I'm a developer on interview loops and I don't care what your background is; if you can't read and write code, you're out. If you can do both, you're a maybe. If you can speak to the "why" and discuss the reason behind the code, you're in. After a few years your degree is an irrelevant measure, but a degree can be helpful to get your foot in the first door or two. Get the experience you can and soon enough it won't matter (to those you would want to work for).

Oh! A place where people can make a private phone call. I saw one place where there repurposed telephone booths for individual phone calls and had a camera in there for conferencing into other offices. That saved a ton of space and kept people from tying up big rooms for things that was just for a single person.

Desks that can be moved easily so people working on the same feature can physically be in the same space. Like, I can turn my chair around and can ask the PM a question.

I know PMs are thought to be the bad guys, but if you're doing it right, they will make your product better in a shorter space of time. FWIW, most companies aren't doing it right -- including mine.

@swantzer Agreed unless you're a student. In the real world use the right tool for the job. Unfortunately small exercises in class have a hard time communicating the benefits of oop, but the patterns should still be taught.

Congrats! Definitely ask questions - remember, you're there to learn as much as possible. Also speak up if what you're doing isn't challenging enough - not in a complaining way, but in a constructive way. You will be much more appealing of a candidate after the internship if you can speak with enthusiasm of something you learned and worked on.

Make sure you understand the problem before suggesting improvements. Non-classroom coding rarely looks like what you've written up to this point. The people you're going to work with would probably would like to make a lot of changes to the code and know it's not perfect. However, when someone new points out things that are wrong it's like insulting someone's child. You've got to understand their pain before bashing it. A non-judgemental question like, "can you tell me some of the issues you've had with this code?" gives you background of the battlefield and devs the ability to rant (which we love).

A degree gives you a dedicated time to learn basics of your craft. Craftsmanship is all on the job. The problem with cs is there's no way to know everything so there's plenty to keep you humble if your personality leans that way.

I have a degree and no shortage of imposter syndrome. I have found those that are self taught and in the industry for more than a few years are in general excellent developers since they're good at leaning on their own.

A friend of mine has a doctorate in the field and recently said, "I can't believe x company hired me". It's not just you.

If I see a job that has a hard requirement of a degree, I won't consider it since it means those in charge don't know the industry. I also assume any developer that touts a degree is new to the field or a terrible developer.

I always take dork, nerd, whatever to mean unqualified genius and bask in my colleagues' and friends' adulation.

You don't want that kind of girl, she's still stuck in high school. There are so many awesome ladies out there that appreciate a person for their personality rather than their profession.

Even worse: as you're fixing the bugs it starts to feel like deja vu and you realize the original idiot was you, too.

I feel incredibly lucky because I've been able to move to different parts of the world and find good paying jobs quickly. Since you're still young, you have more options for this so if it appeals to you, do it now! Some countries have working holiday visas for those under 30. Some countries are trying to import as many devs as possible. Every place I've worked had offered to sponsor me permanently. Use your quarter life crisis to do something that puts you on the path to be happier.

"Oh! I thought you were the pm!" :-/

Dates and timezones are the worst. We have a global enterprise but store all dates in PT. Not even PST so it changes from -7 to -8 UTC depending on what part of the year a record was created. I spent so much time on dates for a while that I was dubbed "the timelord" for a while. The cool nickname was not worth the headache.

Campground rule: leave it better than you found it

Do you pair at all? If not, you could suggest it as a way to spread knowledge without taking the work away from this guy. Hoarders tend to lack in confidence. They stick to what they know and not let others see their process because they're either afraid of losing job security or of having their process/ code criticized. If you pair in a non judgemental and supportive way, he'll be less reticent in sharing the knowledge. The big challenge is hoarders tend to be the strongest opposers to pairing.

I agree it's annoying. Honestly though, as long as people name things meaningfully for readability, I consider that a win.

I feel like I'm constantly fighting this battle and I'm a back end dev. Do they not realize how many man months of work they'll save if they cut out bad UIs and crufty tools that require the end user to jump through hoops and introduce bad data through fat fingering? Just because "they're used to it" doesn't mean it should keep being ignored.