For some reason, we do not talk much about perseverance and grit. May be some of it is getting lost in the (what I perceive to be) increasingly cynical views on meritocracy (not that questioning the status quo on this topic is a bad idea, just that many seem to outright dismiss the idea of hard work and merit).
Barely half way through the interview with Apple for an internship position - which itself felt like a huge win after getting rejected by all the companies I had applied for - I was sweating profusely, couldn't say any coherent line, and was internally just praying for the embarrassment to end. After spending weeks in preparation for the interview, it was a huge blow. Also, since I didn't go to a top-100 (US) school, I didn't know if I could ever even get to the second round of interview with another H1-B sponsoring (~big) company ever again.
Long story short, rejections continued but I eventually found a break in a small local company - which did wonders to boost my confidence after being able to write "real" code for money. Later, went on to do Masters in a public university where I could work as a TA - which meant so I didn't need to pay the (almost impossible out-of-state) tuition. And yes, found a job a H1B sponsoring company where I am quite happy now:).
Its not that my story is any special or anywhere close to the success of like the one mentioned in the post. I guess my point is we can only play the cards in front of us. Being able to find a joy in doing so well (which I think is a secret to persevere) goes a long way not just for success in career but in other aspects of life also.
As a long term JavaScript developer my view into the world of software is distorted to this slice of the industry, so that I what I am speaking to.
Perseverance is not rewarded in software, at least not in JavaScript. The key reason is that there is no trust. Employers do not trust the competency of the developers and the developers do not trust each other. The result is that the work is typically extremely beginner and developers are not expected to write original code aside from trivial React components. Everything else, I mean this literally, is a downloaded NPM package because there is substantially greater trust in anonymous strangers than your coworkers. If you are interested/capable of doing more you aren't compatible with current hiring trends and will not be hired.
In all fairness though if you can get hired in a low cost of living market for 170k knowing almost nothing about how the software or the platform really work doing beginner chores then why bother persevering with hard work to be anything more? Eventually most of these people will elevate to management where their technical experience is irrelevant anyways.
Am I "not trusting myself" when I download an open source library instead of reimplementing the wheel? Should I ask a colleague to write a Javascript interpreter from scratch to show my "trust" in them? Should we collectively conspire to make developing software harder so that n00bs will be out of a job and everyone will have less software and services to use, at a more expensive price point?
It's one thing to lament the average quality of devs you're working with, it's another to suggest the problem is to go back to the 1980s and weed out all the beginners who couldn't code without open source libs.
> Should we collectively conspire to make developing software harder so that n00bs will be out of a job
Ideally, the goal of software is automation. When that actually does occur both the employer and engineer make more money as there are fewer mouths to feed.
For some reason, we do not talk much about perseverance and grit. May be some of it is getting lost in the (what I perceive to be) increasingly cynical views on meritocracy (not that questioning the status quo on this topic is a bad idea, just that many seem to outright dismiss the idea of hard work and merit).
Barely half way through the interview with Apple for an internship position - which itself felt like a huge win after getting rejected by all the companies I had applied for - I was sweating profusely, couldn't say any coherent line, and was internally just praying for the embarrassment to end. After spending weeks in preparation for the interview, it was a huge blow. Also, since I didn't go to a top-100 (US) school, I didn't know if I could ever even get to the second round of interview with another H1-B sponsoring (~big) company ever again. Long story short, rejections continued but I eventually found a break in a small local company - which did wonders to boost my confidence after being able to write "real" code for money. Later, went on to do Masters in a public university where I could work as a TA - which meant so I didn't need to pay the (almost impossible out-of-state) tuition. And yes, found a job a H1B sponsoring company where I am quite happy now:).
Its not that my story is any special or anywhere close to the success of like the one mentioned in the post. I guess my point is we can only play the cards in front of us. Being able to find a joy in doing so well (which I think is a secret to persevere) goes a long way not just for success in career but in other aspects of life also.