A Reddit user named “Aedengeo” appears to have contacted Apple’s SVP (Senior Vice President) of Software Engineering Craig Federighi via email asking for advice. The popular public figure Federighi replied to the young aspiring student with a long letter detailing his thoughts.
Craig aka HairForceOne for his extremely good looking hair said in the reply email that Aedengeo should dedicate himself to his studies at the University and take advantage of the “special opportunity”. He emphasised on the need to go deep in the choice of study to be an expert in the field but also adds that, inspiration comes from exploring other fields as well.
“Follow you heart”
“Also, engineering and design are team activities, so find opportunities to continue your development in written and spoken communication,” adds HairForceOne. “Work with great people. My greatest learnings come from working around people whose work I admire.”
As good as ideas may sound, it’s important to listen to your heart and Federighi believes that doing so pays off. “Follow you heart. Several times along the way I was forced to choose between options that looked good ‘on paper’ (i.e to my analytical mind) and opportunities that ‘felt right’,” writes Craig in his own words.
Federighi wraps up the email with “Listening to my heart ultimately paid off in ways I couldn’t have anticipated at the time.” and a “Hope this helps!” line. Of course, he also added “-craig” at the end of the email.
Unable to control the excitement, Aedengeo took to Reddit by stating “I recently mailed Craig Federighi and told him some suggestions and feedback about iOS 14 and asked him ‘Craig, do you have any advices for young aspirants whose dream is to become a Programmer in companies like Apple?’”.
He also added, “I never expected him to reply, but he did!!!”.
The rest is history!