Background: Went to top 10 UG with a STEM degree. Did 2+2 in IB and PE before realizing I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my life in finance.
Hit the books - did a bootcamp, Leetcode, heavy systems design and landed a FAANG E5 role.
TC is about 500K including stock appreciation - work about 20-30 hours a week.
AMA.
Hey, thanks for doing this!
I have two questions:
a) What made you realise you didn't want to spend the rest of your life in finance? Was it 'just' the hours you were doing or what else attracted you to a FAANG E5 role?
b) Could you explain a little more about how difficult this was? You make it sound easy but what was the most challenging aspect? And what did the company focus on in particular with you in interviews etc. seeing as you did not come from a coding/systems design background?
Thank you!
For sure
A) I’d say it’s a couple of things: (I) realizing that I valued WLB much more than I cared to admit and (II) didn’t enjoy what was essentially project and stakeholder management. I wanted something that was more intellectually stimulating and better aligned with what I thought was my core strength: problem solving. SWE seemed like the natural fit given it’s basically all problem solving without massive amounts of salesmanship or intense project management.
B) I won’t lie and say it was easy - getting up to speed on CS and design concepts is very challenging but I had help with resources like Interview Kickstart as well as friends and family. I’m fortunate - my uncle runs one of the largest cloud eng teams at Netflix so I was able to steal a lot of wisdom from conversations with him. I’d also say most large companies don’t really care about your background as long as you can perform in the interview. Smaller companies will care more because they expect you to hit the ground running to a greater degree than say FB or Google.
Can you give us a bit of a breakdown of what your hours look like on a day to day basis?
I spend 1-2 hours a day actually coding. The rest of the time is reading / writing design docs and meetings with PM / Design / Eng management.
On average I work about 5 hours a day maybe 6.
How much code do you write if you only write code an hour or two a day?
Congrats.
Let’s say I wanted to study for coding interviews on my own. Can you walk through the boot camp curriculum at a general level? What concepts should one learn to be prepared for interviews? Any textbooks/videos/resources you recommend (other than leetcode of course)?
Hey - thanks for this? Since you have finance experience, do you think you may jump ship to a quant role at a HF/Prop shop. Personally, it seems like you're in a good spot with 0 reason to leave, but would you consider that down the line if you get the finance itch again
Maybe I’m not sure - sounds riskier for sure. The only real reason would be comp but FB is pretty good about that. I plan to move the Eng Management route so 1m+ is very reasonable at senior manager+.
I have a data point at Netflix where director comp can hit 3M+
How did you get so good at writing erotic fantasy?
Lots of kink
Do you need projects on your resume? Or if you get the interview, is just knowing data structures and algorithms good enough?
Yeah - that’s what the bootcamp is for, basically to showcase your ability to build stuff.
Projects to get the interview in the first place while Algos / sd is for the actual interview
It seems like your background is perfect for a role such as VC partner or someone who could be CTO at a startup. Have you thought about going that route?
If you could go back would you have started out in tech?
Definitely - I wish I was more honest with myself since Day 1.
That being said I’m grateful for the project management skills and corporate polish that inevitably happened because of finance.
CS major here from a T10, finishing up my first year in banking and looking to pivot into tech. I have a pretty well-developed portfolio from undergrad, but haven't pushed much code in the last year. Do you think a bootcamp is necessary for me, or are companies receptive to profiles like mine? Do you have any tips?
Did u have any coding experience before the bootcamp?
What level of difficulty is required for the projects on your resume? Obv more than just a tutorial walk thru, but I’ve heard some engineers say that just having a few fully completed projects puts you way ahead of most candidates. The argument is that finishing something to completion is something most candidates do not do
I am miserable in investment banking and its depressing hearing from friends who work in Tech that they make more money than me and work 3x less. How hard would it be to learn programming in a three four month time span?
Some weird questions here. Engineers may "not work much" but they are certainly very smart and usually spend quite a bit of time upskilling/learning continuously. I've always worked with CTOs who don't spend all day coding but they can think through things and the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th degree problems to a huge extent. There's definitely a thing with engineering where the great thinker can solve something in 30 minutes that takes someone with 17 braincells 300 hours to do, and they won't fuck everything up going fwd.
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