What are the minimum requirements to get a job in?

S

suresh.pinnapa

My aim is to get a job into google or cisco or facebok.
I have basic knowledge in python,c,java and good in javascript,html,css, database concepts.
If i learn django and python. Shall I get my dream job?

Please suggest me
 
G

Graham Fielding

Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:49:32 -0800
Subject: What are the minimum requirements to get a job in?
From: (e-mail address removed)
To: (e-mail address removed)

My aim is to get a job into google or cisco or facebok.
I have basic knowledge in python,c,java and good in javascript,html,css, database concepts.
If i learn django and python. Shall I get my dream job?

Please suggest me
You'd need a fair bit of industry cred to get picked up at a place like Google, I'd imagine. By all means, keep pursuing your dream, but temperyour expectations.
 
G

Greg Donald

My aim is to get a job into google or cisco or facebok.

I made it to the 4th interview with Google. When they say they want a
"developer" they really mean they want a developer/sysadmin/kernel
hacker/c/c++ guru. I nailed all the Python questions in interviews #2
and #3, but then at interview #4 they started asking inode questions,
how to implement a compiler, how to design my own version of
memcopy(), etc. It didn't really matter to them that I had 2M
downloads on Google Play, or that I knew Ruby, Rails, Python, Django,
PHP, iOS and Java.. I didn't know how to move 2GBs of memory from
here to there without using memcopy(), so that was that :(
I have basic knowledge in python,c,java and good in javascript,html,css,
database concepts.

My story above was a preface to the fact that "basic knowledge"
usually isn't enough for hot tech companies like Google. From what I
understand Facebook is becoming more C and less PHP all the time. And
I imagine they use a lot of C and assembly at Cisco since that's
mostly embedded device work.
If i learn django and python. Shall I get my dream job?

Doubt it, but good luck all the same :)
Please suggest me

Visit their job boards.
 
D

Dave Angel

My aim is to get a job into google or cisco or facebok.
I have basic knowledge in python,c,java and good in javascript,html,css, database concepts.
If i learn django and python. Shall I get my dream job?

Please suggest me

You didn't say what your dream job is, but I'll assume it's as a
software Engineer. You also didn't say at what level you expect to start.

There are lots more questions than what you've answered so far. Like
what degree do you have, and from where? Can you read/hear and
understand English quickly, both written and verbal? Can you write
correct English (as opposed to what we see here on the forum)? Can you
write a good resume, and a great cover letter?

Do you know any one computer language thoroughly? Or just a little of
many languages?

Have you ever worked in assembly code? Do you know what a transistor
is? Have you ever built a compiler or a debugger? Have you ever
written code that has to run in very little memory (like less than 4k)?
Have you ever worked on projects where the end result had to have 100%
reliability? Have you written multithreaded code? Have you worked on
multiple operating systems?

Have you ever read Knuth? Or P.J. Plauger? Or Sedgewick? Can you
explain (roughly) Huffman encoding? (I looked up Huffman's paper (I
think it was written in 1952, in IRE) and studied it, about 25 years ago)

Have you ever worked with the public? Have you ever debugged somebody
else's code that was over 200k LOC?

Do you have good references from past jobs, and are those jobs relevant
to what you hope to be hired to do? Do you belong to any professional
organizations, did you get any honors in college? Do you have any
industry honors, either from patents, or from ACM or other recognized
organizations.

Can you point to projects where you've made a substantial and
identifiable contribution, and describe those contributions in terms
that will interest your prospective employer?

Are you personable, and can you participate in a debate with someone who
seems to deliberately be trying to trip you up? If you have opinions or
preferences, can you explain clearly why you have them? Can you
interact with an interviewer as an equal, respectful but not subservient?

Perhaps most important, have you worked with somebody who really liked
what you do and who now works at one of these companies, in a place
where his recommendation will help? The best jobs are seldom given to
people who send in a resume blind, or who work through ordinary headhunters.

These and many other questions, plus luck, patience and persistence will
determine whether you get that dream job.
 
D

Dave Angel

You didn't say what your dream job is, but I'll assume it's as a
software Engineer. You also didn't say at what level you expect to start.

There are lots more questions than what you've answered so far. Like
what degree do you have, and from where? Can you read/hear and
understand English quickly, both written and verbal? Can you write
correct English (as opposed to what we see here on the forum)? Can you
write a good resume, and a great cover letter?

Do you know any one computer language thoroughly? Or just a little of
many languages?

Have you ever worked in assembly code? Do you know what a transistor
is? Have you ever built a compiler or a debugger? Have you ever
written code that has to run in very little memory (like less than 4k)?
Have you ever worked on projects where the end result had to have 100%
reliability? Have you written multithreaded code? Have you worked on
multiple operating systems?

Have you ever read Knuth? Or P.J. Plauger? Or Sedgewick? Can you
explain (roughly) Huffman encoding? (I looked up Huffman's paper (I
think it was written in 1952, in IRE) and studied it, about 25 years ago)

Have you ever worked with the public? Have you ever debugged somebody
else's code that was over 200k LOC?

Do you have good references from past jobs, and are those jobs relevant
to what you hope to be hired to do? Do you belong to any professional
organizations, did you get any honors in college? Do you have any
industry honors, either from patents, or from ACM or other recognized
organizations.

Can you point to projects where you've made a substantial and
identifiable contribution, and describe those contributions in terms
that will interest your prospective employer?

Are you personable, and can you participate in a debate with someone who
seems to deliberately be trying to trip you up? If you have opinions or
preferences, can you explain clearly why you have them? Can you
interact with an interviewer as an equal, respectful but not subservient?

Perhaps most important, have you worked with somebody who really liked
what you do and who now works at one of these companies, in a place
where his recommendation will help? The best jobs are seldom given to
people who send in a resume blind, or who work through ordinary headhunters.

These and many other questions, plus luck, patience and persistence will
determine whether you get that dream job.

I should have pointed out that there's no need to have 100% on these.
But there will be a similar list for any good job, and each hiring
manager will have some things which are just plain mandatory. But most
important is that you can discuss intelligently what you have done, and
what you do know. I've been hired in several positions where I didn't
match the "requirements" in the least, but talked them into it anyway.
And I've turned down at least one job when I discovered they wanted me
for what I already knew.

It used to be that if you could just get any job at a company, you could
eventually earn your way into the perfect spot. But that's frequently
not true anymore.

You also should spend some serious energy trying to decide what your
perfect job would be like. I once gave 49 subordinates to a new person
i hired, and stepped into a new position for which I wrote the HR job
description. It was either that or take on 30 more, and I didn't want
to manage any more. I was working for over 20 years before the first
time I ever wanted my boss' job. And I got over that quickly.
 
M

michaelsafyan

Hi, Suresh. I don't know about the hiring practices at Cisco or Facebook, but at Google, the particular language or technology matters far less in an interview than general coding ability, algorithmic understanding, and system design fundamentals. To be sure, Python is an awesome language to learn (if I didn't think so, I would not have subscribed to this mailing list) andDjango is quite useful, but my advice to you would be to gain as much practical experience writing code as possible and to really solidify your understanding of algorithms, data structures, and analysis of their runtime and memory performance.

You can find out more about jobs at Google at http://jobs.google.com/

- Michael Safyan
http://gplus.to/michaelsafyan

P.S. Responding just as myself; not an official Google response.
 
R

rusi

Do you know any one computer language thoroughly?  Or just a little of
many languages?

There is a quote by Bruce Lee to the effect:
I am not afraid of the man who knows 10,000 kicks
I am afraid of the man who has practised 1 kick 10,000 times
 
D

Devin Jeanpierre

There is a quote by Bruce Lee to the effect:
I am not afraid of the man who knows 10,000 kicks
I am afraid of the man who has practised 1 kick 10,000 times

It's worth pointing out that kicks stay relevant for your entire life.
Unfortunately, many programming languages don't.

I guess the next metaphor would be stock investments and
diversification. Point is, don't just practice one kick.

-- Devin
 
R

rusi

It's worth pointing out that kicks stay relevant for your entire life.
Unfortunately, many programming languages don't.

I guess the next metaphor would be stock investments and
diversification. Point is, don't just practice one kick.

-- Devin

Then again its worth pointing out that there is difference between
programming and (a) programming language. If that were not so the
whole idea of a 'degree' in computer 'science' that is by implication
on par with other sciences would be completely bogus.

That academic computer science gets its act more wrong than right is a
different question:
http://blog.languager.org/2011/02/cs-education-is-fat-and-weak-1.html

The point of those posts is that this is the current state of CS
education; however that is not necessary condition.
 
S

Stefan Behnel

(e-mail address removed), 14.12.2012 03:49:
My aim is to get a job into google or cisco or facebok.

Why?

There are lots of attractive places to work at. Choosing a less visible one
means that you have a higher chance of getting hired in the first place,
simply because less people aim for the same job. If it's a smaller company,
it usually also means that you will get a more interesting job because,
once hired, you end up working in a less crowded place with more white
spots in the environment of pre-staked claims that you drop into. And thus,
with a broader set of things for you to do and to try out.

So you get more by investing less. Not the worst choice IMHO.

Stefan
 
D

Dave Angel

It's worth pointing out that kicks stay relevant for your entire life.
Unfortunately, many programming languages don't.

I guess the next metaphor would be stock investments and
diversification. Point is, don't just practice one kick.

But if you never learn any one move thoroughly, knowing what several
others are supposed to look like isn't going to help.

i worked once for a company that had a very simple programming test for
the interview (only one interview - you either made it, or you didn't).
The candidate was asked if he was experienced with the particular
language, then given 15 or 20 minutes to write something. On paper, no
computer available. Afterwards he was to discuss what he did, why, and
what other options were available and what advantages they might have.
No library functions were needed.

I wrote my answer down, then stopped the interviewer as he was about to
leave for 15 minutes. We discussed my answer thoroughly. Later, after
I was working there, I discovered that over half of the candidates
couldn't write any code for the problem. No starting place for a
discussion.

Four years later i was hired at a company which prided itself on a tough
interview question, which was done on a computer, and usually took an
hour or more. They didn't even ask me to try it, nor even tell me about
it till long after I started work. People there knew me, and the
founder of the company called me when his company had a place where I
could fit.
 
R

Roy Smith

Stefan Behnel said:
(e-mail address removed), 14.12.2012 03:49:

Why?

There are lots of attractive places to work at. Choosing a less visible one
means that you have a higher chance of getting hired in the first place,
simply because less people aim for the same job. If it's a smaller company,
it usually also means that you will get a more interesting job because,
once hired, you end up working in a less crowded place with more white
spots in the environment of pre-staked claims that you drop into. And thus,
with a broader set of things for you to do and to try out.

So you get more by investing less. Not the worst choice IMHO.

On the other hand, as somebody who's looking to hire software engineers,
I can tell you that we look at prior experience at Google or Facebook as
a positive thing on a resume. It's the same way we look at admission to
a top-tier school. It doesn't always mean the person is good, but it's
a positive signal that's likely to get your resume a second looks.

That being said, I've worked for companies ranging from 3 employees to
40,000 employees. I definitely like working for the small ones better.
 
C

Chris Angelico

That being said, I've worked for companies ranging from 3 employees to
40,000 employees. I definitely like working for the small ones better.

My current job has one employee, it's just me and my boss. It's
satisfying to know that my work is really significant, but it feels
binding in that if I'm not there, the project is largely going to
stall. If I were to cease working there, the project would probably
fail. That's not such a good thing. Plus, I'm pretty sure working for
a biggish company is going to pay a tad more than an internet startup
that hasn't yet launched its flagship product can afford... oh well.
If the boss's vision is anything to go by, we're going to be bigger
than Microsoft, eBay, Facebook, and Google combined, and all by early
2013. So when I start working a one hour week for a six figure salary,
I'll let you know.

ChrisA
 
R

rusi

But if you never learn any one move thoroughly, knowing what several
others are supposed to look like isn't going to help.

It comes down to the difference between active and passive knowledge.

Here is an interview that distinguishes between doing music and merely
passively hearing and the unfortunate consequences of assuming the
latter is enough:
http://jacobneedleman.squarespace.com/blog/2012/12/12/music-is-something-you-do.html

Ideas which were summarized by the great pianist Josef Lhevine as
follows:

If I dont practice for one day I know it
If I dont practice for two days my audience knows it
If I dont practice for three days the critics know it

So much of what passes for CS education is about doling out pre-cooked
things -- programs, concepts, jargon -- that companies can be forgiven
for being stringent about whom they employ.

Heres Alan Kay on Stanford: (One could expect other univs to do
worse):

I fear —as far as I can tell— that most undergraduate degrees in
computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.
I’ve heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its
illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science
program is little more than Java certification.
from http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523
 
D

Dennis Lee Bieber

Ideas which were summarized by the great pianist Josef Lhevine as
follows:

If I dont practice for one day I know it
If I dont practice for two days my audience knows it
If I dont practice for three days the critics know it
Interesting... One would have thought the critics should have
detected the missing practice before the general audience... Unless that
is supposed to also be a dig on critics being the least knowledgeable
So much of what passes for CS education is about doling out pre-cooked
things -- programs, concepts, jargon -- that companies can be forgiven
for being stringent about whom they employ.
Just look at how compiler textbooks changed over the decades: the
books I started buying in the late 70s and through the 80s were all on
theory and algorithms (recursive descent, LL vs LR, etc.), and no source
code. In the 90s and 2000s what does one tend to find for compiler
textbooks? Source code for A compiler, but practically not mention of
different parsing techniques...

{Most of my books are in storage, but a pair off my shelf:
"Implementing BASICs: How BASICs Work" (Payne&Payne, 1982 Reston
Publishing)
vs
"Programming Language Processors in Java: Compilers and Interpreters"
(Watt&Brown, 2000 Prentice Hall)

[Interesting, Reston had been a Prentice Hall division, and 20 years
later Prentice Hall was part of Pearson]

Granted, the first book is on a form of one language, but was
independent of implementation language; the second book may be less
specific for the target language, but is tied to implementation is a
specific language}
I fear —as far as I can tell— that most undergraduate degrees in
computer science these days are basically Java vocational training.
I’ve heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its
illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science
program is little more than Java certification.
from http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523

I once worked for a department that was moving a system from PDP-11
Macro-11 to VAX systems and wanted to move to a high level language. The
candidates were: stay in assembler (move to VAX assembler), FORTRAN,
Pascal, and C.

They turned down assembler (really wanted a high level language).
Turned down C (not enough skilled programmers available, language too
easily assists in buffer errors, etc.). Turned down FORTRAN (Old and
stodgy -- even though this was a 30 member team of assembler programmers
and the department had another 80 people with various degrees of skill
in VAX FORTRAN-77 to draw from). Chose Pascal (people coming out of
college know it).

My commentary on the selection report -- besides pointing out the
overwhelming talent pool for F77 -- was: People coming out of college
probably know Turbo-Pascal, but nothing about real-time programming on a
VAX Pascal. AND, if F77 was old and stodgy, and you've gone the mile to
pick Pascal, why not fall the extra five feet onto your face, and pick
Ada -- a new language designed for the type of application being ported
to the VAX.
 
S

Steven D'Aprano

On the other hand, as somebody who's looking to hire software engineers,
I can tell you that we look at prior experience at Google or Facebook as
a positive thing on a resume.

Really? What size company do you work for? Can you offer better pay and
conditions than Google or Facebook?

If somebody can to me with prior experience at Google or Facebook, my
first thought would be "Ah, couldn't cut it with the big boys huh? If you
are good enough for Google, what the hell are you doing coming to us?"

Of course, that does not necessarily rule them out of contention. I know
people who *are* good enough for Google, and left because they were
bored, or because they couldn't stand the Google culture, or just wanted
to relax with a less high-pressure job for a year or ten.
 
R

Roy Smith

Steven D'Aprano said:
Really? What size company do you work for?

I believe we're currently 12 full-time employees.
Can you offer better pay and conditions than Google or Facebook?

There is no way we can compete with them on salary. Nor do we buy
everybody lunch every day, do their laundry, give them haircuts and
massages, or walk their dogs.

But, we offer the chance to make a difference. Most people at Google or
Facebook are cogs in a very large machine. It might be a well-fed,
brightly colored, highly profitable machine, but a cog is a cog.
If somebody can to me with prior experience at Google or Facebook, my
first thought would be "Ah, couldn't cut it with the big boys huh? If you
are good enough for Google, what the hell are you doing coming to us?"

Wow, you must have a really low opinion of yourself. Part of being at a
startup is believing in yourself. Going around thinking, "he/she's too
good for us" is not an effective way to screen potential candidates if
you're trying to build a successful business.
 
R

Roy Smith

Chris Angelico said:
If the boss's vision is anything to go by, we're going to be bigger
than Microsoft, eBay, Facebook, and Google combined, and all by early
2013.

That's the kind of attitude you need to be at a startup.
 
S

Steven D'Aprano

Wow, you must have a really low opinion of yourself. Part of being at a
startup is believing in yourself.

What makes you think I work for a startup? It might astonish some people
in the IT industry, but not every company is under three years old and
still burning through some VC's money.

As for the attitude "believe in yourself", that's a big part of why 50%
of startups fail within four years and over 70% within ten years. That's
new business in general, by the way. I expect that startups in the tech
industry will be less successful.

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett:

"If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your
star... you'll be beaten by people who work hard and learn things."

Rather than "believe in yourself", I prefer "Know Thyself". A man's got
to know his limitations. That applies for the company you work for too.

Going around thinking, "he/she's too
good for us" is not an effective way to screen potential candidates if
you're trying to build a successful business.

Perhaps we have a different perspective, but I don't think it is wise to
hire somebody who is likely to leave for greener pastures just as you are
starting to rely on them.
 

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