Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#1

Post by servlate » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 3:19 PM UTC

I saw this thread on r/cscareerquestions and I thought it would be interesting to hear the HN experiences.

Thank you.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#2

Post by koolba » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 3:38 PM UTC

Two fold:

1. Putting aside friends, family, and religion to focus on the task(s) at hand.

2. Saving enough "fuck you" money to be able to do whatever I want.

Both are related and the former is pointless unless it's going to lead to the latter.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#3

Post by blue_dinner » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 3:47 PM UTC

Quitting my soul-sucking job and starting my own company. Been going strong for almost a decade.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#4

Post by darthsr » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 3:56 PM UTC

Getting out of SEO and moving to web development

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#5

Post by ericzawo » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 4:12 PM UTC

darthsr wrote: post #4

Getting out of SEO and moving to web development

This is something I'm currently working on doing. How did you get started on that move?

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#6

Post by PerfectElement » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 4:59 PM UTC

With one year left to graduate as an telecom engineer, I decided to move to computer engineering. That meant 2 more years in university, so it wasn't an easy decision. Today all my friends from telecom work in soul-sucking corporate jobs, while I moved to another country and run my own SaaS company.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#7

Post by dano » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 5:47 PM UTC

Went to a startup at lower pay, for the new technology of workstation based CAD rather than Mainframe. Years later, took the lead to Web based applications, then to Internet connected devices, and now into massive event analytics real-time processing.

Shifting gears and constantly learning new things. It's been rewarding in so many ways.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#8

Post by codeonfire » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

Quitting my job. On average I see a 51% pay bump each time. Plus there is the catharsis of quitting the job, and that "yay, I'm a human being again!" feeling.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#9

Post by fenier » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 6:53 PM UTC

As a intern, taking the time to master one of the most complex systems the company uses - ended up greatly contributing to the permanent hire of myself (which the company created a new position for).

Related: Reinvesting a lot of the money I made as a intern into books and training so I could keep up with the discussions at work.

Was hired for general front end work (mostly HTML / CSS) now a few years later do advanced JS work on Personalization, Web Analytics and AB testing.

Re: Ask HN: What was your best career decision?

#10

Post by humble_dev » Sat, Apr 30, 2016, 6:58 PM UTC

Accepting a full time job into my heart and quitting the startup dream!