AI Career Advice From a Top 1% Engineer

Welcome to Gratitude Driven, a weekly newsletter where I share practical ideas and insights across personal growth, professional development, and the world of AI and data science.

In This Newsletter

• Announcement — New Platforms!

• AI Career Advice From a Top 1% Engineer

• Handling and Growing From Criticism

Announcement — New Platforms!

I am expanding my content creation to new formats and platforms. This will all be on mindset, behind the scenes, and learnings from me. It won’t be technical but will hopefully inspire you to keep working towards big goals.

Instagram

Twitter/X

TikTok

AI Career Advice From a Top 1% Engineer

I am so excited to get to bring this content to you! This week’s video is an interview I did with Jean Lee, employee #19 at WhatsApp and later an Engineering Manager at Meta. We talk about what it takes to get your first role in tech, how to level up your skills, and tons of super valuable advice from her experience leading teams.

The audio is a bit funky (sorry!), but it’s worth bearing with that for the excellent advice.

Handling and Growing From Criticism

It’s my one year anniversary on YouTube this week!

Overall, it’s been a positive experience. It’s been hard work, but I’ve learned a lot and have come a long way since my first video.

But it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Putting yourself out there necessarily opens you up to criticism.

When I first started, I was hesitant to put my face on screen. Even now, I am stressed out every single time I look at comments on my videos. Despite the fact that 90% of them are positive, the few negative comments are the one that will linger in my mind for days.

I’ve considered stopping content creation, and sticking only to my day job. That feels safer — and emotionally, it IS safer. You can’t be criticized if you don’t say anything, after all.

But realistically, if you have big goals, you WILL be criticized. If you’re an author, people will say mean things about your book. If you’re a corporate executive, you’ll have high-stakes disagreements. Even simply being genuine about your beliefs in social settings will open you up to criticism.

Ultimately, being “safe” comes at the cost of not living up to your full potential.

A lot of people will say to just ignore the haters. I think this has its place, but it also means you’ll miss out on feedback that could be valuable.

Sometimes when you feel uncomfortable from feedback, it means you sense the truth in it. For example, I’ve gotten feedback on my videos that people found my use of a teleprompter distracting. This annoyed me (“why can’t they just focus on the content?!”), but also, they were right. It WAS distracting. I needed to do better, and over time I have improved my set up so that it’s less noticeable (this is a work in progress).

Other times, you won’t think the feedback is valid. This often comes down to a misalignment of values.

I’ve gotten feedback that my tough-love approach doesn’t work for everyone. For instance, in my recent project video I shared the level of complexity that is required to be competitive for roles in AI/ML, and this was perceived as an attempt to hurt their confidence in their ability to succeed, since the level was far above where they currently were (I have thoughts on this, but that’s besides the point now).

When I get that kind of feedback, my initial reaction is something along the lines of, “Wait, did I do something wrong here?” If I feel the truth in it, it will linger with me for some time. If instead I see the value misalignment, it’s easier to shake it off and keep moving forward.

I know that I have a worldview that simply does not work for many people: I deeply value autonomy, and believe our life outcomes are largely within our own control. I believe in working relentlessly towards big goals, in service to your future self, others in your life, and as a recognition of our profound privilege to have the opportunties we do. I know how hard life can be, yet I still have a low threshold for complaints and excuses. At the same time, I’m very optimistic and positive, which is ALSO off-putting to many people these days.

I have been cautious about sharing too much of myself online, and honestly in person as well, for fear of the criticism sharing these beliefs will bring.

My values will not align with those of many other people — and that’s ok. I’ll continue to listen to criticism for times where I can see the validity in it, and use that to improve. And I’ll remember to recognize when criticism is simply a sign that our values are not aligned and stay true to myself.

Because I know that while my perspective does not work for many people, it is exactly what many other people want and need to hear. So even if it’s a bit painful for me, I’ll keep at it, as long as I’m still helping those I can help.

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