I am a Bad Software Engineer | Prime Reacts

I am a bad software developer this is my life five foot seven energy here we go uh you don't want that energy over the past four months I've been focusing on self-discovery this journey began seven months ago when I was employed at a job that didn't make me happy but I couldn't pinpoint why when a friend recommended a job that dub that offered double my current salary and the opportunity to work with open source software I jumped at it however I soon realized that I was not a skilled software developer hmm doubling the salary getting that Suite open so by the way open software like everyone there is this weird notion in the software developer world that working in open source is like romantic it's lovely it's something that's just incredible it it is really hard working an open source is really really hard and it's not fun it is just not fun uh people people think it's going to be amazing dude it is not fun at all after working for three months at this new job I discovered an internal political struggle at the company that I wasn't interested in dealing with although I was neither happy nor unhappy I found the job unchallenging and uninteresting as a result I decided to take some time off to reevaluate re-evaluate my life that's good I mean I think there's something that's good about this uh there's also obviously there's there's a lot of like just having kids having this kind of life living the remote life and all that uh just being able to be like I'm just gonna take some months off and ReDiscover my my uh my internals like I just don't even have that privilege I do think that this one thing that kids are really wonderful for is they give you a new Drive in your life that lives outside of this like self-feeling kind of world right like I just don't have a choice I gotta work hard and I gotta be great at my job and if something were to happen to it I'd have to find a new one and be very very proactive about it it does there is definitely a hint of like depression slash unhappiness something unfulfilling that's going on here and it doesn't sound like it's about coding uh to ensure that my family's financial situation was not at uh put at risk I plan to buy sabbatical carefully that's good I paid off my debts and had enough savings to take four or five main break from work I created a cash flow spreadsheet and a budget and a plan to take off two months completely spend one month interviewing and keep the fourth month as a buffer in case interviewing process took longer than expected that's good I mean at least he planned he's a good planner sounds like a very responsible person also sounds like every engineer I've ever met I'm gonna go do something let me get out the spreadsheets let me just calculator I made a graph honey and he's like what are you doing stop making crabs I've had a crap here we go you know it's just like all right that's me every single time every time I do anything I'm just like at the end of the day if it cannot materialize into a spreadsheet graph I have not exceeded I have not exceeded or succeeded currently I am the let's say I'm in the fourth month and I've already interviewed with nearly 10 companies however I've not received any job offers and I've struggled with technical interviews as a programmer I had always considered myself to be skilled but the current hiring practices in the industry have made it difficult for me to be confident in my abilities this is a strange statement honestly like to me when I read this this is a really strange statement because I feel like right now out of all times in our software engineering World it feels like interviews are the easiest they've ever been and what I mean by that is that 10 years ago when I would interview it was like I need you to do uh I need you to do a binary search right away I need you to be able to do like I would go and it was just like pure technical really drilling into all these things like it was very very very technical and I feel like the last few interviews I've been doing is much like the technical difference is way way way way way different and so I definitely feel like it's um like I feel like if you've done it before you should be able to do it today you know what I mean and plus yeah you know it's just I feel like you can do it perhaps you had some bad fits you know like the thing is also 10 interviews it's a relatively small amount of interviews if you're really if you're really trying to uh you know interview you you and you really really want a job I mean honestly 50 is a much better fit and after 10 you really feel like you know for me it always takes three interviews to get into the interview world you know what I mean I've been doing it a long time love from Syria hey love you too buddy uh but like for me it's like 10 or three interviews and I start feeling back to like my interviewing self or if I'm interviewing at my job a lot I feel in the zone for interviews but I have to be doing it for a bit for me to kind of get back into that zone it just takes a little bit it's like it's a definitely a non-trivial thing having received numerous rejections and only making it past the first technical interview twice it's hard not to question the validity of the hiring system well I can continue to practice and contribute to open source software rarely the lack of success is taking a toll despite my efforts to improve I still find it challenging to sell myself during the conversations which uh let's see which I attribute to my difficulty in relating to people this is a very interesting take because I'm not sure how I feel about it I I'm definitely having mixed emotions especially with this uh you know with this sentence like hey I've been rejected I feel like the system isn't set up well for me when I hear those kind of things I feel like this is like being upset at the thing because of something that's happening to yourself but at the same time like I understand like hiring for technical stuff it's never been great like we've never had a good system can we all agree that there's not a good system right now like I don't know if there could be a better system that's the thing is I don't know if there's a better system you're making a one-hour decision about how someone's going to perform in a multi-million line code base like that's just a hard decision to make and this guy has a it sounds like he has open source software like commits and everything it feels it feels like this I mean this should be getting him through the door I I mean maybe he's not maybe like he said he has difficulty relating to people maybe he's not good at like showing this thing off right there's a like the first Blood sounds yeah I know it a duel to the first Blood sounds like the only true option no like really like what is a better practice than today I I still have a really hard time with hiring in the tech world because my personal favorite is I go and I want to talk to somebody but I come in with no plan and I try to bounce off what they say and see how far have they gotten into Tech how excited can I get them about what they've worked on because I just want to see passion excitement and curiosity and so for me I feel like that's a really great thing to watch but that's also like an inherent more senior thing to look at you know like it doesn't it's not something you can just do to anybody when someone just comes out of school sometimes they just don't have that skill because they were just always focused on school they're trying to be a really good student and so you have to test them in a different way and so I find there's definitely like a testing curve hey T Walsh interviewing must be scary interview I mean I find it's not too too hard I I find like I said I need a couple to get warmed up or if I'm doing it my job it feels easy uh last bad interview I had wanted uh me to break down exactly how DNS worked for a front roll yeah see like see Griffin like that's like a skills mismatch like hey I'm doing front end break down how DNS works I don't know how DNS works I like I personally don't even know how it works I've never actually implemented DNS myself so I don't know really how it works but I assume it's something like dykstra's shortest path or one one node tells you where to go to the next node to find the shortest path I assume it's like that and Dina says hey I'm looking for this and the next note says hey I have that next one you should come to me and it goes okay okay okay actually Yep this is the best one let's go here that's all I know I don't care how DNS works I know that most issues come down to DNS it seems like on the Internet it's like regex's or DNS but it's kind of that's just ridiculous that's a bad interview again bad interviews are just everywhere I think people think of themselves too highly and when they come up with an interview question it feels easy for them because they know the question and they've done it but it can be really hard for someone that has no experience in the question like comparing two binary trees I can compare two binary trees so fast but if you've never really done it or thought about it it could be really hard for you I can compare two binary trees so fast it's like the simplest thing in the universe in fact let's just go here and let's just should we just do a quick should we just do a quick little love compared to Binary trees it's so dang simply you can jump in here you can hear it will go like this a binary tree dot TS it's so dang simple you have a type you have a node in here it has a value which is a number and then it has a left which could be a uh node oopsies or a right which could be a note there you go Bam Bam Bam tree node there you go fantastic right and then you have compare function compare then you have a one which is a node or undefined and then two I usually go with a and b a there we go b t node uh or undefined someone's like you don't program on the stream I'm doing an algorithm right now look at this it's even giving me the answer here uh Co pilot uh off disable there we go perfect okay I've been trying out copilot for six months to see is it actually worth it so simple test right here is if a uh equals uh undefined and b equals undefined right if you have the situation it's technically true at this moment because you've gone left and both aren't there these binary trees are equivalent awesome if uh A or B let's see uh if a uh equals undefined or b equals undefined meaning that one exists and the other one doesn't guess what that's not good if a DOT value does not equal B dot value guess what that's not good they're not the same then all you have to do is go uh return compare a DOT left and B dot left right what is this thing uh undefined not assignable the T note oh my goodness there you go like it's it's like this it's like super simple it's like such a simple algorithm and then you got to go one more which is do this thing and compare uh B dot right and oh whoopsies a DOT right I like to have them in order even though it doesn't really matter there you go we compare both the left and the right we do this we do that it's like it's super simple it's like not even it's not even that hard it's like not even that hard right and doing that on a whiteboard and doing that in an interview is very easy for me because I've done it a lot of times right once you've done it a bunch of times it's super simple but if you haven't done it it's super easy to mess up you know what I mean and so I think that's one of those things where it's like interviewing is most certainly a skill and being able to do and like know your data structures really well makes interviewing easy if you know leak code really well you may not have a good time interviewing because you know leak code you don't know your data structures learn your data structures become great at your data structures trust me it's a hundred times better lead code is mid at best you'll be way better at interviewing if you just know what's happening that's it all right I am worried perhaps the system is working well and I'm simply not a qualified developer on the other hand well I mean if you have open source commits and you're doing a good job you're obviously a qualified developer something else has to be going wrong on the other hand it's also possible that the system is consistently overlooking good developers who may not perform well in interviews I agree with this interviewing is a skill I think that's one thing people don't think about a lot uh interviewing itself is a skill like you should be able to run interviews well and I think a lot of times what people end up doing is they take a talented engineer and they just make them interview and the problem about a talented engineer is that they often like at least as I find that when a problem is simple it feels like it's really simple and when someone doesn't get a simple problem it feels like they aren't a talented engineer but there's also the problem of experience and familiarity where something that is complex the first time you look at it is actually really simple the next time um it's funny how that works it's funny how like rear view mirroring engineering is like such a huge problem in interviewing and I feel like people just really struggle on it deal yeah Theo had a pretty good video on interviewing I saw that one it is so it's very hard it's hard any person really smart people really dumb people really any people have a hard time teaching well teaching is really hard and interviewing is a form of teaching because your goal is to lead the witness to just the right spot for them to be the most successful really like that's your job but it's extremely hard to do and so there's definitely like a really big balance there so I mean he could very well be getting uh just blocked by a job because bad and you know bad developers trying to do stuff it's you know regardless I'm feeling discouraged as I am facing financial difficulties and have not received any job offers My ultimate goal was to provide a better life for my family by moving into a house with a yard oh that I mean that just breaks my heart I hate that dude get out of the valley the Valley's horrible this sounds like he's in the valley I couldn't afford a house in the yard with a Netflix salary it's it's just so awful out there I was paying four thousand dollars a month for a house and that is just rent only rent only and I had a yard smaller than the room I stream in Real Talk ridiculous however without a job in the industry I fear that I have to return my debt and I'm certain about my future career prospects this is actually a really good thing to think about which is yeah this was this was years ago so it's even more expensive and awful now but uh this is something really good to think about completely leaving a job it's hard to get back in there's something about having a job and getting another one there's something about that that's just much easier simply you know just leaving jobs it for whatever reason just makes it harder to get a job and obviously he's feeling the burn feel bad for the guy but it just makes things hard you know uh what distinguishes a bad developer and I have pers let's see I have a personal library that includes uh a bunch of stuff right here and textbook algorithms distributed security blah blah blah blah branch of the math while I'm not while I may not have a University degree I am passionate programmer who is eager to learn everything I can I mean this is good I mean those are all live I mean expert C programming is great effective C plus plus I have effective C plus plus right there I can see it we have the same book um I contribute to open source projects in multiple languages such as C plus plus Pearl Python and various lisp like languages so this is interesting so this right here is interesting so this gives me a different kind of coloring on what might be going on I do find that c plus center jobs I feel like the interviews are really they're just different feel it's you know on average I'm sure no one would be offended by this but on average I think that people who program C plus plus tend to be older like at this point everyone that we like it's very hard to find a 20 year old coming out of school passionate about C plus plus it's just like there's no boot camps getting you ready for C plus plus 21 right like this just like you don't you just don't even find it you just like it's not a it's it's a language no longer taught as a starting point anymore Boomer a Game Dev on the other hand very very good but gamedev is a very specific branch that's hard it's just like I haven't seen a boot camp at least coming with C plus and I think that that you don't see a lot you're passion with C plus plus you're a rarity Boomer plus plus I don't think it's a boom or take I think it's just it's just more of a rarity at this point uh game except for in game Game Dev University still teaches some do the best university I've ever been to teaches C plus I think C plus plus is a really great language to use in school I think C is really a great language to learn in school because C is a c teaches you how a computer works and I think that it's really good uh Unreal Engine is doing the Lord's work teaching people about C plus isn't it moving to potentially Julia uh let's see my focus is on proving skills and knowledge I rarely practice coding Kata and I have been a proponent of automated testing uh at several automations where or organizations where I worked yes these are I mean caught as I get you don't you don't need the ducatas necessarily unless if you're trying to learn something very specific uh there is a benefit to doing Cod especially larger condos I think a lot of times people do these katas where it's like I'm gonna program binary search five times that's a great Kata just memorize the function honestly just memorize how to do binary search don't you know memorize the path don't memorize every single step you need to take and I find that that to be a lot better like a better Kata I think start up a server build a websocket server and build a chat room right like do something that's bigger do something with more girth to it try doing that as a you know as a Kata do something that's that's larger that's more beneficial do it in different languages I've also read extensively from books papers articles I have many leather bound books myself uh mathematics is a passion of mine I was intrigued by information Theory after discovering Shannon entropy Shannon doesn't sound like clearly didn't do anything in life clearly uh and began exploring order Theory I am particularly drawn to wow okay this is already out I'm already out of my depth I'm not even drawn to anything I may not remember all the details but I know that there is an iterative solution for every recursive form yep that's true uh I keep notes and textbooks is there for the Tower of Hanoi would be hard to do um anyways despite my knowledge and interest in these areas I still struggle with simple programming tasks such as writing a function to determine whether sequence a is a subsequence of B or calculating the magnitude of complexity for a given function like you just you just gotta sit down for a moment and look at this because you know running time stuff is is actually really simple right like I don't think it I don't I think if you're if you're drawn to joint semi-lattices sets or relational algebra and uh what appears to be the word sentient uh databases uh I'm pretty sure you can learn that like one for Loop equals n two for Loops equal N squared you know if you're having the input log n I feel like that you should you should know how to do that my confidence has been eroded by uh by my mistakes blunders and rejections yeah I mean my confidence would be a road to I remember I recently I mean five years ago I got rejected by Facebook I felt stupid for it and I know exactly why I was programming a bunch of go back then and in the interview the person was like how do you return multiple things uh from a function you know when you work in uh when you work in in go you can do that when you go back to JavaScript guess what are you returning a bunch of things from a function no you return one object from a function with many items in it or in an array With Many Items so for me it was like this crazy thing where it's like you can't return multiple things in JavaScript because my brain was in go land right like if you live in go land it's hard like I dude I couldn't even I was just like dude you can't do that and then he was like dude he's like are you sure I'm like positive because I'm looking at it one way he's looking at a different way right super annoying I mean I understand the problem as a result I feel depressed and desperate yeah I would too this is hard I think we should all pour one out for Muhammad oh man feels bad for you buddy uh fearing that I will let my family down you won't you got this buddy I think a lot of people feel this way in general I think right now this is like if there's ever been a feeling that a lot of people are feeling this is it right here honestly uh I feel bad for you it's tough I dread that uh the day when my daughter will ask me what I do for a living oh gosh oh the heart hurts for this moment and I will have to admit that I program let's see it and I'll have to admit that I program computers well I think that doesn't sound bad I worry about how I will answer her questions as she gets older and becomes curious about my work I have not achieved much and there is nothing I'm particularly proud of that's hard I think there's definitely something about that that's this is something kids does to a kids do to a person you get a new sense of purpose or a new Direction in life it's not just about it being a snowflake I mean there's a real thing here uh if you don't have kids it's really hard right like I want my kids I want to be able to say that I work hard and I do good things and I want my kids to feel the excitement that I feel and to be you know proud of their dad you know uh even though I know for a fact that work doesn't make them proud you know really my kids love me because I love them uh that's real they love me because I'm gonna try to take I jump on the trampoline with them practically every day at this point why because that's like what what you do is a good dad you know and it has nothing to do with my work it has nothing to do with that I mean this whole sentence this whole paragraph makes me feel really sad you know because obviously he's struggling for Value struggling to find it doesn't sound like a bad guy just wants to make you know his family proud of him wants to work hard and provide someone says I have a cool voice I don't have a cool voice I sound like a cartoon character uh my I have I have an indoor one hey I'm ready for our car okay I'll have to call you here in one hour milky because I have a meeting here in 15 minutes oh really just reading this this last part's really sad and I think a lot of people feel this I think it today especially in today's world I don't even think it's Muhammad honestly I think what you're seeing here is that right now the programming world is much harder you know what I mean to get in is much harder I think two years ago you're working at a boot camp you showed some Talent Get the Hell in I'll pay you a hundred thousand dollars it's not like that anymore companies are tight everyone is tightening down and so when they have a choice when companies have more choice so there's two things competing right there's Supply obviously and demand right now we're having a supply problem we have a lot of people there that there's a lot of middle of the road entry-level people and that makes your fight to make yourself Stand Out extremely difficult and so if you don't have a ton of experience and you're trying to work on stuff like you know it's hard I mean it is hard and I and I hope that I hope that he can find success um I think he could find success I think the big thing for him is obviously you got to be drawn by need I think is a huge driver and if he if he's truly you know driven by the need that he's talking about I think he will be successful and I think as this world kind of turns and we get into a new era of where more companies are hiring again I think it'll just be easier it's just it he chose the worst possible time ever to quit a job and that feels bad sometimes you're a victim of circumstances too right even if you are a good uh even if you're good at these things you should spend less time you know you should spend less time worrying about like what you feel like you perceive yourself and try to be actionable a good tip for anyone if you get an interview and you get rejected ask why and be real honest like even in the interview so usually when they have the last five minutes or the last 10 minutes I do I have three planned questions every time I go into an interview ask those three questions and if there's time left over I say what do you let's see where did I uh is there any place in this interview I could have done better and I want to hear them say that because hey I like challenging anyone that I'm talking to because I want to see that will people give you real feedback because if they go oh no everything was fine and then they reject you it wasn't fine they just didn't have the guts to tell you if they go hey I really felt like you were struggling right here I really felt like you were doing this that's great you have a moment to talk about it because you know how funny would that be if they're like oh yeah you were having struggling returning multiple things from JavaScript and I go yeah I've been doing go Lang you know we could laugh about it could help change the situation you'd better understand it and you'd also be able to just like do better next interview you know where you struggle if you struggle with eye contact and saying I'm a bunch practice speaking without saying um honestly practice doing things try to be better each time ask what went wrong and ultimately when you get the rejection letter ask why again Ask for specifics be like hey is there anything specific that you could call out for me because I really would like to learn doing a very action-oriented way be like hey I'm very sad I got you know I missed this job I was very excited about it but I really would like to get the next job could you please give me two or three things I could work on right now to get the next job because the next job I don't want to get a no on you're probably going to get a lot of oh well we don't talk about it but you'll probably get a lot of oh here are three things that the engineer said it'll be great for you

Channel: ThePrimeTime

Views: 157,086

Keywords: programming, computer, software, software engineer, software engineering, program, development, developing, developer, developers, web design, web developer, web development, programmer humor, humor, memes, software memes, engineer, engineering, Regex, regexs, regexes, netflix, vscode, vscode engineer, vscode plugins, Lenovo, customer service

Id: n7F7wMdgfuI

Length: 26min 6sec (1566 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 04 2023