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From “Hello World” to VP of Engineering at Reddit (2017)
- imetatroll 8y agoAn inspirational read. Personally I am at a strange spot in life where I am trying to rediscover my own self worth as a programmer after working for several years as the CTO for a small startup company. I've been out of work for a few months now. It can be hard to wake up and know that the places I have interviewed are not interested (there have been several). It isn't that I am trying to get another executive position because a "programming" position would do me just fine. I am just trying to keep a positive outlook and move forward. So it is good to read about success, I guess, that is the result of hard work. Anyway I feel adrift. I am working on my own project/potential company so perhaps that will turn out to be a way to feed myself. Probably it wont. Am I out of the programming game for good? Sometimes I feel that way, but I can say that I was mesmerized by that first hello world.
- dajohnson89 8y agoI have so many questions. What positions are you applying for? Roughly how many places have you applied to? How far do you get in the interview process? What do you think is the reason for not getting the offer? Did you have any kind of exit at your startup?
- hyperpallium 8y agoProbably people feel it's dated and not appropriate for tech, but What color is your parachute stills seems fundamentally sensible to me. Points like: most jobs aren't advertised; think of your search like shopping for a job that suits you; see how you are solution/resource for some problems; and what silent questions interviewers want answered, or should want. In order: why us? can you do the job? what's special about you? will you fit with us? can we afford you? There's a lot of encouragement in it, especially extensive sections taking inventory of what you have to offer, your knowledge, skills and especially what engages you.
- ummonk 8y agoNot interested as in you don’t pass the interview? If you have several years of experience people should be knocking down your doors to recruit you.
- imetatroll 8y agoI don't know what the issue is exactly. I worked for two years at an insurance company using c#. It was a good group of people. I decided to join a startup. I worked through the process of growing the technical side of that company from 0 to 150,000 paid accounts. At almost the 10 year mark, I was let go due to financial difficulties. The company that I worked for, which still exists, is now run by one person - the original founder - in conjunction with a partner company that now manages the stack and handles sales. It is a bit of an odd story to tell and evolved into what it is today because of the pressures of trying to keep a company alive, I guess. I went from being a programmer to being the CTO during this time. I wasn't managing a team other than an intern once in a while so I was responsible for administering the servers (AWS) just as I was responsible for furthering development. It all fell to me for the most part. We did have another programmer for the first couple years, but they left. It was pretty taxing to be honest. When I am asked how many people I managed I can only honestly say two interns and am then told my skills are not enough. When I am asked to take home a programming assignment or whiteboard something the end result is that my skills aren't good enough. It is a mystery to me because I built a system that currently processes 80 to 150 million emails a month. It encrypts them, it stores them, it makes them searchable. There is even functionality to encrypt outgoing emails as well! To be fair the core component was already built prior to me joining the company: the PKI api. But as needs grew I built around that. I built the web interface (not the design: I'm not a god). I wrote code to process incoming/outgoing email. I created an ES cluster that scales itself (probably not very well and search is astonishingly slow, but the customers don't seem to mind given the low price tag). I programmed in php, perl, ruby, javascript, and then eventually heavily used golang for its concurrency. The system is not perfect nor am I. I too thought that people would be super interested in working with me, but I haven't found that to be the case at all. I guess am not good at networking so here I am. If you want to see what I have built in my own time recently, the url is in my description. It is a tragic example of my design skills and the code is all my own. Interestingly - or not so - it is entirely written in golang (+ gopherjs).
- quickpost 8y agoIs there a part 2? Couldn't find it
- ec109685 8y agoHe works at Looker now: https://looker.com/news/press/nick-caldwell-joins-looker-as-chief-product-officer https://looker.com/news/press/nick-caldwell-joins-looker-as-... Seems like good fit given his PowerBI background and Looker is prettt fantastic.
- Rainymood 8y ago>In two years as VP of Engineering at Reddit he grew the engineering team from 35 to 170 and led the major initiative to redesign and re-architect the 13-year-old site. >led the major initiative to redesign and re-architect the 13-year-old site. The redesign that everyone, including me, hates with a passion? I continuously have to revert to the old design, the new design is horrible.
- baazaa 8y agoIs it just me or did UIs just start getting worse at some point? I just take it for granted that every redesign will somehow reduce features while increasing clutter.
- jasonvorhe 8y agoI love it. Reddit was fugly before.
- sodafountan 8y agoReddit was minimal and I could safely browse it during down time at work without too much suspicion, that's also what I like about Hacker News, the new design is hard to conceal at work.
- anitil 8y agoI don't mind the UI, I just wish they didn't hate their own website so much. It seems like they just want everyone to use the app, for some reason.
- romanovcode 8y agoAlso he is now a CPO.
- golemiprague 8y ago"Society didn't seem to care", maybe it is good that it didn't care, this guy would end like many other social support victims who don't know anything better. Why does he think that society owes him anything? all he needed was to study coding, he doesn't need society for that, just normal parents which he seems to have.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoNick's story is inspirational, but are there any stories like this that don't center on a pedigreed education? Sometimes it concerns me that American class structure is so stratified that it's impossible to have social and class mobility like this without an elite education. I'm sure he would have had similar outcomes had he gone to UMD, but would he have if he had gone to UMBC?
- nostrebored 8y agoJust about anyone has the ability to go to a top tier school provided they have the ability to manage there. Most have transfer programs with local schools with a few stipulations. For instance, you can go to a community college and transfer into the UC system. My wife and I both came from impoverished backgrounds and went to community college/low-quality state schools and graduated from a top 10 computer science school. RE: downvotes -- please tell me how I'm wrong? I'll happily give you a 3 year plan to get into a top tier engineering school given that you have a willingness to move. The problem with a lot of these places isn't getting in (if you have enough perseverance or desire). The problem is getting through the work after you've gotten there.
- raxxorrax 8y agoHow do you explain the cost of education in the modern world where the logistics of information are as cheap as never before? Any kid on the world could access material from the best teachers on the planet. So why keep this legacy system for education that is more and more based solely on prestige? Sure, there is a chance for everybody. But why make it a chance that will certainly remain unfulfilled for a significant majority?
- izacus 8y ago> How do you explain the cost of education in the modern world where the logistics of information are as cheap as never before? Any kid on the world could access material from the best teachers on the planet. So why keep this legacy system for education that is more and more based solely on prestige? That's probably because reading/watching materials isn't everything what education is or what brings its value. Just the fact that the system manages to get 8-18 year olds to read those materials and learn them makes a start difference, not to mention allows access to mentors and peers doing the same thing.
- fxfan 8y agoWhat is partner level general manager? Lots of equity?
- isostatic 8y ago> For a long while it was common for me to start the work day at 5 AM and end around 11:30 PM. I don’t eat breakfast or lunch — don’t want to waste the hours when I could be working. Not healthy
- coldtea 8y agoYeah, plus a brag.
- sabas123 8y agoAnd not even worth it productivity wise.
- kkarakk 8y ago--health;profit++; have always been the rules of our world. healthy doesn't factor into it. you just have no option but to squeeze in a salad,hug and a pushup(or two) in between.
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoEating in within a nine hour window is very healthy so skiping breakfast and lunch is good. Should get more sleep though.
- isostatic 8y agoIf you're going to go for a single meal a day you should be doing breakfast
- skilled 8y agoAny Reddit employees in this thread? I need help with my account that I have had for 7 years and can't get back because of an internal issue. Please leave your contact info so I can get in touch.
- skilled 8y agoAwesome, getting downvoted because I genuinely need help and Reddit's support system is pointless to use in my specific case.
- bko 8y ago> Long story short is that in the Maryland-DC area they have what are called magnet schools, and if you can pass a test sort of like the SAT, they will let you leave your current school zone and bus to a better one. Whether or not you think that’s a good or bad idea, or fair or unfair, it is what I had and it was a way out. Standardized testing gets a lot of flak for being too rigid or biased, but I think its rigidity serves an important purpose. You may be living in an unjust society, but if you can score X on this test, you will get Y. There's plenty of information on the test as well as resources anyone can use to score well enough (online, public library or school library). It's an easier sell to many disadvantaged groups and present a clear way out, whether it be a magnet school or university.
- zamazingo 8y ago> You may be living in an unjust society, but if you can score X on this test, you will get Y. In an unusual society, those who are disadvantaged will also be disadvantaged on this test if it becomes important enough to predict one's future prospects. Think private tutoring, specialized schools, summer camps, all focused on teaching you to get a good score on the test, and all expensive as ever (ie inaccessible). And now, your education system develops you for the test, not for life or jobs. It's an easier sell, but it's a lemon and not a well designed and performant product.
- bko 8y agoThere are plenty of people that score reasonably well without private tutoring, specialized schools or summer camps
- mac01021 8y agoThis is a good point. But it's so rarely presented as a way out.
- ratsimihah 8y ago> Within about 4 months of reading that book I had stopped going outside to play (kids still did that back then) So good, this reminds me of this article I forgot the source that says kids don't get enough playtime anymore because of Youtube and co.
- tinyhouse 8y agoGreat read and a bit sad too. The Ray Rogers part sounds almost like a movie scene. It's hard when you lose interest in your childhood friends because you don't have anything in common with them anymore.
- fma 8y agoHis comment on magnet schools is interesting... Different areas must implement it differently. In south Florida magnet schools isn't just for smart people. High schools specialize in medical, engineering, law etc. and you can apply for those. I went to one that had the International Baccalaureate program which is suppose to be for the "smart" kids and had academic requirements. Unlike Nick, who went from a poor mostly black high school to a mostly white... The IB program was in a mostly black, and poor high school. The same template was used for a few other schools, till the rich white schools wanted a piece of the "smart" kids and got their own program. Now the IB schools at the black schools floundering and are suffering (I think mine closed down) Although most of my classes were different from the rest of the school, I shared some classes and of course extracurricular activities. The IB program gave me a more diverse education due to being around a population of people I woukd never be around.
- laken 8y agoI have a similar experience to yours, as I went to an IB Magnet school in Central Florida. I believe in Florida at least, they purposefully put the magnet schools in the poorer districts, as a way of allowing the local disadvantaged youth to excel in school, and give them the best education possible in their district. They also then bus in the kids from elsewhere in the greater district who purposefully chose the magnet school due to the IB program, as another way of helping these same disadvantaged kids. I'm not sure quite how effective it is, but I understand the logic.
- TheLuddite 8y agoNo surprise Reddit sucks then. It's like if you buy a piece of furniture made by someone that picked up a hammer 2 years before.
- oosjc9a5 8y agoI agree with you. Maybe this is not the proper place to express this view because it looks like a personal attack, but the engineering team of reddit seems to be very, very subpar. Downtime almost every day, extremely long page generation times... Maybe they should review their hiring processes.
- charliebrownau 8y agoCant be a personal inidual attack if people are asking about how to contact a company Often companies over 1 million dollars are :- Anti Consumer Anti repair Have ZERO accountability Have no proper customer support Listen to share holders or Global Socialist LEFT before listening to the largest demographic buyer base Same issues exist with twitter, youtube, google and facebook, steam , etc has anyone had real luck talking to an ACTUAL person at these companies for help desk support
- dang 8y agoPersonal attacks will get you banned here, so please make your substantive points without stooping so low in the future. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- nojvek 8y agoI’ve worked with Nick at PowerBI. He was hard working, mega ambitious but still down to earth. He deserves his success as much as anyone. But then again this is America and we love struggle pr0n. Tons of people work 16 hour days in and out that don’t get the same success. The survivor bias is real.
- charliebrownau 8y ago"" I know Diversity and Inclusiveness in the Valley are really red-hot topics now. One question is how can we attract more people of color. And this is a tough problem "" ================================================= It will be a problem to hire people on SKIN COLOR or ETHIC background , if you hire INSTEAD:- Hire QUALIFIED people on MERIT , Equal Opportunity, Qualification and Experience You cant fix FAKE discrimination with REAL discrimination ========================================= Funny how we NEVER hear about 50/50 discriminating quotas for:- * Garbo * Sewage workers * Mowing lawns * Landscaping * Plumbers * Electricians * Snake catchers * Night Petrol station attendant * Construction * Mining * road crews * IT/PC repair * Power pole repair #equality