so I actually have an interview with probably the best software development company in the area coming up.

they had a listing for a jr developer, so I sent my resume via their online submission procedure. their submission form requirements were a bit non-traditional. one of the criteria was a poem.

a few days later they sent me a screening assignment that was to be solved without the use of any outside sources including google or an ide. the main exercise was to write a method that converted an integer to a string without using the toString method or any library conversion methods.

it took me a bit to think up the algorithm and so my answers to the other 2 questions were not as fully formed as I would have liked.

it makes me think that a bootcamp holds quite a bit of weight in this area. my resume starts 12 yrs ago and is basically, mechanical eng degree>1 yr mechE job>7 yrs poker> 3 yrs bum>bootcamp. or mebbe my poem was just that good.

How did you answer? I'm terrible at those brain ticklers.

Isn't that just the reverse of the number string to digit problem?

String numString="";
while(num>0){
digit=num%10;
numString = digit+numString;
num=num/10;

}

thats actually not quite how I did it. rather than line 4, I had a long if-else statement for every digit ie

if(digit==0){
numString= "0"+numString;
else if(digit==1)
numString= "1"+numString;
etc etc

Tomorrow night!

Can't wait for your bootcamp report

I guess because you're not even assuming you can do something like str(digit) to get the character representation of the digit? If that's really the case, a shortcut is to consider that fact that ascii 0 is character 48. so the character for each digit is 48+digit. How you turn an ascii code into a character varies from system to system, but for example in python it's
chr(48+digit)
and in C or C++ it would be
char c = 48+digit
(you can do math on chars in C/C++, they're just 1-byte unsigned integers)

This was my thinking on the resolution.

Sub 45 minutes

Still time to back out!

Good luck, have fun

Well that was kinda boring. Small intro, split the 100+ into two groups, then sit in tables of 4 and do the stuff I may already have posted from their github. Small getting to know your skill test at the start, lotta blank faces in the room. Took me a while to figure out wtf they were asking, but it was basically a "toggle between true and false on a huge array in various increments" question. Doubt I got a correct answer.

Rest was just "work on your own, ask people around you for help"

100 people = $200,000 ?

Damn.

They are printing mad money.

To be fair, blank stares are the norm in SF. (sorry)

This was just a pre-show right? They aren't really going to have 100 people in one cohort, are they?

They say anyone who passed jumpstart will be allowed to join either the May or July cohorts, and that it's possible for any/everyone to get in. So, theoretically up to 50 per cohort. But I'm pretty sure they don't expect everyone to pass.

Wonder what the jumpstart attrition rate is.

Well, they had like 8 TAs there last night that were hired from the previous cohort. So if they keep their salaries high so their grad hire stats look good, who knows? That's almost a million a year if each TA is making 100k.

Mind you, this isn't the full course. No one is getting a job from two weeks of this.

I think the TA thing is logical because it is easy to teach an exact lesson you just learned. Taking someone off the street they will not have these exact lessons and examples fresh in memory. So it might not be hire rate padding.

In AA's case I don't think it's hire rate padding. There aren't nearly enough TA's to compensate for mass people not being able to get hired. There's like 2 per cohort. My cohort was 42ish with 5 kicked out or quit, a recent one was 55, and I think some have been up over 70.

In at least one case they hired a teacher who was a former student but had already been working in the industry for at least a year.

Also this two-week class is "free" I believe? $500 deposit that is refunded to you if you don't get into the main course. I'm definitely curious to know what the angle is here though, if any.

8 of the 10 TAs from last night were from the most recent cohort. Their words, not mine.

Jumpstart is free, with a $500 deposit to hold your seat, which is applied to the $1250 deposit to hold your seat in the main program if you're accepted, which is part of the $2-5k you pay to get in. (No clue how the $2-5k plays out wrt tuition. I know you do 18% salary if you pay 5k, not sure if you get the 5k back after your first year.)

I'm guessing the hook is to get people financially committed to the program. Maybe they offer everyone who goes to this a spot, except any mouthbreathers who happened to make it in somehow, and then I think you don't get a refund if you turn down their offer.

The $5k counts towards your first payment or first x payments, so you owe $13k total instead of $18k. You technically get it back if you didn't get a job? Possible some of this has changed.

Going into it I was worried about the TA thing but in my experience it was one of best parts of the whole program. They were smart, competent, friendly, gave a ****, and consistently surprised me with how much they knew. When it came time for us to apply to TA position there was more interest in becoming a TA then there were open positions. Those that were selected were good. Hopefully you have a similar experience.

Yes you get your deposit refunded if you don't get a job (offer?) within x months.

The TAs are fine I'm sure. The job looked a bit horrible at least during jumpstart. Have to be there from whenever they open to 10pm? Ouch.

This may be a silly question, but do you guys think there is any good reason at all to pay the $90 or w/e for the verified certificate for completing CS50x? I know it doesn't mean much, but my resume will need all the help it can get when I start looking for that first job in the industry. I guess no employer is going to ask for evidence of completion of a MOOC so it's probably a moot point.

I'd say keep your money. I have a couple certificate from previous IRL calification and people don't care.

Yea def doesn't seem like a good use of money. I also would avoid putting MOOCs like that on the resume unless you complete a lot, like to the point that you have half an online CS degree or more.

Just CS50 alone seems worse than nothing.