How to become an "intelligent junior." Personal experience

There are already quite a lot of articles on Habré from juniors and for juniors. Some are astonishing at the degree of overwhelmingness of young specialists who, at the very beginning of their career paths, are ready to advise corporations. Some, on the contrary, amaze me with somewhat puppy enthusiasm: “Oh, I was hired by a real programmer, now I'm ready to work, even if for free. And yesterday, the team leader looked at me - I’m sure my future is arranged. ” Such articles are mainly on corporate blogs. Well, so I decided to talk 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 like long digressions and spreading thoughts on the tree, but there are lovers of this style - so pour a large cup of tea - and go.

So, a few years ago: I am in the 4th year of the Polytechnic in my quiet provincial regional center. I practice in a dilapidated (on a physical level) research institute. “Programming” in XML. My work is very important for the import substitution process in the instrument-making industry. Probably not. I hope no. I hope that all the XMLs that I was half asleep on the machine automatically typed in this research institute went to the basket right after I left. But mostly, I read dvach 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 Bentley model to buy for the February salary. “To Moscow, to Moscow” becomes my motto, “Three Sisters” - my favorite work (okay, I mean the song BG, I did not read Chekhov, of course, it’s some kind of gall).

I am writing to my virtual acquaintance a Moscow programmer:

- Listen, are junior programmers in Moscow generally needed?
- Well, sensible are needed, stupid nafig nobody needs (there was another word, if that)
- And what is “sensible” and what is “stupid”. And how do I understand, what am I?
- Chuvaaaaaak, damn it, the first rule of June is not to be stuffy. Sensible is sensible, which is not clear here.

Well, what can I say - Muscovites they will not say the words in simplicity. But at least I recognized the first rule of the junior.

However, I really wanted to become an "intelligent junior." And he began to accurately prepare for the move in a year. Naturally, I was preparing 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 three in the exam (that is, after the first exam of the first semester). Well and also ... this ... I'm not very smart. Highbrow scientists and software architects arouse my dumb admiration. But still I want the same!

So, during the preparation I:

• He learned the syntax of his main programming languages. So, it happened that I had C / C ++, but if I started over, I would choose others. I didn’t master the stroustrup, sir, sir, but this is beyond my strength, but Lippman is the one. Kernigan and Ritchie - on the contrary, a great 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 the junior to read one
• Learned the algorithms. I have not mastered Corman, but Sedgwick and the courses on the cursor are the very thing. Simple, affordable and transparent. I also stupidly solved puzzles on leetcode.com. I mastered all the easy tasks, we can say the game went through an easy level of difficulty, 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 asked this at interviews. This turned out to be a torrent client. When I got a job already, I with great pleasure removed it from the github. A year after writing, I was already ashamed to look at his code.
• I memorized a mountain of idiotic logic puzzles. Now I know for sure how to calculate the number of lights turned on in a looped car, find out the colors of the hats on the gnomes and whether the fox will eat the duck. But this is so useless knowledge ... But now it’s very funny when some team lead gives “I have a special secret task that determines whether a person can think” and gives one of the accordion problems that the entire Internet knows about.
• I read a bunch of articles about what hr-girls want to hear at the interview. Now I know for sure what my flaws 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 the plan of moving to Moscow. I posted a resume on hh.ru, the place of stay, naturally indicated Moscow and responded to all vacancies, at least remotely resembling my profile. I did not indicate the desired salary, because I had no idea how much they were paying. But fundamentally - I did not want to work for food. My grandmother told me that money is a measure of respect for you by the employer, and you cannot work with those who do not respect you.

I arrived in Moscow and threw the backpack into my bed. Over the next month, I had a huge amount of interviews, often several a day. If I had not kept 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 the junior's point of view:

• Russian IT giants. Well, you all know them. They can send an invitation to "talk" even if you haven’t laid out a resume, like we still follow you and we already know everything. At the interview - subtleties of the language and algorithms. I saw how the brightened face of one there was a Timlid, when I gracefully turned the binary tree on a leaf. And I 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 experience of interviewing there like this: WTF ?! In one I was interviewed for a long time with psychological pens such as “What do you think, why do people work? And for what minimum amount would you start working at a dream job? ” After the degree of idiocy reached its maximum, I was offered to take a couple of integrals. I can only integrate in degree e, which I told the interviewer about. Most likely, after parting, we both considered each other fools, but he’s an old fool and he won’t get any wiser, hehe. Another company said that I was very cool, sent a vacancy for approval to America and disappeared. Perhaps the carrier pigeon did not fly across the ocean. Another company offered an internship for 40. Nuneznaaaaay.
• Russian state sponsors. State sponsors love graduates from cool universities (which is my problem). State sponsors love academic knowledge (which is also my problem). Well, plus government offices are very different. In one, a lady who looked like a school teacher with confidence in her voice offered 15 thousand. I even asked again - really 15. In the other 60-70 without problems.
• Gamedev. Here, as in the joke "everyone says a movie for fools, but I liked it." Despite the poor reputation of the industry, for me it’s so normal - interesting people, 40-70 for money, well, norms.
• Any trash. In the natural basement, 5-10-15 developers sit and cheat and saw the blockchain / messenger / toy delivery / malvar / browser / their fallout. Interviews vary from a close look to a language test of 50 questions. The money is also different: 30 thousand, 50 thousand, “first 20, then 70”, $ 2100. One thing in common is dark perspectives and a dark layout. And my grandmother told me that in Moscow everyone is trying to deceive such a sparrow as I am.
• Adequate middle peasants. There are middle-sized offices that do not have a high-profile brand, but there are no corrals about their exclusivity. They are very fiercely competing for staff, so they do not have 5-stage interviews and attempts to intentionally hurt at the interview. They are well aware that in addition to salaries and cool projects - the rest of the motivators, they are already additional. Interviews are adequate - in terms of language, what is / what you want, what are the ways of development. For money 70-130. I have chosen one of these offices and have been successfully working in it to this day.

Okay, if anyone read up to this place I congratulate you - you are cool. You deserve one more piece of advice to juniors:

• Know the syntax of your language well. They ask all sorts of rarities.
• Do not panic if the interview is unsuccessful. I had an interview where, after almost every one of my remarks, the interviewers began to laugh and make fun of my answer. When I left the room, I really wanted to cry. But then I remembered that after two hours I had the next interview, and with this #### I wish the elusive bugs in production.
• Do not go to hr interviews. Tell the girls what they want from you and move on to the technical experts. At interviews, I repeatedly assured hr-ok that I just dream of working in telecom / game dev / finance, developing microcontrollers and ad networks. Money, of course, is not important to me, only pure knowledge. Yes, yes, yes, I am normal about processing, I’m ready to obey my boss as a mother, and devote my free time to additional product testing. yeah-yeah, whatever.
• Write a normal resume. Clearly state what technologies you own and what you want. All sorts of “sociability and stress tolerance” are superfluous, especially if you are categorically uncommunicative and non-stress resistant like me.

We need to finish the article with something, so good luck to the Joons, Signore Tomatoes, do not get angry and do not offend the youth, everyone writes!