Not to be harsh, but maybe this guy just isn't a good engineer / academic? This is why I switched from EE to CS, I found it far more interesting and could execute doing software stuff at a very high level even with my piss poor academic record. Never do something you're mediocre at, life just isn't going to be a good time if that's your approach. Tbh, if I was this guy I would've just switched industries and done something I was objectively better at. I quit EE because without a doubt I would've been a C-level electrical engineer at best.
I never thought I was bad at my job and I have equal/higher acceptance rates than my friends, but thanks for the vote of confidence! Rejection is very common in academia and I wish people talked about it more.
Thank you for writing about it! It’s very common in tech too but people don’t talk about that either (though academia is objectively more competitive; you have far fewer tenure-track slots, compared to even a major “elite” tech company that employs over 100,000 people).
It’s important for people to see that those who have succeeded have failed too.
I think that’s pretty harsh. Perhaps he’s not the best SWE candidate at a FAANG or FAANG-like place — but he’s in a tenure-track position at a school that is top 40ish for public universities (averaging both engineering and computer science in undergrad rankings), which is hardly something to “switch industries” over.
We do ourselves a major disservice by pretending that only having an academic position at the top five or ten schools or a job at one of the top five or six tech companies is the only way to achieve success.