[HN Gopher] The happiest I've ever been
___________________________________________________________________
The happiest I've ever been
Author : bewal416
Score : 241 points
Date : 2026-02-26 04:13 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ben-mini.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ben-mini.com)
| hyperhello wrote:
| > For years, you've sat in front of a rectangle, moving tinier
| rectangles, only to learn that AI can now move those rectangles
| 10x better.
|
| In response to this I would say that being in the industry comes
| with a lot of learned role-playing, and if you are no longer
| happy role-playing your job in one way, throw it entirely out and
| find a new path.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > only to learn that AI can now move those rectangles 10x
| better
|
| Teams are already using AI to scout opponents and plan game
| strategy. IDK how much that will ever happen at the youth level
| because they generally don't keep detailed stats at that age
| but it will be coming to high school sports for sure, if it
| isn't already being used.
| reconnecting wrote:
| The latest developments in digital culture are somehow more
| frustrating than anything I saw in the previous 26 years.
| Experience is replaced by prompts. Taste perfected over the years
| with defaults.
|
| I'm not afraid of competition with AI-driven competitors -- I'm
| afraid of people replacing real beauty with A/B mechanics.
|
| Perhaps this is indeed a good moment to switch to offline.
|
| Thank you for sharing your inspiring example.
| jnovek wrote:
| I started programming when I was eleven years old and I'm now
| in my 40s. I have no idea what to do with the rest of my life.
| reconnecting wrote:
| Same here. I've long had the feeling that the internet could
| somehow help the world, but honestly, I don't feel that's the
| case anymore.
| reconnecting wrote:
| jnovek, don't listen to him! Piracy is never the way.
|
| https://youtu.be/9fUjwV4j-H0 (The Offspring - Have You
| Ever)
| mvanbaak wrote:
| What if the the alternatives are worse?
| DougN7 wrote:
| There is a whole lot of crap out there. But I think the
| Internet HAS been a game changer in lifting people out of
| poverty and increasing standards of living. Communication
| is awesome. And although there is a lot of propaganda
| (which there has always been) there is now also a lot of
| truth and counter claims. It's no longer just the rich that
| have access to information (think of farmers guessing at
| what their crop was worth). I _hope_ AI will do similarly,
| but I have my doubts on that one.
| reconnecting wrote:
| The irony of the moment is that a billionaire in a
| Michelin-star restaurant and a homeless person on the
| street are scrolling through the same Instagram feed.
| derektank wrote:
| "Have you ever considered piracy? You'd make a wonderful
| Dread Pirate Roberts"
|
| https://youtu.be/IIbeFgaYTNs
| Remnant44 wrote:
| There's a whole lot of us out there. I don't know if there's
| still a future in the thing that I love, which is where all
| the malaise comes from.
| kakacik wrote:
| Do w hat we did in corporate/banking/other sociopathic envs
| did decades ago - find another source of fulfillment and
| happiness. For me its adventures and sports and kids, could
| be something else for the next joe.
|
| Or just code as you want as a hobby, unrestrained, for
| whatever you need or makes you happy.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >I'm afraid of people replacing real beauty with A/B mechanics.
|
| This has been happening for at least a decade now, no help from
| LLMs needed.
| dgritsko wrote:
| These blog posts are fascinating to read. I don't have a personal
| blog, but if I did I'm sure I would've written a very similar
| post as I've been wrestling with similar thoughts over the last
| few weeks. I have the distinct sense that I will look back on
| February 2026 as an inflection point, where AI crossed over from
| being an interesting parlor trick to something that fundamentally
| and irreversibly altered what I do day-to-day. It's bittersweet,
| for sure - it feels inevitable that the craft of software
| development that I've loved for years will be seen as an archaic
| relic at some point in the not too distant future. It may be
| several years yet before the impact is broadly felt (the full
| impact of today's frontier models has yet to be felt by the
| general public - to say nothing of models that will be released
| in the next few years) but this train doesn't seem to be slowing
| down anytime soon. This post was a helpful reminder that who I am
| is not defined by the code I write (or don't write) - there's so
| much more to life than code.
| DonThomasitos wrote:
| One part of me tries to resist and tell you that our craft is
| not becoming an archaic relic, the other half already knows
| you're right. We just can't put the ghost back into the bottle
| and now's a good time to re-calibrate your passion.
| bityard wrote:
| I look at it like this: Yes, AI can write code. It can write
| it much faster than I can. Sometimes it can also write it
| better than I can.
|
| But: programming languages, libraries, and abstractions are
| not going away. It is still possible (and might always be
| possible) to get deep into the weeds of Python or Rust or
| whatever to understand how those work and really harness them
| to their full potential, or develop them further. It just
| won't be _compulsary_ (in most industries) if your only goal
| is to trade lines of code for dollars in your bank account.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > (the full impact of today's frontier models has yet to be
| felt by the general public - to say nothing of models that will
| be released in the next few years)
|
| We definitely saw some kind of non-linear step function jump in
| quality around the beginning of the year - it's hard to express
| how good Claude opus/sonnet 4.6 is now. However, I wonder if
| we're going to see the same kind of improvement from here? It's
| kind of like we got to the 80% point but the next 20% is going
| to be a lot harder/take longer than that first 80% (pareto
| principle). Also, as more and more code out there is AI
| generated it's going to be like the snake eating it's own tail.
| Training models on AI generated code doesn't seem like it will
| lead to improvements.
| internet2000 wrote:
| The moving tiny rectangles framing is interesting, it gets to the
| heart of why I find all the anti-AI takes so difficult to
| comprehend. If you never made any effort to connect what you do
| with what value is added in real life, then it's no wonder better
| tooling is leaving you lost. Programming (other than code golf)
| has always been an implementation detail for solving problems
| IRL.
| voxl wrote:
| If you've never made any effort to connect what you do to the
| underlying mathematics, then no wonder you think it's all an
| "automatible" implementation detail, despite three decades of
| the industry trying and failing.
| logicprog wrote:
| What about mathematics means coding isn't automatible?
|
| Also, hasen't coding gone through many waves of automation
| now?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| The programming itself is the reward for people who love doing
| it. It attracts the sort of detail-oriented thinkers who enjoy
| the doing and don't frame everything in terms of "value added."
|
| AI is attractive to the sorts of people who have their
| secretary write their Christmas cards.
| cataphract wrote:
| I think there's a middle ground. I like coming up with
| solutions to problems (mostly technical problems, may even be
| very low level ones). But I always found writing the code
| generally tedious. Basically, once I had a good detailed idea
| of what the implementation would look like, actually
| executing the plan would bore me.
|
| AI is still not competent enough to come up with good
| solutions in many things I work on. So, at least so far, AI
| has made me happier.
| signatoremo wrote:
| AI helps you to focus on the aspects that you are interested
| in. Perhaps you care about database nifty stuff, but you may
| need the front end to make an end to end solution. You can
| delegate that part to AI
| tadfisher wrote:
| Carpentry has always been an implementation detail for making
| furniture. They have been able to purchase flat-pack chairs for
| all of their lives, but for some reason there are people who
| learn this skill and have fun slowly making things that
| factories already make at scale. A subset of those people have
| made lucrative businesses out of the very human craft that is
| carpentry, and are able to create custom pieces on-demand that
| you could never justify retooling a factory to create.
|
| It is okay to view code as a means to an end. I disagree,
| preferring to treat code as craft, and striving for better
| systems that are easy to understand, maintain and extend. And I
| think that's the source of our disconnect; deeper than one's
| opinion about AI is one's value of human skill and the effect
| that has on the output. Maybe I overvalue it, and maybe
| creating code "manually" is going to look more like carpentry
| in the future; but you cannot expect to convince a skilled
| carpenter that an IKEA chair is just as good and accomplishes
| the same task.
| skuxxlife wrote:
| If you see programming purely as a means to an end, then yeah,
| I get this perspective. But to many there is enjoyment in the
| _doing_ and the craft of it beyond the end result. It's why
| people get into woodworking or knitting despite the fact that
| it's much cheaper, faster, and easier to buy a table or a
| sweater than to make one yourself. Value is subjective, and for
| some the value of code is not primarily in what you can sell to
| others.
| davnicwil wrote:
| I think all it means when we say 'solve problems in real life'
| is just the stuff you have to do that tooling can't abstract
| you away from any more.
|
| The sharp end of the debate now is around what exactly that
| means in the LLM world. It's extremely unclear what exactly the
| new level of abstraction unlocked is, or at least how
| general/leaky it is.
|
| There's obviously just the stance of enjoying the craft, and
| that's one thing off to the side, but I think the major source
| of conflict for those who are more oriented towards living in
| the top level of abstraction (i.e. what you can do in real
| life) is between some of the claims being pushed about said
| level of abstraction and what many still experience in actual
| reality using these tools.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I just wrote my own blog post thinking about this. I guess alot
| of us feel kind of weird right now.
| mmmm2 wrote:
| Yeah, I decided to become a "professional" musician a few
| months ago after quitting my last tech job. I'm not amazing,
| but I've got some places to play, and I'm starting to give
| lessons, etc.
|
| It's not an easy job, but I feel something I haven't felt in a
| long time as a software developer: fulfillment and contentment.
| Best of luck to anyone on a similar journey.
| tayo42 wrote:
| If I didn't have a mortgage and family that would work!
| sntran wrote:
| I feel similarly. Being laid off and doing job search recently
| got me thinking about switching to become an electrician. I
| don't mind starting over and lower wage, but mortgage and
| family depending on me still hold me off.
| tryauuum wrote:
| any electricians here who want to give a piece of advice?
| EddieB wrote:
| Had this thought multiple times over the years. However,
| reality in the UK is training cost and time (~2 years with 2
| days a week college + at least ~PS5k cost and further 2 years
| gaining experience) can be quite a blocker- difficult to
| achieve with dependents for most. Then throw in the reality
| of domestic work and building up experience. Greener grass
| and all that
| gobeavs wrote:
| Curious to read if you want to share a link. I've been thinking
| about this too.
| fortzi wrote:
| OP might love tech, but he sure doesn't sound like he loved the
| craft.
|
| Describing it as sitting in front of a rectangle, moving all
| rectangles around is so reductive.
| gombosg wrote:
| Exactly, basically then every desk or office job means sitting
| next to a box?
| antonvs wrote:
| I don't even know what he's referring to. What are the
| rectangles he's "moving around"? And couldn't you say the same
| thing about all writers, for example?
|
| The one downside to the Internet and social media is that truly
| useless takes can get much more traction than they deserve.
| Flere-Imsaho wrote:
| CSS boxes!
|
| Honestly the one thing that I'm really looking forward to is
| no longer having to touch CSS.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| I coached sports for all 3 of my kids. Great times.
|
| One year, I had a superior athlete on my youth football team. A
| foot shorter than everybody else and skinny as a stick, the boy
| had the gift of speed. He'd run like the wind, arms and legs
| flailing wildly. It looked like he'd cover distance twice as fast
| as the other kids.
|
| I took full advantage of the situation. Every game, I started by
| getting wonder boy the ball until we'd racked up enough points to
| be comfortable. Then the others got turns. We went the regular
| season undefeated and I began to convince myself I really had
| coaching talent. Maybe I could help out at the high school, or
| the local college! The sky was the limit, I was a natural.
|
| Then came the championship game, also against an undefeated team.
| Their team had a wonderboy, too. He was actually faster than my
| speedster!
|
| Predictably, their coach played it just like I had. Through
| superior speed, they took a healthy lead early in the game and
| never let it go.
|
| I enjoyed all my years of youth coaching, but that year was just
| magical. Right up 'till the last game. It was a memorable year.
| arjie wrote:
| Huh, strange. I remember when I was a little 9 year old boy
| typing in: FD 40 RT 90 FD 40
| RT 90 FD 40 RT 90 FD 40 RT 90
|
| To get a square on the screen. And then I was slightly older boy
| destroying my dad's precious slides for his presentation by
| formatting the entire disk accidentally while installing Red Hat
| Linux 8 _Psyche_ from CDs my dad got at the bazaar. I was so
| excited for _Shrike_ to come out the next year.
|
| Then I was slightly older and discovered that 'programs' are just
| text you use a 'compiler' on and not a special thing you made in
| Borland's Turbo C.
|
| Then I was older and started using vim. Then older still and made
| HTML pages with this new thing called DHTML on Geocities. Then
| ActivePerl. Then a VPS. Then Wordpress. Then discovered Prolog,
| Eclipse for Java, Mex for C++ in Matlab, and git. Then some years
| later github. Then interned in SF and discovered CI/CD, Hadoop et
| al. and how servers look in a DC in SOMA. Then IntelliJ. Then a
| trading engine. And then GPT was announced. And TalkToTransformer
| showed the future. And then people were demoing these ugly To-Do
| lists it could make. And suddenly we're here today.
|
| Every stage of software has been incredible. I don't have to
| `movq`. I don't have to `jstack`. If I want a TUI, the tools can
| construct one to my specifications in moments. It's sheer magic,
| man. It's a scary time (I've had a couple of what-if nightmares
| about Dario Amodei ruling the world with his LLMs) but it's also
| exciting. I think I am happiest today. We're going to do so many
| wonderful things for so many people now that this is so much
| cheaper.
|
| Perhaps it's just the good fortune of being born at this time
| during this thing and riding that wave, but it feels like the
| world of computing has just been so full of amazing leaps forward
| during my life. I look back each time and I think "man, I was
| doing that thing when I could have been doing it so much
| better?". And I feel so hopeful for the future.
| pelma wrote:
| I thought for a moment you were serious, but the line about us
| doing wonderful things with tech gave it away as satire. Yeah
| no. Best we can do is technofascism and surveillance state.
| Glad you happy though!
| lm28469 wrote:
| We're retiring later and later, working more per week,
| purchasing power is going down, quality of goods is going down,
| life expectancy is decreasing, child mortality is increasing,
| teenage suicide is increasing, illiteracy is increasing, &c.
|
| But trust us this time we'll do incredible things, the same
| things but more of it, faster and cheaper, will automatically
| make things amazing!
| lstodd wrote:
| Excuse me, but can you please explain this whole concept of
| 'retirement'?
|
| It is some point where you just shut down your brain and feed
| yourself to the fishes?
|
| Not being an US person I'm struggling with this. How? Unless
| one loses congnitive capability due to organic brain damage
| how is this even possible?
| anamexis wrote:
| Retirement is the withdrawal from active working life, i.e.
| having a job. It is not a US concept.
| samf wrote:
| Right, and a nice thing about software is that retirement
| doesn't mean you have to stop doing what you used to do.
|
| I'm retired (I know, I'm very lucky), and I've done as
| much or more coding since retirement than I did in my
| job. But to be fair, AI has really changed how I'm going
| about things, and I'm not sure what the future is going
| to bring. I really worry about my adult children and
| their careers.
| lstodd wrote:
| But that's the point, ain't it? If you voluntarily
| abandon doing things you are basically declaring "I'm
| dead, ignore that I'm still breathing".
| WJW wrote:
| Not having a job anymore is very different from not
| "doing things" at all.
| xantronix wrote:
| The notion that one's economic output is equal to one's
| worth as a person seems pretty wrong-headed, when
| considering what the purpose of life is.
| lstodd wrote:
| no contest on the first part, but can you enlighten on
| what is the purpose of life?
| anamexis wrote:
| What point are you trying to make?
| lstodd wrote:
| Point being that at no point in your life are you bound
| to be defined by "job"-"retirement" state transition.
|
| Shed it already.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >when considering what the purpose of life is.
|
| And what is that exactly?
|
| At best we seem to be rather large containers to ensure
| that genes get replicated.
| coldtea wrote:
| Only if your life is so insignificant and your interests
| and social circle so narrow that your paid gig determines
| the whole of it and is your sole purpose.
| lstodd wrote:
| But if it ain't so, there is effectively no retirement?
| coldtea wrote:
| If you work most jobs, whether cognitive or manual labor,
| after some point you can't do them anymore, due to physical
| and cognitive decline, medical issues, and the plain fact
| that you can do that shit as a hobby if you really like it,
| but you shouldn't need to go to some fucking office or
| greet people in your local Walmart in your late 60s and 70s
| just to survive.
|
| We call this stopping of work at that point retirement.
|
| How about that?
| cheema33 wrote:
| > We're retiring later and later, working more per week
|
| That may be true. But, if somebody offered me a time machine
| to travel back in time and live at any point in history,
| would I take it? Hell no.
|
| > purchasing power is going down
|
| That is not a new thing.
|
| > quality of goods is going down
|
| Phones are better. Computers are better. Cars, planes,
| washing machines ...
|
| > life expectancy is decreasing
|
| On the whole, this is not the case.
|
| > child mortality is increasing
|
| Globally?
|
| > illiteracy is increasing
|
| Globally?
|
| You seem to have a negative view of things. And sure, many
| things are not great. But the examples you gave are not it.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Ya some people don't know the difference between their
| country falling apart versus the world falling apart.
| RGamma wrote:
| And simultaneously we built this huge machine that gives us
| everything we need to survive on software we don't understand,
| ready to have it abducted by people who have never done a
| (positively) productive thing in their lives seemingly any
| moment now. Monkeys with computers.
| pixl97 wrote:
| This is the history of every empire.
|
| It's also why every empire in history collapsed.
| RataNova wrote:
| Learning the lower layer felt like earning access to the next
| level of reality. You had to understand the constraints to make
| anything happen at all. Now it increasingly feels like you can
| just describe the intent and skip straight to the outcome.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I look back each time and I think "man, I was doing that
| thing when I could have been doing it so much better?". And I
| feel so hopeful for the future._
|
| The future appears now to be: "Young kids wont have this sense
| of wonder, or control of the machine, anymore. And a whole lot
| less will now have a career in IT either".
| DonThomasitos wrote:
| Isn't it ironic that we software devs laughed for decades when we
| automated other people's work with our code - ,,it's called
| progress, deal with it, dinosaur!" But now we see that a meteor
| might have hit our planet too.
| kakacik wrote:
| I certainly wasn't laughing, plight of a fellow man is nothing
| positive. But this is usually so abstracted and distant from
| one's work that unless you have somebody close who gets
| literally hit themselves is just abstract movement beyond
| horizon due to myriad forces and random events.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Heh, I've posted here for years and every post I've made saying
| programmers should unionize has been controversial at best and
| nearly dead at worst. So many people trust the same system they
| watch eat others.
| NickNaraghi wrote:
| Csikszentmihalyi's flow research[0] basically predicts the
| author's whole arc here. People are happiest during structured,
| challenging activities with clear goals and tight feedback loops.
| Coaching middle schoolers in a gym hits every condition on his
| list.
|
| Btw, the other finding worth mentioning is that people
| consistently predict that free time and relaxation will make them
| happier, then report the opposite.
|
| [0] Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience if you haven't
| read it
| bloomingeek wrote:
| My new goals are: Seek beauty, Seek happiness and Don't make
| people sad.
|
| With a lot of effort, it's working. However, I soon discovered
| the last goal was the most difficult. Long story short, I keep my
| mouth shut a lot more. I feared, at first, that this would make
| me feel I was compromising myself somehow. But I also discovered
| that sometimes when I shared my opinion, knowing it was correct,
| I would later regret how I made that person feel. Conclusion on
| their feelings: There's nothing to be gained by hurting their
| feelings when they weren't ready to hear the message. Double
| success, I'm still happy and I didn't cause them any sadness.
| bengale wrote:
| In the nicest possible way, this is basically the oldest lesson
| there is.
|
| You weren't happy because you optimized your feelings or had the
| right opinions. You were happy because you stopped focusing on
| yourself and became responsible for other people. Six kids needed
| you, in the real world, every week. That kind of outward focus
| kills emptiness fast.
|
| Chasing happiness, moral righteousness, or political engagement
| just loops you back into your own head, helping people doesn't.
| Feeling good is a side-effect of being useful, not the goal.
| nvarsj wrote:
| There's an entire generation of mostly childless adults who are
| shocked to find they enjoy contributing to others' happiness. I
| have friends like this, their only purpose in life is to have
| no responsibilities, FIRE, and never give to anyone but
| themselves. Seems like a terribly depressing way to live but
| pretty common in tech/upper middle class circles.
| bengale wrote:
| Yeah, and I do get it to some extent. Everything about having
| a child seems burdensome and hard. Turns out it's doesn't
| feel anything like that and I can't think of anything I'd
| rather be doing. I wouldn't swap with another person on this
| planet.
| nlavezzo wrote:
| 100%. I never was excited about having a kid but it's
| totally amazing to be helping a little human that you love
| to figure out the world and grow into a good person.
|
| People can obviously make the opposite choice, but I'd
| encourage anyone that's never been around good little kids
| as an adult, to find a way to be around them in a helpful
| or fun role for a while. Volunteer at a youth group, sports
| camp, coding class, whatever. Or just be an "uncle" to some
| of your friends' kids. My volunteering at a church youth
| group in my early 20's probably gave me the nudge I needed.
| cheema33 wrote:
| > Everything about having a child seems burdensome and
| hard. Turns out it's doesn't feel anything like that and I
| can't think of anything I'd rather be doing.
|
| You got lucky and had kid(s) that were not extremely
| difficult to raise. Not everybody gets that. Not all kids
| are alike. Some will make your life a living hell. It is a
| total crapshoot.
|
| Also, not everybody enjoys parenting, even if they have
| easy kids. We are not all built the same.
|
| I did get lucky and had relatively easy kids. I love them.
| But, I do not enjoy parenting.
| whaleidk wrote:
| People who want to be childless usually champion the
| importance of building strong community through friends and
| neighbors, just because they don't want kids doesn't mean
| they don't want to contribute to others' happiness lol.
| People wanting FIRE is a lot more to do with the current
| economy and wealth of useless or harmful jobs than kids
| arealaccount wrote:
| > dont want to deal with kids
|
| Someone has to bring up the next generation, the no kids
| crowd want all the luxury of having the next generation
| without putting in the effort or spending the money.
| RGamma wrote:
| Childlessness seems to be an increasingly compassionate
| choice. Degrowth by force.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It's always funny how many people think that the only font of
| altruism is taking care of children _who have your DNA_ ,
| like that's some kind of selfless act. It is, in fact, the
| ultimate vanity of which humans are capable. Raising little
| variations of yourself might make you feel good, but if you
| think it's a unique path to a fulfilling life I suggest you
| are the one in the little bubble.
| jraby3 wrote:
| Similar for me. Happiest I've ever been was when I was an
| assistant guide for birthright Israel.
|
| My job was to make sure the 40 kids that came were having a
| good time. When your job is to make others happy, you become
| happy.
| et-al wrote:
| Also, I think for a good number of people, their first job out
| of college is oftentimes one they will look fondly back on
| because they've just finished ~17 years of school, have
| financial independence with a salary, and are still bright-eyed
| about _all_ the possibilities.
| perrygeo wrote:
| The entire zeitgeist of software technology revolves around the
| assumption that making things efficient, easy, and quick is
| inherently good. Most people who are "sitting in front of
| rectangles, moving tiny rectangles" have sometime grandiose
| notions of their works' importance; we're making X work better
| for the good of Y to enable Z. Abstract shit like that.
|
| No man, you're just making X easier. If the world needs more X,
| fine. If not, woops.
|
| The detachment from reality makes it all too easy to deceive
| yourself into thinking "hey this actually helps people".
| Swizec wrote:
| > Most people who are "sitting in front of rectangles, moving
| tiny rectangles"
|
| Hey dude these are my emotional support rectangles!
|
| Truth is, anything can be meaningful. We make our own meaning
| and almost anything will do as long as _you_ believe in it.
| If optimizing rectangles on the screen makes you happy,
| that's great. If it doesn't, find something else to do.
| gedy wrote:
| I "move rectangles on screen" to pay for Kids and House. That's
| what makes me happy, and jobs I enjoy don't. There's no wake up
| call necessary.
| freetime2 wrote:
| I honestly don't understand how anyone has the time and energy to
| be a coach while working a full-time job. My kids practice three
| times a week, and usually have games on both Saturday and Sunday
| - sometimes several hours away. Just getting them to practices
| and games often feels exhausting to me - I can't imagine all the
| planning and scheduling that goes on behind the scenes, or having
| to show up and actually run things all the time.
|
| Hats off to youth coaches - you make a huge difference in kids'
| lives.
| jebarker wrote:
| Personally I want to have my cake and eat it here. Tech has
| amazing potential to make the world a better place to live in and
| genuinely bring people together. The crowning achievement of AI
| so far to me is not Claude Code, it's AlphaFold. I find the
| documentary DM released about developing it inspiring both as a
| technology story but also a team achieving things together that
| make the world better. I want to see more of that and hope I can
| steer my career in that direction.
| RataNova wrote:
| A lot of people aren't actually chasing leisure or money as much
| as they're chasing irreplaceability
| colinnordin wrote:
| > But improving each kid's skill and confidence was the real
| mission. Instead of my desk job, I'd be asking Clayton how we
| could make Corey1 use his body for rebounding. Or how Monte's
| soccer skills could be best leveraged. Or how Evan, our best
| player, could become an on-court leader.
|
| I wonder how software development would be like if we had coaches
| like this.
| matthewpick wrote:
| I miss mentoring junior engineers in-person
| RataNova wrote:
| I suspect a lot of people don't actually dislike software
| development, they dislike developing without anyone invested in
| their development
| data-ottawa wrote:
| I have had managers like this and it was fantastic. I've tried
| to be a mentor like this and enjoyed it too.
|
| It feels like since 2022 the industry has been too rushed to
| run this way though.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| My boss is a technologist. Adding computers to problems makes him
| happy. Getting people out of the way makes him happy.
|
| I'm an IC (no direct reports) and I'm a "humanist". Helping
| people become better and more skilled makes me happy, in the same
| way the coach here got joy from the goofball making a great play.
|
| On paper we should probably switch jobs. I have way more
| technical depth, but the crucial difference is that he is more
| goal-driven, better at managing upward, and more in tune with
| political trends.
| billylo wrote:
| I use my spare time helping kids at a FIRST robotics team. It's
| fun.
| pppoiuy wrote:
| gggoip
| carabiner wrote:
| Just a reminder of how millennial-centric HN is. Everyone here is
| in their 40s and moving to the suburbs to raise their kids, and
| this article provides validation.
| 0898 wrote:
| Shaan Puri has also talked about how he's been coaching a youth
| basketball team on the My First Million podcast recently. He says
| it's one of the best things he's ever done.
| hinkley wrote:
| To ask the question Ted Lasso never answers:
|
| What _is_ a Hoosier?
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