Wish me luck - Job@nVidia

Ailuros said:
What puzzles me is that how come ATI didn't make a similar offer all this time or have I missed here something?

Well, I think ATi's weakest point is developer relations. nVidia clearly produces more material for developers, tools, pdfs etc. They have understood that application support is the key to sales, especially in the long run. ATi must be much more active both in fetching people and put tools into the hands of developers. While they are very helpful and such once you ask I think they should work on getting better on taking the first step. I wouldn't have thought much about working at either nVidia or ATi if I didn't get the offer.
 
Best of luck, Humus! Nice to see a good coder being recognized by one of top-level companies :). btw If they want to interview you about math&stuff, why don't they take a look at your OGL tutorial? ;). AND: how do you think, what they might want from you? Are they looking for someone to remove framerate-drops in Halo for X-Box or something?
 
First off, my heart-felt congrats & the best of luck to you! :D

As to your English -- your written English is, IMO, excellent (I'm working as an English teacher in my leisure time), so don't worry about spoken English. You'll pick it up faster than you can code another demo for the 8500.

Errr, I hope that was not TOO obvious a hint. ;)

I hope everything will work out for you!

Good luck.

DDM_Reaper20
 
Humus, just a couple of pointers. Getting a workers visa will take several months upto half a year. I went through this process for 3dfx (mine came through when 3dfx was already part of nvidia). Take into account the cost of living when you get an offer, if they want you in the bay area think very very hard and long since its very expensive compared to most european area's. Language is probably your least worry, one month in a fully english environment does the trick :LOL:

Most important is that you get to do something you like...
 
Good Luck

Hey, just wishin' ya some good luck :)

Your english seems pretty good, it doesn't appear that you have communication problems on the net. Remember, you *can* ask people to speak slower so you can understand a little better. I'm quite sure they wouldn't mind. And be prepared to get out some shorts, I'm not sure what the weather is like over there, but if it's different from some places here(I assume you're going to southern California?), the temperature is probably already 30-40C.

Other than that, have fun :) Nvidia, despite the fact that I'm not particularly liking their market practices, does have exceptional relations with developers and even 'normal' people.

Question though, what exactly did you learn in that field in uni? I mean, anything specific(but not too complicated 'cause I won't get it) but give a little description of what kinds of things you did...if I can get the money, I might look into going for that field.
 
That's a very good point...

The cost of living in that part of California is ridiculous, as compared to the vast majority of other cities/towns/states/etc.

So, before you get excited over the $$ figures, make sure you undertand this...

If you have a day or so to 'hang out' while you're there, it would be a *very* good idea to see if you can talk to some realtors in the area...

The other thing you have to take into consideration is traffic...I was in San Jose within the last 9 months, and I really don't envy it at all. It takes me 3 minutes to get to work, as I live about ~1 mile from work...

We visited some friends that live about 30 minutes outside of San Jose, and he (the guy we visited) commutes to San Jose everyday, and he *averages* about 1 1/2 hours each way due to traffic....His typical work day is getting up around 6:00 am, getting on the road @ 7:00, arriving to work around 9:00, working until 7-8, and getting home around 9-10. I would have thought the traffic would be significantly less harsh @ that time of day, but he said it basically is always rush-hour traffic.

Anyhow, just some things to take into consideration before you go...and some things you should really try to squeeze in while you're there.

Good luck.
 
Kristof said:
Language is probably your least worry, one month in a fully english environment does the trick :LOL:


I can see it now for some reason Humus gets stuck in the "bad part" of town and thus his enlish is that of a LA Gansta :) and we will see post from him like: l33t nVida ow3nz j00!

hehehehe

Yea good points. I have had to turn down a few offers before because of other conditions like housing, location school for your kids, ect. Luckly you wont have that concern yet :) But take as much time as you can spare to look around the place you could be living, talk to people to get an idea of where are the good places to look for someplace to live. Little things like have a good place to buy food, or other things you enjoy can help to make it a "better" place.

And don't get worry about the english. Your being interviewed on what you know, not what you can speak. Yes commincation is important, but that is something you can pick up quickly. Just relax and have fun, if you do, I am sure the interview will be easy.
 
Humus said:
Anyway, wish me luck for the interview. Anyone have any good suggestions on how to prepare for it, except reading through the whole OpenGL spec and repeating my linear algebra?

good luck, man, and thanks for all the good stuff! and never, ever leave behind a good linear algebra book - remember, 3d illusion is 60% imagination and 40% linear algebra ( + epsilon % numerical methods ;) -- imagination is innate, whereas algebra takes polishing.
 
DDM_Reaper20 said:
As to your English -- your written English is, IMO, excellent (I'm working as an English teacher in my leisure time), so don't worry about spoken English. You'll pick it up faster than you can code another demo for the 8500.

Thanks! :)
Written english is something I practice every day on forums like this and while reading tech docs etc, but I sort of never speak english. I'm taking a course right now in english though where we speak a lot english, which hopefully helps.
 
Kristof said:
Humus, just a couple of pointers. Getting a workers visa will take several months upto half a year. I went through this process for 3dfx (mine came through when 3dfx was already part of nvidia). Take into account the cost of living when you get an offer, if they want you in the bay area think very very hard and long since its very expensive compared to most european area's. Language is probably your least worry, one month in a fully english environment does the trick :LOL:

Most important is that you get to do something you like...

Workers visa ... ehm, what's that? :oops:
I assume that something that grants me the right to work over there or something? I know nothing about stuff like this ... this is what has been worrying me the most, that I'll forget about something important.
 
Humus said:
Workers visa ... ehm, what's that? :oops:
I assume that something that grants me the right to work over there or something? I know nothing about stuff like this ... this is what has been worrying me the most, that I'll forget about something important.

Well the US is quite protective of its own workforce, so you can not just go to the US and work. Before you can go and work there you need a visa, in your case probably a workers visa although there are some alternatives. In anyway NVIDIA has to get this for you it involves a lot of paper work, lawyers and $$$ in the end you can go the US embassy in your country and collect a little piece of paper that they will stapple into your passport and that grants you permission to enter the US and work for a specific company (the company that applied and paid for the visa). Tricky bit is that the visa is company specific, so if you do not like NVIDIA and want to leave for, say, ATI then thats a No-Go... you'd have to leave the country and apply for a new Visa. Another option is that you join NVIDIA Europe and they get some kind of visa that involves a permission of a worker of a different branch to go and work in the US, with other words the fact that you work for NVIDIA Europe can get you into NVIDIA US quicker but I do not know the details. Last option is the green card, there is an annual lotery to get one (don't laugh) and its kind of a free entry to the US for work etc. You can also get a green card if you have been in the US for a longer period under one of the other visa's. Anyway lots of details, there are several websites out there that explain things. (I guess it shows that I was on my way to the US, sadly never made it)

As said if you have ok written skills in english then talking will come quickly, its a matter of getting there and doing it (you get thrown into the deep end).

DevRel is kewl (its what I do), but I am not sure you want to be in NVIDIA devrel, since you seem to do a lot of demos you might want to be part of their demo/research team, you know the people that brought you the wolfman and other ugly things ;)
 
Re: Good Luck

A-KO said:
And be prepared to get out some shorts, I'm not sure what the weather is like over there, but if it's different from some places here(I assume you're going to southern California?), the temperature is probably already 30-40C.

Yeah, I'll be prepared for that. Will be quite different from the Swedish climate, I'll probably sweat to death :) I'm used to summer temperatures of 20-25C, and right now we have around 0-10C.

A-KO said:
Question though, what exactly did you learn in that field in uni? I mean, anything specific(but not too complicated 'cause I won't get it) but give a little description of what kinds of things you did...if I can get the money, I might look into going for that field.

Nothing. ;)
Really, most of what I know I have looked up myself. Genuine interest, that's all. The closest thing that I've read at Uni is the course in 3d animation with maya, if we don't count all the math of course. They don't give much 3d related courses at my uni, but it starts to appear though, that 3d animation course was given for the first time this year. They are also starting some new programmes in game developement these days, not here in Luleå though but in Skellefteå, another small city in the neighbour hood.
 
Tricky bit is that the visa is company specific, so if you do not like NVIDIA and want to leave for, say, ATI then thats a No-Go... you'd have to leave the country and apply for a new Visa.

This isn't strictly true, some visas can be transfered between companies, without leaving the country. And the transfer will come through a lot faster than the original application.

Visas are a pain in the ass, you should apply for a green card as soon as you get here, even if you have to do it off your own nickle, application time is about 6 months to 3 years depending on the coutry of origin (assuming you don't luck out in the lottery).

The visa you want to be on if possible is an H1B, some companies will use other types E1's/E2's are common if the company has a european office, but they have to pay you from the euro office which can be a pain. The other visa I've seen are O1's my understanding is that this is the least desirable option, since it's difficult to extend and part of the application states that you have no intentio of staying in the US permanently.

Note -- The above is my opinion only, based on my experience with various visas working in the US. I'd recommend legal advice if your really worried about something.
 
I would be *really* shocked if nVidia doesn't have a dept/individual(s) that will totally square you away, as far as Visas/etc. are concerned.

When left up to the individual, it can be a nightmare...But when you're dealing with multi Billion-Dollar organizations like nVidia, I would be shocked if they didn't take care of everything for you.

I'm pretty sure that they will probably get into that end of things once you arrive
 
Unless we're talking about ATi west - which is only an engineering team, you'd be working in Canada, not the US.
 
Oh, I'm sorry. I should have referenced Kristof's quote.

He mentioned -as an example- that work Visas are company specific and if Humus wished to work for ATI he'd have to get another.
 
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