Cad
scientia potentia est
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Thats okay nobody really does that kind of work anyway. Probably 95% of all development these days is in Java or C# or some variation of Ruby/Python/etc.
What do you do?
- Thread starter Alkorin
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Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
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Heylel
Trakanon Raider
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Finally done with all the interviewing. I guess now I just wait.
Last guy was kindof a snarky designer type. I wish he had shown up for the first call when he was scheduled. Then I wouldn't have had to sit there with him one on one. Everyone else was cool though.
Last guy was kindof a snarky designer type. I wish he had shown up for the first call when he was scheduled. Then I wouldn't have had to sit there with him one on one. Everyone else was cool though.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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Was told feedback from the interviews was mostly positive and will hear back in 2 to 4 weeks. Not really sure about that haha.
Asshat wormie
2023 Asshat Award Winner
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Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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There's a bit of impostor syndrome, just confused because they wanted me in there for an interview the day they originally called but now are slowing down. Just weird.
Borzak
Bronze Baron of the Realm
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Hurry up and wait. I'm sure it happens a lot of places. Guy interviewed me once because they had to get someone in place right away. That seemed to be the problem lol and he mentioned it 25 times and talked of timelines of getting someone in there in a few days. I didn't hear anything for a few weeks so I called and left a message. He called a few weeks later. He had gone off on a month long vacation.
Hurry up and wait.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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^
Literally the position had no structure, they needed someone to learn new systems/languages (including proprietary ones) on the fly to migrate systems and eliminate weeks/months/years of errors and issues from bad conversions. He had no clue what to ask or what to do as he handled their system side of the process and only ever got nicely formatted flat files or intermediary databases to import. So he figured he'd ask basic programming questions, I guess.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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The next time someone asks for something and then doesn't inform me of a vacation I'm going to flip. It's obnoxious. The worst is when they have a distribution list withone person on itand no autoreply so you are sending requests or information for weeks and then 'oh hey, yea man I was in Tibet, still catching up on e-mails, oh yea you should have called Betty.'
chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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Man, I constantly feel like this in infosec. I talk to some of these guys and it just seems like they are experts on fucking EVERYTHING. I have no idea how to get there, I'm already pretty much constantly studying/learning/working. Clearly I do ok, but I want to be on that next level so I hopefully feel like I belong in the cool kids club.
Mist
REEEEeyore
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Every time a core VOIP server goes down for a few seconds, every single remote site sends out an alarm, and therefore generates an incident when they go into standalone survivable mode, even if they reliquish control back to the core server 30 seconds later. And every one of those alarms has to be cleared. The ticket system is written in fucking shockwave + javascript and runs slow as shit. And then the system you use to actually log into the servers to clear the alarms is an NPAPI plugin that talks to another plugin written in Java, which opens up a tunnel with a local endpoint that you can putty through.
And then the actual service order system is just some SQL frontend that wasn't built for handling anywhere near this kind of volume and runs even slower.
FUCK MY LIFE.
And then the actual service order system is just some SQL frontend that wasn't built for handling anywhere near this kind of volume and runs even slower.
FUCK MY LIFE.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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I dunno two points one specific one general.
First, I often feel like that about everything but I realized later in life that I don't really look at myself objectively, many people seem to think they can improve therefore they must be not good (enough). I never really thought about it much until I started playing guitar again and after a time I still feel the same (that I suck) yet objectively I am a much better player.
Secondly, the key to infosec IMO is having a deep understanding of basics and focusing on practical knowledge to test and secure the specific areas relevant. I was just called into a meeting the other day because these security consultants and a contractor were arguing on a connection change which had really little practical security risk changes, they were both only really vulnerable to state actors or insider attacks, but none of them could shut up about trendy IS bullshit and it took me almost an hour to get them all to shut up when I finally realized none of them really had any clue about the actual environment. The guy arguing for an IPSec VPN to come back was just completely unaware that IPSec VPNs are on the internet layer and the application being used had no knowledge of the VPN tunnel status which was causing the entire ducking problem to begin with which was the whole reason for the call. It's like if any of them had taken the time to read a freshman textbook and apply the concepts to the problem at hand they would have been wizkid smart to the entire conference call instead of just wrong and dumb.
Imposter syndrome is real, I see it all the time at my current company. Really bright guys feel like they are just making shit up because the depth and breadth required to be a master is so much. The thing is, they are doing great work.
My favorite interview question is "What are three words you would use to describe yourself?" My answer should be "Why don't you ask a question that actually fucking means something. This interview is done."
I would never want to work for a management team that thinks that kind of question gets you a good candidate.
I would never want to work for a management team that thinks that kind of question gets you a good candidate.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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I agree with that. Our codebase is like 22,000 files, millions of lines of code. We have people that are experts in certain areas. In general if those people need to work on other areas, they have no idea what they're doing. The masters of the code just don't exist, even my boss (while knowing way more than all of us) still hits area where he just doesn't know what to do with it.
Khane
Got something right about marriage
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I have had the exact opposite experience with developers at every single place I've worked. Most people think they are way smarter than they actually are.
Heylel
Trakanon Raider
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Those are the ones you have to look out for.
Coming from a research background, what helped me overcome impostor syndrome (which we all suffer, and I used to have really bad) was recognizing that failures are actually a good thing. Failures are progress. It's one less avenue of inquiry you have to consider. When we have a research hypothesis that evidence fails to prove, we're contributing something valuable to the literature surrounding that topic.
Every profession is like that. You might fail, or you might not have the answer *right now*, but that's because it turns out that modern technology is really fucking hard. We've come so far, so fast, that there's no such thing as an easy breakthrough anymore.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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In a way, yes. Because in "most" jobs there are very few concrete skills that you need to know in order to succeed.
I've done heads-down software dev work, I've done software sales and marketing, I've sat on the board of directors for startups, now I've done criminal trial work, I've done civil trial work, I've been a tall-building-lawyer, and all sorts of other things.
Keys to success in all of them:
1> get organized and stay on top of tasks and deadlines, DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL DO.
2> express yourself well and ask good questions, understanding what someone wants is (duh) the key to giving it to them. I don't care how smart you are, if you don't know what the other person wants (and you can only get that by talking to them and having a relationship with them) YOU CAN NOT PRODUCE IT.
3> do what you can do and ask for help when you need it. But try to as self sufficient as possible, at the same time don't bang your head against the wall with things you can't do. Fine line to walk.
Whatever super tech skills you might need are honestly secondary to those listed above. All the successful people at any company are going to either be technical geniuses and therefore given a wide latitude on social skills/eccentricities (rare) or they are going to be masters of the above skills.
So in a way, you're right. People are BS'ing their way through the day, because the skills you think are important (knowing every tech detail by heart) aren't that important.