This is how I got three job offers as a 16-year-old high school student.

( and why I rejected them )
🧵👇

June 2020.

I receive a DM from a college student in California. The message read something like this "Hey Pratham, I am one of the co-founders of XYZ Inc, a robotics company, we are looking to add enthusiastic people to our team, would you be interested?"

(2 / 11)
It was the first time I had ever been offered a job, so I said Yes! (I did reject it later)

There were a couple of interview rounds I had to go through. None of them included technical questions, which was interesting.

(3 / 11)
After the first interview, I saw the list of the roles I could apply for. I realized how little I knew, terms like "Ui/UX, ROS(Robot operating system)", at that time, I was overwhelmed.

(4 / 11)
I knew that this wasn't a job for me. I decided that I would reject this job role even if I cleared the second round, which I ended up doing.

(5 / 11)
August 2020

I had quite a bit of free time with me, and I had learned a decent amount of HTML, CSS, and JS.

What should I do next? Of course! Search for a job 😅
(Spoiler Alert: Bad decision)

I made a tweet asking if anyone wanted to hire me as a front end developer.
(6 / 11)
That tweet exploded, and within an hour, I got a job offer.
I ended up having a zoom call with the CEO of the company.

(7 / 11)
Things did not look right. They wanted me to create a full-stack production-ready application without any team or a senior developer's help. I ended up rejecting this offer.

(8 / 11)
Late 2020

I get a DM from this person working on a startup based on a blockchain recommendation system, and the company was profitable. ( According to him)
They were even willing to pay me a very good salary.

(9 / 11)
However, I honestly did not believe in the company's idealogy, which is why I rejected this offer too.

My parents told me that at this age, learning and exploring new things was really what I should be doing, not look for jobs.

(10 / 11)

More from Pratham Prasoon

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"I lied about my basic beliefs in order to keep a prestigious job. Now that it will be zero-cost to me, I have a few things to say."


We know that elite institutions like the one Flier was in (partial) charge of rely on irrelevant status markers like private school education, whiteness, legacy, and ability to charm an old white guy at an interview.

Harvard's discriminatory policies are becoming increasingly well known, across the political spectrum (see, e.g., the recent lawsuit on discrimination against East Asian applications.)

It's refreshing to hear a senior administrator admits to personally opposing policies that attempt to remedy these basic flaws. These are flaws that harm his institution's ability to do cutting-edge research and to serve the public.

Harvard is being eclipsed by institutions that have different ideas about how to run a 21st Century institution. Stanford, for one; the UC system; the "public Ivys".

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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.
Rig Ved 1.36.7

To do a Namaskaar or bow before someone means that you are humble or without pride and ego. This means that we politely bow before you since you are better than me. Pranipaat(प्राणीपात) also means the same that we respect you without any vanity.

1/9


Surrendering False pride is Namaskaar. Even in devotion or bhakti we say the same thing. We want to convey to Ishwar that we have nothing to offer but we leave all our pride and offer you ourselves without any pride in our body. You destroy all our evil karma.

2/9

We bow before you so that you assimilate us and make us that capable. Destruction of our evils and surrender is Namaskaar. Therefore we pray same thing before and after any big rituals.

3/9

तं घे॑मि॒त्था न॑म॒स्विन॒ उप॑ स्व॒राज॑मासते ।
होत्रा॑भिर॒ग्निं मनु॑षः॒ समिं॑धते तिति॒र्वांसो॒ अति॒ स्रिधः॑॥

Translation :

नमस्विनः - To bow.

स्वराजम् - Self illuminating.

तम् - His.

घ ईम् - Yours.

इत्था - This way.

उप - Upaasana.

आसते - To do.

स्त्रिधः - For enemies.

4/9

अति तितिर्वांसः - To defeat fast.

मनुषः - Yajman.

होत्राभिः - In seven numbers.

अग्निम् - Agnidev.

समिन्धते - Illuminated on all sides.

Explanation : Yajmans bow(do Namaskaar) before self illuminating Agnidev by making the offerings of Havi.

5/9