Working at one FAANG & getting an offer from another.
I (think) I was seen a high performer with an upward trajectory. The whole thing was incredibly stressful, but it was life changing for my family.
Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
421–430 of 491 posts
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#422Staying in development. I figured out early on that I had no interest in management, and that served me well during the 2000 bubble burst and 2008 crisis. What was harder to learn was that I had no interest in the Software Architect role. I thought it was something I was "supposed" to move up into, but as I talked to my managers about it over a period of a couple of years I realized it was a lot of meetings and drawi…
I'm 41 yo and feeling like I'm at a bit of a crossroad. I feel that I will be miserable as a manager, and will always want the introverted work of development. How has it worked out for you? Any tips?
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a ton of questions for you but I'll boil it down to several for now: 1) Which courses would you recommend? Which had the greatest impact? How would you do things differently? Would you forego engineering entirely? 2) Suppose one doesnt have friends from school or work, how does one build a linkedin following? What did you write about? How did you promote your articles? 3. Again, favorite books? Most impactful?…
For the 4th thing. I got replies because I asked very relevant and to the point questions. If its very specific and they can really help, they respond.
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Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a ton of questions for you but I'll boil it down to several for now: 1) Which courses would you recommend? Which had the greatest impact? How would you do things differently? Would you forego engineering entirely? 2) Suppose one doesnt have friends from school or work, how does one build a linkedin following? What did you write about? How did you promote your articles? 3. Again, favorite books? Most impactful?…
1. The courses on AI/Machine learning and blockchain (or anything that has do with 4th Industrial revolution) are great. Coursera is great for this. The greatest impact was the combined effort of being able to do multiple courses (in so many different things) and being able to better understand different programming languages, technologies and marketing (SEO, ads, content marketing, referral marketing, driving sales)…
'The Startup of You' by Reid Hoffman is another great book.
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#425Moving from permanent to contractor. I made the jump 5 years ago and have worked for a number of companies since, on 6-12 month contracts. The money has jumped each time, such that I’m on what I consider to be silly money now for the job I do — Ireland, not US. The work is always interesting for at least 6 months and I learn a ton of new stuff with every contract, much of which I use when building my own products (Do…
I'd be interested in hearing from some US-based contractors who feel the same. The thing that has stopped me going down that road is the insane health insurance costs here.
Add the cost of paying for your health insurance into your rates. A full time employer would be calculating it into compensation all the same.
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#426Starting a professional blog [1] in English. In some months it got 5-6K readers (now not so many). I started getting interesting professional contacts as well as qualified job inquiries. I never looked for a job since then.
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're either very young or naïve or both. Almost everything we do in this world has good/evil direct/indirect consequences. For example, should I blame you for polluting the planet because you are using an electronic device to post naïve comments on the internet that likely gets its energy by producing some sort of pollution? What about the vehicle you drive? What about the slaughters that take place because of your…
OPs question was relevant and respectful, your answer is not. Good and evil may be a spectrum/scale rather than discrete categories, but they are not a myth.
OP's comment: "I have the feeling that you're not saving lifes but rather ruining them." was not very considerate either. As a veteran myself, I found that assumption highly offensive considering I was involved in multiple missions were we provided food, shelter and security to many people around the world. OP's comment was very much a naïve one because either he did not know how much good the military provides around the world, or willingly chooses to ignore it and conveniently leave it out of conversations to support his stance.
Also, ethical myths have very real effects on societies, but they are myths nonetheless. That realization may be inconvenient to some and that's fine.
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#428Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is very true. Management roles tend to be kept in-house.
If you have the experience there are plenty of project management contract roles.
Contract PM roles tend to be axe-men -- you're there to kick people and crack whips because you're not part of the org and don't have to worry about future interactions or consequences. Also makes it easy to shoehorn in new ideas and break out of groupthink, which is necessary for big orgs, IMO.
Plus you're gone when the project or milestone is completed, instead of having to worry about finding another role or laying you off.
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
OPs question was relevant and respectful, your answer is not. Good and evil may be a spectrum/scale rather than discrete categories, but they are not a myth.
OP's comment: "I have the feeling that you're not saving lifes but rather ruining them." was not very considerate either. As a veteran myself, I found that assumption highly offensive considering I was involved in multiple missions were we provided food, shelter and security to many people around the world. OP's comment was very much a naïve one because either he did not know how much good the military provides aroun…
Thank you for your insight and for pointing out the offensive part of my question. Thinking better I'd certainly not have said something like that if we'd be having a face to face conversation.
Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doesn't the employer often ask that why you change jobs every year ? Is it fair enough that if one company offers better gig than other so I can negotiate with other to increase gig?
They surprisingly don’t, in my experience.
Agreed. I've seen only a couple job postings over the years that say something like "no job hoppers". In fact, because of this much change I've been exposed to a lot more technologies/tools/architectures/etc than most people at my level of experience, which if anything has helped me in my ability to evaluate tech decisions, have interview discussions, etc.