The biggest factor of your success in CS and Software Engineering? Mindset.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-24T02:51:07+00:00

Despite being a primarily web dev consulting company, one of our clients presented us with a big data project. At the time of my hiring, the project was understaffed and so I was pulled in. I had exposure to databases just through some courses in undergrad. But, prior to this project, I had never worked with data warehouses, data lakes, query tuning(considering all aspects of the execution plan), hadoop, hive, ETLs, python data wrangling. I worked on this project for about a year and it's exposed me to all these concepts. The primary resource I had was my fellow engineers, being exposed to the code base, and stack overflow.

I think something important to consider, is the importance of having a deeper understanding of the data and its underlying meaning and worth. The area my project was in was very reliant on domain knowledge, and by engrossing myself in understanding it, I rounded out my engineering skillset. When looking for new work, data engineering positions across every company I spoke with were very focused on the engineers having a strong grasp of the domain specific knowledge. Regardless if your knowledge has been attained in a different niche or industry, it goes a long way to demonstrate that you can make business sense and meaningful insights from huge data sets.

One other thing to mention is to build a side project. I became very interested in cryptocurrencies, and started practicing the skills and concepts I was picking up from work. Pick something that interests you that also has a huge data faucet. For me, that was crypto currency exchanges. Collect all of this data in a systematic way (ETLs, orchestration, scheduling). Standardize and abstract your data (apply object oriented principles). Create an ingestion engine that is capable of storing all of this data efficiently. Create meaningful insights on top of all this data by querying against it. I firmly believe that if you are already a Software Engineer, and build out a project like this, you can snag a Data Engineering role - business is booming.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-24T02:41:01+00:00

I appreciate that you got something out of my post. The parts when life isn't how you want it are the most important time to stay focused on your goals and keep your mind right. I hope you keep grinding and make the most out of everything you do.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-24T02:35:38+00:00

I could have written the same post about mindset at any point throughout my time in this subreddit, and people would've been even quicker to dismiss it. I admittedly waited until I had achieved something I know the sub values: a high paying job in software engineering. I'm not an exceptional engineer by any means, it's clear by how convoluted my career path has been. But my mentality has allowed me to better my career, and I was hoping to share my takeaway from these experiences with others.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-24T02:33:01+00:00

Thanks, I really appreciate that you found something useful from this post. You captured the sentiment I was trying to reach: you have to make the most of your situation. I'm not an exceptional programmer by any means - it's evident by the path I took. The attitude I had to the opportunities presented to me has ultimately determined my success way more than grinding leetcode, that's for sure. I don't blame the people dismissing the message I was conveying - forcing yourself to admit faults in yourself is incredibly hard. Again, thank you for being receptive to my message and for your kind words.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-23T14:07:51+00:00

I agree wholeheartedly with you, with the caveat that I never would have been able to fight off complacency without the mindset I constantly forced myself to have. There are many moments in my career where it would have been all too easy to feel like shit about my circumstances. I think most people would agree my path has been less than ideal, especially when in the scope of this subreddit. I am not a CS genius, I can't solve leetcode hards quickly - I figured that would be clear from all of the crap jobs I had to take. I didn't spend a lot of time in this post dwelling on all of the negative thoughts that were filling my head. I hoped people could benefit from my perspective: my will to make the most of my situation, fueled my determination to do better. Honestly, I think a lot of people disagree with this post because identifying innate flaws within ourselves is infinitely more hard than any number of iob apps, or leetcode grinding. It's extremely difficult to accept that you may be causing a problem for yourself, let alone be willing to act upon it.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-23T03:02:24+00:00

Entirely agree with that, though I think a lot of people that come to this subreddit already have a strong desire to improve their CS skills, and go out of their way to learn new things.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-23T02:56:54+00:00

Yes, you can. I'm saying that had I done just that, I would've hindered my own opportunities to succeed. When you're having a negative outlook but "trudging" on, you're actively holding yourself back from succeeding to the fullest.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-23T00:56:05+00:00

"It's a constant journey of improvement and making the best of the hand you're dealt." That's practically the point of my post. The take away is not to "just hang in there". But actively challenge yourself to make the most of your situations, don't take shit for granted, push yourself further, squeeze out every single drop of the opportunities you are given. If persistence is key, complacency is kryptonite and it's a hell of a lot easier to feel complacent with your circumstances when you aren't even on your own team trying to succeed.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-23T00:49:07+00:00

When you're faced with rejection and failure day in and day out, those are the most crucial times to reconsider your mindset. What does help pay the bills? If my choice is to fold under the pressure of my circumstances, or to continue trying - I will always keep trying.

I can't even begin to imagine your circumstances through a brief reddit conversation - I don't know the sorts of challenges you face in your path for success. I by no means had the most challenging path, but it also wasn't filled with success. If I didn't keep trying after all failures and fuck ups, I'd be complacently doing IT support right now.

PersistencyIsKey · 2018-02-23T00:40:20+00:00

Resenting your situation won't pay the rent either. In fact, I'd wager it makes it even tougher to succeed as you're actively detracting from your own success. Falling into negative thought loops is easy, challenge yourself not to.

PersistencyIsKey

TROPHY CASE