Failed in career / life, or did I?
obligatory tc - $90 per hour, consultant. obligatory yoe - 16+ in java, includes 9+ in android, 13+ in the US on an immigrant h1-b work-visa. TLDR; i have no clue how to salvage my software engineering based career, because this is all I can do. 1) i have employable skills, adequate for software engineering day-to-day work. i have also displayed learning skills, and yet, i feel like a failure. 2) i failed terribly time-and-again in getting the right advice. 3) pigeon-holed into android, for 9+ years, much? 4) all along, gainfully employed, but no career-growth. Aspiration - Staff Software Engineer, with the likes of GOOG, FB, MS, LNKD, the big-names of this current generation. Problem - can't seem to clear even the small ones - Peloton, Rakuten, Wayfair, Jet.com, OkCupid etc. sometimes, it is the code-challenge i fail to "spot the trick". some times, it is the behavioral interview questions that i fail to narrate a "compelling" story. some times, it is system-design when i fail to describe server-side components and design, and speak about site-traffic and scalability, read-write ratios, tail-latencies, optimizations etc, while i had applied for android based front-end roles. some times, it is literally my lack of "professional" experience with rxjava, rxandroid, kotlin operator-chaining etc even to this date. almost always, it appears i can't speak any buzzwords and jargons beyond android and front-end. i failed repeatedly to "Sell" my skill-set as a commodity. i failed repeatedly to self-learn the right way to do things that'll help me build a good life. below is the career-track for those of you who would want to "learn more" in order to provide a well tailored solution suitable to my post. 2002 - darkest time for my family had just begun. 2003 - dad lost job after a year-long legal-fight to retain it. lower-middle class family in india. potential monetary losses of ~50+ lakh inr overall spread across 10+ years of active-employment and 20+ years of retirements benefits. literally beginning my career with zero risk appetite. 2004 - completed non-cs degree bachelors from a nationally reputed institute in India. family scraped-by with whatever savings and remains until then. got a campus-placement job at a WITCH, now am the sole bread-earner of the family. never been a competitive programmer, WITCH taught me some programming. no aspirations to work at MS or Yahoo or Sun Microsystems or Oracle (yep, those were the big-names back in the day). 2007 - self-learned Java until then, completed Sun Microsystems certifications for Java Programmer, Web Component Developer, Business Component Developer. got first h1-b, traveled to US, hated WITCH employer to the core of my spirit, switched to consulting immediately in 2 months after seeking suggestions from friends and batch-mates from college, who'd already began working as consultants. some java web-development experience - struts, spring, hibernate, jboss, ibm websphere, those old obsolete tech-stacks. second-grimmest period begins, mortage-recession hits US soon after, plenty of short-term gigs traveling across cities, literally lived out of two suitcases and a $6K used-car. 2011 - all along failed to get correct advice until then. continued consulting gigs, switching cities, clients, projects, failed to "settle" at one place and make new friends. wanted to pursue a full-time mba hoping that'll help catapult career, could not afford to "not earn" for whatever the duration of the program, hence, dropped the idea. wanted to pursue full-time employment, just never knew how and what to prepare for full-time employment interviews, so naive, i know. lack of resources, as well as failure to gather any relevant, available resources even. depression and mental-issues begin to emerge. first android gig also begins. only option, try, work-hard and convert a consulting-gig to a full-time employment. 2013 - best android developer / engineer in the team. most reliable. anybody has a question about the android app, i am the go-to person. manager does not want to offer full-time, he has his own obligations and commitments, understandable. a lot of the work is business-driven rather than tech-driven, as a cost-center operational unit. biggest mistake of life, should not have continued working loyally at a place that does not offer intended reward. effort-and-reward cycle is neglected. 2014 - wedding and separation almost immediately. 2015 - legally separated in india. 2016 to 2019 - android consulting gig that began in 2011 isn't getting me anywhere both in terms of career and money. continuing to use obsolete tech-stack and practices. android dev-community has already switched to dagger, rxjava, rxandroid, retrofit, or hybrid strategies with react-native that i have 0 hands-on professional competency. client policy forces me to step-out - this was the big reason. plenty of full-time interviews pursued, and yet, lack of knowledge / understanding of gathering relevant resources, prep-lapse, lack of hands-on, all of them fueling lack-of-confidence, everything coupled together, has not taken me anywhere i had aspired to be. short-term gigs due to a variety of professional challenges i had never experienced before, nobody could offer advice, continue to plague the entire duration. 2020 - reached out to manager from 2011, graciously offered consulting gig where i am now. what began 13 years ago as a fall-back career-choice, remained as primary career-track with no growth.
Dude. LeetCode. Get into FAANG. Youâre not giving yourself enough credit. Head down. And grind it out. Or going to aerospace where you can relax
i fail at competitive-style complex algos. i can only see straight, think straight, some dp, memoization, recursion kind of stuff is the most complicated i can even try. i definitely fail to "derive" a solution on-the-spot, unless i get a lead / hint based of some straight not-so-complicated algo-approach only.
you need to practice. Have you honestly practiced?
You are NOT a failure. Each person's journey is unique and has its own challenges. Every single person has done or not done something they regretted later. From consulting, there is a variety of pathways for growth in management and technology. Your 16 years of engineering experience is a huge asset. Here are some of the pathways I think would be a great fit for you. 1. CTO in a startup 2. Engineering Manager or Senior Engineering Manager 3. Director of Engineering Invest in education and re-skill yourself if you have to. This industry is volatile. Nobody retires doing the same stuff they did as a fresh grad. Go get that MS or MBA if you need. And most importantly, don't lose hope. Good luck.
@Ancestry 1. CTO in a startup - this is impossible for me. i don't have the contacts, or the communication skills, buzzwords, jargons, let alone any professional knowledge and experience of server-side tech-stacks. i have professional experience and can only speak android / some front-end. 2. EM and Senior EM - never been a people manager. showcasing consulting experience which is always regarded as a second-grade professional, in the capacity of an individual-contributor, never translates to people management roles. 3. Director of Engineer - without EM experience, this also will never happen. at most, my terminal career-level could be Senior Staff, if not, a Staff, and i think i am already there, but i don't know how to get it.
You should rather focus on Architect/principal engineer roles.build on what you have.these are pretty impactful roles in tech.
You pulled your family out of financial crises, and now been paid 90$ an hour ? Where is the failure đ. May be on personal front , but who doesnât. Overall itâs a great success story which is only half way through. The excitement of working at FAANG only lasts 3 months, trust me.
Thatâs an amazing amount of resilience. Give yourself a break. Take a few months break as well if you can. Who canât tbh? Then follow the advice of these other folks or whatever suits you. But take that long and well deserved break.
I disagree, DO NOT TAKE A BREAK . You donât need one and it will kill your resume.
Please don't take a break. When you are in good form, leverage it and double down on getting your career in order.
This is not a failure. It's your life and you can see it as a grind or phase which was tough but there were key take aways. From what it looks like, you may need a fresh perspective. A fresh mind with ideas which will help carve a newer path. Have you tried exercising, meditation or psychedelics? Sorry if this was not the advice you wanted to hear but it never hurts to look in places you least expected when you're completely out of ideas.
yes, i exercise, have been one-and-off for the past 2 years, from Oct 2018 to May 2019, and then again Jan 2020 until the pandemic, and ever since, i go for one-hour-long walks (running / cardio outdoors isn't as much fun, also have ligament issues in left-ankle and left-knee). don't own a house, don't have a gym other than that planet-fitness subscription etc. doctor consultations for mental-health diagnosed absolutely nothing - no medicines prescribed. only relying on multi-vitamin and vitamin-D supplements. have never tried psychedelics. although, intent of my post is to seek career advice - how do i get staff engineer roles at the bit-tech companies coming from a non-faang mostly consulting experience?
+1
No a failure and I wish you a bigger success in the future
No one is a failure :)
Not a failure... wish you luck my friend đ
Hats off to your perseverance. You have gone through a lot. Hang in there, things will improve. Do you have plans to move to Management? I guess you will be landing as L6 in Amazon with the experience you have. Looking back, what are your greatest regrets? Anything you would have done differently?
spoke to a recruiter just this week for L6. requested for time, busy work-schedule and ds&a prep. i had interviewed with amazon previously, i had no clue what to prepare at that time. now i know what to prepare, and i also know my weaknesses and shortcomings better. regrets wise - lack of general awareness, at least reaching out to the right people who can advice better, like a mentor. everything is self-learned, and a hard-way at that. done differently - i wished i'd have realized sooner that it is always necessary to know upfront what's the outcome before taking a decision / making a choice.
What are your plans for future? Forgive me if I am sounding rude, but I want to know how to do deal with life without a family. By your post you are in your late 30s, early 40s, don't you ever feel lonely? Are you planning to move your parents to US?
No you have not failed. You have just lived through a life!