I'd still not be too inclined to apply anywhere with a heavy CS slant, even though all the theoretical stuff interests me a lot.
I'm with you there...I don't think I'd fit in at a hardcore engineering shop like ITA where you'd have to live and breathe algorithms. But at places where you're just building and maintaining straightforward web apps, you don't need to be able to give a lecture on computer theory, you just need to know how to code, and how certain practices affect security, scalability, performance, or maintainability. These are the places where you'll find CS guys who like to talk a big game, but the codebase is messy and full of hacks. In my experience, the CS guys at these places spent all of their time learning theory and how to architect on whiteboards at school, but they never learned how to write good code. This is where I shine, because when the lights go down and the crowd goes silent, no one cares about how many chords you know, or whether you can play a harmonic minor scale...they just want to know if you can hit notes.
I'm with you there...I don't think I'd fit in at a hardcore engineering shop like ITA where you'd have to live and breathe algorithms. But at places where you're just building and maintaining straightforward web apps, you don't need to be able to give a lecture on computer theory, you just need to know how to code, and how certain practices affect security, scalability, performance, or maintainability. These are the places where you'll find CS guys who like to talk a big game, but the codebase is messy and full of hacks. In my experience, the CS guys at these places spent all of their time learning theory and how to architect on whiteboards at school, but they never learned how to write good code. This is where I shine, because when the lights go down and the crowd goes silent, no one cares about how many chords you know, or whether you can play a harmonic minor scale...they just want to know if you can hit notes.