How do I stop feeling like a failure?
Warning - edge post. Im working on an Amazon internal ML team in Seattle after I graduate from a low tier state school. Everybody I know makes more than me with better benefits and more prestige at FB, Airbnb, Google, and prop trading companies including the people I interned with last summer all in less depressing locations than Seattle (NYC, chi, Boston). I studied hundreds of hours of leetcode and practice interviews but I failed all of the other Big3 interviews I got and a bunch of startups save for a few low tier breakout list companies in fintech. I find myself in a rage every day and think about killing myself just to spare myself the burden and shame of making only $106k base as a new grad at a low tier company nobody is impressed by while everyone I know outearns me and has impressive lives and is happy. I take medication and have a therapist but it hasn’t been helping. So tell me - is there literally anything in my life that’s salvageable? I have a great family that I’m very close to but now I’ll be 6 hours away from them. I’m in decent health but I’m terrified I’ll get colon cancer or some shit from all the weird aches and pains I have. I have a job and got multiple offers, better than some people I know but worse than the people I care about and respect. I live in the first world, better than my parents but I barely make more than them as a new grad - hardly the American dream, and I can’t save much because of Amazons bad health care and 401k match. I study leetcode but I still suck and can’t focus if I can’t get the solution immediately because it proves I’m a retard. What the hell am I doing? Should I just invest in a punching bag and get over myself?
You sound you need medical help. Go for it.
How long have you been at Amazon? Remember it’s a marathon not a run. Wait 2 years, gain ML proficiency, attend tech conferences and build relationships. You will get opportunities later if you keep yourself open to it. Leetcoding is not the only solution to your problems
I’m an SDe, not a scientist. So no conferences :(
Hard to know how the people you admires lives are truly. You need to find what gives you value intrinsically and move away from validation from others or comparison if you want peace.
It’s not hard at all. Their lives are perfect. One of them is a crypto millionaire. I have nothing.
What I mean is you don’t know their intimate personal lives. Everyone has pain. Think about 50 years from now in a post currency world they will be perplexed by this world. No one has to be slave to any social constructs. They are temporal. Free yourself. Read Prometheus Rising.
Amazon and ML are an amazing resume booster, even if working there sucks the life out of you. Even if it doesn’t look like it, once you have a bit more experience, having amazon and ML on your resume for a few years will set you dramatically apart from the rest. You’re comparing yourself to others (stop it), but only to those at FANG and fintech. If you really want to compare yourself, do that to the entire market of CS grads from your school - or all CS grads in the US in your year - and see how you’re doing comparatively. You’re bummed at not being at the top, but you’re playing in the top league already - one that many others aspire to join. Congrats on making it this far.
I don’t want to compare myself to people from my school, because I’ve always (for 4 years) thought of them as mediocre people that aren’t invested in the field. Now I’m barely doing better than them because my school graduates 3-6 Amazon undergrads while Google and FB have 1 or none.
There will always be people ahead of me but my problem is I’m always behind.
I’m barely in a better place than 4 years ago. I’m at a better company I guess, making more than I expected. But far less than I wanted 2 years ago, which was FB or Google or 2S or Pinterest or Uber.
So much first world problems. Some people would die to be in your position. Chill the fuck out, it's just start of your career. Be good and put your 100% in what you are doing, do not worry about money. If you have knowledge, money will follow you.
He's even doing well in the first world. Just drive out to Neah Bay and see how much worse things can be in this country.
Sounds like you need this one: 12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/12-rules-for-life/id1150863560?mt=11
$106k as a new grad is depressing??? Do you realize how much most new grads actually make?? (In case you don’t, it’s SIGNIFICANTLY less) Your salary is very impressive, and Amazon is, without a doubt, a top-tier company—even though some people on Blind, who are out of touch with reality, might disagree.
If ANYONE in Amazon is feeling low, you all should go to reinvent or watch the last few years highlights on YouTube. What you people have done to the industry is genuinely mind blowing, feel proud to be part of that journey. When I walk down Denny Way every single day in the morning and look at the the buildings, it gives me goosebumps to think that the platforms controlling the world's business are being built RIGHT there... Feel proud, you've already won in life.
This is not the right advice to OP. If OP was a janitor at Amazon with a CS degree would you still say ‘Feel proud of being part of the journey!’ ? You have to provide constructive advice to put a growth mindset into OP
You work at a company that gives solves problems and gives zero f***s about 'being cool', 'being diverse' or anything else. Transferring exabytes to AWS servers is expensive on your stupid ISP line, here, send it in a motherf****g semitruck... Seriously, if you AWS guys want to complain about a seat on the rocketship, please leave, go work at a kayak rental.
Why is Cruise automation tagged?
Cruise Automation is the new tree fiddy.
I see