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Question about women in their 30’s?
I used to be a good coder at 18. Won coding competitions and stuff as a teenager. Studied CS (Bachelor and then Master) directly after school, learned lots of algorithms and maths but only wrote little software with no GUI. Wanted to learn more so I started a PhD. In my PhD, I only wrote high performance CLI programs in C++ and did more algorithm stuff. Then I joined Google as a SWE-SRE and didn't write real code anymore at all. Now I want to exit big tech and start my own company. I have lots of ideas, but as we all know, ideas are worth shit if you can't properly execute them. Here I stand, 30 years old, fantastic academic certificates, always best of class, Google on my resume. ... And I don't know shit. Can't even create a Tinder-like swipe feature in the browser. How to become a full stack dev, while still working in a job that makes me write docs, create slide decks, and rot in meetings all day? Especially for Frontend and ML, which tools are the right ones to learn?
start small (like a tinder swipe feature) and grow skill until you get to where you can build and iterate on your ideas. or hire someone
Good to know. Usually people would argue since you're from Google you would know everything. As someone who does Fullstack,start from somewhere. Reach a level of mastery that you can pick it up anytime. I started with FE, React Typescript is the gold standard these days. Build projects from easy to complex. Move to the BE. Start with some BE as a service. Firebase,Supabase etc you will start seeing their limitations and that will lead you to working on more real backend service. Also working on a startup. I usually start bootstrapping backend with Firebase Auth and Hasura Graphql Engine for backend logic. React as the Frontend.
Thanks a lot!!! I'm gonna look up all these terms :) Damn, turns out I can't even do backend so far. I thought backend is code that has no GUI... Somehow in all these years I never coded anything that interacts with the internet. Only CLI tools that run locally or on a HPC cluster.
Googlers don't know shit. Our interviews are all about designing and implementing algorithms... which by chance was the main thing I learned at university
Tbh you’re focusing on the wrong thing. You’ve spent so much time being an expert in something (I assume) and you want to learn full stack…
Problem is that nowadays people just use AI and increase the number of machines. My algorithm engineering and code optimization skills are nowhere needed in industry... (When I joined Google I thought oh cool, so I can make things like Google Meet eat less CPU on my laptop! And the response I got early was lol no, we don't care about CPU consumption here, and since you're not in the Google Meet team you're anyway not allowed to fiddle with their code. Only your team's mission and OKRs.) I could return back to academia and write a couple more C++ CLI tools there, but I left academia for a reason (bad pay, bad WLB, and zero job safety)
Any interest in HFT?
You don't need to be full stack dev to open your own company. Find a cofounder who is full stack already. Moreover what's wrong with SRE you have very niche skills that can help you both get higher paid job and open a company in this field. Sounds to me like you are taking what you have for granted out of boredom. The real world out there is very different, majority of people would love to rot in your meetings for the TC you get
My TC is (or was, before the stock price dropped) 120k €, only in the US or Zurich Googlers make insane money... And my doctors recommended me to quit my job at Google for health reasons (high pressure and high stress environment in my team, with lots of internal politics and super urgent panic meetings tomorrow night with suddenly lots of stuff we need to prepare until then) Thing is, I also don't know shit about SRE. My interviews were the same as for SWEs: Implement some algorithm. I never did sysadmin/SRE-ish stuff before and never wanted to. And at Google, I am learning nothing about SRE either. All I have to do in SRE is screenshot some monitoring graphs, follow the instructions in some playbook, and from time to time click the Rollback button. I only have to use the terminal sometimes to copy and paste some command from the playbook. All the "real" SRE work gets hidden away by Google-internal frameworks and tooling. Ok, plus there are meaningless projects like, edit some configuration file or create a template to make it easier to define SLOs for some Google-internal service. Of course with endless discussions on design docs first. ... All I ever wanted to do was work in industry research. But Google forced me into SRE instead. I am quitting in 2023 to find joy again in other areas of Computer Science, and without the insane Google stress where every stupid doc and meeting is super duper urgent world doom scenario like, and everyone only cares about "impact" which is kissing some VPs ass 😅
Well you know what's best for you. With your experience in algorithms you could easily be a Quant researcher for a HfT and make both insane money (EU included) and have very interesting job where you are the most valuable asset to the company. So there are plenty of doors open for you especially with Google on your CV
I would strongly recommend to google Fullstackopen and finish that course. In a weeks time you'll know enough web development given your prior background. Use the google codebase, internal wiki and other resources to supercharge yourself. Then you can leverage google on your CV to get any other job
Wow this is amazing, everything packed into one single class, plus a learners community around it! :) Thank you, I will definitely enroll there :)
I just finished part 1 of the course and WOW! This course is exactly what I needed. Fast learning curve, perfect for people who already have a CS degree. :)
How are things are google
In general probably okay, but I don't like working there. Thought if I accept the offer then I will have good WLB, lots of money, and learn to become a better developer. WLB is way worse than in my PhD (sacrificed a lot of my life and health for stupid work projects), work feels meaningless, ideas keep getting postponed by management to "maybe" later quarters, money is good but not very good if you consider Munich living costs, and worst of them all: My skillset deteriorates every day the longer I work at Google. That's why I want to leave in a couple months and never work in a big tech company again. I decided to invest privately into rebuilding my skillset and let things at Google burn (I guess that's called "quiet quitting"?).
Dang that's crazy the WLB is that bad. Which PA are you in? Would you suggest working at smaller companies? Currently deciding between google and somewhere smaller
Creating a tinder like swipe feature takes a day of your life to learn
OP sounds like you already did the 1st step, realizing what you want to do next. So it doesn’t matter what you did in the past or currently at Google. Go onto the 2nd step and start doing it, don’t let anyone stop you. You’re getting there.
Try internal transfer or apply to a fullstack role somewhere else. Alternatively, do a pet project as a side gig.
I don't think anyone would hire me as a full-stack dev. I can't even create a simple website with HTML, CSS, Javascript. Started watching some YouTube tutorials on it just to notice damn, that was how websites were done when I was 18. Nowadays people use all kinds of frameworks. Found another tutorial with Twitter Bootstrap, half way in I heard people say online that Twitter Bootstrap is outdated and nobody uses it anymore
Try React/Vue with Node.js/Java Spring backend for example. At 30 with a masters and experience at Google I’d expect you to be able to create a small project with any technology really.