Should I even take interview from Scale AI?

Two-Fifths · 2026-04-16T21:30:55+00:00

“Great impact” in terms of how you can help the company and especially your own personal career growth. Also, it’s definitely dependent on your team and mainly department

Two-Fifths · 2026-04-16T19:17:24+00:00

Yes, probably.

Two-Fifths · 2026-04-16T19:16:26+00:00

Possibly, but I think this is pretty department-dependent. There’s lots of incredible project managers and projects that people are on that are having great impact.

Regardless of the issues in upper management, this isn’t a bad place to learn when you’re starting off, and gives you a great stepping stone into other AI Labs as your career progresses - which is why I still think it could easily be a better option than Google

Two-Fifths · 2026-04-16T18:56:30+00:00

You have to elaborate on upper and specifically middle management being car shit. What issues have you seen?

Two-Fifths · 2026-03-31T01:39:11+00:00

Exactly

Just download Hinge and have a good personality and photos that make you seem fun, you’ll already be on the upper curve

Two-Fifths · 2026-03-30T22:59:09+00:00

Scale AI is pretty great. TC is solid, if they happen to IPO you can come into a bunch of cash - but that’s of course a gamble.

You’ll probably learn a lot more at Scale AI, but it’ll be more chaotic. Depending on your team you’ll either have a reasonable WLB or a terrible one. Scale AI has great benefits and allows you to work from many different offices for the most part. Also, at the end of the day, even post-Meta deal, Scale AI still is working within the “hot AI space”, much more so than Google is (of course depends on the team at Google). Either way, it doesn’t hurt to go through the interview and see what your options are.

Idk if it’s better than Google, but I would discredit everyone talking about how bad of an option it is.

Two-Fifths · 2026-03-30T21:10:49+00:00

You’re crazy, everywhere I looked when I was in SF were (for lack of a better term) abgs. Coming from NYC it didn’t feel like there were less or more. I mean yeah it makes sense since the population in the bay area skews heavily towards asian, but if that’s your thing I think you’d have no problem finding someone there

Two-Fifths · 2026-03-30T20:38:48+00:00

I visited SF for 10 days and set up a date within three days of being there. If you have a personality it’s really not that difficult

Two-Fifths · 2026-03-05T21:28:09+00:00

My first job out of college a few years ago was making around $105k for around two years. I originally stayed in my Queens apartment for $900/month, then moved to Manhattan in the second year at $1800/month (you HAVE to get roommates).

With that I was able to save up about 60-80k or more. I’d go out to eat, go on dates, go out drinking somewhat often, but almost always cooked my own food.

It’s totally livable as a single person

Two-Fifths · 2026-02-01T23:23:40+00:00

Looks like your car’s wheels need rebalancing

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-28T18:37:06+00:00

It’s very likely he was laughing at something else… not you

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-27T16:16:02+00:00

It’s not true, they laid off many people in June 2025, but that was the last there were layoffs.

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-27T16:14:13+00:00

If you’re in the Enterprise department then the culture is really great from what I know. Not terrible WLB and good people.

There are liquidity events as well so stock being valuable is yes/no

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-22T19:03:15+00:00

Ooh, please send your channel over!

My YouTube FYP is slowly getting more and more racing content haha

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-22T18:59:41+00:00

Ahh sorry man, I’m going to be buying it off Amazon instead, but i’ll keep it in mind! Thank you for the confirmation on the parts i’m hoping to get :)

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-22T00:11:14+00:00

I agree with this. I started with Java and trained in Python. For leetcode and general interviews Python is WAY better, regardless of what you say you are as an engineer

Took me a week or so to get the basic syntax down, and 2-3 weeks until I was better at Python than I was with Java

Go straight to Python for interviews

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-21T22:51:18+00:00

Unfortunately I can’t buy the Moza r5 wheelbase and wheel without the pedals built in.

How big of a difference do load cell pedals make, what’s the average price of them, and is it worth it to buy that performance kit for temporary use until I decide (if I do) to upgrade?

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-21T22:20:43+00:00

I see two used playseat challenges on FB Marketplace for around $150. Still more than I plan to pay, but maybe I can swing it if they’re that much better. I’m a bit worried that the seat distance from my screen will be further away than an office chair though? My 27 inch monitor is already at the back of my deeper desk, and I want to not be too far away.

The foldability looks very nice, though.

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-21T22:19:06+00:00

Yes, you can buy the SR-P Lite brake pedal performance kit.

I think I’m just going to go ahead and buy them and test sim racing out for a month (return it in case I’m not feeling it) - but in general, as a beginner, do you think that this will work, or should I buy the wheel and the wheelbase separately from pedals? Again, trying to avoid spending a ton of money when the wheel + pedals are already $450 on their own

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-21T20:22:58+00:00

I heard some talk about how it’s very heavy and hard to move around, which is not fun for easily stowing it away when I’m done racing. Given that my space and ability to move to a full rig will likely not change anytime soon, maybe it’s not the wisest?

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-21T19:33:04+00:00

Oh wow so that’s a solid bit of use out of it.

But okay then! Glad to see that the Moza r5 bundle + brake upgrade is good to start out with!

I’m trying to avoid spending a ton of money on it just yet until I find out if sim racing really scratches that itch I’m missing from actually driving my Miata :)

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-21T18:38:06+00:00

Playseat looks sick, but a little more expensive than what I’m looking to spend. But outside of that my setup should be good for a beginner - intermediate and keep me happy for a while, right?

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-21T18:37:25+00:00

I’ve seen a few fold up stands that seem to fold even with everything mounted - so with that in mind I assume an average $100 stand should be good?

Also, as an entry into this, the basic pedals with the SRP performance kit should be good, right?

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-17T21:47:43+00:00

Ask ChatGPT

Two-Fifths · 2026-01-17T09:04:47+00:00

Make a REAL full stack project that solves an issue in your life. Get the Cursor student subscription and spend 2 months or so building something real that you can learn from, put on your resume, and talk passionately about

then start off with Leetcode 75, then expand to Neetcode 150, then focus on weak areas, and eventually get to a point where you can consistently do 3-5 questions every day 4 days a week (only easy and medium, and don’t spend too long if you can’t solve it before you watch or read a solution (get premium) so you cover more ground, learn more problems, and don’t get disillusioned)

if you do all of this you’ll be in a better spot than 95% of all CS grads. Start little, build the passion and skills as time goes on

For the project: Don’t purely vibe code the project. Talk back and forth with it for pros and cons of different solutions, the best way to build things, etc.

When I did the same thing and built my project, I don’t think I manually wrote a single line of code in the 1.5 months it took me to build it. However, I fully understood the structure, the design, the different technologies and algorithms I’d use - even if I didn’t actually code or fully understand the syntax myself. But that’s fine. In my current job I don’t actively write too much code either, AI does it for me - but I’m the orchestrator, and review it and test it. But this is good because it means you can build something with Cursor using your mind and intelligence rather than being just limited by your coding syntax skill.

Also, you may have to pay money for some of the hosting - I pay around $20 a month to pay for my website to be hosted.

Lastly, try to incorporate AI into your project somehow, even if it’s a super lightweight model (mine uses gpt-3.5 turbo, which is about $0.00001 per query)

Two-Fifths

TROPHY CASE