I know a former Amazon Engineer.
After working at Amazon as a mid level engineer, co-founded his own startup in Mexico, as CTO.
It's a startup... titles in a 50 people organization don't compare to 50,000 people organization titles.
I'm sure you can go and be a VP at a startup too, if that's what you want to do. Just go and network at Incubator, Investor, & Entrepreneur events/meetups/organizations, and come up with an idea & customers, then execute and try to get customers on board... rinse and repeat.
In the morning, say 5 things you are grateful for.
Imagine how you can be grateful and happy with what you currently have. Rather than wanting something else. Try to do away with your wants: stop wanting more. Take notice of what you have.
Now...
The answer to your question is a simple equation which has been written numerous times around the internet, in various forums. But I'll chart it out here, yet again.
First define your goal. Looks like you've already done that.
Programming is just a tool. And so, as a tool, it can help you build various things and a career along the lines of the ones you've mentioned.
Such as skills in: full stack web app dev. Full stack Phone App dev. data science. Web or Network Security.
Either way-- Whether you become a web app developer or some other technical role-- The following still applies:
- Build projects (A. Study how to make small projects via tutorials on Udemy.com / Youtube / www.Libgen.is books B. Extrapolate what you learn (such as writing functions and REST API + UI) Let's say you want to be a BUsiness Analyst (btw, what the heck does Business Analyst even mean, lol? I was a Business Systems Analyst for a bit-- guess what: I mostly did programming work >.< it was my first programming job and led to web dev) That said, lets say you want to do economic analysis of something... make that project into a case study. And now your case study is a 'project' you built. Now you can publish it on your website to get traction (i.e. market yourself).
- Publish your projects: to Github to show your code off, and link to those projects from your website (i.e. web portfolio -- look for web portfolio templates. For example, you can mostly copy and paste html/css from some of these (mix and match) https://bulmatemplates.github.io/bulma-templates/ <-- example of a css framework, this one is called Bulma).
- Create a LinkedIn Presence
- Start working: Don't worry about getting paid much especially if you don't yet have a strong, productive skillset. I started at a e-commerce website for $13/hr (In USA). I also did contract consulting work (in this case, accounting at $25/hr (In USA)). This allowed me to: A. Learn how to conduct business B. Grow my network Later I did digtial marketing at an IT security company. The CRM I used (Marketo) led me into other jobs because the skillset of using Marketo is in demand for marketers. That led me into a role as the business systems analyst I mentioned above. Which led into web dev -- which was my goal.
- Be willing to move: If you live somewhere without a burgeoning tech industry, you'll obviously have a higher probability of landing for your first jobs much more easily, if you move to a place which does have a burgeoning tech industry. Personally, I camped in a tent in the San Francisco bay area for 2 weeks, then couch surfed for 4 weeks because I was adamant about becoming a software developer. So, you might have to make some strategic sacrifices.
Other than that... Just go, sit down, and study and build and market yourself. That's all it takes: a strategy of studying, building, and marketing.
It is sad to see that folks put a company and its equity-holders first, before attending to their own lives outside of work. They put off their personal relationships and personal care activities (such as exercise, getting outside, various healthy activities away from a computer), and instead put that time into going above and beyond a 40 hour work week... and yet are barely (if at all) recognized for their efforts.
I am so glad to see people speak out about their experience, especially at companies which claim to uphold a certain set of values. Such as Amazon or Airbnb.
I recall at Twilio, I was emailed by an HR person ... from the email account of a Director of Engineering. An HR person impersonated a Director of Engineering in order to recruit and have a better chance of getting the attention of software engineers, to attempt to persuade those engineers to join their team.
Yet, one of Twilio's principles is/was "Transparency". Yet, there they were-- their HR people engaging in practices which are deceptive.
We must hold companies to their supposed principles, and to a reasonable expectation of professional ethics in general. \
If the supply of houses were not artificially constrained, their price would not go up like crazy, and Blackrock would simply not invest. They don't like to invest in things that don't appreciate in value. The fact that their buying drives the price up could be superficially perceived as a win-win for them. In reality, whenever someone is large enough so that their buying of a thing drives up the price of said thing, a roundtrip (first buy, then sell) generally leaves them poorer overall.
It’s a downside for the many of capital concentration by the few. Basic necessities look attractive, money like that needs someplace to go, according to its owners. Wait until tap water is mostly owned by private capital.
There is a tremendous amount of housing, it’s just not where people want to live. The housing crisis should really be reframed as an urban housing crisis.
I don’t think copious jobs are the reason, because we don’t really know that. People only think that, so it drives they’re push to the urban environment.
Also, who are the ones complaining about lack of housing? I’d be willing to guess that it’s predominantly people who can afford housing just fine, they just can’t afford housing where they want to live.
RV Parks have very specific requirements which usually disqualify Vans. Also, RV parks aren't usually a community of youngish professionals I was looking for. I think they tilt towards retirees and/or groups not in the professions.
Super cool, looks great. Interesting to see you built it with Typescript.
I was wondering-- and I know this is a long story, but I am curious:
How does one go about building a PostgreSQL driver for NodeJS in Typescript?
How do you design and begin that sort of thing? What sort of knowledge resources did you rely on (i.e. documentation, other references)?
I googled 'database driver' to get a definition: "A database driver is a computer program that implements a protocol (ODBC or JDBC) for a database connection. The driver works like an adaptor which connects a generic interface to a specific database vendor implementation."
I did not built it with Typescript, just plain js - I don't use Typescript at all(not my cup of tee), but a kind soul (thanks @minigugus) contributed the typings ;)
I actually began it out of curiosity and because I was missing features in the current options. I had been using a wrapper around pg-promise to give me the API i wanted for quite a while, and one day when going through the PostgreSQL documentation I landed on the protocol (https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/protocol.html) pages. Now the PostgreSQL documentation might seem daunting at first, but once you figure out the structure and semantics it's such an insanely good resource. I had the first POC version working over a weekend, and from there it was about 80% of the way to support all the things I needed. Now the Postgres protocol is actually fairly simple, and I suppose that's why other databases have chosen to use it as well (eg. Postgres.js also works with cockroachdb).
I would love to write a longer post about the progress at some point, but I haven't found the time for it yet.
I can only assume that I've finally found a soulmate that just don't like writing TS code.
Like, in my full-time job I'm using 100% TypeScript, but I don't really ENJOY writing in it - that's why in my all side-projects I use good old JavaScript.
I think it's just a personal syntax preference.
But I don't want to answer this for the OP, just added my 2cents, maybe he has similar feeling about it :)
Haha.. There's plenty of us out there, it's probably just that we'd rather do actual stuff than talk about doing it. A bit like Typescript - it doesn't really do anything, it just talks about it.
Joking aside, I generally don't want to get into the debate, because I believe people work differently, and there should be room for doing both things. It's just a bit sad that Typescript is being pushed so hard as if it's the only right way.
> It's just a bit sad that Typescript is being pushed so hard as if it's the only right way.
It's being evangelised as if it has zero downsides, it introduces overhead to what can already be a brittle dependency/build chain - providing questionable levels of actual type safety. This is coming from someone who generally prefers typed languages too, Typescript to me is the exception to that rule.
> Now I use esbuild instead of tsc, and I have the best of both worlds.
I'm interested in this. I know esbuild can compile TypeScript to JS, but that it doesn't serve as an actual typechecker. Without tsc as a dev dependency, do you just rely on your IDE's intellisense to tell you when there's a type error?
I still install tsc, but I don’t actually do the type checking except at release time (and whatever typechecking the IDE provides through the language server).
It is incredibly intense-- even traumatic. And there is no precise "dosing".
Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate.
Hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatievely, and never stop-- and there is no cure if they do, for example: "Hallucinogen-persisting perception disorder (HPPD) is a long-lasting and potentially permanent syndrome characterized by a spontaneous recurrence of perceptual/visual disturbances".
It is not worth the risk. You have only one brain-- don't tamper with its health and safety. Again-- there's no hidden knowledge there, no enlightenment. It's not worth it: put your focus on something valuable, productive, and safe.
Have you ever hit rock bottom? Have you ever not wanted to exist anymore? I have, and it was terminal. Do you know what saved me? DMT.
DMT saves my life. And every time I wanted it to end and I chose a pipe before going through with it, I was saved again. DMT taught me many things, but most of all it taught me how to love myself and how to love life.
Mushrooms reinforced those lessons. It took me from poverty to using my natural gifts (coding, tech) in a way that added value to society & let me acquire prosperity.
If it wasn’t for psychedelics, I’d have been 6 ft under many years ago and all the good I’ve experienced and spread would have never happened.
DMT let me make contact with an eternal and boundless love. Maybe it was imagined, maybe it was real, but in any case if an illusion teaches you how to love and how to flourish, tells you that you have an important contribution to make, and sets you on a positive course — is it really an illusion? If actionable and material manifestation occurs as a result of the internal changes, then the “reality” of an experience is confirmed.
5-MeO-DMT is like a shortcut stargate straight to that eternal love. It has and will continue to save many, many lives.
Hey there, just wanted to chime in as someone who has both used psychedelics (have used all of those being discussed here) to facilitate long lasting change in my life and who also strongly agrees with the idea that there is no real enlightenment to be found by using drugs.
There was a good quote from Alan Watts regarding this that I’ve carried with me for years: “When you get the answer, hang up the phone.” - which for me is to say that if you think your work is going to be magically over after using psychedelics, it’s not, that’s just the beginning, take what you’ve learned on move on to something more instead of chasing your tail for years attempting to achieve some elusive plateau of being by phoning it in.
To put it another way, a trip by helicopter over a mountain's summit isn't the same as climbing the mountain, but it might open one's eyes to the goal.
I think it was Ram Dass who responded: "I don't hang up on a teacher."
And what if there's more than one answer? Or what if you've forgotten the answer?
Sometimes what you get is not an answer but an experience, or a communion with the sacred or a transcendent reality which is ineffable and can't be brought back to the ordinary world.
A good reminder in general, but I don’t think it’s universally applicable. DMT no longer “works” for me, and my course & role is known. There is no tail chasing here. But “drugs” are just a tool to fix the sickness imbued by a very broken social structure present here. It won’t give you “enlightenment” or whatever it is you’re after, but it will set you on the path which would otherwise be inaccessible.
That path demands a lot relative to what we think we need to do to thrive. It requires a lot of work to become simple, a lot of resolve, and a lot of comfort with self. And you often lose course, especially when revisiting mass society for any duration — and in those cases, revisiting psychedelics are very beneficial.
Alan Watts wasn’t alone. He had community and an environment that enabled him to say those things and think that way. He was outside the prison of ordinary society and could afford to hang up. His original audience could also afford that. Most of us cannot.
People in ordinary society need reminders external. Anyone still asleep or just partially awake needs reminders, otherwise the system will make you forget and you’ll be consumed again.
Morally speaking, I don’t view psychedelics as “drugs”. I view them as respecting elders and listening to the original masters; a communion with the plants and the Earth. They all originate from the plants and Earth — psilocybin, from mushrooms; LSD from ergot (a fungi); mescaline from the cactus (a prickly desert thriver, with a warm and soft guiding soul); DMT from nearly every plant and animal alive (the truth is hidden inside all of is); 5-meo-dmt from the Sonoran desert toads and poison tree frogs…and many more, many undiscovered. Knowing these masters requires a level of species evolution and a respect for the elders, the true elders. They do not have human faces or forms, they are alien relative to us and what we have become.
Just as I would always listen to my late grandparents when they had stories to share, and my parents when they have the same, or as I listen to a monk share their story and spend time helping when visiting their temples (of any belief), listening to their lessons, I listen to the stories and wisdom of these plants. Not for fun; not for “enlightenment”; not for power; not in fear or shame or dogma or rigidity; but simply because they are speaking. And when an ancient elder speaks, you ought to stop what you’re doing for a moment and listen. They might just help you in ways you never knew you needed.
> Stay away from all drugs. Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge. They throw your neuro-chemicals out of balance-- potentially forever if you're misfortunate.
Counterpoint: I have done quite a lot of DMT and 5-MeO-DMT and they were both fun and interesting substances.
My advice is: Do not stay away from drugs unless: a) that is your personal preference, b) you have a specific medical issue that precludes being able to experiment with something safely or c) you are not curious enough to educate yourself thoroughly about a substance before trying it out.
HPPD is wildly exaggerated by almost exclusively people that have a vested interest in policing other people’s behavior and values. Belief in the dangers of “the ability of any substance to permanently change your brain in a negative and nonspecific way” (a hilarious logically impossible supposition) almost always follow up with “don’t do drugs, instead do what I tell you to do. Read my self help book or convert to my religion. My values are the best values.”
>almost always follow up with "“don’t do drugs, instead do what I tell you to do. Read my self help book or convert to my religion. My values are the best values.”"
Eh, it's a fine line that once crossed, you don't get to come back from.
I'm glad I stopped drugs when I did. If I could go back in time, I would have never had started doing drugs in my teenage years but unfortunately it was part of my family culture.
The problem with your advice is that it comes with the risk of grievous bodily harm. Not just to one's self, in the case of: if you're predisposed to mental health problems (such as schizophrenia, etc.) or physical health problems (such as heart palpitations or other heart problems), but potentially to other people: if you're using drugs and accidentally affect someone else negatively (physically or emotionally).
I think it's naive to encourage people to do drugs, as it speaks from a place of "Drugs have always been fun and good for me. Therefore they'll always be fun and good for you!" Much like the dogmatic philosophy you mentioned-- no offense, but you seem to be representing a similar dogmatic philosophy but at the other-side of the spectrum (of drug encouragement).
Also, investigating a drug does not in any way guarantee it will not traumatize you or negatively effect you (or others) forever.
Drugs have a high risk of being dangerous, hazardous, addicting, etc.-- that's why they're controlled substances.
"The problem with your advice is that it comes with the risk of grievous bodily harm."
I hope you don't ride in cars or cross streets, because they also come with risks of grievous bodily harm.
"Drugs have a high risk of being dangerous, hazardous, addicting, etc.-- that's why they're controlled substances."
Food and sex can be addictive, and plenty of people's health is ruined by them.
Also, plenty of dangerous, hazardous, and addictive drugs like alcohol and cigarettes are not controlled substances.
Psychedelic and cannabis use was associated with minorities, the counterculture, and antiwar protestors. They were seen as a threat to the status quo. Those and some sensationalistic media scares were the real reasons they were banned.
> you seem to be representing a similar dogmatic philosophy but at the other-side of the spectrum (of drug encouragement).
My advice to do drugs is immediately followed by a qualifier that states that you should not do drugs if you would prefer not to do them. I can’t think of anything further from dogmatism than “do x thing unless you don’t feel like doing it.”
> The problem with your advice is that it comes with the risk of grievous bodily harm. Not just to one's self, in the case of: if you're predisposed to mental health problems (such as schizophrenia, etc.) or physical health problems (such as heart palpitations or other heart problems), but potentially to other people: if you're using drugs and accidentally affect someone else negatively (physically or emotionally).
This is entirely addressed by parts a and b of what I wrote.
Out of curiosity, what activities are guaranteed to not negatively affect anyone else emotionally or physically? If that’s the hard and fast rule that you live by, I’d love to know what your average day is like.
I’m glad that you figured out that you’d personally prefer not to do drugs. It’s great that you had the opportunity to gain that knowledge through direct experience. In a way, you could say that what you learned about yourself and your life through drugs was something that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise… like hidden knowledge or a personal enlightenment. I’m sure that you would agree that this deep and personal “knowledge” that you possess about drugs probably couldn’t have become so apparent and impactful to you by simply reading a comment about the concept of drugs on an article about toad venom on HN.
All psychedelics are at least as safe as alcohol, if consumed responsibly. We accept alcohol even though drinking too much at one sitting can kill you and drunk people routinely smash their cars into other cars, etc., so 'safety' is a relative concept. Caution is clearly the best approach.
However, the claim that 'hallucinogens can affect you forever, negatively and never stop' is unsupported. These drugs share a common receptor as the basis of their action, the 5-HTP receptor, which is involved with sensory perception at some low level in the brain. This can result in 'visions' or intensified color perception or numerous other effects (synthesia, etc.) Some people enjoy the experience, others do not. The most important rule for the neophyte experimentalist to follow is 'less is more'.
Personally I found psychedelics immensely therapeutic and a great aid to quitting alcohol, and also of great benefit to my 3D-visualization skills. I'd also note that consumer culture norms ('more is always better') can cause disasters when mixed with psychedelics.
However as I note in another comment, toads are a horrible source of 5-MeO-DMT due to the fact that toads of this type contain a variety of other toxins.
"toads are a horrible source of 5-MeO-DMT due to the fact that toads of this type contain a variety of other toxins."
Not only that but these toads are at a risk of extinction due to the human demand for their venom.[1]
We also don't know if the toads are harmed by the venom milking process itself. Toads certainly try to get away from humans and don't seem to want to be touched. Squeezing on their glands might be painful for them, though we can't tell because they don't scream or talk, but they do try to get away.
It's ironic that so many people treat these substances as sacred, and yet the animal that has this substance in its body is so often treated without respect and without regard for its existence.
It's doubly sad because synthetic sources of 5-MeO exist, and they don't harm the toad.
> All psychedelics are at least as safe as alcohol
This is false. LSD and mushrooms are arguably as safe as or safer than alcohol. However...
There are hundreds other psychedelic compounds in existence, and some can acutely cause death, some even at doses close to recreational levels. Phenethylamines can all be deadly, and nboms cause extremely dangerous vasoconstriction. Some significantly lower seizure threshold.
I think the therapeutic potential for psychedelics is very promising, but there are definitely some psychedelics that are much more dangerous than alcohol.
Just practically, 'psychedelics' can be broadly or narrowly defined. Hunger and thirst can induce hallucinations, for example. A wide variety of toxic and pharmacologically active compounds have similar side-effects. Hence, a narrow definition makes more sense, as compounds binding to the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, which is a much smaller list:
I think even the narrow definition includes drugs more dangerous than alcohol.
Chemicals like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/25I-NBOMe#Toxicity are among the most potent agonists of the 5-HT2A receptor, and are also extremely dangerous due to potency and their vasoconstrictive and cardiovascular effects.
A significant number of the deaths the nbom family has caused can probably be attributed to the difficulties of clandestine dosing in microgram amounts, but I think they may still be more dangerous than alcohol even when dosed accurately. It's certainly more dangerous for naive users without the proper equipment to measure and handle it.
Drugs are actually tons of fun. I think in the long run all drugs become detrimental (alc, caffeine, etc) but wow you can have experiences you will never forget and they def-o change the way you look at the world.
I would recommend everybody I know to experiment with drugs. I don’t recommend becoming dependent on ANY drugs.
Despite everyone on the Internet warning me about how everything is dangerous, I have done all these things without even coming close to risking anything.
I've also noticed that people on the Internet think that a child riding their bicycle on the sidewalk is dangerous to other people on the sidewalk. So that leaves me with the natural conclusion: the threshold people pick for unacceptable risk to life and limb is on a wide distribution, so P(I_will_think_x_is_dangerous|someone_told_me) is very low.
And in the end, I've written a lot of code for a lot of people and have led successful organizations, so I know I'm not unproductive and I know I'm still not unproductive. So maybe I'm rolling the dice each time, but you know what? The fact that I've done shrooms tens of times, and alcohol hundreds of times, and LSD some ten times, and I'm able to do all of this and still be okay by society's standards has got to set a lower bound on your posterior probability after reading this comment surely.
There's a lot of nutty mysticism surrounding so many completely normal things. It's like in middle school, when we kids were discussing what condoms make you do. Some theories from the time:
- condoms make you want to kiss someone
- some kid heard about another kid's friend who wore a condom and they got a baby as a result
- another kid heard that condoms are a kind of powder
It is a risk, but so is riding in a car, which can cause irreparable brain damage or death if one is injured in a car accident. Skiing, skydiving, and scuba diving carry similar risks. Even crossing the street is risky.
As adults we evaluate risks and make a decision as to whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
I don't think we can say a priori whether something is too risky for someone without knowing the person and their circumstances. Some people are really at the end of their rope and desperate to try anything, and have already tried many risky things (like antidepressants or other medication, each of which carries their own risks and possibly severe side effects) and will continue doing risky things without a fraction of the potential benefits of psychedelics.
There have been studies which show that psychedelics help people, even to the point of "curing" some of them after a single dose. The evidence so far shows enormous promise and far more effectiveness than traditional antidepressants for severe-treatment resistant depression.
How can we tell people who are suffering, some of whom are suicidal even, that they shouldn't try something which holds so much promise?
Yes, there are risks, and no guarantees. But steps can be taken to maximize the chances of a positive experience... such as doing it in a safe setting with a trusted, trained therapist or guide, and spending a lot of time afterwards integrating the experience with a therapist.
Some other recommendations for enhancing safety:
- lie in the recovery position[1], with the mouth facing downward so fluid can drain
- abstain from food and drink for at least 4 or 5 hours beforehand
- don't mix substances
- thoroughly vet anyone you entrust your safety to, and stay away from facilitators who mess with your body or mind during the experience
Also see the best practices guide of The Conclave: [2]
> Drugs do not lead to enlightenment. They do not lead to some hidden knowledge.
This reminds me of something near the end of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas":
> We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled the 60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling "consciousness expansion" without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy peace and understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole lifestyle that he helped to create. A generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the acid culture: The desperate assumption that somebody - or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
My own experience is relatively tame. I'd say the worst part was the difference between my expectations and reality. The "hidden knowledge" you talk about and the "fallacy of the acid culture" are a good illustration of that. But I wouldn't call this life-altering or destroying. It's like going to a country that you really want to go to, only to find out it's not what you expected. I've seen many people that would rationalize this by saying "the drugs showed you what you needed, that you need to manage your expectations", but you can rationalize/anaylze any situation in your life like that. I went to Chernobyl and had a great time, so I should try to go out of my comfort zone more often. I didn't do my best in school and regret it, so I should try to work have to have less/no regrets. Everything has meaning once you search for it.
"A generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the acid culture: The desperate assumption that somebody - or at least some force - is tending the light at the end of the tunnel."
I'd rather take my chances with the acid culture than with the alcohol culture.
At least there's potential for profound positive healing, empathy for others, and deep contact with the natural world and a transcendent reality.
With alcohol (which Thompson himself seriously abused) the most you get is a bit of social lubrication and maybe a short-lived forgetting of your problems (which, unlike psychedelics, alcohol does not help to come to terms with), while the risks of alcohol are just as great.
I'd also argue that there's a risk to remaining psychedelically naive. The disconnection from nature -- seeing it just as a resource to be exploited -- is one of the major causes of runaway climate change. Psychedelics (though no guarantee) might help to change such attitudes for the better, as multiple studies have shown that they can foster connection and caring for nature. When used constructively, they can also help people have empathy for others -- something we desperately need.
I could go on and on about their potential benefits, but instead I'll just end by noting that it's myopic and one-sided to just look at the acid casualties without looking at all those who've been helped (not hurt) by psychedelics.
Hahaha. As a Mexican, I find the American focus on racism so simultaneously hilarious and unnecessary.
In Mexico, we don't have clean water in our faucets. Electricity and the internet shuts off, randomly due to infrastructure problems or maintenance. And yet, we are humorous. We make fun of each other. And yes, this includes racial and cultural differences which we laugh at, in poking fun at each other, together. In England they might call it "taking the piss out of you". In Mexico, it's normal.
And yet in the US, there's not these "third world problems",
So the aspect of "simultaneously hilarious and unnecessary" I mention is regarding how people in the US, since they don't have "third world problems", they make their own problems to create drama about... I suppose so that they can feel some sort of relevance of a struggle.
In doing so, they reduce the capacity of dialogue, and they ruin and potential existence of Humor in a conversation -- because people are expected to walk on egg shells on certain topics.
It really destroys the fun in conversations when you have to worry about "oh my goodness, I am risking talking about something that's not politically correct! Someone who isn't actually related to the conversation content might pretend to be offended for the sake of some other non-existing-in-the-conversation person to show off their virtuous nature".
>It is conceivable to get paid $70+/h at Series A startups as an intern and $140-150k + 20-40k in options as a new grad.
conceivable? Sure. But what use is "conceivable"? I'd rather know what is "normal" i.e. common.
I think it's more pertinent to represent the median, than say the 80th-90th+ percentile.
For example, I almost interviewed with Vercel recently (accepted an offer from different company, instead of continuing to interview)-- Series D currently [1].
And sure-- this is only one datapoint-- but I think it still illumniates that $70+/h as an intern may be "conceivable" but I doubt it's "common"...
0-1 years of experience there at Vercel pays about $70k-$100k -- And that's in Boston / San Francisco. I would have expected more, given those locations.
Meanwhile, my first programming job was also about $100k, in San Jose, CA (4 months exp. before getting laid off). And then later, $80k on contract, fully remote (2 months on contract. Then got hired on salary by a different company at $105k, still 100% remote.).
Now I have about 3 years of SWE experience and making about $170k TC fully remote ($140k base plus some equity).
I think using comparative benchmarks instead of absolute benchmarks is where we differ. The absolute bar - being able to grok large codebases, work on complex systems, etc. with some help from a senior engineer - is not high. It's the equivalent of a proper undergrad education in CS. So when you set the bar at a, in my opinion, very achievable level, the benchmark is $70/hr for interns. We're not talking Jeff Dean or Linus levels of skill here. You can't just look at the percentiles and say it's unachievable. You have to look at it objectively. We're in a talent shortage precisely because there aren't enough people that meet the low bar.
The question should be, if I work my ass off and get good at what I do, how much could I potentially make as a random new grad / 2-3 yoe SWE? And the answer to that is if you meet the already very low bar, you can make a lot. I never compare myself to the average and you shouldn't either.
I know when my friends at startups look to hire they don't target percentiles, they target an absolute level of skill or intelligence.
> 0-1 years of experience there at Vercel pays about $70k-$100k
That would be getting underpaid if you had the skills I mentioned above.
> Now I have about 3 years of SWE experience
My whole point is that years of experience don't necessarily make you a better engineer. It correlates, but in general having more skill is a step function change compared to another year of experience. A senior engineer at mediocre level will be less productive than a new grad engineer at high skill that needs their hand held on design, because the high skill engineer is capable of doing things the mediocre one can't even complete with infinite time.
It's a startup... titles in a 50 people organization don't compare to 50,000 people organization titles.
I'm sure you can go and be a VP at a startup too, if that's what you want to do. Just go and network at Incubator, Investor, & Entrepreneur events/meetups/organizations, and come up with an idea & customers, then execute and try to get customers on board... rinse and repeat.