
Free CS Courses – Amazon Future Engineer - wallflower
https://www.amazonfutureengineer.com/free-courses
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erikw
Something I'd like to see massive companies do to is offer lower skilled
internships. I had a tough time convincing anyone to hire me coming out of a
bootcamp, and I saw a lot of other people in similar situations- even people
who I know are much better developers than I am. Internships also tend to
require someone to be enrolled in an accredited institution. Offering a simple
coding test and a small stipend seems like it would be pretty low risk for a
company that has the cash and manpower to run a program like this. Large
companies seen uniquely positioned to be able to try something of this size.

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keenmaster
There should be a medical residency-style job matching algorithm. Most jobs
are way more fungible across companies than corporations would like to think.
If a graduate would be almost equally ecstatic to work as an SE-1 at Apple,
Amazon, Google, Netflix, etc...why should they have to apply to each one
independently? Of course, the applicant would rank them by preference. If none
of them want the applicant, he/she would "drop" to less sought after firms.

Companies on the platform would agree on certain tests the applicant would
need to take, and at which institution. They would also agree on the
information they all want (in a common app). Interviews would play little to
no role in the process, since only technical interviews offer any marginal
value according to emprical evidence. If social skills are important, they can
be included in an empirically proven test of social skills. Imagine a VR
simulation where you are grouped with other applicants, and ML algos are fed
dozens of inputs based on your interactions in the simulated environment.
Human testmasters can still have input into the process, delivering guided
exercises, looking out for algo-hacking, interacting with test-takers, and
weeding out anomalies.

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adenadel
From my experience with friends going through the residency match, more people
end up unhappy or mediocre about their match rather than happy. I say this as
the partner of someone who matched at their number one choice. The day was
defined for me by how I felt for all of our friends who didn't end up at their
number one (or 2nd-5th choice) and ended up feeling somewhat broken.

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keenmaster
I can't assess that analogy without knowing what your friends were
dissatisfied with. Was it because they ended up in a different state away from
their family? Was it because their coworkers were worse than they expected?
Etc...some problems will always exist, regardless of the matching modality.
Additionally, people always want more. They often think they can get better
when they get exactly what they deserve, along reasonably objective measures
of assessment. Lastly, there is selection bias in who you hear from. All the
residency announcements I see on Facebook are wildly happy, with exclamation
marks and all. I won't conclude from that that everyone is happy with their
match, just like I don't believe the reverse.

Increasing matching efficiency reduces transaction costs. Those costs are
huge, and they lower our quality of life and the dynamism of our economy.

Our financial markets are very liquid most of the time. An underappreciated
fact is that the aforementioned liquidity increases investment and keeps
America on top of the world. Our labor markets aren't nearly as liquid. That
is why there is a disconnect between how well corporations are doing and how
well employees are doing. Both people and corporations would be better off if
our labor markets were more liquid. We currently don't have the tools to make
that happen. However, they are easy to create. They just need widespread buy-
in and agreement on the core problem of inefficient matching in the labor
markets.

Think of all the people who would have benefited from internships they never
got and better jobs that they never applied for. If they got those internships
and got those jobs, not only would they benefit, the whole country would
benefit. It is in our collective interest to 1. keep people employed 2. at the
best job at the best company 3. that is equal in quality to the person's
qualifications. You can bring up the fuzziness and subjectiveness of
qualifications and job quality, but let's be real. We all know who from our
graduating class can get a job at an SP500 company and who can get a job at a
Russell 2000 company. Both would benefit from a common app-style job
application for different reasons. Let's stop pretending otherwise, because
that hinders innovation and keeps us in the unsatisfactory status quo.

~~~
adenadel
All of the residency announcements I saw on Facebook were also wildly happy,
but I know for a fact that some of the people who posted those were literally
in tears before that and put themselves together to post a "happy"
announcement. Personally, I like the idea of having the option to choose
whether or not to accept an offer.

I'm not so sold on the idea that a match system will improve labor liquidity.
How do you negotiate wages? Medical residents are stuck with the salary of the
site that they matched at. When you enter the match, you cannot simply choose
not to accept the job "offer" you are given.

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Der_Einzige
If this course doesn't focus almost entirely on leetcode style problems, than
it's pretty bunk for actually getting into Amazon.

Amazon's OA is significantly worse than even it's big competitors regarding
the required leetcode grind. I don't think there's a Software Engineer who was
hired in the last several years at Amazon who wasn't grilled on a few leetcode
medium (and likely, a hard or two) style problems.

Moreover, if you're good enough to get into Amazon and deal with it's
reputation for horrible WLB, back-stabbing and political culture, bad pay (for
a "FAANG"), horrible vesting, mediocre benefits, and working for a literal
vampire, than you can (and should) go work for one of it's competitors who
will pay you and treat you strictly better. Microsoft, Google, Apple, the
unicorns, and even Oracle OCI all fit the bill. Microsoft will give you easier
leetcode questions and a 20 hour work week. Oracle OCI certainly will pay you
better (their whole schtick is to poach Amazon Employees for their own cloud).

Amazon is rightfully shamed as being "not good enough to stay in the FAANG"
because they treat their engineers so badly. I guess the only reason to work
for them is that they need a lot of Java devs for AWS and many places are
slowly abandoning Java - but even then - there are so many java shops around
still that you shouldn't have trouble finding work.

I suppose COVID may change things a bit but we should be telling aspiring
engineers the truth about Amazon.

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12bits
The python course is asking for a lot of personal information, for something
free to do while we're all isolating.

~~~
stronglikedan
> free online computer science classes _for any student or teacher_ affected
> by school closures due to COVID-19 in the US.

I would imagine they need the information to verify that requirement.

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ericol
This is US only: I think that's an important distinction to make.

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momofarm
So bascially some grade 12 kids could took your job.....seriously!?

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Kalium
If a grade 12 kid can come take my job, I deserve it. And so does the kid.

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MisterBastahrd
The supply of developers is not going to outstrip demand for quite some time,
especially as automation continues to eat low-skill jobs.

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monadic2
When are we going to be able to go back to apprenticeships? When we abandon
privately held businesses?

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fenwick67
Over and over it seems like we've reached peak STEM career grooming and then
there's more

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kpmcc
Optimistic take: oh that's nice more educational materials

Cynical take: Damn they really want to pay Software Engineers less.

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tnel77
“Anyone can learn to write code. Very few can write good code.” -Former Tech
Lead

Strive to write good software via intelligent design and collaboration with
your peers and you will continue to make great money.

~~~
csours
Even fewer can write good code in a timely manner.

I can write good code, but it takes me a long time.

