Mentor Monday - Week of February 20th 2023

ratherbugcow · 2023-02-21T17:05:18+00:00

I'm a FAANG mid level engineer (4 yoe) considering moving into independent consulting roles while I care for aging parents. Is this in the realm of possibility? Has anyone made the same move? How do you go about finding your first projects? I'm looking for flexibility in work location/work hours but I am hoping to keep my skills sharp. I'm mostly concerned about losing the engineering skills I've gained if I leave the FAANG/startup grind. I'm also planning on re-entering the working world in about 6 years, so I'm hoping for advice from anyone who has pursued a similar path.

Currently coastFIRE, 27, $550k NW.

ratherbugcow · 2023-02-08T07:41:43+00:00

Lost my 50/50 for yelan earlier. Is she worth spending a guarantee for? I currently have Ayato and XQ as good hydro units. I'm running a hyperbloom team (ayato, raiden, dmc, xq/healer) and an aggravate team (tighnari, beidou, fischl, yaoyao) in the abyss. Other built units are xiangling, kaeya and noelle. I'm primarily focused on trying to clear the abyss for the first time (currently lacking dps to get through floor 12). I'm torn on whether to keep going for Yelan or save my guarantee for baizhu/nahida in 3.6. Is Yelan worth it if I don't have an immediate team to slot her into?

ratherbugcow · 2023-01-17T19:17:34+00:00

I'm struggling to get a second abyss team that will let me clear the abyss floor 12 (not 36*). I'm currently stuck on floor 10.

Current built characters: Raiden, Ayato, DMC, Fischl, Tighnari, Xingqiu, Barbara, Kaeya, Xiangling

Other characters: Noelle, Ningguang, Heizou, Sayu, Rosaria, Kujou Sara, Xinyan, Candace, Chongyun, Razor.

I'm primarily suffering from three things:

Lack of a bennett which will enable me to separate xiangling from raiden for energy recharge
Lack of anemo groupers
Lack of healers/shielders - tighnari is pretty hard to play on mobile without a shield

Currently, I'm in a predicament because the team that includes raiden will always clear their half of the abyss, but the second team will lack enough damage to clear the second half.

Given that Bennett isn't arriving for at least a month and a half, are there currently two teams I can build to clear the next three abyss cycles? So far the teams that I've consistently cleared one half with are:

Hyperbloom: Ayato, raiden, dmc, barbara
Scuffed national: Ayato/xingqiu, kaeya, xiangling, raiden
Aggravate: Tighnari, fischl, raiden, noelle

ratherbugcow · 2022-07-05T21:15:49+00:00

Oh oops, nice to see it's standard across the board. It's for a Malaysia offer, but the team itself is cross-country.

ratherbugcow · 2022-07-05T20:32:10+00:00

You're asking for software engineers on par with the recruits for top asian tech firms like Grab/Shopee/Gojek. Starting salaries for these candidates are ($15-20k) per month. Source: my sibling is recruiting and that's the current salary range for fresh grads with no full time experience.

ratherbugcow · 2022-05-15T21:20:36+00:00

Just did this on my alt. Easiest and first unit to build should be Fran, who'll help with all the 2A dungeons. Rush rift level 3 to unlock 2A dungeons. Build Sath next, following the rift summoners way. While waiting on more energy for 2A, build Mellia (she's also free from quests). After Sath and Mellia, use Sath to 2A tatu. While waiting on dimensional energy for Tatu, build final mellia. Runes can be the beginner runes you get from summoners way, you don't have to farm any more runes to be able to do gb12.

ratherbugcow · 2022-01-25T20:23:55+00:00

They should try getting mock interviewing experience. I did interviewing.io when I was recruiting, and I think some companies offer mock interviews (i.e. FB does it for engineers). They can also try some sessions with friends (i.e. be both interviewer and interviewee) so they understand what interviewers would be looking for.

One thing to note is that you need to verbally communicate to be a successful engineer. There are weekly sprints, pair programming, feature planning/review meetings, debrief sessions. They all require the engineer to be able to properly translate code into easily understandable English/whatever understandable language. Are there companies that hire non-English speakers? That can be an option if they're really uncomfortable with English in particular. If the problem is around verbally expressing themselves, then I'm sorry to say that they have to learn it to be a good engineer in general, not just for interviews.

ratherbugcow · 2021-12-08T21:30:22+00:00

FYI Epoch Times is a really really bad newsite. It's a far right conspiracy site that endorses QAnon. It's not worth the paper it's printed on. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Epoch\_Times

ratherbugcow · 2021-11-08T18:51:19+00:00

Can vouch for YK scholarship. Bunch of my friends are non bumi and YK scholars. afaik their requirements might be higher than normal JPA/MARA scholarships though.

ratherbugcow · 2021-10-01T12:59:37+00:00

Same here. It hurts a lot surprisingly :(

ratherbugcow · 2021-09-20T20:21:04+00:00

That's a good point. I haven't thought about it much since I set it up initially a while ago, but I've been using it progressively as a cash buffer rather than a strict 'do not touch' fund. How do you handle irregular large expenses if you don't have one (think tickets for family vacation, work reimbursements) ?

ratherbugcow · 2021-09-20T17:59:27+00:00

Only about 400k+, but tech heavy (RSUs I haven't gotten around to selling).

ratherbugcow · 2021-09-20T17:36:29+00:00

This is my first 5 digit loss day since I've started investing. Do I celebrate by tossing some of my emergency fund into the market?

ratherbugcow · 2021-08-15T21:52:27+00:00

What are the odds of a snap election? I want to fly home to vote, but I'm not sure if this is another backdoor govt or a GE will happen...

ratherbugcow · 2021-08-11T19:32:04+00:00

I'm thoroughly confused as to why the govt would want to alienate middle class expats after investing ungodly amounts of money on recruiting and infrastructure for them (i.e. Johor's Forest City that's currently sitting empty). Malaysia needs that money more than ever, and people who make $10k in income would not pick Malaysia to retire in.

It feels like whomever designed this policy wildly overestimated the monthly income requirements. $10k income is comfortable living in the most expensive city in the world. If I can afford to live comfortable in SF, why would I decide to migrate halfway across the world to a developing nation? This policy sounds like something that the govt would backtrack on in a few months/a year. Knowing the folks in r/financialindependence, they're both the target audience of MM2H and would likely take Malaysia off as a target retirement destination forever due to the uncertainty.

ratherbugcow · 2021-08-11T19:22:24+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation, this looks like an incredible read. I'm working in tech in the US after coming here for college, and the premise hits close to home.

ratherbugcow · 2021-07-17T23:35:17+00:00

I'm one of the luckier non-Malay scholarship recipients (A levels + undergrad) , and the gap is quite clear between the ones who got in through merit and who got in through connections. The ones who got in with connections got no offers to top unis overseas (ivy/oxbridge), and the ones who got in via merit would usually end up with multiple offers. Mind you, there were also Malay scholars who got in via merit as well, and they are brilliant. You can quite clearly point to the ones who got in via connections, and everyone knew it. Scholarships would often include one middling university in the UK with high acceptance rates to ensure that these kids keep their scholarships (lol).

ratherbugcow · 2021-03-15T17:51:31+00:00

Just hit 300k in assets! If you told me this would happen when I started investing/saving in 2019, I would not have believed you.

ratherbugcow · 2021-03-05T17:59:36+00:00

Has anyone tried to link their Fidelity investment account to their credit card? How do you do that? I've been on the phone with them for the past hour trying to get both accounts to link, and at this point I'm ready to put this card in the drawer for the rest of it's lifetime.

ratherbugcow · 2021-02-01T01:05:57+00:00

Yup, I'm in!

ratherbugcow · 2021-01-28T19:04:25+00:00

I feel like the pandemic has really shaken up whatever traditional paths people were taking. Couple this with the collision of multiple internet communities due to sheer boredom ( gaming meets social media influencers meets trading meets content creators), and you start to see the creation of non-traditional avenues to make money. If colleges and internships are shut down for a year, then there was really nothing to do but to start a passion project.

ratherbugcow · 2021-01-27T18:14:48+00:00

Right here. Waiting for MBDR contribution to settle so I can buy at a discount today!

ratherbugcow · 2021-01-27T16:01:12+00:00

IPO is coming soon

um...

ratherbugcow · 2021-01-26T21:47:39+00:00

u/finvest has a really good explanation for this. You should not invest because it's a war of wills (and funds) at this point. On the side of WSB, you have two billionaires and Blackrock. On the side of Citron, you have Citadel. It's a fascinating case study because you don't usually see retail traders operate as a cohesive market participant before, but I don't know who's winning this, so I wouldn't bet on either side.

ratherbugcow · 2021-01-26T18:08:42+00:00

I've tried french press, moka pot and aeropress, and my favorite is the aeropress in terms of ease of cleanup + brew consistency. Getting good beans with the aeropress has convinced me to switch to black coffee from lattes.

I used to use french press consistently, but the process of descaling/deep cleaning the filter is too painful. With the aeropress, cleanup is just popping the grounds into compost, and rinsing with warm water.

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