[VirusNewbie]

This reads a bit like someone saying they bought some basketball shoes and started practicing some dribbling, and they want to know how to get into the NBA.

Do you even like playing basketball? Do you just see the money and the lifestyle and think "ok that sounds good, how do I get that"?

I think these are the wrong questions to be asking.

[paulcole]

Let’s get real here.

There’s like 550 NBA players. There’s what, like 10,000 engineers at Google alone?

A person who leetcodes their way to Amazon isn’t in the same universe of comparative-skill-level as the 11th man on an NBA bench.

[VirusNewbie]

Yes, it's note as competitive as the NBA, the minimum NBA salary is over 5x what the 'minimum' FAANG salary is.

None the less I think it gets the point across that just because you can program doesn't mean you can work at a FAANG. Similarly, just because you're good enough to play high school varsity doesn't mean you can get to the NBA.

[paulcole]

> None the less I think it gets the point across that just because you can program doesn't mean you can work at a FAANG.

This is orders of magnitude less true than the high school varsity and NBA comparison.

If someone can program well enough to be paid by someone to do it and is driven enough, I’d bet that they can get a FAANG offer at some point in their lives. Most people will fail at the drive part.

There is no level of drive that allows 99.9% of high school varsity starters to take off their warmups at a D1 university program, let alone the NBA. It will never ever ever ever happen.

[itsankur]

So if it isn't drive, than that really only leaves: - genetics - coaching/enviornment?

Basically, you are born with the required genetics + surrounded with the right coaching from a very early age or you won't get into the NBA right?

Are there other factors you think contribute? What percentage weight would you put on each factor if you had to guess.

I think you're likely correct here. There's definitely exceptions to this, but those exceptions fit into the 99.9% figure you have here.

[VirusNewbie]

sure, fine, substitute NBA with L8 at FAANG or something. Now, I stll think you're either in FAANG (or somewhere more exclusive?) and surrounded by very talented people and over extrapolating to the general programmer population, or making assumptions never having worked there.

There are a lot of engineers that cannot pass even basic warmup questions and probably never will be able to.

[itsankur]

L8 might be apt, but honestly human brains are far more fluid and dynamic than human limb length. You can train your brain to do remarkable things it couldn't do before remarkably fast. You just can't train your limbs to be a foot longer.

Aka, I'd argue that elon musk drive gives you a greater chance to become an L8 engineer, where as elon musk drive may make you an NBA player, but at a significantly lower chance.

[roadtoswe]

I know I should have framed the question in a less naive way. I did some very basic programming running some statistics before, and enjoyed the process greatly. But I would not classify it as programming experience in the general sense, it was more about thinking of the statistical problem at hand and using minimal programming to help. I would still classify myself in the "no programming or minimal programming" category, but I'm not oblivious to the industry.

[VirusNewbie]

ok, well assuming you're not naive, not jut chasing some prestige or money (because those are far from guaranteed), you have to learn how to both become a good software engineer, and how to interview. Too many people focus on the latter, not realizing that is only a problem if you're getting interviews.

To actually build up the resume and skills of the craft, I would invest and contribute to popular, widely used Open Source projects that have an active community, conferences, mailing lists and the like.

This will take a lot of investment, but having non trivial contributions to core software many companies use is often a better resume tick than an internship or experience at a no name company.

I had multiple well known, non FAANG big tech engineers invite me to come interview after they saw my contributions to some larger Open Source projects.

Then, passing the interview is another story, but there are many paid and unpaid resources to guide you through that process.

[roadtoswe]

Thanks for the advice regarding Open Source contribution.