In most companies I have worked for - or I had the chance to interview with - ageing. :) So, just eat healthy, do some sports, and get older.
Ageing is not a skill you can learn.
Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
131–136 of 136 posts
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Willingness to do grunt work is a fast track to becoming a manager who says "I haven't coded in years". No good deed goes unpunished. When you step up to be a team player and do that grunt work, you open yourself up to getting more and more of it. Next thing you know you have to stand up for yourself or become a door mat.
If you're in an environment where rolling up one's sleeves and taking on the grunt work leads so quickly to negative reinforcement loops, in the way you describe... then that's a sure sign that you've found yourself in the wrong environment. In healthy environments (and yes, they do exists) good deeds are actually rewarded, not punished.
I was thinking more in terms of this
http://www.daedtech.com/the-gravitational-force-of-wage-labo...
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What all those comments have in common is that they assume things work according to Tom DeMarco's book Peopleware. This is a funny comment, since he keeps repeating through the entire book phrases that sound like "you probably won't be able to get this for your team", "you likely never seen it anywhere, but...", "when doing our research, we've seen this. You might doubt it, but trust me, this exist on some places."
> This is a funny comment, since he keeps repeating through the entire book phrases that sound like ... Yeah, I know. Of course I meant "things work according to the advises given by the book ..." or something like that. I read the book, and everybody agrees that "it's a great book, but in reality...".
Oh, your comment was clear.
I literally though it was funny. Describing an organization type by the name of the book that claims everywhere that it doesn't exist.
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#134Empathy is the key skill. Yes, it's learned. The ability to walk in somebody else's shoes for a while makes you a better developer. Why? * You acquire the habit of imagining what it's like to use the stuff you develop. * You have a feel for the daily experience of your colleagues, suppliers, executives and other stakeholders. These things give you the sort of spidey-sense that lets you function independently. They al…
I've found "what'd you get up to this weekend" to be a great conversation starter because most people have done at least one fun thing over the weekend.
The "weekend" question is a good one. But: think about this. It implicitly carries your own agenda, but doesn't reveal it.
What do I mean? The person answering probably wonders whether his weekend adventures will compare favorably with yours. "I went to Tahoe!" "I caught a pop fly ball in Candlestick Park!" "I stayed home and binge-watched Gilligans Island." "Loser!"
Asking about the future is less competitive. Answers can range from "I'm going over to Sand Hill Road to get my investors to sign off on my IPO papers" to "StoopidCo sends this corrupt XML feed...I have to figure out how to ingest it" to "I'm going home sick, I feel terrible." In each case the answer is about the person speaking, not about you the questioner.
Do you see the difference? It's really important.
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't have to talk about things that other people think are fun. The point is to bring up something that can get you excited and animated. If what you call "work" does that for you, then I'd love to hear about it.
> The point is to bring up something that can get you excited and animated. Well, the only time you'll get that out of me is when I'm angry. Most of my weekends involve: * Reading research papers * Reviewing other peoples' source code * Reporting security vulnerabilities to open source projects (usually with a patch) * Improving these projects: https://github.com/paragonie I never have any time to watch movies, play…
> I never have any time to ... engage in creative hobbies.
Hmmm. Sounds to me like your profession, your hobby, and your passion are all aligned. I hope you know how rare and wonderful that is!
Re: Ask HN: What non-technical skills make a senior dev and how to develop them?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've found "what'd you get up to this weekend" to be a great conversation starter because most people have done at least one fun thing over the weekend.
People ask me that all the time and it's awkward. I very rarely do anything anyone else would consider "fun", even on weekends. Most of what I do can be classified as "work".
Then don't answer it in the traditional fashion: turn it into a joke. "What did I do this weekend?" "I gave birth to a live baby zebra." It'll make people laugh (or at least smile), they'll think well of you and you never actually do tell them what you did for the weekend.
Another tactic is to say "not much, what about you?" People love talking about themselves.