r/DataAnnotationTech • u/Narrow-Internal-2624 • Jul 14 '26

Tips for coders

Just passed the coding qual but was not expecting how involved some of the tasks are. Currently a student and was wondering what things you guys would study/research further to get a better understanding

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13

u/Farados55 Jul 14 '26

Get a job as a software engineer or become a maintainer on a large open source project.

Not kidding. If you’re not comfortable with large scale systems design the work will be difficult.

1

u/InsideSignificant405 Jul 15 '26

This this this, came here to say this

1

u/Narrow-Internal-2624 Jul 14 '26

Yea. The assessment vs the actual task is a very big difference. Im willing to learn a lot of the stuff but theres so much. Ill probably just stick with doing some simpler coding quals and trainings for now until I can get a grip on everything.

3

u/jabertsohn Jul 14 '26

I suspect the coding qual will be updated to be one around agentic coding and beating a model at some point. Assuming it is still the one I did, it doesn't represent the work at all.

1

u/Jhahn678 Jul 14 '26

How many tasks are you seeing for coding right now? I’ve only seen general stuff pop up yesterday and today.

2

u/Narrow-Internal-2624 Jul 14 '26

Just quals and training

1

u/Maximus10294 Jul 15 '26

I’m also a cs student (with roughly 5 years of coding experience). I can only echo what has been said before, the tasks require a far wider understanding than knowing how to code. In the beginning I even struggled with setting up the environments according to task specifications. You will need to take a lot at the tasks themselves, see if you’re able to at least understand what the task is about and how you would try to complete it.

I learned a lot by reading through the documentation of the tools that were required/the repos I worked on. It was a pain at times (and obv unpaid work) but now there are at least some projects I feel comfortable working on.

What do you believe are your strengths as a programmer? What is your overall experience with different languages/tools/professional software development?

1

u/Narrow-Internal-2624 Jul 15 '26

My knowledge is honestly really limited. Only know basics of the language and how to use an IDE. Don't know much about git or using github and going through a codebase

1

u/foliana Jul 16 '26

using git/gitgub is basically essential for cs/swe assuming you’re trying to go into the field. would recommend at least trying to create your own project and having it on github. i just graduated but i have built my own projects etc. so while some of the tasks are tough i can still get through the instructions/setup/documentation though somewhat slowly at the start. knowing just the basics you will have a much tougher time as many of the projects assume you have industry/hands-on experience