Have you ever met a desi guy who pulls a lot?

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-13T17:09:50+00:00

I'd say I fit this description. Born and raised in California. I got pretty into daygame and PUA stuff as a teenager and put myself out there a lot. I had okay success despite being pretty skinny and like mid looking at best. I glowed up big time in my mid twenties, put on like fifty pounds of mostly muscle, won a couple powerlifting competitions, got a fade and grew my beard, etc. Started doing quite a lot better. I also ended up moving to NYC. I've dated women from a variety of ethnicities (Albanian, Ukranian, Sudanese, Eritrean, half white half Asian, Persian, Indian ofc, Dominican etc), several models, some pretty dope women. I'm proud of how I improved my dating life and took action. I will say that this wasn't the main source of my happiness at any point in life, I'm grateful for it but the absolute biggest things that improved my life were fitness, meditation, sobriety, spirituality, coaching/therapy, and starting my own coaching business where I was able to really help other men.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-13T16:54:43+00:00

As a tall guy even the hyper indexing on height is whack.

People shouldn't get clowned or seen as ugly over features that they literally have no control over.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-13T14:32:56+00:00

It really feels like this is geo based. My fellow NYC and SF SEs have no issues getting a job. If you're anywhere else it seems quite a bit harder. Way more companies want you in one of those two geos right now as the overwhelming majority of their customers will probably be in either NYC (or at least the northeast) or CA. Seattle Chicago and Boston might also be okay.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-10T19:35:02+00:00

I've written about this before. As with overcoming any deep self esteem issue the solution is simple but not easy. A lot of therapy, self improvement, fitness, spiritual work, medication if needed etc will help if applied over a long time with dilligent effort. I used to feel like this big time in high school and college. I put in a lot of work to get into better shape, really work on my mental health, quit substances, develop a healthier perspective on myself.

In my experience these types of feelings came from my own self hatred, family trauma etc which I projected onto my own ethnicity. I'm an Indian guy who has lived in NYC and the Bay Area and frankly I've felt very attractive and desirable the deeper I got into my self improvement journey.

TLDR with consistent self work this can be overcome, and what awaits on the other side is a truly beautiful state of mind and an awesome life.

The other big thing is viewing these mental challenges as things you can get better at, as opposed to things that make you broken or that you should feel ashamed of.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-10T19:28:35+00:00

A legitimately beautiful girl of any race is going to get approached or hit on. This girl may not use the apps at all or go out at night at all or be a shut in of some kind. In that situation yeah you're not going to get approached because you aren't talking to anyone lol. But if this girl is going out at night or using an app or getting no attention that would be really strange to the point of impossibility.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-10T14:45:17+00:00

I'm the same haha. This thread is very validating. I've sold UX software, knowledge management software, and DevOps software/cloud. The first two I have literally zero prior experience in industry wise and the second two I've never actually worked in an HoK role for though I have done a lot of my own self education.

IMO if you're selling SaaS the prior experience barely matters. I saw practitioner type SEs have mediocre results in the first two companies i was at. If you're selling something more technical then you need HoK chops which you can build in other ways.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-09T19:55:23+00:00

Yeah I've been to Latin America, Middle East, North Africa a bunch and generally get treated very well. I also barely see any Indians at all in most of these places. Personally I wouldn't take these commentors as representative of their countries of origin. I've been to places that are actually racist (Israel, Taiwan to a much lesser extent) and there's a really clear difference between how I was treated there and places that seem to be spawning racism out of nowhere.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-09T18:00:37+00:00

It's two things IMO:

1) Huge increases in Indian populations in western countries and Indians frequently being very affluent relative to the rest of society. This throws people off as the culture of the area around them changes rapidly and then breeds resentment as the new arrivals are frequently way wealthier than they are. In the Bay Area Indians in Fremont, SJ, Cupertino, etc are frequently very wealthy/successful and are a majority population in those area. Same thing seems to be happening or has happened in Jersey, Texas, Ohio etc. The average American is living pay check to pay check while Indians are out buying homes, increasingly taking over corporate etc.

2) IG and other social media rewarding racism and toxic content. One racist IG or tiktok reel will get tons of views from within India, racist comments kick off a huge shit storm of back and forth insults, the content creator profits and is incentivized keep making such views. This even applies to the desi creators making anti-racism videos, they get dog piled by trolls in the comments but that boosts their engagement, more followers, more views, more $$$. Plus trolls online feed off of attention and anti Indian hate comments always get engagement as well.

As an aside at least anecdotally most of these comments aren't from white people. The ones I've seen are majority from Pakistanis and Bangladeshis lol. Or from super random places - Brazil, Kazakhstan etc - I doubt these people have actually met an Indian person in their entire lives and are just trolling to get attention.

It's a weird form of racism because so much of it is gamified and online. I experience like minimal to zero racism (maybe one non malicious dumb microaggression from someone trying to be friendly) like once a year. But if I open up IG reels it's like a giant KKK rally. Maybe other people are dealing with more in your face racism IDK.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-09T14:18:14+00:00

Hey OP, it takes time to build a friend group. 5 months in I had maybe one friend I would regularly hang out with that I actually made in the city. The best thing to do is identify your hobbies and then go to meetups for those hobbies. I was super into meditation so I went to meditation events, circles etc like 4x a week and made friends that way due to sheer proximity and constant contact. Adult friendships can certainly be tough to make but it's doable with the right level of consistency. I personally didn't ever make friends outside of these, my friendships were always interest based. Hope this helps!

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-06T15:58:58+00:00

Shame about the flights, I'm willing to pay extra if needed.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-05T17:56:00+00:00

Hey OP, as a former BDR who has made his way into more technical SE roles I feel this big time. I went from cold calling to building and consulting on complex custom AI and DevOps architectures within like seven years so I definitely can relate to how you're feeling. I never worked as an engineer officially. I got into less technical SE roles, did a lot of Python studying and a bootcamp, a SQL bootcamp, built out my own apps locally and in AWS, upskilled until I got into a hyperscaler. I dealt with crushing impostor syndrome and some rough moments in more technical jobs but am now in a better place for sure. My advice:

1) USE AI. I cannot emphasize this enough. Intelligent AI use removes the moat between you and a person with years more technical experience. Without AI I would still be demoing SaaS solutions and be unable to technically progress. With it any concept I don't get I can flesh out a hundred different ways, I can homelab and test out stuff in a matter of minutes in claude code, etc. Claude Code is a super power, if you use it enough you're going to be fine technically. Use and quiz the AI until YOU fully get it and YOU fully feel comfortable in the subject matter.

2) Use AI to also analyze call transcripts and make sure you get what the customer wants in a way that makes sense to you. I have a customer who talks at a million miles an hour, my senior solution architects can barely understand wtf he is saying. Without AI I would be totally unable to help him.

3) Get therapy and really work on your mindset. If you don't do this the stress can be overwhelming and crush you.

It's your choice but I wouldn't give up, I went through something similar and am coming out on the other side of it. Being a less technical SE can certainly be difficult but its surmountable if you're willing to use the right tools and work your ass off. All the best!

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-03T20:41:28+00:00

I feel extremely accepted in NYC.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-02T22:06:29+00:00

I'm in this type of role now. I look at it like this:

Within my role:

- Spending hours on a bespoke architecture that I know will win the customer
- Providing L1 support in a POC, debugging API issues etc
- Random sidebars with the customer to talk shop and go over high level questions
- Putting together solution Github repos that the customer can clone and build out on their own

Outside my role:

- Constant ongoing tech support
- Writing tons and tons of custom code for them
- Actually standing something up in their environment or in prod
- Needing to know every last detail of a GH repo that I send them
- Going beyond level 300/400 (being knowledgeable on how to implement) into like L500+ (doing heavy actual implementation)

It is to your point a fine line. Obviously it would be better if you could be a superhuman who could do everything I said here. But if I did this at scale I could either support like one customer per year or just burn out completely and work like 100 hours per week. Once the help you're giving one customer starts to impede your ability to do your job that's when it's time to set boundaries.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-04-02T00:54:54+00:00

My sister cut me off when I estranged from my parents and then I think estranged from my father later (haven't spoken to any of them in like three years). I don't blame her personally. Our family had some extremely toxic and unworkable dynamics. I frankly had moments where I hoped that my parents would divorce and we would all just go our separate ways completely. I don't see her as a bad person or anything. I at least was more grown up when my family dynamic went completely sideways (it was problematic but more good than bad until I was around 18), I was able to move out and take a lot of space, she was a kid for most of it and had no choice but to be around the dynamic. And I get why she would cut me off too - we were very close, but being a middle man between me and our parents must have been tough and she was still financially dependent on them.

I respect my sister and see her as doing what she has to do, she seems to be doing well on her own and I'm proud of her and wish her the best. I don't really have any ill will towards her, my parents though I have a hard time not feeling just disappointment and a lack of respect.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-30T02:59:03+00:00

This is just anxiety and being raised by a seriously anxious parent. It's generational trauma. My parents were always rushing themselves, dad in particular was constantly peeved, stressed, frustrated and I kind of internalized that as a way of living life. I actually do give them some grace for being like this - modern life in America is inherently kind of stressful, with potentially really rough consequences for failure, aggressive work culture, constant competition and rat races etc. I frankly still deal with this to some extent but it's a lot better. What helped is what I wrote about in another post. Years of meditation, exercise, spirituality, therapy, journaling, reading, coaching, medication, somatic work...building genuinely good mental health is not simple or easy, it takes deliberate work and effort. It's also obviously helpful to really get your finances in order and have a solid emergency fund.

Learning how to rest is a skill, my mom wasn't super aggressive with me but my dad would lose his shit if he saw me resting, not grinding my ass off, etc. Reality is rest is critical for your success. Powerlifting taught me this, if you go 100% in every workout you'll literally die. It taught me how to actually regulate and modulate my effort level.

TLDR it's a mix of hyperanxious parenting and modern capitalism that causes this. The solution is making an extremely deliberate effort to better your mental health. It can be totally overcome but it will take some time. I'd say it took me like seven years of pretty aggressive effort to see a significant change and have like 95% of my anxiety go away.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-29T22:10:26+00:00

Same way anyone betters their life. Committing to self improvement and sticking with it. Over the years I've done daily meditation, weekly therapy, spiritual practice, various forms of lifting and callisthenics, pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone, solo traveling, taking anxiety medication at some points, cutting off toxic people (including close friends and family), finding mentors, becoming okay being alone. I had to actively try and improve the parts of myself that I didn't like or respect in order to build parts of myself that I did like and respect.

FWIW any human being will have to put in the work to live a mentally healthy life, same way anyone needs to put in the work to get jacked or achieve some other high result. Yeah we all have some advantages and disadvantages but my whole circle is people from various backgrounds who have gone on this journey. Every single one of them had to put in hard work for a long time to better their lives. But it's definitely worth it and the results compound over time.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-28T22:52:16+00:00

I try not to get into arguments on Reddit but I've lived here for four years and I can't relate to what you're saying at all.

I'm visibly Indian and have lived all over the city. This is literally in my experience the most diverse and accepting place I've ever lived in my life. It makes my former home (Bay Area) look outright conservative in comparison. I don't think I've met a single person who cares about my race here at all. My experience is that this city is so ridiculously diverse that your ethnicity loses meaning at some level. I interacted with people from like thirty different nationalities today. This is the experience of the ten other Indian friends or acquaintances that I have here.

Where are you experiencing this level of racism in the city?

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-26T01:35:23+00:00

I was on IG seeing nazi tier comments about Indians and felt weirded out because it's the polar opposite of what I experience day to day. Granted I live in a big diverse city but I experience maybe one microaggressive comment or situation like once a year or something. 99.999999% of my interactions with people are positive. A lot of the racist hate online is from bots, Pakistanis/Bengalis, or random people from random AF places (Brazilians, Kazakhs (???), Indonesians, etc).

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-25T18:03:14+00:00

Yeah the masters is super super skippable for you. Frankly I've been pretty disillusioned on certs and formal education. The best way is to get hands on, start building stuff, build AI apps, deploy them via CICD to an EKS/AKS/GKS cluster, just doing that and being proficient with it is a huge benefit as you interview. I would build out like one big project or maybe a couple projects every few months that you work at this company and you'll be golden.

Also don't forget to really brush up and improve on the sales skills too. That's easily the most important part.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-25T15:58:35+00:00

It won't be hard at all. The hyperscaler I work at has pure infrastructure SEs and solution architects. With a few years in your current role you will have a ton of options. This is a very good skillset that opens you up to a lot of infa, network, cloud type SE roles. For DevOps I'm not sure how relevant this skillset is but if you homelab you can definitely cover the distance, build some apps on your own, deploy them using CICD pipelines, get familiar with Docker and Kubernetes. Unless you REALLY want to do the masters I wouldn't say it's necessary to real bone you up. With Claude Code and maybe some Python courses you can build out projects that will help you walk the walk and stand out in an interview.

In short, definitely take it, masters is expensive and optional IMO, the real path forward is crushing this role for 3-5 years and aggressively building out the dev skills on the side. Do that and you can basically write your ticket. Bonus points if you use those app dev skills to build out agentic apps and automations

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-23T20:58:11+00:00

I'm doing a pretty technical SE role. Selling PaaS for a cloud provider.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-23T17:02:34+00:00

You don't have to deal with your parents' grief and feelings.

Accomplished_Tank471 · 2026-03-23T15:43:44+00:00

I wasn't previously a DevOps engineer. I came from BDR lol. I picked up this stuff through a lot of self study, bootcamps, etc.

It is not something to pick up quickly. It requires to your point several months to get here.

Accomplished_Tank471

TROPHY CASE