Cracking engineering's diversity problem: It's all about 'support systems'
Happy Thursday and welcome back to the newsletter! As always, read on for some of the best software engineering insights, opinions, and news, from Triplebyte’s Compiler blog and around the web.
//From Compiler
Why building community and mentorship can fix diversity in engineering, with ColorStack founder Jehron Petty
Underrepresented minorities make up only 18% of computer science degree graduates in the United States, a figure that’s only budged up 3% in the last 15 years. These are the kinds of statistics that motivated Jehron Petty to found ColorStack, a non-profit working to improve Black and Latinx participation in software engineering by building mentorship and community at the university level. Here's Petty in his own words about how he got started with his effort to bring more diversity to software engineering and why he believes ColorStack’s approach is the right one to make an impact. read()
3 times I used my knowledge of data structures on the job
Here’s an article for anyone who thinks data structure smarts are only for technical interviews. In it, engineer Uduak Obong-Eren gives a few examples of when he’s used his knowledge of queues, tries, and more to find better solutions to on-the-job problems. read()
6 technical interview woes solved entirely by practice — not genius
Speaking of technical interviews: Here’s an article about how they don’t just test your knowledge and experience; they test specific pieces of your skillset in really suboptimal circumstances. Candidates fail just as often for lack of practice as they do for actually lacking the engineering skills required. Here are six features of technical interviews that are addressed mostly, if not entirely, by practice – experience and knowledge aside. read()
//Around the web
🤝 “What I learned from hiring hundreds of engineers can help you land your next role.” Stack Overflow chief product officer Teresa Dietrich recently penned a blog to explain what she thinks software engineer jobseekers in today’s “incredibly turbulent” jobseeking landscape can do to put their best foot forward toward finding their next gig. Her main points of success: Get really targeted with the specific technical knowledge you want to polish up and show off (according to the job you want), do as much as you can to present that you have the attitude and aptitude to learn further that these jobs are looking for, and really work your connections and references. “This framework can be used for pursuing a role at a new company, a new role at your current company, or progression within your current role,” she writes. You’ll definitely want to check out the blog for yourself for all of her specific recommendations and links to helpful resources. read()
💰 Are you in software engineering for the money? You’ll want to see this list. Springboard rounded up salary info from from the top-paying jobs in engineering, showing that AR/VR engineers are currently the best-paid in the US at $165,000 a year, while big data, cybersecurity, and gaming engineers follow at between $161K and $163K. The lowest of the nine gigs listed by Springboard, the ubiquitous front-end engineer job, evidently rakes in peanuts these days at a mere $110,000 annually. read()
⌨️ “Not a lot of people really know this, but we never created Kotlin for Android.” JetBrains VP Hadi Hariri sat down for TechRepublic’s Dynamic Developer podcast recently to chat about the precarious nature of creating a new programming language. Some revelations: Though Android mobile developers (and Google itself) today gravitate toward the Java replacement, Hariri and his team remember being told to “Stick to building IDEs!” from developers back when Kotlin was first being discussed. Of course, funny enough, Hariri goes on to explain that Kotlin was originally cooked up specifically for the purpose of building IDEs – until another group of devs started complaining how its early versions didn’t work for Android. Read or listen to the full convo for more on the language’s founding story and also how its handlers grew it to one of the most successful dev communities going today. read()
😀 Organizing makeup as data structures. For your bit of engineering flair for the week, here’s “Coding Drag Queen” (and Google engineer) Anna Lytical’s fabulous TikTok tutorial on understanding sets, arrays, and queues through foundations, compounds, and contours:
//Jobs
Some companies hiring engineers on Triplebyte right now:
Check out Triplebyte’s Actively Hiring page to find more companies that are looking for software engineering talent right now!
Triplebyte helps engineers assess and showcase their technical skills and connects them with great opportunities. You can get started here.
If you just happened upon this newsletter, subscribe with the button below to get new editions sent right to your inbox.