Lessons Learned from 3 Cities
Here are some lessons I've learned from working and living in Seattle, NYC, and SF.
Time Management
Learned this in Seattle from my manager: just like it’s important to budget your finances, it’s important to budget your time.
Create an algorithm or indexing strategy to prioritize what is the most important when answering Slack messages, emails, text messages, etc. I generally text / respond saying “I’m busy right now and can’t respond till <x amount of time> later”.
Set boundaries - I remove certain social media apps from my phone to avoid overstimulation / distractions. That way I use my phone only for communication with close friends and family. Generally, I put all these apps in my personal computer where I generally do all social activity at.
Health
Find a good health team that understands your health. Find the best PCP, dentist, and specialists that understand your health. Print out all your health records and store it in a safe location so that you can easily Fax and transfer it to different offices.
In SF, it took me months to find a good dermatologist that didn’t prescribe me super aggressive steroids.
In SF and NYC, I never found a good PCP - they always rushed my appointments and never explained things to me.
Never settle. In Seattle, I found an amazing PCP. I haven’t had a good PCP since I was a kid since my childhood doctor knew me super well. I’ve had a hard time getting a PCP who understood my health and explained what I was going through. In every appointment, my PCP explains different approaches we can take with my health and explains the research and reasoning behind his recommendations. After the appointment, he sends me an in depth summary linked to research articles. One appointment sticks out - he realized I was being overprescribed steroids for a skin condition and was prescribed one of the most powerful steroids for the skin which could cause permanent skin damage. He prescribed me a non steroid alternative and now I feel like my skin is doing better.
ALWAYS READ YOUR BILLS - get it itemized if you don’t understand it. I store all my health bills in a folder at home and review it every 3 weeks. Call insurance if you are confused. I remember being billed 4x more than I was supposed to in SF because they made a categorization mistake. Take ownership over your heath bills and don’t get screwed.
Put your health before your work - do not force yourself to go to work if you are sick. That pain and suffering will compound if you don’t address it.
Financial
Dollar cost averaging - never time the market. Invest every month, day, or year depending on your comfort level.
Compound Interest - let your money grow for you. Let’s say you invest $500 every year for the next 30 years and it compounds annually at 8%. You would have $183k at the end of 30 years!!!
Budgeting - I went on a date with a girl in SF and I remember we were going shopping at a thrift store. I bought a hat and she bought a pair of shoes. I remember she immediately opened a Google form on her phone to categorize her purchase. I thought that was brilliant. What I do is a little less aggressive - I pull all my bank and credit card data and review it every month on what areas I’ve spent in. In general, I think it’s important to have a strong picture of where you are putting your money towards.
Social
Most people are open to hanging out - just ask! Most of my friends came from hobbies like volleyball in NYC. In Seattle, I joined a small church recently where I’ve found a great community.
Ask your close friends to intro you. In NYC, I became friends with my brother’s friends and some of my college friends’ friends.
Say no - don’t spend time with people you don’t want. I learned this in NYC - I felt like I was meeting / going out 3/4 times a week. It was exhausting. When I started prioritizing spending time with people I liked and were close friends, it gave me more energy for work and life.
Ask people out - if you like someone, just ask them out.
Work
Make sure you make time to get to know your coworkers! At Github and Amazon, I’ve met a lot of amazing people. One thing I appreciate from both companies is that there were always people I loved working with. Grab a coffee or set up a quick 1:1. One of my favorite coworkers was Liela from GitHub - we would set up a Zoom and work together and it was always so fun and rewarding.
I feel like I’ve grown personally and professionally exponentially the last few years because I’ve had good managers at GitHub and Amazon. I’ve only had 2 managers the last 5 years but both of them were really great advocates and always asked me what I wanted in my career and what sort of work I wanted to do. They always gave me specific and actionable feedback for me to improve as a Software Engineer.
Work hard and it’ll pay off in the long term. One of my mentors from Etsy once told me that work compounds. If you work and learn as much as possible in your 20s, 30s, etc. - those learnings will compound aggressively and will set up your career up in the long term.
Document your work. This was especially helpful for me when I was trying to get promoted early in GitHub. My manager and I created a shared “brag” document that captured all my work when he was writing up my promo doc and getting me promoted in 10 months.
Be yourself. If you try faking your real self at work, it’ll tire you out.
that was very insightful