[HN Gopher] A career ending mistake
___________________________________________________________________
A career ending mistake
Author : ramimac
Score : 521 points
Date : 2022-02-22 14:52 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bitfieldconsulting.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bitfieldconsulting.com)
| lvl100 wrote:
| I once took a job that I regretted taking on the very first day.
| I contemplated quitting that same day but stuck it out for many
| years thereafter. Turns out staying in that job WAS the career
| ending mistake. It killed my career, family life and even health.
| It takes a lot of effort to recover from these career mistakes
| even if you have spectacular resume and background. Number one
| rule in avoiding this is to never take such a job in the first
| place.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [deleted]
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > I think there are three main kinds of career destination, at
| least in the tech industry:
|
| > Independent
|
| > Senior individual contributor (IC)
|
| > Management
|
| Sales is an obvious omission.
| namdnay wrote:
| wouldn't sales be a form of IC ?
| ansible wrote:
| I would categorize a senior field applications engineer to be
| more IC than sales. But some people move directory into
| sales. I don't know if this counts as steering an existing
| technical career or switching careers entirely.
| salisburysteak wrote:
| From my experience, I would say it's a horizontal move. I
| had been out of the industry for 5 years, an eternity in
| IT. Attempting to move into a sales-related role was my
| strategy to use my experience in both tech and
| communications and hopefully find a company willing to take
| a chance on me. It worked. Being able to have a friendly
| conversation seems to be a challenge for most IT folks. I
| currently enjoy not being "in the trenches" everyday
| putting out fires. Plus, I'm not frontline sales so I'm not
| on the phone all day or head-down in a contract
| negotiation. It's also provided a great opportunity to get
| up to speed with automation (looking at you, Ansible ;) and
| containerization on the company's dime.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > wouldn't sales be a form of IC ?
|
| Not in the sense the article uses: _" A senior IC role
| appeals to those who want to stay technical and keep their
| hands on the keyboard, or at least the mouse."_
| sombremesa wrote:
| It's completely unsurprising to me that HN likes to take career
| advice from someone who doesn't know the difference between
| 'careen' and 'career'.
| larrik wrote:
| I thought this too, but google backs him up as being correct.
| bckr wrote:
| Yeah, c'mon. GP, it took 5 seconds to confirm the definition
| of the word. If you're going to be cynical at least be
| correct.
| crrndngmstk wrote:
| To me, this reveals an uncomfortable truth:
|
| - I know I'm not technically skilled enough to make it to the
| higher levels of IC
|
| - I know I lack the people skills & charisma to make it to the
| higher levels of management
|
| I'm aware I can improve in both and I accept that, to some
| extent, it's a laziness and confidence issue. But to some people
| it seems to come naturally and it's hard not to assume I'm in the
| majority that aren't exceptional.
| Supernaut wrote:
| Agreed, and I hope that the three options presented by this
| author do not in fact constitute ineluctable destiny, because
| frankly, none of them appeal to me. I don't want to hustle for
| business and I'm not sufficiently obsessed with my work to
| become a "senior individual contributor". I've done some
| management in the past and I don't want to do it again, because
| humans are a pain in the ass. I'd like to simply continue doing
| what I'm doing now, which is writing code for my employer, and
| mostly being left alone to do so. Can that not be arranged?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| > Can that not be arranged?
|
| It can, and some companies are fine with that. The challenge
| is that even with companies that find that arrangement
| acceptable, many of them aren't willing to pay more for the
| relevant experience. They want you to be in some kind of
| higher leverage role. So either you take less pay, get pushed
| into more responsibility, or you get lucky with a really good
| company (and that company manages to stay in business without
| a major management/culture shift).
| granshaw wrote:
| Become a contractor. You'll pretty much be coding all the
| time. Don't get scared by the business-management side, you
| can pick it up pretty quickly and then it doesn't take up
| all that much time
| allo37 wrote:
| I kind of want to work for a FAANG just to meet these wizards
| who make you feel humbled by their technical prowess (I assume
| that's where they all are?). Everywhere I've worked for so far,
| the senior people have usually:
|
| a) Been there a long time;
|
| b) Are very knowledgeable about that company and its tech,
| clients, etc. (see a);
|
| Of course, they're skilled technically too, but not in a "I
| could never dream of being that smart" kind of way.
| larrik wrote:
| > - I know I lack the people skills & charisma to make it to
| the higher levels of management
|
| I'm not convinced this is big deal as you think. Just care
| about the people you work with and care about doing a good job,
| and you're better than lots of people succeeding in this role.
| ansible wrote:
| If you find a good niche, and develop a lot of domain expertise
| in that area, you can likely make it to the senior levels of an
| IC, even if you don't have the most super-awesome technical
| skills.
|
| The trick (and of course there is a trick) is to find a narrow
| enough niche that you would enjoy working in, where you can get
| paid well, but isn't _so_ narrow that you have very limited
| choices regarding who to work for.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think it's kind of rare to find a company that will promote
| you to "the senior levels of an IC" on just your technical
| domain expertise. I mean REALLY rare. At most places I've
| seen, you can get promoted on purely technical knowledge up
| to a certain level, but beyond that level, you're expected to
| show "leadership" and "influence" and "cross-team impact" and
| all that jazz. Same expectation of social skills as if you
| wanted to take the management track. So no matter which way
| you go, you ultimately plateau early in your career if you
| just focus on technical mastery.
|
| Businesses are inherently social organizations, and at the
| higher levels, all require the typical bullshit that you
| though you left behind in high school: Schmoozing, smooth
| talking, brown nosing, political savvy, charm, confidence,
| cutthroat opportunism, those telltale "Ivy League mannerisms"
| that you see in every VP at your company. I learned this too
| late in my career, and it's really hard to pivot from "grumpy
| old man" once you become one!
| dadkins wrote:
| Yeah, the expectation that _everyone_ excels in leadership
| and influence leads to some absurd situations, like
| everyone on a team being "tech lead" for some part of the
| project. Or the all-"senior" team. Presumably they're all
| leading each other? Same game goes for cross-functional
| impact.
|
| The whole point of the separate individual ladder was to
| give an alternate career path to management. What a lie
| that's turned out to be.
| nickd2001 wrote:
| +1 to all that. :) Seems to me that being a senior IC comes
| with risk of (1) having to take part in political BS, (2)
| rat-race of being compared to aggressively-climbing-the-
| ladder peers (if in an org that does that kind of
| performance nonsense), (3) not having enough time to both
| keep on top of tech and lead/mentor others / get scope-
| creeped into doing the job of a manager for non-manager
| pay. Therefore to me it can be a poison chalice. Instead,
| one can stay as a mid-level, and do it really well
| especially if one has a lot of years experience, and be
| seen as a helpful nice coworker without having to do X
| hours of mentoring a week to meet some kind of bar. And be
| less stressed, have more time for family, etc. I think the
| mid-levels who could've been a senior might be the savvy
| ones. This will probably of course, come at the expense of
| lower immediate salary. Long term however this may increase
| career longevity , more time to learn, less burn-out etc,
| thus salary hit is less than expected. It might be like
| investing your pension in a safe utility stock or
| something, you'll never get rich, but you'll be fine and
| not have to worry. :) As regards grumpy old men, from what
| I see its the seniors and architects that are stressed and
| grumpy, while I get to crank out code happily. ;) Maybe if
| you're grumpy, going back to mid-level is the cure? ;).
| hef19898 wrote:
| I came to realize recently that, despite having been quite
| ambitious, I never really wanted to rise through the ranks.
| It took it nice, quite job without management responsibility
| to show me hoe good it can be to be good in your job and not
| worry about career advancement. There are other things to
| spend energy on on life. That's the reason why I am less then
| thrilled to be pulled into high profile projects lately...
| Especially those projects will have zero real world impact
| despite being high profile...
| krageon wrote:
| > uncomfortable truth:
|
| > I'm in the majority that aren't exceptional.
|
| That's fine, right? Quite simply most people aren't
| exceptional, so it is important to learn to be okay with it.
| Most likely it can benefit you for the rest of your life :)
| lostcolony wrote:
| I'll remind you that the higher levels of IC and management
| also are a narrowing pyramid. The reality is that the
| expectation is people move up to a certain point through
| experience, and that at that point most will stay there.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You could be a technical PM. Bit of a "day walker" with a foot
| in both the tech and people worlds.
| BadCookie wrote:
| It seems like all the technical PM jobs require that you've
| already held that title for several years. Or maybe I take
| job descriptions too literally.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Apply, apply, apply. Let them make the decision if you're
| qualified or not.
| BadCookie wrote:
| I appreciate the encouragement!
| duxup wrote:
| I changed careers at 40+ years old. I'm very happy that I did it.
|
| People have all sorts of constructs / ideas about how careers
| work (based on experience) or how they think it works, or how
| they want it to work. I talk to some college graduates who tell
| me what they're planning for and have ZERO clue what industry
| they're talking about, their description is unrecognizable to me
| ... even tho I know it is the one I work in.
|
| I find your experience and paths can vary greatly company to
| company, even job to job.
|
| We all find truths we want to hold on to about work. I recall
| trips to the valley where my coworkers where astonished to hear
| tales of people doing the same work they did, but doing it
| slightly differently elsewhere in the country. Their view of how
| that job was done was entirely shaped by the couple places they
| worked (and everyone seemed to cycle through those couple
| companies). You'd think these folks though that if you didn't
| fill out the TPS report right to left that the world would end...
| I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people fill them out left to
| right but I didn't feel like telling them that, it might have
| been too much for them to handle.
|
| " I think there are three main kinds of career destination, at
| least in the tech industry: Independent
| Senior individual contributor (IC) Management
|
| "
|
| I have no idea why those are the only destinations ... for an
| article worried about being happy that seems kind of limited.
|
| The whole article feels very pie in the sky to me.
| [deleted]
| svnt wrote:
| Totally. Look at the quotes he's pulling and then he somehow
| vectors into three predefined end points.
|
| Dude is waiting to crack open, telling himself he can fit the
| ideas from all the reading he's recently been doing into the
| concrete pipeline of a career he's built.
| JAlexoid wrote:
| The irony is that you're nitpicking on the mistakes, while
| being literally the person who ended one career and started a
| new one.
|
| Do you know if your new career is a career to your retirement,
| post retirement or only for a few years?
| duxup wrote:
| What is the irony?
| ebiester wrote:
| And it seems to lump tech lead, staff-level individual
| contributor not leading a team, and architect-level positions
| that have no direct reports.
|
| When I speak about career options to people I lead, I say there
| is a senior level plateau. At that point, you have to be more
| intentional about growth. If you want to stay in the field, and
| you _want_ to progress past senior developer (staying a core
| contributor is an option!), you need to think about where you
| are going. You can be a generalist, specialist, or outside of
| development. Going into management is changing careers, much
| like going into product development or farming.
|
| If you want to be a generalist, you are looking to expand your
| influence as you tackle harder and harder problems. Tech leads
| are generalists. Architects are generalists. All of them have
| some form of technical leadership to help steer larger and
| larger efforts. You can also become a generalist that
| specializes in early startups: you are there to tackle any
| problem that is in front of the organization until it outgrows
| the need - at that point you can look for new pastures or help
| guide the organization while solving smaller and smaller
| problems.
|
| You can also become a specialist. You learn, in depth, a
| smaller set of responsibilities, but you can build what others
| cannot. You can debug and solve problems others cannot. You can
| be a consultant, or a specialized shared service within an
| organization. You have options, but mastery is what motivates
| you, and that mastery can be very valuable in certain
| situations.
|
| But that is career growth, not planning for the end of your
| career. Sometimes, that is a parallel track, like management or
| product. Sometimes, that's retirement. Sometimes, that's moving
| into another industry. I think that's what the article is
| talking about instead.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| My advice is keep pursuing whatever energizes you, and aim
| towards being "T-shaped", not "jack of all trades, master of
| none", rather "jack of many trades, master of 2 maybe 3".
| GCA10 wrote:
| For those of us who are semi-good at all three paths, our
| long-haul choices depend quite heavily on how the wider world
| either opens unexpected opportunities for us, or gradually
| chokes them off.
|
| In my own (non-technical) case, I had a great 15-year run as
| a top-of-the-heap IC -- and then my outfit got bought by
| people whose business model had no use for what I did. Time
| to do something different, and with it being 2008, going
| independent felt a whole lot smarter than trying to find a
| new star-IC role in a scared industry.
|
| Going independent was good for 7-8 years, but then my
| favorite partners at my favorite clients all got to the end
| of their roads. New faces; new visions, and the unappealing
| prospect of spending 3-4 years trying to revive a shrunken
| pool of business into something better.
|
| A star-IC role opened up somewhere else, and it's been a
| great ride ever since.
|
| It's the career equivalent of summers in Alaska; winters in
| the Caribbean. Sometimes the key to staying warm and happy is
| to be willing to move when the temperature changes.
| SaltyBackendGuy wrote:
| > Sometimes the key to staying warm and happy is to be
| willing to move when the temperature changes.
|
| Thank you for this. It really landed close to home for me.
| chefandy wrote:
| Staying a core contributor isn't always an option.
|
| https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/22/opinion/ibm-e-
| mails-a...
|
| While it's not true everywhere, age bias-- even
| unintentional-- means you've got to be pretty freaking
| indispensable no matter what our constantly changing tech
| landscape throws our way. We're not talking about the
| proverbial behoodied-27-year-old-led startup, here... this is
| _IBM._
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Staying a productive IC your whole career is fairly
| straightforward: I really think it comes down to never
| "coasting" and always being open to learning new things.
|
| The problem is a lot of older people seem to believe that
| once they get to a certain point, they're entitled a position
| and respect. Is it a wonder why younger people, who might be
| more up-to-date than them, don't want to work with them?
|
| The trick is to never get that kind of "old" and remain a
| lifelong learner.
| musicale wrote:
| This doesn't pass the smell test for me, for several
| reasons:
|
| Most of the "new" ideas in computing (neural networks,
| quantum computing, etc.) aren't new at all. Not to mention
| that Linux and macOS are basically 1960s-style operating
| systems.
|
| Knowledge of short-term technical details and skills at
| dealing with brand new systems are much easier to acquire
| than deep understanding of core principles as well as
| engineering experience.
|
| Dismissing senior colleagues as "entitled" and their
| knowledge and experience as worthless and refusing to work
| with them as a consequence would be a grave mistake.
| trulyme wrote:
| Well it goes both ways. Young people are cocky and
| dismiss older peoples' experience as irrelevant, and more
| senior people think they've seen it all already and that
| there is nothing new that hasn't been around since 60s.
|
| Neural networks are a good example. If you skipped the
| last decade (/two) and you think you know about ANN
| because you mastered them in 60s... boy do I have news
| for you. :) Another paradigm shift for me was React
| (declarative web frontend development), and let's not
| even go into the whole Rust thingthing
|
| One of the biggest pitfalls of an experienced person can
| be lack of curiosity, and it is really easy to fall for
| it, because let's face it, most of the new things are
| crap and will be forgotten in a few years. However, there
| are nuggets to be found in the mud, one just needs to
| keep looking.
| ghaff wrote:
| >One of the biggest pitfalls of an experienced person can
| be lack of curiosity, and it is really easy to fall for
| it, because let's face it, most of the new things are
| crap and will be forgotten in a few years. However, there
| are nuggets to be found in the mud, one just needs to
| keep looking.
|
| It's easy to reflexively dismiss reimaginings of things
| that have been tried and failed half a dozen times over
| the years. But sometimes the concept has been tweaked
| enough, the environment is different enough, the
| technology underpinnings are better enough that it
| actually works this time. Virtualization (z/VM--or
| whatever it was called at the time) was mostly a
| curiosity on IBM mainframes for years. Then VMware came
| along (and Linux on Z was pretty successful on IBM
| mainframes as well).
| asdfman123 wrote:
| No, I'm saying that too many experienced devs who don't
| survive fall into the complacency trap. Not that all of
| them do.
| granshaw wrote:
| We'll, you know, it's kinda true in other careers, and
| that's where the belief comes from.
|
| Needing to constantly keep up is quite unique to Tech, and
| is a good or bad thing depending on your outlook
| deweywsu wrote:
| nefitty wrote:
| It seems like some people fall into this trap if they
| manage to get into FAANG. I would be scared of that
| happening to me. It's like, your entire view of the
| industry was built around hitting the winner's podium, and
| once you've achieved that, where do you go? There's only so
| many gold medals to go around on the podium itself,
| anyways.
| groby_b wrote:
| I'd overall suggest stepping away from the idea that
| growth is so one-dimensional that you can "win" at it.
| But even if it were, there's plenty of room within them
| to grow, and just getting in is far from "you've achieved
| it all"
|
| If we stay with that idea for a second: FAANG companies
| have tens of thousands of engineers. Getting there isn't
| a "gold medal". You're barely in the stadium. If you made
| it to Principal Engineer, congrats, you've gotten through
| the qualifying rounds. Still plenty of room to strive.
|
| There are plenty of valid reasons for why you choose or
| don't choose FAANG. But "Where would I go once I've
| achieved that" really shouldn't hold you back.
| nefitty wrote:
| Perfect framing, thank you.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Depends on why you do it and what you do there.
|
| I'm at FAANG and still learning plenty. I'm not here to
| hit an arbitrary goal but because I have to have a job
| and it pays well, so might as well turbocharge my
| savings.
|
| But yes, you should always respect the journey. It never
| stops: keep participating in it, and keep your eyes open.
| nefitty wrote:
| That's good to know! The challenges you find must be
| myriad. It does sound fun.
| dinvlad wrote:
| Or you get "old" and experienced enough to realize it's
| all the same things every day, everywhere :-) And I can
| almost guarantee startups are much more learning-
| conducive than FAANG in that regard.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Where you end up is, largely, a by-product of the little
| choices you make with how you spend your time, and you should
| treat your time accordingly, but the article treats those
| decisions as descending a tree with limited depth, when, in
| reality, the tree keeps going well past where your career (and
| your life) end. I don't think any of us (in tech) end up in a
| place where we have no choices (as the author implies), I think
| we end up in a place where the ROI distribution of our choices
| becomes so unequal that making a different one stops being
| practical depending on your goals.
|
| You can spend the last X years of your career doing performance
| art or spear-fishing if you don't care about returns.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| There are many, many former tech careerists who become
| entrepreneurs in non-tech businesses. Wineries, coffee shops,
| bakeries...
|
| Mechanical Engineer->Baker
|
| https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/134975/at-the-midwife-and-...
|
| No shortage of wineries:
|
| Aerospace:
|
| https://www.princeofpinot.com/article/680/
|
| https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/san-fernando-valley-ventura/new...
|
| Software: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-silicon-valley-
| prepared-...
|
| Seems like starting a non-tech business for career techies
| should be a valid career destination.
| doctor_lollipop wrote:
| > I changed careers at 40+ years old. I'm very happy that I did
| it.
|
| Would you mind sharing a bit more about that? I.e. what did you
| do before, what are you doing now?
|
| I ask because I'm looking for inspiration; my current job is
| comfortable and okayish but not leading anywhere. And I really
| dislike the company that I work for.
| duxup wrote:
| High level highlights typed out way too fast:
|
| I dropped out of college early as I just wasn't mature enough
| / ready for that kind of thing / + I suspect ADD made it
| kinda hard to manage.
|
| I got lucky and fell into a job where I worked in tech
| support, for some high end networking equipment for
| mainframes, later for data center related equipment.
|
| Good career, very good pay, but still tech support. I found I
| worked with engineering teams really well despite being not
| the most technically proficient person among the teams I
| worked in (good documentation and being honest with the
| engineering teams gets you pretty far with them...). So much
| so that that I eventually rethought my college experience
| where I wanted to learn to code but at that time classes were
| "here's a book on C ... now I'll read from the book at you".
|
| After 20 or so years company I worked for was bought out
| (that's a whole series of stories) and by then I wasn't so
| sad to be in the group that was being laid off. I got lucky
| and got paid out better than most people in the US receive so
| I felt like I had a chance to make a change.
|
| Honestly I suspect money / comfort in changing is really the
| biggest factor in serious career changes, for me the payout
| took care of that to some extent. IMO rando promotion to
| management is not a "SERIOUS" career change. The changes that
| involve "starting over" to some extent is where the big
| changes are.
|
| I wanted to stay in technology but also "make things" not
| just fix things for customers / sales who couldn't be
| bothered to config something correctly / and so on. So again
| I thought of working with the engineering teams and decided
| to take a shot at coding.
|
| I found web development was surprisingly accessible / tons of
| resources on the internet compared to my "read the book at
| you" college experience. I started learning on my own and
| eventually took a coding bootcamp (oh man that's another
| series of stories). In the bootcamp class I found that older
| me responded to classes completely differently than younger
| me. I was now ECSTATIC to have someone drop some knowledge on
| me every day, it was a completely different experience than
| college. I was honestly very sad when it ended I was enjoying
| it so much. I would have loved going back to college on a
| more formal track after the camp, but family, income, just
| don't allow for it.
|
| After the bootcamp I got a job at a fairly small company and
| have been happily coding away for a number of years now /
| expanding my skills / doing new things. I get to make things
| all on my own, apps, services, try new things etc. It's
| great.
| brabel wrote:
| Not OP but I would like to give my own version of it, if you
| don't mind.
|
| I changed careers at 30. Before that, I was a "Mechatronics
| Technologist" which means basically that I worked on
| automated machinery. I loved that job and did it for 8 years,
| and I was pretty good too... and I was actually happy with
| the money... but in that area of work, when you're pretty
| good, you tend to stay right where you are for the rest of
| your life. My peers had been doing the same thing I was doing
| for 25 years. I just couldn't see myself doing that.
|
| Mechatronics includes a little electricity/electronics,
| mechanics and a lot of software... and software was always my
| stronger point, so I decided to become a software engineer. I
| changed to the night shift and went to university during the
| day. It was extremely tough, but I was so glad anyway!! I
| just loved being in the university again, this time as the
| older guy rather than the clueless teenager. Took classes
| very seriously, learned a hell of a lot.
|
| Left my job in the last year to start an aprenticeship (yep,
| they do have those for programmers, just look for it)...
| getting 1/4th of my old salary , but at this point I needed
| very little money anyway.
|
| After graduation, I quickly got a high paying job and loved
| every moment of it... after a few years there was some
| challenges, like working in shit places with shit people,
| unfortunately, but after moving around a bit I settled at a
| small company that has really nice people and who absolutely
| respect me for what I know and the effort I put into learning
| and teaching others... they recently gave me the pay rise of
| my life, over 25% , after I had alreay settled at the usual
| 4% with my manager :D. Just because they wanted to make sure
| I won't leave (after 6 years at this company, almost any
| developer would be thinking about leaving, and they're not
| wrong, even if I am happy, we tend to want to expand our
| horizons every few years).
|
| Anyway, I am really happy working with software, I work on my
| own software even on my spare time because I just can't stop
| :D and it's really fun for me. Now that I am getting quite a
| lot more than on my old career, I am really happy just where
| I am (and I am not in management or anything , but what makes
| me happy is that I basically don't report to anyone: they
| trust me a lot and let me do whatever I want, which is
| great). I am well aware that finding a job like this is not
| easy and it took me many years to get it... but I thought
| that if you needed inspiration, this story might help you.
| Good luck to anyone reading and just thinking of starting a
| career change now! It's worth it!
| [deleted]
| jrm4 wrote:
| Right? I teach college students going into IT, and this feels
| like something _they_ would write.
|
| Offhand, I can't think of too many people (myself included) who
| are a) very happy in their jobs and b) planned very diligently
| to get to that exact space.
|
| Mostly the opposite, "A lot of random stuff happened, I
| followed through on some stuff that felt right at the time, and
| just kind of did that over and over."
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I mentor college students through a local group. I agree that
| this reads exactly like something they pick up from spending
| too much time on cynical subreddits where people gather to
| complain. I frequently have to remind them that they
| shouldn't get career advice from online forums dedicated to
| venting and complaining.
|
| > Offhand, I can't think of too many people (myself included)
| who are a) very happy in their jobs and b) planned very
| diligently to get to that exact space.
|
| > Mostly the opposite, "A lot of random stuff happened, I
| followed through on some stuff that felt right at the time,
| and just kind of did that over and over."
|
| IMO, that's because most of the people who plan career paths
| diligently only look at one metric: "TC" (total
| compensation). They may say they value autonomy, growth, good
| teammates or any other number of things, but when it comes
| down to offer time most young people will reliably pick the
| highest offer, no matter what.
|
| The more serendipitous career paths involve a lot of
| networking, identifying who you like working with and what
| you like working on, reputation building, and eventually
| flowing into a great position within your network. The pay
| may come slightly later, but it's a much happier path.
| bckr wrote:
| When you say "the opposite", do you mean that not only were
| their paths random, but they are not very happy?
|
| Can you think of and describe anyone you know who belongs in
| xor(a, b)?
| jrm4 wrote:
| WOO MATH.
|
| Among the happy people I see, most have the "randomness" I
| talk about. Among unhappy people, I see a mix of both.
| whatshisface wrote:
| That makes it sound almost like happiness is the causal
| parameter and being willing to say yes to random
| opportunities outside of your plan, is a consequence.
| bckr wrote:
| > happiness is the causal parameter
|
| Also on the front page today:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30424181
| duxup wrote:
| >and this feels like something they would write
|
| I was thinking it, just not brave enough to say it outright
| when I typed my response ;)
| JAlexoid wrote:
| I can relate to the author, even if I didn't frame my current
| position as end-of-career. I'm far from being in college.
|
| I don't want or expect to progress. I want to be part of a
| team, without leading it. As far as I know - the progression
| part of my career is over, thus my career is over. What next
| steps I could have taken afterwards are plentiful, but
| irrelevant.
| hinkley wrote:
| The conclusion I think is missing from the 10k hours theory of
| mastery is that there is more than enough time in a full
| lifespan to master 4-6 things, depending on how good you are at
| managing your time. People who are only good at one thing may
| find that they aren't good at anything because of it. Don't
| neglect your passions, even if you don't see how you could ever
| make money from it, experience in other verticals may give you
| cross-domain knowledge that makes the leap easier.
|
| And even if you don't change, the skills from the other domain
| may translate to your day job. The history of big innovations
| is littered with people who put the proverbial domain A peanut
| butter together with the chocolate from domain B. Lots of
| people have solved problems that you are dealing with, but you
| don't work with them and you may never have any reason to even
| be in the same building with them.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| We're making a huge mistake when we see mastery as an end
| goal.
|
| I played band in grade school, pushed myself hard, burnt out,
| etc. Learning classical piano as an adult has been a
| MASSIVELY instructive experience.
|
| Here's why: I'm _never_ going to be a professional classical
| pianist. Ever. It 's far too competitive, I'm probably not
| talented enough, and it's not worth the effort.
|
| Therefore, the ONLY reason I'm doing it is to find enjoyment
| and engage in the process of discovery. So it's clear to me
| that if I find my ego seeping in, it means I'm missing the
| point and sabotaging my real goals.
|
| Enjoying the process is such a better way to engage with a
| skill. I'm having a great time and still getting much better
| (because getting better is simply a matter of consistency and
| good practice).
|
| But saying "I'm going to practice 10k hours and then I will
| be happy" is like saying "I am only going to enjoy this hike
| after I've completed it." Friends: there's nothing enjoyable
| about the _end_ of a journey, beyond reminiscing on the fun
| you had along the way.
| duxup wrote:
| I go to a lot of college football games. (i'm going to put
| cte concerns aside here for a bit)
|
| Most of those players have zero chance at a professional
| career, many by their final season know it. And yet they
| push themselves to achieve / try achieve great things or at
| least things they never thought they could.
|
| I rushed the field for a game last year, talked to players
| who were ecstatic mingling among the fans / celebrating.
|
| I like to think that benefits them / even me.
| Melatonic wrote:
| You can view mastery as an end goal and still enjoy it -
| you just have to be willing to do it a bit slower.
| hinkley wrote:
| I knew a guy who achieved I think a 3 dan status in Go
| having started somewhere north of 45 yo, which the common
| wisdom says can't be done.
|
| It's always a matter of finding internal motivation. We
| get better at talking ourselves out of it as we get
| older.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| I think you just get less hungry for learning/skill
| acquisition when you're older. When you're in school it
| feels vitally important to learn/get good at X. But as an
| adult it's much easier to take it or leave it.
| hinkley wrote:
| > We're making a huge mistake when we see mastery as an end
| goal.
|
| Agreed. If you look even more pessimistically at this, it's
| also how workers get exploited by owners. You've attached
| your identity to something, making it a giant lever. I can
| push on that pain point to motivate you or to neg you into
| accepting less money for the work.
| dookahku wrote:
| What are the other career destinations I should look out for?
| duxup wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand completely / believe in this career
| destinations concept.
|
| As I described it I think things vary from company and even
| job to job a great deal.
|
| But I'm sure there are more than 3 ;)
| rektide wrote:
| Noteable to me is that the only people with any power are
| consultants (sometimes) or managers. There are very few paths
| where the very good, wise, experienced techies get much self-
| determininacy, much power. You have to become a manager & fight
| your stake via politics to gain control.
|
| Probably one of the key reasons SRE & devops roles are semi-
| popular. Your target is techies, and you have much more leeway
| about where you want to go. There used to be architect roles, but
| they feel- to me- fairly outmoded?
| tevon wrote:
| Reminds me of this poem which has always stuck with me:
|
| https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51296/ithaka-56d22eef...
|
| ---
|
| Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn't
| have set out. She has nothing left to give you now.
|
| And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you. Wise as
| you will have become, so full of experience, you'll have
| understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
| onion2k wrote:
| _If you love what you 're doing now and don't ever want to change
| jobs, great: you've reached the end of your career, even if it
| plays out over many decades._
|
| Even if you love what you do and you don't want to change
| anything, the world around you is going to have other ideas.
| _Especially_ in tech.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Eh. To some extend yes but largely, no. If you loved COBOL all
| your life you can still find COBOL work. It's harder now but
| its out there. You're just not going to be working at a cool
| start up doing it.
|
| So if part of what you love is working at cool cutting edge
| companies then yeah you have to keep learning new cutting edge
| things. But if you just want to bang out code in your preferred
| language there will almost always be a company somewhere hiring
| for that.
| onion2k wrote:
| The beauty of your argument is that it's unprovable. No
| matter what language someone might suggest they enjoy that
| they can't find a job writing any more, you'll always be able
| to counter saying "Ah, but you've not looked hard enough!
| They're out there!" It'll always be the candidates fault for
| not scouring the world searching for that AP/L role or
| Shockwave Flash advert.
|
| The assertion that _no matter what_ tech you want to work
| with there 'll certainly be a job writing it somewhere
| doesn't seem right to me. Not because there won't be some
| uniquely rare role out there, but because very few people
| want literally any job, anywhere, on any salary, under any
| conditions just because they get to a specific language.
| Unless there's _good_ jobs writing it that you would actually
| accept then the language _might as well_ be dead.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Sure... I guess nothing is provable. I know COBOL devs.
| They say its harder and harder to find gigs but they just
| tend to stay in their jobs longer now. I have a relative
| that will probably retire in his current COBOL gig.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Not a bad thing. One becomes an expert in one niche
| domain (I wouldn't say COBOL is niche but you know) and
| comfortable sit on top of it. One can just work maybe 15,
| 20 years and retire early.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| It depends how dynamically you can define "what you're doing
| now." I don't really care what I do so long as it's remote with
| a good work-life balance and pays well, and I'll do what it
| takes to keep up with tech stacks. I expect this to carry me
| just fine to retirement.
| amyjess wrote:
| Same. I've done SRE/platform/infrastructure engineering my
| whole career, and I intend to keep doing that until I die or
| retire. Platforms can and will change, but there will always
| be a need for engineers to work on them separately from the
| application code.
|
| I don't think I've ever worked on the same exact stack at any
| two different companies, but what I do has always been in the
| same ballpark.
| danity wrote:
| A long time ago, after interviewing for months, I finally landed
| my first job as a developer. It was VERY hard to get your foot in
| the door back then. On my first day, I was given someone's old
| computer that had a bunch of junk on it. While cleaning it up, I
| accidentally deleted all files on the company's file share.
| Shortly after, I started hearing murmurs of missing files and
| then, panicking inside, realized what I had done.
|
| The IT guy came by and asked me if I had done it, but I played
| dumb. He knew it was me but he couldn't prove it, so I survived
| that one. He gave me dirty looks from that point forward though.
| I surely would have been fired on the spot if the truth were
| uncovered.
| afterburner wrote:
| If you lied, and they found out, you would have been fired for
| that reason alone. On the other hand if you told the truth
| right away, it's hard to say if you would have been fired;
| where I've worked you wouldn't have been fired for telling the
| truth and doing that (having seen people fess up to much worse
| failures). Lying on the other hand is a serious problem since
| it betrays trust (if caught, of course).
|
| That said, I've also been at a company where people in charge
| had admitted to not having a backup copy of something rather
| important. I was flabbergasted.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| amatecha wrote:
| Damn, dude. If I nuked stuff on the file server I would have
| immediately gotten up and talked to my team/manager/whatever.
| I'd be anxious as hell but I'd still do it. If I actually got
| fired I'd think they are just a trash employer because there's
| no possible way someone should get fired for an innocent
| mistake (that never should have been possible anyways --
| systemic failure on the employer's part). I know someone who
| accidentally published private docs to the open web, because
| they followed the known process for sharing docs with their
| team, and the process did not correctly identify how to
| verify/ensure the docs are internal-access-only. They nearly
| got in trouble, but I told them to adamantly communicate how
| they followed the official process using the official tools and
| there was no information about the security/privacy that
| indicated it wasn't private. There was no way for this person
| to have known any better, with what the employer had provided.
| It was even just weeks after some security/privacy training had
| taken place at the job, proving just how badly the employer
| failed to educate their staff.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Do you really think you would have been fired? It sounds like
| it was easy for you to fix. Sounds like it would have been easy
| for them to fix. Rather than fire you they could say, "Oh yeah
| we should make sure that something like this doesnt happen
| again. It could happen to anyone."
|
| Firing seems like a big leap here.
| hogrider wrote:
| Yeah... People are not rational like this lol I've definitely
| seen people fired for fucking up in ways that were actually
| sysstemic issues.
| vsareto wrote:
| Hopefully lots of folks swing by to say that if they didn't
| have backups, they should have seen it coming.
|
| It's a great example of how you can be made to look bad because
| of other peoples' decisions.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I came to realize the wisdom of a quote from a truly bad movie:
|
| "Everything ends badly, otherwise, it wouldn't end." ---Bryan
| Flanagan from "Cocktail". [1]
|
| I had to look that up as part of my due diligence for this post.
| The more you know.
|
| Occasionally a sports career ends with hitting a homer in Game
| Seven of the World Series (David Ross of the 2016 Cubs). Most of
| the time, not.
|
| You want to have the sweet we'll-still-be-friends breakup with
| your spouse, but it really ends in divorce court with you hating
| each other.
|
| So don't feel remorse that it ends badly. That's life.
|
| [1] https://www.capegazette.com/blog-entry/everything-ends-
| badly...
| hinkley wrote:
| The fact that things end is why you should enjoy the good times
| when you have them. If you're going to live forever, you can
| always see that sunset tomorrow, or next year, or a century
| from now. No particular value in doing it today.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Yep. Walking or playing with my wonderful doggie, I think
| often "someday I won't be able to do this."
| noisy_boy wrote:
| > I think there are three main kinds of career destination, at
| least in the tech industry:
|
| > Independent
|
| > Senior individual contributor (IC)
|
| > Management
|
| I guess I'll stick my neck out and just admit that I don't want
| to give any more fucks about any of the above and just wake up,
| sip my tea, read the news and take a bloody nap whenever I want
| to. Also volunteering/open source but mostly, not doing things I
| don't want to do any more. Yep, I don't want to be "incredibly
| excited" about the "next growth chapter of my life" - I just want
| to live my life in a non-agile way without sprinting towards the
| end of it. That is about it.
| allisdust wrote:
| Sadly unless there is some kind of universal ABI or born to
| rich parents, doing what we want especially in the way we want
| is not an option. Its wage slavery all across the world and no
| end in sight for any number of future generations.
| throwawaymsft wrote:
| If you're in the tech industry, FIRE is an option closer than
| most. You can build your own tenure to pursue what you like.
| granshaw wrote:
| I think he's missing one big endgame - becoming a [Co-]Founder.
|
| The most risky of the bunch, and with the most variables outside
| of your control, but it IS there as an option, esp if you have
| relevant or prestigious experience as a senior IC or PM.
|
| Come to think of it, it's something of a mix of all 3,
| Independent, Senior IC, Management.
| larrik wrote:
| > The first phase of your career is probably too early to make
| serious plans, and any decisions you make at this stage are
| rarely critical: there's plenty of room to experiment and make
| mistakes.
|
| I think the decisions you make in the early stages are indeed
| very critical, but there's basically no way to truly predict
| their effects, so you shouldn't worry about it.
| IceMichael wrote:
| What such articles lack is that they assume anyone could do
| anything, but that's just not true.
|
| To become a really well-paid, influential developer (IC called
| here, I think), you need to be smart, so that others that are
| also smart acknowledge you as a very skilled developer. Plus,
| it's probably not enough to be very smart (which in itself most
| people are not), but you need some level of politics that is
| always necessary.
|
| For managers, it's also not a default that promotion will just
| come with years being somewhere, just untrue.
|
| I would say, although depressing, some people in the industry
| just don't have _it_ to be successful enough in anything to feel
| great at their job and there is not always a way to change this.
| I would never fingerpoint to anyone and say "he cannot make it",
| I would probably not even recognise that person (apart from
| myself) but I would say they take up a great portion,
| unfortunately.
|
| Today's environment enforces performance. Those who cannot
| perform, will have a hard time...
| dhairya wrote:
| I disagree. We are conflating being smart really with being
| self-motivated. Also being in the right environment is very
| important. I do believe that anyone can do almost anything (I'm
| not going to be an NBA player in my 40s). Certain things though
| become harder as time goes on given education or industry
| requirements but are still not impossible - you have people
| become medical doctors in their 50s. It fair to state that the
| privilege of time and money also make career transitions far
| more easier for some folks. But if you are willing to put in
| the time and effort and stick with it, you can learn anything
| and make the jump career wise.
|
| If you want to break into a technical field from a non-
| technical background, the better indicator of success will be
| grit, perseverance, and self motivation. Learning becomes
| easier if you are motivated to learn and when its hard still
| stick with it. I used mentor at a nonprofit web-dev bootcamp
| that aimed to help students from under-estimated and non-
| traditional backgrounds (no college education) become software
| developers. Most of the students did not have traditional STEM
| backgrounds and were learning to program for the first time.
| The program was free and deliberately designed to be hard with
| multiple places where students would be kicked out if they
| didn't keep up with the work. There were no traditional tests
| and coding exams. All assignments were project based with a
| clear deliverables (website, backend database, full stack
| javascript applications, etc).
|
| Most of the students (over 80% graduation rate and 99%
| employment rate) who finished the program got well paying dev
| jobs (avg salary of 90k). Of the students I mentored, the ones
| who were most successful were the one willing to put in the
| extra hours to learn and ask for help (often doing 80-100 hours
| weeks of learning) and genuinely curious to learn outside of
| the scope of the curriculum. At the end of the day the program
| was not filtering on general "intelligence" (whatever that
| means) but really the perseverance of students to put in the
| work and produce something each week. At the end of 8 weeks
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I think a very straight forward cure is just stopping this
| hamster wheel career attitude altogether. I started to program
| because I enjoy programming. I enjoyed it at awful companies, I
| enjoyed it at good companies.
|
| The article's suggestion of steering towards 'career goals' is I
| think mistaken. If you want to be happy in your job you can be
| happy right now provided you enjoy your craft. This goal oriented
| mindset drilled into people is terrible because there's just
| going to always be the next thing.
| irrational wrote:
| > If you love what you're doing now and don't ever want to change
| jobs, great: you've reached the end of your career, even if it
| plays out over many decades.
|
| This is me. I have zero inclination to be anything other than an
| individual contributor developer. I abhor meetings and don't want
| to manage people. It actually took me a long time to convince the
| higher ups at my company that I have no interest in moving into
| management. I figure I have 15-20 years left in my career. If I
| can just keep learning new skills/technologies and getting better
| at what I do for the remainder of that time, I would be very
| happy.
| tdumitrescu wrote:
| Feels like the "senior IC" role described in this article
| corresponds mainly to today's "3-5 years of experience 'senior'
| engineer" roles. The reality that I've seen and experienced is
| that advancing beyond that on an IC track means a lot more
| people/political work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard"
| coding as described in the article. It's not the same as
| management, but it's inevitably more meetings and evangelizing
| your ideas.
| Joeri wrote:
| _The reality that I 've seen and experienced is that advancing
| beyond that on an IC track means a lot more people/political
| work, rather than constant "hands on keyboard" coding as
| described in the article._
|
| This is my struggle. After about five years of head down all
| day programming I started to get more of a tech lead role, and
| the hours spent on explaining the work instead of doing the
| work crept up. I managed to avoid the management track by
| actively pushing back when pushed that way, but I eventually
| got the architect title instead, and now I can go months
| writing nothing but emails and spec documents before I manage
| to find a good enough excuse to write code. The upside is that
| I decide a lot of things, which as a pure coder I did a lot
| less. The downside is that I really wish I spent more time
| writing code.
|
| Sometimes I think about going indie and building and selling my
| own product, but anything I can think of seems to involve a lot
| of time spent doing other business activities than coding, and
| that just does not appeal.
| Jemaclus wrote:
| I sympathize. I had a similar career trajectory, but wound up
| going into management (I like it though) once I hit the
| principal level.
|
| Don't underestimate the power of communication though. It
| would be well worth your time to have a frank conversation
| with your boss about what it is that you're interested in
| doing (ie, writing more code), and seeing if there's an
| opportunity to be more hands-on with the code. If there isn't
| at your company, then start interviewing with new companies
| and be explicit about what it is that you want to do.
|
| Wishing you the best of luck with this. I know how
| frustrating it can be to not be able to write code as much as
| you want...
| sixdimensional wrote:
| The fact that we work in an industry where 3-5 years is
| considered senior still boggles me sometimes.
| qzw wrote:
| My personal theory is that this is a side effect of
| startup/SV culture trying to make work seem like an extension
| of college. The office is a "campus", where you get fed,
| socialize, and sometimes sleep/crash on a couch or the floor.
| College students go from freshmen to seniors in four years.
| So now the work titles also do the same.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| It's just a title. Means about as much as VP in banks.
| treis wrote:
| Also, only the 2nd or 3rd step on the ladder. Most places
| with 3-5 YOE seniors have Staffs & Principles above them.
| [deleted]
| qzw wrote:
| Which have also been watered down in order to give the
| seniors somewhere to move up to. So the rungs get
| relabeled, but the ladder doesn't actually reach any
| higher.
| qzw wrote:
| And just as empty and ultimately demoralizing. It feels
| great to "advance" so quickly at the start, but then most
| people are stuck at some level of "senior" for the next N
| decades. Why not have meaningful titles commensurate with
| actual levels of mastery?
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| This is something people seem hesitant to realize: that after a
| certain point you can only grow your career by "managing" other
| people. This is true in a lot of (most?) fields.
|
| At some point you cannot become more productive as an
| individual and you need to start coordinating the work of many
| people if you want to increase your productivity.
|
| This can of course take many forms, but the essence is
| inescapable.
| nostrademons wrote:
| It's interesting to me how many people miss the other big
| shift that can increase their earning potential: from labor
| to capitalist. The ceiling is effectively unlimited for this.
| A good manager might make double what a good IC under them
| does, but the shareholder makes orders of magnitude more.
|
| The essence of capitalism is _shifting resources from
| unproductive uses to productive ones_ , and they operate on
| global markets, which gives them unprecedented leverage.
| Capitalism is a skill just like management, and just like
| management, it consists of a number of subskills. How do you
| know what the market will value? How can you evaluate the
| competitive landscape? How do you make yourself aware of
| technological developments and new suppliers that might
| affect cost structures? How do you recognize emerging
| complements? How do you ensure the legal structures of your
| agreement make sure that you share in the profits of your
| investment?
|
| The interesting thing is that developing these skills _early_
| , in high school and college, helps dramatically even if you
| don't have any capital to invest. Because you can apply the
| same questions toward the company you contribute your _labor_
| to, and then bargain for stock instead of cash. A junior
| developer who joined Coinbase in 2016 made _a lot_ more than
| a manager who joined Facebook.
| gnarcoregrizz wrote:
| Great point. One issue with your last paragraph though, is
| when trying to select a company to work for from an
| equity/ownership standpoint, there isn't the option of
| diversifying a career. You can only work at once place, so
| you put all your eggs in one basket. In hindsight, sure,
| you would make better money at coinbase rather than
| facebook, but it's essentially going long on one stock with
| your time rather than capital.
|
| The owners and capitalists have been the winners, at least
| in my lifetime. Investing has been de-risked enough through
| monetary and political policy that it's a good bet. A good
| example of monetary policy is low interest rates. The
| ability to borrow capital and take "risks" hasn't been
| cheaper. A political policy to encourage investment is for
| example the 401k - most wage earner's retirement funds go
| straight to the capital markets. Even public employees
| retirement funds ride the capital markets with optimistic
| outlooks. I suppose that makes most Americans capitalists
| whether they want to be or not, so my argument has come
| full circle, but that money bubbles up to the people up
| top, since they make the compounding gains and have access
| to inside markets. Personally, A few times I've made more
| money from ownership and investment than from my labor. It
| certainly is a valid approach to a career.
| nostrademons wrote:
| There is over time, just not at once. You gain much more
| information working at a company than you have from the
| outside. If it sucks, quit and go to a better one.
|
| It's that willingness to cut your losers that many people
| don't have. Lots of folks are miserable in their jobs
| (you see a number in this thread) but then perform all
| sorts of rationalizations on why it has to be that way.
| It doesn't: if you're miserable, that's your brain
| telling you that it's the wrong place, and you should go
| put in some effort to find the right place.
| belval wrote:
| Exactly, FANG-like have done a lot of work to move
| definitions around to make it seem like "principal engineer"
| was still an IC position, but all good principal engineer
| I've interacted with were basically managers with a different
| name.
|
| Sure they review code and still get their hands dirty from
| time to time on critical pieces, but there is much more value
| in using your experience to lead your team in the right
| direction.
| closeparen wrote:
| Of course there is some ceiling, however it seems to be kept
| much lower than it could be at many companies due to
| inexpressive "idiot proof" programming environments and
| highly bureaucratic processes.
| dvtrn wrote:
| _At some point you cannot become more productive as an
| individual and you need to start coordinating the work of
| many people if you want to increase your productivity._
|
| Neat. Another manifestation of the attitude regarding
| productivity of "more, more, and more still" as the default
| trajectory in the name of 'growth'. Calling it "inescapable"
| even. Sheesh. What's the point at which we realize "enough"
| productivity is exactly "enough" and give people the agency
| and autonomy to perform where they are most capable at a
| velocity of work that is stable, sustainable and...fuck it,
| I'll say it: _sane_?
|
| Commenter, please understand: this isn't an attack on _you_
| for merely saying it, but is instead a full-frontal assault
| on the concept in general because honeslty...personally...I
| 'm sick of it.
|
| Alright, I'm done venting.
| alonsonic wrote:
| This is something I ask myself constantly. I believe what
| the commenter means is that if you want to "grow" or get a
| higher salary then you will be expected to do more, and at
| a certain point the definition of more can only mean
| stepping into a leadership role of some sort where you have
| to interface with more people.
|
| If you're happy with your current responsibilities as an IC
| then you should be able to stay at that top level
| (Principal engineer) and continue doing what you're doing
| today, just don't expect a higher pay.
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| Yup I meant exactly this.
| dvtrn wrote:
| _If you 're happy with your current responsibilities as
| an IC then you should be able to stay at that top level
| (Principal engineer) and continue doing what you're doing
| today, just don't expect a higher pay._
|
| Anecdote isn't data, but it's funny to read this given
| it's exactly what happened the moment I decided I wasn't
| happy in management and wanted to be an IC again: a 25%
| increase in TC pay. And I was very happy with, content
| with and able to provide for mine on the previous, lower
| TC (which was still well into six-figures) even though I
| wanted nothing to do with the work anymore.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Software is clearly an exception to this because you can
| leverage your work to an arbitrary degree. One person can
| write software that benefits
| hundreds/thousands/millions/billions of people.
|
| The junior engineer solves an immediate problem. The senior
| engineer realizes it's generalisable to similar problems of
| their team and solves them all at once. The principal
| engineer realizes it's generalisable to their entire company
| (or broader industry) and solves it for everyone.
| kosievdmerwe wrote:
| Not really, you can leverage your work very widely, but
| your rate of change to the program is limited.
| lliamander wrote:
| The relevant metric here is not how much code you can
| write or quickly you can write it, but how difficult and
| impactful the code being written is.
|
| Many widely-used and industry-shaping pieces of software
| were (at least initially) the product of just a single
| programmer, or at most a small handful of core
| developers. When other people joined it, it is often
| after the software had some initial success.
| krosaen wrote:
| The answer to this for me has been to transition to something
| more specialized: from full stack developer to working in
| robotics. The previous skills are still relevant and all the
| new domain knowledge keeps me interested. The combo of domain
| knowledge and software skills is more rare, so it feels a bit
| more satisfying than working as a senior IC the way I did 10+
| years ago 5 years into my software career out of college. And I
| still spend my days not in meetings, thinking about how to
| solve hard problems and implementing solutions. I haven't (yet)
| felt compelled to rise up the senior staff / fellow or whatever
| levels where you end up in meetings anyways. And not to knock
| the super senior folks who do this well, I just still really
| like coding for the time being.
| bckr wrote:
| Could I contact you about how you made this transition? My
| email is Anthony at yesrobo dot net
| krosaen wrote:
| I'll send you an email
| [deleted]
| mrits wrote:
| I think it is important to mention that managers also don't pick
| what they want to work on. Often times they are "managing" teams
| of just a few people. A better term for some of these people
| would be performance reviewers.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Another oldie but goodie in the career planning vein:
|
| https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_career_planning_part0.html
|
| This is Marc Andreessen's guide to career planning, and I've
| found it exceptionally useful. In particular, he backs off from
| the narrow "decide what track you want to be on" approach to
| frame the problem as developing a set of skills that will make
| you more valuable to _any_ enterprise you choose to be a part of.
| Then while you do that, watch for the most valuable opportunities
| to apply those skills.
|
| The other great thing about Marc Andreessen's guide is that it
| acknowledges the role of risk and opportunity in how your career
| will shape out. So instead of tracking yourself into a path based
| on how the world looks today, you stay alert to how the world is
| changing, and then use the downtime to improve yourself. Despite
| being a guide for "high-potential people who are not interested
| in work/life balance", it feels like it puts less pressure on
| individuals than feeling like there's a set of steps you must hit
| to be on your chosen track.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| As it so happens, this resonates with me.
|
| All through my professional life, I lived frugally, saved as much
| as I possibly could, made conservative, yet not "bunker
| mentality," investments, and avoided personal debt like the
| plague. Being exactly where I am today, has always been a goal.
|
| I also made sure that every job I did, _shipped_. I sometimes had
| to " _hode by dose_ ", as it passed by, on its way out the door,
| but I became habituated to _shipping_. As a manager, I never
| stopped coding, but it had to be shunted to "nights and
| weekends." Again, I always _shipped_ ; even my open-source work.
| In fact, I designed, curated, and eventually turned over, a
| project that has become a world-standard infrastructure, used by
| thousands, around the world. It's really still in its infancy,
| even though I started it in 2008-2009.
|
| I was fortunate to work for a company that is absolutely _crazy_
| about Quality, and I learned to have an ethos of personal
| Integrity, which has worked out quite well. My fiscal
| conservatism also worked out nicely in my management career.
|
| Then, when my company finally wound up the department I led, and
| no one would hire me, I happened to have plenty set aside to
| retire. I'm not happy about being forced into it, but I am happy
| that it happened, despite my best efforts.
|
| I have been able to pivot -fairly easily-, to a lone-wolf
| programmer (even though I spent my entire career in fairly
| diverse and large teams), and I found folks that like the kind of
| software I write, so my habit of _ship_ is already paying
| dividends (not really. I don 't make a dime, and that's just fine
| with me).
| bckr wrote:
| > I was fortunate to work for a company that is absolutely
| crazy about Quality
|
| I crave this. Move fast & break things mentality is a plague.
| Shipping the proof of concept is a plague.
| akselmo wrote:
| I'm still in very beginning of my career but I hope to eventually
| work on something open source. Something that is being used by
| many. Be it software library, business software or games
| industry.
|
| Would be very cool to help the Linux gaming push that is
| happening and help to push it even more. But I don't think I have
| skills for that yet..
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| Adding comments while reading:
|
| > Most of us, in fact, don't really know what we want to do with
| our working lives until we're more or less doing it.
|
| I can relate. Approaching 40 and I still change the definition of
| what I "want to do" from time to time. This in part results from
| my childhood experience in which my parents make important
| judgements, in part results from my own weakness (not perseverant
| enough and always back down when boredom and/or difficulty
| strike).
|
| Basically I find myself distracted by all sorts of things (game
| dev? cool! reverse engineering? cool! embedded system? cool!
| writing an interpreter? cool!) but only scratching the surface
| for all of them. Yes it might be OK because they are just
| hobbies, and I can do whatever I want with hobbies, but deep in
| my heart I still admire those who can drill deep even for
| hobbies.
|
| > What we're really talking about is the aim or goal of your
| career.
|
| Actually I believe there is one thing that is potentially more
| important: How do we plan the end of our philosophical life? That
| is, when do we be content enough and say to ourselves: "OK if I
| die now, I can at least say that I have done something this life
| and did not waste all of my time". Reflecting on that, I have to
| say that if I were to die now, I probably believe that all of my
| life is wasted. Against this is just personal and everyone has
| one's own version of "wasted".
|
| ******* Overall I think this is a well written piece, but the
| hard-core question is: Do you know yourself?
| apples_oranges wrote:
| It's a choice, just pick something that suits you and go for it.
| fleddr wrote:
| The article is Schwarzenegger-style motivational nonsense.
|
| That sounds a lot more harsh than I want to, as the advise in
| itself is solid. Yes, you should very much plan for happiness if
| you can.
|
| The problem is the silent majority that actually doesn't want a
| career. At all. They work out of necessity, not to find meaning.
| They just want to live. American optimism has slowly and
| carefully made this attitude unacceptable to express, hence the
| silent majority.
|
| But the underlying reality is still there. People don't want to
| work. That's why you pay them. If you believe the people at your
| work are there for meaning and joy, give them fuck-you-money and
| see how you find yourself alone the next day.
|
| If I may turn a bit morbid for a minute, I've attended too many
| death beds already. I've never heard any of them spend a single
| breath on work or career. Isn't that telling, if work is
| supposedly purpose and meaning, and you spent most of your life
| on it, it's not even worth mentioning?
|
| Anyways, it's still solid advise to switch to a field or role
| that fits you, in case it currently doesn't. The problem is, work
| sucks everywhere. It's not the field or the actual tasks, it's
| other things. You have no control over your time, your
| colleagues, the quality of management, and most of your time is
| spent on reporting and communicating rather than actually working
| or doing things that bring actual joy.
|
| Everything is factory-like, financialized, metric porn. Even the
| academic world is like this now, and so are non-profits.
| OOPMan wrote:
| Careen != Career
| erwincoumans wrote:
| My 5 cents: optimize for working with great colleagues on things
| you are passionate about, with leadership caring about those
| things and giving you freedom to do that. Keeping up with general
| tech trends helps too, and stay curious.
|
| In my experience, if you follow this, the appreciation with
| follow, either inside or outside your company (or both).
| karlkloss wrote:
| Raed667 wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| > Be kind. Don't be snarky.
| ttiurani wrote:
| Tip to the privileged[1]: find out how low you can drop your
| monthly spend - what are all the things you could still
| relatively comfortably live without? I'm now very happy living on
| my savings, spending super little per month, and it has opened up
| so many wildly different career paths. A bonus is that my
| ecological footprint is also very small (relative to my country
| at least), which has had a very positive effect mentally.
|
| [1] Obviously if you already are at the limit, or living in a
| society without safety nets, this is not an option.
| vmception wrote:
| The summary here is that people don't know what they want.
|
| They have overly simplistic ideas of what they want.
|
| There are ways to take greater control, or to more quickly
| concede that there is no control if the sacrifices are not
| tolerable, to you.
| chillycurve wrote:
| On a side note:
|
| I am new to Go and programming in general and have found John's
| work to be instrumental to my educational journey. I highly
| recommend everything he has produced.
|
| Perhaps the most underrated resource, his Youtube channel is full
| of educational gems like this one:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSgIEDMekSg
|
| Please keep up the good work John!
| dhairya wrote:
| A couple things that come to mind with this article. My own
| journey has been quite nonlinear both in terms of roles (business
| systems analyst -> data analyst -> technical project manager ->
| data scientist -> AI research scientist) and environments (F100
| -> academia -> startups). My undergrad (creative writing and
| social sciences) would not have predicted my current role (Senior
| AI researcher focusing on deep learning and NLP) and I still have
| no idea where I want to end up.
|
| It can be hard to imagine and project your potential. Often our
| journeys are not linear and we have hard time factoring who we
| will be in future as sum of our experiences. Often that growth in
| knowledge and life experiences will be exponential even though to
| us it may feel linear in the present.
|
| I also find it useful to think about problems instead roles. I've
| had roles that didn't exist 10 years ago and likewise new problem
| spaces are always emerging. Problems don't necessarily have to be
| domain specific or role specific but generally describe the types
| of challenges you find interesting. Once I identify a problem
| space I start to think about how I would like to make an impact
| and how I can currently make an impact. Sometimes the two are the
| same and other times they are different and require a journey to
| get there.
|
| But I find the metaphor of problems interesting because it helps
| align the type of work I do with the things I find interesting at
| any given point. It also helps narrow the search space for
| opportunities and ensure what type of career growth is meaningful
| for you.
| bckr wrote:
| It sounds like you have had an amazing adventure so far, and
| it's really inspiring to see that you've been able to have such
| a fluid career. Could I contact you to learn more about your
| adventures? My email is Anthony at yesrobo dot net
| dhairya wrote:
| Happy to chat.my contact info is on my profile.
| jdlyga wrote:
| The way I see it, managing people is not your main objective even
| as a team lead. Your primary responsibility is to drive the
| project forward and get the work done, and managing people is the
| _how_. So in essence, you 'll be doing a lot of people management
| but you should be laser focused on the project your team is
| working on. It's like the difference between writing code for
| code's sake and writing code to solve a problem.
| dasil003 wrote:
| As unobjectionable as this advice is, it also doesn't feel
| terribly useful. Consider this quote:
|
| > _As software engineers, we already know that a too-rigid plan
| rarely survives contact with reality._
|
| For me this is understating things quite a bit. As someone pretty
| much exactly mid-career who has done well, I can't really point
| to long-term planning as providing any value whatsoever. It
| certainly doesn't hurt to think about the long-term value of what
| you are doing now as an impetus for change, but thinking too much
| about specific destinations starts to veer into day dreaming
| territory.
|
| Instead, what I've found useful is first and foremost to take
| risks and keep my options open. For instance, IC vs EM is not
| something about which I hold a strong opinion. When it comes time
| to change my role the best opportunity may not fit into a rigid
| taxonomy of "career goals" and there are more important factors.
|
| All too often I see ambitious young people asking for a roadmap
| to success. This is especially true at higher tier companies and
| people that have come up through Stanford/MIT where they have
| been spent their whole life jumping through rigidly defined
| hoops. They come into the workforce with the idea if they just do
| what they're told hard enough they can get promoted on a regular
| cadence. However doing as you're told has a natural glass
| ceiling, and personal success has more to do with playing to your
| strengths and seizing opportunity than playing by the book.
| rurban wrote:
| "You can't stop the waves, as the saying goes, but you can learn
| to surf. Chance favours the prepared mind."
|
| Never underestimate such innocent looking sentences. I've learned
| surfing with 40. Surfing is by far the hardest craft to learn.
| You only have a few seconds on a wave, and hardly get anyone,
| esp. in crowded surfs. You need at least 5 years to get decent at
| it. But it's really worth it. I'm missing it a lot.
| [deleted]
| goodpoint wrote:
| > A consultant is independent, for example; a contractor is not.
| The difference is that the client tells a contractor what to do,
| while a consultant tells the client what they should do.
|
| Huh? The two terms are very often used to mean the same thing.
| zwieback wrote:
| I'm going the senior IC route, I would add to the description in
| the article that the job usually comes with an expectation of
| technical leadership and mentoring and/or helping to steer
| management. I spend hardly any time in general meetings but do
| spend some time building consensus around technical decisions.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Sounds like your HR is doing a decent job then, unlike mine. I
| recently applied to a business analyst role. I was told in the
| informational that I would spend only about 25% of my time
| researching/reporting, and that the other 75% would be
| project/stakeholder management. Ridiculous. No wonder we have
| trouble finding people when position titles are basically lies.
| ghaff wrote:
| It sounds like they were very upfront with you about what the
| job would entail. How is that lying? And the reality at a
| large company is that _many_ people spend a lot of time
| coordinating, sharing information, gathering requirements,
| etc. even if their nominal job is market research or
| whatever.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would expect that there would be presentations and
| meetings to share the products of the research. It's an
| entirely different thing be primarily performing project
| and stakeholder management.
|
| The only way I found out about the true nature of the
| position is from an informal informational with a member of
| that team. The job posting itself mentioned nothing about
| project management and glossed over the stake holder
| management part. This is very misleading. Plus, if the
| majority of the position is project management, then they
| should probably title it as such.
| zwieback wrote:
| I've run into this problem, there could be multiple
| reasons: standard job descriptions that are used over and
| over, jobs changing shape while the company is screening
| applicants, unclear objectives on part of the hiring
| managers, etc.
|
| We try to have the peers review the job descriptions
| before the reqs go out but often engineers don't spend
| the time it takes and sometimes there's HR lingo the
| company wants in the description.
| ghaff wrote:
| More jobs involve a lot more of that sort of thing than
| you're crediting I think. A lot of our research projects
| involve collaborating with regional teams around the
| world and other marketing groups on budgets, research
| content, etc. There's the outside firm that's actually
| doing the survey to be managed. And probably a bunch of
| other things that I'm not directly involved with.
| Sometimes you have dedicated program managers for certain
| tasks at a large company but a lot of people spend a lot
| of their time essentially collaborating with other
| people.
| [deleted]
| giantg2 wrote:
| "It's not surprising, then, that many of us find ourselves in
| less than fully satisfying jobs, with doubtful or non-existent
| prospects for advancement."
|
| Very true. I can't wait for my career to be over. I don't think
| I'll ever find the position where I feel I belong, so I'll just
| be miserable anywhere now that I know how broken the system
| really is.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that. I've had many positions where I felt
| like I belonged including my current. The ones where I didn't
| were very depressing and stressful.
|
| I hope you will find more fulfillment in the future!
|
| By the way I never planned anything. I don't think more than a
| week ahead. Somehow I have fallen into the right places anyhow.
|
| I tend to get really bored once I've totally mastered a job so
| I change a lot. I need a challenge. Because I do this within
| the same company (lucky to get the opportunity!) it didn't
| really make me look like a jobhopper, that helped alleviate
| worries about having a CV that's all over the place.. Also,
| some things I've done (like desktop office telephony) are
| totally extinct now so it is pretty easy to explain. I'm
| definitely in the "Senior IC" category in the article.
|
| But I can recommend to look around if you're not happy. You
| never know...
| giantg2 wrote:
| It felt great at first. Once you realize that the company -
| respected/known as a place that does the right thing -
| doesn't follow its own policies and screws people over, you
| realize that every company/job sucks. It won't be better
| anywhere else. And you wasted your youth on obscure and
| obsolete tech because the company needed it and you wrongly
| believed their promises that they would take care of you
| (retraining, career growth, not laying off, not outsourcing,
| etc).
| ska wrote:
| > you realize that every company/job sucks. It won't be
| better anywhere else.
|
| The world is a huge place, and the variation out there vast
| enough to be hard to get your head around. It will always
| be a mistake to assume you have a good handle on
| "everything" based only on personal path.
| noneeeed wrote:
| For what it's worth, there are companies who walk the walk,
| I've been lucky enough to work for a couple. However, I
| think they are almost always smaller companies.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Do they walk the walk for everyone though? I find that
| the stuff that's out of view and only affects a small
| percentage seem to exist almost everywhere.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| My experience is totally different. The company I've worked
| for for the last 20 years has always done the right thing
| by me. They allowed me to work from my home country for
| half a year when I needed to be with my family, they paid
| to move me to yet another country when my team was made
| redundant so I could do the job I really wanted.
|
| And I really love learning obscure tech :) always have.
|
| Some companies really are better than others. But tbh it's
| more the people you work for directly that matter. They're
| the ones with the capability to shield you from the worst
| crap. That fight for you with HR when your job is on the
| line. When I look for other teams to move to I always take
| the management into account too. They may not stick around
| forever but if you have a good relationship they might
| bring you with them anyway.
|
| When I do an interview I always ask to see the workplace.
| Just to get a feel for the place I'll be spending my days.
| It's usually viewed as a very peculiar request when
| applying externally but usually granted. I've rejected a
| job once because the team really looked burned out and
| literally stuffed in a corner.
|
| Another place I was shown looked amazing and fun. I still
| work for that company today.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I would like obscure tech if it had a future - like when
| I thought the company would do the right thing.
|
| I do think some companies are better than others, but I
| don't think any company is really good. They all lie. My
| company has a reputation for being great and caring. On
| paper it's true. For over 90% of people, that might be
| true. But they don't follow their own policies, screwing
| over a small percentage. So I think if you don't fall
| into that small percentage, then you just don't see it.
|
| For example, my company says they don't compare people
| except for the highest rating. So you have to meet the
| "standards" (which are poorly defined btw). I know
| departments in the company where if you gave someone the
| highest rating, then you have to "pick" someone for a low
| rating.
| hinkley wrote:
| I recall thinking that my friend who had decided to
| gamble on Objective-C as his specialization in '95 was
| being foolish, because NeXT wasn't doing that well, and
| the hazard pay for being one of the last N experts was
| probably fraught.
|
| Less than 2 years later NeXT merges with Apple, and Steve
| Jobs has begun the biggest comeback in tech history,
| including switching Apple to Objective-C. Well then...
|
| This sort of thing is a lottery ticket. You likely will
| not win, but if you do it could just make a couple extra
| car payments, or you could be set for life.
| giantg2 wrote:
| True, but I don't see Filenet and Neoxam ever getting
| big.
| hinkley wrote:
| No, and any framework that your architectural astronaut
| coworkers created is most definitely not going to ever be
| used anywhere else you ever work. And in fact the
| decisions it made may well be counter to industry
| accepted practices outside of that company.
| wussboy wrote:
| I feel like your perspective is very narrow. You've had a
| bad experience at one company that you admit has done
| well for almost all their employees, therefore all
| companies are evil and your chance of happiness is zero?
| That doesn't seem reasonable or even likely. May I
| recommend "Feeling Good" by David Burns? It has helped
| many people in situations like yours.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "therefore all companies are evil"
|
| Not evil, but that they lie and screw over employees. Are
| there any companies on Glassdoor with 100% positive
| ratings (with n>100)?
| cacois wrote:
| Would you ever expect that for anything? There are always
| going to be disgruntled employees/customers. if I see
| 100% positive, I'm usually looking for the scam.
| sbarre wrote:
| Glassdoor is a terrible metric for measuring companies.
|
| Like any rating system it is biased towards people with
| grievances, as they are motivated to look for an outlet
| to express that grievance.
| giantg2 wrote:
| And it's likely thar at least some of those grievances
| where born out of misconduct by the company. Bringing us
| back to my position that all companies lie and screw over
| workers, that the ones that look good just mean you
| aren't witnessing it.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| I think integrity is a rare resource, and an expensive one.
| I'm trying to only work for people with a lot of it. Even
| then, the ownership structure of the company matters a lot.
| A manager with high integrity and investors to please who
| misses targets will either compromise or be forced out
| eventually.
|
| Ownership structures other than VC funded startups might
| prove better fits.
| hinkley wrote:
| I don't know what sort of alternate reality bubble I exist
| in but I've found that I often get more opportunity to
| learn new technology when working as a contractor or
| consultant than as a FTE.
|
| You would think that they would want to hire people who
| already knew the domain, but apparently that is often not
| the case.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I have a friend who was laid off and said the contractor
| company he's with provides way more learning
| opportunities and courses.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > don't think I'll ever find the position where I feel I belong
| [...] now that I know how broken the system really is
|
| Some people are chalking this up to depression, which is
| possibly part of it, but honestly I think this is simply the
| reality of a former idealist coming to grips with the big
| picture. You can't help but recognize that passion will come &
| go and it's all castles made of sand in the end. Whatever is
| most interesting for us to work on, someone else is almost
| certainly doing it better than you or I could without our help,
| and everything short of this feels like garbage when you only
| look at the work for its own sake.
|
| All I can say is that what really makes anything worthwhile
| comes down to your relationships with people. Working a job
| which involves putting up with a lot of broken shit isn't so
| bad when you truly appreciate your team-- and on the flipside,
| working with the coolest bleeding edge stuff in the world will
| still suck when you don't. Localizing your focus and
| reinforcing bonds with the folks you enjoy being around can
| help a lot in getting through it. My two cents.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Well, the difference between someone who is mentally healthy
| and someone who is depressed is this (and friends, I've been
| both):
|
| Someone who is mentally healthy realizes the world is
| imperfect and what they're doing is isn't working, but then
| takes that knowledge and builds upon it. Maybe they change
| careers, or maybe they lower their expectations for their job
| and focus on other meaningful things.
|
| Someone who is depressed never gets out of the "this is
| awful" rut.
|
| Again, nothing but sympathy for the depressed, but if you're
| unhappy you should try to find a way to redirect that energy
| if you have the strength to do so.
| xvector wrote:
| I agree. For me the solution was to stop thinking about my
| career as much more than a means to an end ($$$). The
| system is broken, sure, but fixing it isn't my job.
|
| I'll work on problems I find interesting, and for all I
| care, the system can crash and burn. All the while, I'll
| clock out when I want and go home with a smile on my face.
| dahart wrote:
| How about making your own company or career? Would that help?
| (It definitely helped me in a lot of ways.)
|
| I'm curious what you mean by 'how broke the system really is'.
| Which system are you referring to, how is it broken, how could
| it be fixed, and what kind of expectations did you have going
| in that?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Companies lie and don't even follow their own policies,
| screwing over the workers (you could also apply this to the
| "justice" system, and many others). A good start would be a
| union to enforce the policies consistently and right the
| imbalance of power.
|
| I have an LLC for largely non-tech work. Tech work is
| terrible in my market, so I don't think I'd do well enough to
| support myself. Not to mention, the tech I spent time
| building expertise in for the company was obscure, so I do
| think even have any real expertise now.
| dahart wrote:
| How about a tech LLC?
|
| I didn't get a picture of what the policies and imbalance
| of power is, or what it should be. I've seen some companies
| lie in varying amounts that don't always add up to broken.
| What's actually broken from your perspective? Does broken
| mean they're not paying you? Or does it mean you aren't
| getting promoted? Does it mean the software they produce
| doesn't work, or the company doesn't make any money?
| giantg2 wrote:
| For example, my company says they don't compare people
| except for the highest rating. So you have to meet the
| "standards" (which are poorly defined btw). I know
| departments in the company where if you gave someone the
| highest rating, then you have to "pick" someone for a low
| rating even if they don't deserve it. There are many
| other examples of them breaking their own official
| policies with backroom policies that screw people over.
|
| A tech LLC won't help. The area is terrible for tech work
| and my expertise was in stuff that's irrelevant.
| svnt wrote:
| I am Jack's high-functioning depression. Get out, man. There
| are a thousand other paths.
| krageon wrote:
| > I don't think I'll ever find the position where I feel I
| belong
|
| I had this same feeling (including the despairing tone), until
| I changed where I work. Perhaps you can find a job in a
| meaningful industry (public transport, charity, a utility, etc)
| so that you can be certain you have a material positive impact
| on other people's lives. This impression helps a lot with work
| enjoyment.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I interviewed for a place called Nava. Seemed like
| interesting work and a company that cared. When using dig
| deeper, there seem to be some issues. There are definitely
| some in the Glassdoor reviews. Others are evident in the
| policies or the answers in interview.
|
| For example, medical has great coverage for the employee, but
| only 50% coverage for dependents. It seems they're selecting
| for single people, and indirectly young people as they're
| less likely to have a family (the people I remember in their
| videos and media are mostly very young). Then there the whole
| "billable hours" switcheroo - making you think extra hours
| are rare, but really you're expected to work extra on non-
| billable projects (internal company work).
| rscho wrote:
| Healthcare... No, just kidding. Don't do that.
| dboreham wrote:
| Healthcare software..
| giantg2 wrote:
| Actually, there are some interesting at-home testing
| startups out there. I even came up with an idea for one
| when I couldn't find anything on the market for it, but
| it was already patented.
| Gatsky wrote:
| The more I read this thread I'm not sure healthcare is such
| a bad deal...
| BurningFrog wrote:
| This sounds more like a classic case of depression, and might
| be solvable from that angle.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I don't think it is. I enjoy a lot of things in life. Work
| just sucks. I believe there was post here about a
| questionnaire used in medicine (longer than the typical one
| during a physical) for screening for depression. I scored
| low, so I shouldn't have it. Same as when the doctor asks
| during a physical.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| OK. That seems like all the due diligence I'd recommend.
| deweywsu wrote:
| znq wrote:
| I hope people don't see this as spam (especially since in the
| past I've talked a lot about this), but I've started Mobile
| Jazz (my first company) specifically because I wanted to
| created a place where I and others feel happy. A place where
| increasing revenue and profit to the extreme is not the focus,
| but employee happiness is. We call it "Optimizing for
| Happiness".
|
| We've written a lot about it in our company handbook
| https://mobilejazz.com/company-handbook-pdf/ (free to download,
| no email required) and you can find more stories and details on
| our blog if interested.
|
| COVID has made things more difficult, especially since pre-
| COVID we did a lot of events together (skiing, surfing, hiking,
| co-living, workations, etc.) and not meeting up has definitely
| harmed our sense of belonging and purpose. So we're very much
| looking forward to having events again this year.
|
| Basically what I wanted to say: People are currently jumping
| around a lot in their jobs, looking for the highest salaries
| and finding a purpose and a place they belong. We somehow have
| managed, despite not being able to match Silicon Valley
| salaries, to have a really good team of loyal, friendly and
| kind humans that gives me joy to get up every single day and to
| work with them. And with most of them it's similar, since many
| of those people have been staying with us since they've joined
| us. Despite getting better offers (financially speaking) every
| day.
| dotancohen wrote:
| It seems there may be a typo on the linked page:
| How we manage a fully reemote company
| znq wrote:
| Thanks! I'll get that fixed :-)
| hinkley wrote:
| You have to be careful here because you're trying to make
| sure that people are happy, not fat and happy. Complacency
| eventually threatens the livelihood of your employees, and
| that is stressful at any company, but the magnitude of that
| change is greater when everyone has been bopping along
| without a care in the world.
|
| Being happy is not a capitalistic goal and the capitalists
| will eat your lunch. Being happy and kicking ass is close
| enough to be harder to sabotage.
| znq wrote:
| Thanks for your input! I think we have been at those points
| ("fat and happy") a couple of times and I noticed it,
| because I especially got bored myself. Luckily I have to
| say, we quickly got to a point again where another problem
| or challenge presented itself.
|
| Also our business doesn't have huge profit margins like
| some of the big tech companies. So financially we're always
| somewhere between "it is not critical, yet", but also never
| reach the "100% comfortable".
| moonchrome wrote:
| I'm fine with being civil and approachable but I really don't
| want to make the effort of being friendly with people I work
| with just because higher ups think this will compensate for
| below market salary. If I click somewhere that's great but I
| don't really see a correlation with a good work environment.
| znq wrote:
| Sure. If you live in the US and want to work for us and
| want a Silicon Valley market salary at the same time, then
| we're not the right company for you. Not because we don't
| want to pay you a Silicon Valley salary, but simply because
| we cannot afford it.
|
| If you are in another country/market, then we are very able
| to pay market salary and in most cases even above market
| salary, while providing a great work environment at the
| same time. We have and had people from Ireland, England,
| Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Croatia, Serbia, Mauritius,
| Thailand, Azerbaijan, Austria, Thailand, Argentina and
| probably a couple more that I forgot now.
|
| So basically what I wanted to say: just because we cannot
| afford a Silicon Valley market salary, doesn't mean we are
| underpaying people elsewhere or treating them unfair
| (financially speaking).
|
| I hope my answer helped to clarify things.
| allisdust wrote:
| I'm glad people with your mindset exist and trying to
| make a difference. May your company prosper and provide a
| happy workplace for a lot more people!
| ido wrote:
| pre-COVID we did a lot of events together (skiing, surfing,
| hiking, co-living, workations, etc.)
|
| A bit off-topic, but how well does this work for employees
| that have a family? Do they take their kids/spouse to the
| events?
| znq wrote:
| Yes, we're completely open to having partners and kids
| around at our events. We actually encourage it. I myself
| have a child now and am looking forward to taking her to
| our next event. We're also looking into options of having a
| nanny. Depending on where we go and what we do.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| What about employees with physical disabilities? I've got
| ten screws in my spine and never thought when deciding to
| work in computing that I'd be expected to be able to ski
| and surf.
| sokoloff wrote:
| We've not done anything that physically demanding, but
| we've definitely had events with short hikes, a chair
| lift ride up the (summertime) mountain to the lunch spot,
| or other short diversions from large group discussions.
| I've never gotten any sense that if someone were either
| physically unable to perform it or just not interested
| that it would be held against them and in any group of
| 30+ people you're likely to have someone who doesn't want
| to/can't do exactly the activity and so you make
| accommodations.
|
| It's not like you're going to be coding while waiting for
| the next set.
| roland35 wrote:
| This is a problem we have had at my company too, how can
| we be inclusive to everyone with "fun" type events? Some
| people don't want alcohol, some don't want physical
| events, etc.
|
| I think the best we can do as companies is know the team,
| have a variety of activities (inside normal working
| hours!), and not require 100% attendance since there is
| never going to be one activity that works for everyone.
| ido wrote:
| I've not personally thought about that specific case but
| it's similar to a lot of other issues with well meaning
| benefits (e.g. company outing focusing on activities like
| Laser Tag).
|
| The best solution I've come up with so far is simply
| paying well & giving a lot of time off (and making sure
| people actually feel comfortable using their vacation
| days, which is an issue with "unlimited vacation"
| sometimes). Then each person can just afford to take the
| activities they want to.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yep. Outside of the occasional off-site and/or team
| dinner (which aren't really the same thing), I pretty
| much want to keep company recreational activities--
| especially outside of work hours--to a bare minimum.
| They're never really optional.
| zabzonk wrote:
| So change careers. I spent the first 6 years of my working life
| as a medical microbiologist, and was miserable for almost all
| of it. Then I gradually got into programming, and things looked
| up. I was still miserable for some bits of it though - such is
| the nature of things.
| giantg2 wrote:
| There aren't any good career changes that I've found so far.
| I'm looking though. I think it's easier to get into tech than
| most other decent paying jobs. So if we reversed the
| direction of your change, I assume it would be much more
| difficult to go from programming to medical microbiologist.
| zabzonk wrote:
| > I assume it would be much more difficult to go from
| programming to medical microbiologist.
|
| You are right - it takes you several years of training,
| whereas you can probably pick up the bits and bobs of
| programming in a few weeks, if you have any aptitude.
|
| But the basic idea remains - if you are doing something you
| hate, stop doing it, no matter what the price. It isn't
| going to get any better.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I pretty much agree. Except if I stop doing it, it could
| get worse. I need to support my family.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are also many adjacent jobs to development (or
| whatever) at a medium to large tech company. However, if
| it's that all the jobs or companies are bad (for you),
| you're probably going to need something really
| fundamentally different like some sort of trade. And that
| has its own set of downsides and is probably going to be
| a step down in compensation.
| hondo77 wrote:
| Amen.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| I just want to work from home 9-5 without too much stress and
| have enough money and time to do what I want outside of it.
| Thankfully looks like I've already reached the end of my career
| as the article calls it pretty early.
| math_denial wrote:
| I have yet to start a career and I'm already at that point. The
| things I'm passionate about are just not monetizable or you
| need to be the 0.00000001% (without counting luck and
| connections) to make some profit.
| Jaruzel wrote:
| I hate my job. I don't know how I got here.
|
| Like many I started out in small scale IT just as desktop
| computers were becoming a thing. I transitioned from mainframe
| support to desktop support, from there I worked through several
| desktop support roles, wishing I was server support but never
| managing to get there... over time I became a desktop architect,
| and then infrastructure architect, and now well.... I just don't
| know.
|
| I have meetings, I write documents. I offer sage advice on best
| practice. That's it. It's not IT anymore, it's just make-work.
|
| If I knew my middle-career years would be like this, I would have
| _never_ started in IT in the first place[1].
|
| However... I work 100% remotely, and I LIKE that. I've been a
| remote worker for a decade now, and I just couldn't go back to
| commuting or being in an office.
|
| So, I have no idea what to do[2].
|
| I'm not really soliciting for advice (but feel free!), I'm just
| venting I guess.
|
| ---
|
| [1] I had a chance at the very beginning to become a Forensic
| Scientist at New Scotland Yard for the Police. I turned it down.
| Often I wonder if I made the wrong choice.
|
| [2] Computers are the _only_ thing I 'm good at.
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| I think you need to find some sort of "savior" in a hobby or
| something more than that. But maybe a hobby is going to be
| enough and you need something bigger in picture...maybe take
| some volunteering work. Anything that satisfies your search for
| meaning of life.
| nigerian1981 wrote:
| I know exactly how you feel. Wish I'd chosen a different field
| such as Mechanical or Electrical Engineering to IT.
| burntoutfire wrote:
| Don't they have even more meeting to go to and documents to
| write? Things in the physical world require a lot of
| approvals and consideration before are given a sign-off to
| proceed to implementation.
| dbish wrote:
| Yeah, there are a ton of meeting for those roles as well
| (possibly more since they have firm hardware prep needs,
| usually official standards to get approval for, etc.).
| Reading through the requirements docs and planning years
| out for a product release being done by the electrical
| engineers on a new device, made me thankful software was so
| agile.
| allisdust wrote:
| Aah meetings. The bane of happiness all around the world. They
| can even be graded on how bad they suck.
|
| Best are the ones with > 10 people. You know beforehand nothing
| gets done in it and no one cares. So you just nod along and
| drop a word here and there and work on something you anyway
| have to do in parallel.
|
| Worst are the ones where your boss is present and may be 3-4 of
| your peers. You are supposed to look enthusiastic, offering
| opinions, ideas and all kinds of projections, d*ck measuring
| and mud slinging all in a non combative politically sly manner.
| And probably even nod approvingly at the silly ideas of the one
| above you.
| trentzboot wrote:
| I went to university, went to grad school, got a PhD in a hard
| science, saw that science was a dead end career choice and
| tried to change career.
|
| I have ended up in IT, although I have never written code for
| my role, or actually done anything technical for my job. It was
| immediately into the writing documents, architecting
| infrastructure and systems that I have no fucking clue about.
| At no point have I gained any experience about using or
| building anything, it's all bullshit designs and documents that
| I pull out of my ass so I can keep my job and not end up
| homeless ( I make under 40k being a non american). I spend my
| evenings desperately studying things that I HATE so I can at
| least have some grasp of what the hell they are before I have
| to design some complex system using different pieces of tech
| BUT AT NO POINT HAVE I USED THE TECH. I hate it so much and get
| rejected for any and all job applications to actually do
| something and solve problems that I apply for.
|
| I sometimes wish I had never gone into IT, never gone to uni,
| and just carried on with the unskilled manual labouring job I
| had on weekends before uni. At least I would be doing
| something.
|
| I hate IT and I hate tech. If I could do this for a few years
| and have the fuck you money of a few hundred k in the bank then
| I would put up with it, but that's not the case.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| Maybe you just need more hobbies or interests outside of work.
| Working remotely and making good money gives you a lot of
| freedom outside of work hours, and even during work hours it
| sounds like nobody will notice if you spent half the day
| painting or woodworking. I don't think it's necessary in life
| to be in love with your job - most people out there aren't.
| yurishimo wrote:
| I struggle with this. Sometimes it just doesn't take "full
| time" to get all my work done. I hardly ever have work roll
| to a future sprint, but I feel obligated to sit next to the
| computer in case people have questions I can help with.
|
| I think later this year I might want to move to a product
| focused company instead of the consulting agency I'm at now,
| but I'm not sure if that will help in the way that I hope it
| will.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Sounds like you really want to be a mid-career IC. I think you
| should do your best to change jobs until you find what you're
| looking for, even if it means a pay cut.
|
| Not all changes have to be dramatic: you don't have to upend
| your life. Maybe just see what things are like at a new
| company?
| LurkerAtTheGate wrote:
| Regarding Forensics - if you were going to work in computer
| forensics, I did that for a bit after grad school. I didn't
| last 6 months: aside from a couple corporate espionage cases,
| everything else was child porn/abuse. Important job, but soul
| crushing digging through personal machines seeking that for 40
| hours a week.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I have meetings, I write documents. I offer sage advice on
| best practice. That 's it. It's not IT anymore, it's just make-
| work._
|
| My careers have followed a similar route. When I graduated from
| college, I took a particular job because I didn't want to sit
| in an office all day. But as I got better at that job, my work
| increasingly became telling other people how to do the work,
| and ten years later I ended up in the office most of the time.
|
| I quit that job to start my own company, again, so I could have
| the freedom to do things outside of an office. And again, as
| more people joined the company, I spent more time managing the
| company and writing reports and doing things other than being
| hands-on with the thing I started the company for. After
| another ten years, I closed the company.
|
| Now I'm happy writing code. And another ten years in, my job is
| increasingly not about writing code anymore, but about ideas
| and processes and meetings and telling other people how to do
| things. The heads of departments completely unrelated to mine
| invite me to their meetings just so I can listen and write
| reports about what I heard later. Now, no matter how hard I
| try, I spend more time in Microsoft Word than writing code.
|
| There seems to be something about the business world that
| removes people from the jobs they're good at. Sure, lots of
| people strive to be the Senior Lead Corporate Upstairs Middle
| Manager Grade IV. But some people are just happy doing work,
| and at some companies it's hard to stay in those roles.
|
| At this point in my life, I'd rather be Lazlo Hollyfeld than
| Professor Hathaway.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| > There seems to be something about the business world that
| removes people from the jobs they're good at.
|
| There's not much business value in just having one person be
| really good at something. It doesn't scale. The state of
| coding and information technology means you can't maintain
| exponential or even logarithmic scaling of your own abilities
| to produce business value. At some point, the only real thing
| left to do is to do your best to produce more people who can
| do what you do. 10 people that are 15% as good as you will
| outproduce you.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _10 people that are 15% as good as you will outproduce
| you._
|
| That only seems to make sense if those 10 less-productive
| people make one-tenth the salary of the single productive
| person.
|
| I've seen this in action. I know of a company that hired a
| whole room full of know-it-all high school drop-outs to
| write code, rather than one or two trained college
| graduates. That company went out of business in a matter of
| months.
| vinceguidry wrote:
| The economics of software development completely abstract
| out the costs of developer salaries. Software is not a
| capital-intensive industry, it's labor-intensive. They
| don't need to wring costs out of the production pipeline,
| they need to wring more production out of it. Any added
| cost is worth it.
|
| Companies all want to have software biz economics, but
| few of them actually know how to run a software business.
| A room full of high school dropouts is each going to have
| 1% of the productive capacity of one top-level resource.
| College grads will have roughly 5%. With decent
| leadership and mentoring that can go up to 10%. Within a
| few years they'll hit 10-15%, becoming 'senior
| engineers'. Title inflation happens because titles, and
| their requisite salaries, don't matter for the industry.
| It's the same in finance, so you see a zillion vice
| presidents.
|
| It makes no sense for a company with hundreds of devs to
| take a top-level resource and waste their talents on
| writing code. Top level resources write code to stay sane
| and relevant, not because the company needs their code.
| pcmoney wrote:
| A lot of people are dunking on this post but none are showing a
| terminal career path that stays in tech and is something other
| than: - Manager of some kind - Senior IC of some kind -
| Independent of some kind
|
| It seems a reasonable breakdown to me, finer grained distinctions
| do not have the same magnitude of skill and prerequisite
| knowledge differences.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's a reasonable if very generalized taxonomy--and it captures
| someone who really wants to be their own boss, someone who
| wants to manage people, and someone who doesn't really want any
| of those things. But within those categories, the differences
| are vast. I've effectively had three rather different 10-ish
| year careers as an IC (plus one other shorter one that, as
| planned, I left to go to grad school).
| eulerian wrote:
| Curious if there's anyone who's made a plan for this sort of a
| thing. I'm never able to plan even the rest of my week and follow
| through with it. What does a plan for your career look like and
| how do you get the discipline to stick to it?
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| It's not about discipline, it's about cultivating the ability
| to find your own north star of sorts, follow that, and ignore
| the noise.
|
| In my example: I consulted in 2010-2012 doing Rails and hated
| it (despite having a great client). Decided I was not
| compatible with the webdev culture of shipping fast and
| breaking things, so I started self-studying compilers. Landed a
| job at an R&D firm in 2012 working on LLVM stuff, then have
| hung out in the research-y space ever since.
|
| I'd always set that as my career endpoint, but lately I'm not
| as sure. I think my next step is working towards being able to
| work for myself creating products on the side, and working for
| others part time eventually. I realized I like working on other
| people's problems, but I have a lot of skill and vision in
| programming that I can use in other ways, such as product
| design. The idea of learning how to be more independent is very
| exciting to me, including learning about marketing, UI design,
| talking to users, etc.
|
| After that? Who knows! Maybe I will teach part time, or write
| ebooks, or give trainings, or write games with friends.
| Computing is a big world and I feel very grateful to be able to
| move around in it as I get older.
| jdauriemma wrote:
| Try not to consider career planning as being in the same
| category as task management. Instead, have a broad vision and
| keep a look out for opportunities that might bring you closer
| to that vision. Opportunities present themselves all the time;
| it's up to us to have the attention to notice them and the
| judgement to know when (not) to take them.
| svnt wrote:
| For me it was more about identifying the archetype I was after
| so I knew who to emulate. It only lasted a year or two in most
| cases until I moved on to someone else.
|
| You can't, and I don't think it is smart to try to, line up a
| progression like this because in the process both you and the
| environment will change.
| eulerian wrote:
| So you'd suggest something to the contrary of the article --
| plan not for the end of your career but for the next few
| years?
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