
From “Hello World” to VP of Engineering at Reddit (2017) - karim
https://blog.devcolor.org/career-journey-part-1-3bdddf1f87a
======
imetatroll
An inspirational read. Personally I am at a strange spot in life where I am
trying to rediscover my own self worth as a programmer after working for
several years as the CTO for a small startup company. I've been out of work
for a few months now. It can be hard to wake up and know that the places I
have interviewed are not interested (there have been several). It isn't that I
am trying to get another executive position because a "programming" position
would do me just fine. I am just trying to keep a positive outlook and move
forward. So it is good to read about success, I guess, that is the result of
hard work. Anyway I feel adrift. I am working on my own project/potential
company so perhaps that will turn out to be a way to feed myself. Probably it
wont. Am I out of the programming game for good? Sometimes I feel that way,
but I can say that I was mesmerized by that first hello world.

~~~
ummonk
Not interested as in you don’t pass the interview? If you have several years
of experience people should be knocking down your doors to recruit you.

~~~
imetatroll
I don't know what the issue is exactly. I worked for two years at an insurance
company using c#. It was a good group of people. I decided to join a startup.
I worked through the process of growing the technical side of that company
from 0 to 150,000 paid accounts. At almost the 10 year mark, I was let go due
to financial difficulties. The company that I worked for, which still exists,
is now run by one person - the original founder - in conjunction with a
partner company that now manages the stack and handles sales. It is a bit of
an odd story to tell and evolved into what it is today because of the
pressures of trying to keep a company alive, I guess. I went from being a
programmer to being the CTO during this time. I wasn't managing a team other
than an intern once in a while so I was responsible for administering the
servers (AWS) just as I was responsible for furthering development. It all
fell to me for the most part. We did have another programmer for the first
couple years, but they left. It was pretty taxing to be honest.

When I am asked how many people I managed I can only honestly say two interns
and am then told my skills are not enough.

When I am asked to take home a programming assignment or whiteboard something
the end result is that my skills aren't good enough.

It is a mystery to me because I built a system that currently processes 80 to
150 million emails a month. It encrypts them, it stores them, it makes them
searchable. There is even functionality to encrypt outgoing emails as well! To
be fair the core component was already built prior to me joining the company:
the PKI api. But as needs grew I built around that. I built the web interface
(not the design: I'm not a god). I wrote code to process incoming/outgoing
email. I created an ES cluster that scales itself (probably not very well and
search is astonishingly slow, but the customers don't seem to mind given the
low price tag). I programmed in php, perl, ruby, javascript, and then
eventually heavily used golang for its concurrency. The system is not perfect
nor am I.

I too thought that people would be super interested in working with me, but I
haven't found that to be the case at all. I guess am not good at networking so
here I am. If you want to see what I have built in my own time recently, the
url is in my description. It is a tragic example of my design skills and the
code is all my own. Interestingly - or not so - it is entirely written in
golang (+ gopherjs).

~~~
ummonk
Damn, it looks like they’re slotting you into a tech lead / people management
role because of your years of experience when your experience is better suited
for a senior IC role.

Regarding the coding challenges, could it be that your code structure /
cleanliness has atrophied from not working in large groups?

How good are your algorithms / data structures skills? If not already good,
would you be able to develop them from practicing leetcode? Many people
complain about fang style interviews but the nice thing is that if you are
capable of doing those kinds of problems there isn’t as much other weirdness
in getting a job. With your yoe you would qualify for going straight to phone
interview with pretty much any company on interviewing.io if you do well on a
few practice phone interviews there first. (I’d also be happy to provide
referrals to a couple companies if you can do leetcode style problems.)

~~~
imetatroll
Yeah I have become painfully aware of the downside to be found in being the
only developer at a company: no finger on the pulse of where the industry is
moving and no experience with working with a group of people, which probably
yields better results. I was always interested in teaching myself things and
continue to do so - my current personal project uses kubernetes, which I am
finding is nice enough to work with - but my algorithm skills do need some
work. I practiced at hackerrank for a certain period of time last year. I
found that I could not think up solutions for the hard problems off the top of
my head. Medium problems were hit and miss. That isn't to say I couldn't
understand an answer if it were presented to me.

Thank you for the suggestion. I will keep your offer of a referral in mind
thank you. Where would these companies be based out of curiosity?

------
akhilcacharya
Nick's story is inspirational, but are there any stories like this that don't
center on a pedigreed education?

Sometimes it concerns me that American class structure is so stratified that
it's impossible to have social and class mobility like this without an elite
education.

I'm sure he would have had similar outcomes had he gone to UMD, but would he
have if he had gone to UMBC?

~~~
nostrebored
Just about anyone has the ability to go to a top tier school provided they
have the ability to manage there. Most have transfer programs with local
schools with a few stipulations. For instance, you can go to a community
college and transfer into the UC system.

My wife and I both came from impoverished backgrounds and went to community
college/low-quality state schools and graduated from a top 10 computer science
school.

RE: downvotes -- please tell me how I'm wrong? I'll happily give you a 3 year
plan to get into a top tier engineering school given that you have a
willingness to move.

The problem with a lot of these places isn't getting in (if you have enough
perseverance or desire). The problem is getting through the work after you've
gotten there.

~~~
raxxorrax
How do you explain the cost of education in the modern world where the
logistics of information are as cheap as never before? Any kid on the world
could access material from the best teachers on the planet. So why keep this
legacy system for education that is more and more based solely on prestige?

Sure, there is a chance for everybody. But why make it a chance that will
certainly remain unfulfilled for a significant majority?

~~~
nostrebored
That's fairly irrelevant to my comment. The cost of achieving a 4 year
education doesn't have to be high, either.

Let's assume we're talking about Georgia, a place with a low cost of living
and access to a high quality engineering school.

Year 1: Work in the state, securing in-state tuition costs Year 2+3: Go to
Georgia Perimeter College (2 year tuition cost: $4600) Year 4+5: Attend
Georgia Institute of Technology on the transfer program (2 year tuition + fee
cost: $12,400)

Total cost of tuition is now $17,000 over 4 years.

To get at your point about information logistics: nothing has ever been more
useful in my life than being surrounded by intelligent people going through
the same grueling process that you are, supporting each other and working
together for the single point of trying to learn material and complete
assignments under unreasonable deadlines.

There's also difference between access to the best instruction on the planet
and having direct communication to some of the best instructors doing some of
the most interesting work on the planet.

~~~
raxxorrax
> trying to learn material and complete assignments under unreasonable
> deadlines.

Oh, come on, people tend to survive university.

I am thinking of models for educational institutions here, not golf clubs.

Of course the environment is important but that is not an argument for
artificial exclusivity and if only in context of the material given.

Pay for the direct line if you wish to do so since information is more widely
available today, the difference between formal and "guerilla" education will
get smaller.

And there should be a vast economic interest to decrease this distance. With
the exception of business interests of universities of course.

~~~
nostrebored
I work for a big 4 tech company and I've never had tasks as unreasonably paced
as the ones I had in school. Admittedly I went to the school reported to have
the worst work life balance in the country while I was there.

The environment isn't important, it's the deciding factor in the quality of
your education. A good environment with the right curriculum is the single
most effective way to learn a difficult subject, develop the habits that help
you learn, and have the conversations that lead to retention.

There is a vast economic interest to decrease the distance here. You have a
ton of eLearning resources at your disposal. They just don't work as well for
most people.

------
isostatic
> For a long while it was common for me to start the work day at 5 AM and end
> around 11:30 PM. I don’t eat breakfast or lunch — don’t want to waste the
> hours when I could be working.

Not healthy

~~~
yeahitslikethat
Eating in within a nine hour window is very healthy so skiping breakfast and
lunch is good.

Should get more sleep though.

~~~
isostatic
If you're going to go for a single meal a day you should be doing breakfast

~~~
softawre
Most of the IF (intermittant fasting) community skips breakfast/lunch from
what I've seen.

~~~
claudiawerner
That's what I've gathered too; I've been doing IF for a couple of weeks now,
and my diet consists of one meal a day that I try to keep between 1k and 1.5k
calories. My only refined sugar intake is two biscuits a day (46kcal each)
after dinner, and my vitamin C comes from either a kiwifruit or an orange.

------
ec109685
He works at Looker now: [https://looker.com/news/press/nick-caldwell-joins-
looker-as-...](https://looker.com/news/press/nick-caldwell-joins-looker-as-
chief-product-officer)

Seems like good fit given his PowerBI background and Looker is prettt
fantastic.

~~~
Rainymood
>In two years as VP of Engineering at Reddit he grew the engineering team from
35 to 170 and led the major initiative to redesign and re-architect the
13-year-old site.

>led the major initiative to redesign and re-architect the 13-year-old site.

The redesign that everyone, including me, hates with a passion? I continuously
have to revert to the old design, the new design is horrible.

~~~
jasonvorhe
I love it. Reddit was fugly before.

~~~
sodafountan
Reddit was minimal and I could safely browse it during down time at work
without too much suspicion, that's also what I like about Hacker News, the new
design is hard to conceal at work.

------
bko
> Long story short is that in the Maryland-DC area they have what are called
> magnet schools, and if you can pass a test sort of like the SAT, they will
> let you leave your current school zone and bus to a better one. Whether or
> not you think that’s a good or bad idea, or fair or unfair, it is what I had
> and it was a way out.

Standardized testing gets a lot of flak for being too rigid or biased, but I
think its rigidity serves an important purpose. You may be living in an unjust
society, but if you can score X on this test, you will get Y. There's plenty
of information on the test as well as resources anyone can use to score well
enough (online, public library or school library). It's an easier sell to many
disadvantaged groups and present a clear way out, whether it be a magnet
school or university.

~~~
zamazingo
> You may be living in an unjust society, but if you can score X on this test,
> you will get Y.

In an unusual society, those who are disadvantaged will also be disadvantaged
on this test if it becomes important enough to predict one's future prospects.
Think private tutoring, specialized schools, summer camps, all focused on
teaching you to get a good score on the test, and all expensive as ever (ie
inaccessible). And now, your education system develops you for the test, not
for life or jobs.

It's an easier sell, but it's a lemon and not a well designed and performant
product.

~~~
bko
There are plenty of people that score reasonably well without private
tutoring, specialized schools or summer camps

------
fma
His comment on magnet schools is interesting... Different areas must implement
it differently. In south Florida magnet schools isn't just for smart people.
High schools specialize in medical, engineering, law etc. and you can apply
for those. I went to one that had the International Baccalaureate program
which is suppose to be for the "smart" kids and had academic requirements.
Unlike Nick, who went from a poor mostly black high school to a mostly
white... The IB program was in a mostly black, and poor high school.

The same template was used for a few other schools, till the rich white
schools wanted a piece of the "smart" kids and got their own program. Now the
IB schools at the black schools floundering and are suffering (I think mine
closed down)

Although most of my classes were different from the rest of the school, I
shared some classes and of course extracurricular activities. The IB program
gave me a more diverse education due to being around a population of people I
woukd never be around.

~~~
laken
I have a similar experience to yours, as I went to an IB Magnet school in
Central Florida. I believe in Florida at least, they purposefully put the
magnet schools in the poorer districts, as a way of allowing the local
disadvantaged youth to excel in school, and give them the best education
possible in their district.

They also then bus in the kids from elsewhere in the greater district who
purposefully chose the magnet school due to the IB program, as another way of
helping these same disadvantaged kids. I'm not sure quite how effective it is,
but I understand the logic.

------
nojvek
I’ve worked with Nick at PowerBI. He was hard working, mega ambitious but
still down to earth. He deserves his success as much as anyone.

But then again this is America and we love struggle pr0n. Tons of people work
16 hour days in and out that don’t get the same success. The survivor bias is
real.

------
tinyhouse
Great read and a bit sad too. The Ray Rogers part sounds almost like a movie
scene. It's hard when you lose interest in your childhood friends because you
don't have anything in common with them anymore.

------
ratsimihah
> Within about 4 months of reading that book I had stopped going outside to
> play (kids still did that back then)

So good, this reminds me of this article I forgot the source that says kids
don't get enough playtime anymore because of Youtube and co.

------
fxfan
What is partner level general manager? Lots of equity?

------
quickpost
Is there a part 2? Couldn't find it

~~~
teej
This article seems like an edited version of this talk, or some variant of it.
Worth a watch -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol42iSDddOs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol42iSDddOs)

------
skilled
Any Reddit employees in this thread? I need help with my account that I have
had for 7 years and can't get back because of an internal issue. Please leave
your contact info so I can get in touch.

~~~
skilled
Awesome, getting downvoted because I genuinely need help and Reddit's support
system is pointless to use in my specific case.

