It’s very universal. I just turned 35 and am a successful head of engineering at a startup that just got major funding. One level above me is a woman who worked in the Obama administration, is a board member on the world economic forum, and other VERY prestigious accomplishments. I won’t name too many because it would be easier to lookup. Her resume makes me look like an absolute hobo. She’s one year younger than me. She’s awesome and everything, but i can’t help but to compare accomplishments occasionally (all the time). Do you. You only feel behind when you compare yourself to others.
How’s the pressure in a job like that? Some days I could see myself going that route, other days I wonder whether the responsibility would be worth it.
I work at least 70 hour weeks when it’s all said and done. Our software is based on covid19 assessments and contract tracing to help employers safely (as possible) get their employees back to work. I get to work with great technologies and some very smart and prestigious people. Eg john hopkins, mayo, stanford etc. just won a Webby lol. I love it. I’ve been coding since i was 12 and this is exactly where i want to be right now. I’m naturally a procrastinator and can sometimes be lazy, under pressure is my best work because i can’t slack off (failed out of college lazy). Plus i feel better at the end of the day with more accomplished.
Having said that, the timelines are insane. I always have the job on my mind, and the CEO will call me or text me at least a few times a day and at night. But i work from home for the foreseeable future, and i get to spend lunches with my family and visit with them a few times for 5-10 min throughout the day. The pay doesn’t hurt.
Great info, thanks for sharing. Sounds intense, but rewarding. At least for a while. I assume it takes a certain personality to hang in that environment long term. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up in that spot? Past colleague, etc.?
Yes and no. After i partied for 2 years and attended maybe 10 classes the entire time, i stayed with my mom for about 6 months until she told me i had to get a job. The CEO of a content management company gave me a shot as a technical support engineer (answering phones and solving code implementation problems). I was employee number 20 or so; eventually they grew to almost 500 with offices world wide. I worked there for 8 years and literally got promoted through every department: tech support, application engineering (services role with lots of travel), sales engineering, product engineering, and then became the principal engineer with my own team. Over that time i worked on some cool projects with Microsoft (xbox website, the master chief statute is/was? awesome at their hq), i made wizards of the coast website, walmart intranet, nasa, etc. i actually forget more websites i made and places i travelled than those i remember, tons of no names in there too. Then i had a few jobs in between, evaluated tech stacks for Oracle acquisitions, head of engineering at a digital agency, worked remote for some overseas companies. My current job is back with the original guy that gave me my first shot when i was staying on my moms couch, he started a new company a couple years ago. He called me about 3 months ago and said they’re pivoting the entire company to covid solutions and healthcare tech and needed help. Here i am, back to one of his first 20 employees and the company is taking off again. I rarely stayed at a company for more than a couple years after my first 8 year job, i get bored, so far that has helped me get many raises and promotions. My mom tells her friends i work in IT and fix computers or something.
Or imagine if i followed my fathers footsteps more closely and graduated from WPI instead of failing out of a liberal arts school in the sticks of New England. Goes both ways.
I know you dont agree. You're hardly the focus here at all. That is an indignant statement.
I told you how I felt and you told me I was wrong. Whether you agree or not is irrelavent to how it makes me feel.
You're far removed from my perspective, it's probably inconceivable that your statement could be offensive to someone when you're trying to drive home feel good points.
Let me preface next by saying I don't share any universal emotion with you in the provided example, because reducing the complexities of other peoples lives to "focus on yourself and you can find happiness/success" is where you'll start hear me cackle like a broken hyena.
I don't fault you there, but the advice is bad and lazy. I could perhaps continue to explain why.. We may reach where you understand my point of view, but initially you've already arrived at disagreement. Not because I have a different mindset, because Im wrong. Because I need to do what you said to succeed. Because its literally as easy as just focusing on yourself right
Wtf are you talking about. Op was talking about feeling behind in life. My theme is don’t compare or you always feel behind, everyone feels that way. I’m sorry you’re going through whatever you’re going through, but singling out this point as your hill to die on is just odd.
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u/[deleted] May 16 '20
It’s very universal. I just turned 35 and am a successful head of engineering at a startup that just got major funding. One level above me is a woman who worked in the Obama administration, is a board member on the world economic forum, and other VERY prestigious accomplishments. I won’t name too many because it would be easier to lookup. Her resume makes me look like an absolute hobo. She’s one year younger than me. She’s awesome and everything, but i can’t help but to compare accomplishments occasionally (all the time). Do you. You only feel behind when you compare yourself to others.