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Career advice for people with bad luck

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Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#171

Post by the_af »

rb808 wrote: post #23

A lot of talk here that colleagues aren't friends. What is wrong with you people? If you like your colleagues you can invite them to do stuff after you or they leave. They probably haven't invited you because they never got around to it either. Most of the older generation people met through work is the only way to make friends. No wonder loneliness is so rampant now.

In my case it's not snobbery like someone else insinuated. I don't consider myself "better" than my coworkers -- just not close to them.

I tend to make few friends. Of those, I made most of my closest friends at school and the Uni, I'm still in touch with them, and we keep our friendships going through good and bad times. It's an age thing, I suppose. If I were still in my 20s I'd probably make friends at work, too.

I tend to occasionally keep in touch with former coworkers, but I'm an introvert, I tend not to enjoy "afterhours" activities, and eventually all these new bonds tend to fade.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#172

Post by lucaspm98 »

icedchai wrote: post #132
fenwick67 wrote: post #111

Earlier 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.

Lifestyle creep is incredibly hard to resist when everyone around you is caught up in it. My compromise has been to allow myself reasonable splurging on a few hobbies that prioritize experiences over consumerism while keeping the rest of my life as minimalist as possible.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#173

Post by random_kris »

0xfaded wrote: post #114
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #94

Earlier 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…

And then you realize that almost all R&D in Europe, from startups to multinationals, is subsidized by EU funding schemes and mountains of paperwork.

Couldn't agree more with this point. Also atleast in my experience they are there so just few people can be employed without much real pressure to produce real results... As long as paperwork is completed the results don't matter much.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#174

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

chrisandchips wrote: post #143
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can second that sentiment in Canada as well - I'm not even aware of what the good paying jobs would even be - there's none with FAANG fame, and every job has a hard wall with a laundry list of 5+ years of experience with a dozen web technologies that you can only climb over with the appropriate connections.

As a canadian, I disagree with how strict you’re describing the issue to be. There are a fair amount of big and well established companies that are not going to penalize you for lacking the five years and connections. With that said, they’re almost all in Toronto, but that’s a different issue ..

Yeah, I didn't want to get too regional, especially when it seems to be a single exception (possibly Vancouver as well?). As I understand it Toronto is almost like a different world, especially when compared to Western Canada, like using New York or Silicon Valley to describe all of America.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#175

Post by philangist »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #148
username90 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to Zurich.

How do you find life there? From some acquaintances who moved there to work in tech I heard integration/dating/making friends is very difficult as a foreigner especially if you come from $UNCOOL_COUNTRY and the real estate market is terrible, with cramped and expensive apartments in a poor state and buying is even more difficult if you're not a swiss citizen which is a difficult citizenship to get.

If this is the case Zurich sounds exactly like New York (other than the difficulty of buying property for non-citizens). Might just be the feeling of alienation that arises from living in a big city as an outsider.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#176

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

bitL wrote: post #155
0xfaded wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> expect to pay 50% in taxes (+ 25% VAT) 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.

In which country is that?

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#177

Post by the_af »

vikramkr wrote: post #162
the_af wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Step 1: Move to SV. What about... - I don't want to move to SV, I'm not that young anymore. - I don't want to move outside my country, or - specifically to the US and SV, which are not a particularly good place to live in anyway, or - even if I wanted it, entry to the US is stressful and not that easy, or - I have friends/family ties where I live, and those are important to me There's plenty of reasons why your ste…

No pain no gain. If the US and SV opportunities aren't a type of gain that's compelling to you then of course you dont need to worry about it. But if they are, then you need to make your own luck by making those sacrifices. Things about family ties and wants and stress are all part of the work you put in to make your own luck. Being American is a pretty great gig, for all the stuff you keep hearing on the news. There…

Understood, but if the first step of advice is "move to SV", that right there is unhelpful to the majority of programmers. It cannot work as a piece of general advice, and for most people it's also unattainable and/or undesirable.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#178

Post by username90 »

OkGoDoIt wrote: post #151
username90 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids are not luck though, people have all the power to decide not to have kids until their finances are better.

Sounds good until you’re both in your mid 30s and realizing that it’s now or never.

I said how to do it without being lucky, not how to do it when you are no longer in your 20's.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#179

Post by decafninja »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #130
karamazov wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm over 50 and been working in the industry for >25 years... what are my odds?

Disclaimer: I don't work at a FAANG. However this is my observations from interviewing at FAANGs.

Seems random to be honest. Some of my interviewers have been older people. Some of the people waiting with me at lobbies prior to interview have been older people. I'm 38 FYI.

Seems your ability to pass the leetcode problems is the most important factor, so long as you don't torpedo yourself with odd behavior during the non-technical portions.

For more experienced candidates like yourself and I, I hear the system design round is also important. But your success in that is more difficult to gauge, whereas you kind of know whether you bombed an leetcode round or not.

Depressing is that your multiple decades of experience might be absolutely worthless as far as passing leetcode rounds go. Your experience may or may not be useful for the system design round. It's useful if your experience with systems matches that with what the company is looking for. It's useless if not. I've noticed the systems at many non-tech enterprise companies don't exactly align with the systems at newer tech companies.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#180

Post by vikramkr »

the_af wrote: post #177
vikramkr wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No pain no gain. If the US and SV opportunities aren't a type of gain that's compelling to you then of course you dont need to worry about it. But if they are, then you need to make your own luck by making those sacrifices. Things about family ties and wants and stress are all part of the work you put in to make your own luck. Being American is a pretty great gig, for all the stuff you keep hearing on the news. There…

Understood, but if the first step of advice is "move to SV", that right there is unhelpful to the majority of programmers. It cannot work as a piece of general advice, and for most people it's also unattainable and/or undesirable.

Yeah definitely, its not good as a general bit of advice, but it could be helpful as a specific bit of advice to a motivated person down on their luck. If your luck is tied to geography, see if theres a way to move to somewhere with better luck. Whether it's a different city or a different country.
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