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Work somewhere with really, really smart people. When I joined Stripe in 2017, I couldn't get over the number of people I worked with who were smarter, better
by rattray 4y ago
Work somewhere with really, really smart people.
When I joined Stripe in 2017, I couldn't get over the number of people I worked with who were smarter, better engineers than myself. It was new to me. It was hard at times (impostor syndrome, feeling like an idiot, etc), but mostly super fun – and of course, incredibly humbling. Humility is really important to me, and it sounds like it is to you, too – you can gain it, along with a sense of camraderie, with the right team.
Switching jobs is normal, healthy, and not a betrayal – you've put in great work at this company and it will outlast you. It's time to look for something new.
Don't just say yes to the first company that comes your way – say "no" to a variety of them and when you feel really excited about the people you interview with, lean in and spend time getting to know them before signing.
If you've never worked at a "fancy silicon valley company" before, don't feel afraid about applying to them. At Stripe, we hired people with backgrounds like yours all the time, alongside folks with fancy Harvard/MIT/Google/etc backgrounds.
Don't worry, you're not anything special in the grand scheme of things :) find a company with lots of engineers better than you and you'll find a lot of joy.
As an aside, what you describe of your current role sounds straight out of the eng ladder for Stripe's "Staff Software Engineer" level. You can read more about that style of work in Will Larson's book if you want more like that, or join an earlier-stage company with a heavy-hitting team.
If you'd like to chat further, my email is in my profile, happy to set up a Zoom.
- xpe 4y agoI'm not dismissing the comment above -- it is useful -- but it leaves a lot of fundamental questions unanswered, such as: Which kind(s) of smart people? The kinds of smarts that are like yours? What about the forms of intelligence maybe that you don't even recognize yet? What about pairwise intelligence -- that isn't traditionally captured by the term 'smart' -- it is more often captured by quotes such as "he's inspiring to work alongside" or "she teaches me without talking down to me" or "he can herd cats to push a wet rope up a hill and get the product delivered on time". One takeaway: optimizing for "smart people" is underspecified. Another: there are many other worthwhile things to optimize for besides one kind of intelligence -- or even one fixed blend of intelligences.
- rattray 4y agoFor this particular person, who wants to feel non-lonely and combat hubris while continuing to primarily do what they love (coding), I would say a heuristic I might use would be "developers who humble you with their abilities, and have great attitudes". Raw intellectual horsepower will likely be a big part of that, but I agree that "smart" alone is underspecified. For example, I think this person would enjoy working with other developers with high output at a low defect rate, with additional strengths in architecture. Different people in different situations should absolutely look for different things in their teammates.
- xpe 4y agoThanks for explaining -- I see what you mean, and (FWIW) I tend to agree.