tl;dr - I am F'ed / I F'ed up. either ways life sucks. Need advice. rant / whine - I completed by bachelors in electronics in 2011 from India. Was never interested in electronics in the first place, took it just because it had the highest cut-off score and people advised me its a good field to be in for a well paying career if I wanted to move out of India. BIG MISTAKE. I never liked the subjects, went into depression and I failed an year in my undergrad. For someone that was in top 3 students in state board exam from my high school, that was devastating for my self confidence. I then worked in a firm for 5 years in application development, doing support and grunt work most of the time. Since I never had my CS/software engg fundamentals clear, I lacked the confidence to get out and pursue other job opportunities. My mistake, I should have self learned at least one programming language during that time. But, looking back, I feel I have been dealt a tough hand. I have suffered from general anxiety and depression since I was 15, and still to this day live with it. Made a lot of poor choices cuz of this. 5 years back I suffered from a life threatening episode of TB back in India and recovered after battling it for 9 months. I am 32 now, came to the US 4 years back in 2016 on F1 visa. Graduated from a run-of-the-mill cash-cow MIS program. Currently working in a non-profit on H1B in a non-descript town in mid-west, application development, again doing grunt work here. Constantly changing technologies. TC is laughable $65k. Net-worth is $20k. Single. No debt. Depressed. No real skills. I feel like the biggest looser in this f'king world rn. Made a lot of bad choices / poor decisions. I come from a lower middle class family in India. I am somewhat good looking and tall. Get complimented many times for it. Looking to find a partner but I have rejected some really nice girls in past due to their average looks. Again a big mistake. One of them now has 100+ citations and a green card. I am just now realizing looks are very superficial while choosing a life partner. Getting a lot of suicidal thoughts lately. What should I do at this point? I need a purpose. My salary sucks. Because my skills suck. Is it possible for me to crack into any of the faang? If yes, how should I go about it? which faang should I target? How much prep will it take? 6 months? 1 year? Assuming I have no prior knowledge of DS and algos, but willing to out in the hours. Thanks in advance.
Sky is the limit. Three step action plan: 1) Start leet coding — Minimum 2 hours a day for a week and decide where you want to go from there. 2) Build yourself a better life in your current circumstances — Ask yourself who you want to be and start investing in becoming this person. For e.g. I have been working on being fitter + eating better, building + nourishing relationships, being better informed by keeping up with current affairs, and up leveling my home and my wardrobe within my budgetary and time constraints. 3) Uplevel at work — While your current situation is far from optimal, it still likely had opportunities you aren’t harvesting. Start doing that. For e.g.: I am working on being more positive so colleagues enjoy working with me and rally behind my projects. Finally, be patient with yourself. This will all take time. Rome wasn’t conquered in a day. Also, while 32 years of your life might be over, 48 years are still left (assuming life expectancy of 80 years). Dwell less on the 32 that are gone and more on the 48 that are left. Also, think less about what you haven’t accomplished and more about what you can accomplish.
I’d do this: Sit down, get off blind for a while. Go out on a vacay (prolly a mini one would do). Come back and start leetcode ... taking baby steps. Start with grokking course on leetcode problems, slowly.. do not rush at all! Take your time. After you’ve gained confidence (which I’m sure you you would’ve cause you sound smart), reach out to people on LinkedIn/blind/ anywhere for referrals. I’ll be very happy to refer you. Give interviews and get your feet wet with “real” interviews.. and see where you lack/shine. Focus on the negatives. Rinse and repeat. You will eventually land a role in a good company where you’ll be a rockstar!
Workout
Just focus on leetcode, study it like an exam, like how you did your state board exam. The rest will follow.
My neighbor: A woman from middle east who, at the age of 14, was sold to her husband's tribe as a penalty for a fault a man in her tribe committed. She was beated by her husband constantly and forcefully had 2 children. No job, no money, no family, no type of any support. She managed to get into the U.S. embassy and apply for refugee programs. 3 years later she came as a refugee to the U.S. with her kids. She started to work in a high school as a janitor while learning math on her own. Then got an online CS degree and again practiced everything on her own. She was 31 when she got into Microsoft as a software engineer. She did it, you can do it too. What she had was a dream and determination.
F**king ninja!
Inspiring story
Don't worry. It gets better. Though not the same as what you are going through, I came from India as well and was worth -$30k when I was 30 years of age ( debt for higher education in USA). Definitely better off now. One thing I can say, give your best in your current job confidently. The satisfaction you get by that is immeasurable and will give you the confidence to interview with your target companies. Btw $65k in a town with low living expenses is not that bad 🙂
reverse George. episode in Seinfeld where loser character was able to turn his life around: anything he was compelled to do, he would do the opposite of what he wanted to do
I would recommend getting a purpose. After you get the purpose, just work until you reach it. If that’s getting into FAANG -- fine, just work on it each day. As folks mentioned before, do LC every day. Also, as mentioned earlier, you have good written skills. Maybe you want to go for some management role instead of an engineering one? Finally, I would recommend going to the doctor. The mental game in the whole process is the most important one. Without good mental health, everything else is just useless. Good luck ✌️
Find some hobbies or passions. Searching for meaning in a career will automatically lead to failure. A job is a transaction in which you trade your time and skills for money. 10 times out of 10 given the choice I would sacrifice money for more time, because time is the most precious resource in the world. Thus, I get back to my first point - search for meaning and passion in your life through hobbies, activities, etc, and all the rest will naturally come with a bit of patience and some time.
You have very good communication for sure.
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