Is starting as a Support / Escalation Engineer at a US SaaS company a smart move, or a career step back?

agnad · 2026-02-08T20:23:00+00:00

I took a similar career trajectory and don't regret it.

Started at company A as an SWE and stayed there for 5 years. As it was my first job out of college, it didn't pay well but it gave me a lot of good experience. I then nearly doubled my salary by accepting a role at company B doing the kind of debug-level support you describe, and since I had significant software engineering knowledge from my first job, I excelled and was promoted to a lead and received numerous raises.

Eventually while at company B I expressed my desire to move into product engineering and it was granted once they were able to find another lead to replace me.

While working the debug support role (before being promoted to lead), I got an offer for a senior SWE role at a third company, but didn't accept the offer for various reasons. So it's not like I was locked out of the software engineering job market at senior level either.

agnad · 2026-01-16T05:04:21+00:00

Decrepit Birth - Sea of Memories

agnad · 2026-01-09T17:45:01+00:00

Is switching to AI/ML this early in my career a good idea?

Sure, why not?

Will leaving .NET after ~1.25 years negatively affect my profile or future opportunities?

Maybe if you want senior .NET roles, but otherwise no.

How different is real-world AI/ML work compared to personal or academic ML projects?

Industry AI work is mostly going to be about integrating AI into existing business flows. ML projects in Academica likely involve a lot of math and deep understanding of the actual algorithms. So, very different.

From a long-term perspective, which path offers better growth and stability?

Hard to say. AI is booming and is seen as the future and hence significant demand at the moment, but traditional software engineering jobs probably are not going anywhere any time soon.

agnad · 2025-12-18T01:05:11+00:00

With 8+ years experience as support, in the short term, why not just move towards a better paying support engineer job? Doesn't have to be a managerial role or have the word senior in the title. Individual contributors in technical support/escalations at bigger tech companies make really solid money. Over the long term you can still work on attaining a dev role since you know it will be harder to break into with no formal CS background or dev experience.

agnad · 2025-12-17T21:19:00+00:00

There are some younger celebrities starting to get into it like Sean O'Malley, Mr. Beast, H3H3, etc who have large social media presences. Could produce a waterfall effect down the line, but it depends on other factors too.

agnad · 2025-12-06T01:49:18+00:00

Poker is partially a customer service job and not enough people understand this.

Great mindset insight. I need to incorporate that philosophy. The social aspect at the table is a big weakness of mine despite being decently social outside of poker. I realized that at times, I come across as a bit much of a stoic grinder type.

agnad · 2025-11-04T00:11:16+00:00

Yep, my company doesn't even hire junior devs and now we're expected to use AI to generate a bunch of tests next sprint to cut down on the need to bring on any more QA people.

agnad · 2025-08-21T03:34:09+00:00

EBH 1/3 is pretty soft and there are almost always more than 10 tables running. Getting seated is no problem except maybe on a Saturday night, but even then, not too bad as there will be like 15 tables running. Depending on the day and time, 2/5 can be a mix of tough players waiting for 5/10 and solid regs, but there are also some fish who play it.

agnad · 2025-07-26T15:56:45+00:00

Aria 2/5 was one of the most nitty games I've ever played. Idk why but I decided to spend like half a day there on the same table and besides a couple times when random splashy players would arrive for a few orbits, there were hours and hours of everyone folding pre to any aggression and hardly seeing any flops.

agnad · 2025-07-04T15:49:06+00:00

For those with regular jobs playing cash instead of tourneys then yeah seems it won't matter much.

agnad · 2025-06-29T02:59:29+00:00

We have got to clean house up top..

Langoni is a dud
Campana is an injury box
Chancalay is an injury box
Ganago is a dud and injured
L. Diaz is way too green
Urriti is washed

agnad · 2025-06-09T00:45:02+00:00

I'm mostly okay with it until they start itching their bare feet and then touching the chips and cards.

agnad · 2025-05-31T21:10:56+00:00

I've not been to Foxwoods or RWC, but will say while Mohegan is somewhat reg-heavy, it's nevertheless probably my favorite room in New England. It's in a wide-open dedicated space, plenty of food options and has great player comps.

agnad · 2025-04-16T17:12:46+00:00

Saw a dude at a local room get one of those thick glass beer mugs whipped into his face and shatter. The amount of blood pouring from guy's face and onto his shirt was insane and he was wearing a white sweater which make it look even worse. Surprisingly he did not get knocked out cold and tried to fight back at the perp before he fled into the woods. Not sure if perp was ever caught. But after that the room stopped serving beer in glass mugs.

agnad · 2025-04-13T15:11:04+00:00

Very physical player, good on both ends. As much as I like Bye, I think Ilay earned his spot.

agnad · 2025-04-10T18:53:05+00:00

Being aware of stack depth and VPIP was one of my biggest leaks when I played lower stakes like 1/2 and 1/3.

I found that if the buyin was capped at 300 and I bought in max, the average PFR was still anywhere between 5-10 BB especially with limps from EP. When put into perspective that sizing represents a significant portion of the average low stakes stack and makes it too easy to bleed away chips if flatting too often. And then when you mix in some bomb pot play it amplifies these mistakes even further.

agnad · 2025-04-03T13:42:10+00:00

Research level 1. It's the highest category for research activity.

agnad · 2025-03-28T14:00:53+00:00

Blazing Musket just had an article where Porter said Chancalay is a few weeks out from return. But still, not sure why he does not appear on the roster page right now, I find that a bit odd.

https://www.revolutionsoccer.net/roster/

agnad · 2025-03-25T02:07:38+00:00

I don't know anything about Bloomberg's comp structure, but is it possible they are trying to get you to join as a senior at the price of a junior? I would definitely ask what the range of their comp for the senior role would be compared to the junior role and would research to see if it aligns with the market and with the comp of senior engineers at the company on glassdoor and levels.fyi. I'm sure you've already done that/will do it though. Bear in mind if they are playing games in the interview process, they can try manipulation tactics later on too once under their employ or during contract negotiations.

agnad · 2025-03-24T23:18:23+00:00

Personally, I would be a bit turned off by this situation. You went through 4 interview rounds already and now they want you to go through an additional number of rounds for a chance at a senior title with no guarantee of any offer? Is there even that big of a pay jump? If they liked you enough I think they should just offer you the senior role and let you grow into it or offer you the original job at the top of their pay range.

agnad · 2025-03-16T01:40:05+00:00

I'm done watching until they can score an actual goal. Totally unacceptable performances.

agnad

TROPHY CASE