That’s a great share @jamesrequa. I was there at the Intersect on Tuesday and some of the talks were particularly useful. While Soumith’s was fantastic, personally I found the “Competing with Skills, Winning with confidence” super relevant and very informative. There were so many key takeaways. For candidates who are job hunting, switching domains, aspiring to get better at their own niche domain etc. I’m planning to write on on it but here’s a brief of what they mentioned.
The talk is available at: https://youtu.be/qnjnZzAegXs?t=7306
I made some notes. I apologise if it isn’t clear. Made some notes that follow:
- Whenever you don’t understand something, mapping it back to the domain you know and understanding it from first principles always helps. (Elon Musk is a big proponent of thinking in first principles).
- Even super-confident people sometimes do not know what they’re talking about. It just means they know a few things about something, certainly not in its entirety but most importantly they are quick to course-correct incase they see a mistake in their understanding.
- Part of confidence is failing. A lot. (Jeremy always mentions this. 99% of the time the code doesn’t work but after a while, you’re sure of what works and what doesn’t and understand the concept well.)
- Find self trust. It’s key to being open and gaining confidence over time.
- Get a lot of feedback. Why do you think the greatest of the athletes / teams have coaches? Because, it just works. Feedback is the most important experience in learning something. (We Machine Learning guys surely know the value of feedback)
- Ability and humility to ask.
- Have a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. (Growth is always dx everyday, however it always amounts to something really valuable over time)
- Getting a job is a marketing exercise. Write blogs, GitHub is your best friend, create your own portfolio. More importantly, be authentic.
- Be an excellent story teller. They recruiters are not trained to connect your dots. So, figure out your story and present it in the best way possible.
- Shorten the distance to your dream company: Figure out the engineering blogs, identify the team members on Twitter, talk to them about any interesting insights you found on their blogs, and establish meaningful conversations. Don’t blindly run behind recruiters.
- Evaluate the work and team you are dreaming of. Be critical.