#Fulfilling my childhood dream

109 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

pastel ocean
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Hi guys, thought this was pretty cool and maybe it would help me keep myself accountable.

Intro

Profile

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Goals

Find a new job and move out of my hometown. Some constraints I want to maintain is that my next job hop is a step forward in my career, not lateral. This includes increasing my compensation as well as the technical difficulty and intensity of my work, I don't expect to move up in levels otherwise.

Motivation

It's been my dream since I was a little kid to move out of my hometown and become an independent person, currently I already work as a SWE but it's hybrid in my hometown and I live with my parents. Part of this goal also involves financial security so making enough money with cost of living considered is super important to me.

Secondly I'm not entirely driven by materialistic means, it's also important to me that I grow in my career and I become someone who is good at what they do. I think I have a lot to learn at my current job but I think there are better opportunities for growth - and specifically working at a company that can carry name value would help open career opportunities for me in the future.

I have a lot of deeply personal reason for moving out, partly due to a troubled childhood

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upbeat estuary
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yo, really respect the mindset here. not just chasing “big name” but thinking about growth + independence.
what kind of roles are you targeting? maybe i can share some tips/resources.

pastel ocean
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woah didn't think people read these. I do have a broad criteria for the types of role I apply to so it casts a pretty wide net.

I think the most important aspects for me career wise is that my next job is at a company with a stronger engineering culture and/or I get to directly work on software that deals with interesting problems/domains that can help me build career capital.

Example for the first part is a company where tech is the product and dev work is a first class citizen, eg. all of big tech and majority of starts ups. I work at enterprise rn so that's something I want to try.

The second part, an example is recently I've been working a lot with software installers and the problems I solve are pretty company specific so I don't see my skills transferring over easily. Recently I've talked with my manger and I want to start helping other teams primarily because I'm interested in the things they're working on, like one or our sister teams owns clustering and I've been interesting in distributed systems - and that's great for career capital.

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Other than that I've been targeting pretty much all junior roles that work on common full stack technologies like React, TypeScript, Java, etc.

pastel ocean
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it's been about 2 weeks since the Amazon rejection now and I'm getting on the leetcode bicycle again, I'm planning to start small with 1-2 questions daily. This is becuase I burnt out the past 2 weeks from cramming for Amazon.

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I've been doing pretty well at work, my performance has been great and my coworkers commend me. The thing is I just don't think we have a strong engineering culture so it's been easy for me to stand out, I honestly want to be challenged more and work on interesting problems that are industry relevant

pastel ocean
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elfin anchorBOT
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dynoSuccess luckybaymax was banned. | rule 2

pastel ocean
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I got an interview!

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Got a call from a place in SoCal - the TC on the job is 120k-130k! It's full remote as well

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For now, I don't even know 100% if he'll call me back, but since I'm assuming the interview is going to be more practical,

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pastel ocean
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yesterday I found out they already hired somebody (total turnaround was a week from job listing) but the guy told me he'll call me back if a role opens up in 2 months since I was a good fit

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I'm not bothered by it much since it didn't align with me career wise but I would have definitely taken the job if oferred. Anyways today I revampd my resume using jake's resume it looks sooo mcuh better, I was so verbose in my previous resume and itlooked hard to read and process from a recruiter standpoint

pastel ocean
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my new resume: redacted

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im pretty happy with how it looks compared to my old one

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my old one was super verbose for my present job

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overall I got the impression that it was harder t read and recruiters would glance at it and give up

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I'm goign to review this resume with a technical recruiter (meta, unicorn) later in a few days to see whatelse I could possibly improve to optimize for tech hiring

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I also plan to draft a few different variations depending on the job -- recruiters will be bisaed for different technologies and wont understand if it's something you could pick it up easily

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Lastly I need to start working on a project and swap out my schoool project with that one in my resume

pastel ocean
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Update: I got 2 phone interviews scheduled today 👀

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pretty happy about that

pastel ocean
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pastel ocean
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Just got back from training and I feel so invigorated! Definitely feeling more optimistic now and am glad I broke my no-exercise streak.

I also just got another phone screening scheduled!

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This is insane, I have 3 phone screenings in the same week after I updated my resume

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also likely due to me being vigilant with applying to jobs too

pastel ocean
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Just passed the first phone screening for the F500 company, I have another one with a credit card company tomorrow, then my last one with a big tech/faang adjacent company next week. The big tech howeve is going to be for a swe-2 role so I'm a little nervous abou tthat, but i meat the minimum 1 yoe

pastel ocean
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my phone call with the cc company just got canceleld literally last minute today -.-

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that's annoying since i said ill be out for an hour at work, the email said
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pastel ocean
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got 5 job interviews next week 💀

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I'm feeling pretty confident now, I think I got a working formula for applying for jobs

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The CC company was golang which I'm pretty interested in, I haven't had a respond back on why the recruiter cancelled the call but on their application portal my app is still "under review" 🤷‍♂️ so I'm holding off on messaging them on linkdin until Monday

pastel ocean
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smashed my first actual interview round today for the f500

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redacted (i did really well)

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pastel ocean
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Moving forward with big tech interview - scheduled next week

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Lowkey gonna bomb it but I’m kind of confidentish for my f500 one

pastel ocean
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So I had that big tech interview last week and connected pretty well with the interview - overall it went great imo and I’m on to the final loop now

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Unfortunately there’s going to be a system design round and I only have redacted

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I’m gonna try my best to cram via hello interview

eternal lodge
eternal lodge
pastel ocean
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i hvent started system design studying ;-;

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I've been focused on lld since i have that interview tomorrow

eternal lodge
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Hope you do well

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I’ll have a final interview that will be resume based. Super nervous since I don’t have in-depth knowledge about everything on my resume

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I have various technologies they can ask me😭

pastel ocean
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good luck! I actually had a final interview for another company yesterday and did pretty well --- I think I have a decent change for hte offer but I'm not sure if it will pay enough for my goals

pastel ocean
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i have one where i picked out 3 bullet points and then pretended i was the interview and got feedback from AI

eternal lodge
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Are you looking at new grad roles/entry?

pastel ocean
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the resume based interview is my best strength

pastel ocean
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redacted

eternal lodge
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I see, I’m applying for new grad positions

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Pray for me😭

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This is my first interview in awhile

pastel ocean
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i will, you dont need to do sys design prep likely then btw

eternal lodge
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Also they didn’t give much info about the interview process

pastel ocean
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ah man thats nerve wrakcing i havent had an inperson one for software role yet

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redactetd

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i asked someone at the company at the company and they said it's weird i got a system design round at my level

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but for most part ive never heard of system design for junior/entry

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it doesn't hurt to take a look though, but focus mostly on leetccode and behavioral + LLD

eternal lodge
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I haven’t until my friend had an interview from Amazon and palentir

pastel ocean
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Strong hire rating for my interview today

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I need to lock in for system design

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Barely starting today

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💀😭

eternal lodge
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You got this!

eternal lodge
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How was the interview?

pastel ocean
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Really good

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I also got really good news from another company

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The timing is just not good though

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Gonna update later when I get more news

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But I am very happy

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Just difficult decision cause of timing

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But basically this part of the journey is almost over

pastel ocean
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I lowkey think I might have gotten my offer rescinded cause I tried to negotiate 💀

eternal lodge
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Not sure on how to increase the amount of mew grad interview I can get

pastel ocean
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there's some things you can do like optimizing your resume

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and applying early

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then having a polished linkedin + any other signals like public projects etc.

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and you have to do it at scale so it will take a lot of apps

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so tomorrow I think I'm about to get a formal offer letter

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will finally close this thread

tawny fox
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Congrats on the offer! Always inspired to read this thread as someone in a pretty similar situation. Best of luck at your new position. 🙂

eternal lodge
eternal lodge
pastel ocean
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I shall update on Monday

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But I got officiall job offer

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And then I had my final with big tech and I think it there’s a good chance it turns into an offer

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But basically my interview with big tech went well but they found a better fit

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But apparently the interviews had really positive feedback so I got another interview

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And I think I may an offer redacted

pastel ocean
eternal lodge
pastel ocean
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Thanks man! Final update: I got the role at big tech
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plucky prairie
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wow that was quick. congrats man!

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i’m in socal looking for a job currently

pastel ocean
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ay I'll be moving down there

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I'm gonna close this thread and redact any info that could dox me, may make a new one in the far future for the next chapter