Amazon is not a particularly good company to work for, and if you could land an offer there, surely you could land a better offer by the time you graduate.
The opportunity cost here is very minimal if you think slightly longer term. In fact the doors that Cambridge might open down the road could far exceed whatever money you save as a L3/4 at Amazon.
If it was Cambridge vs a frontier lab or HFT offer of > 400-500k then it might be a harder decision, since it's likely that those are still the top jobs you would want after graduation.
Cambridge masters is much more of a once in a lifetime opportunity than Amazon is. People who tell you to go take the job probably are projecting and just want a job themselves.
Mine is similar to this. In addition the anxiety comes from me thinking that most interactions are banal and more about “trading good vibes and energy” with the other person rather than a genuine deep conversation, and I fear that my facial expressions will reflect what I’m really feeling inside - “ugh can we transition off talking about my weekend or the weather?”. And also because I’m not that witty without alcohol, but it’s almost like most of western small talk is based off of exchanging humor and wit, then laughing very loudly at the punchline. So my anxiety is more to do with not performing well enough to have this stereotypical exchange done smoothly.
No this is not rare at all. Meta offers E5 ("senior" level) new hires a 400-500k total package in the US (given that you negotiate, I know the levels.fyi numbers are a bit lower), and this isn't some exception. If your performance is good and/or stock appreciation happens, then that number goes even higher.
I'm a very average engineer (probably way below average amongst the HN crowd) and I'm in that range.
Got a small heater (size of a small PC speaker) for 20 bucks on Amazon, most effective purchase I’ve made in recent memory, super effective for cold fingers and doesn’t even need to be on all the time
Why does nicotine work? Asking this as someone who has similar problems to OP (but an average programmer) and have been vaping every day, all day long, for the last few years, and don’t mind a shorter lifespan.
No it’s not unrealistic. Any decently bright and hard working college student studying computer science can get that 100k+ even as an intern. So technically this saving can start before age of 21. By age 25 they can already make 300k+. But yes, this is assuming you are in North America.
Recently went through the leetcode circus myself and ended up with an offer in this range, thus 4-5x my previous salary, and I have 7 years of experience. The interview had almost nothing to do with my work experience (which isn't that great btw) except for the behavioral portion. I am not exceptional either - most HN comments go over my head really quickly. Now I can actually think about affording real estate and starting a family.
Companies that can pay this much aren't rare. They're all in plain sight. FAANG, Coinbase, Stripe, Brex, to name a few.
I am having a similar problem as OP (in my 30s now but yearn for the social environment of 20 somethings) and am debating digital nomading a bit to change my environment, as where I live seems to pose a lot of psychological inertia since I spent most of my life here and fall into the same patterns - everything seems like I've "been there and done that". The idea of weighing the ROI and being responsible for my own fun is a much needed reminder so thank you for this comment, I really needed it.
This price is on the high end. But many people like myself don't have the courage, confidence, looks, or complex social skills required to succeed by going to a bar and trying to pick up a girl. Then when you look at how much time and disappointment you'd have to go through to do the same through something like Tinder, then suddenly paying a few hundred starts to make sense. And quote from somewhere, "you're not paying for the sex, you're paying her to leave after".
All it took to "debunk" the lab leak hypothesis is to call it racism. So easy. I'm sure someone from China must have realized by now how convenient of a "get out of jail free card" this is.
Same here. The reason was that the weaker and less privileged (female) candidate would have more to gain from getting the job; the stronger candidate would have no problems getting a job elsewhere anyways.
How do you argue against this? At the end of the day the job was just CRUD-glue work, so strong or weak didn't matter so much.
Over the past few years I've definitely been addicted to outrage porn and anything related to SJWs and cancel culture. Now I impulsively read YouTube comments to feel like I'm right. None of this has added any value to my life, if anything made me more antagonistic and feeling like the world is screwed. Meanwhile there are probably plenty of people out there who aren't caught up in the culture wars and are just working away at their craft, getting jobs they want and paid more.