There are already quite a few articles on Habré from juniors and for juniors. Some people amaze with the degree of overzealousness of young professionals who, at the very beginning of their career path, are already ready to give advice to corporations. Some, on the contrary, surprise with a little puppyish enthusiasm: “Oh, I was hired by a company as a real programmer, now I am ready to work, albeit for free. And yesterday the team leader looked at me - I'm sure my future is arranged. Such articles are mostly in corporate blogs. Well, and so I decided to tell about my experience of starting work as a junior in Moscow, because why am I worse? Grandma told me that nothing. As you probably noticed, I love long digressions and spreading my thoughts along the tree, but there are lovers of this style - so pour a big cup of tea - and let's go.
So, a few years ago: I was in my 4th year at the Polytechnic University in my quiet provincial regional center. I am doing practice in a dilapidated (at the physical level) research institute. "Programming" in XML. My work is very important for the process of import substitution in the instrument-making industry. Probably not. I hope no. I hope that all the XMLs that I typed in automatically in this research institute in a half-asleep state went to the trash immediately after my departure. But mostly, I read dvachi and Habr. They write about the well-fed life of programmers in the capitals, who sit in comfortable and bright offices, earn 300K / sec. and choose which model of Bentley to buy with the February salary. “To Moscow, to Moscow” becomes my motto, “Three Sisters” - my favorite work (ok, I mean the song of BG, I haven’t read Chekhov, of course, he’s kind of bilious).
I am writing to my virtual acquaintance, a Moscow programmer:
— Listen, are junior programmers needed in Moscow at all?
- Well, sensible people are needed, stupid nafig nobody needs (there was another word, if anything)
- And what is "intelligent" and what is "stupid". And how can I understand what I am?
“Duuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaly, the first rule of a joon is don’t be stuffy. Sensible is sensible, which is not clear here.
Well, what can I say - Muscovites, they will not say a word in simplicity. But at least I learned the first rule of junior.
However, I already really wanted to become a “smart junior”. And he began to aim to prepare for the move in a year. Naturally, I prepared in my practice at the research institute to the detriment of my “work”, so if the import substitution project fails, then you know who is to blame. Of the minuses, I had a so-so education - I lost my enthusiasm for learning after the first triple on the exam (that is, after the first exam of the first semester). And then… that’s… I’m not very smart. High-browed scientists and software architects have a mute admiration for me. But still, I want to!
So, during the preparation I:
- Learned the syntax of my main programming languages. So, it happens that I have this C / C ++, but if I started over, I would choose others. I couldn't master Stroustrup, sorry sir, but it's beyond my strength, but Lippman is the very thing. Kernighan and Ritchie - on the contrary, an excellent tutorial on the language - respect to such guys. In general, in any language, as a rule, there are several thick books, of which it is enough for a junior to read one
- Taught algorithms. I didn’t master Corman, but Sedgwick and the courses on the courser are the very thing. Simple, accessible and transparent. I also stupidly solved puzzles on leetcode.com. I mastered all the easy tasks, I can say that I passed the game on an easy difficulty level, hehe.
- Squeezed out a pet project on github. It was difficult and boring for me to write a project “just like that, for the future”, but I understood what was needed, they ask this at interviews. It's a torrent client. When I got a job already, I deleted it from the github with great pleasure. A year after writing it, I was already ashamed to look at his code.
- I memorized a mountain of idiotic logic puzzles. Now I know exactly how to count the number of lights on in a looped car, find out the colors of hats on gnomes, and whether a fox will eat a duck. But this is such useless knowledge ... But now it’s very funny when some team leader gives out “I have a special secret task that determines whether a person can think” gives out one of the button accordion tasks that the entire Internet knows about.
- I read a bunch of articles about what HR ladies want to hear at an interview. Now I know exactly what my shortcomings are, what are my development plans for 5 years and why I chose your company.
So, I graduated from the institute and began to implement a plan to move to Moscow. I posted my resume on hh.ru, the place of stay, naturally indicated Moscow and responded to all vacancies that even remotely resembled my profile. I did not indicate the desired salary, because I had no idea how much they were paid. But fundamentally, I didn’t want to work for food. My grandmother told me that money is a measure of respect for you by an employer, and you cannot work with those who do not respect you.
I arrived in Moscow and threw my backpack on my bed. Over the next month, I had a huge number of interviews, often several a day. If I didn't keep a diary, I would have forgotten everything, but I wrote everything down, so here are a few categories of companies and interviews in them from a junior's point of view:
- Russian IT giants. Well, you all know them. They can send an invitation to “talk” even if you didn’t post a resume, like we’re still following you and we already know everything. At the interview - the subtleties of the language and algorithms. I saw how the face of one team leader brightened up when I gracefully turned the binary tree on a piece of paper. I just wanted to say “easy, easy, riltok litkod”. For money 50-60, it is assumed that for the "great honor" to work in a company with a big name, you will be modest in salary.
- Foreign IT giants. There are several offices of large foreign firms in Moscow. It sounds very cool, but I can only describe my interview experience there: WTF?! In one, I was interviewed for a long time with psychological pens like “What do you think, why do people work? And for what minimum amount would you work at your dream job? After the degree of idiocy reached its maximum, I was offered to take a couple of integrals. I can only integrate e to the power of x, which I told the interviewer about. Most likely, after parting, we both considered each other fools, but he is an old fool and will not grow wiser, hehe. In another company, they said that I was very cool, sent a vacancy to America for approval, and disappeared. Perhaps the carrier pigeon did not fly across the ocean. Another firm offered an internship for 40. Noooooooooo.
- Russian government agencies. State offices love graduates of cool universities (which I have a problem with). State offices love academic knowledge (which I also have a problem with). Well, plus state offices are very different. In one, a lady who looked like a school teacher offered 15 thousand with confidence in her voice. I even asked again - really 15. In others, 60-70 without problems.
- Gamedev. Here, as in a joke, "everyone says the film is for fools, but I liked it." Despite the bad reputation of the industry, it’s so normal for me - interesting people, 40-70 in terms of money, nuacho, norms.
- Any thrash. In a natural basement, 5-10-15 developers sit and stink and saw the blockchain / messenger / toy delivery / malware / browser / their fallac. Interviews vary from a close look to a 50-question language test. The money is also different: 30 thousand, 50 thousand, “first 20, then 70”, $ 2100. One thing in common is dark perspectives and a dark design scheme. And my grandmother told me that in Moscow everyone strives to deceive such a sparrow as me.
- Decent middle class. There are such middle-class offices that do not have a high-profile brand, but also do not have any pens about their exclusivity. They compete very hard for talent, so they don't have 5-step interviews and intentionally hurt interviews. They are well aware that in addition to salary and cool projects, there are other motivators, they are already additional. Interviews are adequate - in terms of language, what you have / what you want, what are the ways of development. For money 70-130. I chose one of these offices and successfully work in it to this day.
Okay, if anyone has read this far, congratulations - you're awesome. You deserve another piece of advice for juniors:
- Know the syntax of your language well. They ask for all sorts of rarities.
- Don't panic if an interview doesn't go well. I had an interview at which, after almost every line I made, the interviewers began to laugh loudly and make fun of my answer. When I left the room, I really wanted to cry. But then I remembered that I had my next interview in two hours, and with these #### I wish you subtle bugs in production.
- Don't get hung up on HR interviews. Tell the girls what they want from you and move on to the technicians. At interviews, I repeatedly assured hr-ok that I just dream of working in telecom / game development / finance, developing microcontrollers and advertising networks. Money is of course not important to me, only pure knowledge. Yes, yes, yes, I’m fine with overwork, I’m ready to obey my boss like a mother, and devote my free time to additional testing of the product. yeah-yeah, whatever.
- Write a decent resume. Clearly state what technologies you own and what you want. All sorts of “sociability and stress resistance” are superfluous, especially if you are categorically uncommunicative and stress resistant like me.
We need to finish the article with something, so good luck to the juniors, don’t get angry and don’t offend the youth, everyone!
Source: habr.com