IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.

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Khane

Khane

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Noodle, I want to be able to launch my programs from the BIOS, in case there's a problem with my OS but I still want to play Minecraft. We probably want to get out in front of any issues before they arise so give me a safe mode for BIOS too.
 
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Picasso3

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Maybe a bro will get you on at lincoln labs, i hear it's in bumfuck Egypt so it may be within walking distance for you
 
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Tenks

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Also on my job front. Not getting my hopes 100% up but I have my 2nd phone interview Monday evening with Blizzard. The first was mostly behavioral, resume questions and skill questions. This one will be more technical but it is with a manager so I don't think completely in the weeds. I'll probably get a take-home assignment assuming I sound competent enough on the phone. If everything goes well thats when I do the in-person interview at the HQ.

I waffle back and forth on if this is what I really want to do. It would mean packing up and leaving my life in Ohio behind along with all my friends and family. But at the same time I've been an absolute Blizzard homer since Diablo 1 came out and I mowed my neighbor's lawn (he worked at Sierra) for video games. Their problem sets would be fun and the technical challenges would be engaging. I'd love working with a bunch of people who share the same enjoyment for the product but are also extremely, extremely smart. But then I look at housing and a 1100 sqft house for 600k .... yikes. I'd also have to seriously consider leaving rerolled -- or at least the gaming sub forums -- so no one mistakes my personal opinions or ideas as anything associated with the company.

But again I'm sure quite a few candidates get to the 2nd round process. I presume this is the first of the real weeding out phase.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Khane_sl said:
Noodle, I want to be able to launch my programs from the BIOS, in case there's a problem with my OS but I still want to play Minecraft. We probably want to get out in front of any issues before they arise so give me a safe mode for BIOS too.
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You know, I'd laugh if this wasn't so close to something they asked a few months ago.

A little background - UEFI BIOS follows a TON of standards - everything from the UEFI spec (go ahead, read all 2000 pages of it), to PMBUS/SMBUS specs, to ACPI specs, the PCI architecture specs, driver specs, etc. There are fundamentals actually dictated by standards that Intel/AMD put out that everyone needs to follow, it's the whole reason UEFI exists in the first place. UEFI is king. You really can't stray to far from this unless it's a minor change/bug fix that isn't avoidable.

They asked me if I could write a program that the BIOS could launch to perform/script to do some menial tasks. That's not the BIOS' job!!! That's for some dude to write a test script that launches within the OS. Why in the world would you ever want your BIOS to be executing test scripts and programs?

So your idea made me laugh because that's basically exactly what they asked.

Oh and I'm the only QA on this stuff.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Tenks_sl said:
Also on my job front. Not getting my hopes 100% up but I have my 2nd phone interview Monday evening with Blizzard. The first was mostly behavioral, resume questions and skill questions. This one will be more technical but it is with a manager so I don't think completely in the weeds. I'll probably get a take-home assignment assuming I sound competent enough on the phone. If everything goes well thats when I do the in-person interview at the HQ.

I waffle back and forth on if this is what I really want to do. It would mean packing up and leaving my life in Ohio behind along with all my friends and family. But at the same time I've been an absolute Blizzard homer since Diablo 1 came out and I mowed my neighbor's lawn (he worked at Sierra) for video games. Their problem sets would be fun and the technical challenges would be engaging. I'd love working with a bunch of people who share the same enjoyment for the product but are also extremely, extremely smart. But then I look at housing and a 1100 sqft house for 600k .... yikes. I'd also have to seriously consider leaving rerolled -- or at least the gaming sub forums -- so no one mistakes my personal opinions or ideas as anything associated with the company.

But again I'm sure quite a few candidates get to the 2nd round process. I presume this is the first of the real weeding out phase.
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On the real side, if you ever needed to be anonymous here you could PM me (or another mod) and we'd activate a new account for you. It'd probably be tough because you're active in a lot of threads, but I'm sure you could do it.

That said, rerolled is peanuts compared to working at Blizzard.
 
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Tenks

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I'll have to revisit the matter if things actually progress. I've tried really hard to temper my expectations but both myself and my wife have a good feeling. But I also know they probably get thousands of applications a year and only actually hire a handful of people.

I'm most nervous that they'll drill me with a bunch of low-level stuff. The position is a Java role on the BNet platform so I shouldn't need to know a whole bunch of crap about efficiently searching BST, implementing Fibonacci both recursively and non-recursively and a bunch of other (what I consider) "got ya" questions. But since they're mostly a C++ place I don't know what the hiring process would look like for this position. But if they ask me about relevent work on web apis, databases and things of that nature I should be fine.
 
Noodleface

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I've not met many people that have interviewed at blizzard, but I knew a couple and the overall impression I got from them was that they weren't like Google
 
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Picasso3

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I used to be in a guild with some of them on Rodcet. I exploded that bridge but they were a great group of guys. Of course they all may be way gone 15 years later, i just saw where one retired from some strange company. It was very exciting to me when I was like 13.
 
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Tenks

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Yeah I've done stalker-level amounts of research and it seems like the in-person interview is mostly to try and see if you're a good fit for the team personality wise. Most of the people on Glassdoor who didn't get an offer seemed like extremely bitter and defensive people. Possibly this showed in their interview. I'd assume the probably most telling part would be the take-home assignment and how well implemented that is. At least that is the most real-world. Most of my software doesn't compile from pseudo code on a whiteboard after being ambushed by business requirements. But I've spent the past week or so really, really trying to bone up on some of this stuff I feel like I may be asked. And I'll really cram on Sunday. At this point I'll be slightly devastated if they decide to pass on me. I'm pretty emotionally invested now.

My other concern is of course hours. I know game devs are more accustomed to crunch time but I'm not sure what to expect on a platform services team. It sounds like Blizzard isn't completely out of whack work-life balance wise so I'm not sweating it.
 
Lendarios

Lendarios

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Pro.. youll get to see Furor!!!

Good luck Tenks.

@noddle consider working from home part of your job search requirements. 2-4 times a month on your new job.
 
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Tenks

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I'll make sure to drive down to Hamilton and snap a pic with me and Rav and give it to him when I see him
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Here they barely even asked any coding questions. If you remember some dude asked me about reading a register and I mis-used a pointer and he got all butthurt over it. I thought I didn't get in but they hired me anyways. I think they mostly cared about the way I think and work rather than some stupid whiteboard problem.

I'm the type of guy that isn't good at writing things by hand on a board. Give me a computer and some code and I'll do it though.

lendarios_sl said:
Pro.. youll get to see Furor!!!

Good luck Tenks.

@noddle consider working from home part of your job search requirements. 2-4 times a month on your new job.
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I actually don't really like working from home. I know it sounds stupid, but I really lack the discipline right now especially with my son walking around going "DADA! DADA ! DDADA!" and always knocking on the door.

I'm starting my search outside the city but not exactly eliminating it completely.
 
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Tenks

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When I got hired here (obviously as just entry level) there wasn't any coding or whiteboarding. Just some basic questions and OOP/D in general and some Java. But I'd assume the hiring practice as Blizzard is a tad more rigorous since they probably get more applicants than your everyday business. But I'm not sure how many middle-layer Java developer applicants then get ... which is what the role would be. I dunno. Cautiously optimistic.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Well good luck, that's a dream job for me too. Unfortunately my wife would never want to move there (I would)
 
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Tenks

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People without Cad money. The price of housing is *insane*.

I also think Noodle has said his wife is very close with her family
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Tenks_sl said:
People without Cad money. The price of housing is *insane*.

I also think Noodle has said his wife is very close with her family
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It's not just that, she likes it here.

I like it in MA too, but I have to admit going somewhere without a metric fuckton of snow every year would be nice.

Plus babes

Edit: and besides.. I am too much into hardware right now. Maybe if they needed some hardware/software/bios engineers for their servers
 
Cad

Cad

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Tenks_sl said:
People without Cad money. The price of housing is *insane*.

I also think Noodle has said his wife is very close with her family
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Nobody says you actually have to live in Irvine. Noodle lives like 50 miles from Boston as-is. I bet you can find some cheap houses within 50 miles of Irvine.
 
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Tenks

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Khane_sl said:
And if you can't, just AirBnB!
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Ha I told my wife we should AirBnB and just squat.

Nobody says you actually have to live in Irvine. Noodle lives like 50 miles from Boston as-is. I bet you can find some cheap houses within 50 miles of Irvine.
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Thats a fair point. Though I figure if I'm moving out there I'd prefer to be in the zone between the beaches and the mountains. From what I understand up in the mountains/behind the mountains it gets pretty damn hot. There is some affordable housing in Santa Ana but from what I gather its a tad ghetto there. Irvine proper is 100% out of my budget. Even wrecks are in the 650k+ range. I was hoping to ideally stick around the 550k area which really only buys me a 2/2, not very updated, tiny back yard.
 
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