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Ask HN: Senior engineers, advice for 1 year, 5 year and 10 years of experience

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Re: Ask HN: Senior engineers, advice for 1 year, 5 year and 10 years of experience

#31

Post by giantg2 »

fartcannon wrote: post #17
yotamoron wrote: post #16

An engineer's value has a direct, exponential relation to the size and complexity of the problems they can solve. Wanna work on the most interesting things? With the most interesting people? wanna make sure you're compensated accordingly? make sure you are involved in analysing and solving the hardest problems, in the hardest of conditions. Sometimes the term 'hard' can be deceiving. When thinking about hard technolo…

There's a chance this kind of person won't be promoted, or get to do fun things simply because they're so competent at doing hard things. I think it's better to look like you're the type of person who can do that, but also look marketable and make friends with powerful people in the company.

Yep, I've spent a lot of my career working on systems and taking stories that others don't want. I'm 9 years in at the same company, have a masters, and I'm just a midlevel dev making under $100k.

Re: Ask HN: Senior engineers, advice for 1 year, 5 year and 10 years of experience

#32

Post by kkirsche »

codegeek wrote: post #15
onion2k wrote: post #4

At 1 year: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you don't. Focus on making things better. Try to add value. At 5 years: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you don't. Focus on making things better. Try to add value. At 10 years: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you do…

Well said. I would also add that if you start somewhere new, don't judge too quickly that everything is garbage there and you could fix it all. There are many layers of reasons/issues on why certain things have been done certain way and even though you may have better solutions, listen/learn first. Don't be a Know it all even if you are that good.

I would add context is key to some forms of code. Yea some things may be sloppy, but they also may have been added at 3 am during an incident. While hopefully these gets cleaned up, sometimes they get forgotten or de-prioritized. Even the best devs can write bad code, so always remember what could of been. It helps, I’ve found, in having empathy for other people’s code

Re: Ask HN: Senior engineers, advice for 1 year, 5 year and 10 years of experience

#33

Post by jinct »

These will help you regardless of tenure, but it may be helpful to emphasize them in this order as you gain experience:

1. Be a sponge: learn everything you can, especially by doing things. Realize it’s quick and easy to experiment with most tech tools/languages/etc. and that there nothing is out of reach. You can learn and understand literally anything a computer does that seems too technical or magical at first glance

2. Keep an eye out for and surround yourself with smart, successful, kind people

3. Work hard and work towards things that matter; this may mean a big project that’s important to the business or spending an evening doing a favor for someone to make a friend

4. Choose firms and roles that will give you the experience you want (e.g. working for a firm with a modern tech stack that will give you relevant and marketable experience). Realize it’s valuable to stay in a company/role long enough to become an expert, and also valuable to leave and get some new experience

5. Be positive, share the knowledge you have, be humble, but come out of your shell

6. Understand the intangibles that affect how people see you, e.g. dressing and presenting yourself professionally, learning how to communicate your ideas, having professional empathy for colleagues and supporting them however you can

Re: Ask HN: Senior engineers, advice for 1 year, 5 year and 10 years of experience

#36

Post by Kim_Bruning »

onion2k wrote: post #4

At 1 year: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you don't. Focus on making things better. Try to add value. At 5 years: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you don't. Focus on making things better. Try to add value. At 10 years: Be kind. You don't know everything; accept that the devs around you might know things you do…

Very good advice. I agree!

Re: Ask HN: Senior engineers, advice for 1 year, 5 year and 10 years of experience

#37

Post by Chyzwar »

1. Year, Be curious!, learn different programming langs, read docs, do tutorials, read the source. Become experienced by writing a lot of code and learning from existing code based on what is good idea and what is mistake and why. Change job every 1-2 years to experience more and earn more.

5 year Learn about people, learn about what is important for business. Learn to listen, people. Try to do high impact work that is needed for business to succeed long term. Learn how to say no and how to gather support for your ideas. Consider contracting/consulting for better money. Be curious!

10 year I am not their year, But I think at that point you need to have focus. Decide your career path: manager, IC, startup and pursue that relentlessly. Be curious and live without regrets.

I think the most important factor in programmer career is curiosity. Once you lose that, you will quickly regress and become unhappy.

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