TY for raising this, I often feel bad about my privileged grievances but my therapist has assured me we can recognize what we have yet have newfound issues/with it; as long as we are 'complaining' for resolve. And I want to believe they weren't saying that just to be nice :).

Practical reminders that help me:

- go on a social media fast
- write down 3-5 things minimum you are grateful for every morning
  - even if it is difficult, just start with the most basic stuff (health, family, friends,...)
  - bonus: journal as well, just brain-dump whatever is on your mind (but sometimes when I'm really down and crappy, I don't feel like journaling but jotting down gratitude is very important in these moments)
- 1-3x day breathing exercise: 2 repetitions of 5 deep inhale + exhale (this should take \~1 min)
  - I've found this easiest to remember if I get in the habit of doing this first thing, before or after lunch, and then before bed
- take that PTO and get out of the house
  - preferably explore a new part of town or get out of your region entirely
- make things fun
  - start with the mundane, see how you can make it enjoyable, no matter how silly; remember how we played with our food as kids, etc.

Software Engineer @ Wikimedia Foundation

Grace

I have and still often worry about being annoying and inconveniencing people! I think effective easy-to-remember reminders for me are:

- just say ittttt :D
- and better in a tone of assertion than apologetically 
- asking someone for a favor/help is a way to win them over

Although this question is on posting on LI and our reputation, it immediately reminded me of Coinbase’s stance on politics (consider me/this a “drive-by” comment lol), https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbase-is-a-mission-focused-company. I heard the CEO, Brian Armstrong talk about this in greater depth on a podcast a couple of years ago (I can’t remember which one) and I really admired what he had to say. 

I like everything everyone has said so far. I mostly think this can be a good thing, if used well. For me, feeling jealous and insecure is often a helpful indicator of where I need to actually improve and work on. (For better or for worse) I tend to believe that my insecurities aren’t just founded on nothing substantial or that it’s ok to just blame all of it on ‘society’ (shoving certain ideals down our throats). After some reflecting, I usually find that my insecurity stems from me not living up to my own standards (and this requires some serious time and thought) and neglecting to do the things that I respect and admire. This can be tricky because once we start focusing on others’ achievements, in no time do we find ourselves stuck in that spiral of lack and jealousy; forgetting our own skills and ability. I think it would be great to begin brainstorming, listing what and who you want to be; ‘what do I need to do to become the me that I want to be’ types of question. And then begin doing them. It will feel good. It is one step in uncovering and seeing the path we are individually appointed to in Life, rather than standing still staring at other runners running their race in their respectful lanes.

I deeply agree on what others have mentioned about not being able to see the struggles people go through during or to arrive at their “success”. Another great reason to meet up (preferably one on one) with said friend or successful person; you get to hear their story, the challenges they’re enduring or had to. I have been on both sides. One time I was shocked and hurt my friend had been jealous and almost spiteful of me (because I was going through a really difficult time but they only saw my “wins”). Another time, I returned home feeling extremely guilty and horrible I ever felt jealous and bitter after hearing about the crap someone had to overcome to accomplish their goals. Meet up with your friends individually and get personal :)

Fails:
- fooling myself (again) that I can sleep late but still get up early and then getting up late to miss my personal AM time and jumping into work meetings in an irritable mood

Wins: 
- shooting down negative, overly self-defensive thoughts and becoming more open and vulnerable during my 1:1s w/ manager

I can empathize because I have struggled with this before. Looking back, most of the time it occurred mainly because I was anxious:

- I just wanted to churn out work ('churn', implying quantity, often sacrificing quality)

- I felt hurried because the task seemed challenging given the time I committed to completing it (poor story-pointing)

- There was a lot more on my plate than I could realistically handle

- I was not staying true to my focus blocks; my mind was scattered and I was multi-tasking

As per Alex's advice, I compiled a checklist that helped me be less absentminded. I also needed to recalibrate and ask myself, where my attention was; do I care about what I'm producing or am I distracted by trying to look good (in vain). From there, I am reminded, take a deep breath and proceed with a calm*er* mind. \
\
And some actionable stuff:

- Creating the PR in 'draft' form early on and code-reviewing myself at the end of the day
- Creating a type of design document *before* tackling the task and sharing it with my team to get feedback or ideas early on
- Pairing with peers on a regular basis
- Code reviewing other PRs every day

The last two have been especially helpful. It allows me time and space away from my work (tunnel vision), and not only learn from others' thought processes but gives me perspective that when I return to my stuff, I can be like, "oh I forgot to do that" or *even,* "I noticed how annoying that was on that PR, I now won't forget to do that this way instead".

If I need to strain to motivate myself, I usually know it’s a sign I need a break. A good break for me involves something vastly different and brings me joy and/or stimulation. That can include, meeting friends, watching a thrilling movie, going out for a show. When I come back from said break well-spent, somehow I can remember why I do anything I intend to do. When I’m drained, I can’t see past all of the work and see my initial motive. Everything feels hard.

But Idk if that is your case at all! I think I’m just getting old. All that to say, I believe it’s been powerful to remind myself of the “why”. If those reasons are compelling enough and are congruent with what I want to do and who I want to become, I don’t need any other motivation (other than good sleep/health/diet, friend/relationships, etc, etc).

I think this is a more “big picture” thing though. If you’re trying to meet some personal goal and you just gotta grind, personally, having an accountability partner has been very helpful.

I came back to say that it would be cool to befriend some Cloud/DevOps people that your team works closely with (or in regular communication with? Actually, idk how it works at Amazon) and see if you could 'shadow' them every now and again. I snooped in on some of ours, with good excuse because they were deploying stuff for our team, and I learned a ton; I was lucky with some super friendly people who were happy to explain what was going on.

I’ve definitely been asked super basic questions in more than one interview. In my case, it seemed like they wanted to know my familiarity/experience around it, and even if I liked it. If it helps, I was applying to mid-level SWE roles (2023). As basic as,

- Why did you guys decide to Dockerize your service? What did you think/how did you find it useful?

- What role did Argo play for your Kubernetes workflow? In what ways did you find Kubernetes improve deployments, process, etc?

I think I’d feel safer anticipating it if it’s mentioned as part of the job description.

- This may be a no-brainer but aliasing my terminal commands, from my most-used git commands to running test files.

- Speeding up my mouse! Credit to: <https://noahkagan.com/productivity-hacks/>

- Using only one screen/monitor

- Magic Trackpad &gt; Magic Mouse (I’ve only ever tried these pls don’t come for me)

I need quite a bit of structure to my day, although it varies. But some things:

- journaling before the day begins
- pair and/or have a coffee chat with teammate on a weekly(-ish) basis
- when I feel antsy but still need to plow, find a random study buddy to keep accountable: <https://www.focusmate.com/>
- read discussions on Taro
- using a timer for focus (a physical/kitchen timer, not an app!)
  - and finding the right intervals (Pomodoro doesn't work well for me; the 5 min break is too long and I lose momentum)
- finding times when I work best and filling in the hours where I'm less functional for the mundane; appointments, cleaning, etc.
- sleeping well
  - I'm finding that I need to exert myself a good amount during the day to get *quality* sleep; getting 8 hours is ineffective for me if it lacks quality. Many times, I can feel extremely rested after 5 or 7.5 hrs (and not in b/w either lol).
- jogging (ideally in nature); 10/10 recommend to re-energize during the midday slump
- minimum 1 hour of 'me' time; doing anything I want to do!
- for-fun reading before bed

I can empathize with you, the experience can be very disheartening. I think it also has a lot to do with how much we tend to [prematurely invest into our 'ideal' scenario](https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/fE0bkb2qezpKY4tg377d/having-the-proper-mindset-for-interviews/?ref=jointaro.com) that it crushes our sense of identity or self worth when that is not realized. What you're feeling makes sense and is completely normal.

That being said, it is imperative we do not wallow for too long. Time-block your 'mourn' period, write down your self-assessment of the interview, reflect on what happened, what went well, what you could have done better, etc. Then you must move forward. The best thing IMO is to have new interviews lined up, back to back. That way, we simply do not have the time to linger in this space, feeding our ever-growing sense of self-doubt (this is important for self-critiquing but not useful right now).

From my experience, I would feel like a failure for a day at most, but I could not afford to remain there more than that because I had another interview the following day and I needed to dust myself off and get back up. Line up those interviews, and you will forget about worrying about this 'loss' before you know it. (Because) there will be new issues to work through ;).

(I just realized that I am not sure if you are trying to just find a new role or if you are only wishing to find a role at very specific companies. Even if it is the latter, I still think it will be beneficial to build the muscle by continuing interviews else/everywhere.)

Software Engineer at Series B Startup

Whenever I find myself procrastinating on something I really need to do I ask myself, 'What the heck would you rather be doing anyway?'. More often than not, my answer is extremely lame (such as 'ummmm order takeout and go lie in bed') or I cannot find one. If I do have an answer, I then ask myself, 'What are the benefits of doing that \[other thing\] right now vs this?' and again, I usually fail to come up with a great argument. And usually, my pathetic logic just points to an endless cycle of delaying tactics (insert Spiderman meme here). A small amount of self-interrogation has helped me a lot in defeating the procrastination dragon.

Over the years, I have learned that putting off and avoiding priorities takes *a lot* more effort and energy than just overcoming the temporary discomfort of start/doing it. I guess this means we also need to ask ourselves what is our 'priority' at all. Maybe we are distracted by something rather significant, something unresolved and completely unrelated to work (therapy is mentioned above and that is one of the many ways in unraveling this), so it is contaminating other crucial areas of our life (speaking from experience). As aforementioned, developing habits is the way, waiting to feel motivated or the willpower to arrive is a myth (IMO).

Congratulations almost graduate!

Personally, I have **not** encountered a time thus far where the recruiter (startups and big tech) straight up refused to provide me any information on the interview process and pointers. (There has been one instance where the recruiter said they had no idea... probably not a great sign? Haha.) Typically, they have taken the time to brief me on the subsequent interview rounds and during that time, I have always received a helpful response to, "Would you be able to give me an idea of what the technical interview might entail? For example, is it sort of a real-life business-related coding exercise or a Leetcode type of problem?"

100% agree on what Alex and David have said\~ scour Glassdoor interview reviews (*a lot* of info on startups too these days, as long as they aren't Seed stage) and be well-prepared for the behavioral round (using STAR method).

I love that you raised this question and the responses it brought forth. 

To your follow-up Q, I think this is the more the life part of this entire process. We can't expect to be prepared for everything; optimistically speaking, this is the serendipitous part of our every day, ultimately what keeps us on our toes, challenges us, makes living interesting. That said, I do believe we can train to be adaptable, (be *agile* as a human being not just in software development); I think this applies in every area, physically, mentally, socially, etc. For interviews, I want to say it would be great to train to be socially (conversationally) agile. This is quite difficult to practice in solitude, here are some ideas:

- As others mentioned, mock interviews (with friends or friendly acquaintances, but if not, pretend the other party is a friend) but the key is to respond conversationally, as opposed to how one might blurt out as if in some spelling bee from so much rote practice. And have them throw in curve-ball questions (tell them to come up with something uncommon or even bizarre, but still thoughtful and interview-y, not like "what's your favorite food"...).
- Go out and meet new people on a regular basis (minimum bi-weekly); do the uncomfortable thing of starting conversation and asking sincere (friendly) questions; practice being curious of other people.
- Take an improv class to learn how to think on the spot, but even more importantly how to communicate in a genuine way with absolute strangers and keep a conversation going in a positive way.

Junior Software Engineer at Series B Startup

It sounds like you are a huge resource yet to be recognized in your new company, I can imagine the start thus far may be discouraging but maybe I can share an idea to steal attention away from that discouragement from my humble experience:

- I recently created a Google form with a list of questions to get anonymous peer feedback from my teammates (and a couple of other seniors outside of the team whom I occasionally brush shoulders with).
- I am still in the middle of receiving responses but I can tell you that I am almost overjoyed I decided to do this. The replies are validating areas I had been curious about myself, revealing areas of improvement I was blind to (sometimes we do not know that our intent is actually not coming through in the way we communicate, especially since everyone receives information differently), and even strengths I was completely unaware of (or just down-playing).
- My incentive to do this was because we do not have 360 review system at my work and I had been generally interested in how my colleagues viewed me as a teammate.
- But I think I would do this regardless of where I am now, and I wonder if this might be something that could help you gather honest feedback *before* performance review season comes along. Personally, I plan to continue doing this every few months or so.

On another note, I also think that it can be easy to believe that a manager 'trivializes' the work we put in. But I am learning to not focus too much on this and work on building my relationship with my manager by really taking advantage of the 1:1's as Alex & Rahul stress in <https://www.jointaro.com/lesson/FEK6JZqW2Jg3rdN9yeGn/masterclass-how-to-have-impactful-1-on-1-meetings/> (and really driving the meetings *even if* they say they have no feedback and they think I'm doing a 'good job'), mainly because:

1. We can always change someone's mind about us (...*most* of the time :))
2. (From my experience) Managers can *speak* in a way that describe their *team* and avoid showing favoritism to a single performer. They want to represent their high-performing team, not that a single contributor is pulling the weight of the team for example.

These are definitely what I have recognized thus far, but perhaps I would be saying something a little different farther down the road in my career. I think future me would still do the informal peer review form though, and continue practicing the art of diverting-my-attention-to-areas-of-improvement-rather-than-things-that-do-a-great-job-of-discouraging-me; I guess this latter is just a useful life skill to have in any situation haha.

Fellow remote, also at a Startup here. From my experience so far, the social climate seems predominantly swayed by management and then the engineers in leadership positions. There were times when I felt like I was on a team and times when I felt like I hardly knew anyone; our interactions were tense and vapid, I think akin to what you're describing. The former was when we had a leaders who strived to be inclusive and transparent as possible whereas during the latter, there was a lot of tension in upper management, which then led to lead engineers getting over-burdened and micromanaged, whose stress infected the rest of us.

That said, I do believe not all hope is lost (especially in regards to building relationships), just that there is more proactivity required from us. The following are ways that have helped me (and continue to regardless of company climate):

- Set up regular times with one or two colleagues to pair program or rubber-duck so that you both have a good excuse to connect while working
  - I liked having one with a teammate and another outside of my team, each on a weekly basis. This way I not only got an 'insider' and 'outsider' perspective on my code but also a feel for overall morale (this probably only works for those of us at startups).
- Create a social channel (such as #pets-at-our-company to share cute photos of your furry family)
  - Everyone seems to show their soft side in these channels, and that is always a nice reminder
- Be the first one to be 'vulnerable', oftentimes just initiating that behavior disarms the rest of the room
  - Rather than robotically announcing my updates during standup, I have been trying to infuse some human element. For example, sharing a new thing I learned during yesterday's debugging or giving a shoutout to a colleague whose PR I enjoyed reviewing or whose insight helped me get unblocked. Although sometimes I feel like I'm oversharing, I feel that it has encouraged others to open up.
- Create a Friday happy hour
  - I know a colleague who started this for their own team and it influenced other team managers to do so as well. Not everyone shows up, but it is definitely a nice way to remember how awkward we can all be and get to know each other:)

**On choosing the right mentors:**\
I think it is good to try and get the lay of the land at your team/org. I have learned that not every senior+ engineer wants to mentor (i.e. there are those that genuinely enjoy it and those that do it because they have to). Try prodding your potential mentors with your question(s) and see how they respond each time. There will be some that will respond in a way that unmistakably show they're not only answering your question but have also thought about where you might be coming from. Personally, I would gravitate towards these people because in their answers, I know they are getting value and personal gratification out of helping me. I bet they are not difficult to make conversation with either. 

**On nourishing the relationship:**\
I love what Alex said about extreme gratitude. This starts from your first message, I try my best to not come off as someone who just wants to extract information and having a consumer mentality. Sometimes I overthink but I endeavor to make my messages considerate and friendly (I like emojis), and then I take the time afterwards to thank them (e.g. "thank you \___\_, that cleared up a lot for me and now I understand why \__\_."). But be optimistic and assertive about it! (We don't want to get obsequious, at least in my opinion.) I think keeping your conversations lighthearted and appreciative is one of the easiest ways to build rapport. 

**On thanking them:** \
I love what Rahul said about publicizing your thanks and telling your manager about it. I had a senior who would go out of their way to mentor me and I would always tell my manager. I think this person was diligent with almost everyone though, they were promoted pretty quickly. 

This is all from my personal experience so far but I hope you find your people :)

It sounds like you do your best surrounded by others, especially others working on similar tasks. Although I work well in solitude (making me probably not the greatest candidate to respond), there certainly are times I just *need* someone working next to me. I have recently discovered <https://www.focusmate.com> where you can pair up with anyone in the world and virtually co-work for a certain number of minutes; it has been extremely helpful, and particularly when I'm feeling unproductive. Since you have tried cafes and going into the office but all of that depletes from energy reserves you need for gym and other life things, I guess that takes co-working spaces (e.g. WeWork) out of the question. I highly recommend trying out FocusMate; I also know there are other similar applications but I have not tried them out myself.\
\
70-80% productivity does not sound terribly awful to me XD, but I hope you find clever solutions that work for you soon.

Very sorry you’re experiencing this! Except for last few things that sound especially uncomfortable, I was struggling with a similar situation a few months back... Unenthusiastic replies nor delaying them seemed to work, and even when clearly expressing that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing some information I would still receive long, animated responses and more random personal questions- which I couldn’t tell was out of obliviousness. I think most of the time I just wanted to tell them to stop but struggled to come up with a way to communicate it professional/assertively. 

My unhelpful response (mainly out of empathy!) is that I began to only give timely replies if it was code-related and if we absolutely had to converse I would not react much at all; just dry yes/no replies, no emotive reactions. And anytime the conversation felt like it was skewing into a topic that was not work-related/off-topic, I did my best to redirect us and ignore the invitation to go there. 

I remember this was an issue that really weighed on me for some months, so I can’t imagine how it might be for you. Hopefully there will be better answers after me and that you will not have to involve HR 🙏.

A ticket a day sounds kind of stressful, I hope they are not all completely unrelated and touching various domains (but maybe this is normal and Idk how most dev teams work)! I struggled with this as well but to piggy-back off of previous great comments, perhaps a way to tackle this is planning ahead the design as much as possible.

My team has been using a 'Technical Design Document' per ticket, where we define in our own words the business needs and more importantly, formulate exactly what needs to be done; which areas of the code, which methods to modify or add, where it fits into the flow, how it affects existing logic, etc, how this will be tested. This has been monumental in getting tickets completed by or before the Sprint (story-pointing and estimating gets closer to accurate and consistent as an instinct for this naturally develops). Formerly, a lot of us just had tickets spilling over every Sprint and it felt like almost nothing was getting done.

When I first started writing my design docs, I felt like I was moving slower and that it was actually impeding my progress. However, what it was actually doing was forcing me to face all of my 'battles' earlier on rather than half-commit through the entire Sprint. (I have also realized that my procrastination is sometimes just out of fear of embarrassment/imposter syndrome! A lot of the scary bits for me has been reaching out to the right domain experts for clarity :P)

I can't remember which Masterclass/vid it was but recall Rahul quoting the SEAL motto, "slow is smooth, smooth is fast", and I think about it often.

It sounds like you have done many things in your power to resolve this issue. I have been on this boat before, (and it was excruciating when the reviews were waiting on senior or staff engs that were overburdened already), and I personally think it is worth bringing up to your managers. I do not regard it as “snitching”, (I guess you will have to word tactfully) esp since it affects team’s velocity and also reflects badly on your manager. Do you have a manager? (There were times when my team did not and my soul died a little bit each time this happened 🥲.)

Secondly, I noticed this idea from a colleague who @here’s the team on Slack, linking the PR and starting a Google Hangout so that they can explain the PR to urge reviews afterwards. Although, I am not sure how effective this will be for you given you actively bring it up during standup etc.

Series B Startup

Entry-Level Software Engineer

When a PR is dense and intimidating, I have found it helpful to set up a brief team meeting and have the author talk through it at a high level and answer questions, before submitting our individual reviews. 

Ps. I actually enjoy pulling their code to walk through specific areas myself :P