from Gergely Orosz | by Gergely Orosz

As there's increasingly more money to be made in careers in tech, there are more people/companies selling stuff that guarantees to get a high(er) paying tech job. Be vary of outlandish/unrealistic promises and resources. A thread with advice, and examples to avoid:

1. Important: there are few shortcuts. The easiest way to get higher-paying positions, in order: 1. Have a high-paying position already 2. Be on top of your game in a tech niche 3. Have a strong network (ppl you know well in tech) 4. Have a standout profile 4. Interview well

2. The internet is full of shortcut examples. Like "From learning to code to Google in 6 months." These all suffer from survivor bias. They are great at making you feel hopeful, but also demotivate when you won't get the same results. Tech careers usually take years to build.

3. On careers taking years: It took me 12 years from the first time I was paid to code, and 8 years from my first fulltime job to make it to Uber (complete history: t.co/7jt7KDTNql) The majority of people have careers closer to this, over straight into {awesome company}.

4. Now, I do think it makes sense to buy resources that can help you grow faster and learn more. These range from books, through courses to services like mock interviews. However, as there's more money in these, more people create them. How do you find what is worthwhile?

5. Always look at the professional background of someone creating a resource (book, course etc) - Have they done the job they talk about? - Do they offer a learning path, or a clear structure? - Do they offer realistic claims? (Hint: no one can guarantee interviews/offers etc)

6. Good examples: - @alexxubyte was a Sr Eng at Twitter, interviewed people on systems design & wrote: t.co/HNq9K3ic1k - @RandallKanna went from self-taught dev to sr engineer and wrote books: t.co/NqeZrVYy73 - My Uber DS colleague building t.co/Mm3Sf3PQOW

7. Things to avoid: - Outlandish claims (as a hiring manager, I'll tell you there is no way anyone can guarantee an offer) - Resources with no information on who created them (how can you tell if they have the experience?) - Reviews on landing pages that are clearly fake

8. There's a lot of overpriced resources often with bad advice. Many of these are heavily advertised on e.g. YouTube, or do sponsorships. Let me pick apart a few examples to show how you can spot obvious rip-offs:

9. Don't waste your money #1: Paper Moon Resumes a) Obviously fake (and hardcoded) numbers. Check Internet Archive. b) All reviews are fake (no social links, and they had stock images before I called them out) c) No information on who created this resource, beyond a random co t.co/vuuv4gtMTQ

10. Don't waste your money #2: The SDI, 2nd Edition. This is more subtle: - Copy-paste of the similarly named original book. But this one has no 1st Edition. - The author has no background in software engineering - Almost all detailed reviews come from interns the author employs t.co/npteWLNzKu

11. Expect that *you* will have to put in the work for your career, over expecting to be able to buy things that magically make things better. For learning, I have a bias for reading, as they force me to go slower, and reflect. Books I read/recommend: t.co/iWy9zyVihD