lowiqengineer (u/lowiqengineer)

lowiqengineer commented on Competition and Quarter-Life Crises arvarik.com/competition-q... · Posted by u/arvarik

tidepod12 · 5 years ago

There are certain circles or communities where that's the case, unfortunately. I casually browse Blind sometimes and the overwhelming attitude there is that Amazon is the "lesser" FAANG and is where you work if you couldn't cut it at Google/FB/Netflix. There's a lot of negativity about things like "Amazon doesn't provide free lunch? why even work there? Google gives me free lunch and free dinner!"

There's also a huge emphasis in such circles on compensation, and Amazon supposedly has a somewhat lower total compensation for entry level engineers than Google et al. That's a huge deal to status chasers who only measure their self worth in money.

FWIW I do not recommend browsing Blind because it is full of toxic mindsets like that, nor do I agree at all with it... I'm just sharing some context that such communities do exist.

lowiqengineer · 5 years ago

Same at the top schools. I've never heard of someone at a top school be proud of going to Amazon - it's only something they do if they have no other options in my experience.

lowiqengineer commented on Competition and Quarter-Life Crises arvarik.com/competition-q... · Posted by u/arvarik

bb611 · 5 years ago

> I'd imagine for most of his peers from high school he's considered a disappointment for working at "only" AWS

I went to school at about the same time at the other high school in town (technically 2 towns, 1 combined school district), my family mostly still lives there. A job across the country in a well known tech company is reasonably top 25% of the class or so. Not standout, but nothing to be embarrassed about, and that's where plenty of us ended up.

lowiqengineer · 5 years ago

If your parents don't talk about it (as mine don't, presumably because they're ashamed?) I don't know if it's "nothing to be embarrassed about".

What did the top 1% do? What did your valedictorian(s) do?

lowiqengineer commented on Competition and Quarter-Life Crises arvarik.com/competition-q... · Posted by u/arvarik

arolihas · 5 years ago

If you’re pathetic like me I guess. I only work at IBM on a bunch of Salesforce bullshit, so I find working on AI at AWS to be pretty impressive. Trust me I know there’s tiers to this stuff as someone who hasn’t passed interviews at Google and Citadel.

lowiqengineer · 5 years ago

I see. I don't want to come off as harsh, I work at Amazon myself and know a lot of these people but didn't grow up in the peer group.

lowiqengineer commented on Competition and Quarter-Life Crises arvarik.com/competition-q... · Posted by u/arvarik

lowiqengineer · 5 years ago

I had my first quarter life crisis at 18, when I came to grips with the fact that I had accomplished nothing in my life so far, as evidenced by my lack of good college admissions - I graduated only 2nd in my class with just a 1500 SAT, which isn't good enough for top schools.

Unlike OP, however, it was less of an aimless drift and more of an aggressive, angry depression. Had another one at 20, when I realized that not getting into a FB internship would probably set me back permanently from my goals.

Now I'm 24, work at Amazon and widely considered a disappointment to people in OP's social circles. The pain has waned a bit, but the crisis is just constant now, like the roar of an engine on a long airplane flight in coach. Eventually the discomfort of the resting your head on the window and the anger you feel at the people with lie-flat seats paid for by Google and Facebook overpowers the rest.

lowiqengineer commented on Competition and Quarter-Life Crises arvarik.com/competition-q... · Posted by u/arvarik

arolihas · 5 years ago

As a fellow 23 year old Indian American who grew up in the tri-state area this hit way too close to home. I like to think I learned a lot of the lessons you’ve eschewed during my time in grad school right now but I caught myself sleuthing on your github and LinkedIn and feeling that familiar sense of envy. Some habits are hard to break I guess.

lowiqengineer · 5 years ago

> but I caught myself sleuthing on your github and LinkedIn and feeling that familiar sense of envy

He works at AWS? Is that considered particularly impressive to be envious over? Sure he went to Hopkins but that's not atypical in the Princeton area.

I'd imagine for most of his peers from high school he's considered a disappointment for working at "only" AWS, they're probably all ML Engineers at FB or Google or Two Sigma, etc.