Can you spot an AS friendly software job?

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I'm about a year away from a comp-sci degree, plus I've been working a programming internship and the usual projects on the side. I'm relatively confident I'll be able to find something after I graduate, hopefully I'll even be good enough to have several options.

My issue is, what kind of place will appreciate technical talent and not be weirded out by the usual AS differences either during an interview or on the job? Is it possible to spot such an opportunity form a distance? Are there warning signs? If you are in an AS friendly software job, how did you find it?

I would like to think I'm decent at interacting with other technical (especially AS) people, but a job that expects normal social interaction would be undesirable if not unmanageable. Without even trying I'm often very good at upsetting NT people in office-type interaction. I intern at an big, "traditional" corporation and it's all bureaucracy, politics, who you know, meeting and schmoozing with people. Exactly what I don't want.

Not easy. Most of the warning signs can only be confirmed by working for the company.

One sign is if the interview keeps talking about team-building events (not team-building by itself). If they keep talking about it, it either happens on a regular basis, or they want it to happen on a regular basis and you'll be lucky to last a year.

A strange sign, and be very careful with this one, is if everyone looks allike as you walk through the building. That's a very bad sign. Like seeks like, but when it's an entire group/team, then there might be a problem.

Edit: Two missing words added

Last edited by AgentPalpatine on 30 Dec 2012, 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've worked as a game tester and a designer for maybe 5 years, until a layoff, but in my experience, coders, you guys can pretty much be whoever you want to be. There are so many quirky people in the video game business. Beyond that, my brother is a software engineer, and I've met his fellow programmer friends, again, interesting people lol

Again, this wont be every experience, but I've noticed that it's all about your dedication and your skills, your bosses can't do what you do, and I've personally seen bosses put up with s**t. If it were me, I wouldn't worry too much about the bureaucrats.....

If your job requires you to interact with a lot of middle management types, or customers, maybe that's something you should really double check and see if it's for you.

As I've seen it, no one really bugs the programmers......get in there and code..... btw, coders are the ones in the video game business who make the most money (with few exceptions) and there always seems to be work.....

Funny that you would say that. The popular perception apparently is: the video game companies tend to be the most abusive in terms of over-work and often the pay isn't comparable to other software jobs per the amount of work. But then the simulation / serious games industry is where it's at.

My experience so far is that basically all of the very good software/CS types are at least somewhat AS, which leads to the hope that a lot of software jobs are already AS friendly. I've yet to get a straight answer on this, but the above posts point towards "probably yes unless the corporate culture doesn't mesh with it or the managers don't understand what they're doing".

I actually run a software department (about 20 architects / engineers), and I'm diagnosed with AS. Rather than talk about the experiences at my level and the signs for whether or not you're in an AS-friendly environment (there are no signs at my level - you have to fight for survival and pray that the interpersonal politics don't do you in), I'm going to talk about what I'd expect in engineers / architects beneath me that are on the spectrum. I personally decide what works for my department, so I get the luxury of "defining" the environment for my engineers, and I make sure that interdepartmental policies work toward their strengths and don't expect them to be all out superheros.

I'm a personal testament to the fact that an engineer on the spectrum can be considered to be very valuable in the workplace, but has some things to work around. I'm not saying that everyone is going to be a perfect fit for what I'm talking about, but I'm going off my own experience here. I had to work through confidence issues, learn to socialize "just enough", and I walk away from every day exhausted with all of the interaction that I have to deal with, but a lot of that is because I landed on the management track.

Below are my opinions the pros / cons for engineers on the spectrum... these are things that you can watch out for while on the job and use to make yourself shine. There is no "AS-friendly environment", and if there is one, it's situational, because one tiny shift in management can create immediate incompatibility. The safest bet is to be such a valuable asset with "reasonable liabilities" that YOU are always desired. This is off the top of my head, so don't consider it to be comprehensive or scientifically proven.

General weaknesses of AS engineers (put more effort into recognizing these and putting extra effort into preventing them):
* Difficulty understanding the business intent of applications.
*** This can be countered somewhat depending on the SDLC - is it the engineer's responsibility to talk directly to the business? How detailed are the requirements that the engineer receives? Is there an architect feeding specs to the engineer?
* Difficulty understanding usability of applications.
*** Usability (UX) bleeds into intuitive psychology of "how an NT would want a use an application without having to learn anything".
* Difficulty working with others and collaborating.
*** No matter how good you are, if people don't want to work with you, they'll imagine flaws in your work. A lot of a person's value is subjective, and NTs will use that to color their opinion of you. If this is an area of difficulty and there are communication barriers, at least make sure to be nice, so that they "want" to give you the benefit of the doubt and bend their subjectivity toward a positive angle.
* Inflexibility. <-- this one is huge... I don't allow this in my department.
*** Many engineers, even NTs, have their favorite solution for every problem, regardless of the problem. They push the same languages and the same approaches to every problem, and will often vastly overcomplicate or under-power the solution to force their approach in. Once they come up with an approach, they are difficult to budge away from it. When this happens, there are too many meetings trying to nicely "coax" the engineer into the right direction - feelings get hurt, everyone gets frustrated, and it's a costly endeavor with no value. Be open to new ideas, and fixate on the success of the project, rather than latching onto your viewpoint.
* Difficulty communicating technical concepts to non-technical people.
* Overengineering.
*** Whatever anyone says, the only things that anyone cares about in an application are that it works as intended, it can be supported, and that it didn't take a long time or a lot of money to create. Any effort that detracts from these things is counter-productive.

Where AS can make you a rockstar engineer (these are based on generalizations - I realize that we're all different).
* Literal thinking.
*** NTs are comfortable with fuzziness and unknowns. In engineering, this means that they will understand pieces of a design partially, and expect to "figure out the details" when necessary. That's great for many things, but not for engineering. Someone with AS can identify and resolve all of the unknowns, visualize the entire application before a single line of code is written (maybe a high intelligence is needed for this), and can prevent problems before they arise. In practical terms, this means that someone with AS can produce a better application with fewer iterations.
* Deep focus.
*** If an AS engineer can leverage his / her crazy focus during design or development, I believe that we're more effective than NTs doing the same work. We're supercomputers.
* Momentum.
*** When an AS engineer builds up momentum on a project (it might only be possible for most of us if the project gets into "special interest" territory), we obsess about the project - we dream about it, we work on it passively mentally, and we spend more active energy on it in a given day than NTs could hope to. NTs tend to live more balanced lives, and the project takes a much lower priority for them than you can imagine. If an AS engineer can manage to fixate on a project, the practical output is incredible.

Anyway, this is the way I see it. There is no perfect environment, and I can personally vouch for the fact that the politics and competing motives / personalities within companies makes it such that nothing is ever safe. What has saved me many times is the fact that I leveraged my AS strengths and downplayed my weaknesses.

Last edited by mereexistence on 31 Dec 2012, 1:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In terms of the video game industry, definitely people are overworked and under paid. From my perspective, what I got paid and what I knew others got paid, it still seemed reasonable. Definitely the people who would be in the office towards the end of a project included programmers. People sleeping under their desks, working days in a row. But yeah, the programmers probably get the abuse the most, I would guess if you were working on the game engine, you would need to be there until the very last second before completing a project.

A lot of dudes ended up starting their own two or three person companies and began making their own apps, mobile games, facebook games. They could make money and make their own rules.

Reading mereexistence, this sticks out:

I'd say this means do your work, dont miss deadlines, be agreeable, show up on time, and work hard to be awesome at your job. And then also stay aloof to some degree, be aware of drama and politics, try not to get involved.

Do that, and your "liabilities," your quirks, whatever they may be, social quirks or simply how you produce, they're reasonable and will be tolerated because you rock at your job, and you're a good worker.

I dunno what I'm talking about, it's late lol.

With all the outsourcing happening lately. I wouldn't recommend any rash decisions.

A well trained engineer with 5 years experience costs 4 times less than in Western Countries. For basic tech support, this figure drops dramatically, with tech support anywhere from 10 to 20 times cheaper offshore...

I think you should try to cope with the problems.

Who said anything about tech support?

http://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-inf ... lopers.htm

I was just trying to give you a bigger picture of the challenges facing the industry. Lots of the IT sector has been swallowed up by project managers and outsourcing. Expect $120k salaries for managing outsourced workers but it is usually not suitable for those on the spectrum.

Sadly, the first statement still applies... The engineering part of the quote, and it isn't just India we have to watch out for.

I've met software engineers who I would consider on the spectrum, 10-15 years experience, not necessarily rockstars, not in a management position, not even very elite companies, making six figures or close. Believe me, I'm trying to learn from them too when I have the opportunity. The opportunities are out there if you're good.

Anyone offshoring core development work simply has their head up their ass. Be glad they won't hire you, because you don't want to work for them. "Golly gee, motor oil is $3 a quart, but milk is under $1 a quart, so I'll change my oil and replace it with milk!"

OP, your biggest problem will be getting a first job at all. Get some personal projects under your belt, do a coop or internship, network, and basically work your butt off to be more than just "a college grad".

That's what I'm suspecting and hoping is all it takes. I hinted in my OP that I'm basically doing that already. As you could probably guess, networking is the hardest part. I've made some progress but I guess I'm realizing that more is better and I could probably do more.

I used to work in software engineering management. Take everything MereExistence said VERY seriously- that was VERY good advice. I would add that it would be good to say in an interview that you are X kind of person and that Y kinds of people compliment your skills. Most people hire to fill "holes" in their departments and they want to fill that hole with someone who will fit well with the people already there. So they'll be thinking of the skill sets and personalities of who they already have when they're looking at you.

So you could say something like: "I'm great at troubleshooting and creative problem solving. I provide clear comments on all of my code. I'm organized and thorough. I get distracted when following spoken instructions so I really like memos or emails for important things. I work great with clear communicators. Creative team members compliment my style because they think of things that I might not." In fact something like that would be a good thing to put on your cover letter and then paraphrase in person.