Notes

W3: D4: Sumo: starting with 145 and went up to 160 on the last set. Use 155 next cycle. D3: all the same, +1s D2: Coming today to the gym after a few days of break. It’s raining like crazy in Seattle. +1 bench but with some form deviation. Deadlift: max 5 at 185. D1: +1 on bench but it was hard. Same in squats - crazy hard. Probably because I didn’t sleep well last night and had beers. W2: D4: +1 on squats. Sumo: starting with 145. D3: +2 on bench! +1 on squats. Thinking of switching programs now, something that has more accessory work. I feel my current volume of work is on the lower side. D2: +1 on bench! Was a bit hard. Deadlift: max 5 at 175. D1: +1 on bench and squats. The latter were hard, especially getting out of the hole. I probably need to increase endurance and I am thinking if I should increase number of reps on warm up sets. W1: D4: +1 on squats but could have gotten 1 more. Sumo: start with 145. Felt a bit on the easy side. D3: +2 on bench but the form may not have been perfect in all the reps on the last set. +1 on squats but the last set was hard. D2: +1 on bench. Deadlifts: max 5 of 165. D1: +1 on bench but the last 2 were difficult. +1 on squats too.

At old one: Last few pay slips. All immigration related documents. Reimburse phone bill. Download TurboTax keys etc. Ping T-mo family members. At new: WA LTC opt out.

I have to negotiate. It’s going to be hard but that’s what’s expected of me. If I don’t, I’ll be considered junior. I have to negotiate at least twice. Again hard, but gotta do it. Can I remind them what I can bring to the table, specific to the role? I should be ready to walk away from Apple too and ready to take up Google’s offer. The monetary difference isn’t big. They too are desperate to hire a senior engineer like me. If they’ve made up their mind to hire me, I can use that to my advantage.

I was thinking of building a frontend for Restic. I could start small: for example, a read-only view to begin with and expand to backups later. Can I add some new features to improve the offering? The biggest road block is that I’ll have to learn frontend technologies from scratch.

Generally, it’s a nice idea for someone to implement and learn a few new things. I, on the other hand, can imagine how the application will look like end-to-end and I am fairly confident I’ll be able to build it. So, it won’t be challenging for me. It may have been if I could do end-to-end encryption. However, I don’t know how to do that and I will keep looking for that. The problem has been solved many times over already. (See this for a giant list of existing projects: there are projects in Go, Rust, Javascript, Python etc.) If I were bringing something new to the table, that’d be interesting but I can’t think of anything right now. (There probably isn’t too much scope anyway.) One idea is to just build something, no matter what. However, I also think I needn’t pick the first idea that pops up in my head. I can always come back to it in future if I want. I should keep exploring. I remember reading somewhere about the 1:10:100 approach where you think of 100 ideas, try 10 and focus your attention on just 1 of those. This idea is probably one of the 90 which I won’t explore further. I won’t learn anything new and won’t contribute anything new which isn’t already there. It’d be different if any of the two weren’t true.

I got rejected for Principal/Staff level again today, this time at Google. I am just a little drunk and here’s what’s going through my mind right now. I should have tried moving out of Amazon right after I got promoted to an SDE3. The question for me right now is whether I should stick around or reset my career growth by switching companies or teams. Even though my management has begun talking about my promotion and are pretending it may go through in the next year or so, I should keep my hopes in check. (I myself know strong SDEs who are better than me but not getting promoted.) There is no point in switching teams inside Amazon because I’ll still be working in the same engineering culture, something that has proven to be a limiting factor in my recent interview experience. I used to think my system design skills are excellent but my recent interviews have showed there are significant gaps. I guess the problem is that internal tooling in Amazon is so sophisticated that they don’t require you, as software developers, to think too much. For e.g., you can just offload the problem of distributed rate-limiting to some other team/service. However, that doesn’t help while interviewing with external companies. I need to start fixing this right away. I’ll regularly start going through YouTube videos, blogs and maybe 1-2 books outside work to do that. I was reading an interesting article today - https://danluu.com/learn-what/ - which pitched that you only need to amplify your strengths and go deeper into the things you enjoy and are good at. That got me thinking that I probably wasted a part of my last couple of years learning, or just worrying about not sufficiently learning, Deep Learning. (Wasted may not be the right word but still captures the intent to some extent.) It’s high time - no, really - I stop trying to broaden my domain and become better at the things I already do and enjoy, viz., distributed systems, problem solving etc. Rest of the time, I’ll either build things (or think about what to build), learn to speak more effectively or just listen to music.

https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/carrot-halwa-recipe-gajar-ka-halwa-recipe/ Use the Instant Pot version - pretty straightforward. Make 2x. For 2x, use 1/4th, or max 1/3rd, cup sugar.

https://inquiringchef.com/how-to-cook-pasta-in-the-instant-pot/

Trying to do a small number of things in life is hard.

W4: D4: It’s 8:30 pm right now, so won’t be at my best. Squats: +1 but barely made the last one. Deadlift: Warm up to 5 reps of 165. 4 at 175, 185. 3 at 195. 2 at 205 but gonna stop at that. D3: +2 on bench. I could have gotten 1-2 more. +1 on squats. D2: Deadlift: will work at 70% of 175 = 125. +1 on bench. D1: +1 on bench and squats. The latter were bit difficult. W3: D4: Start time: in excel? +2 on squats. Sumo start weight: 135. D3: 7 on bench! Same on squats but the former was a bigger deal. 3x8 bench OHP with 45. It’s time to find accessories for at least some of the days. Sometimes, I finish my major sets early and have time to spare. Will start workout time too next time on. D2: 8 on bench! Deadlift: Max 5 of 165. D1: 9 on squats. The last 1-2 were hard but I could do them with good form. Same on bench. W2: D4: 5 on squats. Gonna start with 135 for sumo deadlift. I wasn’t able to add more weights after that though, so it was probably on the higher side. D3: 8 on squats. Still feeling bench presses in my biceps, but only until the 2nd set. 3rd was good and I got 6 there! Next time, remember to bring hands towards the middle of the chest so that my hands are perpendicular to the body. 6 dead hangs. D2: 7 on bench. 3 on dead hangs. I should our columns for warm up weights in my Google sheet. Deadlift: Max 5 of 155, same as previous week workout. D1: Back after 2 weeks or so. Excited! 8 on bench and 9 on squats. 6 dead hangs. W1: D4: 7 on bench, that’s a lot! Sumo 1x6 at 140 but used 135 for the next. (Didn’t have solid 2-3 reps at the end of the first set.) D3: Amazon Music’s workout playlist sucks. Back to Spotify just after a few minutes. 6 on bench! 7 on squats. 6 dead hangs. D2: Form declaring on bench. 8 on bench but not all reps were probably clean. Deadlift: max 5 at 155. D1: Barely managed 9 on bench but with good form. So, can increase weight next week. Exactly same for squats. 6 dead hangs.