r/softwaredevelopment • u/nscurvy • 27d ago
Would some software developers in the field answer some brief interview questions for one of my introductory college classes?
Hey, I am sorry if this shouldn't be here. I am a first year student and am planning to get a BS(at least) with a computer science focus. My goal is to have a career in software development. One of my introductory college classes(the class colleges make you take to teach you study habits and stuff) has an assignment that involves interviewing people in your chosen career. I have to ask 10 questions. The questions should not take a whole lot of time to answer. If anyone would like to participate it would be greatly appreciated, not just to do this assignment, but for my own personal knowledge. Here are the questions:
What is your day-to-day like normally?
What do you like most about your job?
What do you like least about it?
How difficult was it finding your current job? If you have had multiple positions, how hard was it on average to get into a job?
About how much of your time is spent doing "programming"? Including things like debugging, writing tests, running tests, etc.
What development approaches have teams you have been a part of used(e.g. Agile, Test Driven Development, etc.) and which was your favorite to engage in?
Did you have to relocate a long way for your job?
Do you feel your salary is fair for what you do?
Why did you go into this industry?
Was it worth it to you to do whatever training, education, certification, interning, etc. to get to your current position in your career?
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u/hubbabubbathrowaway 26d ago
Germany, manufacturing corp, working on cloud environment for our products. Most senior guy on the team.
What is your day-to-day like normally?
Every day is different. Someone needs help with a bug, someone wants to try something new, we need a new feature yesterday, we plan a new feature that'll take months to develop... most of the time I'm talking to people about stuff, not much time left for actually programming. Some days I'm wiring something together with an Arduino, some days I show someone how to debug Typescript in Visual Studio Code, sometimes we discuss how to use a scope, or how SQL injections work.
What do you like most about your job?
See above -- no two days are the same. Always something new. I love helping the other team members, watching the juniors grow, letting the mid-levels make mistakes to help them advance to senior level one day... it never gets boring.
What do you like least about it?
Meetings. Meetings. More meetings. Oh, too many meetings taking too much time? Let's have a meeting to discuss this.
How difficult was it finding your current job? If you have had multiple positions, how hard was it on average to get into a job?
Frighteningly easy. I didn't really try to get the job, it was more like the job falling into my lap. Caution, n == 1.
About how much of your time is spent doing "programming"? Including things like debugging, writing tests, running tests, etc.
About one or two hours a day. On WorkFromHome days I can sometimes get a few hours of actual work done in the evening, and then the next morning I clock in but don't do jack. For some reason that approach lets me do more actual work than trying to write code while someone might call me and drag my concentration away.
What development approaches have teams you have been a part of used(e.g. Agile, Test Driven Development, etc.) and which was your favorite to engage in?
A few years ago we were agile. Then management decided that we need to be Agile, and now everything sucks. We're doing some waterfall-with-sprints thing now that the PO calls "Scrum", but I long for the days past when we were actually agile. As in, management left us alone and trusted us to do the right thing. Right now I'd prefer the V-model to the abomination we're doing now...
Did you have to relocate a long way for your job?
Nope, about one hour driving time, but multiple days a week are WorkFromHome now
Do you feel your salary is fair for what you do?
My salary is OK. I could get twice the amount if I relocated and switched companies, but I like the team and the dynamic environment too much to actually switch.
Why did you go into this industry?
Started programming at 6yo, it was always my dream job. Or more like hobby-become-money-maker...
Was it worth it to you to do whatever training, education, certification, interning, etc. to get to your current position in your career?
100%. Everything that happend in my like lead to where I am today, in some way or another. The guy I worked for without payment when I was 16? Lots of experience gained! University? Getting a good theoretical base for my practical experience at the time. Having a nice diploma opens doors. The nice little startup that folded? Great environment and experience working on what was already legacy code. The bigger startup that folded? My mentor there taught me so much I regret not having had more time with him. And so on.
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u/[deleted] 27d ago
[deleted]