nexus2045

I was very unproductive at Meta because there was so much tribal knowledge context gatekept by others who were too busy to continuously offer any meaningful support despite giving lip service. In other words the flow of information sucked ass compared to when I worked at a startup, even though I didn’t feel much politics at my level (senior).

I very much advocate for this, but only if you're past the HR/recruiter screen. Onsites, coding screen, second round, etc.

Cambridge no brainer.

Amazon is not a particularly good company to work for, and if you could land an offer there, surely you could land a better offer by the time you graduate.

The opportunity cost here is very minimal if you think slightly longer term. In fact the doors that Cambridge might open down the road could far exceed whatever money you save as a L3/4 at Amazon.

If it was Cambridge vs a frontier lab or HFT offer of > 400-500k then it might be a harder decision, since it's likely that those are still the top jobs you would want after graduation.

Cambridge masters is much more of a once in a lifetime opportunity than Amazon is. People who tell you to go take the job probably are projecting and just want a job themselves.

lovely

Mine is similar to this. In addition the anxiety comes from me thinking that most interactions are banal and more about “trading good vibes and energy” with the other person rather than a genuine deep conversation, and I fear that my facial expressions will reflect what I’m really feeling inside - “ugh can we transition off talking about my weekend or the weather?”. And also because I’m not that witty without alcohol, but it’s almost like most of western small talk is based off of exchanging humor and wit, then laughing very loudly at the punchline. So my anxiety is more to do with not performing well enough to have this stereotypical exchange done smoothly.

15k? Where?

Making 500-700k at a FAANG right now.

Money certainly makes me worry less, not complaining.

I still feel like a cog in a machine.

If anything, it further isolated all the problems in my life that money could never really solve.

Meaningful friendships, dating, self-control and discipline, self-esteem.

Before, I could go by telling myself the story that "if only I had X amount of income, I'd be happy".

Now, I don't have that excuse any more.

I stare at the mirror, still see the same person, and realize that no amount of money will help.

A nice problem to have I guess, but problems that have plagued me my entire life.

No this is not rare at all. Meta offers E5 ("senior" level) new hires a 400-500k total package in the US (given that you negotiate, I know the levels.fyi numbers are a bit lower), and this isn't some exception. If your performance is good and/or stock appreciation happens, then that number goes even higher.

I'm a very average engineer (probably way below average amongst the HN crowd) and I'm in that range.

Got a small heater (size of a small PC speaker) for 20 bucks on Amazon, most effective purchase I’ve made in recent memory, super effective for cold fingers and doesn’t even need to be on all the time

Reminds me of the “first time?” meme

Why does nicotine work? Asking this as someone who has similar problems to OP (but an average programmer) and have been vaping every day, all day long, for the last few years, and don’t mind a shorter lifespan.

No it’s not unrealistic. Any decently bright and hard working college student studying computer science can get that 100k+ even as an intern. So technically this saving can start before age of 21. By age 25 they can already make 300k+. But yes, this is assuming you are in North America.

Recently went through the leetcode circus myself and ended up with an offer in this range, thus 4-5x my previous salary, and I have 7 years of experience. The interview had almost nothing to do with my work experience (which isn't that great btw) except for the behavioral portion. I am not exceptional either - most HN comments go over my head really quickly. Now I can actually think about affording real estate and starting a family.

Companies that can pay this much aren't rare. They're all in plain sight. FAANG, Coinbase, Stripe, Brex, to name a few.

I am having a similar problem as OP (in my 30s now but yearn for the social environment of 20 somethings) and am debating digital nomading a bit to change my environment, as where I live seems to pose a lot of psychological inertia since I spent most of my life here and fall into the same patterns - everything seems like I've "been there and done that". The idea of weighing the ROI and being responsible for my own fun is a much needed reminder so thank you for this comment, I really needed it.

Actually these days there are many posts of people who are making double that.

This price is on the high end. But many people like myself don't have the courage, confidence, looks, or complex social skills required to succeed by going to a bar and trying to pick up a girl. Then when you look at how much time and disappointment you'd have to go through to do the same through something like Tinder, then suddenly paying a few hundred starts to make sense. And quote from somewhere, "you're not paying for the sex, you're paying her to leave after".

How low can their IQ be if they can solve Leetcode mediums in 30 minutes?

All it took to "debunk" the lab leak hypothesis is to call it racism. So easy. I'm sure someone from China must have realized by now how convenient of a "get out of jail free card" this is.

Same here. The reason was that the weaker and less privileged (female) candidate would have more to gain from getting the job; the stronger candidate would have no problems getting a job elsewhere anyways.

How do you argue against this? At the end of the day the job was just CRUD-glue work, so strong or weak didn't matter so much.

Over the past few years I've definitely been addicted to outrage porn and anything related to SJWs and cancel culture. Now I impulsively read YouTube comments to feel like I'm right. None of this has added any value to my life, if anything made me more antagonistic and feeling like the world is screwed. Meanwhile there are probably plenty of people out there who aren't caught up in the culture wars and are just working away at their craft, getting jobs they want and paid more.

Especially considering Contagion was filmed close to 10 years ago...

Post title resonated with me because I've been failing to Leetcode my way to a decent level for the past 5 years, but I know the reason why is because I simply haven't put in enough time and effort. I find that as long as I keep grinding, I can eventually sniff out the patterns, instead of treating each problem as some sort of one-off.

How you got let go might not be your programming skills, it could just be something political, your personality not being received well, or the business not doing well. I've been through this as well - I was obviously not very focused on my job, and was frequently distracted, and didn't fit in with the team.

The problem is you equate Leetcoding well == programming, and you used one outlier post on the internet to confirm your suspicion that you suck.

Even if you do quit, you're going to have trouble finding a job that pays as much as a non-FAANG that doesn't ask you Leetcode questions.

If there's a takeaway from my comment, its to separate your concerns... Leetcode is just about interview prep and nothing more (maybe an entry to competitive programming, where Leetcode is actually a bit too easy). Job performance has nothing to do with Leetcode or even so much programming skills, but more to do with communication, work visibility, meshing with coworkers, taking responsibility and initiative, etc. And programming, just as a hobby, has nothing to do with the above.

Great comment, could you expand on "Someone broke down to me why china is the way it is from an informed and educated position in a way I found mostly compelling"?

This is a cautionary tale... I'm considering doing the same myself, and hopefully can get the most out of it. What would some of you have done differently? Considering mostly East Asia, and will be having a remote full time developer job.

The usual HN sentiment seems to be that take-home assignments are degrading, whiteboarding interviews are broken, which can be summarized as "I take a lot of pride in my craft, how dare you ask me undergrad trivia"; whereas the Blind sentiment is that all you need to do to get a 300K+ salary is to grind Leetcode and system design prep, which can be summarized as "I'll do anything to get money and that's the only thing that matters". I guess there's also cscareerquestions, which is more "I've applied to 500 jobs and heard back from none, help!".

I use "alexa play coffee beats". Puts me in a bit of a trance.

Lofi tends to feel too melancholic

Static white noise / nature sounds is too monotonous

Regular pop music has lyrics and jams my thinking ability

Classical is pretty decent too

What I like about wsb is it is fueled by endless optimism and celebrates wins and losses equally, with a sense of humor that the rest of Reddit or the internet cannot tolerate anymore. In the comments of a good due diligence (DD) post, you usually find people saying "I don't understand anything, but I'm in". And frankly speaking, that's fun. There's no politics or moral posturing on there. HN, on the other hand, is a gold mine for skepticism, almost like a "code review" but for ideas, which can get a bit negative at times. I will continue to visit both communities.

Having recently joined WSB in time for the GME hype, I realized that this might be one of the first times in history where enough retail "investors" (a lot of meme-loving kids with Robinhood) have gathered under a common cause to pose a threat to institutional investors, as acknowledged by Jim Cramer. Rallying a 1.9m subscriber community with an underlying anti-boomer sentiment, especially because Gamestop is about video games which the older generation does not favor, has proved a potent force, which wsb-ers like to call "retard strength".

I can confirm that I was in Zhongshan last year and saw a very big screen in the middle of a crosswalk island, it "named and shamed" jaywalkers, with pictures of the jaywalking and the face on their Chinese ID as well, although eyes are blurred out. Chinese name had one or two characters replaced with an X. Scary stuff.

Yes, same with China. Tier 1 = Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou. Tier 2 is debatable but also cities have lot of economic activity / people that you would have heard of.