Computer Science people

[biggiesmallz]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz
You seem to be an insider. Help me out and tell me what a typical day is like?

Long hours SUCK! Working fridays and weekends SUCK!

I'm in search of that "perfect" careerfield.
If I can't get what I want I want to be handsomely compasated!
I believe a man/woman should be paid fairly for his/her time!

In software development a lot of the low-stress easy jobs will be heading to low-wage countries like India and Russia.

The high-paying jobs will typically require hard work, a medium to high skill level, and sometimes long hours.

I do Windows application software development, and a typical day for me is a mix of design work and C++ coding, plus a little work helping a couple of other developers on my team and often a little time talking to the program manager to nail down requirements. Once in a while I get tossed a bug report from customer support to look into.

I work for a small company (under 25 full-time employees) and I can't recall having a lazy day in the 4.6 year life of the company. Besides lunch, the only slack moments are doing something like uploading an install or doing a complete rebuild of an app.

Like I said, choose telecommunication

Afraid of competition?

And what's this "complete rebuild of an app" ?

Edit: Hey how about giving me a link to some examples of some source code I can look foward to writing.
Like I said I'm still in the deciding phase althought I already paid for the first semester of Comp Sci classes.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
I've only had one programming job, and it sucked. But it was doing programming stuff that I would hate regardless of pay/etc. So it seems the trick is to find a job coding stuff that you truly find fun and interesting. But many a programmer (including myself) gains/loses interest in different things quite quickly, so staying for the long haul might be a problem.. I dunno. These are all questions I ask myself.

That's why I've been working at a smaller company -- it's much easier to get into a lead developer position, you have a much greater effect on the applications you're creating, and because no one specializes you get to work on a lot of different areas within a single application.

The downside is that a lot more is expected of you than if you become a "dialog box creation specialist" in a megacorp and spend your 8-hour days just using the resource editor (or widget designer).

 

[fs5]

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz
It's interesting. But I've only taken two beginner classes.
It seems very time consuming!

I just want a career field with potential, low stress, and lots of $$$$!

If that's your reason for picking computer science as a major then don't.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
That's why I've been working at a smaller company -- it's much easier to get into a lead developer position, you have a much greater effect on the applications you're creating, and because no one specializes you get to work on a lot of different areas within a single application.

I don't think I'm the leader type though. Maybe I'll be able to pull that off better as I get older.

The downside is that a lot more is expected of you than if you become a "dialog box creation specialist" in a megacorp and spend your 8-hour days just using the resource editor (or widget designer).

I definitely wouldn't want to do that anyways; I like to program (partly of course) because it's hard.

 

[Wahsapa]

the "perfect" career field is doing something you enjoy and pays good.

being a lard ass is having to fill out TPS reports(a place where you get paid for not doing much)

edit: oh ya, the issue at hand. my example is graphic arts. i can walk into a print shop, pick up a job, and finish it from start to finish. i like it, i like working with the things you need to work with(people, computers, printing press) to get the job done. but most of all, when im there, when i need to photoshop something, or tweak a layout, or make sure the colors match, or fix something, i ENJOY doing it. its a challenge thats fun for me, time just FLYS by, and thats the key. thats what you need to find. but it doesnt just so happen you can make good money when your skilled. the SKILLED people are the ones that ENJOY it, that like it, that get paid the most. you wont find an all awsome programer that hates programing. hint, the all awsome ones are the ones making the real money.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz
Afraid of competition?

And what's this "complete rebuild of an app" ?

Edit: Hey how about giving me a link to some examples of some source code I can look foward to writing.
Like I said I'm still in the deciding phase althought I already paid for the first semester of Comp Sci classes.

Nah, I have 10 years of C/C++ experience in application development so I'm not too worried about you taking my job just yet

"complete rebuild of an app": in a development enviornment like the Visual C++ IDE you mostly just compile changed files and re-link the EXE, but sometimes you need to re-compile every file in the application ("rebuild all" in VC++). When your application's source code gets large enough, "rebuild all" can take long enough to give you a chance to catch up on Off Topic.

Sorry, I can't link to any company code, but you might check out www.CodeProject.com and there are a bunch of different Open Source projects at SourceForge.

 

[biggiesmallz]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz
Afraid of competition?

And what's this "complete rebuild of an app" ?

Edit: Hey how about giving me a link to some examples of some source code I can look foward to writing.
Like I said I'm still in the deciding phase althought I already paid for the first semester of Comp Sci classes.

Nah, I have 10 years of C/C++ experience in application development so I'm not too worried about you taking my job just yet

When your application's source code gets large enough, "rebuild all" can take long enough to give you a chance to catch up on Off Topic.

Woohoo That's my kind of job!
I'll be the offical "rebuild all" man!

Done deal!

 

[Apathetic]

I wouldn't say a lot, but there are days when you're just wating for a new assignment ("spec") to be finished and don't have a lot to do otherwise.

I generally use those days to update the various tools I've written.

Dave

 

[Apathetic]

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz

Originally posted by: fivespeed5
depends on where you work and what your job is. I'm a software engineer and there's plenty to do. sometimes, the project aren't as urgent so you can take your time doing them.

So do most software engineer get paid by the hour with time and a half for overtime? Cause I can only imagine how much it would suck working long days on a urgent project being a salaried worker.
It'll make you go postal!

Every developer I know is salaried, unless they are woring as a contractor in which case it's almost always hourly.

Dave

 

[Apathetic]

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz
Also to the comp sci people.
Have you ever considered starting your own software company.
Seems logical if you are very good at it.
Company owners always get more than company employees.

Just wondering

Yes, but they also end up putting in a LOT more hours so they generally earn what they have. If you start your own small business, you can pretty much forget about having a life of any kind for the first few years.

Dave

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
"complete rebuild of an app": in a development enviornment like the Visual C++ IDE you mostly just compile changed files and re-link the EXE, but sometimes you need to re-compile every file in the application ("rebuild all" in VC++).

Why would you rebuild things that weren't changed? Sounds like bad dependency tracking in the build system. (scons anyone? )

 

[gopunk]

I just want a career field with potential, low stress, and lots of $$$$!

cs not for you

 

[SearchMaster]

I've been a programmer for 16+ years, and I'm in a job I LOVE. Flexible, short hours, great pay, low stress, high job satisfaction. I've also worked where 80 hours was never enough in a given week, so I paid my dues.

But it sounds like this guy's a little lazy with an entitlement mentality, so all I can say is....good luck.

 

[edro]

yes

 

[Apathetic]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
I've only had one programming job, and it sucked. But it was doing programming stuff that I would hate regardless of pay/etc. So it seems the trick is to find a job coding stuff that you truly find fun and interesting. But many a programmer (including myself) gains/loses interest in different things quite quickly, so staying for the long haul might be a problem.. I dunno. These are all questions I ask myself.

That's why I've been working at a smaller company -- it's much easier to get into a lead developer position, you have a much greater effect on the applications you're creating, and because no one specializes you get to work on a lot of different areas within a single application.

The downside is that a lot more is expected of you than if you become a "dialog box creation specialist" in a megacorp and spend your 8-hour days just using the resource editor (or widget designer).

I HIGHLY recommend anyone coming out of school work for a small development firm for exactly the reasons you mentioned above. You may not be paid very well, but you will make up for it with learning lots of new skills.

I worked for a very tiny (3 person) software company for 5 years after I left school. We wrote real-time simulations of industrial equipment and I worked by but off. Now I work for a "megacorp" as a technical lead. Of the 14 years I've been a programmer, the ones working for a small company were the ones were I learned the most usefull skills.

Dave

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: SearchMaster
But it sounds like this guy's a little lazy with an entitlement mentality, so all I can say is....good luck.

Sometimes you get a feeling about something that you can't quite put into words; I think you just put my feeling into words perfectly.

 

[Zombie]

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz

Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey

Do you enjoy programming? How much?

It's interesting. But I've only taken two beginner classes.
It seems very time consuming!

I just want a career field I can with potential, low stress, and lots of $$$$!

It is time consuming. But the time FLIES for me, when I'm in the "zone." Does it for you? Or are you constantly looking at the clock, trying to hurry or hoping it's over soon? That might be an important indicator.

Programming can be pretty stressful, though I suppose it depends on the job. If you're getting into ANY field simply for the $$, I doubt you will do very well, and you'll probably piss off others and lose their respect in the process. But I'm only 21 and in community college, so what do I know.

I hate my job. Too many hours.
That's why I'm being very careful of what I get into next.
From what I hear Comp Sci is a lot of work.
I just want to make sure it's worth my dedication, hard work, sacifice, and money because I'll probably only get one degree in my life.

jeez you lazy ass mofo. If you can't put in the required ammount of work you will never ever make the money you want.

I seriously hope that you don't get into CS otherwise I feel for your future co-workers. If you don't enjoy problem solving and can't put in required time I beg you to not do CS.

 

[purbeast0]

the new job that I am starting in early september, as my first job out of college, is a software engineer for a company that has (i believe i remember correctly) about 25-30 software engineers already. would you consider this to be a large company, or a middle sized company?

in all, there are about 80 employees there, because they do all of the documentation, sales, etc in house. the work I will be doing is CAD software development. i do remember that the guy was telling me that a "large" company that creates the AutoCad program has about 600 software engineers, so I'm assuming that 30 or so software engineers is not a large company heh.

 

[Zombie]

we do cad and we are about 3000 employees, 1000 are engineers

 

[MacBaine]

Originally posted by: biggiesmallz

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Most software engineers are salaried, so if you goof off during the day, you eventually get to work late for no extra pay.

Haven't you settled on [S=http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=1380611&highlight_key=y[/S]https://"telecommunications"[/S] yet? It's the easy life!

You seem to be an insider.
Help me out and tell me what a typical day is like?

Long hours SUCK!
Working fridays and weekends SUCK!

I'm in search of that "perfect" careerfield.

If I can't get what I want I want to be handsomely compasated!

I believe a man/woman should be paid fairly for his/her time!

You're never going to succeed in the real world unless you change this mentality. I don't know if you've bene spoiled during your childhood or what, but your view of life is way out of line.

You don't want to work long hours, you don't want to work more than 4 days a week. You want to be paid well, but yet you believe you should be paid fairly for your time. That's a direct contradiction.

Here is how it works:

You can work long hours and enjoy being well paid, or you can enjoy working few hours and not be well paid. The harder you work, the more compensation you receive. You can start your own business, and eventually be well paid for working fewer hours, but this requires a massive amount of initial work and experience.

The best thing to do is choose a career that you enjoy, without regards to pay, and then live within your means. If you work hard enough, you'll be successful, and your standard of living will increase. There are no shortcuts.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: Zombie
we do cad and we are about 3000 employees, 1000 are engineers

lol okay, well I would say it's a small company then

i am going to be w/the company that creates Vectorworks, can't wait to start

 

I utterly hated programming, so I quit.

 

[Zombie]

Originally posted by: purbeast0

Originally posted by: Zombie
we do cad and we are about 3000 employees, 1000 are engineers

lol okay, well I would say it's a small company then

i am going to be w/the company that creates Vectorworks, can't wait to start

Well Actually we started off as giant in CAD field but in recent years moved to PLM(Product Lifecycle Management) market. Your product may be compete with ProEngineer which used to be our bread and butter .

 

[z0mb13]

heres a hint, find something that you really LIKE, instead of how much it pays, the work hours, etc..

you can have the best paying job, but if u hate it ur live will be HELL

 

[torpid]

Lots of lies here. You don't get paid more for more work unless you want to become management. Even then it takes a long time. Most of the huge companies underpay their full time staff. Being a contracted employee will generally pay better and be a little less stress, though it does depend on the sector (private vs public) and the type of project. From what I can tell, you get paid more by having a skill that is rare or highly sought after. You might be an outrageously talented person in your area and work harder than any 2 people in the company and still be paid less than some lazy jerk who sucks at his job but knows some technology you don't. In the business world, it is extremely rare that companies can assess the quality of an individual before hiring them, and even more rare that they'd compensate you appropriately.

My guess is at least 2/3 of programmers are contract employees. This is because of the insane number of work visa type people working in the programming field. Just take a gander at your random java, c++, or c# forum and you'll see what I mean...

There are many types of programming jobs where you will have low stress / relaxed environments. There are lots where you will have the opposite. It depends on the sector, the company, what you do, etc.

Also, I would very strongly recommend against working for a small company out of college and certainly under no circumstances should you be self employed or start your own company. Small companies tend to give too much freedom to developers, which is NOT a good thing. The important part of learning this field is not learning various APIs and whatever. It's learning fundamentally sound programming practices, which are not, last I checked, taught in schools.

You have to learn how to work in a team environment with source control, change management, and so forth. Small companies will rarely afford you the proper techniques. Instead you'll probably reinforce extremely bad practices which will be hard to shake when you get a "real" project to work on.

Starting your own compay is worse in that regard, but also can be extremely frustrating. You'll get a lot of crap projects where people don't value developers highly and think that anyone can do the same thing you do. You'll see a lot of sloppy programs and you'll work on tiny little projects that are pretty boring.