241–250 of 1001 posts
You’ll certainly be able to see higher and further from a place that has supported you for this long than starting from scratch elsewhere.
If you don’t learn to make the most of any place you’re presently in, there’s no guarantee you’ll do it anywhere else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Therapy is the answer here. You have to un-brainwash yourself from the notion that your job is your life and figure out what really matters to you. Then focus on that, and use your job to fill the boring hours in between. You’re going to spend more time at work than doing almost anything else during those years of your life where you work. Why not do something meaningful with those hours if you can? And if OP can g…
What percentage of software engineers are doing "something meaningful"? That seems like a small number, no? Contrast with teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers, etc., almost all of whom I think would say they do something meaningful.
I have no idea what proportion of software engineers consider what they do meaningful but the team who work on Google Scholar have done a great deal for me and I’m not even an academic. The drivers at Uber and Lyft and their riders have almost all had their lives improved by their existence. Amazon has made the experience of buying books so much better it’s ridiculous. Lambda School is taking 1000s of people from basically useless as programmers to a new career. Those are all pretty meaningful, at least as meaningful as your list, which seems be about displaying caring as much as actually effecting people’s lives.
If you build something people want and it isn’t harmful you’re having an effect.
Like working for me?
Google is going downhill, the day I finished my internship I sweared I'll never in my life work on any money-making, no-challenge project. A bunch of engineers do enjoy what they do, they work on the cool projects, that's enough to keep it going; the rest is just cattle, work for the cash, enjoy the free food and the reputation of working at Google; I'm still sick of being bombarded with the "changing the world" nons…
Use this time to spend your mental energy on projects that you're really passionate about while enjoying your great (i'm sure) Google salary. I think you underestimate what an amazing position you're in right now.
Watch out about that. Non-competition being what it is, if you make something they own it.
Why name the company?
> Why name the company? Especially that one. I'll bet they know, by now (maybe they already did, and don't care. Google is famous for leveraging their -and our- data). I've found that many corporations are willing to settle for fairly mediocre work, as long as the processes are followed, and the cheese not moved. Having especially brilliant folks in place, means that if there is a problem, they have the bandwidth to…
And many European countries eg Germany just have it as part of the general labor law - so you wouldn't see it in a "contract"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or financial…
At least you weren't born like say during the Hundred Years War... :)
"- Men, we need to take that castle!
- Oh come on! It's already August, no way we can take it before fall! The roads will be muddy! Let's try next year!! Or next decade!!!"
You remind me myself a few years ago: a talented, but bored slacker who didn't see any point in investing any energy into that project. Turns out I was right: the project didn't go anywhere after I left and investing any extra time would be a clueless thing to do. So what's changed since then? Have I found meaning in work? No! I've become a professional slacker who knows all these psychological tricks, knows what bod…
This blows my mind that in the US one can make such insane money in tech while still being a slacker and retire early with a dream house bought and paid for while in Europe devs are slaving away through SCRUM powered meat grinders burning themselves out for a 3% salary increase on a pitiful 40-80k/year, no stock options, without any hope of early retirement or owning a decent home without a 30 year loan or financial…
No offense but, you're just now realizing this?
That's literally life in a nutshell. Random chance. You of course have to rise to the opportunity, but that's often not difficult at all. It's getting the opportunity that is hard, but almost entirely a matter of dice roll. Accept it, and do your best in life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people overestimate the proportion of equally talented engineers that don't apply to the FAANGs of the world for personal (geographic) reasons.
That's not quite what I argued though - I said if you're at Google then you're certainly extraordinarily talented and you're going to be a leader in your field. You may be that elsewhere of course, but you'd certainly be that at Google. I didn't say that if you weren't at Google you wouldn't be talented.
You may not recognize it, but this is a statistical distribution argument. :) It is assuming that there is a steep gradient between Google and "outside-of-google".
It is hard to prove that this is true regardless of the intentions of the statement or what was left unsaid.