

Ask HN: Career advice for a young graduate? - throwupandaway

Background:<p>I&#x27;m graduating this semester and have opportunities a few &quot;top&quot; software companies (e.g. Amazon, Microsoft, Google).  I&#x27;ve had two internships: one with a government contractor and one with Amazon.com.  At Amazon I worked on some pretty cool stuff, received a return offer, and above all, worked ~8 hours a day.  However, I feel like my experience as an intern may have been significantly different than a full time employee because of &quot;on-call&quot; and other full-time responsibilities.  So, I have a few naive questions about the software engineering industry as an employee that I hope some of you may entertain:<p>(Note: I have no debt.)<p>1) I want to work for a start-up or lead one myself in the next 4-5 years.  Is it realistic to take a job at one of the large firms, build capital for a few years, and then take a dive into the risky start-up world?<p>2) Is Google still the premier job for a graduating software engineer?  Are the perks and culture still strong enough to trump opportunities at a company like Amazon?<p>3) Work&#x2F;life balance is very important to me if I&#x27;m not working at a start-up.  Is it unrealistic to expect to work ~8 hours a day at these software giants?<p>4) Finally, what general advice would you send to a 21-22 year old entering the industry with a solid resume?<p>Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer any of these questions.<p>*) TL;DR: If you could start your software career from scratch, what would you do differently&#x2F;the same?
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Oras
First of all, best of luck for your career. I'm not going to comment on
working with giants as I didn't do it before, but I am going to comment on
making a startup as I did it 2 times before. To make a successful startup, its
never about the product .. rather its how to sell what you have. So all along
with the coming 5 years (which is a very good time bound), you need to have
basic understanding about marketing, sales, how to pursue and how to manage a
team. Basically, one day you'll not be a developer/SW engineer, you'll be a
business owner. I can recommend some books to start with. P.S. 1\. You're at
best age to set long terms SMART objectives. 2\. With startup, there is no
life-work balance .. you'll forget your life :)

Regards

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edmack
1) No stepping stones. Do the thing you want now. Startups are not that risky,
particularly if your very young

2)+3) Having time to yourself, time to develop ones many facets is important.
But these questions sound like your deep down inside are not interested in
working in a big company. You're in the fortunate position you can probably
have a job you genuinely enjoy - do that

4) Try loads of stuff. You learn most in the first 3-6months. Ideally do loads
of really different jobs for that amount of time, you'll learn tons about
yourself. Always try to deliver great stuff. Quit if it doesn't feel right -
people always stay in things they hate for ages. Paul Graham has some great
essays on this topic, read them.

