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Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

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Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#101

Post by morgante »

collyw wrote: post #36
uniclaude wrote: post #26

As some noted, the fact that you realized what drives your desire is very impressive. It takes a certain skill to understand those things! As someone who's been at it for years, I'll just give you one little piece of advice. If you've already been through the fundamentals, you've done enough. Now, instead of focusing on learning technology, focus on building things, this is what real engineers do. Let me explain. You…

You don't get as many job offers by becoming an expert in one area though.... How many job offers do you see looking for a smart Perl programmer. How many do you see listing 10+ technologies, plus experience in scrum? (Does doing a stand up every day make you better at it? )

> How many job offers do you see looking for a smart Perl programmer. How many do you see listing 10+ technologies, plus experience in scrum?

Ignore the laundry list of requirements.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#102

Post by deepaksurti »

throwaway1410 wrote: post #98
deepaksurti wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let me explain. You'll probably get much better with at least one thing once you ship a real project to the end, and this is where you'll get better. +100. I did exactly this. After working for 12 years, took a break, learnt 3D game programming and actually shipped a playable 3D sport simulation game on iOS. Enjoyed graphics programming a ton. Also prototyped the game in Common Lisp before porting it to iOS. End re…

This sounds very inspiring and it's one of the paths I'm seriously considering for my own future. Do you mind asking you a couple questions? Where are you based? How does the market look like and what kind of pay can you expect as entry-level/experienced scientific programmer (i.e. is it a significant hit pay-wise when compared to standard enterprise/finance/google developer career track)?

I am based out of India. Irrespective of the location, being in this domain for 2+ years now, I can tell you that while there may be comparatively few open positions, the pay (irrespective of location again) is above par if compared to enterprise but on par otherwise, for experienced programmer!

If you are at entry level, I can think of having a related self project or contributing to any of the numerous open source projects in the scientific stack will do the trick. Hope this helps.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#104

Post by mierek4ever »

lucasnemeth wrote: post #81
gscott wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those job postings are designed to weed out Americans and hire Indians. Real postings are more reasonable.

That is a racist comment. You could had said "in the US they make those job postings catered to a specific person that they want to hire as an H1B" instead, but specifying that it is intented to weed out americans (specially given the fact that no one said we where talking about the US market!!) and hire specifically Indians (and not foreigners, or people in search of a visa) is racist. It shows a specific prejudice…

remember, not everybody here lives in "freedom loving" US. Some of us live in free countries, where no court has time for that BS.

And then probably you are Indian, and Indians from what I noticed are extreme bigots towards their own minorities, not to mention raping women is like national sport in India.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#105

Post by brianwawok »

logan5 wrote: post #99
brianwawok wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the GP said, any CTO or dev lead worth their salt would hire a dev with good fundamentals in the 'wrong' language over one with poor fundamentals in the right one. For sure. You can learn a new language in a few months, but not how to think like a programmer. However, there could be an argument to be made for holding out for someone who is a good programmer AND knows the right language. Especially if it was a fu…

I've been to a few interviews with startups. Some of them didn't care about not having their language on the résumé while some of them did. The impression I got is, you can just tell which one of them are looking for a code monkey and which ones want you to take a bigger role of contributing as a software engineer.

Maybe. But it is a legit chance someone wants a software engineer but doesn't want to teach an entire stack to someome.

If you coded in C for your business and two identicAL in every way people applied.. one only knew ruby and one only knew C.. which do you hire?

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#106

Post by ak39 »

swsieber wrote: post #91

Instead of picking technologies, pick a project. Let your development be project driven. When I needed to inject javascript to scrape a complex static page and change it into an angular app, all of a sudden I learned less and gulp because I had heard about them and they helped for that goal. Choosing a project will let you learn while focusing on one thing, although potentially learning a lot of things. An airplane p…

I loved your airplane pilot analogy. The Turbulence Paradox: act not to remove the turbulence, instead slow down to make the flight more enjoyable once again through the turbulence.

Zen for the 21st century.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#107

Post by throwaway1410 »

deepaksurti wrote: post #102
throwaway1410 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds very inspiring and it's one of the paths I'm seriously considering for my own future. Do you mind asking you a couple questions? Where are you based? How does the market look like and what kind of pay can you expect as entry-level/experienced scientific programmer (i.e. is it a significant hit pay-wise when compared to standard enterprise/finance/google developer career track)?

I am based out of India. Irrespective of the location, being in this domain for 2+ years now, I can tell you that while there may be comparatively few open positions, the pay (irrespective of location again) is above par if compared to enterprise but on par otherwise, for experienced programmer! If you are at entry level, I can think of having a related self project or contributing to any of the numerous open source…

Regarding the pay, I'm a bit worried that it might not be the case in UK. For example, when working in Big Data positions (my current area), it's not hard to get 100k pounds per year or more, while I ads for scientific or graphic programmer (or anything non-enterprise for that matter) rarely exceed even 50k. The difference is that on 100k I can retire before 40 and on 50k I'll probably work forever... If that's indeed the situation I'll probably try getting into the US as H1-B as I hope the situation should be better there.

As for getting a self project - I'm thinking of doing a physics engine focused on static forces - something inspired by structure engineering methods (solving with finite element analysis for example). I have no idea if I can make things bend or break believably in real time but it seems like a cool idea to pursue.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#108

Post by mseebach »

brianwawok wrote: post #105
logan5 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to a few interviews with startups. Some of them didn't care about not having their language on the résumé while some of them did. The impression I got is, you can just tell which one of them are looking for a code monkey and which ones want you to take a bigger role of contributing as a software engineer.

Maybe. But it is a legit chance someone wants a software engineer but doesn't want to teach an entire stack to someome. If you coded in C for your business and two identicAL in every way people applied.. one only knew ruby and one only knew C.. which do you hire?

If you ended up in that situation, obviously pick the candidate more familiar with your stack, but that's a hypothetical, hiring in this business is not generally characterised by a glut of qualified candidates.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#109

Post by pknerd »

I can relate myself here. Many people who are suggesting to focus on on technology seems difficult now. If you are a web developer you need to know many things. Apart from main programming language you should know about Redis or other Q system, Build systems and many other things.

Re: Ask HN: I am busy with too many things at once

#110

Post by Terr_ »

endymi0n wrote: post #32

For me, the major insight was to realize that the best of the best are struggling just as much as myself. I often come back to this diagram for relief, and it's true. http://www.invokemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/venndi... It's really all about focus. Learn one thing at once. Rinse and repeat, and come back to the topic later for more insight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_approach Don't be afraid to s…

I'd replace (personally) "embarrassed" with "able to explain it's weaknesses"... And if applicable, strengths, even when that strength is "could be shipped in one week"
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