2020 is truly a roller-coaster year. At the beginning of the year, my career faced a huge challenge as the pandemic spread around the world and I almost became unemployed. But, just like in movies, sometimes the universe arranges a roller-coaster ride that’s exciting for the onlooker but kills the hero or heroine.

This is my 2020.

And the H1b visa

When it comes to the most important things to work in the United States, to paraphrase Jiang Wen’s line, there are no doubt three things: visa, visa, or f * * king visa. The official work visa in the US is the H1b visa, which has a quota of 85,000 per year (2,000 of which are reserved for Singaporean citizens). However, the number of applications has been so high that the US government uses a lottery to distribute H1b visas. So for the average programmer, even if the company helps you apply for an H1b visa, you only have about a 33% chance of getting one per year.

I came to the United States on a J1 visa, which will expire in April 2020. When I failed to win H1b twice, I had discussed with my boss that AFTER J1 expires in April, I would be transferred to an office in Canada for telecommuting. Then I would continue to play H1b until I won the lottery and then I would return to the Bay Area.

As a result, the outbreak in Wuhan was almost under control in March, and the outbreak in North America began. Therefore, the Canadian Immigration Office began to stop applying for the Canadian work visa, and I naturally couldn’t go to the Toronto Office for a while.

So I prepared for the worst, that is, I can’t stay in the United States, and I can’t go to Canada for the time being, so I rushed to buy two tickets to return to China in April (I bought two first-class seats for the first time due to the virus…). . The result orders the 3rd day of air ticket in the morning, the leader before wife (know the person of East airlines) send micro letter to remind to say east Airlines cancelled the flight that return to China in April, one get online to see, as expected cancelled… And the word is it’s going to stop until September. Now I couldn’t go back to China. My visa to the United States was about to expire, and I couldn’t go to Canada either. I suddenly felt the despair of being isolated from the rest of the world.

They say inspiration comes from a crisis, so I started contacting my friends at Google to see if I could interview for a position at Google in London, UK. The preliminary preparation is good, I also began to brush the problem day and night, so the first round of algorithm successfully passed. Just when I was glad to finally have a way out, Google HR informed me that Google had frozen Headcount for all non-essential positions due to the impact of the epidemic, and the position I was interviewing for was one of them…

Great. There’s nothing we can do about it. I don’t know what to do.

However, one week before my J1 visa expired, the USCIS sent a notice, which basically means that trainee may not finish the project due to the impact of the epidemic, so all applicants who have recently expired J1 are allowed to apply for an extension of 6 months!! It was only six months, but it was crucial for my wife and ME that the epidemic could be brought under control in six months. In case it doesn’t work out, we can still buy the air ticket to return to China in November. Besides, I can continue to work in these six months to maintain my income. So my boss and I began to prepare materials in a fart way, and we got the extension two days before J1 expired. I was temporarily relieved.

Then came the most dramatic day, one afternoon in mid-April, when an email began “Congratulation”

On closer inspection, oh, my god, I fucking picked H1b. Three years. I finally got one of these.

In this way, I was able to continue working safely from home, and the visa issue was finally resolved.

Can collect the offer of FLAG summon the Divine Dragon?

After securing the visa, a lot of things seemed to start to fall into place.

Those of you who have read my previous article know that I got an offer from Facebook in 2017, which was unilaterally cancelled because I didn’t win the H1b lottery. As a result, after I passed the H1b lottery this year, HR of FB began to contact me and invited me to interview for the Senior position again. In addition, Google also resumed recruitment of many development positions after July, so I could continue to meet Google. Therefore, I decided to continue to brush up the questions and make good preparations for meeting these two technology giants.

In fact, the team of flax is doing quite happily now, and my boss also attaches importance to me. He said that I would be promoted to Senior at the end of this year, which is L6 in flax. But after thinking about it, I realized that there was no future in android app development. Maybe I should just keep preparing for the interview.

The interview process was generally smooth. The algorithms for Senior positions were not particularly difficult, they were all Leetcode medium level questions, and the design questions were the most perversion, especially for Google. There were five rounds of interviews, four of which were design questions, which directly put me on my stomach. I went to bed at 9:30 on the day after the interview. One of the most confusing rounds for me was a design related to compilers. I hadn’t written any code related to compilers since college. I struggled to remember what I had learned in college and stumbled through the interview.

Facebook’s interview is easier than Google’s, the algorithm is medium, and the design is normal. One episode is the final round of the interview the interviewer during the interview process of the performance of very not friendly, many times I do not say, every time I started to explain the goods start to repose, yes you read that right, the interviewer during the interview as long as I began to talk and then close your eyes and then the index finger against the temple, a bit the verve of the junior high school we do eye exercises… Afterwards, I immediately sent an email to Hr to complain about the interviewer, so I was re-arranged for a design interview alone on the third day.

Both of them got the offer of Senior level.

Google Match is working on a wearable OS team. Facebook has bootcamp so it’s not clear where it’s going. After much thought, I decided that Google’s OS team was more reliable, and I chose Google for my career change.

Maybe I’m a little bit of a headliner, after all I’ve never met any of the L’s in FLAG, but I’ve experienced getting offers from three of the hottest companies in the Bay Area (because I’m in Flax myself…). The feeling, the mood or times son cool. In 2021, I will start to officially switch to OS, which will force me to jump out of my comfort zone and constantly challenge myself. As for OS, I am a chicken. After joining the team, I must learn from the great god in the team with an open mind.

Fight club could

This is a topic I can’t avoid. Once upon a time, I was also an outgoing and sunny boy in university. I even wandered on The second bridge of Science and Technology every day to chat up girls because I was once addicted to The book “The Game” written by PUA ancestor, just to train my courage.

Thirty years river East and thirty years river west, since I started to work, the more code I wrote, the more introverted I became. Sometimes I was nervous for fear of saying something wrong at meetings, and it was normal to sweat on my forehead and turn red on my face. At standup meetings in particular, I had to prepare for a long time before I dared to speak, and sometimes my heart was pounding even though I was so prepared that I didn’t break a sweat.

Until this year, due to the pandemic, all work was moved to home and meetings had to be held by video conferencing. I suddenly realized that I dared to speak!

This year, our music department has a department-level big project. Although I am the person in charge of android terminal, I don’t have much say, because there is a princip-level iOS boss who controls the design of all client terminals and has the final say in the selection of all technologies. One day in a video conference, he came up with a technical proposal, and I didn’t know what was wrong, so I instinctively contradicted him, as I would never dare to do in a meeting like this. Principle, after ten seconds of silence, actually confirmed my refutation and asked me to write a detailed design document and explain it to all the iOS, Android, and Desktop teams involved in the development of the project at the conference next week.

From that day on, I gradually realized that although I was not good at face-to-face meetings before, in fact, many of my judgments were correct, and the affirmation given by principle also gave me great confidence. After that day, I gradually became more confident and more comfortable with client projects. After that, a number of my small module designs began to be adopted by various teams, and my name also began to be mentioned repeatedly in the meetings of large projects at the department level. Of course, EVERY meeting since then has been filled with confidence, and there is no longer that feeling of pounding nerves.

At this point, you must think that I have become more open, and then gradually overcome social fear?

Unfortunately, no, I still get nervous and probably blush and sweat when dealing with strangers. That’s why my title is fight, not win. It won’t happen overnight and, more likely, it will never be solved.

But even so, IN the process of this confrontation, I also gained a lot, I know more about myself, and have a better control of my psychological state. In the future, I will not feel inferior because of this problem, nor dare to speak out bravely because of fear of blushing and sweating. Now I feel that even if I blush and sweat, I still have to speak out my opinion, and this is enough.

The last

The year 2020 has passed, and I’m glad THAT I didn’t waste the year in vain by achieving a small goal in my thirties. The coming year is also about being more strict with yourself. I hope my story will inspire other developers who have the same problem or problem as me

Denver annual essay | 2020 technical way with me The campaign is under way…