Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Anything to do with the traditional world of get a degree, get a job as well as its alternatives
AnalyticalEngine
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Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

recal wrote:
Mon Aug 22, 2022 10:29 am
That's a good theory, but I'd simply say it comes down to like wanting to be around like...If there's already 6 25 year old men, they're more comfortable around other 25 year old men -- the "beer test" (would I get a beer with this person?) is often what it comes down to when everyone you've interviewed is pretty much the same level of competency.
This has been my experience as well, at least for the gender gap. I think the age gap is also influenced by the fact basic SWE skills cap out at about 5-10 years of experience, so it's cheaper to hire new grads for $70k than pay senior devs $150k. Most places I've worked have one experienced engineer solving all the problems into bite sized pieces for the multiple new hires to solve.

But perhaps one positive bias of tech is that because it pays a lot, people get in and cash out? Maybe they aren't as many people over the age of 40 because everyone's cashed out and FIREd. :lol: I can't imagine wanting to stay in this career after you've cashed out. SWE gets major Groundhog Day syndrome.

mathiverse
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Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by mathiverse »

jacob wrote: r-selection focus:
quantity of individual life, high turnover (many young people, risk), competitive (wars, famine), simple, high discount of the future

k-selection focus:
quality of individual life, low turnover of life (many old people, focus on safety), collaborative (lots of rules and laws, lack of freedom), complex (long educations), low discount of the future

eusocial:
super-organism (the individual doesn't matter---specifically, individuals don't think of themselves as individuals), sacrificial (individuals die/work for the good of the whole), inherent (either genetic or deeply cultural), no discount of the future
jacob wrote: K-strategies tend to favor/admire age (old people). Being old is considered an achievement. I think this is because in a mature/stable/complex society, age correlates to wisdom which is useful.

r-strategies to admire/favor youth. Being young in a growing/unstable/simple society means having more energy to work and fight. Wisdom is not required since it rapidly becomes useless due to change.
I was reading the above quoted thread and it reminded me of this discussion about ageism in tech.

I think there are employers using r-selection and others using k-selection. There are even subpopulations within a given company that skew toward k-strategies over r-strategies. For example, at one big tech company, the low level system software teams skew older, value long experience in the specific area of technology, specifically hire to train younger engineers over the course of a few years in order to make them competent in their subfield of software engineering, and they focus a lot of retention (compared to other parts of the company). On the other hand, there are *a lot* of teams at the company that skew very young and seem to be using r-strategies (hire young, work them hard, turnover doesn't matter so much). This makes sense because low level systems software is a more stable, complex, and mature area of work where useful wisdom can be developed over time. In contrast, a lot of the generic backend or frontend work has been rapidly changing (especially the higher you go in the stack), so being able to "work" more gives an advantage since there isn't much wisdom to be developed over the course of the two years the technology has been in use.

A recommendation that might fall out of this is to choose a specialty that is k-selected in order to have a better chance at avoiding ageism.

recal
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Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by recal »

mathiverse wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:50 pm
A recommendation that might fall out of this is to choose a specialty that is k-selected in order to have a better chance at avoiding ageism.
Agree, although ime those positions are locked by college degree requirements. I think the best option for ERE is to skip college and go through with the ageism since you'll retire around 30 anyway.

zbigi
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Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by zbigi »

I had similar thoughts as well. Unfortunately, the deep and mature areas of software development tend to pay less and have less opportunities (and higher bariers of entry). This doesn't matter as much if someone is looking for a career for life, but if someone explicitly wants to FIRE, then it's better to go through the monkey world of backend development.

mathiverse
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Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by mathiverse »

They aren't locked by a college degree in my experience. I'm saying that so anyone who doesn't have a college degree, but would like one of those positions knows they can probably hustle and get one. (Potentially via starting in an r-selected position and going from there. Eg 1: get an r-selected position at mentioned tech company and switch to a k-selected team as soon as you can or 2: get an r-selected position at any company and switch to a k-selected company/team once you can actually get interviews for those companies due to experience, or 3: ... [exercise for the reader])

These positions also don't always pay less in my experience.

Smashter
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Location: Midwest USA

Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by Smashter »

Viktor K's first journal should be of interest: viewtopic.php?p=156761#p156761

I believe that linked post is where he first mentions starting an online coding class. And I think he was a teacher before that, or maybe a tutor? Now he makes big bucks working 2 software engineering jobs at once, if I recall 8-)

Good luck with everything!

zbigi
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Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by zbigi »

mathiverse wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:19 pm
These positions also don't always pay less in my experience.
Yeah, in the US (and potentially China now?) there's a real tech industry, and people develop guts of real hardcore technologies there. I imagine these jobs often pay a lot, especially at FANG, Microsoft etc. In the rest of the world, though - forget about it. There's hardly any tech industry, and we're mostly doing internal systems for insurance companies, yogurt factories etc. Hence, there's little need for people who can do the hard stuff, and companies don't have to pay that much for this skillset. So, far example, a compiler or kernel engineer in Europe will usually make much less than a regular backend engineer, and often will have to move for the job (vs. having the option of going full remote). The only major exception could be working in coding HFT (High-Frequency Trading), where the money can be great but the move to London is still required though.

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RFS
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Re: Advice for a soon-to-be bootcamp grad (Python coding)

Post by RFS »

Hi everyone! THANK YOU for all the replies!

I graduated from the bootcamp and decided to specialize in CyberSecurity. I spent one year completing BowTiedCyber's roadmap, which lead to a CyberSecurity Analyst job offer in October. It was fully in-office and paid $56k/yr. I declined it.

To maximize my chances of working remotely, I looked for roles that combined client-facing and technical skills (like Technical Account Manager, Sales Engineer, Solutions Engineer, etc.) I was recently hired as a Sales Engineer. It is remote with some travel each quarter, $100k+ OTE.

Again, thank you for the thoughtful replies. It's hard to put into words how helpful this forum has been to me. I appreciate you all so much!

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