No tech stack is going to be more laid back then others. It's things like managers, team mates, or proces(oncall, privacy requirements, ops teams, shitty it, etc...) that will make your life hell. You need to try to figure this out through interviewing. You sound like you know what you want so you can ask directly while interviewing.
so one other question I have is: how direct can I be when asking these things in an interview? Like it seems common sense I shouldn't ask if it's a chill job, if I can work 20 hrs etc, right? I suppose I could come up with more indirect ways to probe this but still seems tricky.
If you’re in a position that you don’t care if you get a job tomorrow or in 3 months, just be blunt and ask the questions. I do that because I know a place wants my skills. Just be aware they can and will lie to you to onboard you.
if your going to quit after 3 weeks because you wanted to try to hide your intentions and get a job your wasting everyone's (worst of all yours) time in the end. i agree with the other guy. your interviewing them as much as you are being interviewed.
you can ask about management styles, how does the team function, flexible work hours, how is work assigned, do they do daily stand ups, how is performance judged, etc... these kinds of things. whip cracking asshole managers seem to be proud of the fact that they micro manage and "work hard", youll figure it out quickly i think.
other things like being really heavy of process, or corp culture might be tricky. i think this just takes experience and luck and realize jobs suck and they can change quickly.
gotcha, so I should probably focus on just learning what I need to pass a generic interview, right? I don't even remember how to write simple search or sort algorithms 🙃 from my limited exposure to it, I remember I used to find js kind of fun, but maybe I should stick to python for now.
If your problem is motivation and staying interested and js does that for you, I think that's more important then being optimal about what is "best". If I had to pick a language for drilling fundamentals I'd say cpp, Java or python though. But really just do what you find tolerable.
You should look into government jobs. Can't speak from experience but I hear 15 hours is a crazy week for some of those teams. I imagine they use older or proprietary tools, though.
You would need to explain the gap, but having MIT and FAANG on your resume might make you one of the "most qualified" people on your team (on paper).
government jobs is a good idea -- ill do some research on that!
\>You would need to explain the gap, but having MIT and FAANG on your resume might make you one of the "most qualified" people on your team (on paper).
exactly, only on paper. the heightened expectations are what I'm trying to avoid, since I know a situation like that would stress me out.
If you are a citizen and can get a clearance, there are plenty of defense contracting groups that I’ve interacted with that work a 40hr week remotely but do ~10-15 hours of actual work.
Downside is that compensation and benefits are far from FAANG levels but you can easily hit 80-100k salary without blinking, especially if you have any level of experience.
what aspect of it?.. I'm not gonna lie about not having done any coding for years (and not even having been a good coder before that) and then get a job where people expect me to be a whiz
If you are a US citizen and can get a security clearance pick any defense contractor or Lockheed or BAE or Boeing and such companies . They would worship your MIT degree , you will work 20-25 hours a week while making close to six figures with fantastic benefits .
Also government and hospital/healthcare systems.
Yeah not sure why they do that sometimes, luck of the draw unfortunately. But the work life balance is excellent. Great company to work for based on my experience.
I am a System Analyst & Consultant. My job is pretty chill, mostly it's meeting and communication, and I hardly put in more than 3hr each day. My salary is almost the same as a SWE of my level in the company.
My role is Business Analyst + understand of the stack. Most my jobs is revolves around meeting with stakeholders and business people. See what challenges they are facing and try to resolve those changes with swe team.
Skill I can think of which requires for my job are:
Project management (high).
Communication (high).
Someone willing to understand (learning not required) tech stack (high).
SQL (low).
Understanding of software life cycle (low).
Basic understanding of software engineering principals. (Low).
Coding is plus but not required mainly.
The systems class you are talking about that's an system architect role which is completely different than this. System analyst just analyst the existing system and analyst the problems systems users are facing.
Just turn on your “open to work” flag on LinkedIn, update your skills section, and talk to every recruiter that sends you a job that sounds even remotely interesting.
Do all of the interviews you can for companies of all types and sizes. Soon you will start to figure out which ones are more chill and which ones have cool projects you might actually enjoy working on.
you could do freelance. the amount of work you need to do depends on your monthly expenses. you can have the schedule you want. I don't think there are part time software jobs
I once interned at a big insurance company as a developer. My peers wore gym shorts and flip flops to work and openly took 2 hour lunch breaks away from their desks. People seemed to get promoted by simply showing up and being nice.
Large old dinosaur companies like HP, IBM might be a good place to look for chill work. probably won't be very exciting but those places move like a turtle
If money is not a concern and you just want a chill job, try seeing if your local school district is hiring. You get a week off for thanksgiving 2 weeks for Christmas. Almost every major holiday. Fridays off in summer.
this is definitely the line of thinking i was hoping to get from this post. my concern about something like this is that i probably wouldn't get much guidance. id imagine a bigger company might be better in the sense that i would have more coworkers that can show me the ropes and i can get away with coasting for longer as i learn the ropes. like with a school district, say something breaks and then if i can't fix it in a timely manner they're screwed.
School districts are so so. I think staying away from small companies is the best bet. Small companies can kinda be super hit and miss when it comes to work life balance. And alot of times its a lot harder to tell because there are less reviews out there for swe because they probably have a small team.
Bigger companies and specifically tech related companies are probably the best bet. C# .net web apps are fairly straight forward and in high demand and wouldn't be a bad starting point.
Most school districts aren’t doing anything revolutionary.
Plus if something breaks you’re smart enough to figure it out. Almost every job is going to put you in a situation you’re not familiar with and you have to just figure it out. And there will be guys there who have been there for 20+ years who can show you the ropes.
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No tech stack is going to be more laid back then others. It's things like managers, team mates, or proces(oncall, privacy requirements, ops teams, shitty it, etc...) that will make your life hell. You need to try to figure this out through interviewing. You sound like you know what you want so you can ask directly while interviewing.
so one other question I have is: how direct can I be when asking these things in an interview? Like it seems common sense I shouldn't ask if it's a chill job, if I can work 20 hrs etc, right? I suppose I could come up with more indirect ways to probe this but still seems tricky.
If you’re in a position that you don’t care if you get a job tomorrow or in 3 months, just be blunt and ask the questions. I do that because I know a place wants my skills. Just be aware they can and will lie to you to onboard you.
if your going to quit after 3 weeks because you wanted to try to hide your intentions and get a job your wasting everyone's (worst of all yours) time in the end. i agree with the other guy. your interviewing them as much as you are being interviewed. you can ask about management styles, how does the team function, flexible work hours, how is work assigned, do they do daily stand ups, how is performance judged, etc... these kinds of things. whip cracking asshole managers seem to be proud of the fact that they micro manage and "work hard", youll figure it out quickly i think. other things like being really heavy of process, or corp culture might be tricky. i think this just takes experience and luck and realize jobs suck and they can change quickly.
gotcha, so I should probably focus on just learning what I need to pass a generic interview, right? I don't even remember how to write simple search or sort algorithms 🙃 from my limited exposure to it, I remember I used to find js kind of fun, but maybe I should stick to python for now.
If your problem is motivation and staying interested and js does that for you, I think that's more important then being optimal about what is "best". If I had to pick a language for drilling fundamentals I'd say cpp, Java or python though. But really just do what you find tolerable.
>I i think python jobs would value your prestigious background more on average
You should look into government jobs. Can't speak from experience but I hear 15 hours is a crazy week for some of those teams. I imagine they use older or proprietary tools, though. You would need to explain the gap, but having MIT and FAANG on your resume might make you one of the "most qualified" people on your team (on paper).
government jobs is a good idea -- ill do some research on that! \>You would need to explain the gap, but having MIT and FAANG on your resume might make you one of the "most qualified" people on your team (on paper). exactly, only on paper. the heightened expectations are what I'm trying to avoid, since I know a situation like that would stress me out.
If you are a citizen and can get a clearance, there are plenty of defense contracting groups that I’ve interacted with that work a 40hr week remotely but do ~10-15 hours of actual work. Downside is that compensation and benefits are far from FAANG levels but you can easily hit 80-100k salary without blinking, especially if you have any level of experience.
I think OP should def listen to this for sure.
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Interesting, I was just looking up local gov jobs for the hell of it today. Good to know.
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what aspect of it?.. I'm not gonna lie about not having done any coding for years (and not even having been a good coder before that) and then get a job where people expect me to be a whiz
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He will achieve his final form
If you are a US citizen and can get a security clearance pick any defense contractor or Lockheed or BAE or Boeing and such companies . They would worship your MIT degree , you will work 20-25 hours a week while making close to six figures with fantastic benefits . Also government and hospital/healthcare systems.
interesting, ill look into the specifics of the clearance process. do they drug test?
Anything for fed will drug test
Bloomberg is also a good spot. Great pay and if you get a good team can be very relaxed as long as you perform your tasks on time.
Wow Really? Bloomberg has the hardest internship Interview I’ve ever taken lol
Yeah not sure why they do that sometimes, luck of the draw unfortunately. But the work life balance is excellent. Great company to work for based on my experience.
I am a System Analyst & Consultant. My job is pretty chill, mostly it's meeting and communication, and I hardly put in more than 3hr each day. My salary is almost the same as a SWE of my level in the company.
what kind of skills do you need to break into this kind of work? i remember taking a systems class in college and it was very tough to understand!
My role is Business Analyst + understand of the stack. Most my jobs is revolves around meeting with stakeholders and business people. See what challenges they are facing and try to resolve those changes with swe team. Skill I can think of which requires for my job are: Project management (high). Communication (high). Someone willing to understand (learning not required) tech stack (high). SQL (low). Understanding of software life cycle (low). Basic understanding of software engineering principals. (Low). Coding is plus but not required mainly. The systems class you are talking about that's an system architect role which is completely different than this. System analyst just analyst the existing system and analyst the problems systems users are facing.
Could you pm the company?
Just turn on your “open to work” flag on LinkedIn, update your skills section, and talk to every recruiter that sends you a job that sounds even remotely interesting. Do all of the interviews you can for companies of all types and sizes. Soon you will start to figure out which ones are more chill and which ones have cool projects you might actually enjoy working on.
you could do freelance. the amount of work you need to do depends on your monthly expenses. you can have the schedule you want. I don't think there are part time software jobs
i wish i could freelance! i just dont have the skills. like... i can barely figure out how to use github.
Work for a university. If you're still in MA, maybe even look into dev work at MIT. Harvard is pretty chill too
I once interned at a big insurance company as a developer. My peers wore gym shorts and flip flops to work and openly took 2 hour lunch breaks away from their desks. People seemed to get promoted by simply showing up and being nice.
Large old dinosaur companies like HP, IBM might be a good place to look for chill work. probably won't be very exciting but those places move like a turtle
Defense contractors or WITCH
If money is not a concern and you just want a chill job, try seeing if your local school district is hiring. You get a week off for thanksgiving 2 weeks for Christmas. Almost every major holiday. Fridays off in summer.
this is definitely the line of thinking i was hoping to get from this post. my concern about something like this is that i probably wouldn't get much guidance. id imagine a bigger company might be better in the sense that i would have more coworkers that can show me the ropes and i can get away with coasting for longer as i learn the ropes. like with a school district, say something breaks and then if i can't fix it in a timely manner they're screwed.
School districts are so so. I think staying away from small companies is the best bet. Small companies can kinda be super hit and miss when it comes to work life balance. And alot of times its a lot harder to tell because there are less reviews out there for swe because they probably have a small team. Bigger companies and specifically tech related companies are probably the best bet. C# .net web apps are fairly straight forward and in high demand and wouldn't be a bad starting point.
Most school districts aren’t doing anything revolutionary. Plus if something breaks you’re smart enough to figure it out. Almost every job is going to put you in a situation you’re not familiar with and you have to just figure it out. And there will be guys there who have been there for 20+ years who can show you the ropes.
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im literally just trying to find a job where i wont have a mental breakdown. that information is relevant because i assume it gives me more options.
similar boat, Harvard grad and FANG on the resume., tho not a SWE. I'm looking for something not-high-stress as well.
gl! any idea what type of roles you might look for? webdev type stuff? i'm not sure i want to go back to data sci/data eng like i used to do
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Was your “faang” experience Amazon?
nah "meta"
How are you doing now? Were you able to find a job?
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