Life After Poker

Super happy for you!

Although I haven't peaked or hit the same epic rungood in life like you, I hope someday soon I can also describe my life as fucking great! But for now I thoroughly enjoy the pursuit of happiness.

Def going to give ur Quora a reading later and u wrote something that i've felt for a while but never actually posted in words before..."I hope everyone here finds something similar, whether it be in poker or not."

Beautiful stuff man.

best life decision

Why aiming for retirement at 35 if you are so happy with the life you're living right now? Unless you have some specific interests you want to pursue in retirement, I'd say just continue your career. Maybe on the next level on the ladder, maybe in a lower gear, but don't quit just for the sake of it.

Retirement can also mean falling back in a lazy life without too much purpose and that doesn't seem to make you particularly happy.

always awesome to read about people successfully transitioning out of poker

Nice one
Agreed with the planning for retirement being kinda meh. I dread the day when I don't have a job or a major project Im workin on. In your field having your own startup one day seems like a good long term plan?

this is it

well done

On July 24 2014 07:14 PoorUser wrote: always awesome to read about people successfully transitioning out of poker

isnt software SOOO much easier than poker?! my path was very similar and I couldnt be happier. Its easy to play poker when you still feel like it, not so easy to "work a real job" when youre in the mood.

What type of job did you land at the startup? I started by doing graphics design and moved into front end development full time, got the ol senior title about 2 years later, leading a UI team now.

did you finish your college degree or just learn programming and get a job with those skills.

How much do you earn if you think you will earn in 10 years enough for the rest of your life (40-50 years)?

GJ nonetheless

On July 24 2014 06:29 Misjka wrote: Why aiming for retirement at 35 if you are so happy with the life you're living right now? Unless you have some specific interests you want to pursue in retirement, I'd say just continue your career. Maybe on the next level on the ladder, maybe in a lower gear, but don't quit just for the sake of it. Retirement can also mean falling back in a lazy life without too much purpose and that doesn't seem to make you particularly happy.

I definitely get what you mean. My idea of retirement is when the principle on my savings outweighs my annual expenses. I'll still likely be doing stuff like coding, building products, but not really care about the money when doing it. I also think if I'm lucky enough to get to this point, I'd want to do something involving teaching (in the limited capacity that I can), either in my hometown or for those less fortunate. In other words, I'd still work and put my abilities to their best use, but in an area where it'd still be okay if I didn't get paid.

On July 24 2014 11:20 milkman wrote: What type of job did you land at the startup? I started by doing graphics design and moved into front end development full time, got the ol senior title about 2 years later, leading a UI team now.

I'm a full-stack rails engineer, so I build backend systems in ruby on rails, and do equal amounts of front-end with sass, javascript/jquery, react.js. My boss considers me mid-level at this point, I've been at the company for 9 months now lol. It's definitely easier than coding - 10x easier to make 100k in programming than in poker, but programming has a fairly low ceiling compared to everything else. Even if you're in the top 1% of programmers in your field, your salary tends to max out around 250k iirc, so I assume that's why so many go on to build their own things.

On July 24 2014 11:42 traxamillion wrote: did you finish your college degree or just learn programming and get a job with those skills.

Never went back to school, thankfully tech is a progressive industry, and unless you are going to a company with an insanely strong computer science focus like Google, Palantir, etc. no one cares about where you graduated or what your GPA was. It does help if you come from Stanford with a CS degree of course, but being from the middle of nowhere with a liberal arts major doesn't hurt. You just have to prove what you're worth, e.g. what you can build, what you have built, etc.

On July 24 2014 12:00 napoleono wrote: How much do you earn if you think you will earn in 10 years enough for the rest of your life (40-50 years)? GJ nonetheless

My idea of retirement is when the principle on my savings outweighs my annual expenses, and I don't need or ever think I'll need a lavish lifestyle of nice cars, big booty hoes, and making it rain at the clubs. Thus, if my annual interest earnings outweigh the amount that I spend, I consider myself retired. For example, if I only really need 50k a year (arbitrary amount, likely a lot lower) to live, then that's only 5% interest off $1m in savings. $1m in savings in 10 years isn't a cakewalk, but I'm saving aggressively now and it'll only compound. Also, the implied sentiment was that I hope to at least hit a modest homerun in a self-built tech product within the next 10 years that would really speed that up .

I missed this blog a lot. Thanks for the update. GL and keep trucking on!

5% interest? more like 3%, gl beating inflation

You will have to save like 85k/year to near 1M in 9 year with a 5% interest rate and monthly compounding. Also taking into account inflation, will be hard ^^

Not to mention as an 85k/year earner to suddenly cut your income almost in half to retire is going to be quite a beat. I mean honestly it's not really realistic at all to try and retire in 10 years at your age unless you were pulling in 250k/year, and if you were pullingin 250k/year you would choose to keep working because you would enjoy the lifestyle that money affords you despite the work, and comfortably retire in 30 years maintaining that lifestyle.

Given my level of competitiveness, I would consider it a huge beat if my full-time job salary (which will also only increase) made up more than 50% of my actual yearly income in the next 10 years. There are a lot of ways to make money in software, which don't even include the "startup" route (been there, done that ).

Consider it like the poker goals we made on Jan 1st, where we plan to make $X in the year ahead. It likely will only occur if I luckbox or work insane amounts, but still doable.

interesting. I'm playing poker right now for money but am also teaching myself object oriented programming starting with java. I'm pretty noob wish i had learned this as a kid instead of playing games but oh well. I'm like 2/3rds done with a degree but been out of school for 7 years and it is so hard to get back. Figured if i got good enough at programming someone will pay me to build stuff.

Think I should step back and learn BASIC or C 1st?

i would be weary about saving money in today's economy, inflation is getting incredibly high, i think you'd be better off just buying two 500k houses (in desirable locations), and rent them out, $1500 for the top, $1000 for the basement, inflation adjusted income that will have reasonable relative value in any economic conditions

so there's hope for the rest of us!!??

^this!

Nice update kevin!

On July 24 2014 17:21 traxamillion wrote: Think I should step back and learn BASIC or C 1st?

So it's good that you're teaching yourself, but just a heads up that to go from completely self-taught to employable might take a long time (1 year+) if you're only learning casually, part-time. When I started learning it was a full-time endeavor

After that, it doesn't matter to a certain extent what you pick up because as long as you can get over that initial curve, you're pretty much a "programmer" and can find a job doing something.

That is the PC-answer but to be very honest with you, there are some technologies that are the most valuable right now, and have more open demand for juniors, etc.

If you want to work at a big company, doing C/C++ or Java, and having solid computer science fundamentals (e.g. from school) is helpful. You can always land an entry-level job teaching yourself for a year (you can easily learn in a year what people spend 4 years in college learning because they're for sure not full-time grinding it like we are). This isn't a path I can speak much about, because I'm not classically trained like that.

If you want to work at a smaller company, like a startup or consulting firm, the best things to learn now are mobile technologies, javascript, or popular languages and their frameworks like Ruby on Rails. I went the latter route, and currently do a lot of RoR, have a decent grasp of Javascript, and can't do anything mobile. By most accounts, it seems like mobile is the future and will continue to destroy web, so there is most EV in learning Objective-C/Swift (for iPhone/iPad apps) or Java for Android. Strong javascript skills are high in demand right now as well, especially due to server-side platforms like Node.js. For me, Ruby was really easy to pick up as a first language, and I like web design so naturally it fit well for me.

There's a good discussion going on here: http://www.quora.com/Computer-Science...nguage-to-know-for-the-future-and-why

As you can see, people name all sorts of shit, so at the end of the day, it also doesn't matter, and you should do what you like best. The best mix of the corporate/startup paths from above is Java which you're already learning anyway. You can either program Java at a large company building desktop programs, or (more +EV, IMO) build Android apps.

So tl;dr if you like Java, go at it. If you don't like it, consider something else, but I would focus on mobile. If you don't like that, I would try web technologies like Javascript (and then Node.js), or Ruby (and Ruby on Rails). Those have the highest $ yield currently and will for the projected near future. You can always re-learn after that if they fall out of style.

Thanks bro thats some great and very helpful info. I have already been looking into Javascript. I was thinking it would be at least 2 years to be employable (of course this will be highly variable depending on the individual) but the fact that you did it in 1 is highly encouraging. I live on the peninsula in San Mateo between San Francisco and San Jose so there should be plenty of opportunity out here obviously. Just getting sick of grinding these Norcal cardrooms because PLO is hardly spread and my only other option is Bovada which isn't bad but the PLO hu SNGs i like only go so high and run so often and thats when i can even get motivated to grind online. Would rather study at the moment and line something up in a growing field rather than a dying one.

Congrats yo~

gL in the future.

On July 24 2014 17:28 TalentedTom wrote: i would be weary about saving money in today's economy, inflation is getting incredibly high, i think you'd be better off just buying two 500k houses (in desirable locations), and rent them out, $1500 for the top, $1000 for the basement, inflation adjusted income that will have reasonable relative value in any economic conditions

>high inflation

On July 24 2014 18:46 PanoRaMa wrote: Show nested quote + On July 24 2014 17:21 traxamillion wrote: Think I should step back and learn BASIC or C 1st? So it's good that you're teaching yourself, but just a heads up that to go from completely self-taught to employable might take a long time (1 year+) if you're only learning casually, part-time. When I started learning it was a full-time endeavor After that, it doesn't matter to a certain extent what you pick up because as long as you can get over that initial curve, you're pretty much a "programmer" and can find a job doing something. That is the PC-answer but to be very honest with you, there are some technologies that are the most valuable right now, and have more open demand for juniors, etc. If you want to work at a big company, doing C/C++ or Java, and having solid computer science fundamentals (e.g. from school) is helpful. You can always land an entry-level job teaching yourself for a year (you can easily learn in a year what people spend 4 years in college learning because they're for sure not full-time grinding it like we are). This isn't a path I can speak much about, because I'm not classically trained like that. If you want to work at a smaller company, like a startup or consulting firm, the best things to learn now are mobile technologies, javascript, or popular languages and their frameworks like Ruby on Rails. I went the latter route, and currently do a lot of RoR, have a decent grasp of Javascript, and can't do anything mobile. By most accounts, it seems like mobile is the future and will continue to destroy web, so there is most EV in learning Objective-C/Swift (for iPhone/iPad apps) or Java for Android. Strong javascript skills are high in demand right now as well, especially due to server-side platforms like Node.js. For me, Ruby was really easy to pick up as a first language, and I like web design so naturally it fit well for me. There's a good discussion going on here: http://www.quora.com/Computer-Science...nguage-to-know-for-the-future-and-why As you can see, people name all sorts of shit, so at the end of the day, it also doesn't matter, and you should do what you like best. The best mix of the corporate/startup paths from above is Java which you're already learning anyway. You can either program Java at a large company building desktop programs, or (more +EV, IMO) build Android apps. So tl;dr if you like Java, go at it. If you don't like it, consider something else, but I would focus on mobile. If you don't like that, I would try web technologies like Javascript (and then Node.js), or Ruby (and Ruby on Rails). Those have the highest $ yield currently and will for the projected near future. You can always re-learn after that if they fall out of style.

hey dude do you have skype or Facebook(send in a PM obv)? id like to hit you up with some questions sometime but its late atm so im really tired.

On July 24 2014 17:28 TalentedTom wrote: i would be weary about saving money in today's economy, inflation is getting incredibly high, i think you'd be better off just buying two 500k houses (in desirable locations), and rent them out, $1500 for the top, $1000 for the basement, inflation adjusted income that will have reasonable relative value in any economic conditions

Tom, investing 1 million dollars into 2 physical assets at 2 specific locations (no matter how desirable!) is absolutely one of the most RISKY "investments" you could put up.

Alot of people overestimate what they can charge for rent, and don't understand how much of their profits get eaten up by HOA's, property taxes, maintenance costs, terrible tenants who steal your lightbulbs, and the list goes on. not to mention interest rate forecasting.

The people who are most suited for this type of investment are the contractors/construction workers who are knowledgeable about roof repair, plumbing, AC repair, who could actually keep the maintenance costs low enough to turn some profit.

On top of this, it is with damn near 100% probability that interest rates will rise in the future (after all we are on the lower bound close to 0%) and this has massive repercussions that ppl only pretend to understand (myself not included since i'm not going to make any khan like predictions).

But think about investing 1 million, into 2 physical properties that could easily be destroyed by some wildfire or lightning, or natural disaster vs investing in the SP500, where you are quite literally diversifying from 2 assets to over 500. it just seems much less risky no?

would you invest 1 million into that one pizza parlor in your hometown that has done quite well? or invest in a bunch of dominos (like 25k piece investments across 40 dominoes) across america?

btw Tom, i think you'd make an unbelievably great bond trader, based on your personality and success at poker (but primarily your personality).

On July 25 2014 04:52 DooMeR wrote: Show nested quote + On July 24 2014 18:46 PanoRaMa wrote:   On July 24 2014 17:21 traxamillion wrote: Think I should step back and learn BASIC or C 1st? So it's good that you're teaching yourself, but just a heads up that to go from completely self-taught to employable might take a long time (1 year+) if you're only learning casually, part-time. When I started learning it was a full-time endeavor After that, it doesn't matter to a certain extent what you pick up because as long as you can get over that initial curve, you're pretty much a "programmer" and can find a job doing something. That is the PC-answer but to be very honest with you, there are some technologies that are the most valuable right now, and have more open demand for juniors, etc. If you want to work at a big company, doing C/C++ or Java, and having solid computer science fundamentals (e.g. from school) is helpful. You can always land an entry-level job teaching yourself for a year (you can easily learn in a year what people spend 4 years in college learning because they're for sure not full-time grinding it like we are). This isn't a path I can speak much about, because I'm not classically trained like that. If you want to work at a smaller company, like a startup or consulting firm, the best things to learn now are mobile technologies, javascript, or popular languages and their frameworks like Ruby on Rails. I went the latter route, and currently do a lot of RoR, have a decent grasp of Javascript, and can't do anything mobile. By most accounts, it seems like mobile is the future and will continue to destroy web, so there is most EV in learning Objective-C/Swift (for iPhone/iPad apps) or Java for Android. Strong javascript skills are high in demand right now as well, especially due to server-side platforms like Node.js. For me, Ruby was really easy to pick up as a first language, and I like web design so naturally it fit well for me. There's a good discussion going on here: http://www.quora.com/Computer-Science...nguage-to-know-for-the-future-and-why As you can see, people name all sorts of shit, so at the end of the day, it also doesn't matter, and you should do what you like best. The best mix of the corporate/startup paths from above is Java which you're already learning anyway. You can either program Java at a large company building desktop programs, or (more +EV, IMO) build Android apps. So tl;dr if you like Java, go at it. If you don't like it, consider something else, but I would focus on mobile. If you don't like that, I would try web technologies like Javascript (and then Node.js), or Ruby (and Ruby on Rails). Those have the highest $ yield currently and will for the projected near future. You can always re-learn after that if they fall out of style. hey dude do you have skype or Facebook(send in a PM obv)? id like to hit you up with some questions sometime but its late atm so im really tired.

dommer u know u can always text ur homeboy if u got questions about the software grind.

Also i agree with pano, the easiest way to start making good money from knowing nothing is the front end stuff, so html/javascript/css then from there it opens up alot of doors, you can make websites, web apps, web driven iphone and andriod apps with things like phone gap.. lots of stuff..
I binked my first 100K+ only knowing html/css/javascript.. objective C is what im learning right now but thats just because im addicted to making iphone apps.

good thread
glad to hear you're doing well

WP!

On July 25 2014 12:24 milkman wrote: Show nested quote + On July 25 2014 04:52 DooMeR wrote:   On July 24 2014 18:46 PanoRaMa wrote:   On July 24 2014 17:21 traxamillion wrote: Think I should step back and learn BASIC or C 1st? So it's good that you're teaching yourself, but just a heads up that to go from completely self-taught to employable might take a long time (1 year+) if you're only learning casually, part-time. When I started learning it was a full-time endeavor After that, it doesn't matter to a certain extent what you pick up because as long as you can get over that initial curve, you're pretty much a "programmer" and can find a job doing something. That is the PC-answer but to be very honest with you, there are some technologies that are the most valuable right now, and have more open demand for juniors, etc. If you want to work at a big company, doing C/C++ or Java, and having solid computer science fundamentals (e.g. from school) is helpful. You can always land an entry-level job teaching yourself for a year (you can easily learn in a year what people spend 4 years in college learning because they're for sure not full-time grinding it like we are). This isn't a path I can speak much about, because I'm not classically trained like that. If you want to work at a smaller company, like a startup or consulting firm, the best things to learn now are mobile technologies, javascript, or popular languages and their frameworks like Ruby on Rails. I went the latter route, and currently do a lot of RoR, have a decent grasp of Javascript, and can't do anything mobile. By most accounts, it seems like mobile is the future and will continue to destroy web, so there is most EV in learning Objective-C/Swift (for iPhone/iPad apps) or Java for Android. Strong javascript skills are high in demand right now as well, especially due to server-side platforms like Node.js. For me, Ruby was really easy to pick up as a first language, and I like web design so naturally it fit well for me. There's a good discussion going on here: http://www.quora.com/Computer-Science...nguage-to-know-for-the-future-and-why As you can see, people name all sorts of shit, so at the end of the day, it also doesn't matter, and you should do what you like best. The best mix of the corporate/startup paths from above is Java which you're already learning anyway. You can either program Java at a large company building desktop programs, or (more +EV, IMO) build Android apps. So tl;dr if you like Java, go at it. If you don't like it, consider something else, but I would focus on mobile. If you don't like that, I would try web technologies like Javascript (and then Node.js), or Ruby (and Ruby on Rails). Those have the highest $ yield currently and will for the projected near future. You can always re-learn after that if they fall out of style. hey dude do you have skype or Facebook(send in a PM obv)? id like to hit you up with some questions sometime but its late atm so im really tired. dommer u know u can always text ur homeboy if u got questions about the software grind. Also i agree with pano, the easiest way to start making good money from knowing nothing is the front end stuff, so html/javascript/css then from there it opens up alot of doors, you can make websites, web apps, web driven iphone and andriod apps with things like phone gap.. lots of stuff.. I binked my first 100K+ only knowing html/css/javascript.. objective C is what im learning right now but thats just because im addicted to making iphone apps.

i know and i would if i decided to pursue something.

thanks for posting this, wish i'd seen it earlier. i have a ton of questions about this stuff, i apologize in advance for the # of q's

1) i recently started doing a half-assed job at learning Python with absolutely no previous programming experience (half-assed because i don't have time to do more atm), mostly because it seems to have the most quality and free educational sources online - although the vast majority of those coding bootcamps seem to teach Ruby. i know each language has its strengths and weaknesses, but from what i've read Ruby seems like it's on the decline (also according to the chart linked in your reply to traxamillion), although i know Ruby devs still get paid more than Python/Java/etc. if i'm not mistaken. do you have any thoughts on this?

1a) do you have any opinion on coding bootcamps? either for specific ones, or that path in general as a way of getting into the industry. for the more well-known ones, what they offer seems like a really good deal for the right person at face-value when you look at their job placement % and avg. salaries. one of the criticisms i've heard is that they can cause you to get "pegged" as a "ruby developer" or "python developer" or whatever the bootcamp teaches, and can make career advancement more difficult, do you think that's a legit complaint? also sometimes i wonder if the job placement stats they advertise are sustainable, since most of their numbers at the moment would be from when the Ruby job market was peaking and it's hard to predict what languages will become trendy.

2) going off of people's comments, i get the impression that picking up your first real language and getting decent at it might take 1 year+++, but once you learn how to program, picking up new languages takes like a month or two. would you say that's accurate?

3) i always see people recommending Github for those of us with "non-traditional" backgrounds (aka liberal arts degree from random university). for someone with no other relevant experience, can you sort of describe or give an example of what type of GH profile should be put together for someone who wants a decent chance of getting an entry-level dev job in the Bay Area? is there anything in particular outside of GH in terms of job resume purposes that you'd recommend doing, or is it better to just stick with GH since employers will be familiar with it?

4) do you think coding challenges like the ones at http://coderbyte.com/ can be useful as a self-assessment tool for job readiness?

5) what do you think about PHP? it seems like everyone hates it, but there's still so many sites running on it that learning it is still valuable and even mandatory for a bunch of web dev jobs, at least for now. is it going to die, and if so when?

{I know a lot of "non-coders" who had a lot of success with Ruby on Rails bootcamps. For example one guy, whose parents are in the cement industry, did a 10-week RoR bootcamp and then built a website that uses GPS to track a cement trucks location, integrated the site with google maps, and uses map data to plot the optimal light-traffic path for a driver to get to the drop-off location (cement takes 4 hours or so to dry up).

RoR is easy for people to learn and build things because it hides a lot of the tedious, hard to configure stuff. You can also reuse other people's code much easier.

Java is harder because there's a lot of deeper concepts you need to grasp before you can build anything. And it's harder to see what you're doing wrong. With a website you can visually and quickly see what's going on.

Don't focus on getting into the debates about which language is better. Focus on getting shit done. Users don't care what language you coded in, just that the website doesn't break and they can buy what they want on it. Don't worry too much about your Github profile, but DO use version control...hence Github is a good option.

My recommendation is:

Learn Node.js using Heroku: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/getting-started-with-nodejs
This takes about 10 minutes to set up.

-Then make a home page.
-Then choose a feature you want to build...like taking first name, last name, email and storing it in the database. Figure out how to do that.

-If that's too hard already, stop. Pick something easier like a button that lets you download an image, then a pdf, then ...

Any of these small projects you can google and find help on.

Just pick sample things that you want to copy from the internet, and try to build that. For example, google ANY online clothing website. They ALL look the same (white background, same kind of tabs, etc...)

http://www.saksfifthavenue.com/Christ...kzZ52floh/Ne-6lvnb6?sre=mhpmainm1s2l1
http://www1.bloomingdales.com/index.o...&gclid=CN-wo-X_4r8CFatzMgodPHUABw

If you learn how to build one of these sites, you'll have a job.

}

I don't want to get the bare minimum good enough at one of the easier programming languages to get a job and then be having to focus so much on that job that my progress in learning is greatly impeded.

On July 25 2014 21:58 bigredhoss wrote: thanks for posting this, wish i'd seen it earlier. i have a ton of questions about this stuff, i apologize in advance for the # of q's 1) i recently started doing a half-assed job at learning Python with absolutely no previous programming experience (half-assed because i don't have time to do more atm), mostly because it seems to have the most quality and free educational sources online - although the vast majority of those coding bootcamps seem to teach Ruby. i know each language has its strengths and weaknesses, but from what i've read Ruby seems like it's on the decline (also according to the chart linked in your reply to traxamillion), although i know Ruby devs still get paid more than Python/Java/etc. if i'm not mistaken. do you have any thoughts on this?

Python isn't a bad choice, and is frequently compared to Ruby. I wouldn't say Ruby is on the decline necessarily. It's quite mainstream now in the same way PHP was 10 years ago. However, even today, despite all the PHP hate, there are still a lot of jobs out there that need PHP developers to maintain legacy code. So even if you knew nothing but Ruby 10 years from now, you'd still likely get a respectable job (at a big company) without much trouble. So I wouldn't worry about that and just focus on what language YOU prefer (to an extent, obviously some languages are more inherently market +EV than others).

1a) do you have any opinion on coding bootcamps? either for specific ones, or that path in general as a way of getting into the industry. for the more well-known ones, what they offer seems like a really good deal for the right person at face-value when you look at their job placement % and avg. salaries. one of the criticisms i've heard is that they can cause you to get "pegged" as a "ruby developer" or "python developer" or whatever the bootcamp teaches, and can make career advancement more difficult, do you think that's a legit complaint? also sometimes i wonder if the job placement stats they advertise are sustainable, since most of their numbers at the moment would be from when the Ruby job market was peaking and it's hard to predict what languages will become trendy.

I went to one (devbootcamp) in early 2013 and thought it was +EV. In poker, I generally thought coaching of any kind (as long as it's not from a shitty coach) was worth it because you often could make up $ cost by the increase in your winrate. I think it's similar in that it sped up the length of time required to get to an employable state. I don't think it's required though - what they were good at was giving you a curriculum and forcing you to work 12 hours a day 5-6 days a week. Even if your self-made curriculum wasn't as optimal, you'd still learn a LOT by coding 90 hours a week for 10 weeks. So I would make that EV decision for yourself based on what you know about your own work ethic and learning style, etc.

As for being pegged as one thing or another, I generally wouldn't worry too much about that. Everybody starts somewhere, and later finds their calling once they've explored all the possible options. I started off as a "Ruby developer" but have lately been transitioning into a more front-end heavy role and focus.

The job placement stats are accurate for the most part, at least for DBC. DBC is also adapting their curriculum to include more of what's hot - they had little focus on javascript when I went through but are now placing a bigger emphasis on it. In general though, as of 2014, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a ruby developer, it's still a seller's market. Everyone I met at DBC who was looking for employment ended up getting jobs, most of them at very well known companies. DBC definitely doesn't fuck around, but it's also selection bias because either they select for high-motivation, high-ceiling individuals, or for people with solid experience doing web programming in the past.

2) going off of people's comments, i get the impression that picking up your first real language and getting decent at it might take 1 year+++, but once you learn how to program, picking up new languages takes like a month or two. would you say that's accurate?

Depends on your usage. The best way to learn something like a new language is to get paid to do it. If your job needs you to implement X and you decide that the best way to execute that is to use Y language (which is just a tool), then you essentially get 8 hours a day to learn that language until you finish the feature. In that case, you can probably learn the fundamentals of something new pretty quickly, especially if it's architecturally similar to what you already know. Otherwise, if you're just trying to pick some stuff up on the side, it will take much longer in my experience because the time and effort commitment just isn't as great.

3) i always see people recommending Github for those of us with "non-traditional" backgrounds (aka liberal arts degree from random university). for someone with no other relevant experience, can you sort of describe or give an example of what type of GH profile should be put together for someone who wants a decent chance of getting an entry-level dev job in the Bay Area? is there anything in particular outside of GH in terms of job resume purposes that you'd recommend doing, or is it better to just stick with GH since employers will be familiar with it?

If an employer receives an applicant for a junior-level role, imo what they'd look for in a resume are: meaningful contributions to others' open source projects and their own personal projects. The former states that you're actually capable of reading others' code and can write code that people have accepted and deemed worthy, which in essence will be your role as a junior anyway. The latter shows a passion for programming and learning, and thus someone who might be more capable of improving and listening than someone who doesn't care much for programming but just has to do it as a day job.

As someone who regularly filters and interviews job candidates, I do personally place an emphasis on github portfolios - I usually look at your public activity, and if there are any open source contributions, I look at them to make sure they're not just documentation edits. If you have personal projects, I take a look at the code in some of the more logic-heavy models. Very few have open source contributions, which is fine, but I definitely want to see the passion projects, especially if you don't have solid work history in the industry.

4) do you think coding challenges like the ones at http://coderbyte.com/ can be useful as a self-assessment tool for job readiness?

I took a quick look and they seem pretty good for practice but if you're largely working on the web you'll rarely need to implement stuff like this. Being able to do these is good practice in general, and might help you get a job if the company places an emphasis on writing algorithms/arbitrary ruby methods, but I mostly hated that shit and actively avoided interviewing at companies who asked those questions. Keep in mind I'm mostly startup-oriented with a web-focus - they'll for sure ask this kind of stuff at bigger companies. My interview questions are more along the lines of figuring out if the candidate knows how rails works in some aspect, how the web works, being able to catch small nuances that would lead to poor website performance or outright break the site, etc. Not whether or not they can solve math problems.

5) what do you think about PHP? it seems like everyone hates it, but there's still so many sites running on it that learning it is still valuable and even mandatory for a bunch of web dev jobs, at least for now. is it going to die, and if so when?

I don't say this for many things, but I don't think it would be worth your time to learn it. Besides legacy codebases, no one is starting new php projects. There are many anti-patterns and you'll largely just learn poor habits. Here's a long treatise on the problems PHP has: http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/

Starting out you generally want to do everything you can to first improve the chances of getting a job. Once you work at a real job in a team, on a real world production app, you'll learn exponentially more than you ever could on your own imo. This lends itself to being able to get hired MUCH easier in the future, as well as the freedom to explore other languages/tools that you might be interested in.

great reply, thanks =]

Hey Pano,

It's great to see you're doing well. A couple of questions I could have asked you on Skype, but thought useful for others to read.
-Average day at AnyPerk?
-How did you get that job? Context would be helpful, as the transitions from Enplug/grinding a live/AnyPerk to everything in between are interesting and helpful.

In your quora post:
"I was awful at the non-technical side of startups, despite genuinely loving the tech industry and having a lot of passion for what I did."
I think I am in the same situation, but believe I am motivated enough to shore up all of my skill and domain knowledge deficiencies. In the process I'll find a couple of areas I am extremely passionate about to develop further.
I also would like to build something of my own, and see that as an end goal. Working at startups or other companies would come along the way as needed.
How would you go about doing this?

Options:
-1. A 5-year dual-degree CS/comp eng program
We chatted 1yr+ back about my returning to school; this is one program I considered. It is more attractive to me now because of the language component. Learning a 2nd language to fluency without a structured environment is one of the few "skillbuilds" I'd self assess as having high execution risk, despite all the gains in productivity/work ethic I've made. Would pick a concentration closer to pure CS (thinking crypto or AI) because it's interesting/challenging, but also to leave the grad school option open.
-2. If doing the uni route with a specific end skillset in mind, I might as well take the positive freeroll of a month of running the uni admissions gauntlet: SAT prep/coaching, essays, visit campuses around the world as career R&D expense. I would apply for the top schools in the world. Rationale is the power law function in quality of education/degree brand signaling/network effects when you look at the best schools relative to mid-tier schools. Thoughts on this? If I can afford it without scholarships and can get in, is it a snapcall? This is basically a highschool "relative value of the ivies" question, for software and if it's true will probably eclipse the value of chinese.
-3. Poker, with the addition of developing a technical background (hud stats, independent GTO-oriented research, away from the table analysis, custom scripts). Goal of being best-in-world at whatever gametype I choose. The technical skills I'm just getting good at, having taken a programming-focused poker course. I can see it being a decisive factor as my edge compounds over multiple years, as I've already applied some of the results to winrate improvements in my games. I believe some of the strategic adjustments I'm making are very rare in my playerpool: PM me if you'd like to hear more about that

1 is attractive because of the "when the hell else am I going to learn mandarin?" factor, but may be limiting myself compared to 2. I think 3 has the highest earnings profile over the next 5 years.
With 1 and 2 I'll have costs(tuition, rent, travel) / lost grind time. With 3 I'll have a basic life with relentless focus on improving my game over multi-year timelines.

I think what is different about my situation is I still really enjoy poker, and if someone put a gun to my head and said "Be the best you can be at this game or die", I'd accept it (and feel a little relieved, if that makes sense).
I think the skill/earnings/leverage/InsertProxyForValue ceiling in poker is lower than tech, specifically software. That tension between higher short term earnings/certainty (more familiarity with poker) and potentially bigger things is what motivates my value judgements. What do you think of all that, and what might I be missing? These are literally the main 3 options in my head, and the first two aren't that different.

There's a midpoint that's a little closer to what you did (not going back to school, indep. skill acquisition with enplug/other jobs and devbootcamp), but for my personality/preferences/risk profile, I consider that a sub-optimal path.
If I'm going to make CS/Software/startups my life's work, I have no problem basically guaranteeing I won't have a high 6/low7-fig net worth until my mid-thirties..but open myself up to high-upside controlled randomness in stuff like a 5-10 year career as an academic (applied research->startups), and language/culture acquisition (which for chinese could also be 5-10 years). In contrast, I think I have a great shot at making those savings goals in poker.


Thanks so much,
Semp

p.s. If you are familiar with it, I'd like to hear your thoughts on Peter Thiel's philosophy (specifically the CS183 lectures available online)? Too ambitious/unsubstantiated? Just what undergrads need to hear?
http://blakemasters.com/post/20400301508/cs183class1

On July 29 2014 04:05 SemPeR wrote: Hey Pano, It's great to see you're doing well. A couple of questions I could have asked you on Skype, but thought useful for others to read. -Average day at AnyPerk?

Technically supposed to get in at 11, invariably I end up getting in at 11:30. Get in, if no emergencies, I check company yammer (intra-company messages), check email, etc. Eat lunch (breakfast) at 12.

12:30-1 I figure out what I'm going to do for the day and get in the zone. The types of tasks vary because I'm full-stack and so I take on a variety of backend or frontend features or bugfixes. I usually try to aim to complete one sizeable task per day, or multiple small tasks per day. This usually ends up being around 4 hours of mindful work, but I check reddit/espn/etc. etc. every so often to give myself a break if I need one, otherwise I'm dialed in and end up working nonstop.

Around 5 there are usually some meetings, and I start to de-focus. Around 6-8 I either start going through the motions like cleaning up bug reports, responding to any discussions that need me, get dinner at chipotle, that kind of stuff. If I'm working on something I want to push out asap or I'm really dialed in, I'll skip this deload phase and probably work hard until around 9 pm or so.

-How did you get that job? Context would be helpful, as the transitions from Enplug/grinding a live/AnyPerk to everything in between are interesting and helpful.

I knew some people from my past tech-startup networking that knew the founders who put in a good word. The founders are also young and asian so the interviews were really comfortable, I never felt nervous and just had a good time chatting and getting to know them/the company. I fit well with their culture and ended up getting an offer. I beat out a few other candidates, whom I'm sure had better technical chops than me, but for startups, culture fit goes a long way and everything I lacked technically could always be learned.

Going to answer the rest of your post in another post

Thanks Pano.

A quick reply to the investment/retirement quasi-advice being given, and the discussion it sparked.

On July 24 2014 17:28 TalentedTom wrote: i would be weary about saving money in today's economy, inflation is getting incredibly high, i think you'd be better off just buying two 500k houses (in desirable locations), and rent them out, $1500 for the top, $1000 for the basement, inflation adjusted income that will have reasonable relative value in any economic conditions

I think without any capital allocation expertise, Pano's got a fine, albeit simple, plan.
A low 7-figure net worth, highly liquid in his early 30s is at least as good as less liquid investments like TT's 500k houses route because Pano always has the 2nd option open. He misses out on the first 5ish years of compounding returns, but the trade-off is not a snapcall for the illiquid option. Most of the economic value of the skillset he is building will be realized later in his career, and having that money not tied up in a mortage/house so he can skip an angel round(s) for his first startup a couple of jobs/years down the line could be lower risk/higher EV, despite being more specialized.

I'm barely a dilettante in this stuff so read comments critically. Just trying to highlight that the standard "oh I have money, better invest it in some stuff and read some books" is just as likely to be smart as it is to be FPSy depending on how you go about it, just as "oh I have money, better not do anything with it and bank on the skills that got me the money in the first place" can also make sense.

in my experience renting out property has been a fking hassle and isn't worth the bother for a couple extra % yield over the riskfree long dated rate if you consider your time to have any kind of value doing other things

(the speculative prospect of capital gains, on the other hand though.....)

On July 24 2014 07:14 PoorUser wrote: always awesome to read about people successfully transitioning out of poker

+1.. it's a big world out there