On this episode of Unblocked! I talked to Scout, a former Amazon engineer with a 3 year old son. She took the last few years off to be a stay-at-home mom, and now that she’s ready to return to work, she feels like she’s starting from scratch.
Transcript
Note: This transcript is AI-generated and AI-edited and might contain mistakes!
Background
Andrew: Welcome to the unblocking podcast. The concept is that I take people from Twitter who have DMed me and help them with their career progress in about 30 minutes. What are you feeling stuck on?
Scout: Thank you for meeting with me. I'm 27, graduated from university in 2021 with a math degree during COVID. I originally planned to get a PhD in math, but instead got married and had a child. In 2022, I got my first job as a software engineer at Amazon, but left after less than a year due to health issues—a terrible back injury that left me unable to sit upright. I became a stay-at-home mom for the past three years.
My son is now three and in school, so I'm done with full-time stay-at-home motherhood. I want to do something again, but it feels like I'm launching a career from scratch. My questions are: What should I do? Why should I do that? And how can I start a career from scratch?
Goals and Motivations
Andrew: Do you need the money from a job, or is this about the career?
Scout: I'm more in the "billion dollars over 20 years" camp rather than needing money immediately. My husband supports me—he's a corporate tax attorney at a big law firm. I'm not in a position where I need money ASAP, but I would like to make a big change.
Andrew: What do you want to accomplish with this career?
Scout: I want to become somebody who does something cool. People I find cool include Peter Levels and Jeff Bezos. I want to be approved by my husband and children. I want my children to look up to me and say, "Mom did something cool, pursued her interests, enabled us to have a great lifestyle, and gave me options in life."
I'm not attracted to the corporate world—I don't want to buy a skirt suit and do that every day. I want to own my time and do my own thing, though I'd settle for a job at a big tech firm while getting my bearings.
Andrew: So you want to be wealthy and entrepreneurial, but you're okay with intermediate steps?
Scout: Yes. My father is very wealthy, and I'm facing generational decline. I want to give my children an international childhood like I had. Money is my North Star, but like Donald Trump said, "I'm doing this for the love of the game, and money is just keeping score." I want to love the game and get rich doing it.
Skills Assessment and Career Path
Andrew: What's the most valuable skill you have that you could trade for money?
Scout: I can't answer that. I've been isolated from society for the past three years—in my home in the suburbs with a toddler, no friends, no family. I can't figure out what I have that would be valuable.
Andrew: How good are you at coding? Did you get the Amazon job because you're smart, or are you actually good at software?
Scout: I'm not good at coding. I got the job because of new grad hiring in the low interest economy. I'm smart and believe I can learn, and I can undertake serious upskilling if it leads somewhere.
The AI Research Path
Andrew: If you don't know what else to get, money's fine. One trajectory I could see for you: commit to becoming good at software, then once you're good at programming AI software, become an AI researcher. AI researchers are making $200 million over four years right now. One person got an offer close to a billion over four years.
It would take 10-15 years of dedicated effort to get to that level, and there's luck involved. But entry-level AI research should be possible. I recommend going software engineering → AI research, but you can't stay too long at any intermediate step.
The path would be: software engineering → computer science → ML engineering → ML research, where you start making novel advancements and publishing papers.
Scout: That seems like something I could do. I feel nervous and excited. But I want to be a present mom and possibly have more children. Will that be a huge disadvantage?
Andrew: The hardest part is breaking in—the initial grind. You'd need to do an intensive program for a few months to accelerate your career and get on a good trajectory. After that, you could relax and be more present. You could balance it, have more kids, and continue on this path.
Community and Peer Groups
Andrew: Successful people often have peer groups on the same trajectory. Who are your peers? Do you want to be on a trajectory with others?
Scout: I'd love to be with other people on a trajectory. I don't have any peers. Nobody else I know graduated from a prestigious college with a math degree, worked at Amazon, then left to be a stay-at-home mom.
Andrew: I feel like there are probably 10 people like you in New York. You can find the others.
Technical Skills and Market Demand
Andrew: Do you have advice about whether coding is the right thing? I don't think I'm a prodigious technical genius, and I don't think that's my edge.
Andrew: There's no replacement for being technical. You can't be at the cutting edge without it. You could try to be a manager or VC, but those aren't cutting-edge roles—they're more center roles.
Either you can build technology or you can't. It's a zero-to-one thing. Very few people can build technology—maybe 0.001% of the population. And among those who can build technology, only about 0.1% can do linear algebra, which is what ML requires.
Scout: I love linear algebra. I want to teach it to my kid.
Andrew: If you love linear algebra, people like you are getting paid $200 million to do software. You're in a very elite group. Companies like Shopify and GitHub are hiring at all-time rates because they've learned to train juniors to use AI, and entry-level talent often uses AI better than senior talent.
Recommended Path Forward
Andrew: A good choice would be to do a program like Fractal Bootcamp. You'd have people whose job it is to make sure you succeed. Then get a job at a company that gives you mentorship. Since you're smart and used to be at FAANG, realistically you could go back to FAANG. We have friends there and can probably get you interviews.
You should probably stop LeetCode for now and focus on actual coding, then go back to LeetCode later.
Scout: I enjoy LeetCode and find it fun.
Andrew: Your case is easy. You already worked at FAANG, you're emotionally in a good place, you're smart, and you're ready to learn. Some people have emotional blocks, but you literally just need to go hang out with happy, optimistic people who are working hard.
Program Details and Concerns
Scout: Do you ever kick people with emotional problems out of Fractal Bootcamp?
Andrew: I try to screen them out before they join. If someone can't complete the program, yes. But if we can work through emotional problems together—not that they need to stop feeling bad, but that they can get work done even while feeling bad—they tend to start feeling better because people feel better when they're productive.
Scout: I went to Columbia undergrad, graduated summa cum laude, but I knew there were brilliant people there and I wasn't one of them. I had mental breakdowns during finals.
Andrew: Our program isn't like university. University is poorly structured for motivation. We use motivational science—if you're in a tribe of people who see you every day and work hard together, you have incredible motivation. This won't be the hardest thing you've ever done, just one of the most intense work environments, but you'll enjoy the intensity.
Conclusion
Andrew: One of your core questions is whether you're capable of breaking into the high tech industry. My answer is yes, you're absolutely capable of that.
Scout: Thank you, that means a lot coming from you.
Andrew: Come by the space and visit my students. Feel free to DM me about Fractal and preparing for the prerequisites.
