Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Step 1: Get a well paying job at a big tech company. You mean, a remote job in a place with low costs of living. Otherwise, this algorithm doesn't work for people with families. I've been on the job market just before COVID-19 hit. The costs of living in tech hubs are absolutely ridiculous. If it's not housing, then it's something else. For instance, you could afford staying in London with a spouse on a tech salary…
Kids are not luck though, people have all the power to decide not to have kids until their finances are better.
Career advice for people with bad luck
151–160 of 511 posts
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#152Step 1: Get a well paying job at a big tech company. There is very little luck involved in this, just get really good at algorithms. No need for a famous school, specific degree etc. It requires intelligence, if you don't have that then you need luck. Step 2: Save more than two thirds of your take home salary, you can still live way better than the people sweeping the office floor. Step 3: You now have a ton of money…
The problem is this : most creative engineers don't have the mindset to mindlessly study for algorithms interviews, only to then have to spend years in constrained engineering roles.
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
>- You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID I feel bad for the higher class pizza restaurant that opened down the street from our house at the end of January after a long time of renovating the building. Even though their pizza isn't really as good as the fancy pizza place at the mall (it's a mall in a rich area) down by the nearby…
Something similar happened to me during this outbreak. Got my CS degree from a no-name university in a third world country a few years back, got a job in one of those software sweatshops getting paid peanuts, moved to a new one an year later where I worked my ass off to learn things and generally be a good developer, but here too I was paid a pittance, mostly due to my education and previous job. I hated working here…
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course, the family people probably were friends with each other.
Everyone at family company was friendly at lunch, it's just the we didn't socialize after work at all (well a couple of times). The younger company regularly went drinking together.
I don't think that's a good idea. When people elsewhere on this thread have commented that back in the day people's main opportunity to make friends was at work, they didn't mean that work gives them opportunities actively but rather that it gave them personally the opportunity to personally create a relationship with a coworker.
Agreed? There's a huge difference between the relationship you create by inviting a work friend over to your home for dinner and video games (or going to a bar even) and the relationship created by the "team" going to a "team building activity" together. Don't rely on work to provide the context to make a friend, but it's fine to rely on work to provide an opportunity to make a friend.
Within reason and assuming good actors, etc. I probably wouldn't share every detail of my personal life with work-friends and certainly older generations did not. I suspect the two are related; you have to be more guarded with work friends because social vulnerability can be very risky in a work environment. My mother didn't talk about her disability with work-friends much, only the work-friends she'd invite over for dinner. I share about my condition much more because I want and expect even "just" work-friends to understand and accept my limitations. The story I hear is that it didn't use to be at all safe to be vulnerable like that with colleagues.
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Step 1: Get a well paying job at a big tech company. There is very little luck involved in this, just get really good at algorithms. Let me stop you right there. Maybe that works in SV but in most of Europe(the world?) you aint getting in to any well paying job at a big tech company without a degree from a prestigious university or previous experience at equally big and famous companies. Companies here don't have th…
Step 1: Move to SV. I'm sorry, I'm Australian and studied and worked in Australia. I spent 4 years in SV, and now founded a startup in Europe. Even after the Covid issue has played out, I'm convinced SV will still be where a passionate technologist can optimize their impact and lifetime earnings. There's just nothing that can compare to being surrounded by so many smart people who share your interests. I've heard sto…
Don't forget the tax prepayments that might be 1.33x of your previous taxes, i.e. you pay 100k in taxes for one year and for the next year you need to prepay 133k.
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, 1 make money, 2 save it, 3 congrats you have lots of money. Thought-provoking.
Yeah, step 2 sounds easy, but is actually the hardest. I know plenty of folks who had well paying jobs, but quickly blew it all on boats, multiple luxury cars, investing in their cousin's hot startup, etc.
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
>- You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID I feel bad for the higher class pizza restaurant that opened down the street from our house at the end of January after a long time of renovating the building. Even though their pizza isn't really as good as the fancy pizza place at the mall (it's a mall in a rich area) down by the nearby…
Something similar happened to me during this outbreak. Got my CS degree from a no-name university in a third world country a few years back, got a job in one of those software sweatshops getting paid peanuts, moved to a new one an year later where I worked my ass off to learn things and generally be a good developer, but here too I was paid a pittance, mostly due to my education and previous job. I hated working here…
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#158> The company is not your family. Some of the people in the company are your friends in the current context. It’s like your dorm in college. Hopefully some of them will still be your friends after. But don’t stay because you’re comfortable. This one hit hard. It’s amazing how many of the close work friends I had over the years were only close because of the shitty circumstances we endured together. Once that was gone…
You may like the Japanese phrase 一期一会 (ichi-go-ichi-e). To me it means that you should cherish each relationship and encounter, regardless of whether you know it will last a long time or not. You may never get the chance to experience that particular relationship again. I actually learnt this word firsthand from a man that it applies to, an middle-aged Japanese guy who was volunteering with kids near where I live. We…
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you seriously believe that anyone who is reasonably intelligent can just waltz into a high paying job at Apple or Google by sending them a resume? If so, I'd respectfully suggest that is... probably not the case. (Not that I have firsthand experience. I've never applied to nor been interested in those big tech firms.) ADDED: I'm sorry, but the people on this thread who are arguing that if you can't get a $200K+ jo…
Yes. Any reasonably good programmer can get a job at a FANG company with three months of serious study; any reasonably intelligent person can become a good entry-level programmer with 1-2 years of serious study. The demand for engineers far outstrips supply.
Do we seriously believe there are so many FAANG jobs available that "any reasonably good programmer" who wants one can have one, just for the price of a bit of "serious study"? I don't think so. Google et al may be big, but they're not that big or growing that fast.
A great deal of the demand for engineers does not come with anything like FAANG-level prospects.
Re: Career advice for people with bad luck
#160> The company is not your family. Some of the people in the company are your friends in the current context. It’s like your dorm in college. Hopefully some of them will still be your friends after. But don’t stay because you’re comfortable. This one hit hard. It’s amazing how many of the close work friends I had over the years were only close because of the shitty circumstances we endured together. Once that was gone…
Been working 3 months at my first job and this realization hit me. I enjoy spending time with my coworkers but is it all in vain?