I could use a mentor that is a generalist software engineer and well established in his career or startup.
Given my rough upbringing, I had to learn and do everything on my own from a young age as everyone around me was crazily ignorant except for the teachers at school.
Because of it, I unknowingly made a few critical career mistakes:
1. I did 2 bachelors and 2 masters. When I started job hunting this has been perceived as 1 bachelor and 1 master. I believed back then that multiple degrees would be seen as more knowledge and therefore as valuable as job experience. This hasn’t been true.
2. After graduating my last degree, I took a 1.5 year long sabbatical. This cycled me out of all the graduate positions. I didn’t know. I felt that after 8 years of studying that I deserved a break.
3. I mistook taking advice from the US as being applicable to advice from where I live (The Netherlands). Ironically, I will immigrate to the US due to marriage.
Because of this: my career is ragged and never felt like I had a good start. In part this was also because I was crazy ambitious (wanting to work at Google back then etc) and because I really wanted my generalist skills to also be a part of my software engineering role.
The net result is that in my 7 year career, I have been jobless for 3. I ironically taught a coding bootcamp and most students are much further in their career than I am. And it hurts because from a young age I have always done my utmost best in school and to this day suspect to have way more general experience in computers and programming than any of my students (given I studied it and always had side jobs in the industry or side projects).
My self-esteem is quite low. I recently took a job as a data analyst because (1) I think I will like the job but (2) because I need the money. The thing is: it feels like a reactionary move and I can’t get my bearings in that sense to start actually working on my career as I don’t have a good framework for it.
I have a ton of motivation to switch this around.
—-
With that said, I also have something to offer. In my early 20s, I could’ve written this post about dating as well but I figured out how to do well at that despite my issues being very neurodivergent (in part due to my rough upbringing). So if anyone needs dating advice I might be able to help you if you have a ton of motivation. I have helped friends in the past and they got the results in line with the amount of motivation they had. All I can do is supply a framework.
Given my rough upbringing, I had to learn and do everything on my own from a young age as everyone around me was crazily ignorant except for the teachers at school.
Because of it, I unknowingly made a few critical career mistakes:
1. I did 2 bachelors and 2 masters. When I started job hunting this has been perceived as 1 bachelor and 1 master. I believed back then that multiple degrees would be seen as more knowledge and therefore as valuable as job experience. This hasn’t been true.
2. After graduating my last degree, I took a 1.5 year long sabbatical. This cycled me out of all the graduate positions. I didn’t know. I felt that after 8 years of studying that I deserved a break.
3. I mistook taking advice from the US as being applicable to advice from where I live (The Netherlands). Ironically, I will immigrate to the US due to marriage.
Because of this: my career is ragged and never felt like I had a good start. In part this was also because I was crazy ambitious (wanting to work at Google back then etc) and because I really wanted my generalist skills to also be a part of my software engineering role.
The net result is that in my 7 year career, I have been jobless for 3. I ironically taught a coding bootcamp and most students are much further in their career than I am. And it hurts because from a young age I have always done my utmost best in school and to this day suspect to have way more general experience in computers and programming than any of my students (given I studied it and always had side jobs in the industry or side projects).
My self-esteem is quite low. I recently took a job as a data analyst because (1) I think I will like the job but (2) because I need the money. The thing is: it feels like a reactionary move and I can’t get my bearings in that sense to start actually working on my career as I don’t have a good framework for it.
I have a ton of motivation to switch this around.
—-
With that said, I also have something to offer. In my early 20s, I could’ve written this post about dating as well but I figured out how to do well at that despite my issues being very neurodivergent (in part due to my rough upbringing). So if anyone needs dating advice I might be able to help you if you have a ton of motivation. I have helped friends in the past and they got the results in line with the amount of motivation they had. All I can do is supply a framework.
—-
My email is in my profile.