There's people on this site of all different ages, who grew up in all sorts of different places. How do you know what their high-school history covered?
In my school, history was mandatory in the first year of high-school, and I think it might have been in the second year as well. Hardly anyone did it as a subject for the remainder of their high-school years.
Needless to say, the content taught in those first 1-2 years barely even scratched the surface of historical topics.
Friendly reminder for people on HN reading this:
I know this is actually quite interesting, but before you start worrying about the latency of the name servers of your TLD, you might want to do something about the metric ton of JavaScript on your site and the 25 different 3rd party servers from which you side load most of it. Also those 6 additional servers from which you load a bunch of TTF fonts. Especially if all your site does is just display some text and two or three pictures.
Friendly reminder for people on HN reading this:
I know this is actually quite interesting, but before you start worrying about the latency of the name servers of your TLD, you might want to do something about the metric ton of JavaScript on your site and the 25 different 3rd party servers from which you side load most of it. Also those 6 additional servers from which you load a bunch of TTF fonts. Especially if all your site does is just display some text and two or three pictures.
As a developer who has worked at several billion-dollar (non FAANG) companies, the only thing I get out of performance reviews are one of two things:
1. You're doing a great job. Keep at it.
2. You're doing terribly. We are going to start a paper trail to fire you (aka performance improvement plan).
The only reason performance reviews exist at companies is so they have an established way of firing people. Even if I do a great job, top marks across the board, I only receive a 2-4% increase in salary. On the rare occasion I might get a bonus. So there's zero incentive to go "above and beyond" or otherwise improve in a way that benefits the company I am currently employed for.
Now, I continue to improve every day by learning new skills. But these new skills rarely relate to what the current company needs - these are simply things I am curious about. However, these skills will never end up in a "core competency plan" because those plans, by nature, only list skills that benefit the company. Because the target / competency plan only benefits the company, the performance review (which is based off the comp plan) feels very one-sided / binary.
So instead of focusing intently on those competencies, I do the minimum necessary to fulfill them (less than 2 hours of work) and spend the rest of my "self improvement time" learning things I'm genuinely curious about. Then, when I have a marketable understanding of these new tools / tech, I jump ship, usually for a higher compensation package.
If you want performance reviews to actually matter, allow people to set goals that do not always benefit the company. Understand your employees have many different interests and give them space to explore those interests.
Hi there, I did the exact same thing as you (at Google Sydney), before eventually deciding that I must strike out into the wilderness.
In the few years since I left; I worked as a solutions architect managing a team, a team lead, a remote dev, and now in a startup. Front-end, back-end, flip-side, all the ends. So I've been deliberately trying different angles of my career to see what suits.
I'd describe this process as grueling, ("challenging" is too friendly). I honestly think I would have been happier staying at Google, farting around, and being social. I agree with a lot of the comments here. However it's a catch-22, because the me that exists now wouldn't choose to go back and overall I think this has been good for me – and not just because of the, er, _character building_ aspect of it.
If you stay at Google, make the most of it by progressing deliberately in your social life. If I'd've stayed, I could have comfortably raised some kids with my wife by now - but that's still on the todo list.
If you leave, just jump right in. I didn't study anything, I just picked it up as I went along. If you were able to follow Steve Yegge's advice and Get That Job At Google, then I'm sure you're a smart cookie and can fake it til you make it.
BasicaIly I'm saying you can be happy either way. If you leave, know what you're getting yourself into. If you stay, don't waste this time but use it on yourself.