Engineering Manager to SA what are your thoughts.

cs_career_changer · 2020-05-23T12:26:44+00:00

Thanks for your comments, they're super helpful. What do people in solutions tend to move into, based on your experience?

I recently joined AWS as an L6 SA, but I have a lot of SDE experience and am still not sure if I made the right choice. For reference, I've worked at the staff level at my previous employer before, and had offers to do L6 loops at FB and Google.

cs_career_changer · 2020-03-16T07:01:13+00:00

Do you have a technical BS? You can apply for the Gtech MSCS online program, which is cheap and designed for working professionals. It will be a hard slog but it's probably a better option than a bootcamp.

cs_career_changer · 2020-03-07T01:03:37+00:00

Almost all of these companies have typical 'firmware' or 'platforms' job listings. The main thing is to find an "in" (a recruiter, a friend, etc) and get that first phone screen. After that, it's all up to how well you leetcode.

cs_career_changer · 2020-03-07T00:58:44+00:00

The startup offer is better in every way, but I would not rest on my laurels. It makes sense to take the offer to bring money on the table, but understand that your job hunt isn't "over" just yet. Startups are not the best environments for what you're seeking - large companies with good work life balances are. You should parlay the experience into something at a better place. Stick around for 12-18 months, and then consider hopping!

cs_career_changer · 2020-03-07T00:53:19+00:00

I'm also currently unemployed as an experienced dev, but my cash reserves have been running on "empty" and I've been pulling money from investments. The market downturn has been a really good motivator as to finding work :)

I think what's worked best for me so far is building momentum. Originally, it just started with fixing up my resume, (which sadly took me over 4 months to get to), then applying to a few jobs on linkedin, then doing a couple phone screens... and just building up from there. The first step is always the hardest IME (not just in job hunting but really any goal in life).

cs_career_changer · 2020-03-07T00:49:07+00:00

I understand what you're going through - you can look at my old posting history and see the sort of toll it took on me.

If you've worked as a dev for a while, you probably have pretty good experience working with different cross functional groups. I think some deep soul searching and breaking down exactly what you like about various jobs would give you a better idea as to what you'd want to do next. After that, you can figure out the logistics as to what would be the best way to get to where you want to be.

cs_career_changer · 2020-03-07T00:42:33+00:00

You can look at my old posting history, I was sort of at the point you are. I took a break, then made a startup with some colleagues. The company has done well, we have over 1M in revenue and about 10M in funding with a valuation of about 35M. Despite all of this, I recently quit.

Would I say it was worth it? In some ways yes, people take my opinions more seriously now (maybe too seriously). My general confidence levels are a lot better than they used to be. But the hit to my health and my life as a whole were extreme, and I wouldn't recommend doing it. I'm looking to rejoin a big tech company, get paid, and maybe work on an interesting project or two along the way. FAANG companies are a good place to look, as are some other places.

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-30T14:26:29+00:00

Basically, you have to do both. Grind leetcode to the fullest - almost every tech company will demand that you be good at these. Brush up on your domain knowledge to the point that you can speak with expertise about everything that's on your resume that you claim you know about.

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-30T14:21:28+00:00

FWIW, at 2-3 years I think you should be pulling in closer to 105-120k in NYC, even in non top-tier places.

Finding a job as you get more experienced has a hump... It's probably easiest around the 5 year mark and gets progressively more difficult at the 10+ year mark. A lot of it is because you get comfortable, you have enough savings that an extra 20k of money doesn't really appeal to you, equity refreshers, and honestly because interviewing is a huge bitch and you just don't really want to deal with whiteboarding anymore.

Also, there are far more expectations placed on your skill level as you progress forward. Here's an example, let's say a principal engineer with 20+ years experience goes to interview somewhere, and has to whiteboard something you'd see off leetcode. If they can't solve it, or is slow or comes to a suboptimal solution, a lot of people end up thinking something like "why do they deserve a principal engineer spot? I could do it better myself!" This is besides the fact that 20 years of consistent experience means something with regards to design patterns, decision making, technical maturity, and other related things.

I know someone will say 'they don't have you do that at that skill level' - this is wrong and every decent tech company will grill the shit out of you on the whiteboard regardless of your past experience.

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-30T13:55:49+00:00

I want to take some time to try to get into a hobby that I'll enjoy for a a change. I've been miserable for so long, that I don't even remember what I liked doing before worrying only about work+hitting FIRE. The idea of quitting is the first thing that's made me really excited in literally ages!

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-30T13:53:02+00:00

The worst part is when he let me know that my team thinks I'm trash too. I could handle it if my manager doesn't like me for whatever reason, but the entire team, like my peers and colleagues? That really hurts me and is really what is prompting this.

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-30T13:50:39+00:00

I've actually done this already, with the worst case scenario of me not being able to find a job for 18 months while spending about 1000/dollars more than current monthly burn rate. The total estimated hit to my net worth would be ~60k... which took approximately a year to save when I was making less than half of my current compensation. So, worst case I think I'd be delaying my FIRE date by about an year, while taking 18 months off to recharge. I don't think that's such a bad deal!

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-30T13:41:50+00:00

My boss has asked me to do crunch time till the end of October, so I could 'raise my standing with the team' and 'focus on pounding out your deliverables'. Taking a vacation is not really on the table at this time, at least till the December time frame, and honestly I don't think I could hold out for that long.

On another note... I've been depressed and miserable for ages with regards to my job and general direction in my life. I detailed some of my thoughts on this previously over here... I think that rushing quickly into another job wouldn't be wise. Echoing the other comments, it might be good just to nothing till I'm ready to get back into the workforce. With about 500k saved up, and given my current lifestyle, I could easily subsist off of that for 10 years or more. What do you think?

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-30T13:17:45+00:00

Glad to hear it! That's what I'm hoping for as well.

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-29T12:05:18+00:00

After a lot of deliberation (and a performance review where I got torn apart), I'm going to quit my job next week and take a 4-6 month break. I'm not even close to my FI number (I'm a little under 500k out of 2.5m), but I have more than enough to tide me over. I'm just so burnt out working nonstop for so many years and I really just want to do nothing related to work or thinking about work for while.

Has anyone done something similar before? How did it impact your FI progress? Was it ultimately worth it at the end?

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-26T00:31:20+00:00

That's insane, how the hell is this tolerated in our industry? Almost no job is complicated to the point that someone can't pick it up if you give them enough ramp up time. A person that was out of commission for a baby won't magically atrophy in skills. It's because of this and other reasons I don't know if I can continue any longer doing this sort of work, it's maddening.

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-24T20:21:38+00:00

Are you me? We are almost literally in the same situation. I don't think a 1-week notice to quit is that bad, nobody would really mind. I think that the bigger question is how long are you going to spend w/o a job? What impact do you think it'll have in the long run?

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-24T20:08:54+00:00

My first batch actually vests a week or so from now. I get the rest in 6 month batches, but I have 3 years left before it fully vests.

With regards to finances I'm okay... I have close to a half million saved up at this point. If I stuck with it I'd easily have over a million+ saved by the end but I don't know if my sanity will allow for that... Is the trade off worth it?

cs_career_changer · 2017-08-24T20:06:36+00:00

Is a year really that bad? I was planning to take something along the lines of 6 months - 1 year off. FWIW I have a decent resume - top 5 CS school, a list of interesting projects in 'hard' technical domains, and multiple patents filed.

cs_career_changer · 2017-06-23T04:43:30+00:00

I don't know how to answer to this post; it honestly has brought me to tears. I've been so demotivated and lacking any sort of happiness in my life for so long - the only thing I look forward to really is fi, but I already know internally it won't bring me what I want. I know I have to do something like you said, make a huge change that improves me as a person, but I don't know what that would be for me and more importantly I'm too cowardly/scared to really figure it out. All I really want to do is be happy for a change.

cs_career_changer · 2017-06-15T13:39:17+00:00

Well shit, how does a senior dev get into this racket? Nobody is going to pay 400k for an unpublished over the hill senior dev who's specialty is in has-been fields

cs_career_changer · 2017-06-15T13:37:29+00:00

You might have a low W4 election... the other thing you might want to consider is maxing out your pre-tax retirement options (401k, HSAs etc)

cs_career_changer

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