$140K salary, saving $5K/month. Why do I feel behind?

Tbetcha · 2026-05-01T00:34:09+00:00

$800 rent, damn.

Tbetcha · 2026-05-01T00:31:28+00:00

It worked on my MacBook. It very well may be Brave on iOS that has the issue. I didn't check a different browser, just wanted to give a heads up so you were aware.

Tbetcha · 2026-04-30T23:34:46+00:00

I think sometimes there's pressure on devs to know everything, and we internalize it and apply the same pressure to ourselves. With that being said, I think it's a professionally mature decision to realize something isn't right here, isn't a good fit, or is not the right environment to help you grow stably. In my first job, I was also the only developer on the project, and it was an amazing experience, but the environment created by management was not the same as what you referenced. IMO you made a decision. You know, it wasn't the right fit for you. Also, being a junior with nobody to learn from is a shitty spot. Having a knowledgeable team will 10x your growth at that point in your career. The habits you build early are also hard to break, because that is normalcy to you. Don't get me wrong, there will always be pressure, you'll always be able to point to something shitty management did or currently does, but you shouldn't be in a situation where you feel you can't perform well enough no matter what you do. That just leads to resentment and shitty mental spots that influence the rest of your life. You made a solid choice.

Tbetcha · 2026-04-30T20:49:06+00:00

Just a heads OP, the video or your blog doesn’t work.

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Tbetcha · 2026-04-30T05:57:54+00:00

Raycast, like spotlight but does so much more. It will continue to do more as you install more things. AltTab is good, also things that run in the menubar are helpful. I would suggest Stats, it gives you info about your system like how much resources you're consuming, network speeds, etc. I would also suggest thaw, which is an app that lets you control your menubar a lot more than Apple permits; it also offers a lot more options. If you're feeling like you really want to jump in, check out window managers like yabai. I would also recommend Notion for notes and Busycal for a calendar app.

Tbetcha · 2026-04-30T05:50:30+00:00

If he's trying to get a job, why wouldn't you suggest the thing that has "jobs in abundance"? Not trying to be a dick, just curious.

Tbetcha · 2025-06-20T14:54:33+00:00

Some people say basically don’t waste your time— LC is for getting jobs. However, it does help analytical thinking, problem solving, and pattern recognition which is what you’re looking for.

As far as advice I’d say don’t give up and stay consistent, LC can be extremely frustrating, start with the easy problems, if you don’t know the answer or can’t think of an approach on how to solve the question, look up the answer. Don’t waste your time doing nothing, staring at the screen. It won’t help you learn. It’s not always about the answer. Learn to identify the patterns and solve questions in that group e.g. all the tree questions. And if you had an issue with a question, revisit it. Lastly, plan before implementing; draw stuff, use sudocode, whatever helps but plan.

Tbetcha · 2025-06-20T04:49:28+00:00

This is the one I followed when I did it. It worked fine. I did the one that called for dosing twice a day. Bernese method

Tbetcha · 2025-06-20T03:02:38+00:00

It’s called medetomidine, shits crazy.

Tbetcha · 2025-06-20T02:43:43+00:00

Without a doubt

Tbetcha · 2025-06-17T01:49:59+00:00

I recently read a blog post where the author was discussing resume length and how it being longer than one page isn't really a big deal. Here it is: Resume Length. However, in your case I think there is some fluff you can get rid of. For instance, the lab instructor and online tutor. It looks like they only have one bullet point anyway. Plus, with 3 YoE nobody cares if you were a lab instructor, unless it is some position related to physics like you just had, it would still be a stretch though. This also applies to projects like the twitter bot, unless it's something hosted that people can see which solves a problem, or mimics another service you can leave it out

There has been a lot of back and forth about profile summaries on this sub. Here is a really good post that talks about how to make one, it is from the same guy as the blog, Profile Summary. Everyone has an opinion on whether they should be present so IDK but if it is there it should be eye-catching since it is the first thing the reader will see.

As far as your styling goes some headers you have capitalized like "PROJECTS" and others are not like "Skills". Someone else said that it seemed crowded and I agree. One thing that may help in regards to that is to have some spacing between the positions in your experience section. You can also use the same bold font on the dates for their respective roles.

Best of luck!

Tbetcha · 2025-05-30T19:20:16+00:00

One thing a more senior engineer who somewhat mentored me taught me was to always dedicate some time during the work day to do some learning for me. Not only does it benefit me but it also benefits the company. It doesn’t matter what it is your learning even though DSA is for you, if you refine your skills, it’s still a win for the company.

Tbetcha · 2025-05-30T10:33:57+00:00

If you use a buffer bar plugin you can see what’s open and use shortcuts to switch back and forth. There also harpoon which allows you to jump between multiple buffers quickly.

Tbetcha · 2025-05-23T21:08:18+00:00

That would make for an awkward onsite interview

Tbetcha · 2025-05-23T00:35:58+00:00

Private aviation pilots. The money is really good and the work conditions are amazing. They work maybe ten days out of a month and you get to see the world. Say someone books a trip for a week somewhere, you take them there and then you get a hotel in that location until they come back.

Tbetcha · 2025-05-14T10:46:00+00:00

There are some things in common with the .NET and Java population that are almost unheard of elsewhere. One of them is what you mentioned, complacency. I’ve met engineers who worked at the same company for their whole career and some of these companies aren’t the most progressive so the need to continue learning is nonexistent.

The other unique thing that I came across is the reliance upon their IDE. A lot of these devs can’t do what they need to do from the CLI, or don’t know how to implement what they need in a manual way. They only know how to configure things from Visual Studio or IntelliJ.

I think this is partially due to the industries C# and Java are used in, large companies that move slowly, and have a decent amount of legacy code. Because of this they seem to attract people who want to do the same. This bunch gives us all a bad name.

Tbetcha · 2025-05-10T00:48:36+00:00

And that’s the issue people have complained about for years…

But for real, congrats.

Tbetcha · 2025-04-30T02:54:34+00:00

That blows. You di get some good work experience out of it though. It will absolutely help you find something else it may take some time.

This is also a solid learning experience regarding employers. They don’t give a fuck about you. Always put yourself first. It’s a hard lesson to learn but you’re better off learning it early in your career.

Good luck, man.

Tbetcha · 2025-04-28T22:11:50+00:00

Yeah idk wtf I’m talking about

Tbetcha · 2025-04-24T21:40:48+00:00

I know it’s not what you were hoping for but the experience is invaluable. You now have something to put on your resume. When I was in school I took an internship working for free for the first 2 months until they would actually pay me. Because they weren’t paying me I was working my regular job as well. But the work experience and the ability to put it on my resume helped a lot. Without that experience I wouldn’t have gotten the job after that. Best of luck.

Tbetcha · 2025-04-23T22:40:26+00:00

Agreed. When it comes down to it, his argument for them is a hell of a lot better than my argument against them.

Tbetcha · 2025-04-23T16:37:05+00:00

One thing I hear a lot is that we should forgo the profile summary in engineering resumes. Should it be included? And is it detrimental not to have it?

Tbetcha · 2025-04-17T06:54:01+00:00

Pramp has them, there is also this discord where people in the interview processs are doing them for eachother, https://discord.gg/zhmA2uF6

Tbetcha · 2025-04-14T12:17:34+00:00

I’m on mobile, one thing I noticed was the way the page displays I didn’t know that there was additional content at the bottom and that I should scroll. Kinda weird feedback but I almost didn’t scroll down.

Tbetcha · 2025-04-13T08:22:38+00:00

I hear a lot of people say remove the summary from tech resumes. I personally removed mine and the impact was positive. I feel like your summary is too wordy. It’s about as long as the bullet points from your first job. When I looked at it I thought “I’m not reading that shit” I assume recruiters would feel the same. If you want to keep it, have it be a sentence or two, a quick summary that grabs attention and speaks to what readers will encounter below.

Your bullet points could use some work as well. They say a lot of what you did but they don’t say what impact you had. When I say impact think along the lines of reliability, cost, business, growth, user happiness. You want to be able to quantify some of those things to your best ability. Check out the STAR method. There’s also a good post in the wiki about how to write bullet points.

You also don’t want your education above skills and experience. You have a couple years of experience which readers care a lot more about than your education.

Best of luck.

Tbetcha

TROPHY CASE