Hello blind. I am but a young man who grew up in the slums of New York City seeking to find some good life advice on my career in business. I'm pursuing a bachelors in Management Information Systems and am currently Interning at Amazon as an L4 Operations manager. To me this seems like a lot due to my background but being on blind showed me that I could strive to achieve much more. Is there any solid advice on skills I should attain or particular jobs I should try to build my way up to? I'd appreciate the advice from you high TC goblins.
Tech Industry
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NW required for FU money with no kids, house paid off and 100k expenses per year?
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1 vs 5 Million - no lifestyle change
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Lack of diversity in engineering division at X
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Bitcoin is the only possible future
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Why is our country owned by Israel? I don't want my tax dollars fund genocide. How can we stop this nonsense?
Don’t have your past define who you are now / in the future
“To me this seems like a lot due to my background” What?
I wouldn’t listen to blind. A lot of the high TC you see is from YOE / luck / and a shit ton of leetcode. It’s not necessarily transferrable - just a product of interviewing loopholes and economic timing.
Would this really be the case, though? I agree that Blind isn’t representative of the entire tech world, but judging from all the salaries here, it seems that everyone has the capacity to make that simply by being in tech as SWE/SDEs as opposed to more non-technical roles such as PMs and marketers.
If you can pass the SWE interviews, yes you can get that comp. It’s important to know that the interviews are basically exams and the difficulty of the exams can be randomly extremely difficult, but at the very least requires you to be pretty competent at the interview process.
Same advice I always give, just exercise
Double down on learning in your initial work years. Be open to suggestions and positive criticism. Don’t fear failures, use them as learning activity. Don’t endure abuse too long , just jump the ship if workplace is toxic. Love your job and not your company because you never know when company stop loving you.
Wish I got this advice a few years ago!
General career advice. 1/ Base your career goals on what you like to do. What sorts of things interest you to the point where you’re willing to study them on your free time. 2/ Don’t chase prestige or titles, that won’t maximize your own happiness. 3/ People early in their careers make the mistake of always saying yes to their manager. This is under the misguided premise that it will earn favor with their manager. In reality, you become a workhorse. Saying no will earn you more respect in the long run because people learn that your time is valuable. And you won’t burn yourself out. 4/ if you don’t like your manager or teammates, find a new team. Start looking for new work before you’re unhappy. I know too many people who say they hate their boss but aren’t even looking for a new job. Don’t do that, remember you have options, and there are good managers out there. 5/ try to maximize your own happiness, not TC. A career is a marathon. In the long run, optimizing for happiness will put you ahead because you do better work when you’re happy, and people like working with happy people, so you’ll be given more opportunities if you are genuine, optimistic, not super stressed, and kind to others.
Solid advice
I agree, solid advice
First thing: leave amazon. 2nd: avoid toxic employers (you might not be able to for long. The Amazon cancer is too big and poisoned most of the industry)
I hear a lot of bad things about Amazon here on blind. I guess working so low in the chain as an Intern I don't see so much of the negatives. What exactly is the big issue with working for Amazon and their culture?
Amazon is a culture of people who like to work (maybe too much). If you want to coast, this isn’t the place to do it. A lot of engineering types want to coast and then get surprised when they’re put on performance improvement plans. There are dozens of posts like this every week.
Bloomberg hires bootcamp grads and starts then at 160k or something. If you can pass a data structure and algorithm interview, you can start there. It's not crazy leetcode interview for new grads.
Really? I was scheduled for interviews with Bloomberg after I had graduated from my bootcamp last year and they specifically said it would be DS&A questions (which I assumed meant Leetcode) so I took a different offer and cancelled the interview. I figured since I now have a job, I bought myself time to practice Leetcoding so that I can interview at Bloomberg (and others) when I get good enough. I'd love to hear what Bloomberg interviews are like if it's not leetcoding.
It's not crazy leetcoding. You need to know how to solve a problem. Know the time and space complexity. Be able to optimize the solutions. Leetcode easy and maybe some mediums for a new grad. But you gotta show how you think, show you can optimize solutions and can pick the right data structure for the problem.
Which neighborhood? I was in Jackson Heights:) calle colombia
Oh nice! I lived in Harlem and moved around a couple times in the Bronx as well. West farms / 180thish.
Damn! You really are not kidding. You did great.👏👏👏 no advice here since I am in same boat but pat on the back!
Find a strong mentor or group of people you dearly respect. They will do more for your career and education than some incels on here complaining about only making $400K a year while working 30 hours a week.
Some of the best advice ever given on blind!
No. Ironically blind is best in terms of driving people to achieve high TC.