Machine Learning Newsletter October #2
Developer Lifestyle + Tesla AI Day + Codex + Technical Interview with Tree Based Algorithms
In this newsletter we want to take a detour to talk about the most important technical interview questions: tree algorithms, tree as a data structure (scroll down to view interview tips). Before that, let’s drive some motivations! Developer lifestyle can be great, even during the pandemic. Let’s take a look.
Perks at FAAANG Big Tech Companies
One thing that comes with FAAANG company employment is recognition, affirmation and perks. Though recently, we also discussed the dark side of the moon on medium 🌘 , developer lifestyle can still be excellent, and you don’t have to be a FAAANG employee to enjoy it. For example, Facebook HQ Pytorch hackathons (happening right now), previously gave out amazing cash prizes (yes real checks mailed via Devpost) and VR headsets. Google I/O used to give out real tablets - Nexus 9 (though later it switched to cardboard VR goggles :( ).
Before we move on to non-FAAANG perks, let’s first talk about FAAANG perks: previously we mentioned that Facebook has keyboard, mouse vending machines, unlimited snacks, Airbnb has pods designed to look like miniatures of the best destinations / houses, and 100 drinks on tap. Google has real chefs, and engineers can intern for a day or a short term with the pastry chef to learn the tricks. Whatever makes the engineers happy. Many tech companies big and small pay for additional training, education, conferences etc. Apple employees get discount on Apple products, and Google employees too get 10-20% off. At the Pytorch developer conference, baristas made hundreds of latte art and espressos on-demand, non-stop, from artisan espresso machines.
Perhaps the most shocking is the “Google Employee Death Benefit”. It is rumored that the spouse / family can benefit from a portion of the employee’s salary even if the employee unexpectedly passes away (cannot work any more). According to CNN . We don’t know if this is still the case. This benefit is definitely unparalleled.
Many believe that FAAANG employees turned founders for startups can also get amazing funding opportunities.
Though buyer beware, many perks are disappearing in the name of COVID.
What if you are truly new to tech? Start here with basic terminology:
Developer perks and gifts for all
Not all of us can and want to join a big tech. But don’t worry, developers can still enjoy many gifts, perks and credits.
For example, Google would organize massive dinners celebrating female developers at Grace Hopper conference, and prior-to-covid, there would be massive WomenTechmaker dinners. At tech, startup career fairs, there was often swags and perks give-aways. For example, Google Cloud gives away cloud credit. Y Combinator gives away AWS credit at open-to-public founder conferences. Meetups and hackathons sponsored by tech companies often have recruiting opportunities and swag-give-aways. You might ask, why would we want swags and stickers? We cannot tell you how many times, at local coffee shops, we got into tech discussions because of a sticker on the laptop or a t-shirt.
In the previous Facebook AI hackathons, any user that made a reasonably substantial submission (that’s hundreds of people) got a swags mailed to their home by Facebook including a stationery kit with facebook logo, stickers, or even a bluetooth speaker with facebook logo. Major Hack League has been giving out free stickers and even masks. It’s still happening.
Developer dinner, developer career fair, conferences all give away gifts, swags, and stickers.
Have you checked your local meetup? There are many opportunities that are free or nearly free ($10 or less). There are also student, financial help / need-based / scholarship tickets available. For example, two years ago a women special interest event was hosted at Instagram. All the attendees were able to take selfies at the Instagram campus before the event (influencer style)! There was even Instagram donuts and pastries.
Tree Algorithms - Technical Interview with Python
Did you know we have hundreds of flash cards on our main website about machine learning and technical interviews? Let’s highlight our technical interview landing pages in this newsletter. We will also launch our github login feature soon. Right now the site is only available for gmail users. Stay tuned.
If you follow our newsletter, you might have seen this code snippet page
https://ml.learn-to-code.co/code.html
Quite a few of our knowledge flash cards now link to this page, explaining the use case and nuances of each code snippet.
We also have a full landing page dedicated to technical interviews:
https://ml.learn-to-code.co/topic_technical_interview_python_flash_cards.html
It’s plain right now and is going through an UI re-design. Coming soon.
There’s now a dedicated landing page for tree-based algorithms in technical interviews:
https://ml.learn-to-code.co/topic_tree_interview_questions_uniqtech_guide.html
You can also find all the links on the tutorials page.
https://ml.learn-to-code.co/topics.html
The best flash cards are for paid pro members only. $5 / month (like a cup of coffee ☕️). We also send out freebies.
Machine Learning Course
Machine Learning flash cards landing page as mentioned in previous newsletters.
https://ml.learn-to-code.co/topic_end_to_end_machine_learning_course_flash_cards.html