QuitProgramming

Thank you for sharing this video. I think it really gets at the heart of something a lot of people don't want to hear or are ignorant on. As you say, it's hard enough being actually skilled and deserving so imagine being neither of those and trying to make it.

Your reasoning for why Leetcode is bad is a bit flawed. The reason why it works is because it's correlated with other performance. The fact that a customer don't ask for it before they give you a job doesn't disprove the correlative factor. The fact that people snub it by thinking it's too far removed from reality doesn't make it so either. The fact is that someone who is clever enough to consistently do things like reverse a linked list in one line quickly and correctly will also be able to quickly do less clever things correctly.

Your idea is that only doing the exact thing shows if you are good at it. You are almost implying there are no correlations between skills. If that's what you believe then looking at the research on IQ should clear up that empirically that is not the case. And note I said the research. Not news articles or editorials or blogs or podcasts. The actual scientific literature.

>Your statement here is false. 99% of programming is using skills that are rather unlike the talent you need for leetcode.

Do you have evidence for this claim? Specifically, that the skills and talents that make one good at Leetcode are not correlated and predictive for being a good programmer.

Being part of that 99.999% doesn't seem to be a good life.

Where are the non-FAANG, non-leetcode guarded 120k entry level jobs?

I'm not sure how you are coming to the conclusion that I take no responsibility. The whole point of my post is that I am not good enough. That's a pretty damning criticism of the self. I only blame others in the sense that they highly contributed to me not being able to see that. If all my takeaways were personal, I would have no reason to post this. I think you just don't like how I sound and aren't paying attention to my actual words.

6 figures starting.

>The book How to Design Programs...

I will check this book out.

>Lastly, even though receiving material rewards is nice, re-framing motivation towards contribution rather than receiving can mitigate disappointment in any endeavor in life.

This has always sounded to me like the consolation for those who are not good enough to get what they really want.

>I'll just say it's better to be mediocre at something than to do nothing. A non-FAANG job/tech endeavor will still expose you to a lot of opportunities. You may not immediately be making what you want to make, but over 10 years there's a non-zero chance you'll luck into something bigger. A 20% chance of getting what you want is still better than a 0% chance. In the process you may find something you are actually exceptionally good at. It's much harder to find these things if you're not actively working on something.

This is the sort of thinking that keeps people in their place continuously participating in the rat race hoping that one day they'll make their break. For most people, it's much closer to delusional hope than a real path to success.

I think the "you need to love what you do to be successful" is just a fallacy that became a meme. If it were true a much higher percentage of people would be well respected and successful artists, for example. In our field, more coders would be in FAANG or the next John Carmack. This meme needs to die, honestly.

Furthermore, it's easy to be passionate about things that you are good at. Being good at something means constantly getting positive feedback. So then the question becomes- Are people who are passionate the ones who become good at things or are people who are good at things become passionate them? The reality is you can find cases where people hate the things they are good at and like the things they are bad at. Just proves this idea of yours is false.

I don't think it's for you or anyone else to determine what the appropriate take away from something is unless I made a purely a logical error. The person mentioned a variety of points and the most unique and helpful one was the one on social skills. Many other people have suggested all the other points the author has mentioned already and I have considered them.

I am interested in your story as well though. I am not autistic, but I think I have the similar defects that could be resolved with similar solutions. Could you give me an example of such an institution?

I'm saying the skill set and talent that allows one to be good at Leetcode and on the job programming are correlated and I am lacking in both.

Do you have specific examples of jobs like that that pay on the latter end of that spectrum?

Solutions engineer also sounds interesting. Thank you for mentioning it.

Please share some specific examples.

They cost money rather than generate money.

I'm extremely interested in the neuro-atypical friend and him learning scripts and social macros. Could you expand on that?

Thank you for a comment. It's relief to find someone who has a perspective that lines up with modern research on intelligence. There is so much denial as so many of these people seem to think everyone is more or less like the people they work with and don't understand how even the dumbest person at the office is probably 2 standard deviations above the norm of intelligence. Even higher probably if they work at a really desirable company.

I've scored as low as 112 and as high as 127 on officially given IQ tests with the average being around 118. I'd be interested to know if you have any advice for someone with that level of ability.

I worked at a bottom tier company for 1.5 years. I got fired and hated my time there. I never want to repeat that experience.

I have done the calculations and only the FAANG level companies will get me where I want to go when I want to be there.

I'm only interested in FAANG money and being able to retire early. Those are my goals.

I am not good enough to pass FAANG interviews.

I am very bad at networking.

>If you allow me to guess something about your person with no basis at all: is it possible you just don't enjoy it? I know that for myself if I enjoy something I spent a lot of time thinking about it, even "down time" when your mind just wanders. I've always enjoyed little problems, and I can get lost in them for hours. If you do that a lot it's impossible not to get better at solving little problems. I think this possibly one overlooked aspect of "do something you enjoy". It's not _just_ that you'll get more enjoyment, it's also that you'll be better at it.

I do enjoy it. I just am bad at it and constantly get stuck and go blank. It's not fun if you're not competent enough to engage with the material. When I do easier problems that flow, I enjoy it just fine.

I want a FAANG level job though.

When did Google prove that?

Not being good enough after 5 years to pass a FAANG interview.

Ok can you give anything concrete?

I want a FAANG level job so, yea, I might be. Don't want to do programming otherwise though.

>That is the first line in the article that you have shared.

So what?

>Try finding any aspect of programming that brings out the same satisfaction in you and you will succeed.

This is wishful thinking. Plenty of people love things they are bad at. Look at more creative fields and how many schools prop up to make money off of people's dreams. How many of those people do anything of worth?

>Neither of these are relevant if you want to work as a programmer. I say this because probably millions of programmer never done any of those things before they get a job as a programmer.

Yes, underlying talent and intelligence is what matters. Leetcode is just the way companies filter for that today.

>It could be that you already are very good at programming, but it doesn't matter because you're a shit person. Meaning that maybe your soft skills are very lacking compared to your technical skills.

I have both bad soft skills and tech skills.

>Question: what have you been doing for 5 years exactly if only 1.5 years of those was at a workplace?

I did Leetcode almost since the beginning of my 4 years of university. 4 years in school + 1.5 years on the job = 5.5 years. I rounded down.

I mean Leetcode type interviews are the primary filter these companies use. Sure, I don't need to literally solve every question, but I need to be able to do it well enough to pass the interview. Not being good enough means I can't meet that threshold for FAANG like companies.