
Silicon Valley engineer negotiated a starting salary from 120k to 250k - andreywww
http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-engineer-negotiated-a-starting-salary-from-120k-to-250k-in-just-a-few-weeks-2016-4
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freestockoption
It's also not 250k in cash. It includes stock which may or may not be worth
what he thinks they are worth when he cashes out. My take away here is that
base salary is comparable from company-to-company, but stock is given away
like free lunch.

Also, it takes a certain personality to go out in public and brag about this
kind of stuff. I think he's trying really hard to build his online persona. :)

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zorrb
It's briefly mentioned in the article but I don't think ya'll realize Haseeb
is a (in)famous ex-poker player. He made high quality training videos, and did
very, very well in poker. He was also at one time Daniel Cates's (junglemans)
roommate (and life coach? lol) who is probably one of the strongest poker
players in the world.

All these other things were for sure the real factors into the
negotiation/hiring. The bootcamp meant almost nothing (besides the 6m+
experience showing he could train people to code like he's proven he could
train people in poker).

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whack
Genuinely curious: Don't famous/extremely-good poker players make a ton of
money playing the game? How does 200k/year compare to the kind of money this
guy could have made if he remained in Poker?

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vibrato
having an expected value over 200k/year playing poker would probably place
someone in the top 50 players, worldwide, in my estimation. I would say it's a
lot easier job to be a software engineer than keep up with the discipline
required to maintain such an edge. 10 years ago it was a totally different
story, there was a LOT more easy money around. The level of play has advanced
quickly and the boom has been over for years.

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stuxnet79
This can't be real, right? Only 12 weeks of coding experience at a bootcamp
and he was able to ace the interviews at those companies? Do they cover formal
CS in these bootcamps?

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eyeownyde
This is real. Keep in mind, Qureshi taught the algorithms lectures at this
bootcamp for what looks like 6+ months after he graduated.

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TheGuyWhoCodes
So 3 months of training and 6 months of memorizing algorithms. That's worth
130K + 25k signing bonus(let's leave RSU aside)?! The guy never built a real
production system, never shipped a product, wasn't an online tech celebrity,
nothing. Something is very wrong here.

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taurath
Memorizing algorithms is all a lot of big companies care about, it does seem.
It feels like it wouldn't be a predictor of success in any way, but hey maybe
they're right.

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msie
Well, that made me sick to my stomach.

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charlesdm
Why? Because you didn't put in the time to learn how to properly negotiate?
Negotiation is a skill that can be learned, just like engineering.

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msie
Well, he got really successful through his connections. There wasn't that much
negotiation involved.

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charlesdm
That's just how the real world works, in 99% of the cases. You need to know
your stuff, but past a certain point, it's almost always better to expand your
network + meet new people than to put in an extra hour honing your craft.

People don't just magically get handed a $200-300-500k job. You tend to get
recommended by someone, through someone you know (i.e. friend, acquaintance).

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karmajunkie
Can we go ahead and retire the whole meritocracy idea then?

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gjolund
I have a distinct feeling these bootcamps are "teaching to the test".

I would really like to know what it is like to work with this guy.

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beamatronic
>> He first learned how to code by joining a 12-week coding bootcamp at App
Academy, >> He killed his Google interview and was offered a $162,000 a year
package.

If this is really true, then maybe it's worth going to these coding camps even
if you already know how to code and have been doing so for 20 years.

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gjolund
The ability to interview will only get you so far though.

At that rate he would be a colleague of mine, and I wonder if he would
actually bring anything to that table.

I have worked with plenty of people who come from non-tech backgrounds and are
phenomenally productive, and he may be one of those people.

Either way I would pay to be a fly on the wall during his 3-month review.

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beamatronic
I couldn't get past a phone screen with them because they wanted 10 different
ways to tell what your current shell is ( from the command line ) and I could
only think of 5.

Personally, I prefer to code up an algorithm, even if it isn't perfect, and
then do instrumented testing; for me the fun part is tweaking and optimizing.

~~~
stuxnet79
Similar - couldn't make it past the phone screen. Got killed by a DP problem
which in hindsight was quite approachable but my CS fundamentals weren't very
fresh in my mind at the time.

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abc_lisper
WTF! That's it. I'll one-up this guy!

