Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

Posted by AutoModerator@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 18 comments

A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

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Big-Pirate2371@reddit

How do you adapt to joining a new company as a staff engineer, being asked to lead a team that works on a tech stack you are not familiar with, while being asked to go faster? I’ve been given good feedback about my leadership since joining (3 months in) but I also just feel useless most of the time.

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Federal-Garbage-8629@reddit

What would you prefer while finding your answers?

(Just out of curiosity, how I should answer as a developer to another developer, you can roast IDC, 😅)

Let's say you are working on a bug, you've error tracing stack.

What would you prefer as answer from someone:

A. Find x and replace with xxxxxxxx instead xxxxxxxxx.

B. A 200 words of solution from gpt?

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Sock-Familiar@reddit

How much do non-tech accomplishments matter on a resume or during the hiring process?

Years ago I completed the Triple Crown of Hiking, but I've never included it or talked about it because it seems unrelated to this industry. Now with the market being so competitive, I am just looking for ways to stand out and wondering if I could use this to my advantage.

Just curious how others actually view accomplishments like that? Would something like that make a candidate more memorable, or is it mostly ignored compared to technical experience and projects?

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SofaAssassin@reddit

If you're cold-applying - assume that your resume is going to be automatically scanned/filtered by some type of ATS. A hobbies or similar 'interests' section may or may not affect the ATS filtering since they're mostly scanning for keywords/responsibilities/building a job profile of you. Perhaps it's net-neutral.
If you're contacted by a recruiter - at this point there's already some interested in you, so your profile combined with the extra bits likely wouldn't be harmful. Net-neutral to net-positive effect.
If your resume gets to a hiring manager or person with hiring power - could be interesting. Maybe the person reading it also likes your hobby/interest. Net-neutral to net-positive effect.
To an interviewer - At this phase, you're already deep enough into the pipeline that it's more a potential conversation piece, but likely not going to affect much. I interview far too many candidates and mostly, I use any information from your resume as a vibes check, just to see if I like talking to you (as a person).

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Sock-Familiar@reddit

Thanks for the insight! I'll check how the ATS scanner responds to an extra section and maybe keep a separate resume for cold applying if it lowers the ATS scores. I've never really had much luck with cold applying anyway. Based on a few responses, I think I'll try adding it and see what happens. There has got to be someone out there who enjoys the outdoors enough to be intrigued by it.

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gjionergqwebrlkbjg@reddit

Doesn't matter at all to me.

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Ok-Priority-Go@reddit

Some people mention their hobbies on their CVs or books they liked. If that piques my interest, I'd ask about it in an interview. Your Triple Crown of Hiking would fit that.

Given how many CVs are formulaic and full of keywords (for the obvious reasons of course), something a bit out of the ordinary can indeed improve your chances if you don't get weeded out by automatic CV review tools.

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Sock-Familiar@reddit

That's good to know, thanks! I'm going to look into adding it and see if it helps at all.

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mrthezida@reddit

I recently joined performance engineering team in the large automotive perception company. Previously I worked as feature engineer in the same company.

When I search for performance engineering this mostly means efficient management of large server and databases. But in this team we work on constrained hardware platforms which includes cpu and npu profiling, tooling, optimizations.

I really like this type of work but was wondering if it is possible to make this my career niche specialiization. Does this role only exist in large companies?

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DeadlySpar@reddit

Check out [Brendan Gregg](https://www.brendangregg.com/), he became famous for [shouting in a datacenter](https://youtu.be/tDacjrSCeq4?si=0nVCtXdXRuSR7cXp), his contributions to eBPF and pioneering flame graphs as a visualisation tool. He worked at Netflix and as a distinguished engineer at Intel, he’s now at OpenAI. While his is a prestigious career, it shows how this career path can evolve.

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casualPlayerThink@reddit

> Does this role only exist in large companies

In your industry, and just where the competitors exist. Otherwise, it is called in different names. Think of it like the "Software engineer L2 vs SE II vs senior software engineer vs ... ".

When I worked on an IoT & Public security project, my title was "System Engineer". One of our partners for the same used the title of "Embedded Engineer", and another partner used the "Platform Engineer", and we both did the same: full-stack engineering, working with C++ for special toolchains, cross-compiling source between architectures, and creating backend (php, js, java) and frontend (react, angular, etc).

> ...it is possible to make this my career niche specialiization...

Yes, it is possible, but in exchange, you will narrow down the places where you can actually apply. (alternatively: you have to work a little bit more on your resume and create multiple versions, like a "regular/normal" and a "specialized" just for your niche)

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JuiceAccomplished241@reddit

How can I actually tell if my lead actually doesn’t like me or if they’re just busy and stressed

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casualPlayerThink@reddit

Observe. Please check how he threatens others for the same mistakes, successes, and tasks. How does he/she communicate with you vs others? Usually, your gut feeling/first thought will be right. If you think something is up, then often it is.

Communication. Of course, you can address the question directly: "Hey boss, is there anything bad or something that I should change or is questionable for you, because I feel like there is a tense... xYZ... blablabla". Sometimes, just addressing a question directly works. Sometimes it opens doors. Sometimes you will be thrown out the door.

> ...busy and stressed

You have a 99.99999% chance of that. Also, he/she can dislike you near it. Political roles (high-ish management) usually carry a bunch of untold stress (metrics, deliveries, solving others' BS, and doing your own job too)

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Electronic_Log1999@reddit

You don't have to care. Do a good job and make sure you're as flawless as possible, this involves accepting your flaws in a mature way. If you feel uncomfortable, switch teams/jobs. Unless he is openly showing hostility for no reason, do not talk about it directly. If he does openly show hostility, stand your ground.

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JuiceAccomplished241@reddit

I am easily the most flawed in the team, but I make it a point to learn and do better day over day, week over week. He’s never hostile, I don’t think he’s ever been hostile to anyone, but if I can get a read that I’m annoying I can make it a point to really only talk to him when I need to and also keep interactions formal and focused.

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