Darwin Huang

This is a good post that seems to reflect how many business people may be seeing the future. Here is a little reaction just to the GenAI-will-change-coding part: I enjoy having access to quick softmaxed reproductions of scraped code examples as much as everyone else, but really wish we would all stop spreading the "bots are going to do the coding" trope that so many people in a decision-making position seem to believe in, without much basis and lacking the understand of what software engineering really is - not only producing code, but specifying behaviour and being able to change systems in the face of changing requirements. Good luck with copying-and-pasting that!

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I'm moving on from Alphabet after 18 years. It was my first real job, and in my time there I advanced from an entry-level software engineer to a director and principal engineer. Many folks staring down a big change after a long career think about sharing some wisdom from their journey. If your feed's anything like mine, it's full of folks offering advice on how to advance your career. Amidst all of that, I offer something different: a catalog of some of the ways I got lucky in my career: - I encountered computer programming by chance at my piano teacher's office when I was in elementary school and fell in love with it. - My high school offered computer programming courses in 1999 and I was able to get a head start on my career skills there. - I knew what I loved doing before I enrolled in college, and knew it was a viable career path. - My cousin helped me land a well-paying software internship after just my freshman year, so I graduated with 3 summers of solid work experience under my belt. - My family was able to help me graduate college with minimal student debt. - Google started recruiting at my university the year that I graduated. I probably would not have applied to companies outside my school's career fairs. - A long-term relationship ended before my senior year, so I entered my career search with no constraints about where I wanted to live. - I gave a few foolish interview answers, including a misguided opinion about hash tables, but the company overlooked them and hired me anyway. - I joined big tech in its absolute heyday, when benefits and opportunities in my field were exploding. - Less than a year into my first team, the team's TL left, and I was thrust into an unearned leadership position out of necessity. - Shortly after I transferred to the Boulder office, Google closed a few remote offices. Mine wasn't one of them. - My field was only lightly impacted by the 2008 financial crisis and bounced back quickly. I was able to capitalize on the moment to buy my first home. - I switched teams at a fortuitous moment, finding myself as person #5 on a team that grew over a few years into the hundreds. This gave me tremendous leadership and growth opportunities. - I was recruited to plant Verily's Boulder office due to a chance relationship I had developed on that team. You won't hear me say that I'm not smart or that I haven't worked hard. But amidst all the voices here telling you how to hustle to get ahead, let me be a voice reminding you that some of the folks offering you their formula to success have some undisclosed good fortune. If you're still struggling to find a job after a layoff or to get your own business off the ground, remember that your struggles aren't a moral failing. You're doing great, and I wish you the good fortune that I've experienced these past 20 years.

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A few years ago, I was interviewing for a new role 5 days a week. I cracked 5 offers after several rounds. (But it wouldn’t have been possible without this) → If I wasn’t in the zone Whether you are interviewing for a Junior, Senior, Staff SWE, or Management position, it’s almost like a full-time job. You may be very good at your current job at your current company. You may be: - making solid contributions - collaborating with coworkers - taking good decisions and delivering projects. But when it comes to the interviews.  - you have to start from scratch - brush up on everything again - solve Leetcode problems - do system design problems - Behavioral stories & other prep It takes time to get in the zone! Several weeks to several months! A few years ago, I was doing 5 interviews back to back. One interview every day for the entire week. Those days interviews would happen onsite at the office in person. I had all the 5 companies extend an offer to me. The reason was that I was in the zone and could answer all the questions very fluently. In the last few months, I have heard that people are not getting many interview calls. Given the fewer opportunities to learn from real interviews, you should practice from mock interviews. - Friends - Co-workers  - Or a mentor Do multiple rounds and get into the interview-like mindset. There are many moving parts in interview prep, but the biggest is getting into that mindset and that zone. Without it, even the most talented ones will fail to clear rounds. – P.S: I would be happy to do a mock interview. Please book it on my profile. P.P.S: If you're a senior engineer, tech lead, or a new manager and looking to transition to more senior roles, I'm starting a paid course this Friday (Only 2 seats left) DM me for more details, or please fill out this form: https://lnkd.in/gZ7VcqMD

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“I didn’t know I had to ask for a promotion” said an acquaintance of mine a year ago. She was a junior software engineer who was doing really well in her role for 2 years and she thought she would "automatically" get promoted. Little did she know that she has to ASK for her promotion, despite of her doing well. She could have gotten promoted one year ago itself, only if she conveyed her intentions to get promoted. We all need to learn from this experience - You only get what you ask for. How will your management even know that you are interested in career growth and interested in a promotion? What has your experience been like in getting promotions at work? When do you initialize a conversation about promotion with your manager ? #promotions #corporate #softwareengineering

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Almost everything I read on LLMs is either 1) vendor-driven that doesn't help me build a mental model for tradeoffs, or 2) tool documentation that assumes I know exactly what I want to do, just not how. This is an excellent post smack in the middle. https://applied-llms.org/

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Three years ago, I moved from Chile to California to work at Google. It sucked, and nobody warned me. Don't worry, this is not another post about "The hardships of starting a job in a new country" or "10 reasons why FAANG is not all sunshine and roses." This post is about my advice to people who call me and say, "Marco, I've landed a job in the Bay Area! This is gonna be AWESOME!" Relax... my initial response is in fact "OMG, yeah, that is awesome!" I'm not that dense—at least, not yet. But after a few days or weeks, I tell them something I wish someone had told me: 🛑 "Brace yourself, it's going to be HARD." 🛑 You're moving your whole life to a new place, and it's going to suck. 1️⃣ You'll feel lonely. 😔 Being far from family and friends hits hard. You'll lose a big part of your support system, which can be overwhelming when things get tough. 2️⃣ You'll feel lost. 😵 Rebuilding your life from scratch in an unfamiliar place will be confusing. "What is an SSN?" "What do you mean I have to PAY to file my taxes?" “What the hell is a four-way stop?” Sometimes you won't realize that you don't know something until it’s too late. "Sh*t, I chopped a part of my finger—quick, to the ER!! ... WHAT DO YOU MEAN I NEED A PHYSICAL COPY OF MY INSURANCE ID??" (True story) 3️⃣ You'll feel out of place. 🫥 You'll have to rebuild your daily routines. Worse yet, some little comforts from home might not even be doable here. Creating new routines and finding small comforts will take time and effort. "Jeez, Marco—You ARE dense. Are you trying to scare people from moving abroad??" Not at all! Relocating was one of the best decisions I've made! But I've seen many come and go because the hardships were too much. I almost didn't make it through myself. I want you to succeed! And your chances will greatly increase by preparing for the hard parts. 👥 Reach out: Connect with others who have gone or are going through similar experiences. 📞 Stay grounded: Keep in touch with family and friends back home, and be honest—share your sadness and fear too! 🏠 Find stability: Establish new routines to make yourself comfortable in this new place. No detail is too small if it makes you happy: take that extra five-minute walk through the park on your commute. Relocating is a significant life change, and we need to acknowledge that it’s tough. If you’re going through this, know that you’re not alone. If you’ve gone through this already and know someone who recently relocated, do them a favor and reach out to them!

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Junior: how can I code? Senior: this is how you can code. Staff+: how can you possibly think you should code??

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This could arguably be one of the worst times in history for early-career developers trying to enter the industry. There have been mass layoffs from big tech companies, which have affected even mid to senior level devs. Yet, the industry is still growing and there are new jobs being posted every day. It can be quite easy to solely focus on the negatives but this is not a realistic view. I entirely believe that mindset and attitude determine such a huge portion of one's circumstances. Everything starts with a thought. With an idea. You wanted to learn how to code? Before you wrote your first 'Hello World!', you had the idea 'I'm going to learn how to code!'. When you shift how you look at something, AKA a new perspective, the thing you're looking at will literally change. Yet it's the very 'same' thing. If you're having a hard time getting that role, worry not. Have confidence that you are indeed, successful, even without that offer letter in your inbox. It's in how you look at it. That perspective. I want to leave you with some very powerful words from the great Earl Nightingale, on success. 'Success is really nothing more than the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. This means that any person who knows what they are doing and where they are going is a success. Any person with a goal towards which they are working is a successful person.' - Earl Nightingale

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Learning how to harness AI as a Software Engineer feels to me like being a construction worker learning to be a surgeon. Some of the tools look really similar but the thing I'm operating on is pretty different. I'm enjoying this journey and thought I would start writing some stuff down. If you are like me and want to be a part of this amazing tech revolution, follow my new series on learning AI as a Software Engineer. I've got a softball for the first post: Use an AI Coding Assistant! https://lnkd.in/epVU37Ds P.S. While you are there, you might notice I'll start putting up some other thoughts on tech stuff, too. Don't look at that. P.P.S. Yes it's just a Notion Site. Custom Domains, DNS, blah blah blah. It's mostly just for me, anyway lol.

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Sharing my experience with AWS’s Let's Ship It - Generative AI training. Over the past 5 weeks, I've had the privilege of immersing myself in a live training series hosted by AWS, aimed at building a fictional company from ground up with AWS infrastructure, shipping real-world generative AI apps. Through each session I gained hands-on experience with services like Amazon Bedrock, SageMaker, PartyRock and more bringing generative AI business ideas to life. From the very first session, where we explored the essence of generative AI and its potential impact, to delving deep into building models and fine-tuning for specific use cases, looking at demos integrating Gen AI into live apps, every session was revealing the shear potential. We then explored various use cases with Generative AI including building QnA tools, text summarization, rewriting, image generation and my favorite - code generation. We also discussed how to employ RAGs - Retrieval Augmented Generation to create vector embeddings, enabling AI to acquire contextual understanding while safeguarding data privacy. One specific session remains particularly vivid in my memory— Where we utilized a multi-model LLM to construct cloud formation and terraform templates solely based on an architectural diagram. As we wrapped up the series, discussing the future of generative AI and its potential to shape tomorrow's innovations, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement for what lies ahead. The possibilities seem endless, and I'm eager to be a part of this transformative journey integrating Generative AI into live applications. Whether you're a newcomer to generative AI or AWS or seeking to enhance your existing skills in building shippabe software, this series offers invaluable experience and expert guidance. I appreciate Amazon Web Services (AWS) for making the tools accessible and our hosts Ben Cashman, George Softas and Skye Hart for coming up with such engaging training content. #GenerativeAI #AWS #AIInnovation #FutureTech

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I’m hiring our 7th engineer in a team of 10 engineering building a $1B company 💯 What you get joining Stan: 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 Stan helps 60,000+ people make a living and work for themselves. That’s $200M+/year and 📈 𝐓𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐃𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐲 A team of ~25 built a $30M/year business. All this in the just 3 years since inception! 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 We hire the best people, share our vision with them, and get out of their way. Stan is the place you take ownership of everything you do. What to expect: - Top 1% compensation (cash + equity) - 60hr weeks with people who talk about work at lunch - A long list of things that starts with “I’ve built …” - Seeing the growth of a $1B startup from the inside - Occasional trips between Canada and the US If you’re looking to join a team that can help you grow and bring out the best in you, like this post 👍 and shoot me a DM 📩 #hiring #startup #fullstack #toronto

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When I left Apple, I got a 50% pay raise, and unknowingly left millions of upside on the table… After getting laid off from my first full time job in tech, I was very excited and relieved to land at Apple, a company I had long admired. It was my first job in BigTech and I learned a lot about company culture during my time there. My salary there was a bit smaller than my prior role. But, on the perks/benefits side of things, the company was very generous. Google was just emerging from the garage phase of life, so the whole BigTech compensation arms race hadn’t really started yet. My former director from my first job recruited me to the company she had joined, which was a younger public tech company that seemed to be doing pretty well, and had survived the dotcom bust. She was looking for a tech lead for the web team, which was working on the corporate web site, the marketing lead-gen system and the customer support portal - lots of stitching internal systems together in the database layer. After going through technical interviews with the team members, she made me an offer - one I seemingly couldn’t refuse. It was 33% more salary, 50% more bonus and more stock options annually. Topping that off, she wanted to support my growth as a team lead and eventually provide an opportunity to try out management. So, I decided to go. There were many reasons for me to make the leap - fantastic manager, growth opportunity, and compensation. But, the main point of this post is that compensation can be tricky to gauge head-to-head. If I had only gone for the compensation, it would have been the wrong decision. It turns out that the Apple stock options I left behind would have been worth multi-millions by the end of the vesting schedule. After I left, the stock split and then split again after a short time and continued to go up quickly in value. Stock compensation in a public company with a solid track record is almost as sure as cash. No, it is not certain, and you have to make your vesting cliffs. But, it is vastly different from pre-IPO shares. And, if you get RSUs that are vesting quarterly or monthly, that is basically cash compensation. The good news is that I took that 50% pay raise and used it to start building wealth. I did not change my standard of living, but instead increased and diversified my stock market investments, maxed out my retirement accounts (401K and IRA) and started on an accelerated pay-down of my home mortgage. Had I finished 5 years at Apple, I likely would have been financially independent early in my career. Instead, I had a very fun job for a few years, got the career development I was looking for, and learned financial discipline.

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The steady stream of Google layoff posts on LinkedIn continues, and it breaks my heart. As Liz Fong-Jones said in reply to one post: "So callous and cruel. :(" Exactly. I find the absurdly insensitive and abrupt handling of formerly prized employees astounding. What a condemnation of Google's management—of Sundar Pichai because this is at his feet, on his head, at his behest. Seriously—US$305 billion in revenue, US$73 billion in net income, but you can't find the means to treat people decently? This is on you Sundar. Here's the other sad thing: Google's gone. The interesting, exciting place that did bleeding-edge technology has silently dissolved before our very eyes. The infinite spigot of ad money turned out to be finite, and there's no more growth left. Now, Google is squeezing costs, not seeking growth. It's understandable- they aren't the only ones. The hyperscalers, the MAANGs, the Big Tech companies have run out of customers. Meta, Netflix, Apple, Google have all the customers. Congratulations! You own the world! I joke to people that at Google, you could come up with a billion-dollar product, and the reaction would be: "Great, but could you get serious? Ads will add 15 times that every quarter in growth—a billion dollars means nothing." But it's so sad. OpenAI exists because of Google's foundational work. MapReduce, BigTable (NoSql)- most of cluster computing!- TensorFlow, Angular, and Protocol Buffers- big, amazing, interesting, ground swell technologies. (And how many of these technologies did Google capitalise on?) I just don't believe Google is going to create these technologies anymore. Angry, scared, lowest-cost employees aren't well-positioned to be inventive. Oh, don't get me wrong—there are still plenty of amazing people and momentum, but the flywheel has been slowing for a long time now—flinging off people with great energy. We'll still see some innovation trickle out, but the big disruptive stuff? I don't think so. The industry will be better for it. The exodus of talent from Google, Amazon, and everywhere else will help drive the industry- we can already see it. But I'm still sad. What an inglorious end. RIP Google.

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As a Staff Engineer, I agree with the description, in part. - An awesome Staff Engineer can learn whatever is needed, do the task 100x faster, but that will not help its team to be successful as much as Cristiano Ronaldo is not a successful team by hinself. - An awesome Staff Engineer will push back decisions that will hinder the team productivity in the future by introducing a new technology that only he understands . - An awesome Staff Engineer will take the opportunity to coach other team members to achieve the same feats as he does, even if this time takes longer. And the list goes on. A Staff Enginner will always think about improving the team and not just the task at hands. Please don’t confuse an overachiever developer with a Staff Engineer.

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Some good advice here

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