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Career advice, or something like it - Marc's Blog

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Every organization and industry has watering holes where the whiners hang out. The cynical. The jaded. These spots feel attractive. Everybody has something they can complain about, and complaining is fun. These places are inviting and inclusive: as long as you’re whining, or complaining, or cynical, you’re in. If you’re positive, optimistic, or ambitious, you’re out. Avoid these places. That doesn’t mean you need to be 100% up-beat all the time, or be a pushover, or never complain. Those things are normal human behavior. But strongly avoid communities that make complaining the core of their identity. My personal limit is about 20%. I’ll stop engaging with communities when 20% of the content is negative. Nobody but you can decide how much you care about your career. Or how much you like your employer, colleagues, or industry. Not everything is in your control, even in a field like software engineering where autonomy and flexibility are widely available. I recommend you choose one of two

Career advice, or something like it - Marc's Blog Marc's Blog About Me My name is Marc Brooker. I like to build things that work, and do cool stuff. I like building big things. I also dabble in machining, welding, cooking, and skiing. I am an engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Seattle, where I work on agentic AI, especially safety and policy for agentic AI. Before that, I worked on EC2, EBS, databases, serverless, and serverless databases. All opinions are my own. Links My Publications and Videos @marcbrooker on Mastodon @MarcJBrooker on Twitter Is this blog written by AI? Career advice,

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