is definitely more advanced and heavy but it's a great book to really dig down into the nitty gritty

A great website for practicing writing algorithms in c# is leetcode.com. It's a site that basically lists a bunch of small questions you can solve with an in browser compiler that includes c#. This way you wouldn't need to download visual studio to practice coding.

if you're up for the challenege, then you can download a framework like SFML.Net and try to develop a game from the ground-up without using an engine like unity. But this is obviously a lot of work ;)

​

Overall it's hard to give really specific advice without knowing where you're trying to head. But it's a good time to get into c# and in general microsoft's development stack. In the past people were shoe horned into using microsoft's technology stack from top to bottom but recently microsoft has made a lot of stride in making there tech more open which is making a lot of people turn heads.


If you are also looking for a more lite-weight ide then I recommend visual studio code or vscodium which is the same but without the trackers :)

>What did/do you find hard about learning programming? If you could be specific about things that frustrated you or roadblocks that got in your way, that would be helpful.

The hardest thing I've found about learning programming is knowing where to start. If you're trying to learn without a mentor its really hard to know what you need to learn and how. To someone inexperienced with the field, learning to program seems as simple as learning a language, but the difficult part is learning to apply that to different problems. Overall, the hardest thing to learn is something that you don't know exists. As for a specific subject, I remember finding recursion and Polymorphism hard to understand the first time I encountered them.

>Did you choose to go to an institute of higher learning for programming instead of using the free resources that are all over the net? If so, why?

I am an undergrad sophomore at Northeastern University, studying Computer Science. I chose to study computer science at university instead of using online resources, because I realized that there was a lot to learn which I couldn't find in a web page. I made the decision shortly into my Junior year of high school when I was taking AP Computer Science. I enjoyed studying the subject so much that I couldn't imaging studying anything else.

>What is something that you wish you could change about your current programming instruction?

My current programming instruction is great. I generally think that my professors are very interactive and experienced in their fields. Something I think is great is that most of my professors lecture without computers. They write code on the board, which gives them much more freedom to move about and ask questions, and it makes that classes interesting. I also think it removes the focus from the language being used and places it on the theory, which is the important part.

>Do you look for career preparation or support? If so, what have you been looking at or what resources do you use? To clarify - I mean interview help, prep questions, advice, etc...about preparing to enter the field.

One of Northeastern's greatest tools is its coop program. Typically students graduate in 5 years with 1.5 years of working experience over three 6-month coops. In preparation of this, I had to take a class to prepare me for applying to companies. The experience was amazing. The advising department brought in employers and other students to talk to us and do mock interviews. As someone looking for their first "real" job, this is invaluable. Technical questions are an important part of the application process, but for entry level programming jobs they aren't too difficult. I've heard that http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X is a great resource.

>For those of you still in school/learning - do you worry about how you will find a job programming? What concerns do you have?

Nope, already got my first job in the field. From my experience over the past semester of interviewing, it you're excited about the field and have a reasonable ability to program, you can find a job somewhere (especially if you live in a city.)

>If you're out of school and in the workforce - do you ever worry about how you will move forward in your career?

Not there yet.

>Does your place of employment (you don't have to tell me who) provide you with feedback or a clear path to advancement? Tell me about your concerns here.

Not there yet.

Hi! I love your username btw.

I'm going to try and find stuff over time, so I may add to this comment. It's going to take a bit to trudge through, but if you get just a little practice with each concept, you'll be pretty set. These companies don't need you to answer everything perfectly, that would give you a 99th percentile or whatever on Leetcode. If you know the basic concept, and you can mold it to the problem and give a time complexity, you'll be fine.

1. Cracking the Coding Interview is a good book that details interview process and gives a basic view of data structures.
   
2. There are some good courses in this link. I can't tell you which ones are the best, but I would probably recommend one by a university. Most are free without a certificate, but if you wanted to go for a certificate for any reason, it would look much better to have it from an reputable university.
   
3. I have the algorithms book from this set on my phone. I have used it for review quite a bit. There is a lot in there, but what I would recommend is to use it to supplement your algorithm exercises online.
   
4. I'm sure everyone else has recommended Leetcode, because it translates very well to the big N interviews. I would like to personally recommend Exercism. There aren't a ton of unique problems (a lot of the language tracks have repeat problems), but it has the advantage of giving you free code reviews, a summary of unit testing frameworks in the various languages, and I prefer the way it works. You can maintain a GitHub repo with all of your problems, and submit them through the command line. I'll have to warn that it is slower, because you have to wait for code reviews to continue on the core exercises. I would sprinkle this in with your other practice.

The neat thing about knowing you have EDS as a young person is that you have the knowledge and opportunity to start protecting and taking extra good care of your body now. Preventing injuries and protecting your joints may go a long way towards preventing pain later.

Do you have a doctor to offer you any guidance? In either case, you might check out The Joint Hypermobility Handbook, a handy guide by one of the big EDS experts that covers basically everything you need to know, in a format that works for both doctors and patients. As someone else mentioned, /r/ehlersdanlos is a great resource, as is Ehlers Danlos Athletes on FB. Outside of those groups, reading about EDS online can get scary fast, so do know that there are plenty of people living well with EDS - they're just not the ones who tend to dominate the forums.

The best advice I've gotten for managing my EDS-III is to stay in shape. And don't wait to see someone about problem joints! Deconditioning can happen pretty quickly, so finding ways to exercise despite any random injury has been super important. A sprained knee can make it hard to exercise, but not exercising quickly leads to other injuries as I get weaker, and then things get scary fast and it is long, hard fight to get back to "normal." The real key for me has been finding a form of exercise that I enjoy, and then finding a PT that will help me with remedial exercises, adaptations, taping, bracing, etc. to better support my body in those activities. If you don't have pain, PT may not be necessary, but you might also consider going in for an evaluation to alleviate your concerns and get ahead of any particularly unstable or cranky joints; they could also help you set up an exercise plan if you don't already have one.

My PT is also big on "joint protection," which seems to be a think that pops up on a lot of arthritis sites, but it also seems like solid advice for any body. Try Googling it or here's a short guide that seems to sum it up pretty well.

tl;dr: stay strong, enjoy life, and hopefully you'll continue to feel pretty OK. :)

Someone that hires first years here [1]:

Resumes

I can only speak from the perspective of a smaller company, but I have several suggestions, some of which may be more applicable if you're going to apply to somewhere with less than 100 employees:

1. A good resume is a must, this is a template that I recommend, keep it one page or less Make sure you get someone else to proof read, because it's a HUGE ding to your 'getting an interview' score if you have obvious typos in your resume.
   
   
2. Some things I look for are open source contributions (github links are very valuable), even if they are just documentation changes. [2]
   
   
3. Also, make sure you include your full (legal) name, phone number, email, and mailing address. Some people don't do this and I probably won't bother emailing you to ask you for those details if you don't include them.
   
   
4. Even if you don't have any personal projects, have taken CSC240, CSC236 or CSC207 and having >80 usually means that you'll at least get an interview as a first year, but larger companies probably won't know the significance of having taken 240.
   

• If you want an internship at big-4, you will probably need to talk to an on-campus recruiter at somewhere like YNCF, or have an internal reference. I don't know anyone that even got an interview as a first year except for within those means.
  
  

5. If you've placed in a hackathon or have interesting (or challenging, and well put together) personal projects, that's also good enough to at least land an interview at my company.
   
   

   Cover letters
   

   Some companies will care about cover letters -- I personally count it as a negative if you include a cover letter that is obviously templated:
   
   Dear hiring manager, I see you are doing [some random thing copied from our website] and I am myself very passionate about [that thing]...
   
   If you are actually reaching out specifically to join my company because you know someone else that's worked here, or you've used our product and want to work with us for that reason, a cover letter is probably appropriate.
   
   

   Interviewing
   

   Interview in as many places as possible. There are really only two things you should be focusing on as a first year: Cracking the Code Interview, and not being too nervous.
   
   Seriously. Buy cracking the code interview [3], and spend a week or so solving problems and learning memoization / pointer manipulation / dynamic programming. You'll be SO much better off.
   
   I find that if you think of every interview as "interview practice for when it matters in later years" you will not be so nervous as a first year. Expect to not know the answers to some questions, and just explain what you are thinking to get "part marks." Freezing up looks much worse than going down the wrong path with confidence.
   
   

   References
   

   [1] I'm CEO of ParseHub -- you can contact me at colin@parsehub.com
   
   [2] I also do optional lectures for CSC207 on Fridays noon-1PM @ BA1200, one of which will be on how to make open source contributions. Feel free to email me if you want to come.
   
   [3] It's available on amazon

Congratulations! That's a big step. Be proud that you were able to make the switch. Not many people manage to transform ideas into results.

I think there are four areas on which you need to focus, in order to go from mediocre to great. Those areas are:

1. Theoretical foundation.
   
2. Working knowledge.
   
3. Software engineering practices.
   
4. Soft skills.
   
   Now, these areas don't include things like marketing yourself or building valuable relationships with coworkers or your local programming community. I see those as being separate from being great at what you do. However, they're at least as influential in creating a successful and long-lasting career.
   
   Let's take a look at what you can do to improve yourself in those four areas. I'll also suggest some resources.
   
   ​
   
   1. Theoretical foundation
   
   Foundational computer science. Most developers without a formal degree have some knowledge gaps here. I suggest taking a MOOC to remediate this. After that, you could potentially take a look at improving your data structures and algorithms knowledge.
   
   

• CS50: Introduction to Computer Science
  
• Grokking Algorithms
  
• Algorithms by Sedgewick
  
  ​
  
  2. Working knowledge.
  
  I'd suggest doing a JavaScript deep-dive before focusing on your stack. I prefer screencasts and video courses for this, but there are also plenty of books available. After that, focus on the specific frameworks that you're using. While you're doing front-end work, I also suggest you to explore the back-end.
  
  ​
  
  
• FunFunFunction on Youtube
  
• You Don't Know JS
  
• JavaScript Allonge
  
• JavaScript Design Patterns ​
  
  3. Software engineering practices.
  
  Design patterns and development methodologies. Read up about testing, agile, XP, and other things about how good software is developed. You could do this by reading the 'Big Books' in software, like Code Complete 2 or the Pragmatic Programmer, in your downtime. Or, if you can't be bothered, just read different blog posts/Wikipedia articles.
  
  ​
  
  4. Soft skills.
  
  

1. Actively seek to mentor and teach others (perhaps an intern at work, or someone at a local tech community, or create blog posts or videos online).
   
2. Get mentorship and learn from others. Could be at work, or open source.
   
3. Go to programming meetups.
   
4. Try public speaking, go to a Toast Masters meetup.
   
5. Learn more about and practice effective communication.
   
6. Learn more about business and the domain that you're working in at your company.
   
7. Read Soft Skills or Passionate Programmer for more tips.
   
   ​
   
   Some closing notes:
   
   - For your 'how to get started with open source' question, see FirstTimersOnly.
   
   - If you can't be bothered to read or do large online courses, or just want a structured path to follow, subscribe to FrontendMasters and go through their 'Learning Paths'.
   
   - 4, combined with building relationships and marketing yourself, is what will truly differentiate you from a lot of other programmers.
   
   ​
   
   Sorry for the long post, and good luck! :)

You really don't need a good GPA. Here's the big stuff:

• Put a lot of work into your resume so it looks nice. This is sort of obvious, but a lot of people just throw one together without a lot of work. Also, don't listen to the CCO's resume advice, they don't know what they're talking about for CS.
  
• Side projects are really important, especially if you aren't confident with your GPA. You want to show companies that no matter what your grades are, you know your stuff where it counts.
  
• Along the same lines, you want to have an active github (and link to that on your resume). Ideally you want to shoot for one commit per day, but obviously school is a timesink and that's not always easy. One trick you can use is to commit all your school projects into private github repos, since those are still displayed on your timeline. This shows companies that you're hacking away in your free time, even when you don't have to.
  
• Read through cracking the coding interview and do some online practice questions (firecode, leetcode, etc..). It's great to land the interview, but unless you're ready for the technical interview questions you won't make it through. If you haven't experienced one of these interviews before, you should know that they're pretty different than you might expect. The resources above (especially cracking the coding interview) will give you a great idea of what to expect.
  
• Also keep in the mind that the first internship is the hardest to get. You should expect a lot of rejection letters. Even the best candidates will be getting a lot of rejection letters. If you apply to 100 companies and land a handful of interviews, that's a win. Don't let a few rejections get you down!
  
  Good luck :)

Search algorithms and data structures will be pretty important for the interview, but if you're a bit rusty, there's probably still time to brush up on stuff before the interview. Books like Cracking the Coding Interview or Programming Interviews Exposed really help.

One thing to be careful about on the interview though is to not get too hung up on finding the best possible answer to a question. Yes, coming up with an efficient solution is good (and if you give a less than optimal solution, your interviewer will probably ask you to improve it or add more constraints), but if you cannot come up with any solution, even a naive one, and aren't able to code it (or run out of time because you spent too long trying to find an efficient solution), you probably won't make it to the next round.

In general though, you shouldn't be asked too many questions that require memorization as long as you know the basics (and you should be able to discuss space and time complexity for any solutions you provide). If you have any more questions though, feel free to send me a PM (I work at Amazon).

The importance of voting is captured well in Will MacAskill's Doing Good Better, where he makes an argument about using expected value to determine the importance of low probability events. When considering low probability events, you must consider both the small chances of making a positive difference and the impact of that small chance of success in order to determine whether an action is worthwhile.

===

Consider betting. Someone gives you a bet to put down $10 for either:

• a 5% chance to win $500
  
  or
  
  
• a 50% chance to win $40
  
  Which do you choose? The consensus approach of professionals in fields with uncertain outcomes is to use expected value, which is essentially thinking about how to weigh average outcomes. A 5% chance means you win 5 out of 100 times on average. This means you lose $10 95 times = $950 and you win $500 5 times = $2500. So, on average, you win $1550 if you take this bet 100 times. This means on average you will win $15.50 dollars taking this bet once. This is the expected value of the first bet.
  
  ===
  
  With the other bet, you lose $10 50 times out of 100. So if you take this bet 100 times, you lose $10 50 times = $500, and you gain $40 50 times = $2000. Therefore you gain $1500 on average by taking this bet 100 times. Thus on average you win $15 dollars on average by taking this bet once. This is the expected value of the second bet.
  
  ===
  
  Because $15.50<$16, according to expected value, you should take the first bet. In these cases you had to give up $10 every time you wanted to take a bet. In the examples of voting or climate change, however, the costs are significantly less relative to the expected value of a positive or negative outcome, respectively.
  
  ===
  
  This is an excerpt from the book:
  
  
  ===
  
  > [page 83]
  
  > "The authors of the comprehensive accident management plan [for the Fukushima nuclear plant] were correct that the probability of a catastrophe occurring was very small. However, they didn't think correctly about how they should deal with that probability. They assimilated "very small" to zero and promptly forgot all about it. Their mistake was failing to consider that if a catastrophe happens at a nuclear power plant, the costs are huge-- in this case, more than a thousand deaths. Even though the chance of this catastrophe was small, it was clearly worth taking substantial safety precautions.
  
  > The Fukushima safety engineers were trying to prevent harm with their safety assessment, and they failed by ignoring an important but low-probability event. In just the same way, when trying to do good, we need to be sensitive both to the likelihood of success and to the value of that success. This means that low-probability high-payoff activities can take priority over sure bets of more modest impact. It also shows that people are often confused when they say that "one person can't make a difference". Voting provides a vivid illustration.
  
  ===
  
  He then goes on to say that casting an individual vote, calculated by Nate Silver an other notable statisticians to have on average a 1 in 60 million chance of swaying the election (these odds vary widely state to state), has an expected value of about $5,200 to the people of the United States based on some fairly conservative estimates.
  
  
  ===
  
  He applies the same argument to climate change. Even if you believe that there is only a 1% chance that climate change is at least partially caused by humanity, it is still worth acting on when you think in terms of expected value-- that is, weighing that small chance with the incredible damage of the event.
  

Hey man, I was close to a situation like you were once. I am a recent graduate as well, and some employment opportunities did not work out for me as well.

The way I solved it was couch surfing and living in a place where I was sharing a room with two other people. I know that is not ideal, and I don't know your situation but that is something you can look into. Also, is there a possibility to go back to your parents place?

There is no shame with that because everyone needs to have a good platform to excel. But in general, I would say is just to stay strong, it will get better.

In terms of your employment, I have a recommendation for you. You should get this book and read it. If you don't read you should start, it is a great habit to get into and helped me out
(it also helped my focus and I gained more discipline) https://www.amazon.com/2-Hour-Job-Search-Technology-Faster/dp/1607741709

I know the title seems gimmicky but it did really help me strategize my job hunt and got my current job today.

If money is an issue send me your address and I will buy it for you. It really helped me out and I want to pass on the joy.

Good luck my man. Stay Strong.

I would cross-post this to /r/cscareerquestions since that's the subreddit that's more career focused.

My recommendation is to start building a coding portfolio. Specifically set up an account on www.github.com and start posting some of your projects there. Basically how github works is after you set up an account you download the client and create a folder on your computer. Any code or documents you put into that folder and then "push" will appear online. This will allow you to have lots of code samples to show a prospective employer. Another good idea is to build your own website. There are a couple of good web hosts such as www.bluehost.com and www.nearlyfreespeech.net. I personally use www.nearlyfreespeech.net because it's very very cheap. (You pay only for what you use and since your website will primarily be used to show employers it will be a few cents a month.)

Once you have a website and Github you'll also want to start studying more and learning more and then creating personal projects. There are a lot of good places to continue learning programming. You could sign up on www.pluralsight.com for their $29 a month plan and then follow along with courses. Alternatively you could buy books about programming and go through them and upload code samples to Github as you go through them. (A strategy I use is to look at books on www.amazon.com and buy used copies or copies that are 1 edition older than the current edition, it is very realistic to get books for $4 including shipping and handling.) There are also many free resources such as www.codeacademy.com.

Some good books you could buy that will help you once you get job interviews are: Cracking the Coding Interview, Programming Interviews Exposed, and Elements of Programming Interviews. Out of these books "Programming Interviews Exposed" is the best for beginners while the other two are more meant to get you ready to interview at huge companies like Google or Microsoft.

As far as projects to do just pick some ideas and implement them. For me personally I made a website (www.cslearner.com) and created my own blogging software. There is better blogging software out there then the stuff I wrote for myself but it beefs up my portfolio and gives me something to talk about in job interviews. One idea may be to make some sort of CRUD application/website. CRUD stands for CREATE, RETRIEVE, UPDATE, DELETE. Since a lot of what we do as software developers is data manipulation you can create some sort of app or website that creates and manages information. In my case the first CRUD thing I created was a comment section using PHP and MySQL. Literally all it did was allow people to post comments on a website and then a SELECT statement would display all the comments that people had left. You could do a similar project. The cool thing about CRUD is that you can build apps using a huge assortment of technologies. You could create a CRUD app using ASP.NET, server side Java(JSP), PHP and MySQL(the LAMP stack), or a bunch of other technologies.

Also a huge thing is to apply for jobs even if you don't feel very ready. Check out this YouTube video in particular. Employers put down a wish list of things they'd like in a candidate but know in advance they won't get everything they'd like. If you seem like someone that could learn the technologies they may hire you even though you don't know everything yet. Also you'll want to apply to a lot of places. I've had 15 job interviews so far (I'm graduating this next April) and I have no job offers yet. This means I have to apply to even more places. Even though Computer Science is a very high demand field job hunting is still hard and you still need to put out lots of applications.

Congrats! If you feel like you're up for a challenge then I'd say go for it as long as you feel like you've got a good support structure in and out of the company. To answer your question, my transition was somewhat mentored by my old boss followed by an abrupt changeout of new-boss-for-newer boss. If I could do anything differently from that time period, it would've been to force the issue of getting performance metrics on my own terms rather than waiting for someone to tell me what my team's metrics would be.

In case any of these might help I'll offer a couple quick considerations/suggestions:

1. Find out who you're accountable to (which keep in mind, that probably won't be just your boss) and what they define as success. When that definition is vague or unrealistic, help them come to a definition that's specific and attainable. But either way, reach out to them. Meet with them on a regular basis. If they say they don't want to do a standing meeting then set a weekly or monthly or quarterly reminder (depending on how things are going) to reach out to them.
   
2. Depending on the structure and the size of the team, it's important to identify if you're managing individual contributors or if you're managing managers. The two are very different animals; I'd normally expect a director position to be mostly the latter but companies vary.
   
3. I can't recommend reading The First 90 Days enough. It was written for people like us.
   
4. Chances are, you have in your head a handful of experiences that have struck you as good technology leadership and a handful that are not-so-good. Succinctly capture your takeaways from those; those help to define your core principles and it's important not to lose sight of them.
   
5. Don't be bashful about asking what your predecessor did well and what (s)he could have done better. Ask that of your superiors, your peers, and the people on your team.
   
6. Very early on, find out not only what procedures are documented (and how up-to-date they are) but especially find out what kind of emergency response procedures exist. If they don't, get a basic one together asap and do a test activation of it. An emergency will definitely happen during your first year; you have no control over that. What you can control is the degree to which you and your team are prepared to respond to it. Few statements are more reassuring coming from someone in your position than "Okay guys, bad thing X happened and it's going to be a rough day at the office. But we have a plan for responding to it and it's time for us to execute that plan. Let's go to work."
   
7. Most importantly: chances are you're a dependable engineer and the people you've worked for have come to trust you as their go-to guy or gal. You need one of those. Several if possible, for different facets of the team's operations.
   
   Best of luck!

First of all: big hug to you.

I know this feeling so well. Remember that this is normal, and that you're not the only one. It's not like the rest of us feel on top of the world 24/7 and that we know it all.

Second of all: Codewars kind of sucks. I love the idea and I've used it a lot, but if you're only half as good at Python as some of those people are at writing the instructions, you're good to go. Jokes aside, I think it's good for practicing algorithms and "weird" parts of the language (like list comprehension), but it's not the most efficient way to actually get better at real life problems. Being good at programming also includes breaking down large tasks into smaller ones, knowing which library to use, knowing how to structure your program, etc. You don't get that from Codewars. This is just my opinion.

When I was in that rut what helped me was reading Apprenticeship Patterns (O'Reilly), which gave me some good tips on how to keep going. Other things that helped:

• Write down what kind of skills you want. Do you want to visualise data? Do you want to make games? Do you actually just want to know every algorithm by heart and be "that person"?
  
• Create a roadmap for obtaining these skills. How do you get there? Which libraries do you need to know? What do you already know?
  
• Expose your ignorance. This is never fun, but very important. What do you suck at? Write a small list of five things you just "didn't quite get" but you see pop up everywhere.
  
• Write a list of five things you'd like to learn. Then sit down and study them + your previous list until you understand. Check them off your list and add new ones. That way you'll also see how far you've come and all the things you know now but didn't know yesterday.
  
• Code. Create projects and build them and fail them and try again. This is the best way to learn. Here's a little list of projects you can try.
  
  Again, what you're feeling is very common. Learning programming is hard, and doing it alone without a community is even harder. Thumbs up to you for reaching out here. Hope you'll feel better and more confident soon!

Sure, I can tell you how I did it.

First step, find companies/jobs you might be interested in. Biospace is a good place to start, but there's lots of other resources. Ask friends in industry, network at conferences, etc. Find a decent recruiting company that can hook you up with companies you've never heard of. Mirus Search was pretty good to me, and found a company/role that ended up giving me an offer. Figure out what you want --- small company or big company, public or private, location, field of work, and so forth. You're aiming for a list of at least a couple dozen companies and roles that look worth putting more work into researching. I stuck 'em all in a spreadsheet. A common error at this point is to miss lots of potentially good small companies, especially small private companies.

Second, research the company and the job. The goal here is to be able to answer the question "Why are you interested in this company" and "Why do you think you're a good fit for this job"? I had a row for each company/job and literally wrote the answers to these questions in a cell of my spreadsheet so I had them immediately on hand. If you can't answer either of those questions after some research, throw that company/job out.

Third, prepare resumes and cover letters for each one. Cover letters should be just a couple of sentences and personalized to each company. Mash them up out of your answers to the previous research. Again, I pasted this into my spreadsheet. Resumes should be short (1 page, maybe a second page for publications) and contain only stuff relevant to the job you're applying for. If you're applying to multiple different kinds of jobs, emphasize/cut different things. For any kind of job involving programming, link to your github/bitbucket/whatever account, assuming you've got something decent up there. Put something decent up there if you don't have it, just drop all your academic work in. I was told after being hired that my code sample from sourceforge is what got me the interview in the first place.

Fourth, send them off. I colored rows of my spreadsheet to keep track of everything. Blue for "sent off", green for "phone interview", red for "rejected". If you get rejected, be nice and say thanks. I got at least three follow-ups from companies about three months later saying that actually, they did have an opening for someone now. Expect a lot of rejections.

Fifth, prep for interviews. Expect technical questions. I got a lot of statistics questions and some programming questions. Prep for them. I spent a couple of months working through books like Cracking the Coding Interview and practicing questions on a whiteboard. I borrowed a whiteboard from work and did them at home on the board out loud. It helped a lot.

I started with ~30 companies of interest, had phone interviews with ~5, on-site interviews with 3, and offers from 2. Good luck! It's a lot of work.

> My strong suit is ruby/rails which I feel like is pretty rare and specific when it comes to most internship positions. (I can count on 1 hand the people who know rails in my school).

First off, trust me, you're not that special.

> So far, I have had interviews with 6 of the companies, and have yet to miss a question, & every time I am able to solve the technical questions relatively quickly (e.g. 45 min coding problem, done in 20 etc.) and then we go on to talk about interests etc. The thing is EVERY single company, after the technical interview (usually the 2nd-3rd phone interview), I am in limbo. Usually from 2-3 weeks, before I get denied.

So far, I'm picking up an attitude problem.

> I have only now started asking for feedback(but of course nobody replies to my emails).

Yeah, don't do that.

> I know they are large companies (vmware, yahoo, dell, etc.) but is it strange to have an interview go well and then just go into the void?

YMMV, but it's entirely possible. However, for myself I'd say 95% of the time, someone gets back to me.

> Also I am not socially inept, yet it always seems as if me and the recruiter get along great, while the technical people give off a cold disconnect (but still nice).

How often is this happening? I'd say there are some technical people who are just like that, but I'd say the majority of the time I see them acting that way in an interview is because it isn't going well.

> However it seems pretty inefficient to apply to jobs with 2000 kids hunting for 2 open positions, so it may be the lottery effect that is killing me.

Maybe, but if you're applying to 100s of jobs, you'd think something would eventually edge out in your favor.

Honestly, to me it sounds like:

1. You give off a cocky/bad attitude
   
   
2. You aren't doing as well on the technical questions as you think you are.
   
   There's nothing much you can do about an attitude problem other than hold your tongue and think before you speak on anything that isn't directly related to the technical question at hand. Explain, don't boast about past projects and experiences. Be open to learning.
   
   As for technical questions, the best I can do is prescribe the usual: Cracking the Coding Interview. Good book for getting the basics down for technical interviews. Others will suggest other books after that, but I've had good luck with geeksforgeeks and the interview section of Glassdoor for companies like Google and Yahoo for going above and beyond.
   

Of course. I always encourage people to go into CS but I also tell them it’s going to be a tough road, but not an impossible one.

I have two last pieces of advice. The first is to get your first rejection over with. Be ready for it, take it like a champ, learn from it and move on. If you can be immune to rejection the road will become so much easier.

The second is to buy Cracking the Coding Interview by Gayle Laakman McDowell. This is the field guide to getting a career in CS, and easily the most popular book in the field. I give my degree credit for giving me the knowledge to be a software engineer, and this book credit for giving me the skills I needed to get a career in CS.

It has a roadmap that starts a whole YEAR before your interview, which is perfect because you can start that roadmap today, and a year from now when you apply you’ll be ready to crush that interview. Also, Gayle has been a recruiter at Microsoft, Apple and Google, and she has personally conducted hundreds if not thousands of interviews, so I can’t think of anyone better to author a book like this. It’s on sale right now on Amazon for 30$ and will probably be the best 30$ you ever spend:

Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984782850/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_dEX2Cb9N4AE74

As someone who has alot of friends who received the NIS previously and it has been rebranded to SG:D scholarship, I can you tell that almost all of them want to break their bonds if they could afford to.

Therefore my advice to you is to not take up the scholarship unless you need to for a various reasons:

• Unnecessary stress to maintain your grades to fulfill the scholarship requirements. Especially in tech, grades may not be the best indicator of your capability as many companies have been enlightened about that. Instead of joining hackathon, doing some side projects, a number of my scholar friends would rather focus on mugging and studying for grades.
  
• While a job is typically secured after your studies, you might not get to choose exactly what you want to do. Some agencies with better HR department might get your input and allocate a position for what you want to do, but that is not always possible depending on the manpower limitations or the projects going on.
  
• Lastly if you are really that good, then getting a job is the least of your concerns, and you are likely to get better opportunities than what you signed up, which is what my friends are complaining about but they LLST because they don't think it's worth it to pay 10% compound interest over x year for the liquidated damage.
  
  If you really want to take the scholarships in government agencies, there are some perks too:
  
  
• Little to no financial burden on your parents for your entire college education + exchange
  
• Scholars in agencies tend to receive all the high profile projects/opportunites first (however do prepare to work hard too)
  
• Due to the high profile projects, scholars tend to be fast tracked and promoted wayyyyyy faster.
  
• If you like the public sector, scholarship does help alot.
  
  To be honest, the first 5 years of your career is extremely important because they setup the stage for your career advancement. My (biased) advice if you are serious about tech and developing skills to do awesome work is stay out of public sector, typical MNCs, banks and consultancies because there's just too much wayang than doing the actual work. Most consultancies in Singapore are just sweatshops than doing good work. Go work in tech firms that are known for their engineering processes and build stuff.
  
  And if you want to get into FAANG, it's not that difficult if you put in the effort to prepare for it and try to do as many internship as possible. You should be willing to work through one of the following books
  
  

1. https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

I'm a CS major that got an internship in college that turned into a full time position after college, then I used that to jump into an engineering firm in my field with the stipulation that I'd be a 100% remote employee. 100% remote work is really hard to get, there's jobs out there but they tend to be extremely competitive. I only got this job because my particular specialty (GIS) is pretty tight-knit and I knew some people who knew some people so I had great references. Granted, I still had to prove myself on my own merits in the interview, but having a network definitely helped. Basically I applied to a non-remote job and wrote on the application that I'd only consider remote work, they took a chance on it, and it worked out.

I can't say much on being self taught or finding a job after being self taught but if you know your stuff you'll be competitive regardless of the degree. If you know your programming languages inside and out and you can answer the questions in this book you'll get hired somewhere as long as you're a good fit. Remote might be harder and it involves a bit of luck, but I wouldn't expect getting that for your first programming job. In my experience people tend to want proof that you can be productive at a previous employer before they'll consider letting you work essentially unsupervised.

Salary went from $12/hour as an intern to $45k/year as a full time on-site contractor at state government to $63k in my current position (I graduated Spring 2014). I could make more elsewhere, especially if I lived closer to a city with multiple firms and I was willing to go into the office, but I'm super happy in my current job.

I think we may be looking for the same things. I read a book a few weeks ago called Pragmatic Thinking and Learning that I found really helpful and interesting. Its not too expensive and if you have the money I'd recommend it. Don't be intimidated by the programmer talk, none of it is really relevant.

Last week, I discovered a wiki that gave great advice on learning and memory techniques that seemed like it would have been extremely useful. I've spent the last hour searching for it but I just can't find it. When I come across it, I will let you know.

Another book that I found useful a few months ago was How to Read a Book. Don't let the title undermine the books value; its an awesome book. Definitely worth looking into. I don't follow the advice given in the book very rigidly, but since I've read it, I've found that I approach books much more methodically and absorb the information much more easily.

Its great to see that there is someone else out there looking for the same sort of resources I'm looking for. The way I look at it, learning is a skill that can be developed and mastered. It is an interesting pursuit in and of itself.

I haven't found any single resource for this sort of thing but maybe we can put together a subreddit where we can pool our resources for things that may be particularly helpful.

These are books I actually own and would recommend. Of course there are other great/better books out there, but I'm going to stick with what I've actually bought and read or "read".

I say "read" because several books are NOT meant to be read cover-to-cover. These typically have about 1/3 that you should read like normal, and then skim the rest and know what's in the rest so that you can quickly reference it. These books are no less important, and often even more important. I've marked these kind of books as #ref for "read for reference". Normal books that should be read cover-to-cover are marked #read


For learning your first language: This is really the hardest part and unfortunately I don't have any books here I can vouch for. I started with "C++ for Dummies" and am not including a link because it's bad. Your best bet is probably "Learning <language>" by Oreily. I also love the Oreily pocket books because you can carry them and skim while on the bus or the john, but you can just do the same with your smartphone. Pocket Python, Pocket Java, Pocket C++

Top Recommendations:

Accelerated C++ #read Made for people who already know another language and want to pickup C++. Also great for people who need a refresher on C++. I really like how it doesn't start with OOP but gets you familiar with the imperative parts of C++ before diving into OOP.

The Algorithm Design Manual #ref This is my new favorite book and the first I would send back in time to myself if I could. Each algorithm & data structure is given a mathematical breakdown, pseudocode, implementation in very readable C, a picture (very helpful), and an interesting war story of how it Saved The Day.


Cracking the Coding Interview #read I originally avoided this book like the plague because it represented everything I hate about coding interviews, but many interviewers pull questions straight from this book so this book can equal getting a job. Put that way, it's ROI is insane.

The Pragmatic Programmer #read Must-have for any profressional software engineer that covers best-practices for code and your growth. You can also find the raw tips list here

Head First Design Patterns #read Many prefer the "GoF/Gang of Four" Design Patterns which is more iconic, but Head First is a modern-version using Java to cover actual design patterns used day-to-day by programmers.

For Intermediates:

Effective Java or Effective C++ and Effective Modern C++ #read When you're ready to go deep into one language, these books will give you a huge boost to writing good Java and C++.

Design Patterns #ref You'll want to get this at some point, but early on it's too much for a beginner and many of the patterns are obsolete.

The Art of Computer Programming #ref The programming "bible" but like Design Patterns you should hold off on this iconic book until you've got your basics covered. It would make for a great purchase with your first paycheck or first promotion :)

There's a popular book I used that helped me get great job offers, and it was written by someone who interviewed many candidates at Google: Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions. The questions are general enough that you could write solutions in whatever language you want.

> Is it just a balance between knowing the language, putting it to use and demonstrating the thought process to get there?

Syntax doesn't have to be perfect, but it should be mostly correct. I will say back when I was doing interviews sometimes they would be typing what I'm writing on the whiteboard into a compiler to try and find errors. And they might say "you have an error on line 3, do you see what it is?"

Another important thing is asking a candidate to design the big picture for something - let's say a phone app. That app has to send/receive data from a server, so what OS and webserver software would you use? And that server needs to store data in a database - what database would you use?

For things like that it's just drawings of boxes and arrows with names of existing tools you would use to build a project. (There's usually never one right answer, but some designs are better than others.)

> what do you look for when you hire someone? Impressive githubs?

I think it's great when someone puts a url to their github profile on their resume. I don't "deep-dive" into it, but I glance ahead of an interview to see what kinds of projects they've worked on, and how some of their recent code commits look. I might ask questions about that project in the interview.

> Also, is the market saturated or is it pretty easy to get a job?

Definitely not saturated. I would recommend staying away from the Bay Area and New York though. I considered job offers there myself, and I have friends who work still work there. But the cost of living has reached ridiculous levels there (e.g. a 2-bedroom home even 45 minutes from work can cost $900k or more).

Big companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, others have branches at other cities around the country. Find those smaller tech cities with more reasonable commute times and housing prices.

Check out page 11 of this report for average Software
Engineer salaries by city in the US, keep in mind it's 3 years old now (and doesn't include cash/stock bonuses which can be significant): 2016 Tech Salary Report.

Couple things then. First of all, the market is absolute garbage. That will affect you both as a solo practitioner and as an attorney. Secondly, you will not be able to practice until the bar results come back in October.

In the interim, buy this book first and consider other similar books after that. That book is simply the bible to running your own solo practice. You can find it on half.com and sometimes eBay for cheaper so look around. I think I paid $25.00 for my copy and it was worth triple that in returns on investment.

Keep applying for jobs. I cannot emphasize this enough. The best thing you can do is spend a week thinking of exactly the area(s) of law that interest you the most, tailor a resume to each of those areas and then write a cover letter for each of those areas. Make 2-3 short paragraphs about why you love that area and what experience(s) you have in that area of law. The topmost paragraph will be directed specifically to the firm/company you send it to.

If you did not go to a tier one law school or clerk for a federal judge avoid BCG Attorney Search, LawCrossing, GCC consulting, or basically any other consulting company who posts a job. They cannot help you and operate as a resume farm. You are far better off, sending cold resumes to law firms. Check, double check and triple check your spelling, sentence structure and length of both your resume and your cover letter. The resume you send will be bounced immediately by HR or the partner if you do not.

I found much more success with sending cold resumes than email. Emails get deleted, snail mail gets put in a pile or at least looked at. If you know the practice area you want to be in and there is a partner who runs that division, even at a small firm, if you address it to his/her attention it will be read. I cannot say that it will get you an interview or even a call but half the time you will at least get a letter back. Those rejection letters feel much better than wondering why you aren't hearing anything from anyone.

Now then, back to solo practice. It sucks. I mean it is really difficult both on your pocketbook, your ego and your pride. I am not sure where you are living but you want to go outside of the major cities if you want to start your practice imho. The reason for this is that the bar size shrinks considerably and the competition isn't quite so vicious. Depending on what areas you want to focus on, you can often find a few older attorneys willing to help you out and kick you a few cases if you are willing to give them back a referral fee (check your state rules) and do some cases they don't like/don't have time for. You will only succeed if you work your ass off and have a good reputation as an attorney. You MUST be a decent businessman to be a successful solo attorney. You can be a superstar in the courtroom, a legend of transactional work and still close up shop in under a year if you fail to bill clients, for the right amount, at the right times and continue to generate new business. This is the tightrope walk of the first few years and this will make or break you as an attorney.

This is not to say that you will not have time for a social life, but imagine if first year grades were the difference between eating and not eating and you can see why the solo practitioner is under more pressure than his big law friends. No one will be telling you what to do, when to do it, how to do it right. You will screw up a few (hopefully minor) things but the best advice I can give you is these few tips:

• You will not become rich as a solo practitioner. If done correctly, you will be paying your bills the first few years and get a little extra to invest internally on the side. Marketing will eat 25% of your operating budget and will be the hardest part because ROI (return on investment) is so hard to track until you really get a few years in.
  
• Do not hire anyone until you absolutely have needed to do so for a few years. This will bankrupt you when it gets slow. You will know when the time is right.
  
• Never, ever, ever, start a practice as two young attorneys and think that you are "Partners". It simply is the legal equivalent of giving yourself a handicap. There probably are not enough cases for both of you to be doing and it will result in fights and other problems. Keep this in mind because those special titles you give yourself are hollow. You are just two young attorneys who share office space. Keep it that way and de-link your names. Check your local rules on advertising.
  
• Buy things before you need them and probably in bulk (Costco, Sams Club) whenever possible. This is your normal office supplies, think toner, ink, paper, folders, etc. Those are things you will always use but do not go too crazy. As for office furniture, go on Craigslist or get some scratch and dent at the office surplus places around you. NEVER pay for the furniture at full price, unless you are already loaded but even then a fool and his money...
  
• Look for an office space with other solo practioners. Ask around and someone will know someone with an empty office in their building. These are usually around the courthouse in more rural areas but can be anywhere if you are in the city. You will be grateful for the advice you can get and if they have overflow or cases they don't do you can pick a few up with a modest referral fee (again check NY rules).
  
• Join your local bar association, get involved in the committee you practice in and attend any social events. This is where you make connections and get help the fastest. Attorneys in smaller areas want to talk about themselves and help you out in the process. Take advantage of the Lawyer Referral Service. Do be careful/wary of any advice given to you though and talk with other attorneys about the reputation the person giving you the advice has. Sometimes really friendly attorneys are bad attorneys and you don't want to misfile something because of bad advice.
  
• Lastly, never take any work for which you are not getting paid unless it is pro bono and you have the time/money to cover it. This also goes for getting underpaid. You can starve because you spend all day giving free advice to people who call you. No money, no call back. Make sure you understand this above all else. Also make sure you send non-representation letters, etc. according to the rules.
  
  Hope this helps and GO STUDY FOR THE BAR There will be plenty of time after the bar to worry about what you are going to do with that newly minted license but you first need to take the test. Good luck and let me know if you need anything else.
  
  Just to cover the bases, you should already know that this is not legal advice and do not follow it as such. As a JD I am pretty sure you already know this but since this is a reply I didn't want anyone to think that this was intended as such.

Working in Legacy one of the areas you can make an impact on a system. Bar none. You can pretty much refactor until your hearts content, you can make wrappers to old calls in new fancy ways, cook up solutions to problems you've identified and present these to your colleagues. Because that's what good developers do..

It's rare you get to work on exactly what you want to all the time in this game.

So what are your alternatives now?

To be honest I do think you have made a mistake. But an important one. If you learn from it, then that's all good and you shouldn't worry about it.

Sometimes you'll learn people don't know why things are a good idea or a better option... you've got to steer them and let them think it's them that's making the decision on something great, when really, that was your plan all along.

You know where you get the real money and make the real difference in our game? Working at either end of the spectrum. Either bleeding edge, or with tech so old no one else wants to touch it. If you want the middle ground, the easy predictable stuff then be prepared to not be making much of a difference in your day to day duties. It's just the way the game works.

Suggested reading; The Passionate Programmer;http://www.amazon.com/The-Passionate-Programmer-Remarkable-Development/dp/1934356344

Apprenticeship Patterns; http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1234000001813/index.html

Best thing to do is put a period in it and move on.
Good luck!

Don't let the lucrative offers some people get, deter you from turning down a very solid offer to get some good experience even if it's a little below your compensation expectations. Being unemployed for 3+ months and never getting that 110K + bonus + relocation @ [Insert Big N Name] is a shitty situation compared to some 65-70k at a less expensive city with a smaller company that has some new tech they're trying to scale.
In a year, you'll be surprised how much you can save and if you play your cards right, network, do a great job, you'll be worth a decent amount of money after a year.
Have friends whiteboard you for practice. Get used to writing "nearly" build ready/compile ready code using built in Java language data structures and functions. Especially get used to the Collections library, iterating over two collections in a single pass while checking for duplicates or comparators on each entry.
Buy this book and this book and sign up for LeetCode on a free account.
Honestly, try to enjoy your spare time. Do something logical but fun like playing strategy games or solving puzzles. Go to meet & greets, club meetings, volunteer at a dog shelter. Don't try to "win" this game because out of all the people that "win", some end up having severe issues with stress, time management, "loving" the job/life and life after college is nowhere near as sunshine and rainbows as during.
I wish I could "skip" a lecture and work from home, watch Netflix or go with some friends to go eat food in a town nearby or catch a convention or watch some concert on campus. All the college fun stuff? It's gone. Now it's just work... Well, work and money but still... Not as much fun college stuff. Some fun college stuff, but not as much.

Never lie. That said I have been "unqualified/underqualified" for every position I have held if you look at measures like years of experience. This isn't a deal breaker. Put yourself in the hiring managers shoes. If you want to have a team that is working on bleeding edge technology and projects you have to make some compromises on experience. Particularly if you don't have a enormous budget to throw around. The critical things I look for are below.

Smart - I deal with complex problems everyday. A requirement for working with my team is that you can keep up.
Passion - Am I hiring someone who is passionate about the work and role. Do you work with this stuff in the spare time or just for a paycheck.
Ambition - If their is a gap in skills is the applicant going to work hard to fill the gap as quickly as possible. Would you read books and do research to learn the concepts.
Attitude - Are they a good fit for the team. Can I explain what needs to be done and count on you to solve problems and proactively tell if you are struggling.

Look for smaller companies where you will have the opportunity to wear as many hats as possible. The pay will be lower but your playing a long game with your career :) get the experience and find out which hat you like best.

Here is are two great books on the topic.

https://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-Technical/dp/1590598385

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119087252/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1484396909&sr=8-6&pi=SL75_QL70&keywords=stretch+book

Good luck!

Oh and when you land that next position. This book will help get you off on the right foot.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1422188612/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484397012&sr=8-1&pi=SL75_QL70&keywords=first+ninety+days

Congrats on landing the interviews. I don't have any specific advice, but perhaps pick up the book "cracking the coding interview" and give it a once over. It offers some good technical and non-technical advice that may be helpful.

You're probably right in saying that you're not going to become an expert by reading books over the next few weeks. I think the best thing you can do is gain as much knowledge (within reason) in the areas you think you are deficient in.

The ideal candidate doesn't necessarily posses all of the skills at day 0, they're going to be judging you from a standpoint of whether or not you have the prerequisites to grow into the position as well. You've already proven to them that you have talent. So, in addition to last minute gap filling, also focus on your soft skills and your ability to demonstrate a growth mindset... it may take you further.

So there's not a lot for us to go on here, but one thing I'll say is that good software development jobs are not easy, even for those completely qualified for them. If he's in the middle-high range salary-wise, then the challenge and expectations are probably all there. Software engineers are not cheap, so while they're treated very well to attract and retain talent, they're also seen as a big investment that had better pay off.

I was laid off from my first full time job and while my coworkers spoke very highly of my skills and the care I took with my work and went out of their way to emphasize how bright my future was in the industry both in person and in my peer reviews, my managers made things very clear: For the level of work they needed me to do, I simply was either not skilled enough or experienced enough to make the cut. It wasn't personal, or a statement about how smart I was, it was a cold and completely practical business decision.

What did I take away from that? Well after I stopped feeling bad for myself I realized that there wasn't anything wrong with me, that I was perfectly capable of cutting it in this industry, that many engineers less smart than me got along just fine, and that I simply needed to up my game and get a new job. It wasn't about getting smarter, it was about getting my shit together and working out of Cracking the Coding Interview daily, learning the hot frameworks that everyone needs engineers for, building a real portfolio and GitHub profile, and being ready to work that hard even after I got a new job. And I got a new job where I was paid over twice as much and so far I love it.

For how to make moral decisions in the 21st century economic context see MacAskill's Doing Good Better.

It sounds like you're also looking for some certification of being "truly moral", avoiding guilt, and not being "an awful person". Well, as for the proper extent of sacrifice, there are two prevailing views:

• The pragmatic view, which says that you balance between the full indirect positive and negative outcomes of your choices. The actual amount of labor that goes into manufacturing a set of clothes is very small compared to the amount of benefit to the world you can provide by working harder, feeling better, looking like a decent person, etc, so the harm is justified. (tbqh, boycotts force child laborers into prostitution, but that's beside the general point)
  
• The permissive view, which says that we should only do good things up until the point where the personal costs are too high. So maybe I should take some simple, important steps to improve the world (like working on valuable projects at work, giving a third of my spare income to charity, going vegetarian) but I shouldn't radically change my lifestyle and identity on a daily basis with an intrusive set of rules or excessive frugality.
  
  If you still feel guilty and awful even after following either of these two paradigms, then you might have scrupulosity issues which philosophy isn't meant for solving. But most people are pretty comfortable and strong once they accept one of the paradigms, in my experience.

> Most of the jobs out there are temporary or contract (short/long/C2H)

This sounds patently untrue. I'm certain that the vast majority of people in CS have full-time jobs rather than temp or contract.

> Recruiters won't even look at you if you don't have a knowledge in a specific stack (even for entry level)

Also untrue, especially for entry level, where good companies won't care what tech stacks you know.

> Recruiters don't even look at your resume, all they do is keyword search

Partially true. Resumes are often automatically filtered by how many buzzwords they contain. If you can use buzzwords without making your resume seem over the top, do it.

> I've been told that I shouldn't even apply for SDE jobs because I'm a "tester" and how I probably don't know of any CS fundamentals (because my degree is in CompE, not CS)

Bullshit. Any company worth working for - most companies - will not take that attitude. They might be skeptical, but they would never suggest you don't apply.

> Interviewers don't seem to have interest in interviewing

It doesn't matter; it's their job. And most interviewers are competent at interviewing, so nothing to worry about, regardless of how "interested" they are. (Though an "interested" interviewer, while rare, is a pleasure!)

> Companies have absurd hiring standards (they are all looking for a unicorn for 50-60k/yr pay, through contract)

Depends on the company.

> * Entry level jobs require years of PROFESSIONAL experience in a specific technology


Entirely false.

---

The current job market is fine, prosperous even. Craft a strong resume, post it in the resume advice thread, and send it out to companies. Apply to a bunch of companies, account for a 5-15% response rate (higher if you're more skilled).

Getting interviews will be the easy part; to pass them, you'll need to pass difficult algorithms questions. Books like Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews are essential reads; then go on a website like LeetCode and grind away at problems until you can solve easies in 20 minutes or less, mediums in 30 minutes or less, and hards in 60-120 minutes. I'd say a 3:9:1 ratio of easy:medium:hard would be a good ratio to go with, and do as many problems as possible until you're comfortable with where you are (for me, that was about 120 problems). The premium subscription is well worth it for problems tailored to certain companies.


Edit: spelling

Everyone sucks at something at one point, but with practice you'll definitely be able to get better! I highly recommend writing over typing out the solution when you practice. Also, 90% should be dedicated to planning out path to the solution and 10% for writing/typing the solution out. Sooner or later, things should start clicking and making sense. Here's a list of resources that helped me get all the way to the Google on-site interview (Didn't get an offer but it was an amazing learning experience)

Data Structure And Algorithm 1: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLH73N9cB21W1TZ6zz1dLkyIm50HylGyg

Interviewcake: https://www.interviewcake.com/

Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algorithms

Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/

Cracking the Coding Interview: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0984782850/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51F6Lwyq5JL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL390_SR390%2C390_&refRID=1PE4XEBQDDHEF4T1ZA9K

Algorithm Design Manual: http://www8.cs.umu.se/kurser/TDBAfl/VT06/algorithms/BOOK/BOOK/BOOK.HTM

Make sure to practice everyday and have a strong understanding of the concepts. Network, contribute to open source projects, and keep on learning!

I had an internship with Amazon during my Sophomore to Junior summer. I also received offers from Microsoft and Google to intern this upcoming summer (Junior to Senior), but instead took an offer from Fog Creek Software. I have friends that have interned or are full time at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, all from Rutgers University.

My advice is to anyone looking to get one of these positions is:

1. Start early, companies have only so many positions, and once they are taken, they stop looking. Generally this means you need to apply by November.
   
   
2. Data Structures and Algorithms, know them inside and out, know their complexity, know how to implement them, know their tradeoffs, and know when to use them. A great book for someone who has never done any data structure stuff is Data Structures and Algorithms in Java. I took CS111 and read this book and was able to get through the Amazon interview.
   
   
3. Read and do the exercises in Cracking the Coding Interview. Also use the author's resume template for making your resume.
   
   
4. Interview every chance you get. Seriously, I interviewed at about 15 places before I interviewed with Amazon, by the time that I got to the Amazon interview, I was fairly comfortable with the process. I was still nervous about the interview, but I knew generally what to expect and didn't get hung up on their curveball questions.
   
   
5. Pick a single club, whether it be IEEE, USACS, RUMad, etc. and be deeply involved with it. You can be a member of more than one, but you should be really involved with one.
   
   
6. Pick a language and know it. You aren't going to lose points because you don't know Python, or Ruby, or whatever else is the hot language this month. Java, C, C++, you should know one of these languages, and preferably two, C and then either Java or C++.
   
   
7. And finally, the only way to really know a programming language is to use it, so program, program, program, and then program some more. While you're doing all this programming, you should take a few minutes out of your day to learn about source control (git or git, there are no other options :) ). Then put the cool stuff you make on github or some other source control website.
   
   This may seem like a lot because well frankly it is. But if you actually enjoy programming and computer science, than this is pretty straight forward and easy. And finally, don't get discouraged. Just because you didn't make it into one of these companies the first time you apply, doesn't mean you'll never make it. Some people don't interview well(it is its own skill, hence #4), some people just can't build out a good resume(seriously use the template that I provided and read cracking the coding interview from front to back), and other people just aren't ready(you really need to program a lot). But that doesn't mean that you will never make it with them, just give it another year, identify your weakness, and work on it.

Forget about stopping gaming for a second. Lift! Start going to the gym and have that in your life besides whatever else is happening. Once you establish that as a habit, you can re-assess your other habits.

More importantly, check your diet, what you put in you is going to determine who & what you are to a large extent. Don't try to go too crazy though because complicating things tends to lead to no results. Stick to eating enough meat, low amount of carbs (some sweet potatoes / brown rice, for dinner), and a good amount of veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, broccoli, pickled beets, lettuce; mix and match from time to time, I don't mean have all of them in one meal). Whatever you do, you MUST abandon sugary drinks (diet cokes and the like are ok in moderation tho).

Here's a common day's meals template that's dead simple and good for you (and which I eat at least 3 days a week): lunch (bacon, eggs, cottage cheese w/ a splash of light soy sauce, some tomatoes), dinner (chicken thighs & sweet potatoes - oven baked; salad [tomato + cucumber + lettuce + splash of olive oil & vinegar], for drinks just some black tea with a teaspoon of honey in each and water.

Do that, and you'll be on your way to a great life for yourself, I promise. It's also very, very important to have patience. Right now you're probably wanting results fast and won't have the tolerance for putting in the effort required to steer the ship in a new direction. Have the perspective of life's length. You have many, many years to live still and you can enjoy those immensely but it requires you to keep them in mind when after a few weeks of effort you're not seeing the amount of progress you want and will want to revert back to old habits. Believe in the process & don't judge it too soon, it will take months just to get used to it, and then more months to really get the results you fantasise about. That's life, and it won't be any different for anything else - accept it. The sooner, the better. And whatever you do, don't think about it in big steps, but rather small steps. Think about the next hour and the next small tasks, ignore the macro for a second because that can set you back. It's going to be much easier to do it that way. e.g. if you had to lose weight don't think about the amount you have to lose in total, but rather focus on doing things right on that day, or even better - for the next meal, and take it like that, one meal at a time and ignore the bigger picture.

Only after you have diet and exercise under control even think about anything else. Any other "self-improvement" is a distraction until then and wholly unnecessary - even a detriment. Focus only on these two things for now.

Lastly, a great book I'd highly recommend you read to help you better with tactics for your journey is "How to fail at almost everything and still win big" by Scott Adams. It can do a lot for your thinking and will be immensely helpful.

Keep it simple:

1. Gym
   
2. Diet
   
   That's it, and read the book. Everything else will come after that.

Cracking the Coding Interview is a bestseller on Amazon and is extremely helpful. I've read through it on flights out to interviews, and it puts me in a great frame of mind.

If anything, I get more out of the guide for how to approach interview questions more so than the meat of how certain problems or algorithms work themselves.

Make sure you take the science of approaching your answering process for the questions just as seriously and systematically as the mathematics/algorithms involved. Cracking the Coding Interview does a good job of summarizing the approach you should take, and gives a series of questions to practice answering in the manner provided (all sorts of common algorithms and data structures used in interviews are contained in the book, giving you great practice at applying these types of things). You should buy that book right now, and buy a whiteboard and an erasable marker to practice answering some of the questions on. Well well well worth it.

Most of all, have fun! In a certain way, the more fun you have, the better your impression will be on your interviewers.

Also, I wore a suit once to an interview, and I felt like a moron.

Edit: some quick re-wording.

congrats bro.

but word of advice on the programming interviews. literally all they care about is how well you answer the questions. as someone whose been on both sides of the table - many of the people doing the ebaluating are neckbeards so maybe this shit has a subconscious effect but youre evaluated on how well you answer the questions check out: http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X.

fwiw: i'm talking about the elite places like google, facebook, etc. maybe lower tier places care about confidence, dress, etc. for programmers but the top don't.

but everyone else in life does so it's def something still hella worth doing.

congrats on your progress, keep it up.

32 here, I was a high school teacher for 6 years. I learned quickly that it was not what I wanted to do long term. I started dabbling in programming and quickly fell in love with it. This past year I attended a year-long program (7 months 9-5 classroom, 5 months internship) for full stack web development. I had a well-paying position at a top tech company lined up before completing my program and am very happy with my career change.

My best advice would be to go for it! There is a huge demand for devs and while I understand it is easy to look at your age as a boon many employers will see it as a positive attribute.

• You have proven from your past career that you can work with other people and handle yourself as an adult. Unfortunately this is not a guarantee for many fresh college grads
  
• devs from different backgrounds are valuable as the more diverse your dev team is generally the more accurately it represents your user base
  
  Tips:
  
• If you haven't done so already you might want to open a GitHub account and start putting some of your projects up so prospective employers have something to look at.
  
• The online courses as well as bootcamps are great for project-based learning. During my internship I found that the biggest difference between myself as a bootcamp student vs. a CS major was in my lack of knowledge regarding data structures and algorithms. This is where most interviewers will focus their time with you. I used Cracking the Coding Interview to study before interviewing and found it very useful.
  
• Use the skills you are gaining from FreeCodeCamp and TreeHouse to work on your own projects (not just the ones they walk you through)
  
• Go to meetups and network.
  
  

Everybody's learning style is different. Here are some books I believe to be essential for any novice or pro.

Programming For Dummies. It has a stupid title, but it is well reviewed for good reasons. I read through this beast in three weeks. There is no coding involved, as it is mostly theory, but it covers most of the bases of computer science and programming logic. Looking back, much of it confused me at first read, but the big ideas are all presented here. Reading this during the summer before first semester was a huge boost for me. All of the major computer languages are discussed in the book.

Cracking the Coding Interview. A book meant for veterans trying to get into highly demanding top tech companies, the book is a great introduction to programming paradigms. There are numerous examples of problems in each chapter with answers at the back of the book. The whole thing is in Java, with a short chapter on C++.

Design Patterns. As you learn more about object oriented programming, the concept of design is introduced. This book is the holy grail of software architecture and recommended by many. I would hold off acquiring it until you are certain that CS is where you want to be, it is quite technical. This book follows C++, although a Java version of the patterns exists on Github.com

A non-technical book just for fun:
The Innovators is essentially the story of computer science and how it got to present day. It follows the characters, human beings, that were involved each step of the way right up until modern day. Your professors will be impressed that you know who Alan Turing, Grace Hopper, and Charles Babbage were. If only I had been at THE MOTHER OF ALL DEMOS! The actual stories of Microsoft, Apple, The internet, the PC, video games, the space program, etc. On Quiz Up, a trivia app, every other question in the CS category involves names from this book. Read it just to be a real geek that knows where this stuff came from, and the drama/tension that led to innovation. The book is actually really funny at times.

there is just no way to go over every data structure/algorithm in a fashion where they are useful to you in a white board situation in one semester.

from my experience, learning how to implement them from scratch is great and all, but practical use of data structure outweighs any shitty homework that requires you to memorize how its done in the book. the class (again my experience) gloats over all these things that introduces you to what is important, but then you need to spend hundreds of hours outside the class to look at a problem and know what you need to use in order to grab the best run time, minimizes time/space complexity, and their tradeoffs. I highly recommend that book and http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Programming/dp/0984782850/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449310024&sr=8-1&keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview+6th+edition if you are looking to succeed in getting internships. Sites like hackerrank, leetcode, lintcode are all great places to practice. hop over to /r/cscareerquestions for more people in the same boat as you

if you wanna go more in depth regarding 146 at sjsu, feel free to PM me your email and we'll talk more

good luck

/rant Something that concerns me about this sub is how up and coming Software Engineers ask for handouts of information that they can easily acquire by googling and researching. Now I'm going to reward this behavior by pointing you in the right direction.
/endRant

First off: The FAQ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/wiki/index

1.) Resume: https://www.careercup.com/resume

Using Latex: https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/cv (A lot of people love the Deedy Resume template - note that if you choose to use Latex then your output will be pdf which may not be processed well by automated resume processors)

Using Word: https://templates.office.com/en-us/Resumes-and-Cover-Letters

Notes: White space is valuable. Target your resume to the position(s) (but don't lie). Write it, then proofread it, then edit it, and repeat (grammar/poor wording looks terrible). The easiest way to maintain a good resume is to do just that - periodically (every ~6mo) open it up and add new experience (ignore the proofreading if you want.. just write anything new down).


2.) https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X and https://leetcode.com/

Notes: East Coast/Tier 2 companies typically don't ask as many (or as difficult) programming questions so focus on behavioral and domain knowledge. For the technical questions practice on an actual whiteboard with a partner while explaining your thought process out loud. Communication skills are probably more important than technical skills but this sub doesn't bring that up as much.


3.) See 2.


Final Notes: Maintain & update your LinkedIn. Prepare for your job search to be a grind (mentally). Do lots of research. Try and get referrals to increase the likelihood that you get an interview. There's no magic advice that will enable you to land a BigN job without hard work (though some will achieve it more easily than others - many people interview at Google 2-3+ times before they land a job there). Reading "Clean Code", "The Pragmatic Programmer", "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and at least owning a copy of "Code Complete" are often suggested here as ways to improve your abilities as an SWE.

Grinding problems, haha! I can't answer your more specific questions, but I'll distill the resources that I have found to be most useful. The types of questions will depend on wherever you are applying and you might not even get technical questions at some places.

• Elements of Programming Interviews
  
• CTCI
  
• leetcode
  
  I would start with CTCI then, if you feel like it, move on to Elements of Programming Interviews which (I think) has more difficult problems. All the while just grind problems on leetcode. Also, make sure to practice answering these questions without coding in an IDE. I have just been using a notebook and pencil. A whiteboard works too. Before beginning any sort of coding, you should have the general algorithm down that you will use to solve the problem.
  
  It also would be helpful to know how to implement / be familiar with the following:
  
  Data Structures
  
  
• Linked Lists
  
• Dynamic Arrays
  
• Hash tables / dictionaries (Definitely know how to use these)
  
• Binary Search Tree
  
• Queue
  
• Deque
  
• Stack
  
  Algorithms
  
  
• Binary Search
  
• Quicksort
  
• Mergesort
  
• Insertion Sort
  
• Dynamic Programming
  
• Bit Manipulation
  
• DFS
  
• BFS
  
• String Manipulation( reversing, detecting palindromes, word count, counting repeated words, comparing strings)
  
• A*
  
  
  OOP (define these)
  
  
• Interfaces
  
• Abstract classes
  
• Polymorphism
  
• Inheritance
  
• Encapsulation
  
• Overriding
  
• Overloading
  
  Other stuff:
  
  
• What happens when you type www.google.com and click enter on the browser
  
• Algorithms Course Heard this is really good
  
  Finally, know Big-O complexity Big-O Cheatsheet! I'm sure there is a lot more but this should be a great start.
  
  Good luck! :)

Mechanical Keyboards: High quality keyboards with tactile feedback. They have a real impact on your typing speed, and also make programming less boring. They are very commonly used by programmers. Mechanical keyboards have different "switches" that make different tactile sounds. "Blue Switches" are considered the most popular. Here are some examples: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=mechanical+keyboard.

Gaming Mouse: Same usage as keyboards, but not as useful. Its mostly just nice to have.

Textbooks: In computer science, there are one or two textbooks per subfield that are considered to be "Bibles" of the subfield because of their importance. If your bf just started cs, he won't have any interests in any subfield. However, the subfield of algorithms is more or less all encompassing. More crucially, knowledge of algorithms is the most important (and arguably only) thing you need to know to get a job. If you want to work at a top CS company like Facebook or Google, you need to know your algorithms very well in order to pass the interviews. There are two books I can recommend for this:
https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-3rd-MIT-Press/dp/0262033844/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503472210&sr=8-1&keywords=algorithms
and
https://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual-Steven-Skiena/dp/1848000693/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1503472210&sr=8-5&keywords=algorithms
These are the most prolific algorithms books (imo). Another important book is "Cracking the Coding Interview": https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1503471832&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+crack+the+coding+interview

This is the "Bible" textbook for passing tech interviews. Every computer science student I know at school has at least skimmed through this book once.

Personally, if I were starting in CS, I would appreciate either the mechanical keyboard or the "Cracking the Coding Interview" textbook the most. Good luck!

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER ever ever EVER tell a company "I'm not suited for the job". Have some balls! Sure, you messed up, but hold your head high. Everyone messes up in their life at interviews; I know I have many times. Confidence can go a long way in promoting your personal image.

FizzBuzz is probably the most simple, commonly used interview question out there to see if a programmer can actually program. It doesn't get much simpler than that. I hate to break it to you, but Modulus is one of the most basic foundation concepts you need to know, and it's definitely taught in any entry level OOP book or Uni program. I dare you to show me a "Learn programming in Java/C++/Any other OO Language" book that doesn't cover it in the first few chapters.

You are over-thinking the solution here: it's meant to show how well a candidate can easily write clean, short code. There's no reason for you to abstract the functionality of finding whether a number is evenly divisible into a method - that's over complication in design, and it's a red flag for employers. I think you may have believed that isolating specific mathematic processes into methods seemed like a good idea to show off that you know object oriented principles. You're on the right track. However, if the process you're writing can be completed in a single line of code, let alone under 10 characters, you're just adding more dependencies and complication to a simple block of code. I would suggest this as a more clean solution to fizzbuzz (in Java):

for (int x=0; x<=100; x++) {
if(x%3==0 && x%5==0)
System.out.println("FizzBuzz");
else if(x%3==0)
System.out.println("Fizz");
else if(x%5==0)
System.out.println("Buzz");
else
System.out.println(x);
}

I personally struggled with a decent amount of interviews until I started to actually prepare for the interview. I recommend finding time to work through these two books; they'll help prepare you for what kind of questions to expect.

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/1118261364/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377704276&sr=1-1&keywords=programming+interviews+exposed

http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377704294&sr=1-1&keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview

And most important of all: NEVER get down on yourself! Every tough problem or terrible interview you have is just a learning experience. Never tell yourself you aren't good enough, or just outright give up. You aren't allowed. Stick with it, and prepare months in advance, like homework. You don't have to be that person dedicating every waking moment of their life to programming, but if you're serious about keeping your interview skills sharp, you need to dedicate some time to learning the questions. Good luck!

EDIT: Grammar, etc.

I've been pretty fortunate that I've been able to get interviews and job offers pretty easily within the game industry as a programmer.

I wouldn't consider myself a master programmer by any stretch and definitely don't spend as much time practicing on Code-Kata, etc as the poster. (The majority of my spare time is spent on unpaid overtime - if I can get that under control, then maybe I can apply some time to personal projects).

The 3 keys that I have found to make it easier to land the interview and the job is:

1. Networking - this is a MUST. If you know someone at the company that can vouch for you, sometimes the technical phone screen can be bypassed completely and it's a lot easier to position yourself above others when you have a good reputation before the interview. Call friends/colleagues that are still in the industry and ask if they are hiring or know anyone who's working somewhere where they are hiring. If there are conferences related to your specific industry (specialized types of programming), try to get to one of those and do what you can to get on a guest list for some of the company sponsored parties. Talking to people in a social setting goes a long way and is typically more effective that meeting a dedicated recruiting sessions.
   
   
2. Be energetic and friendly. Skills are only half the requirement, cultural fit and an easy going attitude go a long way to whether or not you'll get a job. How your potential colleagues feel about you is almost as important, if not more important, than if they think you are qualified (networking can help a lot to achieve this feeling amongst your potential colleagues).
   
   
3. Pick up this book and read it cover-to-cover: Programming Interviews Exposed. Most technical interviews ask questions from this book or variations of questions found in this book. Rarely do they really distinguish a good programmer from average/bad, but you're really competing with people that are good at interview questions and have seen them before vs people that are not or get a question they haven't seen. Every time I'm starting a new job search, I re-read this book, go over old programming tests that I saved and run through some of the problems from college programming tests on the ACM online judge website to get ready for obscure brain teasers.
   
   I can't really say whether the hiring process is broken or not, much of what they do does weed out people that really don't belong. But if you don't know the game or don't play the game, you may get swept to the side along with them.
   
   I hope this helps - good luck!

I'm just gonna slide in and hijack this thread...

If you think this is good (and you totally should), just wait until you hear about Effective Altruism (EA)! In essence, it's the idea that we should do the most good we can with the limited resources that we have, and in order to do the most good we need to rigorously evaluate the causes we donate to. GiveWell, probably the most notable EA charity evaluation site, recommends the Against Malaria Foundation as one of its top charities based on extensive research assessing the overall impact-per-dollar that donors can achieve.

If you'd like to learn more about EA, check out Giving What We Can and read about how much good you can do with your Monsanto/Koch/Illuminati shill bucks. And if you'd like to delve a little deeper, check out Dr William MacAskill's Doing Good Better, which makes a compelling case for evidence-based giving, and which challenges many orthodoxies about how to do good in the world, including a defense of the long-term positive impact of sweatshop labour.

There is also http://www.reddit.com/r/EmploymentAssistance/ but the top post is currently "Looks like this reddit fizzled and died." You could also try the programming or coding subreddits for advice particular to CS interviews.

It's good that you're already practicing up on a whiteboard. I think practice and knowing how to prepare are key for interviews (general statement is general). You should consider trying to set up practice interviews if you know anyone in the field with more interview experience. Or you could try explaining CS concepts and solutions to your friends. Perhaps you could get used to being at ease in an interview by practicing with someone you know.

There are various books you could buy, or perhaps find in a library, on interview help and using whiteboards in particular. I think I've seen this book recommended here before but I can't remember the context.

Good luck!

Current industry professional and interviewer. Just got out of one in fact.

Certs won't do much for you. I know some interviewers who actually look down on people who get certs. I personally don't care at all if you see them. Chances are, I don't know enough about the process to get that specific certification to give it proper weight. Did it take a few hours of training? Several weeks? Years of experience? I'm not going to look that up when I have work to do along with better things to grill you on for your resume.

Speaking of those better things: Projects and internships. Projects done OUT OF ASSIGNED CLASS WORK are always more valuable than just showing off that you can do assignments. Everyone will also push the importance of internships. They're great. They show that you know how to work on a team in complicated systems with a different set of demands and people.

School in NY? I'm an RPI grad. Transferred in from HVCC. Big roadblock you won't hear about is how big company interviewers typically completely disregard your CC experience. They didn't care about my 4.0 there.

"Okay, but what's your GPA here?"

In a field/school where many people get internships after their sophomore year, it puts us at a big disadvantage, especially for the schools who do job fairs during your first semester. You won't have a GPA you can tout there. Several online applications require your 4 year university GPA. Doing a 2-3 program will slightly alleviate the issue...but now you graduate a year later. There's a myriad of hidden problems no one will tell you about because they're too busy pushing positives. Also, it's more complicated than just "being a sophomore" again. Feel free to PM me, I wrestled way too much with my administration while I was there.

You'll have some challenges ahead. But two things will help your resume immensely:

• INTERNSHIP At least if you can get one.
  
  
• Does the school have an open source program you can do for "research?" We had RCOS, a two hour a week class you could do for credit or research. It helps you fill out your resume with interesting and more complicated projects that aren't assigned.
  
  
• Portfolio What good is all this if you can't show off your work? Make a GitHub. We Look.
  
  
• Interview skills. Maybe not on the resume directly, but you need to be able to sell yourself. Practice an elevator pitch for job fairs. Practice doing interview questions. Cracking the Coding Interview is a great resource to see what to expect from us.

I remember reading a study where researchers found that people who were smart generally felt that they were dumb and people who were dumb, generally overestimated their intelligence. So I thought that's something you should maybe think about since you mentioned that you think you're not a smart guy. With that said, I think you should go for it for sure and I think that with enough preparation and planning, you can increase your chances of getting an offer from Google. And if you don't get it the first time, you should try again. I've read that some got in on the 2nd or 3rd try.

Your plan looks sound. I would recommend focusing on a specific language though instead of focusing on functional programming, C, JavaScript (unless you plan on doing front-end work, I don't think JavaScript would be useful in this situation). Java is one of the widely used languages at Google.

Buy Cracking the Coding Interview. It's such a useful book. The material it goes over isn't very in-depth, so don't expect to use it as a way to learn about various algorithms and computer science concepts. Rather, solve the problems in the book. The problems are of varying levels, some easy while some may really challenge you. You will feel really dumb trying to solve some of these problems, but spend as much time as necessary and try to come up with a solution that you then refine. You may not come up with the optimal decision on the first try.

Solve problems on CareerCup. From what I understand, some of the questions on there are actual Google interview questions.

Make sure you have a thorough understanding and know how to implement basic data structures such as Linked Lists Hashtables, Trees, Binary Trees, N-ary trees, Graphs and Di-Graphs. Know how to perform breadth-first search, depth-first search on both trees and graphs. Know post-order, pre-order and in-order tree traversal. There's more but that's what I remember off the top of my head.

The last interview of the on-site interview will be about system design and it requires a more general architecture knowledge (HTTP, SSL, compression, network latency, disk latency, etc...).

Search for blogposts of people who've interviewed at Google. There are like a dozen or more of them. They give you a good overview of the process and some even contain questions.

Best of luck!

Edit: I forgot to mention the Big-O notation. It's important and every interviewer will ask you for the time complexity of the algorithm you just implemented.

For the question of what makes cities rich and poor there a huge number of possible answers including human capital, infrastructure, luck (take Seattle as an example, it got a big technology industry pretty much by luck because Bill Gates moved Microsoft there from Albuquerque because it was his home area and then the forces of urban economics does the rest), resources, etc.

I'd recommend reading these books: Keys to the City by Michael Storper (he was my lecturer, he's a professor at LSE, UCLA and Sciences Po) and The New Geography of Jobs by Enrico Moretti. Even just the introductions provide a good insight.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Geography-Jobs-Enrico-Moretti/dp/0544028058http://www.amazon.co.uk/Keys-City-Institutions-Interaction-Development/dp/0691143110/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451394581&sr=8-1&keywords=keys+to+the+city

To get an insight into what our economy makes and then sells, and it buys from abroad, and from where, this is a good website. Bear in mind it's looking at goods - the UK sells quite a lot of services abroad too. http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/gbr/all/show/2013/

In a nutshell the UK is good at services (financial services, consulting (of all types not just management or strategy), advertising, law etc.), pharmaceuticals, high tech engineering (aerospace stuff, ARM in Cambridge for example and other IT, car production)

Good article about growth and decline of a city here too http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/03/29/the-churn

The economy section of the ONS website also contains a lot of information about which sectors are big, how many people work in them, their growth and contribution to the economy, regional growth and contribution to UK overall too, and so on. House of Commons Library and Bank of England are good too.

Usually the CTCI referred to here is Cracking The Coding Interview. It´s probably the best known interview preparation book. You can easily find the PDF online but I would recommend buying it because it´s like an algorithms/datastructures bible and it will make it easier to take notes (it´s also a tiny investment compared to the potential pay-off). I think if you can comfortably do all of the questions (incl. moderate+hard) then you will be close to ready for Google. It depends from person to person. But I would recommend doing some LeetCode Google flagged questions afterwards to gauge how well prepared you are. For some people CTCI alone is enough while for others an additional 50-100 LeetCode are sufficient (some skip to LeetCode directly and do 150-300 questions on there). Note that CTCI is an alternative to EPI (Elements of Programming Interviews). Doing both would be a bit redundant. From what I gather EPI has more challenging problems so might prepare you better for Google, but if you´re very rusty then CTCI might be an easier start.

There´s plenty of resources available on this; I suggest checking out the relevant FAQs in the sidebar of this subreddit.

Don't. Do not under any circumstances say you would work for them over all other choices. There's a few reasons for this.

1. It often comes off as non-genuine. Hiring managers hear this phrase constantly
   
2. It seems desperate.
   
3. It's easy to lowball you or keep you waiting if they know you aren't going anywhere. Companies make offers very quickly to the candidates they want to take quickly before someone else does
   
   This isn't necessarily done on purpose, but I've seen it happen first hand too many times to count. It's almost like the "bad-boy" dilemma in dating- the guys who seem farthest away to reach are usually the most in-demand.
   
   Instead, communicate your passion through the knowledge you have about their company. Talk about their things they've done you admire, ask them questions about how the framework they use and why (Do your research, don't say anything obvious!). If there are company github projects, read through them all. Try to get an idea of what they might be working on next and why.
   
   In a phone interview your goal is not to get the job, just to get to the next interview. Give them what they need without sending across any red-flags. Really look closely at the job description and make sure you check each criteria. Have prepared answers for questions like: "Tell me about yourself," "Where do you see yourself in 5 years," etc.
   
   I'd also recommend buying "Cracking the Coding Interview" if you have some time to prepare: https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
   
   It's extremely helpful.

Congratulations on striking out on your own!

Pick up a copy of Jay Foonberg's How to Start and Build a Law Practice. Foonberg's old and some of the information is outdated, but it's a pretty big book with a wealth of info for new solos. There's also Carolyn Elefant's Solo by Choice, and blogs such as Elefant's My Shingle, Lawyerist, and /u/KeithRLee's Associate's Mind.

I think standard advice for new solos is that networking is king. Your best business as a new solo comes from referrals from other attorneys. Build relationships early. Also, make connections with strong mentors in every area you practice in, especially if you have limited experience in that practice area.

If you haven't made an office-space decision yet, read up on the benefits/downsides of virtual offices (i.e. working out of home and meeting clients in Starbucks) or of office sharing (you don't have to partner up with another lawyer; just rent an underused corner of a larger office to save on rent).

Also, join/post on /r/lawyers. It gets more traffic than /r/lawfirm.

I see that you've already taken Colt Steele's courses on Udemy. I'm guessing you can work on the front as well as the back end and work with APIs. At this point, a bootcamp is a better option imo. I'm not from the US, so I can't recommend you any. I'm assuming that you're familiar with the basics and you should definitely look into learning frameworks now. It can get overwhelming to select one amongst the plethora of available options, so pick one of the popular ones, you can't go wrong with it. ReactJS for the front end or NodeJS for the back end would be great imo (especially since you're familiar with JavaScript at this point). Udemy courses are cheap and if you follow along, you'd have multiple projects under your belt, that should definitely help you in getting a job. If time permits, you should learn auxiliary subjects, especially Algorithms and Data Structures. That would really help you in your interviews. Eventually, get that Gayle Laakmann book. So, even though you have a long road ahead of you, prioritize and focus on the parts that can get you a job in the shortest time. Maybe work on your front end skills first, get a job and work through the back end or theoretical stuff later. I'm sure you can do it if you keep at it! Good luck with everything 👍

When I went, there were always a few companies where the representatives had a badge that said "I hire frosh." My advice would be to check it out to get a feel for what's going on. I wouldn't expect a whole lot, but at the very least it'll be good prep for the frosh/soph fair.

A word of advice - when I went to the fall career fair during my freshman year, I actually found it quite stressful. I ran into a couple of recruiters who came off as condescending, and the overall atmosphere seemed pretty stressful (gotta hustle for that internship). It was a bit of a contrast from the dorms and even office hours, where people are generally happy to lend a helping hand.

When I took CS 103 later, Keith Schwarz actually had a fairly negative view of the effect/messaging of the fall career fair towards freshmen. He felt that the competitiveness and the inevitable rejection of certain internships would not really provide a positive view of one's learning. Learning is a long process, and getting rejected from a dream CS internship might lead some to feel that their classes were for nothing. It's ultimately up to you whether you want to view your CS education as more of a pipeline into a good job, or an opportunity to intellectually explore (you can of course balance both, and there is no right way to do it).

So if you wanna hustle for an internship, then by all means go for it. However, keep in mind that the career fair is only one way to get your foot in the door. If you wanna be a real snek, network around and find people who can give you referrals for companies you're interested in. Also code up a project or two and put it on GitHub (with a link on your resume). Most importantly, read the good book.

>Do you find that the standard system of technical interviews (data structures & algorithms) is an effective way of assessing candidates? Why or why not?

When I was an undergraduate, the dominant interview approach involved brainteasers like "why are manhole covers round?" Initially, these were reliable indicators of future success. But after every other company started copying Microsoft mindlessly and asking the same set of questions, the approach quickly became less effective. People optimized for interview performance with books like How Would You Move Mount Fuji? and How to Ace the Brainteaser Interview.

Brainteasers were mostly phased out after Google introduced the current approach involving data structures and algorithms. Initially, these were reliable indicators of future success. But after every other company started copying Google mindlessly and asking the same set of questions, the approach quickly became less effective. People optimized for interview performance with books like Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews.

There are certainly parallels between what happened then and what's happening now. The difference today is that people have taken things to another level with platforms like Pramp and bootcamps like Interview Kickstart. New businesses keep popping up that focus on cracking the current system, and I don't think that bodes well for its future.

But what can we do about it? The fact is that any interviewing process can be cracked once its format becomes popular and standardized. Let's say that some major company like Facebook introduces a new standard that involves candidates giving two-hour presentations about significant personal projects and then answering tough questions from a committee. You may be familiar with this format if you've ever applied for a research position. I actually think this would be great for 2-3 years until everyone starts doing it and Gayle Laakmann McDowell or whoever publishes "Cracking the Personal Project Presentation." And then a bunch of new businesses will pop up to sell you slide templates, professional reviews, etc.

In short, I'm not a big fan of the current system (EDIT: because it's been "cracked") but I honestly don't know of a better one (EDIT: that won't suffer the same fate).

I'm finishing up my BS in Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. I've completed 3 internships at Microsoft (Office, Windows, and Visual Studio) in the summers of '10, '11, and '12, and I will be returning to the Visual Studio group in January as a full time employee.

I nonchalantly gave my resume to someone at the Microsoft booth at a job fair for science majors at my school. Got a call and had a short interview at the UT campus. The questions weren't very technical or difficult: "how do you test software?" and "write a function to shuffle a deck of cards." Long story short, I was invited to Redmond to continue the interview process (they do this for all interns). I had 4 different 50-minute interviews in Redmond. The questions were more difficult, but nothing too terrible. After all, these questions were intended for interns.

I wanted to get some experience with a different team for the summer of '11, so I re-applied and re-interviewed. I had 4 more interviews with folks on the Windows team. I got similar questions. I think it's important to say that you don't have to blow all of your interviews out of the park; I certainly didn't. I was very nervous during the first one and didn't connect with the interviewer. I screwed up writing a factorial function, if you can believe that.

I prepared for the second round of interviews by reading this book, and I found it to be fairly helpful. Although it can't possibly have every interview question, it prepares you for the types of questions you can be asked.

After my internship with Windows, I wanted to return to Microsoft, but on the East Coast, where Microsoft has some Visual Studio development. I did a phone interview and was offered the position based on positive feedback from former interviewers.

The link you gave is for research interns, which as far as I know are for Ph.D students. If you're interested in a non-research internship, you should visit http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/us/internships.aspx.

Hope that helps! Cheers.

I've found Cracking the coding interview to be an excellent resource. That book together with online sources helped me get several internship offers. The book won't spoon feed you from the ground up - but will cover all the topics necessary. The interview questions are all about PRACTICE! Spend a lot of time thinking about how to solve programming questions, the complexity of your solution, and ways to improve your solution.

After a while, you should reach a point where you start recognizing patterns when you see a new question. There are often existing data structures (that you must know backwards - like hash tables) that you can use to solve a given problem - try and think of which one fits the question nicely.

Finally, read this. Good luck!

Edit: Formatting issues.

I have just recently jumped through these hoops myself so I'll share what little bit I've gleaned:

However, first a preface: As with many things in life, there is no 'cut & dry'/'black & white' way of looking at things - especially grad school. You may have an amazing GPA but horrendous GRE scores, or amazing work experience but a poor GPA, etc etc. Also, there are many different ways to go about finding an answer to your questions. I'll attempt to address these as thoroughly as I can (aka, this is going to be stupidly long).

Grades:
First off, unless you are trying to get into an Ivy League school, the 'usual' cut off for GPA is a 3.0. So, based exclusively off of that, you're looking good. Now, let's say your GPA goes downhill a bit more. Sweat & fear not my friend! While most schools tend to say that their "cut off" is a 3.0, they will still look at your application if you are kicking ass and taking names in other areas (GRE scores, work experience, volunteer experience, lab/research time, background, etc.) Speaking of GREs, have you taken them? If not, you are a bit behind schedule and should definitely start studying for them and signing up to take a few.

Masters then PhD or all out PhD:
I looked (extensively) at these options and here's what I learned/think I learned. If you are at a deficit in some area that won't get you into a PhD program, then a Masters would make sense. However, this has ups and downs. Assuming you take the average time for each degree, a Masters is 2 years and a PhD is 5, totaling 7 years. If you got into a PhD program from the start then it's only 5 years. You save two years of your life, school work, money, time, etc. However, upon completion of a Masters, your Undergraduate work means jack, so your current worries won't be there when you get the Masters. However! (so many 'howevers'...), unless the school you go to for a Masters (School A) -and- a PhD, then the likelihood that a majority of your Masters classes from School A would transfer over to your PhD program (School B). So, you'll end up having to retake classes you've already taken and just putzing around. Although if School A also offers a PhD, then it doesn't matter. That being said, I did not find many programs that offer a Masters as well as PhD during my search for schools. One advantage to getting a Masters first is it gets you more time in the field/lab/writing/etc. which not only helps with solidifying that Psychology is what you want to do but also helps you look good on paper for PhD programs. One advantage to getting into a PhD program and bypassing the Masters is the time you save. Your thought of getting into a lower tier Masters program then going to a PhD program makes sense, it just takes more time and money out of your life.

Funding
On average, you are lucky if you can get a TA/RA position that gives you a stipend for Masters programs. It is fairly common for Masters students to get loans. Tuition waivers are virtually non existent; however, this does not mean you cannot apply for fellowships, grants, scholarships, etc. With regards to a PhD program (one that has <10 students), it is fairly typical to either receive a full tuition waiver and/or some kind of stipend (typically in the form of a TA and/or RA).

You mentioned an interest in the Clinical side of things. Speaking fairly broadly, a PhD in Clinical Psychology is fairly research heavy as well as fairly Practice oriented (think a 50/50 blend). A PsyD is much, much more Practice oriented (about 90% practice). There are many more doors open to you with a PhD than a PsyD. If your only dream job is to work with clients in a practice then a PsyD is worth looking at. In a PsyD program, you usually (I'd guess in about 98% of schools) have to foot the bill by yourself (all of it, sadly) and then your dissertation is typically a case study. In a PhD program, you are going to get a pretty heavy research caseload that have you churning our papers and research. You may or may not get many clinical hours, clinical supervision, practice time with clients, etc. in a PhD program. I can't say it enough, while the PhD has quite a hefty component of research to it, you can do many more things with a PhD than a PsyD (not to bash on the PsyD...).

Edit 2: While PhD programs typically offer a tuition waiver and/or a stipend for TA/RA work, it is typical that you still take out loans, albeit a smaller amount than for a Masters. However, a PhD program is twice as long as a Masters so depending on the amount you take out, it may be more expensive (loan wise) to go the route of a PhD.

Lastly, I would discourage you from even looking at schools that are not APA accredited. If you are unsure, you can either read the program description on the school's website (they will prominently announce their APA accreditation) or you can go to the APA website and search for accredited schools here.

I lied. One more piece of information. Go to a nearby Borders, Barnes & Noble, your college bookstore, etc. and read/look at the latest copy of this book. It's pretty thorough and lists out so much information for you.

Best of luck to ya.

Here's my list of the classics:

General Computing

• But How Do It Know? - The Basic Principles of Computers for Everyone
  
  
• The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles
  
  
• Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
  
  
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
  
  Computer Science
  
  
• The New Turing Omnibus: Sixty-Six Excursions in Computer Science
  
  
• Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools, 2nd Edition (aka The Dragon Book)
  
  
• The Art of Computer Programming
  
  
• Algorithms, 4th Edition
  
  
• Introduction to Algorithms, 3rd Edition (aka CLRS)
  
  
• Essential Algorithms: A Practical Approach to Computer Algorithms Using Python and C#, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Grokking Algorithms: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People
  
  
• Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, 2nd Edition (aka SICP, available for free on the MIT website)
  
  
• Discrete Mathematics with Applications, 4th Edition
  
  Software Development
  
  
• Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems by Martin Kleppmann
  
  
• Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (aka The Gang of Four)
  
  
• Think Like a Programmer: An Introduction to Creative Problem Solving
  
  
• The Pragmatic Programmer: your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition
  
  
• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
  
  
• Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction, 2nd Edition
  
  
• The Design of Everyday Things
  
  
• Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
  
  
• Programming Pearls, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual
  
  
• Hello, Startup: A Programmer's Guide to Building Products, Technologies, and Teams
  
  
• Hacker's Delight, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, 3rd Edition
  
  Case Studies
  
  
• The Soul of a New Machine
  
  
• Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
  
  
• Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
  
  
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet
  
  
• Fire in the Valley: The Birth and Death of the Personal Computer, 3rd Edition
  
  Employment
  
  
• Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions, 6th Edition
  
  
• The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide: How to Learn Programming Languages Quickly, Ace Your Programming Interview, and Land Your Software Developer Dream Job
  
  
• The Self-Taught Programmer: The Definitive Guide to Programming Professionally
  
  
• The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development
  
  Language-Specific
  
  C
  
  
• The C Programming Language, 2nd Edition
  
  Python
  
  
• Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Python Crash Course: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
  
  
• Python Programming: An Introduction to Computer Science, 3rd Edition
  
  
• Effective Python: 59 Specific Ways to Write Better Python
  
  C#
  
  
• The C# Player's Guide, 3rd Edition
  
  C++
  
  
• The C++ Programming Language, 4th Edition
  
  
• Starting Out with C++: from Control Structures to Objects, 9th Edition
  
  Java
  
  
• Introduction to Java Programming and Data Structures: Comprehensive Version, 11th Edition
  
  
• [Java: A Beginner's Guide](https://www.amazon.com/Java-Beginners-Seventh-Herbert-Schildt/dp/1259589315/, 7th Edition)
  
  
• Java: The Complete Reference, 11th Edition
  
  
• Core Java Volume I - Fundamentals, 11th Edition
  
  
• Starting Out with Java: From Control Structures through Objects, 6th Edition
  
  
• Effective Java, 3rd Edition
  
  Linux Shell Scripts
  
  
• The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Wicked Cool Shell Scripts: 101 Scripts for Linux, OS X, and UNIX Systems, 2nd Edition
  
  
• Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible
  
  
• Mastering Linux Shell Scripting
  
  Web Development
  
  
• Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics, 5th Edition
  
  
• Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming, 3rd Edition (also available for free on the author's website)
  
  
• JavaScript and JQuery: Interactive Front-End Web Development
  
  
• HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites
  
  
• You Don't Know JS: Up & Going
  
  Ruby and Rails
  
  
• Ruby on Rails Tutorial: Learn Web Development with Rails, 4th Edition (Note: this book is somewhat out of date compared to the live version on the author's website.)
  
  
• The Well Grounded Rubyist, 3rd Edition
  
  
• Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer
  
  
• Agile Web Development with Rails 5.1
  
  
• Programming Ruby 1.9 & 2.0: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide, 4th Edition
  
  
• Eloquent Ruby
  
  Assembly
  
  
• Assembly Language for x86 Processors, 8th Edition

Congrats! As someone who made a similar transition about 8yrs ago... Being a successful manager is about understanding your upper management's goals, effectively delegating to your directs, guiding them using appropriate situational leadership principles, and earning the trust of your peers, directs, and management through consistency, communication, and delivering results. Advocate for your people, empower them to do their jobs, and give honest feedback. It's all easier said than done :)

Go read some books!

The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter

The Great Workplace: How to Build It, How to Keep It, and Why It Matters

Leadership and the One Minute Manager: Increasing Effectiveness Through Situational Leadership II

I'm in a similar situation and stand to gain multiples of what I'd need to retire 30 years ahead of schedule in the next few years. I strongly recommend looking into "effective altruism." If you only "like" your job, maybe you and her would find more satisfaction in figuring out how to maximize your positive impact on the world. Start with this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Good-Better-Effective-Altruism/dp/1592409660

I'd absolutely not continue working my current job if my current job didn't bring me a huge amount of fulfillment or was otherwise my highest and best use of time to "do good" in the world.

Take a year off to read, think, ponder, and then re-engage on your own terms in a thoughtful way. At least that's my plan.

As far as social pressure, I will continue to appear to be a productive member of society, be on various boards, have projects, volunteer, etc. As far as our friend group goes, they don't need to know the specifics of my situation. Social pressure solved.

Sorry, got busy for the holidays.

It seems like you're falling victim to the same cycle that a lot of us have. You can't get a job without experience, but you can't get experience without a job. It doesn't make a ton of sense.

Google/Amazon/Uber rely heavily on data structure and algorithm knowledge in their interviews. I have the first edition of this book for JS data structures. I went through it and coded all of them out. It helps to understand them.

In my master's program, I had a class on algorithm design that in hindsight, I wish I had paid more attention to. We used this book but I think there are better ones available now.

I have this book as a general interview reference which may summarize the above two suggestions better for the interviews.

Time/space complexity was also helpful information to know. Big O notation is a useful thing to have in your arsenal to begin with.

These are just suggestions for notorious interviews for infamous tech companies. Not every company is going to grill you about these concepts. But having been someone who has failed several intense programming interviews, and now conducts them for our company, I think all of this information is applicable, and a true tech company likely won't grill you about job experience if you can apply these concepts on a whiteboard without thinking about it.

Data Science is a great spot to be in right now. Spend a little time every day applying some programming principles to big datasets. It should be enough to land you a job at a solid company if even at an entry-level position.

Also, get out of AngularJS and learn Angular 2+. React/React Native also seem to be in high demand. They have become commonplace at most large companies trying to stay on the edge of technology for their users.

>would you say this is critical knowledge to be a good web developer?

Not really. Most people are out there solving business needs. Even if you're working for a web app, the majority of it is taking a business problem and building and designing a solution around it in whatever way makes the most sense. How good the architecture is, is really not super important because you're likely not going to be supporting enough customers that throwing more hardware at it can't solve. Knowing how things work and how to build maintainable software, is more important than knowing obscure CS fundamentals inside and out.

But what you described sounds more like something from Amazon, Apple, FB, MS, Google, or other large tech company. They want true blue software engineers, not someone who can make them a pretty landing page. I know from first hand experience that FB interviews for JS developers hit heavily on memory managment and Amazon doesn't give a shit what language you program in. Cracking the Coding Interview is a good way to study for all of those (but you're not going to memorize that book in the time you have).

Here's my two cents.

Other things to consider: I'm a girl, minority, and have a mental "disability" (diagnosed anxiety and depression). These all come into play when you do apply for tech jobs in some ways.

I was a MCD Biology major last year but switched when UCSF Admissions told me that getting into med school is an honest crapshoot. I literally switched to CE during the summer. It was a pain to switch but it's working out.

Right now I'm taking 29 units, 15 units here and 14 units at another school. The only class I've taken so far that is CS related is CMPS 12A/L in the summer at a CC where I aced it and the professor really liked me. And CMPS 12A/L isn't even part of the CE program.

You know what you should do today? Make a resume. Right now. Already have one? Apply to internships. Right now. Making a LinkedIn also helps so much.

I applied from August - November to 100 companies and got denied to 20 already (Uber, Asana, TwoSigma, Pinterest, some video game companies) but already have 5 offers on the line with offers from $25-40 an hour with other frills like free food and corporate housing. This last end of the quarter I've been getting scheduled for phone interviews, technical tests, on-sites.

This is with one CS class too. Most companies don't look at transcripts or references and all they look for is project work (which I don't have either) and talent. I studied my ass off with this book and have learned so much on how to tackle interviews.

SOE literally thinks I'm silly, but I probably have done more in terms of networking than some Senior CS major. I also still have a pre-med mentality which helps.

TLDR What I'm saying is that even if you don't have a lot on your belt, people see talent easily. Be persistent and optimistic.

I have a personal list of applications if you want them, PM me. Will not disclose to everyone though because this place is already competitive enough.

A few recommendations for you.

Ray Dalio - Principles for success. https://youtu.be/B9XGUpQZY38
I think you’ll see how his advice and mindset can apply to your situation.

Michael Watkins - First 90 Days. https://www.amazon.com/First-90-Days-Strategies-Expanded/dp/1422188612

I think when people get start new roles there’s this expectation of ‘plug n play’ and immediate acceleration for the business, and it’s tempting to skip steps. I think this book does a great job of outlining what you should do. I’ve had to take over leadership roles in turnaround company, which basically is saying the odds of failing is much, much greater than success. I found using the recommendations from book as a good way to manage expectations and covering all areas and nobody could accuse me of not thinking things through when something bad happens. I would look at your next 90 days as the first 90 day do-over. Follow the steps, and see if there’s improvement,

20-30% time, I would look into exploring what ‘problem’ in your industry or field that is worth solving. Maybe it can help your company, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe you have do it secretively. MayBe it leads you into entrepreneurship (but you should passionate in solving problem, than enamored with building a company). Maybe it leads you funding somebody else to execute on your idea. Or if your time at current company ends, then you can pursue this problem/solution with another company. If you don’t know you can carve out the 20% time. I would bucket all tasks considering urgent and important. Only give priority to tasks that are both urgent and important. Don’t stress on urgent/unimportant and not-urgent/unimportant tasks.

My vote is you should stay, make some effort to get good at job including ID-ing current issues, but at same time be proactive in figuring out what you want to do, and making a plan for it, and taking action. This way you have clear idea what your options really are. Quit because there is something you really wish to pursue that’s worth more than that high compensation package that you’re getting now.

Job hunting is a whole job in itself! Don't be too hard on yourself. I definitely don't have firsthand experience with the job market in Canada, let alone the oil business, but I would say that 4-day turnaround was an awesome anomaly, but nothing to get discouraged about if it doesn't happen again.

One thing I encourage you to back/stay away from is the tendency to exercise quantity over quality in your job search. I used to be the worst at this. My dad would always ask, "How many cover letters/resumes did you send out today?" when really that is not a good metric for measuring your hard work.

My program at school assigned "The 2-Hour Job Search" as a textbook and it has been soooo helpful in teaching me what things to focus on in order to get an advantage in today's competitive job market. I highly recommend this book to you and all of my friends and family looking for jobs.

Kinda late but

Software Engineer, been working 1year ~ 3 months now. I have no Github account and no personal projects on my resume, but I did list relevant class&internship projects, and my resume is also pretty beefed with work experience and extracurriculars, as well as honor societies, even though my GPA isnt super stellar.

• easy peasy. Talked to someone at a job fair (funnily enough, not usually who you'd think of as a tech company), ended up getting a call, they lost my resume, and then found it again a couple weeks later. Finally the week before I was due to respond to a different offer, they asked me to go in for an interview, I did, and I got the job a few days later.
  
• Resume wise, I was webmaster of my school's TBP chapter, and my internship involved extensive web work. The job was for a web company so i think they liked that. That and I was really chill during my interview, and bonded with one of my interviewers over the fact that we both dance. I've heard that they base their hiring a lot on who they think will fit into team dynamic, so it's important to relax and be yourself.
  
• Yep. I work in socal, and I live in a less expensive area, but I bought a new ~30k car, travel regularly, and go out to eat often. In terms of work/life, sometimes I end up working too much just due to how deadlines work out, but you get that everywhere. 80% of the time I'm chillin.
  
  This book -> http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Fourth-Edition/dp/145157827X did me wonders during the interview process.

Practical interviews are pretty much the norm across software development.

Generally they open with some standard interview questions, then move into programming problems.
These problems (ideally) are designed to show the interviewer how you think and solve problems,
while demonstrating some familiarity with the language you are using.

For example, I might give you this function stub:

String ReverseString(String InString)
{
}

and ask you to write the function body that reverses the contents of InString and returns it as a new string.
After you are done writing the function, I might ask you to determine the time and space complexity of your solution.
If your solution is not optimal in space or time, I might ask you leading questions about how we might improve either
the time complexity or space complexity, and see if you can iterate and improve your solution.
If it was optimal, I'd probably move on to something tougher.

The whole time, I'm most interested in how you think and I'm not focused on your end result as much. So don't take the paper away and quietly formulate a solution and pass it to me. It should be fairly interactive, and you should narrate your thought process if you feel comfortable doing so.

If you want more example of the problems you will have to solve, a generic reference text is:
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Programming/dp/0984782850?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Keep in mind though, since its a Unity interview, its likely they will ask game specific questions, basic linear algebra is going to help you out a lot here (dot, cross, basic reasoning about vectors, normals, etc).

Also your mileage may vary, as I'm basing this off of interviews I have either given or been given.
Good luck!

Glassdoor.com is an incredible asset.

Microsoft has a ton of resources available for helping people to do well in interviews(they want you to succeed!), so search their website for info.

This is more for dev but this book http://www.amazon.ca/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/047012167X is really good and they will often pull questions right from it.

You're probably a cs student so I would go over your notes for whatever algorithms/data structures course you've had. Just because you are interviewing for a test position doesn't mean they won't ask you dev or pm questions.

They won't ask you any of those "How do you move mount fiji" questions so don't bother/worry about those.

Most of all though, relax. You'll probably ace it and Microsoft internships are a lot of fun. Good luck!

I'm starting my MBA this fall, but I've been using The 2-Hour Job Search to find people to contact about internships. It's worked way better than I could've imagined.

I've had 9 info interviews with people this month in the industry I'm interested in, and have had good email exchanges with several more. It's nice because it gives you exact steps to follow for networking, which is something I've never been very good at.

I'm also planning on attending the career fairs at school, talking to recruiters that come to school, and going to career fairs where companies I'm interested in will have recruiters.

On top of that, my LinkedIn profile and resume are both pretty polished so I can send one or the other to people on short notice.

CERN exerts a brain drain effect: many of the most promising experimental physicists are relocating to Europe because that's where the action is in their field. From the perspective of an American, it would be better for America to gain physicists from Europe rather than losing them. There are arguments that benefiting from scientific brain drain is excellent for the US economy.

The data from the LHC and the theories it's testing are arcane for now, but there's a chance it could be massively important down the road. The study of atomic fission used to be merely scribbles. Is there a guarantee that quantum field theory will be as pivotal as atomic fission? No. But there's a slight chance.

It's kind of like early exploration of Antarctica: was it useful at the time? No. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Yes and No are both valid (depending on what you value), but I'd say yes.

edit: I meant to link this book instead

The Engineering Practicum is the one for, like, freshmen and sophomores, right?

Look, just... be cool about it, haha. Check out LeetCode and get comfortable with the Easy questions. FYI, you probably won't know a lot of the stuff — but that's okay! Mostly you just wanna get comfortable with the types of questions. If you want, you can pick up a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview (CTCI), but I'm not sure it's worth it if you aren't applying to other internships this cycle. Honestly I've just used it for questions mostly, and there are plenty of questions on LeetCode.

Just keep positive and study what you can. Let us know how it goes! :)

If I was running an 'Interviewing for PM roles 101' first and foremost I'd go over this article by Ken Norton. It runs the gamut of questions I've had over the course of many interviews and sets expectations around a possible interviewers frame of mind.

For books I have three: Cracking the PM Interview, Swipe to Unlock, and Decode and Conquer. Cracking the PM Interview is a general overview of what PMs do, how to prepare for interviews, and general interview questions. Swipe to Unlock give reasons for why certain PM decisions were made and the strategy behind it. Decode and Conquer has more interview questions, but also sample answers to them and is a bit more technically-focused.

My recommendation is to come up with something you want to build and explore what it would take to do that. For example, what if I was interested in who would win the Oscars? I might use Twitter's Search API and explore which movies come up the most with the hashtag Oscars. What would that take? Well, I would have to integrate with Twitter security so they know it's a valid request, use Twitter's documentation to figure out how to search for terms, and then import that into a data analysis tool to do sentiment analysis. In an interview I discussed what I would build, worked through what features I would want to add, and a roadmap for deployment, which was a fun exercise!

"Hope for the best and prepare for the worst"

As someone who's recently been interviewing for senior level positions, this is probably the best way to sum up my experiences. It's not possible to predict with any certainty how hard the questions will be. Try finding a few topics you're unfamiliar with and diving into a book like this one: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/0984782850

In a perfect world the most optimal way to ace these types of interviews is to ALWAYS be ready... even when you have a job you like, 300 hours from now you could be looking for a new one...

EDIT: Online challenges/prep is an awesome way to go also

• http://codekata.com/
  
• https://leetcode.com/
  
• https://www.hackerrank.com/
  
• https://coderbyte.com/
  
• https://www.codeeval.com/
  
• https://www.codechef.com/
  
• https://www.topcoder.com/

Here's a really good book by someone who used to conduct coding interviews at Microsoft, Amazon, etc.

Cracking the Coding Interview

Still, it's not likely that you'll see the same exact questions on an actual interview. Just practice a lot and get comfortable with solving problems. That will help you when it's time to code on-the-fly at an interview. Also, it's more important to talk through the solutions. Coming up with an innovative, elegant, or efficient solution with pseudocode is more important than getting the syntax exactly right in a particular programming language.

This is something Scott Adams has talked about a lot. In fact, he wrote a book about it.

His main advice is to use systems, not goals. Don’t focus on specific goals. Focus on doing the things you can do day to day that will inevitably result in good things. You will always have some specific things in mind and you may achieve those things, but your happiness doesn’t hinge on it. If you follow a good system you will enjoy long term success one way or another.

You’re also not in the forever unhappy state of never being where you want to be. Goals, by definition, are things that haven’t happened yet. You focus on doing what you can do right here and now so you are constantly winning.

I've found that I gained most of my best experience on the job, and that staying at a job where I wasn't learning anything was a huge mistake and detriment to my career.

That said... I don't think I'm a super genius either. I did well in college and my GPA helped with my first few jobs. But I have lots of hobbies outside of work, and rarely spend my time at home thinking about the office. A lot of times companies aren't looking for the super genius type either... if they were they'd have a hard time filling staffing requirements. I think the keys are learning how to interview well, focusing on letting the interviewer know that you're willing and good at learning and having the basics of OOO down to a T. Come off as confident, even if you don't feel it. It never hurts.

As far as books go, here are some of my favorites:


Programming Interviews Exposed


Programming Pearls


Refactoring



I'm mostly a java programmer, so here are three absolutely necessary java books:


Head First Design Patterns


Core Java 1


Core Java 2 - Advanced

To expand on the above, I would say that you definitely need to learn DS&A before you can get a job. I got lucky getting my first job because they didn't ask me any algorithms questions but trying to find a job is next to impossible if you can't answer their questions on a whiteboard.

Also, practice coding on a whiteboard/paper. I cannot stress this enough. It's amazing how many things you think you know but you realize that your IDE fixes for you/reminds you of. Simple, simple things that make you look completely silly if you don't know them during interviews. Plus, it's just a different process.

It's also quite nerve-wracking to stand in front of a white board and have people watching you write code.....so it's easy for nerves to get in the way as well...

Also, get this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X

There are plenty of other books out there as well...

Good luck!

Contribute to open source. Create something of your own, and contribute to other projects. Since you are basically self taught and you are going for your first gig, conveying to prospective employers that you care about design, testing, and that you are not a cowboy will help. Read and understand books like Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby. Also, don't be a one trick pony. Tackling JavaScript could be a next logical step. Needless to say, all your open source and projects you demonstrate should have good test suites.

Learn about the non-technical stuff as well. I think Land the Tech Job You Love is great, and you probably want to look into Cracking the Coding Interview as a starting point for learning more about algorithms and data structures. Upcase is another great resource for beginning/intermediate Ruby programmers who want to up their game. Start solving challenges on e.g. codewars.com.

I have done a lot of interview prep in the past but would always be interested in keeping my skills sharp. I highly recommend this book it's really the most comprehensive text you can get for any generic coding interview. I am interested in learning but if there is anything I can do to contribute, I would be happy too as well.

If you're serious about going into computer science, I would strongly recommend taking a mathematics course, just to get you thinking logically. (You're going to end up taking 250, but still, it's incredibly helpful)

I'm not going to mention the coursework partly because /u/lordlicorice does a good job already and partly because I'm also a freshman like you, and I can't really advise anything from experience. I'd just suggest reading Introduction to Algorithms, which is a pretty well-known book to get started. I've also picked up Cracking the Coding Interview, just to help with some tech internships I want to get into. (My professor implied sometime back that you should have at least 330 before considering internships, but some of my friends have done some even before 216)

Don't be worried, be glad that you're finding out so early!

I had to figure it out for myself when I was 17. No doctor had even suggested it as a possibility. But I found the diagnosis, and doctors confirmed it. Life got a lot easier after that - having a diagnosis is fantastic.

A diagnosis is not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Nothing is different from the way it was before - the only difference is that y'all are aware of the problem now, and can take steps to make his life easier and more comfortable.

If you (or someone else close to your son) learn as much as you can, and help your son get adequate treatment, he'll be fine.

Also, this is a great book, if you can get a copy. Basically 'Ehlers-Danlos, Hypermobility, for Dummies' :) It covers almost every aspect of hypermobile EDS, how it relates to daily life, how your son can take care of himself, and how doctors can help.

Thank you for the information. I'm going to look through all of it. Also, please remember this is just an interview, not a job offer. I'll know in a week. For those who care, here's a great TED talk about prepping yourself for a nervous situation (like an interview)..

Also, here are the books I am currently waiting to have delivered from Amazon:

• How to Hire A-Players: Finding the Top People for Your Team- Even If You Don't Have a Recruiting Department
  
• Successful Onboarding: Strategies to Unlock Hidden Value Within Your Organization
  
• The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded (I'm intending to reverse engineer this book, to develop a strategy for onboarding)
  
• Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time
  
• Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude

I'm in a similar position. I don't have a huge emergency fund because I know in a real dire emergency I could always call up my parents. I'd rather pay my loans quicker than work for years to build an emergency fund and I have the luxury of that. If you have any kind of safety net like that you might want to do the same.

So here is how I do it:

• Emergency fund (up to a couple months of living expenses)
  
• 401k up to company match (mine doesn't match right now so i skip this)
  
• Student loans (what you can pay over min payment, target high interest loans)
  
• Roth IRA (can only put away 5,500 in this a year)
  
• Short term savings (or apply any extra not used for living expenses to loans or more to 401k if you like)
  
  I think you should throw as much money as you can at the loans without skipping on your 401k and possibly a roth IRA. Those loans are guaranteed to lose you money at their interest rates.
  
  You should also make sure the funds you choose on your 401k are low expense ratios with no loading fees. There is some good info on this in the sidebar.
  
  This book looks a bit cheesy but honestly it spells everything out in simple terms and it's meant for recent grads. I grabbed it off my roommates bookshelf one day and ended up reading it cover to cover. It really re-states much of what anyone on this subreddit would tell you.
  
  Best of luck, sounds like you have a good start on things!

I'm sorry you're going through this. Other commenters have said it'll get better and stuff (which it will!), but below I've linked some resources I've collected over the years for you to use. Hopefully this will help!

1. Cracking The Coding Interview
   
2. Read through this site and this Wiki, really try to understand what it's talking about. Try some simple implementations of the patterns. The main thing with patterns is being able to recognize and apply them. Sometimes in reality they don't look as simple as the nice graphs on the page.
   
3. This is another good article on good API design practices.
   
4. This is a good article on writing Testable code.
   
5. Here are some terms for writing good unit tests, you should Google these and start looking into it: Domain Analysis (Input and Output), Structural Analysis, Unit Test Patterns, Mocks, Test Driven Development.

One of the best things to do is read what other programmers have to say. It opens yourself up to things that you might not normally come across. Schedule a time of the day where you will go on Stackoverflow to answer questions or read answers. Also in that time, read some blogs and any new articles. A few of the websites that I really like:

• Stackoverflow
  
  
• Coding Horror
  
  
• Joel on Software
  
  
• Wolfire Games (especially since you are into game development)
  
  
  Have you caught up reading the classics when it comes to software development? A great list of them can be found here. A few that I have found totally eye opening:
  
  
• The Pragmatic Programmer
  
  
• Programming Interviews Exposed
  
  
• The C Programming Language
  
  Also, have you used any new technology lately to make something cool? Schedule a time everyday (similar to when you read new things) to work on a project no matter what. Close Reddit, close your email, and get programming! Here a few things I had on the top of my head:
  
  
• Try making a web chat using SocketIO for the messaging and Node.js for the backend
  
  
• Ever used a MVC style framework for web development? Try out something simple like Flask then move onto something more complicated with Django.
  
  
• Learn Haskell
  
  
• Learn a dialect of Lisp
  
  Hopefully all of these can give you an idea of how to improve.

I came here to put this same book. This book is crazy, crazy good. It would help to have some knowledge of algorithms and data structures before going in as the examples aren't vast and the information are fairly heavy, but it's a fantastic reference.

I would encourage you to change your thinking from "learning algorithms in Ruby" to "learning algorithms" and then just implementing examples in Ruby. There are a few classic Algorithms book that I'd highly recommend. In addition to The Algorithm Design Manual, Data Structures in C is written in C but fairly generic and gives you the right tools for thinking about performance and algorithms, and Introduction to Algorithms, 3ed is more academic but also stupid inexpensive right now. It's a great learning book as the examples are very detailed. It's aimed at interviewing but Cracking the Coding Interview has a nice short survey of algorithms and data structures too

Can’t recommend this book enough (300 pages):

Cracking the PM Interview: How to Land a Product Manager Job in Technology https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984782818/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_kWKyCb3XHZKFX

“This is Product Management” Podcast: Great material that’s pretty dense with little bullshit. Could easily snag some great management theories and jot them down.

YouTube Nir Eyal. Wrote the book “Hooked: How to Build Habit-forming Products.” He’s a great speaker. Beyond him there are a ton of great YouTube videos of people in product, ProductCon videos might be a start.

Eric Reis blog.

Please tell him that practicing for interviews is an absolute MUST in this field. I have a CS degree (with a high GPA) and 5 years of experience, and even I need to spend a minimum of three weeks full time reviewing and practicing for interviews to do well (potentially longer if I'm also working). These things are very tough, and a totally different beast than anything you experience at school or work. The payoff is amazing if you do this though, as there is such a high demand for people with tech skills. If you can combine those tech skills with great people skills, even better. You just have to put in the hours and endure the pain of jamming algorithms and datastructures into your brain for a few weeks. Interviews are changing in some places to have a more practical focus, but the traditional type of preparation will still be useful. My recommendations:
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
https://www.hackerrank.com/domains/tutorials/cracking-the-coding-interview
Interviewing.io

Getting the first job is the hardest, and if he feels like the person who he is talking with could be a good mentor, it might be the right choice. However, it sounds like he didn't prepare as well as he could have, so he might be eligible for other jobs that are better located. Definitely consider his mental health, though, and don't push him to keep going if he clearly is suffering.

Lots of waffling in that last paragraph there, sorry. I just finished the interview process and accepted a job, so I feel his pain. I was lucky to have several job offers all at once, but I would have been very tempted to stop if I had only received one, even if it wasn't great. It's a grueling process!

> Given a few years, could you teach your mom (or dad) to pass a technical interview at Amazon? How about your best friend from high school?

I'm not sure this is the right question to ask. Technical interviews are notoriously bad at selecting for actual competent software engineers. If you spent years just studying a book like Cracking the Coding Interview, to the point that you had memorized most of the problems and solutions and were able to infer patterns from them, you might be able to pass a technical interview loop. But you probably wouldn't actually be a good software engineer.

But to answer your question, I think it would be very hard to teach this to my parents. They're both smart, but they lack the foundations for for computer science, and they're old enough now that I think it would be pretty hard for them to adjust to the ways of thinking required.

My best friend from high school... also unlikely. That person is not dumb either, but I do think that CS requires, as /u/brberg put it, "a certain way of thinking that may not be teachable." Whether or not it's learnable is another question, but if so I think you have to learn it through practice rather than instruction.

This video is a Google interview example so of course the problem is a bit contrived, but I think it is a decent illustration of the process he is referring to. The guy writes the code out in C++, but you could just as easily write in pseudocode.

Solving the problem by hand and writing a sketch of the algorithm builds intuition and makes the actual code much easier to write. People knock interview prep as being nothing like the job, but I find that it can do a lot to boost general problem solving. CTCI and leetcode are good resources. If you are brand new to programming Codingbat might be useful, but it is really just for the basics.

Thank you! One more suggestion is that you read The Professor Is In by Karen Kelsky, and the earlier the better. Many doctoral students are in the mindset that they are a student in relation to their professors, when actually, they should be in the mindset that they are future colleagues of current professors. They go to class, they complete their assignments, they go home, and think that's it. When actually, they should start thinking of themselves as colleagues, while respecting certain boundaries, as well as network and continuing productivity in the profession. This goes back to the creating knowledge rather than learning knowledge. This book should definitely make you think about the higher education profession as a whole and will make you better prepared.

• programming puzzles and challenges
  
  
• 17 Coding Challenges to Help You Train Your Brain
  
  
• The 10 most popular coding challenge websites of 2016
  
  
• 1000+ Beginner Programming Projects
  
  
• Mega Project List
   
  
  
• Book: Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
  
  
• Android App: Programming Ideas
  
   
  
  That stuff will keep you busy for a while.  Once you're comfortable with the basics and get to a point where working on those kinds of exercises becomes more rote than challenging, try to create your own apps/plugins/libraries from start to finish.  Working on full-scale projects will require you to learn skills that aren't developed as much during exercises & smaller projects, such as: architecture, design patterns, maintainability, testing, best practices, etc.  Even more so if you give yourself a goal to actually publish/release those projects.
   
  A few other ways to develop those skills:
  
  
• create clones of existing apps
  (Yelp, Imgur, Facebook, Trello, etc.)
  
  
• contribute to open-source projects
  
  
• attend MeetUps and/or hackathons
  (you can usually stay informed of hackathons through MeetUp or your local tech event calendar)

Current Microsoft intern here! You've got your first sentence perfectly in order of increasing importance. Since you interned at IBM, I'm assuming you have a decent grasp of data structures and algorithms. If not, you now know where to start!

Do some thinking around your app -- if that's a highlight for you, then it's going to come up. Who was your audience? What was the goal of the app? What were the design choices you made? What could you have done to make it better? faster? more secure? What did you learn?

Go pick up an interview book or two -- I used Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare. If you notice yourself stumbling anywhere (especially the first two-thirds of the chapters), be sure to do some learning around the things giving you trouble.

I wrote about my interview experience at Microsoft, if that interests you. It's also got some links to other people's experiences.

There're these books, with the sort of meta, job/project wisdom I think, being glancingly familiar with them (though I haven't read either, they just look like what you're looking for). For what it's worth they're both well-known developers.

97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts

And -

Chad Fowler's "The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development"

Good news! Very few people code well in interviews, from what I've heard. Boneheaded mistakes are practically expected. Ask lots of questions about the problem--it'll give you more time to think and it'll make it clear that you're trying to figure out exactly what they're asking.

Amazon interviews are just like most technical interviews, in my experience. A FANTASTIC book to prep for interviews with is Programming Interviews Exposed. It goes over a lot of the data structures and common types of problems you'll get in interviews. It's great for day-of refreshers, or for going through more in-depth. HIGHLY recommend it!

I would also recommend checking out the book Insider's Guide to Graduate Programs in Clinical and Counseling Psychology to help you get more information. This book will describe differences between PsyD and related programs and will provide the average GPAs of different programs so you can get a sense of what to shoot for. In addition, there is also a nice section toward the beginning of the book that describes what programs are looking for in addition to good GPAs and GRE scores. It's not just about getting good grades, so if you decide you want to go for a psych major, you will want to know what else to do besides doing well in psych classes. Good luck!

Do you have evidence of what you're capable of? (Contributions on Github, a website, a portfolio, published researched papers, etc.) If they have an idea of what you can do before you start the interview, that'll help them a) tailor questions to your skill set and experience, and b) understand that you do know what you're doing.

I've seen Cracking the Coding Interview recommended on this subreddit quite a few times - the author probably has much better advice than anything I can think of. :) Best of luck.

If you get high marks (3.7+) it's not really that hard to get an internship as a freshman. Just be prepared to deal with a ton of reject. But you will get one. Doing your own projects is the real winner, but if you are sufficiently charismatic you can talk your way into research or take some project based courses at ACCAD. Obviously don't bullshit--just show off how passionate you and that you can learn (nobody expects you to already know). I did the research route but a friend of mine went ACCAD and got a much better internship than I did.

If you are planning on going for one of the very selective internships (Google freshman engineering practicum/Microsoft explorer etc) then you should probably buy yourself a copy of Cracking the Coding Interview and just do them all. High rank on TopCoder will also help. Go to a lot of hackathons if you want to get really into the tech atmosphere (but you may just not like it that much).

https://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compassionate-Conservatism/dp/0465008232

Below is a link to one of the bigger studies that is often cited. I don't think it does justice to the full weight of the evidence and aggregated research that Brooks' book provides, but I do want to provide something to easily read for free:

https://www.philanthropy.com/interactives/how-america-gives#advanced

I've never seen a single study that has ever shown the opposite to be true, but I'd be open to reading what anyone knows about and can provide a link to. Again I want to help change OP's mind, but not based on false premises. I'm open to my mind being changed too!

I need a little more information.

3.78 is a decent GPA, double major is unique. Do you have GRE scores? How many years of research experience will you have when you apply? It sounds like you don't have any research experience yet. Working in a social lab and a child lab, will you get experience in your areas of interest? Sexual victimization and eating disorders do have some overlap but they can also be very different lines of research.

As to your first question, the important thing to consider when applying to clinical psychology phd program is not "safety, maybe, reach" school but your research match with professors. You need to have defined research interests and pick out faculty to do research in these areas.

First thing you should do: get this book http://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Graduate-Programs-Counseling-Psychology/dp/1609189329

It's an amazing resource and it was my bible when I was applying to clinical psychology graduate programs. Get it, read it, love it.

I have ADD too, it may take you longer to learn programming than some other people and that is ok. I highly recommend Vyvanse if you can afford it, if not I would ask your doctor about Adderal. Write down your programming goals and proactively minimize distractions. If you get too distracted programming at home, go to the library, put on some headphones and listen to Bach. Writing things down helps a lot, keep a notes.txt or goals.txt on your desktop and keep them open. Look into ways to manage your time better. There is tons of help out there on the internet. I also recommend the book Pragmatic Thinking & Learning (http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Thinking-Learning-Refactor-Programmers/dp/1934356050)

Good Luck, remember programming is something you have to work on your whole life and each day you just get a little bit better.

After looking at your post history, it seems you're a 2nd year majoring in stats? I would just continue on the path you're currently on- best case scenario, do as many 300 / 400 CPSC courses for your electives that you can. Worst case scenario, try the BCS program after you've graduated.

I completed a 5 year CS degree with 16 months of co-op experience and a ~90ish average in CS courses and have been working in the industry for about 3 years. Here is the breakdown of where I learned how to develop:

1. 10% CS degree (and this is just me being very generous- admittedly I wasted class time by sleeping but I completed most assignments accurately and studied intensely for all of the exams)
   
   
2. 5% co-op (got unlucky with my internships)
   
   
3. 60% work experience
   
   
4. 15% self learning (through textbooks, reading blogs, research)
   
   I totally understand how anxious people would feel after getting rejected from CS but it's honestly not the end of the world. If you're willing to put in the effort, there are so many free resources out there that will help you learn how to develop. I assume you're done with 110/121/210... here are some resources that really helped me out:
   
   Code complete 2 - one of the best coding textbooks I've ever read... released for free: http://aroma.vn/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/code-complete-2nd-edition-v413hav.pdf
   
   Practicing for interviews (not taught in school) - https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
   
   Learn the fundamentals of javascript... then learn typescript / react / whatever flavour of JS you hear about becoming popular... here's some site I found after 2 minutes of looking but I'm sure there are much better ones: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/an-introduction-to-object-oriented-programming-in-javascript-8900124e316a
   
   If you're really worried that your stats degree might hold you back... fill out your resume with hack-a-thons and side projects and apply for CS internships. Email recruiters directly if you don't hear responses from normal application processes. When building your resume, start with the CS stuff and leave the major at the end... make sure that if a human ever reads your resume, they'll be reading about how much you've learned about development on your own rather than which major you happen to earn your degree in.
   
   

"Programming Interviews Exposed" suggested by Kaelin is pretty helpful. Personally for me, Cracking coding interviews was extremely helpful. I highly recommend it. Read from the beginning, even the chapters before the technical questions. For technical questions, only once you are satisfied with the solution you come up with or when you have spent enough time trying to solve it, look at the solutions.

I would also suggest looking for questions online and then try to solve them. Again, avoid looking at the solutions as much as possible.

It would help to identify what point you made it in the recruiting process.



Recruiting Step | If you didn't make it here...
---|---
Company Reads your resume | Apply to lots of companies, network (tell everyone you're looking for an internship), and attend recruiting events / career fairs
Company invites you to initial interview | Polish your resume / cover letter
Company invites you to follow-up interview | Improve your interviewing skills
Company offers you an internship | Improve your interviewing skills

Improving your interviewing skills includes learning how to communicate, but more especially for CS related interviews it includes learning how to complete those coding style questions you'll be asked. This book might assist with coding questions.

The few times I have been asked by my employer to participate in recruiting I mostly looked for candidates who correctly knew how to use data structures, understood Big O notation and correctly analyzed their code using it, and also clearly explained what they were doing as they were solving the problem. Candidates were less desirable when they sat there silently not explaining their thoughts to me or writing a really convoluted solution that completely ignores well known data-structures / algorithms (even though we told them they were welcome to use any that they knew).

Not an engineer, but a technical marketer. We get these types of interview questions too. It feels like I'm taking a math quiz and the interviewers are scrutinizing the way I'm holding the expo marker.

You can't avoid these situations in all cases, but if you practice enough at home, I'm sure you can make up for any "dings" in the whiteboarding portion of the interview by offering up code samples via your GitHub, portfolio etc.

This book has been recommended to me many times: http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X. The way the author thinks through the problems has been really helpful for me, even in non-coding interviews.

Good luck!

Go to class, visit the career fair every year (or twice if your college does it), have a resume, do projects, DO INTERNSHIPS.

The future is bright for us CS guys, my friend. Just gotta get out there. :)

And read this book. Best money I spent at college. Wish I had it sooner!

While it's a good idea to know a basic idea of what data structures there are, Programming Interviews Exposed was super helpful in reviewing important concepts as well as prepare me for my interviews. Honestly, I didn't learn my data structures properly the first time around for interviews, and that book and Cracking the Coding Interview were immensely useful for both algorithms and data structures.

Some books that could help you practice algorithms and coding challenges are:

1. Elements of Programming Interviews
   
   
2. The Algorithm Design Manual
   
   
3. Cracking the Coding Interview
   
   If you want some actual practice solving challenges with some guidance and/or help, I'd recommend Coderbyte which provides solutions to the problems along with the ability to view other user solutions so you can learn how others solve the same challenges. This article might help you find some other coding challenge websites as well.

Self taught professional software engineer here.

Which language you learn is not as important as learning about data structures and complexity analysis. Code organization is also very important.

Pick one high level scripting language (like Python, Ruby, Perl, etc) and one low level systems language (C, C++, Rust, etc) and learn them both inside out.

A couple of books I recommend:

• Code Complete
  
• SICP
  
  As far as practical skills go, you need to learn how to use git (or whatever VC system the companies you are interested in use). You need to learn how to use Unix systems. A great introduction is The UNIX Programming Environment. You need to learn how to read other peoples' code, open source projects are great for that.
  
  When you are getting ready to interview, there is no better resource than Cracking the Coding Interview.

Heh :-)

In fact, I still put off things. Though they explain why that is, and that's very important I think, so you don't get frustrated because you're suddenly supposed to be a high-achiever (at least by your own unrealistic expectations).

Habits get ingrained more and more over time. They use the analogy of a slope in the winter. When you slide down you carve out a little path, then another. Over time though, you carve out one path the most and you're less likely to take another route. You don't get rid of procrastination by reading a silly book. You gain awareness though and are given the tools/techniques to battle it, which takes time and effort. But I already notice that the discomfort I feel when putting something off has lessened quite a bit. That alone makes it more likely for me to follow through.

While we're in that new-agey mood I'd also like to recommend mindfulness meditation to my fellow hackers. I first heard about it in Pragmatic Thinking and Learning where it was suggested as a way to increase concentration. When I glimpsed a little bit through the procrastination book, I noticed that they recommend mindfulness as well in a later chapter. Mindfulness meditation, to me, really seems to be a magic bullet. One that works. :-)

If you read this and think it's bullshit, feel free to voice your opinion. Maybe we can sort out some misunderstandings.

When meditation is discussed I have the feeling that to some people it seems to be a wishy-washy esoteric practice. It is not. I have avoided it for a while for that concern, but it turned out to be very helpful in quieting the mind and gaining focus. The problem here also is: meditation is an active process (you don't just sit around doing nothing) AND it needs practice. Now we're back to that procrastination thing. ;-) It sucks when you put something off that you know is helpful to you and only takes 15-30 minutes (or how long you decide to practice).

A great GPA (3.8+) will take you far. Also, put some webdesign-related projects on your resume!

If you can, go to a career fair. Be friendly, be prepared, and follow up with thank you e-mails.

I'm not sure how interviews for UI people go. If companies give technical interviews, I recommend you buy and review one or both of the following:

I recommend: Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job

And:
Cracking the Coding Interview, Fourth Edition: 150 Programming Interview Questions and Solutions

If not, I'm not sure. Sorry.

One of the best investments I ever made was buying Cracking the Coding Interview, written by Gayle Laakmann McDowell. It was the required text book for my Data structures and Algorithms course when I was doing my undergrad. It’s useful for 2 reasons: it does a really good job of teaching basics of data structures and algorithms, as well as Big O, and it’s also a great roadmap for applying to and interviewing at tech companies. Link for amazon: Cracking the Coding Interview

Glad to see that you're getting these things covered! That illustrated book on algorithms looks really lovely and seems like a great way to wrap your head around the important concepts.

I can't personally recommend any online course on these topics since I covered these in college, however I can definitely recommend this book.

You might want to dive into it after you have some decent knowledge of data structures and algos. As you work through the problems you can fill out any gaps in your knowledge and look up the info online.

hmm... As for me, i saw a lot of tech companies requiring the knowledge of c++, java and front-end development.
You could also learn either iOS development or Android development.
You definitely need to learn git.

Try "TeamTreeHouse" for 2-3 months, they have a lot of stuff there. Try some of the courses and then create some projects and put them on github to later on add to your resume.

And also, during interview when they give you some technical questions, you need to be ready for them.
https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X

Here is the good book for it.


GOod luck :)
Try to find a job and if you dont, try to learn as much as you can during this summer :)

Sorry to hear, recently went through the recruiting process. You can read this book, super helpful and should finish in a day or two

https://www.amazon.com/2-Hour-Job-Search-Technology-Faster/dp/1607741709

Update your resume first thing, format: task, people, result. Can help review if you DM me

Create a spreadsheet of people you can reach out to, get names on Linkedin, guess email format (i.e.: firstname.lastname@firmname.com), send cold email:

"Hello [name],

My name is [name], I am a [your Marketing job title]. I am interested in getting into [job applying to] with a strong interest in [firm name]. Would you have 15 / 30' to chat about your work in the next 2 weeks? Would love to hop on a call / buy you a coffee to learn more about your experience recruiting or any advice you might have.

Understand your schedule can get busy but would really appreciate any of your time.

Look forward to chat soon"

50 - 80% of the time people will respond, especially alum from school / anyone have something similar to your background

90% of those should convert to first round interview

Do 2 - 3 months of this talking to 30 - 60 companies should land you any job you like

Seconding The Pragmatic Programmer and Cracking the Coding Interview. I'd also recommend:

• Code Complete: verbose and somewhat self-congratulatory, but extremely good.
  
• The Mythical Man-Month: a little dated and weirdly religious at times, but has great insights into how software problems are actually people problems and how large projects are (mis)managed.
  
• Design Patterns: a.k.a. the Gang of Four book. This one's a classic.
  
• Pro Git: you mentioned version control systems. IMHO, you should learn Git if you don't know it, and this book is a great resource.
  
  If you let us know which languages you primarily write, I can probably recommend some good language-specific titles, too.

As anyone working in tech will tell you, landing a job/internship can be attributed to some combination of past work, interview practice and luck.

Some good resources for interview practice are https://www.hackerrank.com/ and https://coderbyte.com/. There's also Cracking the Coding Interview, which is a must have for any technical interview prep.

To find a side project to work on, I would suggest trying to solve a small problem you have in your daily life with software. For example, maybe you want to brush your teeth for longer, or remember to do something everyday. A project like this will allow you to both write actual code, but also talk about your process with deeper understanding to interviewers.

Besides that, there are other great online resources that can help you learn more nuanced aspects of software engineering like https://egghead.io or https://doyen.app.

I wish I could have done double degree/major at my university. I could have taken CS courses but curriculum structure between CE/CS was too big of a difference... Needing a ton of pre-requisitions that I did not have in CS. And department wasn't willing to give me an override (yay overpopulation).

And my CE is mostly hardware focused albeit it is being advertised as CS+EE. And hardware as in... mostly non-computer related. Quantum physics in circuits, microelectronics, etc etc. I'd consider those as more of EE with electrophysics concentration. And you'd be surprised how many low-level embedded programming classes we have.... three. Two of those three aren't scheduled to be offered in the next five years, including previous 3 years, due to budget cuts. So basically one. Every semester we were promised more CE courses would be offered.... except more CE courses were cancelled instead.

Any particular book you would recommend? I'm currently reading through this book and it is helping me a lot.

And congrats on your offers!

Here are the resources that I have used in the past. These are the type of questions that the large bay area software companies ask during phone screens and on site interviews. I've interviewed at a number of these companies and currently work for one of them. They all do similar things both in terms of the coding questions they ask as well as the overall interview process. I've never interviewed for a start up or any other sort of company, so I cannot speak to how it's done outside of large software companies on the west coast.

The following book, Cracking the Coding Interview, is great. Some companies use questions straight out of this thing. Others will ask one of these questions with a little twist.

http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X

Either of these sites are good resources for actually writing code. Some of the challenges on Hackerrank are harder than you'll probably ever encounter in an interview, though it's worth noting that I've been asked a couple of the problems marked as hard on OJ Leetcode during onsite interviews (I recall LRU cache and a dynamic programming version of text justification specifically).

https://oj.leetcode.com/problems/

http://hackerrank.com/


For general stuff you need to know, this blog post about how to prepare for an interview at Google is a good resource. Jump down to the Tech Prep Tips for the relevant stuff, or just read the whole thing, it's a good read.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html

I can only recommend bootcamps for 2 types of people:

• Someone with a CS degree 10 years ago and needs to update skills quickly, changing cities, or going back into tech a career
  
• Someone who cannot commit to a 2-4 year degree program due to family, financial or other commitments
  
  But for the rest, I think you're better served biting the bullet and going back to school for an actual diploma or degree program.
  
  For what a bootcamp provides, I think it's really expensive ($8600-9000 over 2-3 months). Ironically, the appeal of a bootcamp is also the main flaw of a bootcamp: time. For people who have no tech background (which is the main target demographic of bootcamps), you're essentially cramming all these tech concepts, languages and frameworks in 2-3 months. Are you going to retain all of this information 6 months later?
  
  When you graduate from a bootcamp, you're competing with CS graduates, diploma students who had years to hone their skills. Give yourself an honest assessment and ask how you'll do against them?
  
  I highly recommend going through a book called: Cracking the Coding Interview
  
  These are the type of questions that the top companies will ask. Good luck with your pursuit!
  
  

I can address a couple points from the perspective of a new-grad software engineer in the Silicon Valley with a lot of internship experience.

Having no experience hurts you regardless of your age or school status. I'd recommend actually finishing some personal projects so you have something to show and talk about in an interview.

Charm and enthusiasm are important for CS interviews, but less so than in softer fields. They can easily test your programming strength in an hour interview, unlike with many other professional skills. In a CS interview they are going to want to get an idea about your actual CS abilities.They'll ask questions about algorithm complexity and design and will probably have you do some coding on the whiteboard. I'd recommend reading a book like Cracking the Coding Interview and working through every single exercise in the book.

> I'll also make sure I have the necessary skills before even considering interviewing and preparing more when I do.

No. Interview often and for jobs that might not even fit your skillset. If the company grants you an interview based on your (honest) resume, then they think you have at least a chance at getting the job. But more importantly, it will give you more confidence and make you more comfortable in those intimidating situations.

I got by BS in compsci last year and have been working at an ok company since then. I interviewed about every other month that whole time with other companies, some I didn't even care about. But I just got an offer from one of the Big 5 this week and I think a lot of my success came from interviewing often and becoming comfortable with that situation. Also, Cracking the Coding Interview helped with a lot of the preparation. Knowing what to expect from these types of interviews and preparing for that scenario is a big confidence-booster.

Also, as a side note, what school did you get your degree from that you hadn't heard of the modulus operator before?

I learned binary trees, linked list, and hash tables as a sophomore in high school. It was rare back then, but we had a pretty awesome CS department. I would check this book out. It has a lot of zany, non real world problems that may come up in an interview. Plus, it's kind of fun (imo). I don't do rails, but I think the logic is applicable in any language.

http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Edition/dp/0984782850

Edit: I just read the preview on amazon. It has been a while since I read this book. Buy it. It covers a good amount of data structures, algorithmic run-time complexities, bit manipulation, and all kinds of good stuff.

I'm on my phone, but when I get home I'll link some more stuff for you

Four words, one book: Cracking the Coding Interview

Seriously, it’s the shit. It’s widely recommended because it’s just that good.

Keep applying, keep interviewing, keep studying. I too was worried about throwing away my chances with companies if I interview before I study enough to be 100% prepared but the fact is your first few will probably be throw aways anyway as you learn about how technical interviews go. By your third or forth you’ll be much more comfortable and there are tons of great companies out there, so worry not!

Practice whiteboarding (solving technical problems on a whiteboard). Try to read Cracking the Coding interview . If you look online you might find a pdf version.

General tips for the interview:

• If you get asked a really simple question, don't be cocky or overconfident. Answer it professionally like any other question. This is often a personality test to see how you react when speaking to non technical people.
  
  
• If you get asked an insanely hard quesiton, relax. Sometimes these questions are not about the answers, but about how you react to a difficult problem and under stress. Take a deep breath and make it a convesation with the interview. Talk out loud about possible solutions, even if you are not sure explain what you are thinking and how you would use your resources (books, google etc) to solve it.
  
  
• If you don't know something (like a technical quesiton "explain templates in C++" ) just be honest and say you're not sure but will look it up. Don't try to BS.
  
  
• Be positive about everything, it's ok to have opinions, but don't bad mouth technologies or coding styles, even if the interviewer does. Just explain why you don't like (whatever) in a polite way. Being too much of a downer can impact an interview. I once interviewed a guy who hated everything. "Angular? Stupid/dead, react? A fad stupid, Ruby on Rails? Hipster crap". He was super smart but didn't et the job because no one wanted to work with someone as negative as him. Oh when I asked him point blank "so what is good code?" his response "code I write". This is problematic also because it tells me he wants to reinvent the wheel for everything instead of solving a business need.
  
  
• Be nice to everyone, receptionists, people you walk by in the hallway, interviewers, janitors, doormen. Anyone you interact with. We regularly ask everyone who interacted with a candidate their thoughts and we have turned down people because they were rude.
  
  
• Practice solving problems on codewars or codingbat, just be ready to answer technical quetions.
  
  To be clear, I don't work for HP but I do work for a large tech company and I'm on a hiring panel. Good luck!

Make sure you can whiteboard all the easiest questions from this book: http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X

But do so in a way where you are not memorizing answers but instead learning the concepts and the problem solving techniques. A side benefit is you will almost certainly write better code and find more elegant/performant solutions at your current job as well.

This book is what I used to find programs, it has some Canadian programs, from what I understand, and is pretty well-organized. It also has overall tips on the application process, and was really helpful for me. As a disclaimer I'm not related to the author/publishing company, I just found it to be pretty solid. Good luck!

Well, I would say you should try to work your way through this: http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
The other thing you might want to do is find a personal project you're interested in and contribute/complete it. When you work on your project you would be able to brush up on your skills and have something to talk about in your interview. As far as tutorials go, you could try Coursera, Udemy, or MIT's open courseware. If you have any of your projects or textbooks from school you could look over those and try to "improve" your work if possible. I'm new to this sub but have been visiting daily for a quite a while and I think these things would all be something to look into. You might also want to look into finding an internship where the pressure might not be as high and the compensation won't be as high as if you were full time but you'd get some experience and if you do a good job you might get an offer at the end of your tenure. Best of luck!

I went through the Google interview process not too long ago. Here's my recommendations:

• Don't focus all of your effort on one concept. You will have at least four different types of problems and there is no guarantee that DP will apply. While this is an anecdotal n=1 observation, I did not have any DP problems. You should still look into DP so that you may better understand where to apply it and the basics of applying it, but don't neglect other areas (graphs for example).
  
• Grab cracking the coding interview and practice on a white board. I used a small travel whiteboard that you can get on amazon for ~$6.00. (Though, based on the reviews, I also grabbed some better markers.)
  
• Practice easy questions to warm up, then give yourself 30-40 minutes to solve the more challenging questions.
  
• Don't focus on memorizing the exact implementation of different algorithms. Know their basic flow and different places to optimize, but more importantly know where to apply them and what their complexity is.
  
• Remember to talk through the problem before solving it. Your interviewer will often give you some indication of whether or not it's the solution they want to see. When actually writing the code, don't feel obligated to explain every line as you're writing it. If you feel like you're making a good decision, explain what it is and why in a sentence or two, but otherwise focus on getting your thoughts on the board. You should explain your solution at some point, but unless they ask questions about it, don't feel obligated to talk while you write.
  
• Don't try to solve every part of the problem at once. If you hit something you're not sure how to solve, call a function that does not yet exist and tell them you'll come back to its implementation.
  
• You mentioned being able to solve things in 23 minutes. I don't think that really applies. Some interviewers will give you one hard problem which may be optimized several ways. They will expect you to implement a solution and spend the rest of the time optimizing it. Other interviewers will give you perhaps 4 problems, but all of them are inter-related and earlier solutions to problems are used as components to later problems. You may also be given one or two small warm up problems before a larger problem. However, it is unlikely that you will be given two very different and complex problems and have 23 minutes to complete each one. Furthermore, completing every problem isn't a requirement. Demonstrating good problem solving skills is. Don't focus on a specific amount of time, focus on the problem solving process. This is also true because it will take you less time to solve the problems in the interview because of guidance from your interviewer.

Just to give you a peace of mind, I'm gonna share that I'm utter shit too. I have almost 20 years of experience and working at a huge worldwide company. I have conducted more than a hundred interviews myself and yet, if I apply to somewhere I can't write a simple parsing script in a coding interview.

Some of us just wired this way. Also interviews are like a date. It is equally up to chemistry and luck along with correct answers to questions if you get the job.

To be useful too, a few links. Check out this for inspiration:
https://rejected.us/

The best book to get an IT job:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Programming/dp/0984782850

Can't say I'm surprised with that answer.

I'm going to suggest three things, all of which will require work, although not necessarily more credentials, although they'll help.

• Community college physics instructor. You'll likely have to do a masters in physics. The students will be (at least somewhat) interested since they're there by choice. You won't have any of the 'restoring order' problems. Having said that, it doesn't pay too well. However, the Masters might lead to other good places.
  
  
• Learn a little about data science / machine learning. This course is fantastic: https://www.coursera.org/course/ml. If you think you'd enjoy that, the pay can be great. You'll need to work hard though and it's mentally challenging.
  
  
• Get into programming. Pay is really variable depending on the skills you need. I would do this on my own without a formal class. If you do well in an interview you can get a job. If you can kill this (http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X/) you can get a really good job.
  
  Be prepared to move no matter what you do.

If you're curious about what to read, read this:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Fail-Almost-Everything-Still/dp/1491518855

He's an odd dude, but he has amazing insights you will carry with you all the same, and they will help you be successful.

To me it sounds like you want to explore product management.

Check out this book:
Cracking the PM Interview

It has a chapter on transitioning into the role from a developer, why technical experience is vital and whether or not you actually need an MBA. It won't have all of the answers but it sounds like it's asking the same types of questions that you are interested in. Hopefully it gives you a better perspective on the role and whether or not you'd really like to pursue that world.

He is most commonly known as the creator of the comic strip "Dilbert" but he is much more complex. Recently he has gained notoriety for being one of the only people to correctly predict Trump's victory in the 2016 election based upon Trump's masterful powers of "persuasion". He is a pretty smart dude. I highly recommend his blog and also his book.

This book is an absolute must read for humanities and social science students, maybe useful for others as well: The Professor Is In by Karen Kelsky. It’s all about how to prepare yourself and navigate this hellish job market.

I think of tenure track professors as approaching something like professional athletes or artists at this point. You have to be both exceptionally talented and determined to make it, and even then may need a bit of luck. Know what you’re getting into, and only bother if you’re ready to give it 100%.

I think the best way if you really want to get into the tech filed is by reading this book https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850. I would also learn algorithms to allow to at least get a better shot into a entry level coding job. Also check out local tech meetups and see what they are doing sometimes there are job openings and you can directly talk to employers there. Good Luck!