
I created a study plan for web developers to become software engineers - Jefro118
https://sourcesort.com/interview/john-washam-coding-interview-university
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gamesbrainiac
My dear friend, Web Developers are indeed software engineers. In fact, a
Software Development Engineer is essentially Developer for short.

All software engineers have some sort of specialization or another; there is
nothing preventing a web developer from writing software in another
discipline.

A very large portion of developers at FANG companies are web developers; the
web is a big part of software these days. FANG companies do not have a
monopoly on defining what software engineering is.

Even if you are currently in a FANG company, you must take some time to
prepare before you go to an interview for another FANG company. The reason is
simple, you don't really get a lot of algorithm/data structure practice in
most day jobs; leetcode is your friend.

And please, can we stop this incessant gatekeeping? It does not help. There
are a lot of amazing software engineers working at non-FANG companies doing
great work, building great things.

~~~
shantly
> And please, can we stop this incessant gatekeeping? It does not help. There
> are a lot of amazing software engineers working at non-FANG companies doing
> great work, building great things.

Sure, but not making north of $200k in non-management, non-super-specialized-
and-rare positions. Except ("mostly", I must add, because this is an Internet
comment) at places that interview similarly.

[EDIT] While we're at it—dear all you folks hiring in the low to mid-100 range
for remote positions: your competition, for me, includes local places that
don't have a weeks-long five-stage hazing interview process that take 4-8
hours total time, or more. They have maybe two hours of relatively low-stress
phone calls and in-person conversations and make a decision in a day or three.
And offer the same money you do. They shit or get off the effing pot, because
they know if they don't they'll miss me. Your slow-ass high-time-commitment
"oh we'll do two hours of pair coding online then fly you out and have you do
a half-day of whiteboarding" processes are why it's "hard to find developers",
assuming the money you're offering is right. You are not Google. Your money is
not Google money. Your competition includes shops that have cashflow and
contracts and need— _need_ —developers with half a clue _right now_ and can't
afford to dick around, and they pay the same that you do. Knock it off. I'd
rather work for you guys but you make it a real pain in the ass.

~~~
gamesbrainiac
You can get >$200k in non-FANG. I know of at least one company in Austin, the
position is partial remote, you can work 3 days from home if you want to.

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mykowebhn
I remember John Washam's original blog post that followed his preparations for
taking a Google SW interview. At the time, I felt he way over-prepared and
wasted time on things that weren't directly relevant to the actual interview.

Looking at his new study plan, it looks like he's learned from his original
undertaking and created an exhaustive list of things to know for a FAANG
interview. I do think he skipped over the behavioral interview preparations
which can be extremely important for certain companies.

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gigatexal
Web developers are software engineers.

~~~
amelius
Yes but by definition restricted to the web.

~~~
pdub1234
\- Create Desktop apps with NodeJS-- Look at Electron

\- Create iPhone & Android Phone apps with React Native framework

\- Create robots/IoT projects with frameworks like Cylon.js, Johnny-Five, etc.

Sure, you can't use JS to program some stuff (integrated circuits, cisco
networking gear, etc.), but there's a lot more you can do with it than web
programming.

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tombert
I started as a "web developer" without any credentials and have transitioned
to "software engineer" without any credentials, though now I'm actually not
100% sure how I did that.

Mostly I just obsessed over functional programming for a long time, and then
took the first job I could find doing Haskell (at NYU), then doing an Erlang
chat server at a startup, and then doing F# at Jet.com. I guess people assume
that only engineers and academics want to do functional languages.

~~~
grammarxcore
I started as a mobile dev, transitioned to backend, and somewhere between then
and now, I've become an engineer. My skillset never really changed and the
only cert I have is unrelated to code. I feel like it's just title creep. When
I was a kid building websites "web dev" was the cool title. Now it's
"something something engineer."

~~~
tombert
I mean, in fairness to me (and possibly you, I don't know), I do a lot more
algorithmic stuff now than when I first started. I actually have to think
about time-complexity in what I do, in addition to knowing the best kind of
concurrency algorithms for a certain task.

I haven't done any web dev in awhile, and my understanding is that this _has_
changed, but when I was doing it, you could get away without worrying a lot
about performance or theory.

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psv1
Wonderful blend of gatekeeping and clickbait in the title. :)

~~~
Jefro118
What do you mean by gatekeeping? It is a slightly clickbaity title I admit,
although it's not dishonest.

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edwinjm
I graduated as a software engineer and now I'm a web developer…

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faissaloo
I'm confused by the title, a web developer is just a particular type of
software engineer.

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nightnight
Funny. Today's web devs are not your daddy's webmasters.

~~~
faissaloo
I'm not sure what your comment means.

