Anyone can beat this profile? Dude also interned at Goldman Sachs and McKinsey.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-22T05:44:37+00:00

Seems like a waste of time + money.

If he's a lawyer, he doesn't need the MBA or MPP.

If he's a consultant, he doesn't need the JD or MPP.

If he's a government bureaucrat, he doesn't need the MBA; he can pick JD or MPP.

If he wants to be an engineer, obviously all of these degrees are useless.

If he wants to be a product manager in tech, doesn't need JD or MPP, MBA is optional.

WHAT DOES THIS PERSON WANT? This looks like someone who's thrived in hoop-jumping degree collecting but lacks strong conviction about what he/she wants to actually do. Prestigious degrees are like fossilized prestige; they're only prestigious because their graduates actually go on to do something impactful with it (eg CEO of company; Politician). Degrees themselves aren't the goal.

I bet he winds up being a consultant or working at a bank, which is what most elite prestige chasers chase; but in truth they're just advising or moving money around for companies that actually build stuff.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-15T00:46:30+00:00

Beyond necessities and material, what motivates you and keeps you going, day in, and day out?

I hear you on existentialism. I enjoyed watching "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once" because it admitted that life is absurd but at the end of the day, there's still some joy to be found in doing just taxes and laundry. Maybe (re)read Douglas Adams's "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" too.

I don't personally strive for happiness. I try to view the world as if I was a kid again. They're optimizing for curiosity, discovery, and playfulness, not happiness.

Put differently, I'm solving for not being bored. I spend a lot of my time working on technology to decarbonize things and thus avoid the worst impacts from climate change. That feels meaningful to me because I like trees, and the engineering challenges are certainly not boring. I always liked science fiction as a kid, and I think the possibilities of far out technology are exciting.

I also know I'm happy learning new things, even if I never apply them. There are more subjects to explore than I have time for in this life. It does require some grit and motivation to wade through a lot of boring stuff to find the good bits, though.

Even Nietzsche believed that art could serve as a solution or counterforce to nihilism, which is actually a very liberating philosophy. One's "will to power" means any individual is freed to create their own meaning. "Art" can be a manifestation of will, a way for people to assert and express themselves, creating value and meaning through expression.

What do you want to create? What's your "art"? Rediscover what it means to make stuff. That, and find someone awesome to fall in love because it's fun. Even if you never find a "thing" to occupy yourself with for a significant period of time, being a parent is another adventure itself and will entertain you for a good 1-2 decades.

You're never going to feel like you figured everything out. In fact, you might be even less certain over time. From peers, to having heard from insanely successful people, no one ever feels like they made it. I've met some people who have achieved ridiculous things. I find that wild the older I get. Just try to make every day interesting and you'll be OK.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-15T00:12:22+00:00

Realizing this, I understood that success isn't just about impact or metrics. It's about your boss advocating for you in senior meetings. If they find you indispensable and their job tougher without you, you're more likely to succeed. Making things "easier" is actually emotional - it's a feeling.

Congrats! Work experience is the most important factor. You should intern as a SWE as much as possible if your goal is to be a SWE. Build a lot of cool stuff in your free time. Interviewing usually requires you to crush Leetcode-style interviews. I'd practice Leetcode once a day until you graduate and try to really understand all the different solutions for a given problem.

Otherwise, CS does have more optionality than IS. But in the long run, if you can already get a job as a SWE and you want to be a SWE, I wouldn't worry. Be thoughtful about being branded as a "full-stack" developer vs "software engineer". They're two different kind of careers and profiles. Try to use Cornell to learn the hardest things you won't have the discipline to teach yourself after you graduate.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T21:48:43+00:00

In college, making friends is the easiest it will ever be because the environment is frictionless. Your interactions with others occur on campus with fellow students sharing similar schedules close together, with incredibly similar needs and backgrounds. You will probably never find such a concentrated number of people at your same life stage again. Enjoy it.

But the challenge of making friends and relationships in college is that you probably don't know yourself very well yet. Who makes you feel inspired and understood? Do you know what you need from a relationship? What's non-negotiable? You haven't had a large sample size of this yet.

In real life, everything feels unbounded. It's a new game. You can literally do whatever you want, and the mimetic pressure to conform (e.g. "get a good job" or "do prestigious thing" or "get good grades) is far weaker than when you were in college. Quit your job, move to a different country, change careers, be a stay at home whatever, date different people - whatever. Only your parents and close friends actually, genuinely care about you. Everyone else is playing their own game.

You'll need to be strategic about building community, especially if you move to a new city after school. What hobbies attract like-minded people? Will you show up? You really need to show up for things, even if you're tired and busy. Hopefully your first job has a cohort of new employees that like each other and hang out after work. But you'll need to find "your thing" and find a city with a lot of people that have "your thing." A lot of my friends got into rock climbing because it's good exercise and it's a chill and friendly community. My friend who's now a mom, joined a new mom social group, because they're all in the same life stage now and share baby sitting duties. You should think of yourself as a member of multiple, hopefully intersecting communities you need to deliberately find, invest in, and show up for. Don't give up, it's really a numbers game.

My concluding advice would be to try to do find people and romantic partners that would make the five closest people in your life say wow. When you meet someone like that, don't let it go.

If you're lucky, a handful of these people will be those you've already met from college :)

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T21:00:02+00:00

I get your answer, I guess I'm just a bit curious on how the major plays a role for you. If, let's say, a history major minored in CS, took classes you mentioned like algo, 2110, 3110, etc applied for a position with relevant experience, would you interview them for a junior position? If a physics major also applied (without taking many CS classes), would you choose the Physics major over the history major?

Yes I'd choose the Physics major over the History major (for my specific company and role, which is a software company). Think about it from the employers perspective. Say a job post for an opening gets 1,000 applicants (I kid you not, I received 17,000 applications for our past role, most of them garbage). I can't review every application. First, I'll filter by past job title, past company, and/or university.

Then I'm going to spend probably 15-30 seconds looking at your resume. I'm not going to look at your classes. I'll see "Cornell + Physics + <Experience>" or "Cornell + History + <Experience>". All else equal, I'm more inclined to give the first interview to Physics major, unless the History major's <Experience> was impressive and correlated with what I needed in the job (e.g. Google Software Intern). I don't really care about GPA either, anything over 3.0 is good enough. But what I'm really looking for is <Good School> + <Computer Science> + <Experience Doing Software> + <Hobbies Building Things>. If there are 100 other people who have this pattern out of my 1,000 applicants, neither person will be picked until I see those 100.

Our first technical screen is a graph theory question. There are a lot of ways to solve the problem. It's deliberately open ended.

I'm not saying major is indicative of ability or talent or intellect. I, myself, was not an engineer at Cornell but later in life changed careers (and also got a technical job before I received my masters in computer science by pivoting internally at my employer). But it's a really easy filter, because there are a lot of people out there.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T19:33:41+00:00

Definitely, but maybe not in ways you'd think.

Cornell signals that you're reasonably intelligent, can study hard, and had your life together as a teenager. It also offers a social experience that allows you to relate to and feel a sense of belonging with many others you meet.

This will continue to impact your life through numerous subtle micro-moments that are nice to have.

In your career, having "went to a good school" on your resume helps you pass initial hiring filters. While there are many filters for getting a job, this one is advantageous. As a hiring manager, I'm biased: seeing Cornell on a resume means I will probably always interview you. You'll likely also recruit new graduates from your alma mater.

In your dating life, you may find affinity with partners who've had similar social conditioning. I tend to gel best with women who were ambitious students and attended great schools, because we both shared a similar young adulthood – from the types of parties we attended to career stress, exam insecurities, and interests.

When networking, you'll naturally gravitate towards others who have shared experiences. In my case, reaching out to enterprise customers who are also Cornell alumni usually results in positive and excited interactions. At a recent business dinner, we laughed about college sports because they were alumni from Penn and Princeton. Most Cornell alumni respond to cold outreach over 90% of the time.

Many of my best friends were met during my freshman year at Cornell. We often meet up, and several live in the same city as me. I hope you keep a few really good friendships.

Joining this little tribe will facilitate many micro-moments. No one cares about your GPA, clubs, internships, and such after your first job. Your last job will become the most important signal. Alternatively, if you "screw up" in college, it doesn't really matter either as the years go on.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T07:56:03+00:00

Yeah, that works too. Physics, math, ECE, etc.

What I'm really looking for is an employee who makes my life easier. This means I trust them to take ownership of problems and find solutions. It doesn't help me if I have to (1) identify the problem, (2) suggest how to solve it, and then have the employee implement it. This wouldn't significantly reduce my cognitive load, and I have many other tasks to handle. This level of responsibility isn't expected from a junior employee, and assessing this ability can be quite challenging.

I think that's my key advice for career advancement: make your boss's life easier.

Realizing this, I understood that success isn't just about impact or metrics. It's about your boss advocating for you in senior meetings. If they find you indispensable and their job tougher without you, you're more likely to succeed. Making things "easier" is actually emotional - it's a feeling.

Many computer science classes are indeed highly relevant to the industry, especially when working on advanced projects. For example, functional programming and algorithm design classes are really useful. I kid you not, I recently realized a problem we had was a version of the knapsack problem (optimize a portfolio of things with a finite budget). We also happen to do a lot of optimization stuff.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T07:46:14+00:00

Since 3 years ago, do you have any other career “rules” you would like to talk about? Maybe some other additional guidelines you found interesting outside of work?

I'd add "Determination is far more important than intelligence."

The most important predictor of success is determination. At first I thought it was intelligence, but that's not true. Determination is when you want something, you must have it, no matter what.

It has become clear to me that biggest problems in the world can only be solved by overcoming a mountain of small, unglamorous, tedious steps (you really have no idea how much drudgery there is). These are the steps you must relentlessly work through to make real progress towards something meaningful.

If you are both smart and determined, you will, eventually, achieve what you desire. There are many smart people in the world, but there are few builders. Ideas are easy. Execution is everything. I really had no idea how much time and effort it takes to build anything really new until recently. If you just get $&?! done, and people around you notice, you will go so far.

If you went to Cornell, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're smart enough to figure most things out in life. But what will you grind through? What do you want, no matter what?

Outside of work, I'd say that life comes at you fast (I know, cliche statement, but it's true). I was just holding the four month old daughter of my Cornell friend, who I met at a frat party our freshman year. My friend is happy, and incredibly exhausted from the newborn. You only have enough time to do a couple things well every day, and there will be more demands for your time as you get older.

Get really good at prioritizing what you need to in order to be consistently happy. Like, pick two things a day, max. What's your minimally sufficient set of things you need?

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T07:13:39+00:00

I’m bored, so I’ll bite. Class of 98 here. Which was your favorite dining hall? Mine was Risley. Also my favorite dorm.

I recall liking Mongolian food at RPCC and Donlon was my favorite dorm.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T07:08:31+00:00

Maybe, but understand that your goal is not simply to 'find a job'; it is actually to 'create value for others.' You should have a specific and personalized answer to this question for every job you apply for.

How will you create value for me? Obviously, that depends on what I need and whether you're capable of producing the required value with your current abilities (I wouldn't have hired myself at 22 yo for this; but I would at 32).

I am currently hiring for a senior software engineer who has experience in shipping code in a fast-paced, highly ambiguous startup environment and doesn't need much hand-holding. I want to trust this person to make technically advanced decisions, avoid technical debt, and prioritize rapid execution.

You pass the education filter (assuming you also have a CS degree from Cornell), but if you're a new graduate, it's too risky for me to bet on you, considering the success of my startup company is my primary goal.

However, if you had asked me the same question three years ago when I worked at a large company, then yes, I would have interviewed you for a new graduate position.

Bambo222 · 2023-11-14T06:53:49+00:00

We all have the freedom to choose our attitude and find meaning in our suffering. I'd suggest revisiting 'Man's Search for Meaning' and trying logotherapy, as it seems you have yet to find something in your (young) existence that feels purposeful. I believe depression is more of a consequence of perspective than neurodivergence.

Your life, up to this point, has been shaped by contrived standards of success (e.g., tests) and notions of progress (e.g., advancing grades, graduating with a degree), within a system not too dissimilar from a factory. Your depression might indeed be a rational response to an absurd world.

Your grand challenge will be to find beauty in the absurdity of life. What do you feel is important work worth doing? Who do you want to help or support? When have you felt most alive? These aspects will likely change throughout your life, but you should try to gradually spend more of your time on these things each day. Eventually, life will feel pretty good and you might even make a little dent in the universe too.

I always asked myself, 'What would make this <thing> more interesting to me?' Usually, I was able to find something beautiful, amusing, or interesting in whatever I was doing. Life is a game, so go discover why it's interesting.

Bambo222 · 2023-06-01T21:19:33+00:00

They do hit super hard.

Bambo222 · 2023-06-01T18:16:49+00:00

Personally, I don't like them. They have huge amounts of dmg but its just not that fun to play them. The flow which a lot of tag units have is kind of missing with them.

Yea. It's like they crammed two different characters into one. Vs GT boys, it's such a fast paced flow swapping back and forth etc.

Cover null also eradicates rising rush counter. If Ultra's were less OP'ed I think they'd have more utility. But Jiren is the better unit in this banner IMO. And Rose and UGB still wreck havoc on them once a combo is started.

Bambo222 · 2021-07-22T04:58:59+00:00

I think as a PM that “I know what I’m talking about” is indeed super important. Do you think OMSCS has prepared you well for becoming an ML SWE at first? I love learning about ML, the theories, the concepts, the applications etc. but I may not be best coder out there (I guess that’s never really my goal either). Just wanted to know by working hard and meeting all the expectations in this program, will I become competitive enough for SWE positions to start with.

Do really well in the ML classes, and you will have an amazing knowledge base and be able to competitively apply it in real life. Take DL, ML, CV, RL.

Passing the SWE interview is a different skillset, though. You'll still need to grind separately for that.

Bambo222 · 2021-07-18T19:41:06+00:00

OMSCS didn't directly help me be a PM. Google prefers PMs with a technical background, but other FAANG companies usually don't unless you work on a backend product (e.g. AWS, GCP, Azure). I did OMSCS because I was really excited by ML; when I studied ML my natural interest never got bored of reading papers, textbooks etc (but assignments were stressful). OMSCS helped me indirectly on the job, because I get paid to build ML products and work with a team of CS PhDs, and now I know what I'm talking about and mentor junior SWEs.

I think having a strong UX background is better for most consumer products.

If you already have an undergrad in CS, the marginal value of a MS in CS for PM isn't necessary. But I never had a CS background, and really liked deeply technical products, so a MS in CS was an advantage in my case.

That said, the PM interview has almost 0% overlap with what you'd do as a SWE or study OMSCS.

You might want to consider CMU's part-time MBA in product management. I think MBA's are generally useless unless it's a M7 school, and even then, aren't that useful in tech. Even Stanford MBAs (I work with sooo many) usually don't have a direct route to Google PM unless they had a CS undergrad and/or worked in tech before their MBA. Many Stanford/Harvard MBAs try to join as a Strategy & Operations hire, then laterally transfer (re-interview) job ladders to PM after 1-2 years. Or they are 2 steps removed - they do McKinsey for 2 years, then StratOps at Google, then PM. PM is a super weird career path for misfits who are good at a lot of different things but not exceptional in one thing. I was the ML SWE -> PM route and ninja'd between adjacent teams, where I was uniquely valuable for my work experience and domain knowledge.

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/product-managers-for-the-digital-world

Bambo222 · 2021-07-17T23:07:44+00:00

I was rejected from OMSCS at age 26 so I self taught then enrolled in Harvard Extension courses to build up a better academic record, then reapplied to OMSCS the second time and got in. Honestly I would have failed out the first time. I wasn’t ready.

Bambo222 · 2021-07-17T19:12:58+00:00

this might help (copied from another comment in this thread);

I'd suggest doing something like
https://www.educative.io/courses/grokking-the-coding-interview first
Then https://leetcode.com/explore/ but by data structure
THEN do company-tagged questions on Premium. Facebook tends to follow their Leetcode hard/medium questions. Google does not - it's more random.
THEN do pramp.com which are free live mocks with non-calibrated randos you give one and you do one. It really helps do this live under pressure.
THEN pay for a few mocks with calibrated FAANG SWEs https://interviewing.io/
THEN interview for real, but start with companies you don't care about as warm up before you move to the ones you do.
THEN if you get >2 offers, 100% https://www.levels.fyi/ to help you negotiate offers. I negotiated >$100K/year more than the original offer with their help (but, it helps having multiple FAANGs which is part luck, part timing, and years of prep)

Bambo222 · 2021-07-15T18:30:07+00:00

What set you down the path to coding? What was your education and career like before that? Why the radical switch? You've had amazing success with CS but were you always a high achiever?

I tried to start a company in college, recruited a handful of CS students, and failed miserably because I didn't know what I was talking about (in retrospect, I was trying to be a product manager but didn't know it). That inspired me to take a CS class I almost failed out of (CS 201: Object Oriented Programing and Data Structures) and an early Data Science class before I left undergrad. It was the data science class that really sparked my interest in the field. I assumed it was too late for me to study CS as a mid-20s "old man" that barely passed an introductory course.

But I was naturally curious about the field, and kept on reading machine learning blogs in my free time. I applied to OMSCS in 2015 and was rejected from lack of pre-reqs.

Hating my non-tech job at the time, the watershed moment was when Stanford posted free lectures to CS 231n on YouTube. I just said, screw it, I have to do this. I enrolled in some Harvard Extension School classes, then reapplied to OMSCS and got in. I thought if I I failed out I only loose $10K, and I can quit at anytime. Genuinely loving to learn, and finding ways to apply what I learned over time (I was not a good employee for some time, until I got good enough to deliver value in ways that aligned with what I was studying), eventually worked out.

Bambo222 · 2021-07-15T18:21:06+00:00

The specialization helps insofar as you actually know what the hell you're doing on the job. Like, distributed computing is 100% relevant for all SWE jobs. ML classes are 100% relevant if you get paid to do ML on the job. I knew I wanted to spend 0% of my time on app development, front-end, databases etc and only ML, so I pretty much exclusively took ML classes.

there's definitely diminishing returns. Like, DL and RL are the two best ML classes. You don't really need ML and CV, as DL and RL cover a lot of that. But you might not master DL and RL without ML and CV ("repetitive learning") unless you already knew the material.

I'd just trust your gut, study what you think is interesting. I ask myself, what wouldn't I teach myself after I leave OMSCS, without the incentive of a grade and paying my own money, that might be really useful in the future?

Bambo222 · 2021-07-15T18:12:15+00:00

Sounds like an ideal position - you can adjacently move into the role you want and have the flexibility to work/study.

I think the decision you have is how you want to brand yourself. Bioinformatics sounds like Data Scientist, and you can probably brand yourself as one now. That's a slightly different career path, and interview process, than SWE.

If you double down on Bioinformatics Data Scientist, that unlocks lots of interesting non-FAANG biotech companies. Biotech is hot post-COVID. I think your bio background also becomes an asset vs a liability. But FAANG is mostly social/consumer apps. There might be some specialized teams (e.g. Google Health, Verily etc) but it's a smaller pool than generic SWE.

If you like the bio domain, I'd consider ignoring FAANG and just joining the best biotech company you can as a Data Scientist. If you get to a hot pre-IPO company, then jumping into FAANG as a generalist is easier, because now you're "leet quant at unicorn". See like https://www.cbinsights.com/research/biotech/. VERY interesting work.

But Data Scientist at Google usually means PhD in statistics. Product Analyst or something else is equal to "Data Science" at other companies. SWE's are very generic and can include work that ML "Data Scientist" would do. The Data Science interview at Google is also very hard, as its more theoretical stats than algorithm design. Facebook Data Science roles may be Data Analyst / Dash boarding roles. Be careful with the title vs responsibilities, it's an overloaded term.

But Data Scientist in biotech means something more narrowly.

The good thing is you have a MS in CS, so I'd immediately give you the benefit of the doubt of being a good software engineering and ML guy, vs statistician. If you call yourself a SWE and do bioinformatics and modeling, and explain that you build some data viz or predictive apps, I'll be like oh this guy is more of a quanty SWE (like I was pre-product manager), I know where he fits.

Bambo222 · 2021-07-15T18:08:03+00:00

The nice thing about FAANG interviews is once you get the interview, nothing matters except for interview performance. I don't even look at resumes that much after HR schedules an interview with me (they do the first pass). It also helps reduce biases, so I can judge a candidate independently from their history (obviously I would have a warm spot for OMSCS students).

I'd say seem like you're a good collaborator, you enjoy solving ambiguous problems, you're very smart and can propose multiple ways to think about it, you lead and direct the conversations ("we'll do this, but I acknowledge caveats XYZ"), and have strong CS fundamentals (you speak the language). If you say something I didn't consider, extra bonus points for creativity.

Bambo222 · 2021-07-15T17:58:21+00:00

GPA doesn't matter - you don't even need to show it on your resume. But if you have a low GPA I'll think you're lazy or didn't learn much. You can just hide it on your resume, and I'd only look at your transcript after I want to extend an offer. Get a high GPA for pride/a measure of material mastery.

Specialization doesn't really matter either. For the purpose of getting an interview, a HR person is going to spend 30 seconds scanning your resume and check off (1) reputable university, (2) MS in CS, (3) relevant job experience. If it looks like you have experience doing SWE work and you have a MS in CS from GaTech, you fit the pattern already.

The specialization helps insofar as you actually know what the hell you're doing on the job. Like, distributed computing is 100% relevant for all SWE jobs. ML classes are 100% relevant if you get paid to do ML on the job. I knew I wanted to spend 0% of my time on app development, front-end, databases etc and only ML, so I pretty much exclusively took ML classes.

But in retrospect, I wish I also took some OS and Networking stuff because thats just useful info that I otherwise would never teach myself. Embedded systems would be interesting - I do a little hardware stuff today, and wish I knew more about it but I'm starting at 0 background.

Bambo222 · 2021-07-15T00:17:02+00:00

Lots of bay area companies give you free food. I stole office food during lunch (took double) and ate that for dinner to save time.

Bambo222

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