Hi friends,
I'm working from home today, and am absolutely delighted to be on my sofa.
I've been in the office three days a week with my biggest client, Zalando, for the last few months--meaning my Mondays and Fridays now feel like special, secret little bookends to my week.
I had an awesome, too-short time hanging in Vienna with Mom & Dad. Headed to ~London~ tomorrow to spend a few more days together before they bounce back to the Americas.
Hi Mom! Hi Dad!
Right before I went to Vienna, I read this article that I need to tell you about. It's by this guy who recently got hired as a software engineer at Airbnb, Haseeb Qureshi.
The article itself is long and really specific, and it's a very detailed account of how he went from deciding to look for a job to getting hired for $250,000 a year (including bonuses, etc)... which he says is more than $100K more than he was making before.
I find this article absolutely fascinating.
Read "Farewell App Academy. Hello, Airbnb. (Part 1)" here.
In the article, Haseeb talks about his job search from top to bottom and spells out all the different offers he was given from companies like Yelp, Uber, Google, and Airbnb... all at the same time.
My thoughts:
(1) Lord, bless me with the employment confidence of a software engineer.
When you read the article, it may feel really jarring to you if you're not familiar with "dev speak." (Happy to decode if you ask.) But that's actually what I love most about Haseeb's take: it's this intensely pragmatic, logical, programmer-like approach to getting hired.
He's passionate about what he does, but totally treats the job search process as the marketplace that it is.
It is no surprise to any of us that software engineers are an in-demand crew, obviously--but we can all learn from how he turned the whole search into a strategy game.
It's not personal, it's business. To the mattresses, etc.
(2) Timing, timing, timing, timing, timing, timing, timing.
The #1 reason Haseeb succeeded in getting approximately one billion offers from the hottest companies in the world? His sole mission was to have as many offers--both legitimate and perceived--on the table as possible at the same time.
(3) Age ain't nothing but a number, baby.
I went and stalked Haseeb on LinkedIn, because this is what I do with my time.
In 18 months, Haseeb went from enrolling in a 12-week coding academy, to becoming a teacher at that same coding academy, to becoming Director of Product at that academy, to getting hired at Airbnb. He's been with Airbnb for 6 months.
I repeat: he started learning how to code in April of last year and now makes $250K/year working for Airbnb.
When you're good, you're good. Don't ever let anybody tell you to keep paying your dues if you're ready to progress faster--as long as you have the skill to back it up.
Speak soon.
PS: Digging the #entrylevelboss life? The best way to care is to share, baby. Forward this email to a friend.
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