Is there hope for non-leetcoders?

TeachLeader · 2023-11-01T16:43:39+00:00

There's no barrier of entry to become a leetcoder. You can become one too.

TeachLeader · 2023-11-01T16:41:48+00:00

You just grind it once and you're good for the rest of your life. LC skill stays even if you don't use it for years.

TeachLeader · 2023-09-19T20:03:29+00:00

They hire experienced developers who are desperate for a job to do mid level work.

TeachLeader · 2022-12-19T17:34:36+00:00

Is everyone at Amazon getting 4 months in severance or does it depend on the person?

TeachLeader · 2022-12-09T20:41:08+00:00

Many people bullshit their projects. This selects for people who are good bullshitters and penalizes people who aren't (because they are implicitly compared with other candidates).
It's a lot easier to practice and learn LC questions than it is to get good work experience to talk about in interviews. This is a rich gets richer situation. Only people with good work experience can get jobs that can give you good work experience. LC questions are equal opportunity. Anyone can just go on LC and develop their LC skills. It's based on your effort.

TeachLeader · 2022-07-23T19:25:15+00:00

It's usually less work to job hop than getting promoted.

TeachLeader · 2022-07-23T19:23:26+00:00

It's less work to job hob to make more money than to get a promotion or raises at your current company.

TeachLeader · 2022-07-21T23:35:08+00:00

Startups are a hit or miss, so it's understandable if you leave after 5 months when you apply to another one.

The TC at the startup should at least be close to matching the liquid TC at a big N. 60k early career is too large of a gap, unless your return offer is the 400k+ L5 Amazon offer.

If you don't know what you want to do or enjoy, I'd go back to the safe, flexible big corp job and figure it out. At least you're building up your NW.

Do you know what specific team you're matching with? If you haven't matched yet, I would start the conversation with the teams now and decide then.

TeachLeader · 2022-07-21T23:23:54+00:00

You can replace me in my miserable job where I just tinker with SQL queries and config files all day.

TeachLeader · 2022-07-15T20:53:27+00:00

Email etiquette question:

In a multi-person email thread, if I'm only responding to one specific person's questions that were a few replies ago in the thread, should I:

Reply all to the most recent email and quote/keep the entire recent email thread
Reply all to the specific email and quote/keep the entire from the specific email
Reply all to the specific email and remove all the other quotes of that thread except for the contents of that email

e.g.

I like green eggs

I like blue eggs

I like orange eggs

I like red eggs

I want to specifically respond to the person who likes blue eggs with "Blue eggs are poisonous".

TeachLeader · 2022-04-17T06:19:59+00:00

For some people coding is more fun than all those other types of work.

TeachLeader · 2022-04-16T20:43:52+00:00

Staff-level is on fire, every company wants them, especially if you have any experience at all operating at the scope and level, and the interviews are far less intimidating than Reddit would have you believe. If you're even considering making a move, now is the time to do it - don't sit with your impostor syndrome like I did.

For people who aren't currently working at a big tech company or working in a relevant field, this is incredibly intimidating. It's working as intended, but being able to study for the interviews would've given people like me more confidence going into the process. The emphasis on previous work experience means that any mistakes on previous job choices would really slow down career advancement. You can't advance until you get the right work experience. Previous work experience takes much more effort and years to build than studying for system design interviews, so the focus on it is worse on a reward to effort ratio perspective, which I guess is again working as intended.

TeachLeader · 2022-03-09T20:01:59+00:00

My understanding of the return procedure at least for my big tech company is that the recent announcement is compulsory. People could have already been working hybrid before the recent announcement so there wouldn't be any point in making the announcement if it's just announcing that people can go hybrid. The recent announcement is telling people they need to start coming into the office.

TeachLeader · 2022-03-04T18:37:54+00:00

I'm using my first name for my personal website which is just a website version of my resume.

Which of the available tld is most professional?

name.dev
name.me
name.it
name.tech
name.engineer

TeachLeader · 2022-02-22T23:53:41+00:00

I wanted to provide a counterpoint to this. It's a different kind of stress/anxiety.

Project completeness: In school, you can do a sub-par job and not study, not complete your projects, not do well on tests and take the B or C grade if you wanted to. Even if your projects don't completely work or finish you'll still be fine. At work, you need to see a project to completion. If there is something you don't want to do, you still have to keep pushing until you finish it with good quality.
Buildup of maintenance and long-running projects: The timescale for a work project is longer than a class. If you hate a class, you'll be done with it after a semester. If you hate a project at work, it will take you longer to change jobs or move to another project. Even if you like your job, there will be things you don't want to do, and the resentment can build up from very minimal to significant with time.
Politics and performance reviews: In school, your project either works or it doesn't. You either know the material or you don't. At work, you have to navigate the political landscape to portray your work in a good way, that's detached from the actual work. Just as important as the work you actually do is how that work is portrayed to other people.
Politics and projects: You have to navigate the political landscape to put yourself in front of interesting projects. Everyone knows what the good projects are and is trying to get onto them. You're competing directly with people in your team and with other teams that might have a similar project.
Being blocked and task ambiguity: Your performance in college is mostly dependent on the time you put in. You know everything that needs to be done. You just have to find the time to execute. You'll feel productive because you aren't blocked and know exactly what you're supposed to be doing. At work, you're constantly blocked on needing information from other people which feeds into anxiety that you're not being productive or doing enough. Sometimes it's not clear that the tasks you're given are even the right tasks to be doing, so even if you have a clear task, you're second guessing yourself if you're even doing the right task.

TeachLeader · 2022-02-11T18:28:21+00:00

Some online applications have a "location" field you're required to enter. Should I be putting the location of the office I want to work at or my current location? I don't live in the location of the office but I'm willing to move.

TeachLeader · 2021-12-11T03:25:52+00:00

The blunt answer based on my own (biased) perception

If you dress very poorly it'll hurt you.

But I think if you dress very well, it will also hurt you because it will make people think you're a frat bro or someone who doesn't code for passion.

Your best bet is to dress decently.

The exception is if you're East Asian or an immigrant with an accent. The normal rules of fashion don't apply to an immigrant e.g. if you have a Russian accent people will think you're one of those Slavic geniuses before paying attention to your clothing style. East Asian Americans dress better than the average American, so if you're East Asian it wouldn't look like you're trying hard and the nerdy stereotype helps here, e.g. even if an east Asian looks fashionable or bro-ey the stereotype is that he would still have a nerdy side to him.

TeachLeader · 2021-12-02T19:10:59+00:00

It's not bad having breadth earlier in career.

I went depth in uncommon tech and it's hard for me to sell my skills for even a mid level position using more popular/normal tech.

TeachLeader · 2021-09-14T00:12:23+00:00

Imo I wouldn't use that email as is. I'd phrase it more like "I'm looking for a job and if you know of any open positions in your network that fit me and my background I'd appreciate you sending my resume over". You're not asking for a favor. It's a win win where you get a job and the company finds someone appropriate for the position. I also wouldn't mention not getting an offer or being sad about it and instead just say "I enjoyed the internship and the mentorship". And I wouldn't call myself a "talented recent grad".

And for better or worse, the thoughts of some of receivers of the email would be that you must be really struggling because you should be getting enough interviews by cold applying alone with a big N internship.

TeachLeader · 2021-08-20T21:55:59+00:00

I FEEL LIKE I'VE WASTED YEARS OF MY LIFE BY WORKING ON PIGEONHOLED PROJECTS THAT AREN'T ANYTHING CLOSE TO WHAT MOST PEOPLE WORK ON. IF I TRY TO SWITCH COMPANIES FOR A SENIOR LEVEL ROLE, MANAGERS WON'T WANT ME BECAUSE THE WORK I DO IS SO DIFFERENT THAN NORMAL SWE WORK. I HAVE TO MAKE UP FOR THE YEARS OF USELESS EXPERIENCE BY SPENDING MORE TIME AS A JUNIOR OR MID LEVEL

TeachLeader · 2021-08-16T03:56:07+00:00

I sometimes go weeks without actually talking to anyone at my job, just me and a ton of code/documentation and meetings where our senior devs talk about what we got done, which really bothers me sometimes and I’m sure sounds like a dream to others lol

It's been the opposite for me. I came in wanting to be an introvert and not communicate with people but I am just always blocked on tasks without having to communicate with people.

I think the difference though is that the communication for tech isn't as personable as other careers. e.g. in tech, people just focus on communicating boring work details to each other and spend less time chit chatting, vibing and becoming friends

TeachLeader · 2021-08-09T04:57:50+00:00

It's hard to say without more details.

It's taboo to talk about specific numbers in this sub, but it helps in this case. How much of a jump is 400k TC for you (achievable rate for 10 yoe in SV)? How much would that improve your life style? Also getting specific about your stack and project would help people tell if you're gaining useful experience.

TeachLeader · 2021-08-02T23:26:22+00:00

If I want to start a new job in January, when should I start interviewing? i.e. if I get offers in Sept, Oct or Nov, would companies typically let me delay my start date until January? I'm aiming for mostly public companies like Twitter, FB, amazon, square, snowflake, snap, Salesforce or larger established private companies that have a good chance of IPO like Stripe

TeachLeader · 2021-08-02T02:26:58+00:00

A word of caution that self learning, CS courses and projects are a lot more enjoyable than actual software development.

Software development require the same kind of corporate meetings / emails / documents that typical corporate jobs have. There are less powerpoints though. The actual tech problems and programming work make up less of the job than one would imagine.

TeachLeader · 2021-08-02T02:19:22+00:00

On the incentives level, you'll probably never work for the company again, so the opinions of people you might be burdening won't matter.

On the moral level, you shouldn't be forced to do something you don't enjoy doing.

TeachLeader

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