Apologies.. This is gonna be a lengthy post. I completed my undergrad in electronics and switched to CS for my Masters. Without any prior work experience and with a limited background in coding, struggled my way throught masters and finally got a bit comfortable with the software world. Majority of my course work was in core computer science topics such as Data structures and algorithms ( more mathematical) database designs operating systems with a limited exposure to coding. Got my first job , with little to no prep cos it was an onspot interview - at a career fair . Since i got an offer a semester ahead of graduation, and had limited guidance / exposure about the real world , I dint care to prepare or try for other jobs. Once I started with my job, i ended up in a team with no developers and mostly analytics people . I was in a support project where there was work related to big data analytics - fixing hql - spark issues and later on moved to different projects with similar requirements. In all the projects I have worked on , never had any experienced person who can guide me or help me improve in my career. Since my manager figured out that im more dedicated / sincere and i dont complain or trouble him and finish all the jobs assigned irrespective of its relevance to my role, he moved me to a project where i had to manage a bunch of contractors and help with the infrastructure and bringing the project to some stability. The only technical job i had there was to write some HQL s and unix scripts for automation. I some how successfully completed what was expected from me and also got a promotion after i completed my first year of professional career. Later I asked and moved to a product to work in UI development ( which was my first real programming task after my Masters ) and was pulled to a different product which was more priority and had a complex data pipepline to be built by integrating multiple databases and creating no SQL solution from relational DBs. Again I ended up writing queries implementing business logics and automating them with shell script. Now my need in that product has become minimal since the complete framework has been laid out and it will be a replication work going forward and im being moved to a different product and my manager wants me to become an SME in a business domain in our area and he is interested in pushing my name for the next promotion if i become one successfully in a couple of months. Lot of thoughts make me sleepless these days. I feel 2 years in my career have been wasted since i dint speak up . Now i dont know what im doing or what im supposed to do I m very scared and frustrated to even try jobs outside since I feel I have not learnt anything properly in the last 2 years and have lost touch with most of the languages I feel so dumb compared to my pears ( who have 4+ years of exp but still at a lower level than me ) and want to quit my career I really am not interested in all the promotions that im being promised since i know i cant do justice to the role or my conscience by just working upto my manager s expectation. ( his attitude is - we can outsource all the coding - u just need to have the business domain knowledge and manage people ) People who have read till here , a big thank you . please guide me I feel totally lost and broke. Not sure what else to ask for YOE 2 TC 110K
Sounds to me like you've been quite sucsessful despite a lack of mentorship. I'd suggest leetcoding and interviewing around. Don't stress too much - you really have nothing to lose by interviewing. What would be ideal is to get on a team with strong mentorship.
Wasted 2 years in an chaotic organization and being an victim of power play :( Take the learnings and make up your mind to find a better place for you. I think I’m talking to myself:)
2 years is nothing.i have wasted 10 years at a company at 150k. Brush up interview coding and system design and decide what kind of work you like to do and target compensation that will make you happy Lot of fishes in the job lake. Even if it take 3 to 6 months prepare well for the interview. I am doing that now and learning lot of new concepts I would not learn at job. After 3 to 6 months you are the boss
Hardly a waste.
2 years is a very short time to assess yourself. Just keep up skilling with relevant skills that actually pay in the market. I have seen people in their mid 30s with 10+ yoe take a break from their career, go learn a technical skill and work as SDEs at FAANG. If they can do it, you can do it. All you need is perseverance and hustle.
Why broke? If money is issue than don’t quit until you land another job. Sounds like job satisfaction is lacking? Possible to practice on your own or work on smaller projects to flex your language programming skills? Hopefully you’ll find your passion again soon!
What would you like to do ? Coding for life ? Climb the ladder ? If you are interested in managing people better to stay there and get into management. It is difficult to become managers in big companies. Otherwise practice LC for TC.
Also if you really want to code and don't get that opportunity at work, then just contribute to many many amazing open source projects in your spare time. It will help increase your coding skills and also create something to show and talk about for your next job interview.
I am interested in managing people but with my visa status I need to be in a technical role. So I constantly have the fear that I’m lagging behind compared to my peers and won’t survive outside my team. I also feel without an MBA I won’t be able to go up the ladder after a point with just experience or my manager’s backing
You have not wasted two years of your career, you have been busy performing well and achieving what was asked of you. You deserve a lot of credit for doing all that and also it sounds like your manager recognizes your contributions. First and foremost, make sure you are prioritizing your health (eating an excellent diet, getting enough exercise, sleep etc) and also take time to consider the directions that would most interest you in the next phases of your career. Think strategically. Write down your goals and where you want to be in 5, 10 and maybe 15 years. If you can schedule weekly 1:1 meetings with your manager to understand their goals for the business and ask for guidance I think this could be useful for you. Once you understand the goals you can work on a plane to contribute towards the achievement of those goals. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress. 🍀
I've been literally in the same boat as you on a TI hardware team. 2 years on my first job I realized I'm just warm body getting monotonous "high priority" things done while projects that would build my HW skills always got pushed back or cancelled. My coworker calls them carrots on a stick. After struggling to find hardware jobs with my exp level I decided to switch to SW. For the next 2 years I looked at SW job descriptions and tried to come up with small projects I could complete at work in my free time. After enough bullet points on my resume I finally started getting calls from the FAANG companies but still couldn't pass their coding exercises. No one told me about leetcode apparently. Getting desperate I applied to non FAANG companies and just this week I got offered a SW Engr role that's double the TC I started with as a NCG at TI and still 40% higher than current TC. tl;dr leetcode
Congrats 👏🏻 keep rocking ! My best wishes :)
Best wishes to you too. Leetcode will absolutely kick start your SW experience and probably teach you new things too. On your resume think of times that you mentored new hires or defined a process and procedure. They like to see that too.
You can piss away 2 years of life without knowing what you did. That's exactly what happens in college. Keep leetcoding. You'll do just fine
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2 years is nothing. People go and teach English in Korea for 2 years and then come back and have a great career. Just hit LC and once you’re ready, start applying.