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I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ojhughes 6y ago
Sounds like you have the wrong motivations for a career in software engineering. No offence but I wouldn’t want to work with someone who is purely in it for the money and people can easily suss out that kind of attitude. If you don’t have passion for the job it’s going to be hard to succeed in your goals
- ajkdhcb2 6y ago
  Why would someone with passion for software choose to work at repugnant FAANG companies?
  - globular-toast 6y ago
    Because you get paid more than other companies and ethics is low on the list of priorities.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      Considerably more, in some cases. Not a lot of employment options like that anywhere and in any field, outside of being an executive, pro athlete, or other one-off / superlative opportunity. And even if you're not an E6 or "Principal" or something, the Big Name on a resume opens doors later.
  - lookACamel 6y ago
    Money.
JabavuAdams 6y ago
There are many ways to retire early. Entrepreneurship, investing, hitting the jackpot at a startup. This FAANG focus may actually be detracting from your goal. EDIT N> I see I might have misunderstood your post. You've been working on leetcode while at school and at your first job? Therefore the gap between the end of your first job and now is not five years? Okay, that's great! So ignore this part... <<< Think of the opportunity cost of not making (I assume) decent money as a programmer at the start of your career. With five years of programming experience on the job, you might have been able to land a team lead or high-level individual contributor role, with all the compensation and marketable skills that come with. Extra disposable income invested in low-risk equities like index funds over the last five years would have had a huge return. >>> Or, for that matter with a few years experience on real projects at real shops, you would have the skills that might actually get you into FAANG now. This is actually making me a bit angry at Leetcode for possibly misrepresenting the utility or importance of their product. Given all that you've said, I would suggest getting out there and getting any programming job that isn't losing you money to build up your finances, resume, and network. You had one bad experience -- don't let it define you. People get fired because their manager had a fight with their partner the night before. There's a huge amount of random noise, and FAANG, leetcode scores, even performance reviews are not a particularly strong reflection on you or good estimators of your future prospects. This school -> leetcode -> FAANG pipeline simply isn't how the real world works. Sorry! EDIT> Social skills are learnable to at least a competent level, and the number one way to get contacts is to work more jobs. I used to be too shy to hand out my business card -- now it's super easy. A friend of mine is neuro-atypical and has massive social anxiety, but has worked as a bartender in the past -- all just scripts and social "macros". EDIT2> Good Luck! Don't give up on programming, but take care of yourself, and maybe take a break. Maybe work on a coding project that you find interesting but that has no goal or ulterior motive. EDIT N+1> It was typical when I graduated to do anything and everything to get 2 years of professional experience, and then to go for your desired job. The experience outweighed any other concern w.r.t hiring. So I definitely wouldn't give up after one bad experience. Also, I suggest you recalibrate your expectations to work up to FAANG by getting jobs at other companies first. It's almost certain that real on-the-job experience will count for much more than scores on some programming site.
- 6y ago
robotron 6y ago
> only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early That should tell you the problem.
muzani 6y ago
Non-FAANG/Leetcode money is very good too. Check out http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi or AngelList and you'll probably find a few that have different recruiting methods. If you have the grit to stick it out, you could consider working with legacy code too.
beforeolives 6y ago
> I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals. I think you should quit then. Just give up. It's not going to happen. Certainly not the way you're going about it.
globular-toast 6y ago
There's your problem then. I have the same goals. I've been reading every "how to be a CEO" book I can find and I've written to every Fortune 500 asking to be their CEO. I have no interest in what any of these companies do. I have so far not received a single reply, so I guess it's time to make a post whinging about that on HN.
UncleMeat 6y ago
Why do you think that leetcode was the core problem here? You got fired for performance reasons at a less competitive business. You spent thousands of hours learning the wrong thing.
- QuitProgramming 6y ago
  I'm saying the skill set and talent that allows one to be good at Leetcode and on the job programming are correlated and I am lacking in both.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Sounds like you have the wrong motivations for a career in software engineering. No offence but I wouldn’t want to work with someone who is purely in it for the money and people can easily suss out that kind of attitude. If you don’t have passion for the job it’s going to be hard to succeed in your goals

ajkdhcb2 6y ago
Why would someone with passion for software choose to work at repugnant FAANG companies?
- globular-toast 6y ago
  Because you get paid more than other companies and ethics is low on the list of priorities.
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    Considerably more, in some cases. Not a lot of employment options like that anywhere and in any field, outside of being an executive, pro athlete, or other one-off / superlative opportunity. And even if you're not an E6 or "Principal" or something, the Big Name on a resume opens doors later.
- lookACamel 6y ago
  Money.

JabavuAdams 6y ago

There are many ways to retire early. Entrepreneurship, investing, hitting the jackpot at a startup. This FAANG focus may actually be detracting from your goal. EDIT N> I see I might have misunderstood your post. You've been working on leetcode while at school and at your first job? Therefore the gap between the end of your first job and now is not five years? Okay, that's great! So ignore this part... <<< Think of the opportunity cost of not making (I assume) decent money as a programmer at the start of your career. With five years of programming experience on the job, you might have been able to land a team lead or high-level individual contributor role, with all the compensation and marketable skills that come with. Extra disposable income invested in low-risk equities like index funds over the last five years would have had a huge return. >>> Or, for that matter with a few years experience on real projects at real shops, you would have the skills that might actually get you into FAANG now. This is actually making me a bit angry at Leetcode for possibly misrepresenting the utility or importance of their product. Given all that you've said, I would suggest getting out there and getting any programming job that isn't losing you money to build up your finances, resume, and network. You had one bad experience -- don't let it define you. People get fired because their manager had a fight with their partner the night before. There's a huge amount of random noise, and FAANG, leetcode scores, even performance reviews are not a particularly strong reflection on you or good estimators of your future prospects. This school -> leetcode -> FAANG pipeline simply isn't how the real world works. Sorry! EDIT> Social skills are learnable to at least a competent level, and the number one way to get contacts is to work more jobs. I used to be too shy to hand out my business card -- now it's super easy. A friend of mine is neuro-atypical and has massive social anxiety, but has worked as a bartender in the past -- all just scripts and social "macros". EDIT2> Good Luck! Don't give up on programming, but take care of yourself, and maybe take a break. Maybe work on a coding project that you find interesting but that has no goal or ulterior motive. EDIT N+1> It was typical when I graduated to do anything and everything to get 2 years of professional experience, and then to go for your desired job. The experience outweighed any other concern w.r.t hiring. So I definitely wouldn't give up after one bad experience. Also, I suggest you recalibrate your expectations to work up to FAANG by getting jobs at other companies first. It's almost certain that real on-the-job experience will count for much more than scores on some programming site.

6y ago

robotron 6y ago

> only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early That should tell you the problem.

muzani 6y ago

Non-FAANG/Leetcode money is very good too. Check out http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi or AngelList and you'll probably find a few that have different recruiting methods. If you have the grit to stick it out, you could consider working with legacy code too.

beforeolives 6y ago

> I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals. I think you should quit then. Just give up. It's not going to happen. Certainly not the way you're going about it.

globular-toast 6y ago

There's your problem then. I have the same goals. I've been reading every "how to be a CEO" book I can find and I've written to every Fortune 500 asking to be their CEO. I have no interest in what any of these companies do. I have so far not received a single reply, so I guess it's time to make a post whinging about that on HN.

UncleMeat 6y ago

Why do you think that leetcode was the core problem here? You got fired for performance reasons at a less competitive business. You spent thousands of hours learning the wrong thing.

QuitProgramming 6y ago
I'm saying the skill set and talent that allows one to be good at Leetcode and on the job programming are correlated and I am lacking in both.