[HN Gopher] A career-ending mistake
___________________________________________________________________
A career-ending mistake
Author : gus_leonel
Score : 285 points
Date : 2024-11-24 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (bitfieldconsulting.com)
| tossandthrow wrote:
| This approach to careers fails to take into account that we
| inherently change as people.
|
| In periods of ones life other things matters - maybe it is taking
| an education, starting a family, etc.
|
| Other periods work matter.
|
| It should be entirely fine to switch it on and off and change
| tracks throughout life - and in my view it seems like it is!
|
| To reach a peak it takes roughly 10 years, but these 10 years can
| be started at 40 when your kids does not wear diapers anymore.
| la64710 wrote:
| And also I want to acknowledge everything that ends our career
| is not in our control .. like the dual forces of global
| offshoring / outsourcing and relentless automation (including
| AI driven) will continue to put downward pressure in the career
| curves of tech workers for next few years/decades.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| It's interesting that the common sentiment on HN a couple of
| years ago was the polar opposite of that. I lost count of the
| number of comments that affirmed the boom was going to go on
| forever. Software was eating the world, etc.
| mettamage wrote:
| Software is steal eating the world, just not for employees.
|
| But we will integrate with tech more, as a society.
|
| I wonder where brick and mortar stores will be in 20 years.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I should point out that a perceived shift in the general
| opinion _of the overall group_ doesn 't necessarily mean
| that a lot of individuals within that group had a shift in
| opinion.
|
| I.e., it's probably affected by who bothers to voice their
| opinion, and how memorably, at different times.
| mettamage wrote:
| Well said: I think in this sense, flexibility is key.
| mckn1ght wrote:
| As well as knowledge of, and honesty with, oneself!
| rakejake wrote:
| I don't think the OP is talking about whether to focus on
| running the race or not, but rather which race to run. As you
| grow older, the number of open tracks diminishes and that is
| the point the OP is trying to make.
|
| While one can change tracks at any time, success is far from
| guaranteed. Being a distinguished engineer at 40, one cannot
| suddenly decide to enter the track for CFO or CEO. The track
| for that accepted entries 10 years back and is already over-
| subscribed. Only the CTO track is open at that point and only
| in certain companies.
| tossandthrow wrote:
| I don't think the number of open tracks diminishes. But I do
| think we generally focus.
|
| When one is 55 it is probably not too interest to attempt to
| go into the race to become and investment banker. Not because
| it is inherently impossible, but because there are more
| interesting opportunities.
|
| Or at least: I think this narrative is the most productive,
| and the one I will stick to.
| rakejake wrote:
| Depends. If one had been planning to shift tracks earlier
| in life but something got in the way, there would be some
| disappointment that the window for that track had passed.
|
| But your narrative implicitly signals acceptance of one's
| station and a realistic assessment of the tracks still open
| which is probably the right way to go.
| Gud wrote:
| Disagree here. Start your own company, boom, you are the CEO.
| valval wrote:
| Source: made it up.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > This approach to careers fails to take into account that we
| inherently change as people.
|
| OP very much talks about this in the last few paragraphs, both
| in that you can't plan exactly and that you need to course
| correct as things change.
|
| Also, just because it's okay or may happen that you change
| tracks within your career, it's still a good idea to optimize
| the track you are currently on and have an idea of where you
| want to be. Just coasting because you can't possibly plan your
| life seems like a strictly inferior option.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| It's not true that in all companies you have to chose between
| tech and management. It's true in some companies. But at many
| companies lead and director roles are very hands on.
|
| At Stream a lead is 80% technical, a director roughly 50%
| sometimes more. And even VPs and up are still somewhat technical.
|
| I think the idea of management without technical excellence track
| is just misguided. Small teams, technical excellence, and leaders
| who can do the work is the right way.
| f1shy wrote:
| > It's not true that in all companies you have to chose between
| tech and management. It's true in some companies. But at many
| companies lead and director roles are very hands on.
|
| I've seen bad companies where it is true, but in good companies
| typically not true. Look for example Peter Norvig, 100% hands
| on technical type, but in a high management position.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| These types of ultra-high IC positions tend to be gate-kept
| by companies, often requiring a lot of prestige and
| experience.
|
| It's a nice gesture that they exist, but we're not all Rob
| Pike or Peter Norvig.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Yeah, top-level IC positions are much harder to acquire
| than their equivalent management positions and tend to
| require some level of public claim to fame.
| leeoniya wrote:
| there is a difference between "technical" and "writing code
| every day".
|
| c-levels, VPs, and directors can be very technical, but rarely
| write code. team leads definitely do, though it may be only 3
| days a week, and rest is org/planning/pr reviews.
|
| only at small companies does the CTO write code. our cto has
| written plenty of deep code back in the day that enabled the
| business to scale to its current size.
| stoneman24 wrote:
| I agree that Managers/Directors should have a deep technical
| experience but having them contribute code to the day to day
| development is not a good situation for anyone (especially the
| companay).
|
| There are some different aspects to this; The director will
| have many other responsibilities and may not be able to provide
| to provide the research/expertise required to produce a good
| code solution to the issue at hand and integrated with the rest
| of the system.
|
| The rest of the project team may be delayed with waiting for
| the directors code and may well find it difficult to co-
| ordinate with the directors level of knowledge (which is
| perhaps out of date). In general, criticising the director for
| delay or bad code is not likely to be a career-enhancing path.
|
| In small company/start-ups, this a common condition that does
| need to be remedied. Directors/managers have significant
| responsibilities that needs to come first rather than feed
| their own ego/desires. Hire good people and direct them to
| scale the business, your job is different now and you need all
| your skill/time/resources to do it well.
|
| In short, personally been there a number of times and it wasn't
| good for anyone. But we struggled on.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| There is also a difference between being a capital-L Leader,
| and leadership. Healthy companies have space for technical
| leadership that is different from being on the management track
| to being CEO.
| tolciho wrote:
| Healthy companies may have CEO with domain specific knowledge
| of the field. Airbus, for example. Unhealthy companies may
| have capital-L Leaders living off in capital-L
| Lalastocklandia who have not done so well by various
| measurements, such as their planes falling from the sky, or
| stranded lowearthorbitnauts. Boeing, for example.
| creer wrote:
| > management without technical excellence track is just
| misguided
|
| It's different technical excellence.
|
| What's not given proper weight is that it's different technical
| excellence. Roles seen as "more management" demand system-level
| understanding and technical knowledge. And a technical
| knowledge that includes what many see as not technical such as
| awareness of people or finance dynamics. They can, should be
| seen as technical aspects. A more senior, "more management"
| role has different levers to use to make projects come through.
| And these are different higher level projects. A more senior
| role is also free to juggle reports who specialize in this or
| that. If you hate or you are bad at task scheduling, have
| someone do that for you. If you are not great at writing
| speeches, etc, etc.
|
| Among the ways you can prepare for that: (1) find at least one
| mentor (someone at least two steps more senior who can guide
| you on what to think about and on how things work. If the
| people two steps up in your company are bros... your mentors
| don't have to be in your same company.) (2) Consider what's
| missing to your skillset - and that's not planning software but
| maybe it is.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I have found that I can't actually plan with much certainty, and,
| quite often, the very _worst_ thing that can happen, is that
| Everything Goes As Planned.
|
| I have found utility in "overengineering" my life. Not just the
| tech I do, but in most things, and creating small, robust, high-
| Quality, and adaptable structures. Things that can be rearranged,
| and repurposed, _when_ (not "if") the context/paradigm changes.
|
| I started maxing out my retirement in 1990, and that's a good
| thing, because, in 2017, when I finally started looking for work,
| I was surprised (and disgusted) to find that no one wants to hire
| us olds. I wasn't _planning_ to retire, but I wasn 't consulted
| by Reality.
|
| In my work, I have found utility in writing in modular fashion,
| and making every module as high-Quality as possible. I've had to
| toss quite a few, and had to do substantial refactoring on some,
| but, for the most part, they have served me very well, and
| continue to do so, to this day.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In a similar fashion, I try to address all sorts of corner
| cases in my code, to the point of being called obsessive by
| some colleagues - but it definitely helped a few times with
| really stubborn and obscure bugs.
|
| An extra log line here or there, or an e-mail sent to the admin
| in weird situations, goes a long way - provided that you don't
| generate many false positives, because no one pays attention to
| a program that cries "binary wolf" too often.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| It's always surprised me how many people are happy with
| somewhat sloppy work, doing just enough to solve a particular
| issue. Most of the time it doesn't even come from management
| pressure, it's just the way people work.
|
| Perhaps there is something wrong with me but I always want to
| dot all the i's and cross all the t's.
| hcrean wrote:
| This article assumes a lot more self-determinism than is
| available in practice to most people.
|
| Beyond that many of us have been running on fumes for years, I
| can't lose ten extra hours every week away from seeing my family,
| so I can up-skill for a new variation on the same career with
| ultimately the same bull.
| foogazi wrote:
| What if it's an article for self-determined people ?
|
| Or meant to plant a seed of thought in someone's mind ?
|
| > I can't lose ten extra hours every week away from seeing my
| family
|
| I hope you find the time to make it work for you.
|
| And , I don't want to assume but so have found "I can't"
| attitudes don't work for effecting change in life.
|
| Maybe work on that aspect of your personality.
| snozolli wrote:
| "Here, drink this Flavor Aid. If you don't like it, it's a
| personality defect in you."
| mathgeek wrote:
| > And , I don't want to assume but so have found "I can't"
| attitudes don't work for effecting change in life.
|
| I personally subscribe to framing "I can't" as "I will not".
| Then you can view such things as the conscious choices they
| are. You can also avoid feeling forced to do things just
| because they are expected of you.
|
| E.g. "I can't give up time with my kids" vs "I will not give
| up time with my kids".
| syndicatedjelly wrote:
| What kind of advice would have been better?
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| If your goal is to get a cushy high paying job you will need to
| make sacrifices, otherwise that job would no longer be cushy
| and high paying. Some sacrifice their 20s and grind an
| education, career, and have no kids or spouse. Others put a
| large burden on their spouse to retrain, you have to weigh the
| short term toil versus the amortized improvements over your
| career. And it is important to remember that luck plays a part
| as well. Some get lucky on their first go around and others
| never get luck in life. The only thing you can do is maximize
| the number chances you have for good luck.
|
| It is important to live well within your means. Having an extra
| margin makes job and life changes much easier and lower risk.
| Many people's expenses grow to their income and they paint
| themself into a financial corner. Unfortunately once you are in
| that spot it becomes much more difficult to get out, and larger
| sacrifices need to be made.
|
| There are always options, and we have more opportunities and
| "stuff" than any other generation which has lived. Our stuff
| and jobs should serve us and not the other way around.
| K0HAX wrote:
| I have sacrificed my relationships with my friends and family
| for two decades and it hasn't helped advance my career beyond
| a normal, lowly IC.
|
| I don't want to manage people. I would be the exact kind of
| manager that destroys my own will to live. A senior role
| would be nice, but because I don't have any social skills
| (all that time I spent learning all of the technical
| knowledge I have now had unforeseen consequences,
| specifically, my social skills and emotional restraint are
| significantly stunted.)
|
| Stop using the argument that people need to make sacrifices.
| It's not true.
| gniv wrote:
| This is the point I was going to make as well. I think the
| article is written for high-agency people, which are rare in my
| experience, even in tech.
|
| Also related: The Peter Principle: people get promoted to their
| level of incompetence. We think we want something but then
| realize the job is actually harder than we thought, so we do a
| bad job (or burn out).
|
| So to the excellent points in the article I would add an
| introspection about the level we want to achieve and how to
| continue working at that level, assuming we don't hate the job.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| I prefer the journey. I don't want to "be" independent, I want to
| "become" independent. The former is winning the lottery, the
| latter is a long and difficult path.
| mahmoodz98 wrote:
| As someone who has fallen into this trap myself, I feel like many
| people tend to just go with the flow and then end up in a place
| they don't like doing work they don't enjoy, with no idea how to
| get out. This has inspired me to approach my manager about
| possibly stepping down from my role into a more IC role, or
| possibly swapping jobs, as I realized a Senior IC is where I want
| to be
| OutOfHere wrote:
| On the contrary, it's those who can't write code that become
| managers. They're not even good enough to ascend to the truly
| parasitic executive class.
| itronitron wrote:
| And those who can't manage people become managers of managers.
| Sytten wrote:
| Maybe I am a pessimist but I really don't believe you can plan
| for 20y in the future especially in the tech sector. People fail
| to realize that we live in a world that changes not in a linear
| fashion but rather exponential. For all we know in 10y we will
| only need 1/5 of the coders we have and IC won't be viable, who
| knows.
| snozolli wrote:
| IMO, there's no such thing as a career in tech, outside of
| maybe FAANGs (or whatever they're called now). It's just a
| series of jobs until accumulated wealth, ageism, or disability
| ends it.
| mupuff1234 wrote:
| The public sector is probably a decent place for a well
| defined career.
| mxuribe wrote:
| Ugh, your dagger of truth cuts me so deep...but truthfully
| so. :-)
|
| I'm beginning to feel ageism big time nowadays. And, while
| i'm thankful that i don't have any impact from disability
| (yet?!) from employers, the wealth accumulation is not enough
| to where i'd be comfy just yet. I wonder if "unicorns"
| outside of FAANGs nowadays are simply trying to accumulate
| enough wealth from conventional corporate IT jobs to have a
| comfy retirement like folks from the 60s/70s/80s/90s eras
| have had? ;-)
| fallinditch wrote:
| > Most managers are terrible.
|
| A sweeping statement indeed, but it does reflect my experience
| too.
|
| Perhaps it's my ingrained deference to authority - when I start a
| new position I tend to believe that my manager has my best
| interests at heart. This is a mistake and I now believe it's
| better to maintain a kind of defensive attitude and to always be
| assertive in establishing, and if necessary negotiating, the
| responsibilities and expectations of your role and your
| relationship with the manager.
|
| This may not necessarily be a personal failing on their part,
| this may just be a consequence of the operational management
| system you both work within.
| hobs wrote:
| As a person whose done it all, independent stuff, senior ic
| stuff, management stuff, the main thing that makes management
| terrible is simply that most companies have no support for
| middle managers.
|
| You are a good IC? Sure let's promote you to management, but in
| 95% of cases, we're not even going to pair you with anyone or
| have a senior manager help you understand, build and grow -
| we're going to throw you in the deep end and have you sink or
| swim.
|
| This often ends up with stressed out people used to doing well
| now approaching an entirely new problem with slow feedback
| loops and entirely different protocols than before, and the
| amount of burned out shitty middle managers I see is off the
| charts.
| mjr00 wrote:
| > A sweeping statement indeed, but it does reflect my
| experience too.
|
| IMO - managers are terrible at the same rate as ICs. But the
| damage a terrible IC can do is limited in most companies
| because there's guardrails like automated testing, pull
| requests, no access to the production database, etc. At worst
| they end up being a big timesuck for other team members until
| they get let go.
|
| A terrible manager will sink a project or team single-handedly,
| though.
| noirbot wrote:
| There is no code-review process for management decisions.
| Management is essentially like writing code on the production
| server all the time. The stakes are maybe a little lower,
| it's a good bit harder to make disastrous mistakes, but
| there's no real roll-back or testing for if you're about to
| ruin your team.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| But why isn't there a code review process for management
| decisions?
|
| What if code was how decisions were recorded ?
|
| What if companies were programmable ?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| What if there were no hypothetical questions?
|
| That is, you can ask hypothetical what ifs all you like,
| but unless you have a concrete plan for getting there,
| you're just writing fantasies.
|
| And, management decisions get reviewed before
| implementation all the time. It's just not a code review,
| precisely because management decisions are not code.
|
| Why aren't they code? Because people aren't computers. If
| you're going to treat them like they _are_ computers,
| then I don 't want to work in your company.
| andrewaylett wrote:
| We train people in their technical role, but we (generally)
| don't train people to manage -- and years of poor experience
| don't count.
|
| I'm not a manager, and I don't want to be. But I'm quite happy
| with the manager training that my employer puts people through
| before giving them direct reports.
|
| One should always be negotiating expectations, though, even
| when one considers management to have our best interests in
| mind. And also remember that your manager is learning _how_ to
| manage _from you_. You get to shape their experience of being a
| manager, and you get (to an extent) to guide them in how they
| grow as a manager.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I think that's largely due to the weird notion that engineers
| will eventually "upgrade" to management, as though one is the
| advanced version of the other.
|
| There are whole degree programs dedicated to managing and
| organizing people, but we're like, "nah, Joe's a good
| programmer so we should talk him into stopping that so he can
| supervise people instead".
|
| Fact is, there's little relation between the two. A person may
| happen to be good at both, but expertise in one does _not_
| imply adequacy in the other.
| cocoto wrote:
| Not every programmer can be a good manager, but no non-
| programmer can be a good manager on a programming project.
| kstrauser wrote:
| This is objectively and demonstrably untrue. I've had very
| good non-technical managers. Part of the requirement is
| them knowing they're non-technical so they can stay out of
| the way and concentrate on the PM bits, rather than micro-
| managing.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| My first manager was really good so it came as quite a shock
| when the next one turned out to be a lying, conniving bastard.
| Given enough experience you get hardened to it. Of course it
| would be better if you didn't need to.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| OTOH, this can be a case of the "if everyone around you is a
| jerk, the jerk is really you" rule.
|
| If you can't work well with _any_ manager the common
| denominator is you. It 's also the only thing you can change.
| noirbot wrote:
| The difficulty is the small sample size. Most people won't
| have a ton of different managers in their career and you'll
| change over time and your role will change over time and
| want/need different things from your manager.
|
| There's also a lot of selection bias. What many people point
| out in these threads is that the sort of people who desire to
| be in management, and the sort of skills selected for in
| managers often don't align to what more ICs would actually
| want out of their managers. Managers are often hired by other
| managers and not by the managed, so the skills that get you
| the job often aren't aligned to what would make them good to
| work for.
| dbish wrote:
| This. I've known many an engineer who thinks their manager is
| bad because they don't do what this IC (who has never been a
| manager or knows that is happening at the company above them)
| would do. The kind of people who think Elon is a bad CEO.
| Results are what matters first and foremost in tech
| K0HAX wrote:
| An employee not knowing what's happening at the company
| above them is a fault of the manager. There are some things
| that need to be kept secret, but if it's not one of those
| things, secrets are not a good thing.
| dbish wrote:
| It's not that straight forward. It's not the ICs job to
| know everything that is happening nor is it their job to
| make decisions based on pass through data, especially not
| a junior/mid career engineer.
|
| Transparency and keeping people informed, yes. Sharing a
| bunch of info and letting every IC make their own
| strategy and prioritization decisions, no.
| ptero wrote:
| Just as a personal data point, most managers I had in my now
| 25-year career in tech were good.
|
| They set clear goals and expectations, provided honest
| feedback, both positive and negative, and quickly jumped to
| help re-plan when things did not work out.
|
| They were also asking what I am optimizing for (for me at
| different times it was more money; promotion; interesting
| problems to work on; time to explore other long-term products)
| and as far as I could tell worked with their managers to move
| me in that direction, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
|
| I did not assume any of my managers had my best interest in
| heart, but one of my first managers gave me some lessons on
| "how to manage your managers, myself included". It took a few
| iterations, but he convinced me that by far the #1 thing most
| managers want is for me to deliver things on time; not cut a
| few days off the project timeline. And if I learn to do that,
| they will advocate for my interests, shield me from corporate
| BS, etc.
|
| Some specific advice from that manager was (in his words)
| "never promise something in 2 weeks unless you could
| demonstrate it today" and "do not sit quietly when you are
| given unrealistic timelines; counter with specific subtasks you
| see and how long you expect each will take". That general
| advice worked very well for me and helped build symbiosis with
| direct managers.
|
| I did dislike a few managers, but those were generally good ICs
| stuck into a management role they did not like (or at least did
| not know how to do) and kept both sticking their fingers into
| what their team was doing and start timeline discussions with
| "it would take me one day to do this, I will give you two; go-
| build-this-now".
|
| Again, just a personal data point; not claiming that most of
| the world works this way. I may have been just lucky.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > Some specific advice from that manager was (in his words)
| "never promise something in 2 weeks unless you could
| demonstrate it today" and "do not sit quietly when you are
| given unrealistic timelines; counter with specific subtasks
| you see and how long you expect each will take".
|
| Thanks these are good advice.
|
| > most managers I had in my now 25-year career in tech were
| good.
|
| I didn't have tons of managers, but my experience as well. Of
| course, they have their own interest in mind, rather than
| mine, but in my case at least, our interests were more or
| less aligned (completing projects, not burning out or leaving
| the team, working on things that matter to the company, avoid
| conflicts...).
| SoftTalker wrote:
| People rise to their level of incompetence[1]. This simple
| principle explains most managers completely.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
| cheema33 wrote:
| > it's better to maintain a kind of defensive attitude
|
| As a manager/developer, I do sometimes see this attitude in
| some devs. I try very hard to help them find a different job
| where they are not working for me.
| paxys wrote:
| "What do you want to be?" is a question we have all constantly
| been asked since middle school by parents, teachers, career
| counsellors, professors, recruiters, mentors, managers, HR and
| lots of other well meaning souls. My answer is the same at 40 as
| it was at 14 - I don't know. And you know what? I've been fine.
|
| I have worked at some great companies, and some not so great
| ones. A couple FAANGs as well as a 20-person startup and
| everything in between. I have been part of some fantastic product
| teams and a fair number of disasters. I have been a code monkey,
| an architect, a tech lead, a staff engineer, a manager, a
| director...and now know that none of these fancy titles really
| mean anything. And throughout all this I have managed to put a
| decent chunk of money in the bank.
|
| Most would consider my career to be pretty successful. I like to
| say that I don't really have a career but simply jump from one
| project to the next and one opportunity to the next depending on
| how the wind is blowing. Never once have I had any semblance of a
| "plan" or a "goal". And despite what all the authority figures in
| your life will tell you, that is a perfectly fine way to live and
| be happy.
| analog31 wrote:
| A friend of mine, who is quite successful in his occupation,
| told me that his motto is: "Always do the next thing."
|
| Our culture possesses this weird belief, that people always
| need to be transformed. This cuts across all ideologies,
| ranging from religion to Marxism and corporate culture. I think
| simply declaring "bullshit" to that belief can lead to a much
| happier life.
| rakejake wrote:
| I'm happy to hear this. Cheers.
| piecerough wrote:
| Have you had a common theme for these projects you navigated?
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I think he covers this early on: if you don't aspire for
| anything more, congrats. Incidentally I'm in the same boat.
| Literally told my manager "nope, not really interested in
| pursuing a promotion. Just want to be paid fairly and continue
| working at this level." They actually appreciated having one
| less engineer that they have to try to cultivate a career for.
| paxys wrote:
| Not following a strict career plan does not mean you aren't
| aspiring for growth. In fact it may be the exact opposite.
| Being loyal and jumping through hoops for your current
| team/manager/company in the hopes of a promotion may mean
| that you are ignoring other opportunities out there that may
| be a much better fit for you. Your company's career ladder is
| designed to get you to stay there for as long as possible
| while minimizing compensation. It does not prioritize your
| personal growth over the company's. Especially in today's
| world, the people most likely to get ahead in life are ones
| who stay flexible and ready to jump on new opportunities as
| they arise.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| > _Never once have I had any semblance of a "plan" or a "goal".
| And despite what all the authority figures in your life will
| tell you, that is a perfectly fine way to live and be happy_
|
| That's the ideal career for sure, but how common is it?
|
| It would be great if I knew I could bumble along and become a
| staff eng/manager/director without any sort of plan or goal. I
| don't believe that's a common experience though, and it seems
| even more unlikely for people who are at the start of their
| careers today (Like me).
| yawnxyz wrote:
| Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
|
| It's not entirely clear that much of this field will look the
| same in five years, but still, I think doing the thinking and the
| planning for the sake of mapping out the route is important.
|
| If only to inform you that no, you don't want any of those
| routes.
|
| (I did this planning and ended up in academia/microbiology, as a
| product designer, for better or worse but it's been fun)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| My wife asks me from time to time: "What do you need to learn
| now for the next five years of your career?"
|
| It's a great question. It is also, I think, the right time
| frame, though one could argue for three years instead of five.
| Given the terrain I see now, I can plan for the next five
| years, and have those plans be mostly reasonable most of the
| time. Past that is harder.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| I honestly have no idea what to even plan for the next couple
| of years and it's stressful
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Plan for AI to be a tool that can help you, but not one
| that will replace you. Learn how to use it to help you;
| learn how far you can listen to it and how far you can't.
|
| If you're in embedded systems, probably learn Rust.
|
| If you're in Android apps, probably learn Kotlin.
|
| If you're in web programming, I have no idea how to advise
| you, but there are others who can.
| equestria wrote:
| Here's the thing about the average career in big tech: _five
| years after you leave, almost no one will remember you were
| there_. Most of your old team mates will leave for other other
| jobs. Your code will get refactored or rewritten. Docs will be
| superseded, then lost in some CMS migration. Before long, it will
| be as if you have never worked there.
|
| I know it sounds preposterous, but ask anyone over the age of 55
| or 60: except for folks who built their own companies or made
| truly exceptional contributions to their field, most will say
| that hobbies, friends, and family mattered a lot more.
|
| So, there is this fundamental contradiction in this article: you
| can engineer a very neat career, but for most techies, the most
| useful goal is to _make money fast in a way that doesn 't drain
| your life energy_. And most of the time, this means responding to
| opportunities, not sticking to your guns. For example, a lifetime
| IC job may be ultimately worth less than a management job that
| gets you to VP level in a decade. You don't need to dream about
| being a manager; you just need to be reasonably good at it.
| paganel wrote:
| The problem with that is that it drains away your life energy
| in your late 20s and throughout your 30s, and in fact it's not
| only about draining one's energy, let's say that would be fine
| up to a point, but it drains away your purpose in life, and, in
| the end, your will to live. I refuse to believe that there are
| people whose purpose in life is to be a manager/VP, and, if
| they are, they might as well be walking corpses for all I know.
| mjr00 wrote:
| > I refuse to believe that there are people whose purpose in
| life is to be be a manager/VP, and, if they are, they might
| as well be walking corpses for all I know.
|
| You could say the same thing about ICs though -- "I refuse to
| believe there are people whose purpose in life is to spend 5
| days a week for 3 years building an enterprise line-of-
| business app to automate an obscure legacy business process
| that will be used by 10 people in total, and all 10 of those
| people will complain about the new app and wish they could go
| back to doing things the old way"
| ponector wrote:
| And as VP you can make a ton of money and spend it wisely,
| make a difference to your extended family or even a
| community you live.
|
| That is a real meaning and sense of purpose for your earned
| money!
| paganel wrote:
| The very fact of calling "computer programmers" as "ICs" is
| part of this syndrome, I'm not sure exactly when it started
| showing up, I'd say it was popularised by FAANGs, so maybe
| 2015-2016-ish?
| sokoloff wrote:
| I've heard the term (or "individual contributor") since
| at least the first dotcom boom in the late 90s.
| bitwize wrote:
| It's been in use in engineering for decades now. My
| father was familiar with the term in his career, and he's
| pre-boomer.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Is IC offensive? I've never considered it to be.
| "Resources", on the other hand, feels very offensive.
| frmersdog wrote:
| Well, taken at face value, it is a bit of an oxymoron. To
| contribute is to be part of a group; by definition, a
| contributor can't be wholly independent, because they're
| adding to a corpus, not producing it by themselves.
| reshlo wrote:
| It stands for Individual Contributor, not Independent
| Contributor.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I don't read it negatively, but to play devil's advocate
| here... Managers are also individuals who are
| contributing to the group corpus. They just do it by
| interfacing with people instead of code.
|
| Though, that's just semantics on the naming. IC just
| means not having direct reports.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Oh, I take it the other way. To me it implies that
| management doesn't contribute anything on their own,
| which is kind of true but also kind of a funny phrasing.
| cudgy wrote:
| True. Who is not an individual contributor? I find the
| term meaningless.
| mjr00 wrote:
| ICs aren't just computer programmers, they're designers,
| sales, marketing, customer support, etc. It's just an
| easier term for people who aren't managers than "not a
| manager".
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| The only way I know how to deal with this is FIRE. Investing
| as much as possible and working towards early retirement or
| semi-retirement so that you can at least live a good chunk of
| your life.
|
| The world we live in still sucks away the best years of your
| life but at least you don't have to wait until your 60s to
| live the life you want. You can also work on side projects in
| your spare time that will hopefully accelerate this process.
|
| This should be doable on a tech salary.
| ghaff wrote:
| >you don't have to wait until your 60s to live the life you
| want
|
| But, at least at some point in your life, doing work within
| a company may provide that life. At some point, you're
| done. And that point may vary. But many people wouldn't
| _really_ love (or at least benefit from) a bunch of money
| dropped in their lap when they graduated from college.
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| I can 100% tell you it will not provide that life to a
| lot of people. I'm happy for you if it does but others
| like myself would rather kill themselves than work a 9-5
| until they're 60.
| ghaff wrote:
| And a lot of those people would not have been in a
| position to start their own companies--much less succeed
| at it.
|
| Have a big trust fund? Sure. If it were from Day 1,
| depending on the circumstances, 9-5 would have been ehh.
| But not sure how directed I would have been absent strong
| parental direction.
| robocat wrote:
| > The only way I know how to deal with this is FIRE.
| Investing as much as possible and working towards early
| retirement
|
| I retired at 50 and "the dream" of FIRE is almost like
| someone else's idea of an ideal goal and I'm not that
| satisfied with it - perhaps because I'm out of sync with my
| peers (I have gained some retired 65+ friends). I had
| planned to enjoy investing however I find investing
| soulless and unsatisfying even though I'm doing well at it,
| so my life plan needs to change. My hobbies remain hobbies
| - they are not fulltime.
|
| > The world we live in still sucks away the best years of
| your life
|
| Some of the most satisfied people I know work in plain
| jobs.
|
| I could found a startup but that's just creating a job for
| myself and the benefits of many many millions don't seem
| like they'd improve my life enough.
| cudgy wrote:
| > however I find investing soulless and unsatisfying even
| though I'm doing well at it
|
| Agreed, but how do you know you are doing well at it? Who
| hasn't? Stock market only goes up and has been fueled by
| low interest rates for almost 2 decades.
| analog31 wrote:
| I've noticed that the successful ones have exceptional self
| discipline, part of which is not letting it affect your life
| as a person. Also, from their body language as observed
| through office windows and meeting rooms, they're spending a
| lot of their time socializing.
| groestl wrote:
| > almost no one will remember
|
| And that is true for all memory, I suppose. There is none. It's
| constant communication, down to the quantum level, a constant
| vortex of information, and if the vortex stops, all memory is
| gone.
| boredtofears wrote:
| There's no guarantee your code will be rewritten or refactored.
| I have code written over 15 years ago that I know is still in
| production because it is stable and core to the application. I
| suppose one day it probably will be replaced but I'm pretty
| satisfied with that piece of work and found it to be, if
| anything, more life affirming than draining.
|
| You can have your cake and eat it, too: if your work is
| satisfying and seeing people use the things you built gives you
| joy, you can make good money doing something you life without
| optimizing your entire life solely around ladder climbing or
| bigger paychecks.
| mjr00 wrote:
| yeah, if anything it's dangerous to assume that your code
| will get thrown away soon-ish.
|
| as an extreme example I'm aware of, the core AWS
| infrastructure is still heavily dependent on Perl scripts
| mashed together 15+ years ago.
| derefr wrote:
| > core AWS infrastructure is still heavily dependent on
| Perl scripts mashed together 15+ years ago
|
| What part of the infrastructure? The control-plane logic
| that triggers when the dashboard/CLI/CloudFormation request
| modifications to resources?
| mjr00 wrote:
| I never worked with it directly so this may not be
| totally accurate, but IIRC a lot of the fundamental
| networking code for managing data centers -- DNS, traffic
| routing, etc -- was legacy Perl scripts. While I was
| there, at least one major us-east-1 outage was directly
| linked to a problem with one of these scripts.
| tdeck wrote:
| To me this seems to make a strong case for focusing more on
| relationships at work with people and less on work products. I
| still remember people I worked with 10+ years ago though I have
| no idea if the code they wrote then is still in production.
| toast0 wrote:
| > but for most techies, the most useful goal is to make money
| fast in a way that doesn't drain your life energy. And most of
| the time, this means responding to opportunities, not sticking
| to your guns. For example, a lifetime IC job may be ultimately
| worth less than a management job that gets you to VP level in a
| decade.
|
| If you can switch to management without draining your life
| energy, go for it? I hope you're a good manager.
|
| Personally, all of my experiences managing people have been
| very draining.
| paxys wrote:
| Exactly. If making good money without taking on too much
| stress was the goal, my advice to everyone would be to become
| a senior/staff IC at a decent company and stay in that role
| till retirement.
| gtirloni wrote:
| I think the stress at senior/staff will be there no matter
| what but if you aren't especially suited for the management
| track, the stress of being a manager will be 10x. If you're
| suited, then I'd argue it will be 1x or maybe less.
|
| I've attempted to follow the traditional/expected
| progression path of senior->management and had a horrible
| experience each time. Even though I was getting praised for
| the work,it was taking way more energy from me to the point
| of burning out much faster than anything at the IC level.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Draining but also rewarding? I think work is supposed to be
| hard and tiring - seems like most things of value are - but
| if it sucks your life force permanently that's not a good
| thing. I've found management is a bit of a muscle that can be
| worked and you increase your energy reserve with time &
| practice. Similar to being an IC I've found it's fear that
| drains the most, and building a perspective of "I don't know
| exactly how to do this (nobody really does) but we'll figure
| it out." has been immensly valuable.
| toast0 wrote:
| I can see how it _could be_ rewarding, but it wasn 't for
| me. Since I don't need to do and don't enjoy it, and other
| people are better at it, I can leave it for someone else
| and be thankful my circumstances allow for that.
| NilMostChill wrote:
| > I think work is supposed to be hard and tiring
|
| I suppose that depends on what kind of work you are talking
| about and your perspective on what different kinds of work
| really are.
|
| I wouldn't consider "The thing i do so me and my family
| don't starve" to have an inherent need to be hard or
| tiring.
|
| Whereas "The thing i do to fill up my time with something i
| feel is meaningful" might have a hard and/or tiring
| component, but only if you personally feel like the
| hard/tiring part is required.
|
| Things can be rewarding without being draining and value is
| subjective.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| There's also a risk going to into management that you don't
| have as a much more indispensable developer. My friend is
| great developer who transitioned to management, then got laid
| off 2 years later when the company hired a bunch of Amazon
| layoff casualties who pushed out all the other management.
| All the developers under her were retained.
| kyleee wrote:
| Is it more likely to happen as manager or dev? I suppose
| that is the important question, to which I don't know the
| answer
| codingdave wrote:
| I don't find that to be true. I remember many of my co-
| workers... some fondly, some not, but they are remembered. They
| added as much flavor to my life as my family and friends, if
| not more, because we spent more hours together. Their work
| influenced mine and I learned from them. And their insights
| helped direct which directions we took the projects.
|
| Now, did our presence impact the company? Did our code survive?
| Or documentation? Do people who work there today have any idea
| we ever existed? No, perhaps not. But really... who cares? The
| relationships we have with people in our lives matter, as do
| the impacts we have on each other, regardless of what our
| impact was on some rando corporation I earned a check from some
| number of years ago.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| One of the constants in this field is the people; I've
| continued to work with the same individuals in various
| environments and configurations for decades - often
| intentionally.
| derefr wrote:
| > Your code will get refactored or rewritten. Docs will be
| superseded, then lost in some CMS migration. Before long, it
| will be as if you have never worked there.
|
| The exception is if you build a fundamental component of the
| system, _and_ that component is so unique in what it does that
| nobody who comes after you will even consider the idea of
| ground-up reimplementing it, but instead just has to immerse
| themselves into _your_ mindset, trust _your_ docs, etc,
| whenever they 're maintaining that component, forever.
|
| ---
|
| The bad/painful version of this, is when the component relies
| on unique hardware (e.g. a mainframe's native IO-acceleration
| capabilities), and was designed by someone who was immersed in
| that ecosystem and understood how to write code to take
| advantage of it. So the code is incredibly non-portable,
| written in terms of the low-level abstractions of the hardware,
| that nobody else in the company will ever understand to the
| same level the original programmer did. This is e.g. flight
| booking.
|
| You should hope to never encounter these, since they make the
| rest of your service that has to interact with this thing into
| a tar pit of low momentum, from your lack of ability to effect
| change on this component.
|
| --
|
| There is a _good_ version of this, too, though: when the
| component relies on unique _concepts and math_ (say, doing
| static analysis by generating constraint statements and solving
| /simplifying them using a prover) that _are_ portable, and
| _could_ in theory be reimplemented in a new codebase if
| desired... but which were literally invented by the programmer
| in the process of implementing the code, at the climax of
| months of lateral thinking about how to solve the problem. This
| is an engineering True Dweomer.
|
| There's usually nothing wrong with codebases containing True
| Dweomer code; they're not any less maintainable than usual. And
| they solve a problem that isn't solvable with simpler solutions
| -- that's why such a weird solution was arrived at in the first
| place. So they usually tend to stick around.
|
| But everyone who arrives at the company will nevertheless be
| slightly afraid of touching the True Dweomer code. They don't
| understand it, even though they know they _could_ understand it
| given enough time (and prerequisite textbook reading.) Unlike
| mainframe code, people might look fondly on the code, looking
| for opportunities to be assigned to a project that _requires_
| that they come to grips with it... but the project usually
| ticks along by itself, not requiring much maintenance.
|
| (What you'll actually hope for, is that whoever writes the True
| Dweomer code requests to lift it out, out of whatever project
| it's a part of, out of the company itself, into an open-source
| project. Because that way, that person who does understand it,
| can keep maintaining it, even after they leave.)
| frmersdog wrote:
| I think that this speaks to an issue that's common across the
| economy, not simply isolated to tech: the career lifecycle.
| Specifically, the notion that there's an optimal amount of time
| and an optimal point in one's life (both for business and
| employee) for a worker to be in a given position, and that it's
| again optimal for him or her to _not get there too early_ and
| to _not stay too long._
|
| E.g., tech suffers from the former, politics from the latter,
| and for both fields, the effect is a warping of the good that
| they could be doing for society. Society should be set up to
| encourage "correct" entries and exits and to discourage
| "incorrect" ones (with allowances, during the transition, to
| avoid having a "lost generation" that never gets to
| contribute).
|
| Letting people hang on, with their outmoded ideas, into their
| 70s and 80s? Forcing breadwinners to take on maximum workplace
| responsibility at the same time that they are most able to
| contribute to raising their family or building and maintaining
| their community? There's something perverse about this set-up.
| To say nothing of the people forced to spin their wheels while
| the 10xers load their own plates with all the opportunities.
| ghaff wrote:
| The first time I transitioned to a different type of job in
| tech was really tough but I had been pretty unhappy for a
| while. I wasn't pushed out--the opposite in fact--which made
| leaving tougher but subsequent events showed it was
| absolutely the right decision. The next time, my hand was
| pretty much forced by any clear-headed view of company
| financials which made it a lot easier to get on a very
| interesting (and better compensated) track through someone I
| had done some work for. At the end I wasn't especially happy
| but it was around the time I was planning to at least semi-
| retire anyway so the decision was straightforward again.
| donatj wrote:
| Even in small tech. I worked for an agency in the aughts and we
| would put up websites at roughly the pace of 1 a week. In my
| time there I'd guess I'd personally built a little over 100
| websites and developed our internal framework for us to make
| doing so easier.
|
| Every couple years since, I've gotten a bug in my butt and
| investigated how many sites still had pieces I'd clearly worked
| on. On this most recent occasion, I could no longer find
| anything. They've changed over to some open source CMS and I
| was unable to find anything I had built.
|
| It's been 12 years in there since I left, but as far as I can
| see on the front side everything I'd written is gone. It's a
| strange feeling, like 5 years of my life just evaporated.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I left a project in 2003. I can still hit their web login
| page, and I still see something specific in the URL I put
| there. I've no doubt they've upgraded some stuff behind the
| scenes, but they've likely not done huge overhaul, otherwise
| they'd have simply redone the auth process to whatever an
| upgraded system uses. They _did_ change some graphics on the
| login page, and added a google tag thing, and converted some
| styles to css.
|
| Very odd to look at it and know that I'm probably one of 2 or
| 3 people who know why that specific code is there, and also
| to know that the base of this is still running.
| mathattack wrote:
| The code may be gone but not the impact.
|
| A gas station sells gas that is gone within weeks. But
| someone fills their car, and drives to Mountain View and gets
| a job that changes your life.
|
| Helping a business grow by 10% more each year because they
| were an early adopter to websites is something you impacted,
| even if your code isn't there to remind people why.
|
| "All we are is dust in the wind." (Kansas and Ecclesiastes)
| Retric wrote:
| That feels true, but a single gas station disappears and
| people fill up somewhere else.
|
| The world isn't a static place. The impact is often closer
| to saving X thousands of people a few seconds than anything
| more meaningful. Perhaps the indirect result is someone
| finds the love of their life but it could just as easily be
| a life changing STD or getting run over and impacting many
| people means many such indirect changes both positive and
| negative.
| marmaduke wrote:
| I think "a cloud never dies" is more apt for this sentiment
| saltminer wrote:
| >It's a strange feeling, like 5 years of my life just
| evaporated.
|
| To quote Roy Batty, "All those moments will be lost in time,
| like tears in rain."
|
| If there's anything I've noticed in this industry, it's that
| abstractions tend to outlive their origins. For instance,
| back in the 80s the Unix systems my workplace used (and
| subsequently, many of the applications they ran) had an 8
| character max username length, and although those old Unix
| boxes (and their vendors) are long gone, we're still given 8
| character usernames since nobody wants to find out the hard
| way that there still are some applications that depend on an
| 8 character max or which truncate longer usernames to 8
| characters.
|
| If you want to make a lasting impact on an industry but you
| weren't able to get in on the ground floor, your best bet is
| to get into advanced R&D, whether at a major hardware company
| or in academia. Anywhere else and your knowledge will either
| be wasted because nobody cares or it will be siloed off
| because the company will never open-source the tech you
| pioneered (and someone else will likely take the credit for
| it later on when they create an open-source equivalent).
| Attummm wrote:
| I have to disagree with your premise.
|
| The goal of many software engineers is to build software /
| systems they can be proud of. They love software and the
| machines it runs on.
|
| Many people here have Arduino projects, 3D printers, home
| servers, and similar hobbies.
|
| A few weeks ago, I was looking for compression algorithms for a
| particular use case and came across Brotli[0]. I was surprised
| to learn it was developed by Google. That realization hit me
| hard. Google used to be a hub for this kind of innovation.
| Projects like Brotli aren't built to maximize personal profit;
| they're driven by passion and a genuine love for software
| engineering.
|
| It's clear that the industry is shifting from being geeky and
| nerdy to being more business and management focused.
|
| [0] https://github.com/google/brotli
| DrillShopper wrote:
| > It's clear that the industry is shifting from being geeky
| and nerdy to being more business and management focused.
|
| I've heard this same complaint for the last 30 years,
| probably starting with this - Bret Hart helps you debug a
| null pointer dereference:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSmKiws-4NU
| K0HAX wrote:
| Just because you've heard it for 30 years doesn't mean it's
| not still true. Some things move at a glacial pace, and I
| see it too.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| > The goal of many software engineers is to build software /
| systems they can be proud of.
|
| Maybe for people <30. Priorities change very fast, as you
| age. I've met a good chunk of very talented engineers through
| work and other venues who acknowledged that they stopped
| caring after some point.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| >> Maybe for people <30. Priorities change very fast, as
| you age.
|
| This.
|
| I read here on HN some time ago an article stating that
| teenager-ish people crave to find "meaning" in work due to
| being what in essence can be described as emotionally
| retarded (although intellectually normal). This all changes
| fast as they age and/or have kids or other inevitable live
| event that manages to pull their head out of their ass.
|
| Basically Mark Twain's "When I was 17, my father was so
| stoopid" remark.
| dqh wrote:
| 45 here, happily married with kids and yet I love writing
| software more than ever.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| I'm in my early 30s and I am so close to hitting this point
| myself. I entered this field because I found the craft to
| be fascinating. I learned how beautiful the fields of
| computer science and programming truly are as well as the
| mathematics both were built upon.
|
| I fundamentally believe a lot of my issues with our field
| is partly a skill issue on my part -- if I were talented
| enough, then I might be able to achieve what I truly
| desire: to work on projects where people care about quality
| and care about the problem that is trying to be solved.
|
| However, I feel like my IC career is akin to an assembly-
| line worker. The people I have worked with do not care
| about quality nor programming/computer science at all. They
| just want to get things done as fast as possible while
| extracting as much money as they can.
|
| So yes, I am about to stop caring. If companies want fast
| churning, low-quality software, then so be it. I'll just
| need to get over tying some part of my identity to my work.
| rglullis wrote:
| > Projects like Brotli aren't built to maximize personal
| profit;
|
| In the case of Google, they very much _are_ driven by profit.
| For a small company, reducing your payload size or
| decompression time by 0.01% may be senseless, but at their
| scale the benefit will greatly outweigh the costs.
| raphlinus wrote:
| In this case, GP has it very much right. Brotli was
| developed by _people,_ not just faceless Googlers. Jyrki,
| who led the project, is as passionate an engineer as you
| 're likely to meet. In this case, being able to pursue that
| passion happened to align well with Google's business
| interests, as it is indeed the case that improvements to
| compression have obvious benefits at scale when bandwidth
| and storage cost real money. But someone still has to push
| the initiative, and it's not as easy as you might think.
|
| Disclosure: have collaborated with Jyrki and the
| compression team, including WOFF2 font compression, an
| early application of Brotli.
| njtransit wrote:
| This argument assumes that code is an ends not a mean, which is
| false. The value you deliver is not your code, it's the
| enablement of business functions. Let's say you launch a new
| product that gains traction. Sure, in 5 years your code may be
| refactored out of existence. But the people doing the
| refactoring only have jobs because of the value you delivered
| when launching the initial product. That is your lasting
| contribution, not the lines of code you wrote.
| geophile wrote:
| I am 67, and equestria is mostly correct. I still get great
| satisfaction from my tech career, but sure, friends and family
| matter more. This story involves some work I did that did _not_
| bring me satisfaction.
|
| I worked at my first consumer-oriented tech company, right
| after the dotcom crash. It was a really unexciting interlude in
| my career. I was given the job of writing the database and Java
| representation of credit/debit cards, and the related business
| logic. As often happens, the code grew over time, as
| requirements and card types were added. And it was finally time
| for a rewrite, and this code became a poster child for
| technical debt.
|
| Startup activity resumed, and I left for a far more interesting
| startup.
|
| Then, maybe 15 years later, I was retired, and doing
| consulting, and ran into a friend from the company, who told me
| that a new company doing something very similar, and was
| looking for help. I go in and talk to them, and discover that
| they actually licensed the software from my former company.
| Including my long-in-the-tooth credit/debit/xyz-card software.
| The code was still completely recognizable, disturbingly so. It
| lived on far past the point that it should have.
|
| I decided to _not_ take the consulting job. I really did not
| relish the idea of going back to this very forgettable and
| uninteresting code. But most importantly, I had just retired,
| and wanted to spend my summer on a lake, not keeping this code
| alive a bit longer.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Your argument, while valid, also kind of misses the point of
| the original post: to know where your career ends, you also
| have to know what the general trajectory looks like. Basically,
| you cannot "coast" ever upward "naturally" anymore, because
| we've learned that's a bad concept (hence the term "failing
| up").
|
| We pressure people into management roles who have no reason
| being there other than "that's where more money is" or "that's
| how you create change". If someone's "end state" is a highly
| competent and flexible IC, then why isn't there more money for
| _them_ to continue succeeding at that role as compared to an
| ineffective manager? For all the talk that tech is a
| meritocracy, _it obviously isn 't_, otherwise we'd be rewarding
| the best talent without forcing them into bad roles or hollow
| titles.
|
| Motivations aren't restricted to money alone, either, as we've
| seen post-pandemic with the WFH-RTO conflicts. A plurality of
| workers have realized their time is more valuable than their
| work, and are refusing to take chump change for multi-hour
| commutes from affordable suburbs just because their employer is
| arbitrarily demanding butts-in-seats in a pricey city. Others
| want their employers to be more involved in politics, or at
| least acknowledge that choosing to be a for-profit business is
| in fact a political statement in and of itself; hiding behind
| faux-neutrality in times of crisis isn't sufficient response
| anymore. The times are a changing, and the workforce is
| increasingly making its frustrations known.
|
| Which brings me to your last paragraph:
|
| > ...for most techies, the most useful goal is to make money
| fast in a way that doesn't drain your life energy.
|
| I would like to proudly stand up as one of those _not_ in that
| "most techies" crowd. I do this work because it comes easy to
| me, is incredibly interesting, and allows me to work in
| infrastructure in a way that isn't building roads or laying
| pipe. I identified my career ending way back in High School:
| acting as the jack-of-all-trades IT guy for the school or
| district, grey hair and hoarse voice, gradually nerd-sniping
| the kids who, like I was, are bored out of their skulls and
| looking for a challenge. The money certainly helps (even if
| it's not nearly enough to buy a home close to the office), but
| my career begins and ends in ultimately the same place.
|
| And that's the point of the post: identifying where your career
| ends, and the arc it takes to get there. It's why I'm doing the
| leadership courses and trying to beat a new path upward in the
| corporate world, one where highly-competent ICs who are also
| good leaders are recognized as such and put into long-term
| positions within an organization, to weather the storm of
| cyclic leaders and fickle shareholders, and ultimately build a
| stronger, successful, and sustainable entity as a result. I
| need those years/decades of leadership _and_ money to reach
| that position where I have a paid-off home, decent retirement
| savings, and can finally dedicate my remaining time and talent
| toward building a better future for the next-generation of
| people.
| arp242 wrote:
| For my previous job some stuff is public, and I can see it's
| still being used as it gets commits. I left about five and a
| half years ago. For the non-public stuff I wrote a lot of the
| foundational code, and I'd be surprised if all of that that
| been replaced.
| billy99k wrote:
| Very true. I saw comments in the code base where I work from
| someone that had worked there 3 years prior. Most of the people
| I asked could barely remember the person.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| The best of all worlds is when you can work with real friends
| with on cool new stuff. I had a job like that for seven years.
| I also had enough experience by that point to know I was in a
| rare situation, and to cherish it while it lasted.
| macNchz wrote:
| > the most useful goal is to make money fast in a way that
| doesn't drain your life energy. And most of the time, this
| means responding to opportunities, not sticking to your guns
|
| This is a tightrope I think many people wind up struggling with
| --it's easy to slip into doing something that pays well but
| _does_ drain your energy, then struggle to wind things back
| once you're used to the increased income.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Yep -- this is something I wish I understood earlier on: burn
| hard, make as much as you can, then do what you _really_ want
| once you have enough money.
| teractiveodular wrote:
| But when do you have "enough" money? There are many traps
| here.
|
| With lifestyle creep, mortgages or kids' educations to pay
| for, the sum that would have been "enough" in your twenties
| isn't in your forties.
|
| Many people work hard for decades and drop dead of a heart
| attack the first day after their retire.
|
| Others retire too early and find out the hard way that they
| did not, in fact, have enough money.
|
| Some people get both right and still find themselves bored or
| spiraling unhealthily (drinking to much etc).
| bdangubic wrote:
| you have enough money when you can comfortably live taking
| out 4% of your invested savings. math always checks out for
| this.
|
| also I know one family who retired early, realized they
| will run out of money and instead of going back to work
| moved to costa rica :)
| teractiveodular wrote:
| Ten years ago, while a junior engineer at a FAANG, I made a
| tiny change to one of the most popular pieces of software in
| the world. It's still executed billions of time per day, and
| I'm never quite sure if I should be proud or a bit sad that the
| sheer number of CPU cycles spent on this almost certainly
| vastly outweighs everything else I've ever done in my career
| combined.
| illiac786 wrote:
| Maybe I am wrong about this, but being a VP is exactly the kind
| of things that sound like draining the life energy out of
| someone. VPs all sound completely formatted in a way that only
| happen if you are under an immense pressure and the only way
| out is through that very tight exit, which leaves you nearly
| formatted.
| Aperocky wrote:
| > For example, a lifetime IC job may be ultimately worth less
| than a management job that gets you to VP level in a decade
|
| How are you positive that you can get to VP level in a decade
| as a manager? That doesn't sound easy. Just by looking at the
| number of managers and number of VP in my company it would
| seemed that around ~2% would eventually become VP if the ratio
| hold, that's an incredible standard for "reasonably good".
| Doubly so if you are not even starting from the same track.
| johnfn wrote:
| > for most techies, the most useful goal is to make money fast
| in a way that doesn't drain your life energy
|
| Is it so insane to think that it is possible to enjoy your job?
| I feel that this treatment of your job as a toxic thing that
| must be handled with safety gloves from a distance may
| contribute more to the "drain[ing] of life energy" than the
| actual job itself.
| coldcode wrote:
| I never intended to have a career as a programmer. I planned to
| work for two years, save a bit of money, and get a PhD in
| Chemistry. Forty years later I retired as a programmer. Every
| step was something new, I had 15 different employers (plus myself
| for 9 years starting two little companies). There was never a
| plan beyond finding a better/different/less irritating job, and
| constantly improving what I could do. I never gave any thought to
| what I wanted to end my career on. It actually ended entirely as
| my decision, I still was at the top of my ability, and my
| employer was happy to pay me, but I was tired of working.
|
| While planning might work for some people, having a more short
| term view can work for others. The only thing I could ever
| control was what I was able to do, and when I was ready to move
| on. There are many optimizations available to succeed in life;
| not all are obvious.
| mettamage wrote:
| Could you describe how each job hop was less annoying than the
| less?
|
| I know it's a big ask.
|
| I am just insanely curious to know.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| > While planning might work for some people, having a more
| short term view can work for others
|
| One thing I noticed is that what I valued in my 20s wasn't what
| I valued in my 30s and 40s. It's difficult to anticipate who
| you will be in a few years from now. It may change drastically.
| Keep that in mind when planning!
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| I have advised multiple people in their 50s that they are no
| longer seeking a position, they are looking for a decent paying
| job.
|
| Career progression should be dominated by FIRE...
| applied_heat wrote:
| I am curious about how he accidentally shut down a nuclear
| reactor.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Joke's on them. I have a job, not a career.
| rakejake wrote:
| Yes, I do find that a lot of people get caught in whatever race
| they started running in the beginning of their careers and don't
| care to stop for a bit and try retrospecting/introspecting.
|
| I recently took a break from work with the intention of working
| on some side projects and also thinking about what it is I like
| to do (somewhat along the lines mentioned in the article - do I
| want to stay on my current trajectory and try to hit senior IC,
| management etc). I am only about 6 years into my career, perhaps
| a bit early for a sabbatical but I felt this was the right time
| for it. I had a pretty good reputation in my job and I could have
| done the thinking while on the job, yet I felt I couldn't. I am
| helped by not having any financial concerns or other
| responsibilities.
|
| I am not sure what I expect to gain from this though most people
| assume that either I must be starting my own business or chilling
| at home although neither is true. I took care to put some
| structure into it so I don't while away the time scrolling HN. I
| don't think I will get a sudden epiphany but feel if I put in
| some hours without any external constraints, something might
| happen. The worst that could happen is that I have to write off
| this time and go back to running the race in my IC track.
| mettamage wrote:
| I feel the discussion needs to be opened up to other ends of
| careers.
|
| My favorite career end that I'm naturally working towards to is
| the ability to jop hob to different roles without having prior
| experience. One way to do that is to be able to show in an
| interview that you have transferable skills and learn crazy fast.
| Another facet of that is that you need to identify companies that
| are open to this sort of thing.
|
| Another career end is to become rich and not work. It's not
| achievable for everyone of course. But it is a type of career
| end.
|
| Other career ends that one becomes disabled and live on
| disability checks or welfare. To me, it seems that this is a
| career end that people want to avoid.
|
| I feel digital nomads aren't really represented in this career
| end. You could put it under independence, but the
| characterization of independence in this blog post was quite
| narrow which is why I feel the need to state it explicitly. Some
| people are in their career end when they can just work remote 4
| days and have a decent salary.
|
| There are many more career ends, what could you come up with?
| itronitron wrote:
| The more capable you are, the more experience and ability you
| will have with specialized skills which will result in people
| that don't have those capabilities to think that your skills
| are not transferable.
|
| If you find a magic workaround to that, please let us know.
| mxuribe wrote:
| > ...My favorite career end that I'm naturally working towards
| to is the ability to jop hob to different roles without having
| prior experience. One way to do that is to be able to show in
| an interview that you have transferable skills and learn crazy
| fast. Another facet of that is that you need to identify
| companies that are open to this sort of thing...
|
| Maybe its been the job hunting climate of the most recent
| decade or so...but I no longer see opportunities for jobs where
| employers are willing to take on someone who might be awesomely
| enthusiastic, and well-rounded, but lack a very super-specific
| set of skills. This also goes back to those ridiculous job
| descriptions where an employer __"requires"__ a candidate to
| have, let's say, 10 years of a specific experience - even
| though said skill might have only existed for slightly over 10
| years.
|
| I wish i could do something like that: sort of jump to a
| different role without prior experience (or at least very
| little experience)....For me it would be more of an
| intellectual fulfillment, and wanting to learn more, etc...And,
| for any employer who would give me that chance, i'd legit give
| them 110%! But, i'm not holding my breath for that.
| hn72774 wrote:
| The end of my career is uncertain. My entire career has been
| uncertain. Not completely unplanned, but rather has progressed in
| ways I could never have predicted.
|
| I had luck and opportunity to ride the cloud computing wave and
| it carried me into software development and distributed analytics
| systems, from a B.A degree in business. 20 years of lateral moves
| up to Sr. Level, but never outside of IC, yet.
|
| I daydream about turning my DIY skills into some type of
| construction trades business while I am physically able. Or
| testing the waters with software consulting.
|
| Manager role is not appealing working for someone else's company
| although just like construction trades, being an apprentice in
| that role is probably going to be the best way to learn it. I
| dread the meetings and politics and employee reviews. But if I
| really want to run my own business, at some my point I may need
| to be a manager on someone else's payroll. Even if just for a
| year.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > career ending mistake
|
| > the time I inadvertently shut down one of Britain's nuclear
| power stations
|
| There is a scram joke in there somewhere ;)
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| > _You probably won't get to choose what to work on, and you may
| not agree with all the decisions of the powers that be. In fact,
| it's practically certain you won't. After all, you know more
| about the subject matter than they do._
|
| Wait a minute if the people most suited to make a decision are
| overridden by people less competent than them (they have to be
| most of the time, given the different focus of their career),
| that's kind of a problem, isn't it? Is there any way to avoid
| such structural failures?
| rakejake wrote:
| Less competent in what? The people with decision-making power
| are supposed to be good at some combination of product
| innovation, product management, sales, marketing and
| accounting. ICs are only suited to making some decisions in the
| first two, and have next to zero expertise in the others.
| loup-vaillant wrote:
| I'm afraid _" supposed to"_ is the operating word here.
|
| In practice, the people who make the calls more often does
| not do so because they inherited a crap load of money, not
| because their own genius or hard work raised them to the top.
| dfedbeef wrote:
| The mistake I see people make it _not_ ending their career out of
| narcissism, pride, ego, etc.
|
| I am not a religious person but it is good to remember you will
| die. You should have some better stuff to put on your tombstone
| than your job title.
|
| People aren't going to care who you were in 100 years and people
| aren't going to remember you in 1000 years. Your tombstone will
| crumble in the dirt.
|
| Spend time with people you love, spend time with your family and
| friends. Find meaning without economic strings attached.
| dfedbeef wrote:
| Oh and by the way: you might die sooner than you think. It
| happens all the time. Are you spending time the way you want?
| joshuamcginnis wrote:
| I highly recommend folks read Ecclesiastes, which opens with
| "Everything Is Meaningless". It's a philosophical book on what
| matters in life (and what doesn't). What do
| people gain from all their labors at which they toil
| under the sun? Generations come and generations go,
| but the earth remains forever. No one remembers the
| former generations, and even those yet to come
| will not be remembered by those who follow them.
| negus wrote:
| > Lao Tzu teaches: the best fighter is never angry. More
| important than the blow is knowing when to strike
|
| Seems like a fake citation https://www.taoistic.com/fake-laotzu-
| quotes/fake-laotzu-quot...
| itronitron wrote:
| Yeah, the Lao Tzu I know advises people to be simple, like
| uncarved blocks of wood.
| apocadam wrote:
| The person (Denpok) who quotes it is a charlatan posing as a
| guru, which makes the fake citation fitting.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| What a useful, well written article. Thanks for sharing.
| ghm2180 wrote:
| Does someone know how to find good IC coaches that can mentor a
| mid-level(ish) engineer 8+ YoE? I have issues with rejection and
| I am working on them.
|
| I am a generalist, and I have been struggling with how to find
| opportunities myself by connecting to people 1:1 and discussing
| first hand the nature of the problem and whether I can help them
| with it. I imagine a coach help me typically with forming a
| coherent career statement and pointers on how to have these
| conversation.
| ghm2180 wrote:
| I want to be able to work as a generalist who can learn most
| coding stacks and a wide range of experience in
| backend(ranking/recommendation) systems, data engineering and
| some early career full stack experience.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| I'm always happy to talk through career and engineering issues.
|
| Hit me up, if you're interested:
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/neurohack/
| cushychicken wrote:
| I like this authors frame of reference. Independence is
| definitely my goal.
|
| I want to get to a point where I can start an independent EE
| consultancy, then slowly get more and more selective about my
| clientele, until I choose to stop working.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| One thing I didn't anticipate when younger is the extent that
| other people will prevent your advancement. Whether by being in
| the way, *isms - a.k.a. refusing to hire you for positions you'd
| be great at, or very common today... the majority of companies
| that no longer train or encourage career development. Because you
| might leave?
|
| Advancement seems to be lot of outmaneuvering these folks.
| cheema33 wrote:
| > very common today... the majority of companies that no longer
| train or encourage career development.
|
| I don't get this. What is stopping anyone from doing that
| themselves? Why does someone else have to do it?
| assanineass wrote:
| Good read
| mrbombastic wrote:
| "Managing people is hard; much harder than programming. Computers
| just do what you tell them, whether that's right or wrong
| (usually wrong). Anyone can get good at programming, if they're
| willing to put in enough time and effort. I'm not sure anyone can
| get good at managing, and most don't. Most managers are terrible.
|
| That's quite a sweeping statement, I know. (Prove me wrong,
| managers, prove me wrong.) But, really, would a car mechanic last
| long in the job if they couldn't fit a tyre, or change a spark
| plug? Would a doctor succeed if they regularly amputated the
| wrong leg? We would hope not. But many managers are just as
| incompetent, in their own field, and yet they seem to get away
| with it."
|
| The fact that most managers are terrible doesn't really prove
| managing is hard. in fact you could make a case it proves the
| opposite, the fact that most managers are terrible shows that
| management is easy, at least if we are talking about what it
| takes to keep your job.
|
| FWIW I would agree with the point that being a good manager is
| hard but I don't think this argument holds water.
| jotaen wrote:
| 2022; previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30428602
| hintymad wrote:
| Great article and thought provoking.
|
| > and unlike your colleagues in management, you won't spend all
| day in meetings.
|
| The author will be surprised. In a bureaucratic company like
| Google, even an E6 can spend all their time having meetings and
| writing docs, to the point that they even get rusty at drawing
| boxes.
|
| > If you want to reach this level, you'll need to become a master
| of your chosen craft
|
| One thing that worries me is that mastery also means
| specialization, and specialization is the most risky when there's
| a paradigm shift. My cope is to be specialized in a category. For
| instance, be a specialist in distributed systems instead of being
| a master of building Spring-boot services. That said, even that
| type of specialization is not immune to paradigm shift. Case in
| point, scaling out a service is really not that hard these days
| compared to 10 years ago.
| jimmaswell 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
|
| Guess I'm there. I don't know how common my mindset is around
| here, but I have a relatively low stress, unexciting remote job
| in web dev. It's not glamorous or particularly interesting, but
| it pays well and offers the flexibility for me to travel a
| lot/spend time with loved ones and have extra mental energy for
| my hobbies. Well worth the tradeoff for me personally - I have no
| particular impetus to climb the corporate ladder when I already
| make six figures in a low cost of living area.
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