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Comment by laidoffamazon | Hacker News Reader

I dunno, 2 of these are at top CS schools that I can't get into, and most of their intern class is from Harvard/CMU/MIT/Stanford/Waterloo and the like. I think I might actually just be objectively inferior in all regards, not just technical or in software.

I've got ~5 years of full time experience, I make decent to good money (though I don't think most people on HN would agree lol) but I'm skeptical I could build these projects.

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I think you should talk to a professional therapist.

> I make decent to good money (though I don't think most people on HN would agree lol)

Actually, HN might. HN is not exactly high compensation chasing.

HN often confuses $300k for low-end-of-normal for early-career US software devs in general, when it’s above most seniors and leads at most employers. You don’t hit that territory until you’re a manager-of-tech-managers, outside the smallish third hump of the trimodal dev compensation graph.

My pay’s almost 3x median household income in my medium-sized US city, but is pathetic compared to what I see thrown around regularly as examples of lowish pay on HN.

Yeah, $300k isn't considered great for my level of tenure, but it is less than what Jane Street/Jump/HRT new grads make.

The major hft firms do pay well but new grad pay is often inflated in a few ways - signing bonus is included in “total” as if it’s recurring, first-year guarantees/targets are treated as recurring total, “this pays out over 4 years” is lumped into single-year recurring total, and you only hear about the biggest and best online.

2020-2022 high tech sector pay and huge profitability brought by the return of volatility also saw much higher base/bonus pay across the board, but the market really cooled down towards the end of 2022 longwise all the tech layoffs and HFT firm over hiring. I watched a few eye watering open offers fade away towards year end myself.

> Actually, HN might. HN is not exactly high compensation chasing.

That’s why I love HN you always get to learn something new from other people’s experiences not always talking about the compensation and money

I think there’s also wildly overestimating the value of elite schools for undergrad - in undergrad you’re so far from the “state of the art” that you’d probably get about the same level of education at those schools than you would at any good (for example) European public university/US state university with a decent CS department - of which there are many and they're neither as expensive nor as selective.

Elite schools only really matter for their reputation and for research (which is done at the grad level, not in undergrad).

I’m surprised you put some much value in one gate that you didn’t pass through.

It's not one gate, it's basically every gate (unless you count Amazon as a gate that's impressive, but nobody does).

Still, having such low self-esteem after individually accomplishing quite a lot more than what 95% of people on Earth (not counting in history) has been able to is a sign you need to look into with some professional help.

It's not healthy, your sense of self-value seems to be completely tied to external perceptions and expectations. Answer to yourself: who are you, actually?

I’ve gotten help, none of it has changed anything. The gist of it is just reinforcement that I’m stuck being a failure, clearly unable to progress in life due to a lack of something. Probably a mix of grit and intelligence, heavily weighted on intelligence.

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