Stop Comparing Your Day 1 to Someone's Year 5

I saw a post on LinkedIn yesterday that made my stomach sink. A 25-year-old announcing their third FAANG job offer. Meanwhile, here I was at 36, still struggle remembering ROW_NUMBER() syntax. Sound familiar?

Let me tell you something I wish someone had told me when I started: That knot in your stomach when you see those posts? It's not just you. And it's not helping you grow.

The LinkedIn Highlight Reel Trap 

Remember those Instagram vs. Reality posts? Tech social media is exactly the same. What you don't see in that "I just got hired at Google!" post is:

• The 500 rejected applications

• The 3 failed startups

• The countless nights coding

• The impostor syndrome they still feel daily

Late Bloomers Who Changed Tech 

Want to know something interesting? Some of tech's biggest names started late or struggled for years:

Stewart Butterfield (Slack founder) was studying philosophy until age 35 and failed at creating a video game twice before stumbling upon the chat tool that would become Slack.

Jeff Bezos didn't start Amazon until he was 30, and the company began as just an online bookstore. He spent years selling only books before expanding.

Here's the truth: Tech isn't a race. It's a personal journey, and everyone's path looks different.

The Progress Paradox 

When I started learning to code, I made a mistake that cost me months of progress: I kept a "Things I Need to Learn" list. It grew faster than I could check things off, leaving me feeling constantly behind.

Here's what actually worked:

The "Personal Progress Framework"

1. Monthly Snapshots 

   Instead of comparing yourself to others, compare yourself to... yourself.

At the start of each month, document:

• What you can build right now

• Your biggest technical challenge

• Your current learning goal

2. The Win Log 

   Keep a simple daily log of your wins, no matter how small:

• "Successfully used a for loop without googling the syntax"

• "Fixed a bug by myself"

• "Understood what an API actually does"

Your Progress Journal Template 

Here's the template I use (and wish I had when starting):

The Comparison Detox Challenge 

For the next 7 days, try this:

1. Unfollow or mute anyone who makes you feel behind

2. Before closing your laptop each day, write down one thing you know now that you didn't know yesterday

Remember: Every expert you admire was once a complete beginner who kept showing up, day after day.

The next time you see a post that makes you feel behind, remember: You're seeing their highlight reel, not their daily practice.

Your only job is to be better than you were yesterday.

Keep pushing 💪

Karina

5 GitHub repositories to help you with ML and AI interviews:

1. Machine Learning Interviews from MAANG https://github.com/khangich/machine-learning-interview

2. 100 Days of ML code https://github.com/Avik-Jain/100-Days-Of-ML-Code

3. Machine learning Cheat Sheet https://github.com/soulmachine/machine-learning-cheat-sheet

4. System Design Primer https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer

5. Python Algorithm Implementation https://github.com/TheAlgorithms/Python

Python Tips

5 Python DateTime Tricks That Save Hours

🔹 Time Zone Handling – Localize and convert time zones with pytz

🔹 Business Days Calculations – Skip weekends with numpy.busday_count

🔹 Date Ranges – Generate ranges of dates with pd.date_range

🔹 Time Deltas – Calculate differences between dates

🔹 ISO Format Parsing – Parse and format ISO dates easily

# Time Zone Handling
from datetime import datetime
import pytz

dt = datetime.now(pytz.timezone('US/Eastern'))
dt


# Business Days Calculations
import numpy as np

start = '2023-11-01'
end = '2023-11-10'
business_days = np.busday_count(start, end)
print(f"Business days: {business_days}")


# Date Ranges 
import pandas as pd

dates = pd.date_range(start='2023-01-01', end='2023-01-10')
dates

# Time Deltas
from datetime import timedelta

dt1 = datetime(2023, 11, 1)
dt2 = datetime(2023, 11, 10)
delta = dt2 - dt1
print(f"Days difference: {delta.days}")

# ISO Format Parsing
iso_date = '2023-11-01T12:00:00'
dt = datetime.fromisoformat(iso_date)
dt

Grab your freebies if you haven’t done already:

Data Storytelling Guide

Data Playbook (CV template, Books on Data Analytics and Data Science, Examples of portfolio projects)

Need more help?

Just starting with Python? Wondering if programming is for you?

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