Ask HN: Average coder at dead-end. What now?

If you're only making 26 grand a year, why don't you go try to be a real rockstar or ninja instead of the PHP version? You would probably make nearly the same wage...

There's lots of good advice on this thread, but I'll just say this: you're getting raped at that salary? I have a very close friend who had a very similar background as you except only about three years of experience programming, period. He got a job making almost six figures, 100% remote. I've got 4-5 yrs of PHP experience and I can easily pull down six figures doing freelance work part-time.

Perception is everything. If you think you're not worth much, that's what you'll make. If you think you're worth $75/hr (or much more), you can definitely[1] find clients to pay that.

1. I'm assuming with 8 years of experience, you're good with Drupal, Wordpress, CakePHP/CodeIgniter/Symfony, etc. If not, I'd recommend learning them. It's not hard and all my clients ask for them. Learn APIs as well, like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Time to become a rockstar, mate. I say fill in whatever holes you think you have in your skill (if there are any) and market yourself as a rockstar. You're only a rockstar if you act like one.

I would consider the mod operator to be pretty basic though. (Feel free to call me out if I'm just being naive.)

Outside of the mod operator, you could always use a combo of floor() and ceiling() (which I assume most languages have in a standard library). e.g.:

  from math import floor,ceil
  def divisible_by_3(n):
    result = n / 3.0
    return ceil(result) == floor(result)

Or even more basic:

  def divisible_by_3(n):
    result = n / 3.0
    return int(result) == result

You need to learn about control and responsibility. See, you have become responsible for your work, but you were not in control of it. Your employers have controlled it, and you let them by not pushing back on their decisions, which is understandable if you need work. I've done it. The problem is you are also now responsible for this work, because your name is on it. You're now screwed because the rest of the world assumes that you were both in control and responsible.

That's how you got in this situation, and the sad thing is, that's how it usually goes. You work on whatever projects you can find, never really getting anything challenging or even in good taste, and then when you go to get your next job you have nothing to show for your work. Cycle repeats.

The way you break out of this pattern is with open source. Open source lets you be both responsible and in control. You choose what you're working on, you do the work, you get your name on it. It's all you. You can start your own project, work on someone else's, and even blog about it. You get the recognition and you get experience with people interested in the new stuff, not the crap you do at work.

This is how I've had to work for a decade or more. Nobody I work for is interested in letting me do something interesting or challenging. I go to work and work on very mundane things, and then go home and write advanced algorithms to create web servers and bizarre protocols for fun.

If it weren't for open source, I'd still be working as an enterprise Java douchebag. Open source and writing literally saved me from the "industry" more than once and kept my love of code alive long past any love of the job.