151–160 of 185 posts
Have you considered going back to school to get a degree in something else that could land you a better job?
+1 to this. I got bored with IT/software, went back to school, got an aerospace engineering degree, had a very satisfying 4+ years in it, then a software job came my way that was too good to turn down. Quite a commitment of time and money but for me it was all very much worth it.
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+1 to this. I got bored with IT/software, went back to school, got an aerospace engineering degree, had a very satisfying 4+ years in it, then a software job came my way that was too good to turn down. Quite a commitment of time and money but for me it was all very much worth it.
Did you work part-time while going back?
This brings up a larger point I should have called out earlier: An experienced dev in a non-software field has a superpower. I'm no genius but because of my background, I was able to write software that made our engineering team more competitive, and I was able to negotiate good raises as a result. Everybody won.
It's a bit similar to what I'm thinking about right now. I started my career close to 20 years ago, coding dynamic web pages (yes, I worked with php3), and unintentionally broadened my skillset into something like a CTO skillset for specific environments - I never was a really great coder, so I'm not suited for the lead-developer kind of role in an early phase startup. Now I'm losing more and more interest in "core t…
This is very common and it's not funny, it's tragic. IME the problem always comes down to personalities in upper management. They're incompetent, and give rise to incompetent teams.
I once worked with an old mainframe programmer who had re-created himself to be a process evangalist by going off and getting a ph.d from some no name univerisity. When I worked with him he was hired as a senior business analyst. I was very intrigued by how he perceived his role and value add. He used to say his job was to get the right people in meetings to talk to each other, and they would make the decisions. And that's all he did, organize meetings, for the full year he worked there.
In the end he was very adamant about not taking on any other responsiblities and was fired. Luckily, the company was smallish and wised up. Looking at his linkedin, you see a similar pattern, 6-12 month gigs all over town. Maybe he'll land in a suitably Big Dumb Corp someday. My take away was, for that type of role, you really need to DO something. Banal, I know.
I'm currently working as a programmer and building a side business in the apparel industry. I didn't suspect how much my technological background would be an advantage, when creating an apparel brand in 2017.
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> I got the impression that being a dev is a low-prestige job with very slim chances of moving into any position of power. It used to be like that in EE (Poland) in the first decade of 2000. Now, with remote jobs paying $10k+ per month and low costs of living, who cares about power? Unless you genuinely want to be "important" and not just well paid.
Seriously, $10K/mo for remote engineers in Poland? If so then hooray for Poland, but most engineers in Germany make less than that.
Want to meet me downtown this afternoon for coffee/patio beer? If you want to explore adjacent fields and not unrelated fields, I've got tons of pending projects in marketing, sales, community building, even physical installation of smart home equipment. Maybe you could find a way to shape a project into something that helps you explore a new skill set. If not, it's always nice to chat to someone else questioning their life decisions. Let me know! (email in bio). I'll be available after 3PM today.
SALES. What fascinates me about sales is the ability to bring immediate value to a company. True value. If you walk in the door and bring in a new sale order for $100k: the company just made money. It may sound impossible todo. But it isn't. EG. Selling a twilio account to uber isn't like landing a mars rover. It is totally possible. Uber needs to send text messages and there are only a handful of players in that spa…
> If you passed his desk around 2pm on friday? It would be empty. And the flipside of this is that his desk is probably empty because he's on a plane, flying either to or from a potential customer's office. Sales people travel a lot . Now, you might think "oh sweet, I'll get to see all kinds of exotic locales". Unfortunately, that's not what business travel is. You will get to see three things: the airport, your hote…
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> If you passed his desk around 2pm on friday? It would be empty. And the flipside of this is that his desk is probably empty because he's on a plane, flying either to or from a potential customer's office. Sales people travel a lot . Now, you might think "oh sweet, I'll get to see all kinds of exotic locales". Unfortunately, that's not what business travel is. You will get to see three things: the airport, your hote…
Yeah. I will remember that next time I am at a NFL game. The luxury boxes up top with private bar tenders, steaks and premium beer are filled with sales guys: "working hard".
Btw, the people they're selling to aren't salespersons (the client) and they're in the suite too.
The thing I regret not doing is sales. And I mean SALES. Selling plots of land in a swamp. Selling GIs suits of armour on an aircraft carrier. Selling fake Gucci jackets out of the boot of a car. I'm talking Glengarry Glen Ross shit and worse. If I had a career timeout I think that's what I might do. Bear with me here. It's like there's two ways of looking at what life is really about. On the one hand life is about s…
Higher the margins and technical complexity the better.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I got the impression that being a dev is a low-prestige job with very slim chances of moving into any position of power. It used to be like that in EE (Poland) in the first decade of 2000. Now, with remote jobs paying $10k+ per month and low costs of living, who cares about power? Unless you genuinely want to be "important" and not just well paid.
Seriously, $10K/mo for remote engineers in Poland? If so then hooray for Poland, but most engineers in Germany make less than that.