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Ask For a Raise
With inflation skyrocketing, getting a raise could mean the difference between keeping a roof over your head and being homeless. So I start every 1-on-1 with this question: “When’s my next raise?” I wasn’t always like this. For the first 5 years of my career, I wasn’t
How To Give Your All
After quitting my job to start my own company, I became paralyzed with fear. I would lie in my bed worried about whether I’d ever be able to find another job. I was watching my savings dwindle. One day my co-founder, Sahil, asked if I wanted to go on
Colloquial-Written Tamil
People want to connect with each other. The easiest way is to speak the language, the way people do, colloquially. I want to minimize the time it takes to accomplish that in Tamil. When I first started learning Tamil, I concentrated on the formal flavor. I didn’t realize the
How I Learned Tamil In My 30s
I learned a hyper-specific regional dialect of Tamil from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka (SL) while never having left New York City. In fact, I’ve never even been to SL. I used to think this was impossible, until I did it myself. My Why When I was 23,
How to Migrate From Ghost to Substack (Pt 1)
Last week, I migrated the TTT newsletter from Ghost to Substack for 2 reasons 1. Better email deliverability 2. Network effects to grow the community Since switching, I've grown subscribers over 10%. It's not just me, see this thread from Louie Bacaj... In a prior role, systems my team and
How to Add Value: Reduce Urgent Crises
In 2015, I quit my job to start a company with some buddies of mine. I did 14 hour days. I built real-time data pipelines with Kafka. I’m still impressed with what we built. But after 9 months, we ran out of money. I was so tired. I couldn’
How To Ask For A Raise
I got a 48% raise this year. I didn’t threaten to quit. I didn’t get competing offers. Even with inflation at 17%. I thought you had to do both, but luckily I saw this LinkedIn post from Louie Bacaj in Feb 2022 - during Performance Reviews. Let me
Brag Doc: Why and How?
I started keeping a Brag Doc at work in Aug 2018. I learned about them from Julia Evans on Twitter. The premise is simple. You’re already doing awesome work, therefore, you should get recognized for it. Since I started, I’ve been promoted every year - except for 1.
Close to the Money
You know the value of your code. Your boss does not. One app my old team built made 90% of the company's revenue. The code was so terrible it took 45 minutes to compile. Even though the app was slow and clunky we still got paid. 10% raises just for
Patch Your Pipelines
I have 615 restaurants marked “Want To Go” on my Google Maps in New York City. Why? Because when I'm out and about and I'm hungry, it’s decision-time, not research time. Choose a Restaurant From The Map The average Yelper is not evaluating food in the same way that
