Sam, you started Loopt when you were 19 and figured things out very quickly along the way.
Could you give us some insights on how to increase the speed at which we learn stuff? Many people here(myself included) rely on books to learn about something or solve their
problems, and that doesn't seem to be the case with you and other top founders(Collison brothers, Drew Houston, etc.)
This is something I've also been wondering for a while (I live in Peru).
Most of the folks I know follow this path: apply for a Master's degree abroad and then try to find a way to stay in that country. But this is the thing: I'd love to work abroad without having to do a Master's because I don't like reading/writing papers, it doesn't seem like a very optimal path to me.
So my current strategy is to build a portfolio on Github, get freelancing work online and then see if some company abroad hires me. Could this work? Could some company hire me based on my experience online? Glad to hear any thoughts on this
It also depends where you get your Master's. Not all universities require you to write a lot of papers, theses and presentations - some require you to solve problems and learn problem solving (in a form of exams, projects etc.). From my experience universities in Europe need less "paperwork" compared to US.
I think it's still important part of knowledge in CS field, but it's about balance and I had experienced a good balance at FIT CTU in Prague.
Yes it might work. It's worked for thousands of people. Will it work for you? Well, it will depend on how well you execute and market not just yourself but also your work. Be strategic about how you show your work. Example: if you want to get hired by X startup/company, go look up their jobs and find out what stack they use and tackle projects that might correlate to their specific needs. SHOW them what you can do. Don't expect people to go to your Github to find a reason to hire you.
And remember to: Hustle hustle hustle. Setup web page alerts (I use Versionista https://versionista.com) for when a job page from a company you're interested in changes or is updated.
And please, I can't say this enough, learn to market yourself and your work!
I've hired many people in Peru for projects over the past few years. Your strategy is a good one. Having a solid Github portfolio and/or references from other people you've worked with is very important.
I know of at least two engineers (and the usual caveats about anecdotal evidence apply here!) who got jobs in Silicon Valley after freelancing remotely for the same company, including a H1B sponsorship, something that's by no means guaranteed.
I know an engineer in Lima who got work in California. I know others in Peru that work for companies in California remotely. None of them went to school in the States. It is possible.
I remember that some years ago while reading "Hacker and Painters" I got the naive impression(I was 18) that I could just go to grad school and then become rich by just building a technically superior product, without having business experience. How wrong I was.
Leechblock(Firefox add-on) did the job for me; you can make the websites available only for some amount of time per day/week and then they'll be blocked. The effect of this after a while was that I lost interest on reading news endlessly.
In the general case, I think that first you need some tools that force you to change your behaviour; after a while it becomes a habit and you won't need then anymore.
Care to elaborate? I'm early in my career(24), love embedded systems, but I just don't know if there are good jobs available in this industry for young people. Could you give more info?
What works for me is to go to bed early(10pm), wake up at 6am and to study/ready/practice programming for an hour not matter what. The key is to set aside that hour even if there are other duties that you have to do.
