Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#101

Post by nlh » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:18 PM UTC

calummurray wrote: post #100

I've been working for almost 4 years on the on-board flight software for the European Space Agency's Mars Rover to look for signs of water and life on Mars: "ExoMars". It is due to be launched in 2020. Due to the embedded real-time, mission-critical aspect of the software, the strictness of the process and focus on documentation can be frustrating. The space industry typically doesn't keep pace with new technologies,…

That is so deeply awesome. Can you tell us a bit more detail about the systems and how they work? C? Assembly?

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#102

Post by pvaldes » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

A complex question with many layers. I'm very satisfied of a lot of small steps that does not mean a dime for other people, or each time I can find an unorthodox solution for a small problem. Digging holes and putting things on them is very rewarding :-).

But the feeling of having modestly helped to save a few lifes, would score very high in the list. It plays in a different league.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#103

Post by nomy99 » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

calummurray wrote: post #100

I've been working for almost 4 years on the on-board flight software for the European Space Agency's Mars Rover to look for signs of water and life on Mars: "ExoMars". It is due to be launched in 2020. Due to the embedded real-time, mission-critical aspect of the software, the strictness of the process and focus on documentation can be frustrating. The space industry typically doesn't keep pace with new technologies,…

I wonder what your functional tests are like? Do you do dry runs of the robot on mars like surface?

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#104

Post by mywacaday » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:29 PM UTC

nlh wrote: post #101

calummurray wrote: post #100

I've been working for almost 4 years on the on-board flight software for the European Space Agency's Mars Rover to look for signs of water and life on Mars: "ExoMars". It is due to be launched in 2020. Due to the embedded real-time, mission-critical aspect of the software, the strictness of the process and focus on documentation can be frustrating. The space industry typically doesn't keep pace with new technologies,…

That is so deeply awesome. Can you tell us a bit more detail about the systems and how they work? C? Assembly?

Two years ago I moved from the Finance Industry to Life sciences, the burden of documentation and regulation is something to consider if you want to move into any regulated industry if you are used to agile. Up until now I never thought a bank could move an order of magnitude faster than anyone.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#105

Post by 2474 » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

Nothing like building on-board flight software but...

A small application built on headless Drupal with a React front-end that allows us to build pared down versions's of our College's websites to be used on touch screens at various events.

While not totally exciting it was my first opportunity in higher-ed to be able to lead my own project, build a React application from scratch using various tools like Webpack, Babel, PostCSS, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#106

Post by nomy99 » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

I am a bit concerned that this post is run by a russian/chinese agency that wants to capture project confessions. This would be an ideal intelligence gathering post. Maybe I should tone down on the paranoia ?

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#107

Post by mstade » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

calummurray wrote: post #100

I've been working for almost 4 years on the on-board flight software for the European Space Agency's Mars Rover to look for signs of water and life on Mars: "ExoMars". It is due to be launched in 2020. Due to the embedded real-time, mission-critical aspect of the software, the strictness of the process and focus on documentation can be frustrating. The space industry typically doesn't keep pace with new technologies,…

> I sometimes feel jealous of developers at agile startups keeping pace with the most new technologies and frameworks are desirable.

Funny how the grass is always greener... Many times I feel like the grumpy ol' man, shaking my fist at the young'uns for not recalling the lessons of yesteryear when jumping on the latest tech band wagon.

There's definitely balance to be had, calibrated accordingly with your appetite for risk, but in my experience the "boring" tech almost always wins the cost/benefit equation. Too many times have I seen new developments fall into the "instant legacy" category simply because the tech they use isn't yet well known and explored (to them, or at all.)

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#108

Post by Method-X » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:34 PM UTC

I've been working for about a year and a half on https://edabit.com which started as a side project for me to learn React. Not only did I end up learning a bunch of new frameworks / libraries, but seeing the application help thousands of people learn a programming language has been the most rewarding experience of all.

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#109

Post by seddinbad » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

I have been learning some javascript front end frmaeworks like ReactJS and VueJS, I was amazed with the power of js and how easly you can build all sorts of apps, be it mobile or webapps, so I started tinkering and made a small hybrid app that looks and feels good both on a smartphone or a website. I've used the OnsenUI css framework to do this and its over here https://porlatarde.club/icloudbypass/

Re: Ask HN: What has been your most rewarding job or project and why?

#110

Post by quantumhobbit » Thu, Apr 26, 2018, 2:37 PM UTC

This is a weird answer. But it was probably the project that almost ruined my career.

I once started a project to add in A/B testing to a legacy platform that really wasn’t supportive of any such changes. The project was a technical success but a political disaster. The aftermath made it very clear that my manager was hoping I would fail so that he would have an excuse to manage me out. When it didn’t fail he became a lot more obvious in his attempts to get rid of me. I also suspect that some of the issues that happened during the project were setups, but I can’t prove it.

Why am I proud of that clusterfuck? Because it proves that I can still succeed even when powerful people dont want me too. The problems I had at that job were political and not due to a lack of ability on my part. I’m not saying that I am without fault in allowing my relationship with my manager to degrade to tgat point. But I gained a lot of confidence from delivering a working product despite adversity. That confidence led me to a much better job.