I’m a developer (not at Cisco) who works on both front end and back end projects. I work for a big data company, but don’t actually work on the Hadoop/Spark projects themselves. I work on UIs and do some back end and systems work (doesn’t feel too algorithmic) that may consume the output of these jobs or support the smooth running of the Hadoop/Spark projects. The web products I work on are for enterprise clients only, so running at scale in this context isn’t ever a consideration. Am I shooting myself in the foot by continuing to work on these types of products? I’m not getting the experience of building a product that 100000 simultaneous users will access, and wish I knew more about the considerations that go into developing these types of products. At G/Fb/etc, are these considerations abstracted away into adjacent projects, or do newer engineers still have to closely consider these things? Mainly I’m also concerned that I’m widening the gap between me and developers who ARE working on these types of products. I’m 2 years out of college now and scared future interviewers will look down on me for not having these experiences. I don’t want to have to apply for senior roles (since I’m going to be 2+ years out of school) and be totally unqualified. That being said, my data structures and algorithms skills are solid. I can leetcode and sometimes solve DP problems lol. On the other hand, my systems design skills are almost non existent, especially in a production setting. TC150k
With 2 years of experience and with your concern you are on the right path. The moment started worry about that you are not learning scaling system you are preparing yourself for the next step. Good luck.
Yeah I agree. I wasn't learning anything at my last company and was falling behind my peers from college days. Unless you want to be a lifer who really isn't valuable anywhere else anymore because they stayed with the company for 20 years working on barely anything your concerns are valid
When you say you didn't learn anything at your first company, what did you do there? I'm assuming if you do something useful, you learn, and if not doing anything useful why would they pay you?
Lots of our internal databases, libraries, etc that allow our products to be so scalable are abstracted away and handled by other teams so I don't really think about it much. I just know if I use the right libraries and not write stuff from scratch I'll be fine.
@Big Head is your user name inspired by the Silicon Valley character?
90% don't. 9% claim they do but use Spark/Cassandra/etc. 1% works on spark or Cassandra.
They work on the Spark and cass projects themselves?
I was in a similar boat.. and I think you have the right idea. I tried to move to google ASAP (2 years after college). I gotta say, it was definitely worth it and I don’t think I’d feel very confident on being able to get to L6 as fast if I stayed in my old company. I think it’s very important to understand what’s happening at the scalability level if you’re in a field similar to mine (platform)
What was your interview like 2 years out? I’ve been badgered by recruiters but honestly have been too nervous to interview
Also what level did you join at?
@Cisco what do you do these days? 😶
Only think you should be concerned about is your TC which is pretty low. What’s your yoe?
2. What’s your YOE and TC?
Feel like my tc for my YOE is almost on par with my FANG friends with 2 YOE. Higher than some even