From Chasing Empty Dreams to Scoring Jobs at Amazon & Microsoft
And why do we fall, Bruce? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.
-Alfred Pennyworth
I still remember a few incidents that proved to be critical turning points in my life.
One fueled me with enough rage and drive that led me to score an internship at Microsoft. Not only did i just secure the internship, but I also scored the highest in the first round and was allowed to skip an intermediary round. The expertise that I acquired in the field allowed me to later acquire an internship at Amazon and job offers from both Microsoft & Amazon before placement season even began in college.
I can’t associate a single incident that gave me this superhuman strength to operate on 2 hours of sleep a night, to work on a problem until I had the optimal solution, to skip breakfast, lunch and even dinner at times because I felt, it wasn’t the best use of my limited time before the campus recruitments started but let me try and paint a picture.
Giving Up on Empty Dreams
In high school, here in India, we have the option of choosing an extra subject, the choices being computer science, biology, engineering drawing, etc. Going against my initial decision, driven by the false belief that I could excel in the medical field, I chose biology.
Fast forward 2 years, after countless exams and having burned through hundreds of books, I gave up on this empty dream of becoming a neurosurgeon because I realized I wasn’t passionate about it. In hindsight, I only chose biology because I was chasing money. Through my years of falling ill, going to the doctor and shelling out thousands of bucks, I had subconsciously registered in my mind that doctors earn a lot. I could rely on my family and friends to back this belief. To add to that, my best friend at that time was also stepping into this field and I thought what’s the worst that could happen?
Well a nervous breakdown in the middle of one physics class sums it up. I decided to switch gears and try my luck with engineering because, at that time in life and for a few years prior to that, I felt it was something I was driven by.
“Become aware of and make choices that support the expansion of your life.” -Darren Hardy
I realized that it is okay to give up on something I don’t really believe in. Most people spend their whole lives pretending to be something they are not. They are overwhelmed with this imposter syndrome, never excelling in the field that they’ve picked because it wasn’t theirs to pick in the first place.
Broken by A Friend
During my sophomore year studying computer science, my friend and I were tasked with creating a simple project that made use of a relational database. We came up with an idea, which we at the moment, thought was pretty great. I will not delve much into the idea because that’s not important here.
What is important though is, I wanted to run this idea by a friend who I considered to be an expert in the field. Eagerly, we went up to him, explained the idea, lo & behold he laughed at our faces. He said he could wrap up something as simple as this in a day. So, what we planned to complete in around a month he could finish it in a day?
But that wasn’t the worst part, since we were still learning and I wasn’t let down by this since he obviously had more experience. What did however, flip something in my mind was that I looked up to this person and had considered him a friend, and yet he had this smug expression and this vibe of ridicule smothered across his face.
I decided right then and there that I would never be looked down upon. I set out to learn and learn until I couldn’t be laughed at, until I was the smartest in the room. Bill Gates & Warren Buffet have stated this countless times: if you’re not learning at least 5 hours a week what are you even doing with your life? It was this vindictive feeling that pushed me in my times of despair and hopelessness. Striving to be better. Not better than just this “friend” but better than everyone else in class.
Ridiculed by My Interviewer
After working on fumes through countless nights, improving & optimizing on my algorithms and solutions to problems, I made it through to the interview rounds as I pointed out at the start. I qualified for both Microsoft IT (Responsible for Microsoft internal services and products) and Microsoft IDC (Responsible for customer facing products like Bing, Xbox, VS, etc.).
Although my interview wasn’t as harsh as the one described by William Cho and I wasn’t cursed out, it was on the harsher end of the spectrum. Being the first interview of my life, I was a little nervous and it was very evident on my face. But he actually taught me something really important, that it’s not just about knowledge its also about how well I can maneuver my way through the interview.
This person was an expert on Microsoft SQL Server, held a director level position and he asked me how familiar I was with it. Nervously, I answered that I had a fair bit of idea about the same, even though i’d worked on it for a few weeks. Following which began the bashing. He didn’t stop until he had completely crushed my beliefs, over the stretch of the interview, every ounce of confidence I had in my skills was gone, poof.
I was able to handle all questions pertaining to algorithms and data structures but the in-depth theoretical aspect of SQL Server was something i wasn’t familiar with. He quickly picked up on this and didn’t let go until he could laugh me out of the room. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it any further with the interview process for this organization (Microsoft IT).
The following day I had my interviews for Microsoft IDC. I stayed up for most part of the night. Read through 150 plus interview experiences and how we should tackle questions we aren’t familiar with, grasped some soft skills to guide the interview towards my strengths rather than weaknesses.
The day ended on an all time high. I’d worked my way through 3 rounds of face to face interviews with ease, not hesitating & not a shred of nervousness on my face. I had my game face on, I was actually scared at how calm I was. I was one of the 5 people selected for an internship at Microsoft IDC.
Having gone through this entire ordeal over a few days, every cell in my body reverberated that I had finally made it. I had achieved what I had set out to do.
The Takeaway
Having given up on my empty dreams of being a neurosurgeon was the best decision I could have made. Although, everyone else who’d opted for computer science in high school had a head start over me. I still chose to switch tracks. We are often too blinded by the guardrails we’ve set out around our lives and are too afraid to step out. For a long time I blamed myself for wasting time chasing something I wasn’t sure of but that’s the thing. Until you’ve experienced something you are sure just isn’t for you, you can’t, you won’t move on to newer experiences.
I hope you are blessed with friends that push you to be the best version of yourself. I also hope you’re blessed with friends that punch you in the teeth because let me tell you, no feeling in the world can replace the rage that sparks in your heart. Having someone you trust look down on you like that doesn’t just hurt you, it sets your fires on fire. I truly am thankful for that anchor moment my “friend” created for me. I often go back to it, just to look at what I could do and what I could become because of it.
Be ready to change almost instantaneously. Life is going to throw curve balls every now and then. We don’t get to choose what life throws at us but if there is one thing we can control a 100 percent of in this completely random entropic universe its ourselves. So, keep moving and keep learning.
