Being a full-stack dev for internal tools that nobody gives a shit about fucking sucks. It sucks even more when coworkers expect me to actually care, giving me more opportunities to "grow and take ownership" Can't transfer internally since Google has barely any job openings. Can't interview for other companies since I have no relevant experience for the jobs I actually want. I feel trapped in life and am honestly depressed from that. Advice? TC:200 YoE: 1 #tech #google #jobs
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I assure you teams care a lot about internal tools especially if they’re broken. Ask what it can improve upon and try to make it happen. It can help you get promo’d just in time for next year’s openings.
I wouldn't say the tool I'm working on is broken. It's actually a relatively new initiative spearheaded by my manager. Right now, we are at the stage of finding willing customers to onboard and build features for. It's just that I know for a fact that I don't want to spend my career in this domain long-term, and this realization is quite honestly making me restless. Fwiw I basically confirmed with my manager that I'm not getting promo anytime soon, certainly not the upcoming cycle.
Few questions: 1. Have you tried asking experienced folks within your team as to what keeps them motivated? Do not sound condescending when you do this. 2. Do you have a network at Google consisting of folks outside your team? That will come in handy once positions do open up. 3. Impact and scale is difficult to understand at 1 YoE. I'm not saying you haven't understood it. I'm just saying it can be difficult at that stage. What makes you say that no one gives a fuck about your internal tool? 4. Have you tried applying externally or have you refrained because your skills don't match every single word that's said on a job description? A lot of job descriptions contain languages and tech that the company doesn't really care about. What they are looking for is a solid coder, especially at your YoE. 5. Have you tried therapy? It changed my life (for the better).
1. More senior people fall into two camps: extremely tenured people who coast. And people who have interesting complexity in their projects, probably bc they are senior. But it won't really change the fact that I don't want to spend my career solving the problems that my manager/team is solving. 2. I have a small Google network consisting of mostly new grads. I'd love pointers on how to befriend more senior people 3. Our tool is a new initiative. Right now, we primarily are trying to get user adoption. Anyways, I realize I was being a dick with my wording. Our tool aims to solve an important problem, just not a problem I really care about. 4. Problem is that the fields I like: VR, compilers, GPU stuff, is quite different than the work I'm doing right now. Idk how to bridge that gap 5. Nope. Any pointers on how to find a good therapist?
Then focus on hobbies and make your life outside of work more fulfilling. Practice gratitude
Ditto
I don't think it's too much to ask that you enjoy what you do for ~5-8 hours a day.
God that seems so comfy. I work with customer facing shit and the bugs and deadlines are endless
Actually I like working on internal tools since you could develop faster and less bogged down by processes around external products. Also Google is a big company so I imagine you should have a lot of users so your work should be pretty impactful.
Who cares about your relevant experience. Study whether topics you want to pivot into, fake your resume a bit, then apply. You will get the interviews, I'm sure
Trapped YoE 1️⃣
I'm 11 years in the industry and the best advice I can give you is don't look to be fulfilled from a technical perspective from a corporate job. Do your work, collect your paycheck, then use that passionate energy on something for yourself or join a start up or something
OP should come to this realization themselves, and if they find out its not as they thought it would be, then yea that makes sense. Not everyone does a job for just a paycheck (though thats important). Some people like the intellectual stimulation of solving problems they're interested in. I agree with your point that joining a startup or working on your own thing would be a much better idea to scratch that itch though.
Transfer to Amazon
Don't they interview by teams? What makes you think I'll even get a call back?
Well you won’t know if you don’t try