Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 275 posts

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#221

Post by bigwavedave »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #41
epm7384 wrote: post #22

I'd argue differently. Congrats for having the courage to recognize your problem. The analogy that comes to mind is I've been playing basketball in my local town, and now I've gotten promoted to play in the big city. I now feel like a small fish in a big pond. If you enjoy software engineering, I'd say, double down. Now that you're at the medium software company, seek mentorship and coaching from others. In addition,…

> Now that you're at the medium software company, seek mentorship and coaching from others. Agreed. My abilities as a developer increased tremendously at one of my jobs, and I can attribute 90% of that to a single person at that company who mentored me and helped me grow. (Hi, René, you probably don't read this.) You can read all the articles and books you want, but actively pairing with someone on tasks and getting…

Absolutely- getting a mentor who will make time for pair programming is invaluable. Early in my career as a self-taught dev (my degree was in a different area), I landed a job as an associate dev and was assigned a "mentor" who wouldn't give me the time of day. While I'm sure he was very busy, it was also very frustrating to be told every time I reached out: "Give me one sec, I've gotta finish something up, I'll message you when I'm done" only for them to ghost me for days even after I'd reach out again (I couldn't even drop by their desk since we were both remote devs). So I made different connections, got to know my other coworkers better, and found a person who wasn't just willing to mentor me and pair with me, but was excited about it and glad I would reach out! I learned more from him in a week than three months with my former "mentor".

Moral of the story: find someone who's happy to mentor you, willing to pair program, and wants to see you grow and succeed. I can't promise that you'll never feel like a fraud again, but I can promise that you'll feel more confident about the work you do. The sooner you can do this, the sooner you'll find your "muchness" and become "much more muchier" (to quote Tim Burton's adaptation of the Mad Hatter).

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#223

Post by [deleted] »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #41
epm7384 wrote: post #22

I'd argue differently. Congrats for having the courage to recognize your problem. The analogy that comes to mind is I've been playing basketball in my local town, and now I've gotten promoted to play in the big city. I now feel like a small fish in a big pond. If you enjoy software engineering, I'd say, double down. Now that you're at the medium software company, seek mentorship and coaching from others. In addition,…

> Now that you're at the medium software company, seek mentorship and coaching from others. Agreed. My abilities as a developer increased tremendously at one of my jobs, and I can attribute 90% of that to a single person at that company who mentored me and helped me grow. (Hi, René, you probably don't read this.) You can read all the articles and books you want, but actively pairing with someone on tasks and getting…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#225

Post by dicroce »

I used to be pretty bad too... I think it took me about 5 years to get to decent... and probably 5 more to get to damn good. A lot of software is about having the right mental models... for me the book that helped was Steven's Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment... after that book I knew a LOT more about OS's and all my mental models were improved greatly.

also learn to recognize what parts you don't know and figure those parts out with tiny test programs... THEN code your solutions.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#226

Post by leoh »

Please don't fret. I can't be specific, but I have worked with a wildly successful engineer that wrote "bad code" and knew it, but came up with some useful paradigm-shifting ideas in their space. I would be glad to chat more if you are interested. Don't give up.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#227

Post by jpadkins »

As a bad engineer who switched to PM 20 years ago, here are some thoughts: - do you have a high tolerance for bullshit and stress? you will get more BS and stress in a PM role - are you good at persuasion or want to develop that? As a PM or a leader, persuading people is going to be your primary skill - do like understanding systems and ecosystems? You still need to be able to understand systems and how to change them (either technical systems or organizations and how they make decisions) - can you explain complex topics concisely and accurately? - can you explain abstract (desired future state) concepts to other engineers in a way that they can understand?

Hopefully these questions will help you decide if PMing is in your future.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#228

Post by mmcnl »

commandlinefan wrote: post #65
pjmorris wrote: post #11

A long time ago, I described what I did as a programmer, and my friend said "Oh, so you get paid to learn?" I thought about it, and agreed. Part of programming is learning. Sounds like you've got a great opportunity to learn what you don't yet know: you already have a list of things you know you need to work on, a codebase, and a job. Do you think one or more of your co-workers would be willing to give you feedback?…

> Part of programming is learning. A big part.

Like 90%.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#229

Post by ctrlp »

There's a difference between software quality and software value. Maybe your quality is low but you can still add value in the right places on the right problems by understanding the context and use cases. Focus on that and you can still have a career.

There are tons of examples of software teams weighing down their organizations with excessive investment in software quality and not enough on the business case and delivering value. Be a value-oriented developer and work for smaller organizations that necessarily prioritize value over quality. Learn and improve your coding practice on the job.

There are lots of bad programmers making useful things every day. We've all written bad code. You are not your code. Coding is actually just one of the skills of a good prigrammer. Sounds like you've picked up some others, too. Build on your strengths. Write more code, watch videos, read books. If you don't enjoy programming, find a different career. Not everyone likes to program, but if you do you'll improve by doing more of it.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#230

Post by lmilcin »

A lot of people I know do not progress in development because they are unable to reflect on their work and performance. You've just made a first step that many people never make.

Well, realizing you have a problem is first step before you can fix it.

Don't feel bad about this.

I would suggest -- stay where you are. Avoid commotion (like changing jobs).

You want to get some throughput to spend some (hopefully significant) portion of your time to improve your work.

Keep an eye on deliverables but try to focus on improving particular aspect of your work with every task you are performing.

Post reply on HN