Jr DevOps Engineer:
“I stayed up all night. The new setup has ArgoCD, Terraform Cloud, Vault, Prometheus… and even a custom Kubernetes operator.”
Sr DevOps Engineer:
“That’s… ambitious. Does it deploy?”
Jr:
“Not yet. The CI keeps timing out, and the manifests won’t apply cleanly.”
Sr:
“I get it — you wanted to do things the right way. But tell me honestly: did we need all that for our first release?”
Jr:
“I thought if we built it perfectly from day one, we’d save time later.”
Sr:
“Here’s the thing — reliable systems don’t start out complex.
They start simple, they work, and then they evolve.”
Jr:
“So… I should’ve just made it deploy first?”
Sr:
“Exactly.
If you automate chaos, you only get automated chaos.
Start small. Make it solid. Let complexity come from real needs, not imagined ones.”
Elegant systems aren’t simple because their engineers were lazy.
They’re simple because they were built to last.
The fastest way to turn a minor inconvenience into a major suffering is to think about it repeatedly.
Thumb rule: allocate thinking cycles only in proportion to a situation’s future impact on the quality of my life.
The wisest people are those who stop competing with others, and start seeing life as an unserious play where it doesn’t matter who wins and who loses.
(I think everyone arrives at this point eventually; some sooner, some closer to death)
A common failure mode for “smart” people is that they would make things intentionally more complicated than they should be, assuming jargon signals sophistication.
But it actually only fools naive people.
Real experts know genius is in simplicity.
Everything worthwhile takes at least a decade.
The story of flash of genius is simply untrue.
It takes simmering with a problem for long time for things to start moving.
Set your benchmark against the absolute best in the world, not just the people around you.
Aiming for "best in the office" or "best in college" is a local maximum. Aim for world-class. That’s how you truly grow.
"Should I go for a master's?" - This is a pretty common question I get asked, and here's my take on it. If it doesn't resonate with you, that's fair. We're all shaped by our experiences.
A master's can be a great move, but only if you're clear about why. Broadly, it makes sense for three reasons:
- as a reset button for career or
- as a reset button to geography, or
- as a gateway into academia.
If you're aiming for research, go for a top school and squeeze every drop of value. If you want to switch domains or countries but can't break in otherwise (via job switches), a master's can help bridge that gap. But, doing it just because it feels like the “next step” is usually not worth it.
That said, today's environment is tricky. Unlike a decade ago, macroeconomics and geopolitics add more uncertainty, and countries are more protective than ever. So you must assess the hard factors before committing. A few questions I recommend asking yourself:
- how hiring look like when you graduate?
- will your chosen field still be hot in 3 years?
- what income and growth will you forgo while studying?
- can you realistically repay the loan, and is it worth the cost?
When I did my master's, fees were low and ROI was solid (for me). I went in purely to explore advanced CS subjects I missed during undergrad, and that clarity mattered more than anything else.
I took some of the best courses IIIT had to offer, skipped the project, and loaded up on subjects because I wanted to learn as much as I could. My degree cost about INR 4,00,000 and has given me a strong ROI.
But again, if you think you'll benefit (given all the factors), go for it. If you believe you can reach the same place with a couple of smart switches, just double down on getting impact at your workplace and switch.
In tech, a master's doesn't usually change much. You're paid for the impact you make. Except for a few specialized roles, companies don't care whether you hold a postgrad degree or not. So draft your 5-7 year plan and see if you truly need it to get there.
The world changes a lot in 5 years, so be honest and rational while you analyze.
Hope this helps.
During layoffs, you'll likely find bouncers at the main gate.
They are there to ensure that the layoff happens "smoothly".
Yeah, I had seen this years back, and it still happens this way.
Credit card bros be like 'This year I spend 12 nights at 5 star hotels for free'
'wow! how?'
'I smartly used my 1L reward points'
'How did you get 1L reward points?'
'By spending 72 Cr rupees on my credit card'
'ok'