Hey I used to stay for coffee with the marketing team of my previous employer because they were more fun!! Lol glad to hear I wasn’t the only person enjoying the comms people! I know exactly how you feel!
Probably a big portion of us, but I hope that it gets diversified. Love reading about other fields as well and enjoy looking at posts from !machinist@sh.itjust.works too on top of dev work :)
Thankfully I can, they haven’t yet followed me home ;) hope you are enjoying your work environment as well apart from micromanaging and socially awkward devs!
Ha, fully agree, glad to hear I’m not the only dev who enjoys the other teams! (Sometimes I’m not so sure… Like, when I had to lead a training about getting project requirements that basically boiled down to “have you tried asking people questions?” the answer to which was a resounding “No. They wrote down what they wanted, why would I ask about it? If they meant something else, they should write that.”
Oh dang, thanks for the machinist community, that looks super cool. Love seeing the stuff people can build, such a refreshing change from our intangible but ridiculously complex projects. “Oh, so you got some numbers to show there? Okay.” “No but those numbers are really tricky and… Yes. I just got some numbers to show there.” Another dev buddy and I worked on his cabin during the summer and though the work was hard and sweaty my God was it rewarding.
Absolutely love my work environment, even if I spend too much of it on here… Hope you do too!
Glad I’m often not the one gathering the initial requirements lol!
Absolutely, love to see something more physical being made and solving physical problems too! And working on a cabin is bliss if you have a good weather! I bet it was rewarding at the end :)
And yes to both: I do like my work as well and also spend too much time here while being there!
Oh man, I love the initial req stage. Partially because of friends on the other teams but also I get to nudge the project to where I think it should go. Or away from unfunness.
You are 100% right about the cabin. Here’s me on our newly built deck, beer in hand and half ready to leap to safety at the first suspicious creak:
That is indeed nice. I don’t get a much of a say in my current job so that’s why I prefer not to be part of the requirements defining. I just tell them what is possible and within what time frame when they finally come up with their final master plan that they want to define themselves (maybe I’m just communicating wrong with academic people still).
Now that looks like bliss! Perfect weather, beer, cabin in the nature, and a day full of hard work behind. And hey, the captain must sink with their ship ;) Thanks for sharing!
I suppose in a job with academics they have pretty precise experiment goals etc, so probably less open to suggestions. I don’t know what research y’all are doing but I’d have very little to offer on most scientific subjects!
Was talking to a soccer buddy last night (another dev, apparemtly everyone is a dev this week) and he’s been applying to jobs where he’d be supporting academics, any suggestions or hints for an interview and/or beyond?
And yeah, you’re right, despite the sunburns, aches and fear of death it really was bliss. I got my pal 50 feet of mosquito net for Christmas, we’re going to try and engineer something wild to protect ourselves on the deck at night…!
I’ve learned that yeah, and me too, especially since it’s not what I studied and I can’t really give any input on research methods - they are a research group in Spatial Data Science and I’m constantly learning new stuff that’s not directly related to my work. I was hired to build and maintain software tools for their own research and help with code architecture of their own creations. I just love learning so perfect job for me!
It’s a good profession to have! ;) and I wish I could give some solid tips, but this is my first job in the academics and I ended up here by accident. I do know something though: he should not settle for public job postings only. Universities consist of multiple research working groups and many of the working groups just wait until someone who knows software well enough rolls into their team or pay a company to do the job.
Before me for past 20 years they got software devs by either someone walking in and asking if they need a freelancer or if a PhD student had previous studies/experience in software. Apparently they had never posted this job online.
Recently I got another offer from a different working group at a different university, and only because one of their employees had worked with me a year before and knew me. There was np job posting for this position either.
Maybe your buddy already knows all of that about university working groups, but thought that this might be useful info. I work in Europe but academics seem to be the same no matter where lol.
And good luck with the fight against mosquitoes! Those assholes…
That does sound like a pretty rocking job! And it sounds like you’re the only dev, so at the very least you get 100% autonomy in how to solve the problem put before you!
Those are actually really helpful bits of advice. My work is actually at a University (nowhere near the academics though) but I imagine I know enough people who know people that it’d be worth asking about research groups that may need devs. Hadn’t even oxcured to me, I just assumed all groups would put up job postings so if neither interview goes his way, I’ll round up the usual suspects…!
Better than my last one! Lol. And yes the amount of freedom I have to solve the problems is quite nice!
Glad I could give something useful. And oh, then you are indeed in a good position to ask around! Who knows, maybe there is a job right around the corner lol. And yeah I would have assumed the same…
Hey I used to stay for coffee with the marketing team of my previous employer because they were more fun!! Lol glad to hear I wasn’t the only person enjoying the comms people! I know exactly how you feel!
Probably a big portion of us, but I hope that it gets diversified. Love reading about other fields as well and enjoy looking at posts from !machinist@sh.itjust.works too on top of dev work :)
Thankfully I can, they haven’t yet followed me home ;) hope you are enjoying your work environment as well apart from micromanaging and socially awkward devs!
Ha, fully agree, glad to hear I’m not the only dev who enjoys the other teams! (Sometimes I’m not so sure… Like, when I had to lead a training about getting project requirements that basically boiled down to “have you tried asking people questions?” the answer to which was a resounding “No. They wrote down what they wanted, why would I ask about it? If they meant something else, they should write that.”
Oh dang, thanks for the machinist community, that looks super cool. Love seeing the stuff people can build, such a refreshing change from our intangible but ridiculously complex projects. “Oh, so you got some numbers to show there? Okay.” “No but those numbers are really tricky and… Yes. I just got some numbers to show there.” Another dev buddy and I worked on his cabin during the summer and though the work was hard and sweaty my God was it rewarding.
Absolutely love my work environment, even if I spend too much of it on here… Hope you do too!
Glad I’m often not the one gathering the initial requirements lol!
Absolutely, love to see something more physical being made and solving physical problems too! And working on a cabin is bliss if you have a good weather! I bet it was rewarding at the end :)
And yes to both: I do like my work as well and also spend too much time here while being there!
Oh man, I love the initial req stage. Partially because of friends on the other teams but also I get to nudge the project to where I think it should go. Or away from unfunness.
You are 100% right about the cabin. Here’s me on our newly built deck, beer in hand and half ready to leap to safety at the first suspicious creak:
That is indeed nice. I don’t get a much of a say in my current job so that’s why I prefer not to be part of the requirements defining. I just tell them what is possible and within what time frame when they finally come up with their final master plan that they want to define themselves (maybe I’m just communicating wrong with academic people still).
Now that looks like bliss! Perfect weather, beer, cabin in the nature, and a day full of hard work behind. And hey, the captain must sink with their ship ;) Thanks for sharing!
I suppose in a job with academics they have pretty precise experiment goals etc, so probably less open to suggestions. I don’t know what research y’all are doing but I’d have very little to offer on most scientific subjects!
Was talking to a soccer buddy last night (another dev, apparemtly everyone is a dev this week) and he’s been applying to jobs where he’d be supporting academics, any suggestions or hints for an interview and/or beyond?
And yeah, you’re right, despite the sunburns, aches and fear of death it really was bliss. I got my pal 50 feet of mosquito net for Christmas, we’re going to try and engineer something wild to protect ourselves on the deck at night…!
I’ve learned that yeah, and me too, especially since it’s not what I studied and I can’t really give any input on research methods - they are a research group in Spatial Data Science and I’m constantly learning new stuff that’s not directly related to my work. I was hired to build and maintain software tools for their own research and help with code architecture of their own creations. I just love learning so perfect job for me!
It’s a good profession to have! ;) and I wish I could give some solid tips, but this is my first job in the academics and I ended up here by accident. I do know something though: he should not settle for public job postings only. Universities consist of multiple research working groups and many of the working groups just wait until someone who knows software well enough rolls into their team or pay a company to do the job.
Before me for past 20 years they got software devs by either someone walking in and asking if they need a freelancer or if a PhD student had previous studies/experience in software. Apparently they had never posted this job online.
Recently I got another offer from a different working group at a different university, and only because one of their employees had worked with me a year before and knew me. There was np job posting for this position either.
Maybe your buddy already knows all of that about university working groups, but thought that this might be useful info. I work in Europe but academics seem to be the same no matter where lol.
And good luck with the fight against mosquitoes! Those assholes…
That does sound like a pretty rocking job! And it sounds like you’re the only dev, so at the very least you get 100% autonomy in how to solve the problem put before you!
Those are actually really helpful bits of advice. My work is actually at a University (nowhere near the academics though) but I imagine I know enough people who know people that it’d be worth asking about research groups that may need devs. Hadn’t even oxcured to me, I just assumed all groups would put up job postings so if neither interview goes his way, I’ll round up the usual suspects…!
Much appreciated!
Better than my last one! Lol. And yes the amount of freedom I have to solve the problems is quite nice!
Glad I could give something useful. And oh, then you are indeed in a good position to ask around! Who knows, maybe there is a job right around the corner lol. And yeah I would have assumed the same…