This video is a personal narrative from a software engineer who shares his journey of six years in the tech industry. He started his career as a programmer in Chicago, moved to Amazon in Seattle, and later joined Google. Despite facing challenges such as breaking production servers and dealing with a lack of industry experience, he persevered and learned new technologies. He also shares key lessons from his journey, including the importance of early interview preparation and the value of internships. He emphasizes that all the struggles were worth it and that "everything will be okay in the end."
1. The speaker started their first job as a programmer in Chicago on March 1, 2017.
2. The speaker moved to Seattle to join Amazon in July 2019.
3. The speaker made several mistakes and learned a lot in their two years at Amazon.
4. The speaker joined Google in April 2021.
5. The speaker is currently dining at a fancy cafe on the Google campus.
6. The speaker had to learn many different technologies and made several mistakes over the last six years.
7. The speaker is about to share the ups and downs of their last six years, including heartache, frustration, and triumphs.
8. The speaker will also share how their salary changed over these six years.
9. The speaker graduated from college in 2016 and decided to become a Mechanical Engineer instead of learning programming.
10. The speaker struggled to learn Java and spent months watching video tutorials.
11. The speaker made some basic projects to give their resume credibility after learning Java.
12. The speaker added some machine learning projects to their resume, which they built using the R language.
13. The speaker learned a harsh truth about a programmer’s life: after learning the basics, every programmer needs to take two separate paths simultaneously.
14. The speaker made several mistakes in their early career, including not preparing for interviews early enough and not doing any internships.
15. The speaker was rejected for many jobs after applying and was told they had no industry experience.
16. The speaker chose a full-time job at a Fintech company over an internship, a decision they later labeled as a mistake.
17. The speaker worked on legacy code from the 1980s at their first job, a job they describe as very hard.
18. The speaker moved to Chicago and started working at a Fintech company, a job they describe as the darkest two years of their life.
19. The speaker worked long hours, often coding until 1 or 2 am, and learned skills like Android development and Web development.
20. The speaker solved another 250 problems on Leetcode, feeling more confident as a result.
21. The speaker was unable to sell their work experience in the job market, leading to job rejections and a desire to go back home to India.
22. The speaker was offered a job at Amazon in April 2019, an offer they accepted.
23. The speaker joined Google in April 2021, where they worked for Google Search in their first year and later moved to Google Assistant to learn new technologies.
24. The speaker worked mostly in C++ at Google and was able to observe excellence in action from their colleagues to the internal tools to the way people are managed.
25. The speaker is confident that all the struggles were worth it and believes that "everything will be okay in the end."