Ask HN: How to upskill faster and find direction?
In a few weeks I'm turning 30 and I've also realized I'm not really happy with how I've spent my 20s. Sure I have one moderate exit under my belt and I lived in a few great cities but a few attributes of myself, flaws in my character have held me back.
I feel like I've grown as a person and an engineer, but frankly hopping around doing startups seems like it's become a limiting factor.
I consider myself a mid-level engineer in span but not necessarily velocity or depth nearly as much and after working with some friends who are much younger I'm scared I just can't get better enough fast enough to compete with young engineers of today. I'm most afraid of my number of startup stints (at or less than a year) which at my new age (old for tech) seems like a death-knell to get past initial screens?
I'm scared and although I've also worked a few years as a technical product guy I acknowledge that path isn't as reliable since those roles only pop up once in a blue moon.
My current situation is departing from a startup I had a founding stake in that just ran out of money. I'm realizing I'm just a bit behind the ball and outside of personal stuff I'm freaking out that I can't teach myself new tricks. I suck at leetcode and it seems like the job market has never been harder than it is right now.
Any advice here helps. This community has helped me through so much in the past five to six years.