
Ask HN: How to deal with favoritism? - xenocratus
I&#x27;ve been working for about 2.5 years at a tech company - my first non-internship job. I was by no means an expert in any field (studied an engineering degree before joining but then my internships were all programming related) but I did have a lot of experience writing and reading complex code having been involved in competitive programming since I was eleven. 
So I did what I felt I needed to do - spent more time in the office learning about the technology stack, digging in our codebases, spent weekends going through tutorials, books, writing and reading code that would help me be better at what I was supposed to do. And it certainly helped, I&#x27;d say I am at the moment one of the most experienced software engineers in my team (we&#x27;re all rather young) - A LOT of my time these days is spent helping others understand or work with our code.<p>But along the way, the company did almost nothing to support my growth. All the opportunities that I got and I can think of now were to make use of my knowledge, but not to enhance it. At the same time, engineers around me in the team who joined at the same time or later, at the same point in their careers, got sent to specialist courses, conferences, were given tasks to boost their experience and visibility in the company. The same engineers, over and over.<p>What should I do in such circumstances? I feel like I can&#x27;t move to another company because having only 2.5 years &quot;&quot;&quot;experience&quot;&quot;&quot; under belt means almost no credibility.<p>Apologies for the wall of text.
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cimmanom
Did you ask for those perks and get rejected? In business, nobody is going to
ask you if you want to go to a conference or class. You have to be the one to
request it.

And 2.5 years is plenty to move from a first job to a second. It just means
that if you want to push for a “mid-level” title and salary you’re going to
have to work harder to prove yourself than someone with 3-5 years under their
belt would.

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Cypher
Adulthood is about taking responsibility for yourself and not relying on a
company to provide it, make opportunities for yourself and seek out tasks that
get you closer to your goal. In this case, you've identified that your far
from where you want to be. The answer here is simple to move on and try a new
approach. Changing companies every 2 years is a good way to grow.

