Make sure to put office hours questions in the comments. You can find Rahul Pandey's channel here ua-cam.com/users/RahulPandeyrkp FYI, projected retirement numbers assume a 9% YoY growth, the average since 2006.
I just got into amazon as an sde Steve. My question is, why not do your own thing? Smart and experienced folk like you create the real value in any org. Why not use that value for yourself?
tech lead is weird, he was only good in old times but now completely ridiculous, not forgetting he and joma tech ripped off clement's AlgoExpert hard work, horrible.
1. Getting your money right: This includes saving. You could also put those savings in the market, and sticking it through up or down and seeing what it amounts to later. (Time passes really quickly) 2. Preferring output over impact: Finding task that differentiate yourself. Finding a meaningful refactor that prevents future bugs is better than routinely integrating package updates. Great to have a nose for outsized impact. 3. Not thinking clearly about staying or leaving your team: Sure, that hop could increase your compensation but you could be leaving a good team and moving to something worse. If you're in a bad environment, don't believe promises but watch the management's actions to see if they're actually dealing with the root problem. Ultimately, if you're in a good spot, don't throw it all away. You'll only recognize your golden ages from hindsight.
@@slippinchillin EDIT: Nevermind, the commenter just made a typo while summarizing the video I think he meant you should prefer impact over output; his *mistake* was spending too much time maximizing output instead of impact
My biggest mistake in my career is never letting my manager know I wanted a promotion. Don't wait years to "get ready" just ask your manager what you need to do early to get the next position.
really love the mature way of looking at things. a consistent thing I've read on Reddit is the need for software engineers to understand relationships, office politics, etc. Soft skills. The way you present the case for making yourself a priority in a positive way shows experience in the industry. Looking forward to future content
Just a short story to address your last point. I worked for a company that shall remain nameless. They were failing. The CEO skipped the country because it had been discovered he was embezzling. They laid off half the company. We got written up in the press, and one writer said, and I quote "clearly the only workers remaining there are stupid and cannot find other work". I was one of the few people actually working there. Others were playing board games on the whiteboards. This was after the 2008 downturn, so jobs were not easy to find. So I left to take a contract. I would not say my career tanked, but those were some bad years and some stretches of unemployment. The company? They got bought by a very good company, and people I know there went on to work for years there productively. The moral of the story is that what seems to be black and white, sometimes isn't.
@@nicksrub I'm 65, I have been an engineer since 19, technician before that, and repaired TVs in my parents garage for money when I was 15. I guess what other folks think of as career markers just strike me as a phase. The story above was 2009 if I recall, just after the "great recession" of 2008. I didn't escape that, but not for the obvious reasons. My wife of 13 years decided that was the time to get a divorce. About the only good thing that resulted from that is that our house's value was depressed, and so I could buy her out. Things have changed since then. During the time I described, I got very good at making spreadsheets, and what I found in those days was that I was going to lose the house shortly. I rented out two rooms for a while and got past that. I think by 2010-2011 things took off again, and they really haven't slowed down since then. I did full time up to 62 years of age, and preferred that. After 60, I got lots of interviews, but no interest. Since then it appears more companies are interested in having me as a contractor. I can't say if it is because of my age, or the times we live in. I can't say it is not possible to get full time now, when there seems to be a lot of demand. It just seems far easier to get contracts, and those have been good. My last contract was Apple. My current one is Google. Not exactly poor companies :-)
@@scottfranco1962 wow that's fascinating! Glad you're still in the industry after all these years! What would you have done career-wise if you had to start over now?
@@nicksrub Invest heavily in Microsoft? Kidding. Probably get a PHD. My career never really got to the levels of tech that I wanted. Other than that, I don't think there was a perfect path. The guys I knew who really took off in the valley just retired early or became managers. I never wanted to shorten my career, just work on better quality stuff.
I'm starting as an SDE I at Amazon in a month and I just found your channel while looking for advice and I love the content. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Steve!
Thank you for these videos. You're like a non-toxic, positive, wise tech veteran I can actually look up to. I'm taking it as a sign from the universe that one of your favorite books "so good they can't ignore" is also my favorite self help/ career book ha. Hope your time off from full time employment is off to a good start and looking forward to more of your videos :D
Randomly came across this as an aspiring coder scouring UA-cam. Been a full time club dj for 15 years. The setup in the background caught my eye lol. And then to find out I’m assuming you’re also Vietnamese? Subscribed. Keep up the good content!
1. Start investing early (time in market > timing market) 2. Look for impact, not productivity = find teams that can be impactful, where other people can see you 3. Know when to leave a team
I don't agree... I sadly invested in the highest point in November 2021 and now my pirtfolio is -30%. I really regret investing. Luckly I just put 10% of my money in the stock market.
I'm not even in software engineering but this was just so useful in general! Thanks for your honest and upfront thoughts from your own personal experience - will bear this in mind for the future when I'm thinking about switching jobs 🤗
@@adrianalter8935 unsure, there was a 10% layoff across the board in engineering. I was the newest senior on the team as I had recently changed teams just a couple months prior
I don't know if you covered this topic yet, but I think something I struggle with is words. To form clear and concise words in speaking. Coding is half the battle. Being able to communicate your thoughts to the targeted audience is just, if not, more important I feel like. Thank you!
Man. That was fantastic. Especially 5:15. I've had that thought many times to leave a team to do work I actually wanted to but kept getting bogged down by things like loyalty and how it would be perceived and who it would hurt and just let myself stagnate until (for better or worse), I burnt out and layoffs happened. I've had a lot of time to reflect and honestly, I guess I just should have been a better advocate for myself.
Point 2 is spot on! Couldn’t agree more! I’m no Software Engineer. I worked with them. A few years back, there was a “golden” opportunity to demonstrate a full-system demo to SVP and CEO. But I needed helps from SWE. To my surprise, I literally walked to each and every SWE desk my buildings, asked for help, promised that this would be super high impact if succeeding. “Nah man, I gotta do code review, bug fix, commit, etc etc” I sent email to different SWE groups, tried my best to sell the high impact opportunity. No response.
Man I don't know why UA-cam algorithms recommend you only now? Your content is pure gold, keep doing. Nowadays it is very hard to find an open opinion on all questions of Tech Industry from mature and experienced senior persona. There too much junior and newbie opinions around. Just want to give you motivation to keep doing, maybe small one, but still :D
My current dev job is "boring", but also easy, pay is decent (and growing) and there is no stress (no real deadlines) I feel like there is not much "progress", my team is nice, but there is not much new to learn from them. I do private side projects where I improve my skills. I think other jobs could have more interesting projects and a higher skill level, so I think about qutting often. But the easy / no stress part of the current job holds me back, because I hear many bad stories from other people who suffer from stress and angry managers.
Amen. Writing my own language/compiler at the moment. It's a great exercise to keep improving my skills. I've quiet quit at my current position and just meet expectations.
Wow. I’m actually a trainee and my job at the moment was migrating bower to npm. I don’t think that’s a bad position atm as it was a good learning experience. But I’ll make sure to take note for when it becomes my main task later in the future
I want to be honest I find this channel very valuable and so helpful. As software engineer now on my first year , I consistently sacrificed my evening to get things done but no one really noticed this things. Thanks a lot for this amazing clear organized argument.
I need to watch this entire channel multiple times to educate myself on how to evaluate life as an engineer. It will help with the behaviour interview chats. 👍
I never comment on UA-cam but thank you for bringing your professionalism and knowledge out into the public for others education and growth. I'm sure youre very busy but if somehow you could upload more frequently I and everyone else would eternally appreciate it. I found your channel today and have already gone through every video
Great vid! Starting as an Amazon intern in a couple weeks so been watching a lot of your channel and rahuls recently. Feel a lot more comfortable about everything and nice to see the perspective of principal and sr engineers
Discovered this channel today and your videos are a breath of fresh air in the youtube SW career space for someone like me. I am relatively early in my career and shooting for the stars, and your advice is pragmatic and genuine. Thank you for all that you do, you make a bigger difference than you think.
After having my first real job at a big-name, on a mission-critical service with a 23-yo Perl code base, having embarked on (and failed at) two full-scale gradual rewrites, I got kinda hooked on that, so most subsequent "ships" I got on were also sinking: organisationally, socially, professionally, technically, or all of the above. The "words vs actions" advice is spot on! A sinking ship that's being actively (and competently) salvaged can be greatly beneficial career-wise, especially if you live to see the success of it. You'll have the opportunity to make a lot of highly-impactful decisions and do stuff that's usually already done ages before you. A sinking ship can do just that, though - sink; leaving you with a short and unattractive resume section. It's quite hard to tell one from the other at the interview stage unless you've had experience with both, but one thing you can do is, "describe one serious problem with your ", then "so what's the plan about it?" It is a hard set up for most interviewers, so make sure not to come off as too aggressive or critical
Excellent information. We realized late that we were in a excellent team. You are in a good team when you are making impact otherwise you need to go. Why? Because if you are not making a impact that means that you are losing your previous knowldge, your are not getting new knowledge or challenge. I had a co-worker that mentioned to me that he felt like a robot pressing a button. I understant what he meant. Thats means you are wasting your professional career.
Your channel just popped up in my feed and I’m loving the content! About to graduate with a CS degree and felt your perspective was honest and refreshing. Keep it up, got yourself another subscriber!
This is stuff that could benefit a LOT of careers, not just software. Well done! Also, I should add, don't invest ALL your money into a 401k, I typically only invest up to how much the company fully matches. The rest I put into an index fund or etf. The reason is if you end up retiring early OR need to take some time in between jobs like if you end up moving and don't have a job for a while, money wrapped up into a 401k cannot be withdrawn before a certain age without penalty, whereas money in an Index fund could be pulled out fairly quickly. If you have a million or two in an index fund you could live fairly comfortably off of the interest alone in a normal, non-recession environment.
Extremely good video. The only critique is the tile should not be specific to software engineers, but to almost all jobs, which even is not a real criticism at all. You're just one of the best tech youtuber out there no doubt.
I, unfortunately, check all the boxes in the current situation. Just committed to leetcode! People like you are true mentors providing directions pro bono. Thank you for putting this together.
For me the hard part is to go for it when you feel like you have stopped growing. You value the security of the income to pay mortage, maybe you have a kids to think about. So you want to keep growing by moving to another job, but you don't know beforehand if it will be better. I've heard stories of people getting it even worse after leaving. I've been 3 years at my current job, I work with decent team, good manager and a nice product. But I'm not very challenged and I also feel like the one taking most technical decisions, I miss someone "better" than me that I can learn from.
Wow, just wow. What fantastic, actionable advice given in such a humble manner. I hope I get to work with more people like you as I progress. Gonna take your advice and run with it. See you in the field!
Your words are golden to me now. Thanks for sharing. Subbed. Looking forward to more content! I'm hoping to be a software engineer manager in the future :)
great advice and very helpful information! it can be so overwhelming to understand the long term perspective when you;'re new to the industry and role. looking forward to more like this!
I also heard from many online that you should always try leaving a company after 2 years to get the most income changes. Do you feel like this is something you would have done in the past? Like going from Amazon to Facebook or Netflix? Great video. Subscribed!
It's like what Steve said it doesn't have to be every 2 years only until you feel like you are being undervalued at your current company should you move on to greener pastures.
Most of my money is "time in the market", but I use a small portion to time the market as well to keep it interesting. You don't have to go all in to make it interesting, just use play money.
Hi, thanks a lot for the video. I am an SDE2 in Amazon. I want to work on projects that we can patent. I have not worked in research teams. I am a backend software engineer but always have an ambition to file patents. People say come up with an idea and then we can see if we can file a patent. I see that you have some patents in your LinkedIn profile. 1. What kind of teams do I need to join where I get to work on problems that could be patented? New initiative or teams that closely with research teams (CV/ML). ? 2. How to come up with an idea or a new way to solve a situation that could be patented? 3. How to drive 1-1s with manager and make sure we are getting visibility for what we are doing?
Tbh patents are not very interesting in the software field. Really cool stuff is either a) published in the open in research papers and presented at conferences or b) so secret that it is not deemed worth disclosing sufficient details about it to the patent office.
Something I've learnt through my years of working is to not get attached to company tools or workflows. How many times have you gotten used to some arbitrary way of doing something to realize that is not how everyone else does things? For example any overly simplified SaaS platform(eg. Pivotal, Heroku) for hosting your apps. While it helps you deploy things fast, how much do you really understand beyond your code?
This is a gold mine, 10 videos that really give me frame and perspective. I've seen things, but honestly I didn't know what I've seen. Still I wish you can do more videos. btw calling yourself Meta is obviously very weird, lol.
@2:30 - the most valuable lesson I was ever taught - even more valuable when running your own business!!! Also, thanks for the vid! Great tips and you earned my sub by not beating around the bush, plus not doing a 5 minute paid promo half way through the first 5 minutes LOL Thanks again for the career tips
Wow, I was prepared to get outraged again, like I always like to be with my "background chatter". But this was actually a very nice video! I think the only problem with it is, from my observation, that without having had the experiences you had, one is not able to recognize what exactly you are meaning. Saying "if you are the biggest fish in the pond" is different from recognizing that. Or what could be better/different/adding to your experience. It is a tricky subject afterall!
Hey Steve, it would be very interesting to hear about your internal movement within Amazon over the years, and your reasons for switching teams. When is it advisable to apply internally instead of applying elsewhere? Thanks!
In addition to the excellent ones you mention the biggest career mistakes I see young engineers make (some of which I too made in the early days): willful ignorance of office politics. Failure to understand the importance of self-advocacy. Staying for more than 3-6 months after you would have otherwise left to see if you get that promotion. Fear of change in general. The nth time you do something is less scary than the n-1th.
Hello Sir, Can you make a video about 1. Is there really a shortage of senior software engineers as Big Tech claims? 2.What are the traits/skills or expectation that companies are looking for when they hire especially BigTech ? (Also the key skill set that is missing from candidates due to which there is such a shortage )
#1 - Answering from an American perspective - One hundred percent. People who are truly good at software engineering (i.e senior software engineers and above) are in severe short supply, and they will likely be for the foreseeable future because the American education system cannot produce enough good engineers to fill that gap. The US WILL need immigrants to fill it. The rub though, is that beginner/mediocre software engineers are dime a dozen. The question is how do you filter the applicant pool so that American companies remain competitive. Also, just to be sure, this is not the problem with only software engineers. Most engineering fields have this shortage. Electrical, Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil, whatever. The US doesn't produce enough engineers.
@@PristinePerceptions From what I have heard, 1) Companies want people with exact skill set and they don't want to spend money on training them. 2) A lot of software developers in industry have not hit that senior developer level, infact most software developers are junior developers with X years of experience 3)Non CS branches are dead engineering branches that's the reason why most schools have reduced their intake. Non CS branches like mech,civil,electrical are research arenas. Do you agree with this 2 points.??
30 years ago you had to be good in order to make it in the field. Everything is dumbed down nowadays and everyday average idiots are flocking to the profession because of the pay. Many managers can't tell the difference between good work and lousy work either. They are impressed by flashy graphics, useless features and large volumes of code. They just accept things that often run slowly, crash or produce incorrect results. Imagine if they hired such poorly-qualified people to be surgeons or pilots.
@@dennis567 Big tech does not hire for an exact skill set (unless you are going for a very specific research role, but those make up maybe 1% of all open positions). It's actually impossible for them to hire for an exact skill set, because of the amount of in-house technologies. E.g. at Google you can pass your interview in pretty much whatever language, and then be assigned to a team writing in Go, using mostly tools that you can't even access if you are not a Google employee.
Make sure to put office hours questions in the comments. You can find Rahul Pandey's channel here ua-cam.com/users/RahulPandeyrkp
FYI, projected retirement numbers assume a 9% YoY growth, the average since 2006.
I just got into amazon as an sde Steve. My question is, why not do your own thing? Smart and experienced folk like you create the real value in any org. Why not use that value for yourself?
I just figured out that I have been solely in output mode and not impact mode. Thx for tip nr. 2 !
BTW: Platform/Systems Engineer.
Wow you really are like the opposite of tech lead, well done
This is very sickomode truth gang stuff
tech lead is weird, he was only good in old times but now completely ridiculous, not forgetting he and joma tech ripped off clement's AlgoExpert hard work, horrible.
@@HassaanALal thanks for the knowledge transfer explainer there, youtube subject matter expert
Tow unstoppable forces 😂😂😂💀
@@HassaanALal True, it's no wonder his own wife took the kids and disappeared lmao. He's an awful person.
1. Getting your money right:
This includes saving.
You could also put those savings in the market, and sticking it through up or down and seeing what it amounts to later. (Time passes really quickly)
2. Preferring output over impact:
Finding task that differentiate yourself.
Finding a meaningful refactor that prevents future bugs is better than routinely integrating package updates.
Great to have a nose for outsized impact.
3. Not thinking clearly about staying or leaving your team:
Sure, that hop could increase your compensation but you could be leaving a good team and moving to something worse.
If you're in a bad environment, don't believe promises but watch the management's actions to see if they're actually dealing with the root problem.
Ultimately, if you're in a good spot, don't throw it all away. You'll only recognize your golden ages from hindsight.
Thank you Jeremy!
Impact over output?
@@slippinchillin It should've been not getting money right, since the video is about career killers/mistakes 😅
Thanks
@@slippinchillin
EDIT: Nevermind, the commenter just made a typo while summarizing the video
I think he meant you should prefer impact over output; his *mistake* was spending too much time maximizing output instead of impact
Thanks!
My biggest mistake in my career is never letting my manager know I wanted a promotion. Don't wait years to "get ready" just ask your manager what you need to do early to get the next position.
really love the mature way of looking at things.
a consistent thing I've read on Reddit is the need for software engineers to understand relationships, office politics, etc. Soft skills.
The way you present the case for making yourself a priority in a positive way shows experience in the industry. Looking forward to future content
Just a short story to address your last point. I worked for a company that shall remain nameless. They were failing. The CEO skipped the country because it had been discovered he was embezzling. They laid off half the company. We got written up in the press, and one writer said, and I quote "clearly the only workers remaining there are stupid and cannot find other work". I was one of the few people actually working there. Others were playing board games on the whiteboards. This was after the 2008 downturn, so jobs were not easy to find. So I left to take a contract. I would not say my career tanked, but those were some bad years and some stretches of unemployment.
The company? They got bought by a very good company, and people I know there went on to work for years there productively. The moral of the story is that what seems to be black and white, sometimes isn't.
Thank you for sharing, are you still contracting or doing FTE work now that you've had this experience?
@@nicksrub I'm 65, I have been an engineer since 19, technician before that, and repaired TVs in my parents garage for money when I was 15. I guess what other folks think of as career markers just strike me as a phase.
The story above was 2009 if I recall, just after the "great recession" of 2008. I didn't escape that, but not for the obvious reasons. My wife of 13 years decided that was the time to get a divorce. About the only good thing that resulted from that is that our house's value was depressed, and so I could buy her out. Things have changed since then. During the time I described, I got very good at making spreadsheets, and what I found in those days was that I was going to lose the house shortly. I rented out two rooms for a while and got past that. I think by 2010-2011 things took off again, and they really haven't slowed down since then.
I did full time up to 62 years of age, and preferred that. After 60, I got lots of interviews, but no interest. Since then it appears more companies are interested in having me as a contractor. I can't say if it is because of my age, or the times we live in. I can't say it is not possible to get full time now, when there seems to be a lot of demand. It just seems far easier to get contracts, and those have been good. My last contract was Apple. My current one is Google. Not exactly poor companies :-)
@@scottfranco1962 wow that's fascinating! Glad you're still in the industry after all these years! What would you have done career-wise if you had to start over now?
@@nicksrub Invest heavily in Microsoft? Kidding. Probably get a PHD. My career never really got to the levels of tech that I wanted. Other than that, I don't think there was a perfect path. The guys I knew who really took off in the valley just retired early or became managers. I never wanted to shorten my career, just work on better quality stuff.
@@scottfranco1962 Thank you for sharing.
I'm starting as an SDE I at Amazon in a month and I just found your channel while looking for advice and I love the content. Thanks for sharing your knowledge Steve!
As a non-engineer I've been really appreciating your videos- they apply to most roles. Cheers!
Woot thanks for the shoutout Steve! Would love to hop on a call 😇
I'm a mechanical engineer but I still found your advice useful. Thank you.
Thank you for these videos. You're like a non-toxic, positive, wise tech veteran I can actually look up to. I'm taking it as a sign from the universe that one of your favorite books "so good they can't ignore" is also my favorite self help/ career book ha. Hope your time off from full time employment is off to a good start and looking forward to more of your videos :D
Randomly came across this as an aspiring coder scouring UA-cam. Been a full time club dj for 15 years. The setup in the background caught my eye lol. And then to find out I’m assuming you’re also Vietnamese? Subscribed. Keep up the good content!
1. Start investing early (time in market > timing market)
2. Look for impact, not productivity = find teams that can be impactful, where other people can see you
3. Know when to leave a team
I don't agree... I sadly invested in the highest point in November 2021 and now my pirtfolio is -30%. I really regret investing. Luckly I just put 10% of my money in the stock market.
I'm not even in software engineering but this was just so useful in general! Thanks for your honest and upfront thoughts from your own personal experience - will bear this in mind for the future when I'm thinking about switching jobs 🤗
Senior engineer laid off last week. Loving your videos as I prepare for a lead roll. Keep up the great work!
hi im from europe and lay offs are extremely rare here. why would they lay off a senior engineer in america?
@@adrianalter8935 unsure, there was a 10% layoff across the board in engineering. I was the newest senior on the team as I had recently changed teams just a couple months prior
@@jgdovin1 damn thats unfair
I don't know if you covered this topic yet, but I think something I struggle with is words. To form clear and concise words in speaking. Coding is half the battle. Being able to communicate your thoughts to the targeted audience is just, if not, more important I feel like. Thank you!
I really agree with the point of view that impact over output is best for our career as well as for our sense of importance about the things we do.
Man.
That was fantastic. Especially 5:15. I've had that thought many times to leave a team to do work I actually wanted to but kept getting bogged down by things like loyalty and how it would be perceived and who it would hurt and just let myself stagnate until (for better or worse), I burnt out and layoffs happened.
I've had a lot of time to reflect and honestly, I guess I just should have been a better advocate for myself.
Point 2 is spot on! Couldn’t agree more! I’m no Software Engineer. I worked with them. A few years back, there was a “golden” opportunity to demonstrate a full-system demo to SVP and CEO. But I needed helps from SWE. To my surprise, I literally walked to each and every SWE desk my buildings, asked for help, promised that this would be super high impact if succeeding. “Nah man, I gotta do code review, bug fix, commit, etc etc” I sent email to different SWE groups, tried my best to sell the high impact opportunity. No response.
or its just not that promising
I love your comments about "Preferring Output Over Impact". Good food for thought, made me think about my career
Man I don't know why UA-cam algorithms recommend you only now? Your content is pure gold, keep doing. Nowadays it is very hard to find an open opinion on all questions of Tech Industry from mature and experienced senior persona. There too much junior and newbie opinions around.
Just want to give you motivation to keep doing, maybe small one, but still :D
I am a principal SWE at on of the largest tech companies and I agree on everything, especially impact over the raw output.
Thank you for your excellent advice. Best of luck for your channel and I'll be looking forward to your content.
My current dev job is "boring", but also easy, pay is decent (and growing) and there is no stress (no real deadlines)
I feel like there is not much "progress", my team is nice, but there is not much new to learn from them.
I do private side projects where I improve my skills.
I think other jobs could have more interesting projects and a higher skill level, so I think about qutting often. But the easy / no stress part of the current job holds me back, because I hear many bad stories from other people who suffer from stress and angry managers.
Amen. Writing my own language/compiler at the moment. It's a great exercise to keep improving my skills. I've quiet quit at my current position and just meet expectations.
Cool, I need one automation dev ops job like that.
Wow. I’m actually a trainee and my job at the moment was migrating bower to npm. I don’t think that’s a bad position atm as it was a good learning experience. But I’ll make sure to take note for when it becomes my main task later in the future
I want to be honest
I find this channel very valuable and so helpful.
As software engineer now on my first year , I consistently sacrificed my evening to get things done but no one really noticed this things.
Thanks a lot for this amazing clear organized argument.
I do love how what you say sounds simple but is incredibly difficult to self-introspect about lol very good video
I'm thinking about changing roles and UA-cam recommends this video, man the algorithm is nuts! Thanks for the tips 😁
just stumbling upon uncle steve and i'm loving the direct and truthful advice ♥
I’m a 12-year Software Engineer myself and the most important thing you mentioned was the Toxic Environment situation.
I need to watch this entire channel multiple times to educate myself on how to evaluate life as an engineer. It will help with the behaviour interview chats. 👍
I never comment on UA-cam but thank you for bringing your professionalism and knowledge out into the public for others education and growth. I'm sure youre very busy but if somehow you could upload more frequently I and everyone else would eternally appreciate it. I found your channel today and have already gone through every video
Steve you have a fabulous channel. Thanks so much for all of your well researched and informative videos.
Great vid! Starting as an Amazon intern in a couple weeks so been watching a lot of your channel and rahuls recently. Feel a lot more comfortable about everything and nice to see the perspective of principal and sr engineers
That's huge. Good job and good luck. What internships did you get before Amazon?
Discovered this channel today and your videos are a breath of fresh air in the youtube SW career space for someone like me. I am relatively early in my career and shooting for the stars, and your advice is pragmatic and genuine. Thank you for all that you do, you make a bigger difference than you think.
After having my first real job at a big-name, on a mission-critical service with a 23-yo Perl code base, having embarked on (and failed at) two full-scale gradual rewrites, I got kinda hooked on that, so most subsequent "ships" I got on were also sinking: organisationally, socially, professionally, technically, or all of the above.
The "words vs actions" advice is spot on! A sinking ship that's being actively (and competently) salvaged can be greatly beneficial career-wise, especially if you live to see the success of it. You'll have the opportunity to make a lot of highly-impactful decisions and do stuff that's usually already done ages before you. A sinking ship can do just that, though - sink; leaving you with a short and unattractive resume section.
It's quite hard to tell one from the other at the interview stage unless you've had experience with both, but one thing you can do is, "describe one serious problem with your ", then "so what's the plan about it?" It is a hard set up for most interviewers, so make sure not to come off as too aggressive or critical
This speaks volumes. I appreciate the great content.
Excellent information. We realized late that we were in a excellent team.
You are in a good team when you are making impact otherwise you need to go.
Why? Because if you are not making a impact that means that you are losing your previous knowldge, your are not getting new knowledge or challenge. I had a co-worker that mentioned to me that he felt like a robot pressing a button. I understant what he meant. Thats means you are wasting your professional career.
Your channel just popped up in my feed and I’m loving the content! About to graduate with a CS degree and felt your perspective was honest and refreshing. Keep it up, got yourself another subscriber!
I’m working on all this but specifically making an impact because I’m now a senior engineer and lead. Thanks
Totally know what you mean about not knowing when you are in a golden age. That one hits hard...
so much thank, im a 21 old trying to find out how to be a good professional, i save your tips directly into my heart
Wow... my life just flashed before my eyes. Thanks for the advice. Liked and Subscribed!
This is stuff that could benefit a LOT of careers, not just software. Well done! Also, I should add, don't invest ALL your money into a 401k, I typically only invest up to how much the company fully matches. The rest I put into an index fund or etf. The reason is if you end up retiring early OR need to take some time in between jobs like if you end up moving and don't have a job for a while, money wrapped up into a 401k cannot be withdrawn before a certain age without penalty, whereas money in an Index fund could be pulled out fairly quickly. If you have a million or two in an index fund you could live fairly comfortably off of the interest alone in a normal, non-recession environment.
My first time discovering your channel. Packed with quality content. Just subbed! Thanks for delivering top notch as always.
Extremely good video. The only critique is the tile should not be specific to software engineers, but to almost all jobs, which even is not a real criticism at all.
You're just one of the best tech youtuber out there no doubt.
Well said on recognizing Golden Ages. It’s bitter sweet 🙂
I, unfortunately, check all the boxes in the current situation. Just committed to leetcode! People like you are true mentors providing directions pro bono. Thank you for putting this together.
Get the yearly subscription to LC
How's the leetcode going, have you worked towards changing jobs?
@@mladizivko hey, thank you! Just in the process. Lets see.
Great advices, especially point 2!
For me the hard part is to go for it when you feel like you have stopped growing. You value the security of the income to pay mortage, maybe you have a kids to think about.
So you want to keep growing by moving to another job, but you don't know beforehand if it will be better. I've heard stories of people getting it even worse after leaving.
I've been 3 years at my current job, I work with decent team, good manager and a nice product. But I'm not very challenged and I also feel like the one taking most technical decisions, I miss someone "better" than me that I can learn from.
I've just applied for a job in Amazon, it helps me a lot watching your channel, thanks a lot for all the tips!
Thank you so much for your contents. I subscribed by the way. I'm just lost by now in my career and I'm thankful I stumble in your channel.
Thank you! Very valuable advices. You are awesome!
Wow, just wow. What fantastic, actionable advice given in such a humble manner. I hope I get to work with more people like you as I progress. Gonna take your advice and run with it. See you in the field!
I really like your videos. No hype, no "how to do {thing} fast", sub'ed!
Not sure how UA-cam algo for me here. This advice is priceless... period.
Love your content, happy i found you!
The cost of gaining this knowledge firsthand is pretty high. This video is pure gold.
Your words are golden to me now. Thanks for sharing. Subbed. Looking forward to more content! I'm hoping to be a software engineer manager in the future :)
Wise and smart ideas. You really changed my expectations. Appreciate it
great advice and very helpful information!
it can be so overwhelming to understand the long term perspective when you;'re new to the industry and role.
looking forward to more like this!
Great video, thanks for being so honest and helpful.
This video was really great. Thank you for sharing your experience!
Thanks for the video!
This video was quite timely for me. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the video. Very insightful.
Thanks nerd. Love your videos.
Finally, responsible points. Such a rare view on UA-cam.
Very good advice.
There are probably a lot of mediocre managers at mediocre companies hoping that their software developers don't hear your advice.
Thanks for the info! Very useful!
This is an eye opener. Thanks Steve
I’d love to watch a video with insights on architecture. Thank you very much for your work!
the heck, where do software engineers make 350k and for what workload?
More of what mistakes to avoid plz. Thanks for this.
This channel is going to explode! Keep it up!
I also heard from many online that you should always try leaving a company after 2 years to get the most income changes. Do you feel like this is something you would have done in the past? Like going from Amazon to Facebook or Netflix?
Great video. Subscribed!
It's like what Steve said it doesn't have to be every 2 years only until you feel like you are being undervalued at your current company should you move on to greener pastures.
Depends on the company. If it's one that values you properly, you will be getting the proper yearly raises.
The third tip could be applied to domains other than software engineer. Thank you for your advice.
This video is a literal gold mine ❤️
"Time in the market is more important than timing the market". man, this is so true.
Most of my money is "time in the market", but I use a small portion to time the market as well to keep it interesting. You don't have to go all in to make it interesting, just use play money.
Hi, thanks a lot for the video. I am an SDE2 in Amazon. I want to work on projects that we can patent. I have not worked in research teams. I am a backend software engineer but always have an ambition to file patents. People say come up with an idea and then we can see if we can file a patent. I see that you have some patents in your LinkedIn profile.
1. What kind of teams do I need to join where I get to work on problems that could be patented? New initiative or teams that closely with research teams (CV/ML). ?
2. How to come up with an idea or a new way to solve a situation that could be patented?
3. How to drive 1-1s with manager and make sure we are getting visibility for what we are doing?
Tbh patents are not very interesting in the software field. Really cool stuff is either a) published in the open in research papers and presented at conferences or b) so secret that it is not deemed worth disclosing sufficient details about it to the patent office.
Thanks for the wisdom!
men u just save my life.God Bless
Something I've learnt through my years of working is to not get attached to company tools or workflows. How many times have you gotten used to some arbitrary way of doing something to realize that is not how everyone else does things? For example any overly simplified SaaS platform(eg. Pivotal, Heroku) for hosting your apps. While it helps you deploy things fast, how much do you really understand beyond your code?
This is a gold mine, 10 videos that really give me frame and perspective. I've seen things, but honestly I didn't know what I've seen. Still I wish you can do more videos. btw calling yourself Meta is obviously very weird, lol.
@2:30 - the most valuable lesson I was ever taught - even more valuable when running your own business!!!
Also, thanks for the vid! Great tips and you earned my sub by not beating around the bush, plus not doing a 5 minute paid promo half way through the first 5 minutes LOL
Thanks again for the career tips
Thank you so much for this video!🙏🏼😊
10/7 advice thank you for sharing
Wow, I was prepared to get outraged again, like I always like to be with my "background chatter". But this was actually a very nice video! I think the only problem with it is, from my observation, that without having had the experiences you had, one is not able to recognize what exactly you are meaning. Saying "if you are the biggest fish in the pond" is different from recognizing that. Or what could be better/different/adding to your experience. It is a tricky subject afterall!
Hey Steve, it would be very interesting to hear about your internal movement within Amazon over the years, and your reasons for switching teams. When is it advisable to apply internally instead of applying elsewhere? Thanks!
sir you're saving lives. I hope you know that
Very helpful! Thank you.
How does the sheet on 1:14 work? What do the rows and columns mean? How can I calculate my profit in a such way?
Thanks so much
This is quite helpful
Good job, keep it up!
You gained yourself a new sub!
Great advice
In addition to the excellent ones you mention the biggest career mistakes I see young engineers make (some of which I too made in the early days): willful ignorance of office politics. Failure to understand the importance of self-advocacy. Staying for more than 3-6 months after you would have otherwise left to see if you get that promotion. Fear of change in general. The nth time you do something is less scary than the n-1th.
I think those are some great tips! Thanks
Hello Sir,
Can you make a video about
1. Is there really a shortage of senior software engineers as Big Tech claims?
2.What are the traits/skills or expectation that companies are looking for when they hire especially BigTech ? (Also the key skill set that is missing from candidates due to which there is such a shortage )
#1 - Answering from an American perspective -
One hundred percent. People who are truly good at software engineering (i.e senior software engineers and above) are in severe short supply, and they will likely be for the foreseeable future because the American education system cannot produce enough good engineers to fill that gap. The US WILL need immigrants to fill it. The rub though, is that beginner/mediocre software engineers are dime a dozen. The question is how do you filter the applicant pool so that American companies remain competitive.
Also, just to be sure, this is not the problem with only software engineers. Most engineering fields have this shortage. Electrical, Mechanical, Aerospace, Civil, whatever. The US doesn't produce enough engineers.
@@PristinePerceptions
From what I have heard,
1) Companies want people with exact skill set and they don't want to spend money on training them.
2) A lot of software developers in industry have not hit that senior developer level, infact most software developers are junior developers with X years of experience
3)Non CS branches are dead engineering branches that's the reason why most schools have reduced their intake. Non CS branches like mech,civil,electrical are research arenas.
Do you agree with this 2 points.??
@@dennis567 you are very true on your 2 points here but 1) exact skillset + adaptability + self-driven
30 years ago you had to be good in order to make it in the field. Everything is dumbed down nowadays and everyday average idiots are flocking to the profession because of the pay. Many managers can't tell the difference between good work and lousy work either. They are impressed by flashy graphics, useless features and large volumes of code. They just accept things that often run slowly, crash or produce incorrect results.
Imagine if they hired such poorly-qualified people to be surgeons or pilots.
@@dennis567 Big tech does not hire for an exact skill set (unless you are going for a very specific research role, but those make up maybe 1% of all open positions).
It's actually impossible for them to hire for an exact skill set, because of the amount of in-house technologies. E.g. at Google you can pass your interview in pretty much whatever language, and then be assigned to a team writing in Go, using mostly tools that you can't even access if you are not a Google employee.
great content!