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

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

#241

Post by geocrasher » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:39 PM UTC

tqwhite wrote: post #189

Having been a programmer for forty years, I am senior in every sense of the word. Also, I hate everything I have ever written. When I look at something I wrote three months ago, it is embarrassing. Now, today's code, that's a different story. It is awesome. And it will be until I turn my attention elsewhere. When I come back to it, it will also suck. Which is to say, Of course you hate your previous work. You learned…

I'm not a dev. I am a professional learner in other contexts. And man... this is good advice for anybody who does anything creative. When I look at things I wrote in the past (articles, even forum comments ahem) I look back in disgust! This just means you've grown. It's awesome, and it's normal.

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

#242

Post by jsjsbdkj » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:41 PM UTC

dntrkv wrote: post #177

jsjsbdkj wrote: post #37

I think it's worth thinking about why you were successful as a freelancer and in smaller companies. I started my career in a simmilar place, and I was very successful because I loved learning about the business, talking to stakeholders and delivering value. The code wasn't always great, or even good, but it was delivered quickly and users found it solved genuine problems. When I transitioned into larger "software" co…

> I think it's worth thinking about why you were successful as a freelancer and in smaller companies. Assuming they were successful. I cringe thinking about the devs that inherited my code in my early days as a "dev" (using that term very loosely). Especially the freelance work, since in many cases you're the only that touches it until you move on. Then it's some other devs problem. The idea that just because your co…

> The idea that just because your code solved the problem then it's good enough is bullshit, especially if you're not the one that has to maintain your monstrosity of a codebase going forward.

It's a lot better than beautiful code that _doesn't_ solve the problem. If I had to choose between them, I'd rather rewrite something that's wildly successful than try and make an unpopular piece of software popular.

OP can learn how to write more maintainable software, but it sounds like they already have a good instinct for making useful software that people actually want. IMO that's rarer and more valuable.

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

#243

Post by brg » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

Do you want to do better in your current position? Then the answer is to get better deliberately. Do this through seeking mentorship and studying up on where you are feeling less confident.

Seeking mentorship is simple enough, talk to those around you. Take interest in their work, and ask them to walk you through the solutions they've proposed and created. Ask for advice on your work, but do this in a 1:1 setting.

To get better by self study, I'd highly suggest beginning with systems interview problems. Each of them have a unique hook, be it a data structure, data model, messaging queue, etc. Understand the simplest implementation, and then go deep. Find the canonical implementation, and papers that use them. It's in systems and their interdependencies that you may grow fastest.

If you do not want to get better along the technical path, my suggestion is for your to find an outlet for your experience and interest. This may be in technical project management, as opposed to product management. This may be in QA, but it may also be other technical directions that don't involve software engineering.

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

#244

Post by blacktriangle » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

Honestly, I went through a similar experience in my career around 30. I was mostly self taught and been writing code in academia where my peers were also self-taught scientists who were even worse programmers than I was. It was at my first interview at a real software company where I realized just how far behind the curve I was.

Fortunately I was in a position to take a break from work to focus on learning new skills. I built a few demo apps which were enough to land me a dev position at a small agency where there wasn't a concept of junior or senior devs, but where the others were better enough than me that I could learn quickly from them.

Now that you're in such a position you'll see that maybe you didn't learn as much as you could have in those 10 years, but just by spending years getting exposed to real software development issues you will be able to rapidly assimilate better practices.

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

#245

Post by pavel_lishin » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 9:42 PM UTC

foolinaround wrote: post #141

pavel_lishin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

interesting... I have never been in an environment where pair-programming was practised.. makes me think how much I could have improved...

I don't think pair programming should be done for every line of code written, but it's a really good way to transfer knowledge and mentor folks.

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

#246

Post by pineconewarrior » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:14 PM UTC

q845712 wrote: post #32

It sounds to me like you haven't internalized a lot of the advice in the first half of "Clean Code" and/or the entirety of "The Pragmatic Programmer". Either of those books takes a few weeks to read slowly and a few months-to-years of deliberate practice to internalize and synthesize as your own. The good news is that admitting you have a problem is the first step. Personally I find I still frequently write pretty at…

Thanks for the recommendations! If I find I like them after a chapter I'll pick up a physical copy

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

#247

Post by _y5hn » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

Give yourself 6 months and find several people who can show you expected work. Read code until you see how it can be done better. Most corporate code is pure garbage, so don't sell yourself short.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 31, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

stagger87 wrote: post #176

sokoloff wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 17 was a scaling factor for a graphics transformation (and sometimes was doubled to 34). Let's imagine that we later decide we want to make a change and have it be a little bigger. Do we change it to: #define SEVENTEEN 23 Instead, if it was: #define MENU_SCALING_FACTOR 17 then such a change would be sensible (which was the intention). I admit to having some sliver of culpability here (though the verbal explanatio…

Thanks for the clarification. I guess the tools you had available at that time would affect the severity of this. Nowadays, with the ability to refactor a macro name in a few seconds, I wouldn't necessarily agree that a developer that used a silly name would "never make it to a senior developer". Fuck, I'm "senior" and I definitely use worse variable names on a regular basis.

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by jariel » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:27 AM UTC

"the code was all filled with hardcoded values, wrong structure, difficult to debug bugs and similar things."

If you can identify the problems you are 70% of the way there.

Also, PMs don't need to be able to code.

If you have good interpersonal skills, you might just shine in such a role.

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

#250

Post by prewett » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:30 AM UTC

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…

At my first company, in order to commit anything we had to get someone else on the team to sit down with us and we'd have to go over the diffs with them and walk them through the changes and why. Incredibly annoying, but a great way to learn. I still rewrite "if (!condition)" to "if (positive_condition)" to this day based one guy's feedback that negative logic is hard to read and reason about. It was also really humbling to not remember why I did things, so I'd have to prepare for the code review so I'd have something besides "um, I don't remember" to say.

I have also realized that there are some categories of problems that I really don't know how to solve well. So if I find myself struggling, I try to ask someone for ideas.