[HN Gopher] Life lessons from the first half-century of my career
___________________________________________________________________
Life lessons from the first half-century of my career
Author : zdw
Score : 345 points
Date : 2025-01-22 18:01 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (cacm.acm.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (cacm.acm.org)
| shipp02 wrote:
| Some great stuff here's my thoughts on 3 of the 16 points
|
| >Choose happiness
|
| This one stuck out to me because recently I've been struggling
| with some stuff but making sure I had some routines that made me
| happy (having food at consistent times, a little morning routine
| with a walk/yoga) has made me more composed and lets me go after
| things.
|
| >It's not how many projects you start; it's how many you finish.
|
| Juggling a few too many open projects right now. Some of them
| that would be quite cool to show off are just stuck because I
| don't find the time and they aren't in a presentable state yet.
|
| >Look for the positive opportunities
|
| Surprisingly enough this is about how he got together with his
| wife even though it's in the career-focused segment. The story is
| sweet though and repeats the oft-repeated advice of making up
| after arguments.
| bruce511 wrote:
| My career isn't quite as long as his, but I concur with all the
| sentiments.
|
| I will note that some of these are easier to say in hind-sight
| than do at the time.for example There's a lot of pressure on you
| in your early career to prioritize work over family.
|
| I would add the following; if you have the choice, work at a
| place you like to go to, doing work you like to do, either people
| you can grow to work.
|
| I know that's not practical advice for most, but if you are in
| such a place don't trade it away just for money or status.
|
| And if you come across such an environment and are offered a spot
| the consider it carefully, even if it isn't the highest paying
| offer.
| qq66 wrote:
| For those who may not know, Patterson is the father of RISC CPU
| architecture and with John Hennessey (former Stanford president)
| the author of the standard intro computer architecture text.
| gunian wrote:
| very cool read although I wish one of these days I click on a
| link and it talks about how someone overcame a cult, being doxxed
| etc and finished their project or ended up getting a PhD so I can
| believe there is hope
| erikerikson wrote:
| I can't help you with belief and I struggle with it myself at
| times but there is always hope. Next focus on manifesting your
| hopes into reality and modifying then in response to everything
| you learn doing so! :)
| sudohackthenews wrote:
| Hey bro I was looking through your profile and it seems like
| you're in a rough spot. Send me an email, I want to see if I
| can help. It's in my profile
| matt_daemon wrote:
| > The cost of praise is small. The value to others is
| inestimable.
|
| Cannot overstate this point. Many people I've worked with (myself
| included) have suffered from imposter syndrome at one point or
| another. Hearing from your manager or someone you respect that
| you've done a good job often makes a world of difference.
| remoquete wrote:
| I often wonder why it's so hard for some managers to provide
| praise. It's almost as if they didn't want to feed egos out of
| fear.
| vvanders wrote:
| Fear and a scarcity mindset, many people treat things as a
| zero-sum game when in practice the sum is usually greater
| than the individual parts.
|
| The advice in the article is great, and much of it resonates
| with what I have seen over my career as well.
| closewith wrote:
| Praise is only valuable when scarce.
|
| US-style "great job" praise for fulfilling basic tasks
| devalues actual positive feedback and should be avoided.
|
| Failing to acknowledge actual great work is also
| detrimental.
|
| There's a balancing act and it's hard to get right. It also
| depends on the person.
| silvestrov wrote:
| I would say: Praise is only valuable when honest (rather
| than scarce).
|
| Praise should not be seen as "money": the problem is not
| the amount.
|
| Praise should be seen as a feedback tool, i.e. getting to
| know the truth of how valuable the work is. Feedback
| without honesty is not usable.
| closewith wrote:
| Both are true, as praise is absolutely a currency that
| can be devalued like any other.
|
| Given with abandon, even honestly, it loses its value to
| both the disponer and recipient. That's something that
| many in management roles never appreciate and is one of
| the reasons that some give it too sparingly. They've
| found that abundant praise loses its utility and come to
| the incorrect conclusion that scant praise is best.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Honestly it can just feel weird. Like when I praise someone I
| feel like I've put both me and the other person into an
| emotionally vulnerable state. Sometimes it feels more
| comfortable to remain detached and "professional". Could just
| be my own neuroses though
| jajko wrote:
| It can be a even real mutual feeling but still there is
| massive added value in such praise for both giver and
| receiver. Depends on how its done obviously.
| bowsamic wrote:
| I'd say that yes it adds huge value but that doesn't
| necessarily make it easy to do
| remoquete wrote:
| It's not easy. Depends on the culture where one grew up,
| too, and family values weigh a lot in this. But when
| people from many different backgrounds get together to
| work, praise is the kind of thing that prevent networks
| from falling apart.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Sure it's just the original question is "I don't get why
| they don't do it" and "because it's hard" is the answer
| layer8 wrote:
| I once had a boss who used to say (and lived by) "the absence
| of criticism ought to be praise enough". His thinking was
| that employees aren't children who need to be praised for
| just doing their job.
| uhoh-itsmaciek wrote:
| Did he consider an absence of criticism to be praise of his
| management technique?
| layer8 wrote:
| There was no absence of criticism of his management
| technique. In fact, the topic came up as part of that
| critism.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| I make a habit of always praising my colleagues when they help
| me or deserve it. It has made work so much more enjoyable.
| layer8 wrote:
| Can you explain what you mean by your second sentence? Is it
| that your colleagues became more friendly?
| uhoh-itsmaciek wrote:
| I can't speak for the original commenter, but for me, it
| serves to remind me that I'm working with some very
| talented engineers, which feels good. Plus I think it helps
| to build trust, which is useful when you're not seeing eye-
| to-eye on some technical or product issues.
| hengheng wrote:
| His take on insecure people not giving others enough space is
| also an interesting observation and well phrased. It's the
| inverse situation, and the symmetry works in a fascinating way.
| bytescrafter wrote:
| Nice article. Thanks for posting.
|
| I'm almost 15 years into my work and my favorites are,
|
| > "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the
| triumph over it." > Fortune favors the bold
|
| If you're not naturally born with it, it requires you to push
| yourself out of your comfort zone, but once you experience it
| working, you'll feel Ubermensch, as Friedrich Nietzsche describes
| it.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Numbers 8 and 14 resonated with me. I worked with people who
| thought so highly of themselves and with those who actively
| undermined me. For the first I learned to let them rant and I
| might ask a clarification but after their lengthy polemic I make
| it a point to say I disagree. Albeit in a monotone non
| confrontational voice as possible. For the later, I can only pray
| to keep my composure as the ridiculousness of their attacks is an
| affront to logic, civility, and basic decency. I also remind
| myself there is a reason why this person was hired and I will
| only be wasting my health trying to fight the powers that be. I
| can only hope to avoid being collateral damage as their behavior
| will eventually cause their career to self destruct.
| javaunsafe2019 wrote:
| Sounds like you are thinking of yourselves highly as well.
| Early in my career as a tech lead I had some junior with your
| mindset in my team. Maybe my ideas weren't perfect at that
| times but that junior sabotaged everything with I guess the
| mindset you described above. So my takeaways is nowadays to
| identify such non team players as early as possible and get
| them off the team asap.
| matsemann wrote:
| My best leaders have been those who "share their Legos", so to
| say. That don't hoard information, but instead step aside and let
| others take on more responsibility.
|
| My first tech lead when I started working had a great reputation.
| Everyone in the company knew him. I looked up to him. He knew
| everything! Whatever feature I worked on and needed to ask
| details about our integration partner, he could answer. Only
| later did I realize it was more because he had put himself in the
| middle, than it actually being helpful. I was the one working on
| something, but he was the one going to all meetings and talking
| with others. It made it harder for me, never being directly
| involved. Maybe it made him feel more useful, enjoying being the
| goto-guy etc?
|
| Then I got a new tech lead, and she was the one that made me
| realize what a manager could be. She encouraged me to own the
| stuff I was working on completely, and joined meetings more as a
| backup for me but wanted me to be the main point of contact.
| Instead of being the middleman of everything, she instead enabled
| me and mentored me.
|
| So I've always aimed to be like her. Now that I'm at 10 yeo
| experience, can I enable those "under" me and let them learn by
| allowing them to take on some of my responsibility? It's a
| constant conscious decision, because the default is to keep
| feeling important.
| ulnarkressty wrote:
| That's an interesting viewpoint, since the usual mantra is 'a
| good manager protects the engineer' by going to meetings and
| letting them do deep work without distraction. Maybe in your
| case she saw the potential of a future lead/manager and wanted
| to push you in that direction?
| small_scombrus wrote:
| I imagine it depends on the type of meeting and how many
| pointless busywork meetings a company mandates
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| (Good) meetings are deep work.
|
| Too many engineers think that engineering work is sat in
| front of the thing they're building, building it.
|
| You need to know what to build. You need feedback on how to
| build it (no matter how experienced you are, you want other
| perspectives to help improve your thinking). You need
| feedback on iterations. You need to discuss and get ideas on
| problems.
|
| These are all done with other people. The best way to discuss
| them with other people is not to swing by and have a chat.
| It's to block out some time.
|
| If you spend too much time in meetings, the balance is wrong.
| But so is too little.
|
| If your manager is going to the meetings, you're not being a
| good engineer, and they're not letting you be a good
| engineer.
|
| I'd recommend to try and block these up a bit, have meeting
| free days and the like, but if you're the kind of engineer
| who thinks meetings are not work, you're going to lose out to
| those engineers who want to collaborate and engage with
| colleagues, partners and other stakeholders.
| hengheng wrote:
| Love your point.
|
| > (Good) meetings are deep work
|
| Sadly not enough managers think that either. I've seen a
| hierarchy where managers only pay attention when their
| superiors are around. Day-to-day engineering meetings were
| not their moment to shine, so they took those meetings from
| the car driving in. The other option, railroading meetings
| with a strict slide deck, is also not the way to get
| engineers' minds to engage.
|
| Good meetings are deep work, but there are two sides to it,
| and it must be lived in the culture.
| rvense wrote:
| > You need to know what to build
|
| I like to refer to this as "the hardest problem in computer
| science."
|
| Several times over my ten-year career I've spent months
| building a thing to what we thought were the specs, only to
| have to throw most of it away because the specs change at
| the last minute, or somebody learned the hard way that
| details like are you paying for access to the thing, or
| access to the group the thing is in can actually matter a
| whole lot when you're building software. I would say I
| nearly always spend more time defining the problem than
| solving it.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This was my work in defense. Weeks or months are spent in
| design and the code itself only takes a few days.
|
| Now at my company teams will spend no time planning, code
| like crazy, only to redo it multiple times.
|
| Illusion of progress. There must be a middle ground.
| azemetre wrote:
| Is this the core tenant of agile development? To release
| often and speak to stakeholders often? The hardest part
| is deciding when to do that first release I suppose.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think SW people are entitled. "I can't work unless I have
| hours of uninterrupted time. Waah!"
|
| Figure it out and get over yourselves (myself included).
| roenxi wrote:
| It depends a lot on the meeting. If the meeting is scoping
| work (and with a clear agenda), important/rare context or
| honest feedback then the developer being involved will
| increase the likelihood of the project succeeding. If the
| meeting is status reports or other requests for information
| then maybe block them from going.
|
| The issue is that the person developing needs access to as
| much real data as possible (which may be found in a meeting)
| but as much shielding from the scar tissue of bureaucracy as
| possible. Bureaucrats should spend time talking to team
| leads, developers should spend time talking to people with
| real problems that need solving. The dividing line between
| those two things involves judgement. And some projects
| developer productivity is guaranteed to be low from the get
| go and their meeting attendance barely matters (eg, how
| developers spent their time prior to the project being re-
| scoped isn't so impactful).
| golly_ned wrote:
| I had an inexperienced manager who followed this tack of
| protecting me from meetings, over my objections. What ended
| up happens was I lost crucial context. I think he just didn't
| know how to be useful as a manager. He's now a staff engineer
| elsewhere. Good for him.
| dakiol wrote:
| I never understood the "encourage others to take ownership"
| manager thing. I mean, I can do the same and encourage others
| to do things and that would let me with very little actual work
| to do. Like, why would I even be necessary as "manager that
| encourage things" if we have to begin with engineers that are
| paid to take on ownership from the very beginning?
| apsurd wrote:
| There's a good and bad way to be the manager that encourages
| taking ownership. You're skeptical of the lazy type. it's
| masked also as "delegation". ICs tasked with doing literally
| everything, and yes it can get ridiculous, but even then the
| ICs do learn outsized skills.
|
| The good kind is in medium to large companies there's
| definitely middle management needs that must be done. A good
| manager is doing and shielding you from those things. The
| ownership is about domain, skill, and project expertise.
| People closest should be in positions of ownership. A manager
| is the grease in the machine.
| ghaff wrote:
| There's taking ownership of a project without being micro-
| managed and there's having to deal with everything from above
| and sideways in a large organization. I have certainly been
| in roles where I got insulated from a lot even if I had a lot
| of day-to-day autonomy.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| A manager should be intercepting requests for your time and
| prioritizing your work. There are always more things that
| need doing than there are hours for you to do them in. They
| should know what is important, and steer the ship
| appropriately while you're out gathering requirements,
| analyzing, building, and iterating based on feedback.
|
| They should also, depending on the engineer, periodically be
| checking in to make sure that you're on track and not
| spinning your wheels.
| stuckindoors wrote:
| This. We need to stop admiring flashiness. We need to start
| admiring people that bring out the best in others. Our brains
| instantly turn to the glitteriest/loudest/fanciest object in
| the room. It is hardwired for some reason - unfortunately in
| this day and age that will no longer help us in the long run.
|
| Turning to sports, Nikola Jokic is one of these people...you
| can see his quite leadership everyday. He is selfless on the
| court, bringing out the best in his teammates, he hates the
| lime light. He celebrates his rivals. This is such a poor
| example compared to that wonderful article linked, I but I
| truly hope my kids internalize some of the value that he
| demostrates especially in this day and age of awfulness
| elsewhere.
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| There's a lot of people that just aren't capable of releasing
| control like that.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I think it's a sign of a non toxic environment to work in
| too. Somewhere that does t require political games and you
| can trust your leaders.
|
| Now we have endless and repeated layoffs and executives
| telling us we'll be replaced by computers. Gotta hold on to
| everything.
| caminante wrote:
| _> Only later did I realize it was more because he had put
| himself in the middle, than it actually being helpful._
|
| It doesn't feel good at first, but you just have to re-frame
| it.
|
| I've found that many people who complain about this are really
| not about that life of political games and constant, low effort
| interruptions on MSFT Teams. For self-aware individuals, the
| resentful/villain narrative dissipates and individuals embrace
| the benefits of a buffer. The layers can mean a much more
| leisurely pace for a paycheck.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Wild. I would have loved your first manager and hated your
| second. I want to build and I have zero interest haggling with
| stakeholders over minutiae. I'll take a good buffer manager
| that understands the problem space any day.
| azemetre wrote:
| It is interesting to think about. Someone like the first
| manager is actually very valuable at a company where people
| leave very quickly, especially in an industry where most of
| your coworkers will have been at the company for less than 5
| years.
|
| How much can you truly know about the system if you're going
| to leave the job in a year or two? How much would you invest?
|
| The only issue with the first manager, IMO, is that they
| weren't willing to share knowledge or help elevate others.
| You can understand as much as them and still encourage others
| and help people grow.
|
| No reason why the first manager and second manager couldn't
| be a single person.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| Only lesson 16 is extremely important when you're out of money
| and luck. Sure, you want to practise the other 15, but you can't.
| medhir wrote:
| "Have a job you love" -
|
| As someone who has basically never had the chance to work in an
| environment I'd say I "love", I'm not sure how to take away any
| sort of lesson.
|
| Sounds great on the surface, but how many people are afforded the
| privilege of selecting a job based on what they're passionate
| about?
| closewith wrote:
| That probably means you're not in the right field of work. I
| also have never had a tech job I love, but work part-time as a
| SAR EMT which I do love.
|
| Software pays the bills, but I'm working towards being able to
| retire at ~45-50 and will work in pre-hospital medicine for the
| rest of my useful life thereafter. I'd do it for free (and
| often do, as a volunteer).
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Might you be interested in combining the two fields? If
| you've got an eye on tech consulting/startups in the EMT
| space, give me a shout out. My email is my HN profile at
| gmail.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| A lot of advice shown here isn't really actionable, and is a
| more sophisticated version of "get born in a developed country,
| don't be unattractive". Of course I'd like to have a job I
| love, the problem is that such jobs are extremely difficult to
| find. Of course I'd like to focus on building relationships
| with people, the problem is, I'm an outcast and my personality
| is compatible with very few. Of course I'd like to focus on
| important things in life, the problem is, life is inherently
| pointless, so there's no objective way of telling what is
| important and what is not.
| meiraleal wrote:
| "don't be unattractive" is a very actionable advice which
| most nerds ignore.
|
| > the problem is, I'm an outcast and my personality is
| compatible with very few.
|
| Are you willing to change? Our personality isn't set in
| stone, pretty much the opposite. Every social skilled person
| had to learn it at some point.
| Clubber wrote:
| I second this. Everyone should strive to be somewhat
| physically fit, dress well and eat well. It's a huge
| psychological boost. Like Deon used to say, "look good,
| feel good, play good."
|
| Walking 30 minutes a day in the outdoors when permissible
| gives me huge mood improvements. I can definitely feel the
| difference on the days when I don't walk. Buy some button
| down collar shirts, shower when you leave the house, get a
| decent haircut, simple stuff. Makes a world of difference
| on how you are perceived and therefore treated as well.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| > "don't be unattractive" is a very actionable advice which
| most nerds ignore.
|
| Half of the population needs to be below median. No matter
| how you rearrange things, you can't escape this basic fact.
| This means that if all women get a boob job, we won't be
| living in a world of beautiful women, but rather the
| expected boob size will go up. It's super strange to me
| that so few people understand this basic fact of
| statistics.
|
| > Are you willing to change? Our personality isn't set in
| stone, pretty much the opposite. Every social skilled
| person had to learn it at some point.
|
| I think we're talking about two different problems here. I
| don't have issues getting people to like me, I have issues
| liking them back.
| meiraleal wrote:
| > It's super strange to me that so few people understand
| this basic fact of statistics
|
| You are misunderstanding attractiveness. We could get to
| a situation where 100% of men are unattractive to women,
| actually, some places are very close. Men find much more
| than 50% of women attractive while women think a much
| smaller % of men are an eligible partner. There is no
| median involved in sexual attraction.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| Well said. I tried and bailed on LinkedIn about ten years ago
| because so much was forced happy-talk like this article. I
| think this author is writing earnestly but there is a load of
| pressure on everyone to think and speak this way even though
| it makes zero sense for their specific cases. I think it may
| be called "toxic positivism" in that context.
| medhir wrote:
| I really want to get off LinkedIn for this same reason. The
| happy-speak is so nauseating. The only reason I stay on is
| so recruiters can find me, but would be great to hear more
| of your experience in the job market without it.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| Pretty bad, overall. I got diddlysquat out of LinkedIn
| when I was job hunting 10+ years ago but then I got
| nothing out of my other leads, either. I was old back
| then and older now so I am staying at my employer until
| I'm fired, retired, or expired. LI may be required these
| days to get anywhere, I just adjusted my travel plans so
| I didn't need to deal with its BS or the general Talent
| Acq/HR gauntlet required to get past square one. Probably
| not helpful to you but there it is...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| My job allows me to exchange labor for money to support my
| addictions to food and shelter and my passions.
|
| I can't muster up passion for any for profit company
| dkga wrote:
| There are plenty of interesting jobs in the public sector or
| in other mission-driven organizations.
| fma wrote:
| My motto is dont hate what you do.
|
| Doesn't mean I need to love it.
|
| Telling people they should love their job is elitist. It
| looks down upon everyone in society who isn't in one of the
| few positions to "love their job" and get paid well for it.
| ptero wrote:
| It depends on many things (country, market, skills, etc.) but I
| suspect the set is pretty large. But it requires actively
| looking and optimizing for doing what you love.
|
| As a personal data point, after finishing my PhD and being sick
| of having no money I optimized for most money under a
| constraint of the job not being absolutely intolerable. Which,
| in hindsight, was not ideal. Over the next 25 years I switched
| to optimizing for the most interesting job under a constraint
| of money just being enough to pay my basic bills. This included
| passing on an offer from a hedge fund that would pay three
| times as much but seemed pretty soul crushing. Optimizing for
| what I love tends to _eventually_ work well on money, too.
|
| So I would absolutely not slam a door on a job in a bad market
| because I hate it, but I would keep looking. My 2c.
| quectophoton wrote:
| I would add:
|
| If there's anything worse than feeling bad at work, it's feeling
| bad because of not getting a job.
|
| Bad experiences at your workplace might make you want to quit
| without having another job offer lined up, and you might even
| feel good for the first 1-2 months.
|
| But do _not_ underestimate how soul crushing it is to look at
| your savings go down while having your bills always on the back
| of your mind, and being constantly ghosted or rejected, for
| months, even for positions that sound literally aimed at your
| skillset or are basically the same of your last role.
|
| Just, don't.
| quectophoton wrote:
| Also: If you move to a different location, be aware of how that
| would affect your ability to rely on your network if you need
| to find a job.
|
| Even if you work primarily remotely and your network is mainly
| working at on-site jobs, you might need to rely on them at some
| point. And by the time your situation gets bad enough that you
| start seriously considering hybrid or on-site positions, you
| might not be able to relocate, so it would be as if you had no
| network at all.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I've been laid off twice over the past two years in 2023 and
| last year. Both times looking for a job was focused on two
| tracks - the type of job I wanted and the types of job (or
| contract) I didn't want but was qualified for.
|
| The main goal was to get any job that would pay enough to keep
| me from going through savings or in 2023, savings or my three
| and half months severance.
|
| I wasn't going to let my ego get in the way. In 2023, I got
| Amazoned and wasn't too proud to get any old enterprise CRUD
| job.
|
| Luckily, it didn't resort to that either time and both times I
| found the job I wanted within three weeks.
| quectophoton wrote:
| > I wasn't going to let my ego get in the way.
|
| Also important.
|
| The rest of this comment is not aimed at you specifically
| because it doesn't apply to your situation (being laid off),
| so when I say "you" I mean in the generic sense:
|
| ---
|
| When leaving voluntarily, if you realize it was a grave
| mistake, don't let your ego prevent you from getting back in
| touch with your previous employer and asking if there's any
| chance to work for them again, assuming you're prepared to
| stay with them for an even longer time (this is the important
| part). The first time you make a mistake like this, it's
| likely due to lack of experience, you didn't realize how good
| you had it, or you didn't know it could get this bad, and you
| learned the hard way.
|
| If it happens a second time tho, that's on you.
|
| Also, remember that taking unpaid leave for a few months
| might be an option depending where you live. Maybe your
| thoughts of leaving are just because of burnout and all you
| need is to take a longer break.
|
| But yeah, first priority is getting a job that lets you stop
| running through your savings. After you have that and can
| stop worrying about bills, you can walk your way up again
| from there with a clear mind.
| meiraleal wrote:
| honestly, that's terrible advice. Anyone working at a big
| tech (or even not that big) for a few years should be able
| to save enough money to get some freedom to change jobs,
| even in a bad market. Being jobless might be soul crushing
| if you don't prepare yourself but staying in a place where
| you get burnt out is a lot, lot worse, having been in both
| situations.
|
| For me the best advice is to not think you are rich just
| because you are making >150-200k/year. Save money and live
| frugally
| Clubber wrote:
| It's good advice for young people. I remember not getting
| my contract renewed during the dot bomb/911 and it was a
| soul crushing 6 months. I had to move to another city for
| work and took a 40% pay cut. Now that I'm pretty
| comfortable in my finances, it's important to take a
| sabbatical when you need it. Right now I'm so burned out
| I don't like programming, even on personal projects, so
| that can be pretty detrimental to my career. I decided to
| take a sabbatical. I gave 5.5 months notice as to not put
| anyone out, but I'm going to try to enjoy it. Tech is
| generally soul crushing these days, so pick your poison.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| There are 2.8 - 4 million developers in the US. How many
| do you think are working at BigTech?
|
| No matter how much money you save, it's senseless to go
| through the money unnecessary. Jobs in 2025 don't just
| fall out of the sky. Burn out is a choice. Do your work,
| go home. Start interviewing.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yep. During the tech boom of the last 15 years or so, I think a
| lot of tech people got used to leaving a job for whatever
| reason and having a new one lined up the next week. That is
| absolutely not the norm for professional jobs and is almost
| certainly not the norm for tech jobs today. I know people who
| were laid off during dot-bomb and never got another equivalent
| job again. I was _extremely_ lucky in that regard in that I
| landed a good (better) if lower-paying job in about a month
| through my network.
| grezql wrote:
| this is just boomer talk, I am sorry but todays world is
| different to the one he grew up in. We face challenges that makes
| prioritizing 100% on family extremely hard.
| Clubber wrote:
| I mean two can play the poor me game. My uncle grew up half
| starving in a shack in Alabama during the depression then
| signed up for WWII and served in the Pacific Theater. After
| that, he volunteered to fight in Korea, "because I needed the
| money." When he came back he used the GI bill to get an
| education and became a teacher.
|
| Boomers got drafted to fight in Vietnam and a lot of them died
| and had pretty rough patches if they made it back. They lived
| through probably the worst inflationary period in the 1970s
| along with the oil shock, and got replaced by computers and
| offshoring in the 80s and 90s. Their crushing factory jobs got
| outsourced and most of the farmers had to sell off their multi-
| generational family farms because massive agribusiness made it
| so they couldn't compete. A lot of them couldn't take it and
| killed themselves.
|
| Go back further in time and it gets worse. I'm not saying you
| don't have it rough, but put it in perspective. Lots of
| generations, including the Boomers, had it rough.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| Good observations.
|
| Things were not very uniform 50 years ago either.
|
| Patterson was already out of college in 1972, Howard Hughes
| was still alive and was the richest man in the US, but Hughes
| was reclusive and accomplished more without attracting
| attention, compared to someone like Musk in a similar
| position today.
|
| But Hughes Tool and Hughes Aircraft were only somewhat
| similar to working for Tesla or Spacex. This was the '70's
| and Hughes had made so much money decades earlier that his
| manufacturing operations were much more old-fashioned and he
| provided intentionally better jobs and security for engineers
| and workers than alternative contemporary employers like oil
| or automotive. Everything like that was still expected to be
| "career for life" if you wanted it to, with constant
| advancement in pay at least, if not job title.
|
| All these companies had tons of applicants so like today the
| vast majority of highly qualified candidates never had a
| chance.
|
| I was around back then so I'm officially a boomer according
| to current guidelines.
|
| But I was not quite out of high school around 1972, so it was
| a little too late to be very similar at all.
|
| This would be an exact quote in that long gone time frame,
| from millions of people my age, allow me to embellish:
|
| "(1976) I am sorry but todays world is different to the one
| he grew up in. We face challenges that makes prioritizing
| 100% on family extremely hard."
|
| IOW, this is what millions of the younger "boomers" sounded
| like by that time. Talking about fortunate people only a few
| years older than themselves. Not 50 years older at the time
| like Patterson is now.
|
| Being extremely aware of things like this for 50 full years
| myself, people like Patterson with his background and
| philosophy, I really have always admired more than anything
| else.
|
| It's easy for me to appreciate high-performers thriving in a
| more flourishing landscape without envy.
|
| For one thing, that can set an example of what it is supposed
| to be like.
|
| It's not my fault that the economy had been destroyed while I
| was still a teenager, and those who were already adults had
| opportunities that were never going to reappear.
|
| And it's not their fault either, they were just barely adults
| at the time.
|
| I figured I could whine over the roll of the dice, or focus
| on the reality of the situation.
|
| Edit: No doubt I was _born_ into an equally prosperous time
| as Patterson, that 's what makes me "officially" a boomer. It
| was just too good to last once the crooks came into political
| power.
| reinvantveer wrote:
| This is a thought-provoking article for sure.
|
| > At the opposite end of the personality spectrum are insecure
| people, who I'd also avoid, as they tend to see credit as a zero-
| sum game, needing to diminish you to bolster themselves.
|
| As a self-proclaimed insecure person, I take a lot of issue with
| this statement, putting it mildly. I have no idea where Patterson
| got this idea, but it is, of course, utter nonsense. To write off
| insecurity like this is as much an ableist statement as any, as
| if you have to be confident (from the start!) about anything you
| do. It is almost an immediate write-off of people in the autism
| spectrum, with attention deficit disorders, people with mental or
| physical disorders, with anxiety disorders (like myself),
| "neurospicy" people (includes me as well) to name a few, or just
| anyone with traits that make them feel that it's hard for them to
| fit in.
|
| I wholeheartedly agree with the advice to focus on people and to
| "choose happiness" but this is no strategy for dealing with
| adversity. I have, of course, no idea what struggles Patterson's
| had to face in his life (we all have them, for sure), but I'd
| suggest reading up on Kristin Neff's works on self-compassion
| instead of dismissing insecure people like this.
|
| I will propose the opposite. Rather than to "avoid working
| closely with them" and exclude them further (feeding their
| insecurities), foster relationships with insecure people, and
| foster your own insecurities. Listen to them (the people, the
| insecurities), as they can tell you what you have been so sure
| about that you may have to reconsider.
|
| Highly insecure about posting this, fearing the backlash, but
| there you go.
| jocaal wrote:
| People often prefer to see those who are similar to them in a
| positive light, since that's their primary frame of reference.
| Some struggle to grasp that someone with a completely different
| perspective or set of social skills can have something valuable
| to offer. I see this most in hiring practices where hiring
| managers ask highly personal questions and claim it is to check
| your "cultural fit", but they are probing for people similar to
| them. I also see it in how people treat others they've just met
| that are from a completely different background, there is
| typically a faint form of aggression for literally no reason.
|
| > At the opposite end of the personality spectrum are insecure
| people, who I'd also avoid, as they tend to see credit as a
| zero-sum game, needing to diminish you to bolster themselves.
|
| Like many sweeping broad statements, it is entirely useless to
| base decisions on. The world isn't black and white, there are
| shades of gray all around.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| props for writing this out
|
| i know it couldn't be easy
|
| we have limited time in this world
|
| i'd rather spend it with the strong and confident, who need me
| less than weak and insecure
|
| it's not fair
|
| it's not right
|
| but that's the structure of the world
|
| i don't like hearing well aktually, because for every one time
| they are right (and they are right occasionally) i've had to
| listen to to them whine where they have low context
|
| don't waste peoples time with your insecurity
|
| don't help the weak
|
| help yourself
| selimthegrim wrote:
| You have to help yourself before you help the weak.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| You wrote multiple paragraphs denigrating his point in response
| to criticism not even specifically addressed at you -- but
| which nevertheless triggered your insecurities.
|
| Do you think that behavior rebuts his point?
| Clubber wrote:
| I hear you, but it's not other people's job to deal with your
| insecurities. You have to fake it until you make it, to use a
| cliche. Be mindful when your brain starts being unfairly
| critical, pause and think, "hey wait a minute, I'm doing better
| than most people on this earth, so I must be doing something
| right." It takes a while, but you have to work at it.
|
| Also, try to get out of the habit of being overly critical of
| other people. That habit will usually extend you being critical
| of you. Give people the benefit of the doubt, and extend the
| same courtesy to yourself.
|
| Understand you deserve to take up the space you exist in and
| you deserve to breathe the air you breathe.
|
| Best of luck.
| horrible-hilde wrote:
| brilliant. write a medium paper on this, very eloquently put
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| You're not completely wrong, but you're not completely right
| either.
|
| If you're insecure, _and you respond by criticizing everything
| everyone else does so that you feel better about yourself_ ,
| then I don't want you on my team and I don't want you in my
| life.
|
| But if you're insecure, and you _don 't_ tear others down, then
| sure, welcome, neurodivergent or not.
|
| I think this is what Patterson was getting at - it's the
| behavior, not the insecurity itself. If you don't behave like
| that, then your insecurity may be painful to yourself (and you
| may need help for it), but it's not destructive to those around
| you.
| keeptrying wrote:
| At a corporate job, starting projects will catapult you more than
| finishing them. Especially long multi year projects.
|
| My mentor mentioned this to me and it took me a LONG time to
| understand it.
|
| Starting an AI project for example will:
|
| 1. position you as the AI thought leader just becuase you were
| first to the idea
|
| 2. associate AI used anywhere with you
|
| 3. bring you up in any conversation about AI
|
| It's really weird but this how all those useless executives
| operate. Start projects and leave :) . Highly recommend reading
| "Stealing the Corner Offfice" https://a.co/d/5dTRSNQ if you don't
| plan to do a startup.
| nyokodo wrote:
| > this how all those useless executives operate
|
| Being visible in a positive way to the right people is 100%
| necessary for career advancement inside companies. The fact
| that this is abused by otherwise incompetent people is
| unfortunate, but good people need to understand and use this
| knowledge to advance also.
| f1shy wrote:
| I think incompetent people (Management above) get abused by
| other incompetent people. When the circle starts, is the slow
| decay of the Company.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Opposite view
|
| "smart and gets things done"
|
| https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/10/25/the-guerrilla-guid...
|
| When it's time to interview, interviewers ask for results.
| That's the entire "R" in answering interview questions in STAR
| format.
| mikesurowiec wrote:
| I've seen people spin Results in their favor within a
| company, where you _can_ validate them, but for interviews it
| seems nearly impossible to validate.
|
| Does anyone have techniques for that?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| My job as a developer (until 2020) was to ensure the
| project or major feature I was over was done on time, on
| budget and meets requirements.
|
| My job was not to go out and sale the product whether the
| product made $0 or $1 million dollars I had no control
| over.
|
| The other thing I need to communicate is that I am capable
| of working at the level of scope, impact and ambiguity
| required for the job.
|
| https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html
|
| I didn't understand that myself until a decade ago. Before
| the gatekeeping starts (not by you), yes it got me through
| a 5 round behavioral loop at BigTech (AWS's consulting
| department) and after leaving, now a "staff software
| architect" at a third party consulting company (both full
| time direct hires).
| anotherhue wrote:
| > ensure the project or major feature I was over was done
| on time, on budget and meets requirements.
|
| The issue with this is that the bounds are drawn by
| someone else, the best you can do is 'meet them'. No one
| really cares if you save 90% of the budget, it was
| already allocated and will just get funnelled off
| somewhere else. It doesn't matter if it's early, because
| they probably didn't need it until they said they needed
| it, and 'meets requirements' is a given.
|
| Compare this to a sales job or something more outward
| facing, a sales person might have targets but can blow
| them out of the water with some luck and skill (and get
| paid commission). They aren't operating within someone
| else's small framework, but a free variable against the
| open market.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| It's not that simple. It's a negotiation up front if you
| are responsible for a feature/project. You talk to the
| stakeholders and let them prioritize what's most
| important - budget, time, requirements - and you talk to
| them about the tradeoffs.
|
| Your leverage comes from working on larger more impactful
| projects that have more impact and scope.
|
| As a mid level employee I was responsible for smaller
| projects, now I'm responsible for larger projects with
| multiple "work streams", more people under me and closer
| to the "business" and sales"
| cutemonster wrote:
| I don't, except for trying to contact people at the job
| applicant's former workplace and ask "is this really what
| happened"? (I wouldn't do)
|
| I'm thinking that as long as _someone_ finishes projects
| you start, it 's easy to take credit for all of it from
| start to finish, when interviewing elsewhere?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I'm not saying lie and I never have. But when you change
| jobs, you control the narrative.
|
| At your current job, your history of both successes and
| failures are well known, even if the failures happened
| early on and you learned from them. You never get a
| second chance to make a first impression
| kirubakaran wrote:
| http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/06/done-and-gets-
| things...
| caminante wrote:
| Eh? Not really a rebuttal, but more of a hopeless extension
| that
|
| 1. Smart and GTD is good enough hiring criteria
|
| 2. but for Unicorns(tm), you need to source and hire hyper-
| productive visionaries who nurture the right culture on top
| of having #1
|
| And he says you get #2 by luck or polling friends for the
| alpha 10x developers they know.
|
| Not very actionable, but hard to disagree that it seems to
| be a common denominator.
| ozim wrote:
| That's for low level employees not thought leaders ;)
| zo1 wrote:
| I've seen this so much... It's quite disheartening when you are
| the _actual_ expert or most-experienced person in terms of that
| "thing", but that's not how office politics works.
|
| What's worse is that when the _" unapproved"_ person wants to
| start some sort of new project or initiative, they get constant
| push back in the form of "it's risky" or "where will we find
| the funding". Seen it 3 times in my 2 decade career where the
| "approved" person then X-amount of time later suggests the same
| thing and magically it's a good idea and funding appears out of
| thin air.
|
| You know how it went - they mentioned it to the right person on
| the golf course (or these days, at a cycling run).
| notjoemama wrote:
| > useless executives
|
| Thank you for saying it. After decades in software, I've
| developed the perspective the people at the top (of medium to
| large companies, not small ones) are actually bottom feeders
| and most software companies could function without having a
| c-suite.
|
| In all the years of this profession, it's as if software
| engineers cannot be optimized enough. Yet, when has a company
| taken a look at middle to upper management and tried to
| optimize that? They don't, or do it in name only. Those people
| are the financial and emotional ticks of an organization.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I've been at several of the top tech companies and my
| observation is that most (though not all) the top executives
| do merit their positions. In terms of breadth of knowledge
| and perspective, depth on some number of key topics, and
| overall drive and impatience for inaction.
|
| I could choose to be more cynical in order to feel better
| about myself, but I accept that if I was the quarterback at
| college, they're the NFL.
| ghaff wrote:
| I agree. I've known execs who wouldn't be out of place in a
| Dilbert cartoon or were otherwise painful (and heard
| stories about others). But, by and large, they're pretty
| savvy and often work hours/travel to customers, etc. to a
| degree that many people here would absolutely hate.
| joshdavham wrote:
| > Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without
| passion.
|
| This is a great one that I've really taken this to heart this
| last year. It's become fashionable in recent years to think that
| habit building, discipline and 'systems' are the key to success,
| but I've been finding more and more that passion and intrinsic
| motivation are far more powerful. This is unfortunately
| unmarketable though since you generally either have intrinsic
| motivation for a specific thing or you don't.
| paulcole wrote:
| > No one's last words are, "I wish I had spent more time at the
| office."
|
| Rich people _love_ saying this.
|
| I bet there are some dudes who die penniless in a gutter who do
| wish they had a bit more money.
| saltcod wrote:
| Greatest cookie banner I've ever seen.
| OldGuyInTheClub wrote:
| I read the tips and thought, "Well, good for him I guess?" It is
| easy for very successful people to write homilies like this but
| what worked for them may not/will not work for most. This guy
| clearly has a few more brain cells than the average person and
| was in good environments. To his credit, he made the most of them
| and contributed greatly to his field. When I hear people
| mumblefrotz about "passion" my skepticism ramps to 11. This is
| the stuff of management consultants and motivational speakers. A
| very few can write their own ticket, the rest of us have to make
| do with what we can get.
|
| In my case, I wish I had worked much harder and with more focus
| in my youth and early to mid career. Whatever time I did take off
| I should have spent differently. Hell, I should be doing
| something more worthwhile right now. Can't go back of course but
| I expect to think that way even in my last moments.
| marhee wrote:
| > 13. "Audentes Fortuna iuvat." (Fortune favors the bold).
|
| And luck favours the prepared mind.
| neilv wrote:
| > _Until recently, one company had a highly visible 10-step
| technical ladder, which led some engineers to pick projects that
| were the safest path to getting promoted by avoiding high-risk,
| high-reward projects. In my opinion, that behavior was bad for
| their careers and bad for the company._
|
| I won't ask what company that is, since maybe there was a good
| reason not to say.
|
| But is there a new fashion about this (edit: moving _away from_
| the now-familiar promo ladder gaming), spreading to other
| companies?
|
| If so, is it genuinely to improve effectiveness, or something
| less laudable to workers (e.g., to reduce staffing costs)?
| ugh123 wrote:
| I've seen stuff like this at several companies.
|
| It's created by HR to improve "fairness" and to help certain
| groups find clearer paths to promotion. But OP nails it in
| finding that it's often used as a "checklist" for people to do
| the bare minimum and then point to that when demanding
| promotion. It's rather gross IMHO.
| neilv wrote:
| > _Lazowska and I had a hard time finding other leading computer
| scientists to join us out of a well-founded fear that criticizing
| DARPA might make it much harder to get DARPA funding. While I had
| DARPA funding for the prior 20 years, for the next two projects
| after that op-ed I needed to learn how to raise funds from
| industry to replace the substantial DARPA funding of the past. I
| also lost a consulting role from a company with ties to DARPA due
| to my stance._
|
| I really like that he says that sometimes principles have costs,
| but he advocates principles anyway.
|
| By contrast, the LinkedIn story version would end more like,
| "...and that dog turned out to be the head of DARPA, and gave me
| a big raise!"
| neilv wrote:
| > _They believe there is nothing to learn by asking for feedback,
| which leads to them making disastrous decisions. Whether or not
| my diagnosis is accurate, I'd steer clear of such people, as in
| my experience catastrophe is just around the corner._
|
| > _At the opposite end of the personality spectrum are insecure
| people, who I'd also avoid, as they tend to see credit as a zero-
| sum game, needing to diminish you to bolster themselves._
|
| You avoid them in situations in which you don't think you can
| influence them to be more like you think would be better for them
| (and you)?
|
| Can you sometimes influence them?
| notjoemama wrote:
| Depends.
|
| For the insecure, yes, but in a way you take on a mantle of
| parent or mentor where you repeatedly compliment and reassure
| them, allowing them to fail and seeing its not about them or
| their character but just another problem to solve. It helps
| when they see you fail publicly and handle it with grace. This
| often takes years, but it can work. But sometimes it doesn't,
| as if the psychological damage is well outside the workplace.
|
| For the grandiose, I've never had that experience. It could be
| they have narcissistic, sociopathic, or psychopathic
| tendencies. It could also be from some other neurodivergent
| influence, in which case all you can do is work around them,
| not with them. If you are put in a position where you are the
| sacrificial goat, quit. Leave. There be dragons.
| holografix wrote:
| tl;dr brilliant baby boomer who was at the right place, at the
| right time with the right brain was given great opportunities in
| life. He then highlights his unwavering moral compass when taking
| positions that would impact him and his family in a limited way
| financially.
|
| Good for you bud.
|
| Now let me return to real life as a millennial of average
| intelligence in 2025 tech faang.
| neilv wrote:
| > _And if you come across such an environment and are offered a
| spot the consider it carefully, even if it isn 't the highest
| paying offer._
|
| Also be aware that places aren't always what they seem.
|
| Several times, I've made the big decision to go to the place I
| want to be, with the people I want to work with and learn from.
|
| The majority of times, great things followed. But don't get
| overconfident. One really bad move can wipe out all the others.
|
| If I had to pick some guidelines from my small number of data
| points:
|
| * Avoid the places where everyone has to be a kind of salesperson
| or evangelist, even for something that should have merit.
| (Manipulators and liars will thrive, and corrupt.)
|
| * Be cautious when considering going to a magnet for the
| privileged and status-seeking. (I actually had a great experience
| at one of them, and still think well of it, but most are mixed at
| best.)
|
| * Listen carefully to your mentor-types, when they hint that a
| move you're considering is a bad move. (They might not want to
| discourage you in some dream. So they might pause, have a note in
| their voice of concern rather than enthusiasm, and say carefully-
| worded advice for how to do well there. But it's advice they
| shouldn't have to give, unless something is very wrong with the
| place.)
| moominpapa wrote:
| Was this actually written by a human being? I made it halfway
| through with eyes glazing and gave up. I would love to hear from
| the human that wrote this.
| tra3 wrote:
| Are you suggesting that this is llm-generated? I don't get that
| vibe... what makes you think that?
| moominpapa wrote:
| Gut instinct perhaps. Maybe the author is best placed to
| answer. Happy to believe there is a human there. Just have a
| few questions.
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