I went to the same high school as the founders[1]. They were about the 2 best software engineers in a school with a LOT of very smart software engineers. Another pair founded Yext, which went public last year. I still consider that school the group with the highest concentration of raw brain power I've ever been a part of.
I'm probably a 1% engineer, been hired by M$, FB, and Google. These guys were light years ahead of me. I'm not sure I'm as good now as they were at like 17 years old. In fact I'm probably only a decent engineer from having observed the stuff they were doing back then and finding inspiration.
I went to UVA and I think about half of the engineering school was from TJ (including 3 of my roommates). :) I can't think of any superior public high school (and I went to a different Governor's School in Virginia myself) anywhere, due to the amazingly large and deep talent pool TJ pulls from. Nothing like it exists in the Bay Area, that's for sure!
Just checked the rankings. My first high school made #172 on the list ("International School of the Americas").
My second high school is unranked ("Texas Academy of Math and Science"). I don't think it qualifies as a high school. Seems we haven't done a great job of identifying the accomplishments of our alumni, based on the Wikipedia page. No doubt it would rank near the top though. My year alone Caltech accepted about 30 of us, more than any other high school in the country. Makes me wonder what my peers have been up to.
Anyway, I'd agree that these tech high schools have some amazingly smart people attending them.
Forgot to mention that those four engineers were same school AND same grade as me. So 4 out of 400 students were the tech guys behind Yext and FoundationDB.
Maybe it's just me, but the hubris in this comment seems a little excessive.
They aforementioned SWEs make themselves multimillionaires /and/ have great jobs /and/ get praised by their peers, yet now everyone else has to bow down to them... over claims they were great programmers in high school? Is an appeal to your own experience the best way to make yourself seem relevant here?
It's an incredible DB system, but it ain't the Second Coming. Calm down.
I don't bow down to my laptop, but I respect what went into making it.
It's great to admire excellent engineers; aspiring to be as skilled as someone at a task can be very motivating. Worshipping them is another thing.
You're right about the inferiority complex - I know I'm a relatively bad SW engineer, but that's mostly related to how new it is to me. I expect and want to improve.
Hubris is defined as excessive pride or self-confidence. I would say that bragging that you're "probably a 1% engineer," and that you've been hired by three of the largest SW companies out there qualifies as hubris. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think a 1% engineer would publicly boast about being one and then actually use the 'M$' in a non-farcical manner.
Shitting on 99% of the SWE population to make yourself look good, then shitting on yourself to make another person look even better doesn't really work. There's a reason humanCmp() is a little more complex than strCmp().
BTW, being hired by a large company doesn't mean you're all that. Plenty of idiots get hired by Oracle.
I'm probably a 1% engineer, been hired by M$, FB, and Google. These guys were light years ahead of me. I'm not sure I'm as good now as they were at like 17 years old. In fact I'm probably only a decent engineer from having observed the stuff they were doing back then and finding inspiration.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson_High_School_f...