Having lived in NYC for most of my life, and surrounded by friends in finance and finance tech, I thought working as a developer in one of the Wall Street firms (investment banks, hedge funds, etc.) was the pinnacle of a technology career. Man was I blind.

Needless to say, on the other side of the continent (and in NYC itself, to a lesser degree) was the Silicon Valley tech industry.

So while I pludged around doing LoB .NET, others were grinding leetcode to get into these tech companies that not only offered stupendously superior compensation but also work and lifestyle perks that put working as a technologist in finance to shame.

If I could rewind my career back ten years, I'd do everything I could to get my foot into the SV tech industry whether here in NY or moving to California. That said, I'm still trying.

I recall back in 2011 or 2012 a Google recruiter even reached out to me and I just ignored her thinking a job at an investment bank was far superior to a job at Google (whether or not I would have passed the Google interview is another story of course...). If I could travel back in time, I'd kick my earlier self in the mouth.