Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 491 posts

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#241

Post by [deleted] »

bshimmin wrote: post #231
dolguldur wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing that! How did you transition to contracting?

I spent about three years contracting, and the way I started was to ask the company I was a permanent employee at (who routinely hired contractors) if they would like to hire me as a contractor instead of as a perm. They said "OK" and so I quit as a perm and restarted as a contractor (I actually also managed to negotiate a four day week and one of the four days at home, back when remote working was much less of a thi…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#242

Post by chrisper »

DerekQ wrote: post #233
dolguldur wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing that! How did you transition to contracting?

Contracting in Ireland and in the UK is an easy transition as most contracts are run through agencies, so you don’t have to network or go looking for clients like you might have to do in the US. A simple start point was to approach agencies who had active contract roles in the same way you would for permanent roles. Starting a new contract is just like starting a new permanent job — hand in your one month’s notice an…

Could you maybe name such an agency or at least what they are called?

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#243

Post by DerekQ »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #228
DerekQ wrote: post #203

Moving 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've been contracting for two years now, and I agree with the majority of what you said. (UK here) However, I've recently started considering returning to permanent, primarily for one reason. At the age of 50, half of which has been in a software development career, I find being a code-monkey -- even a senior one -- quite unsatisfying. I would like to return to leadership roles I had while I was permanent, but they a…

This is very true. Management roles tend to be kept in-house.

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#245

Post by DerekQ »

chrisper wrote: post #242
DerekQ wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contracting in Ireland and in the UK is an easy transition as most contracts are run through agencies, so you don’t have to network or go looking for clients like you might have to do in the US. A simple start point was to approach agencies who had active contract roles in the same way you would for permanent roles. Starting a new contract is just like starting a new permanent job — hand in your one month’s notice an…

Could you maybe name such an agency or at least what they are called?

Every IT recruitment agency in Dublin places contractors as well as permanent. You'll find them all listed on IrishJobs.ie. Search for .net, c#, java, and filter for contract roles.

(Stay well clear of Computer Futures. They have a terrible rep in Ireland and in the UK.)

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#246

Post by Dowwie »

One of my defining decisions was taking leave and eventually dropping out of a top executive mba program a third of the way in, before I had to take a six figure loan to pay the rest. If I am to be brutally honest with myself, the decision not to finish wasn't entirely my own, but I could have finished.

The shit really hit the fan in my life and this forced me to take stock. Had I not been forced, I probably would have continued down the mba path and career change. Losing my father after two very sick years, being laid off by a business in collapse, having a six figure student loan application on my desk, and other crucial "etc" pushed me to reevaluate my life decisions.

Here are some important lessons learned:

An MBA from a reputable program was leading me into debt servitude and constraints that would shape my career. Debt constraints are major life constraints.

Changing careers to do something that was more meaningful can lead to many new opportunities. I left prime brokerage in financial services and was planning to transition into healthcare, hospital cfo type of work. Helping create novel solutions to rising costs of healthcare was a mission I could align myself with. Helping protect investment bank lending to hedge funds through margin financing paid well but served no higher purpose. Healthcare doesn't have a monopoly on purpose, though, and many who work in healthcare do so just to collect a paycheck. I realized I could achieve my goal elsewhere and with fewer bureaucratic constraints, but at a cost-- as an entrepreneur!

Entrepreneurship has been everything I expected it to be. I had to become the technical expert I needed as a partner. It's been a long, grueling experience. I am so fortunate to have taken it.

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#247

Post by TheArcane »

DerekQ wrote: post #203

Moving 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 work with mobile robotics and machine learning. I wonder if it's too niche for it to enable me to comfortably start contracting instead of jumping from one permanent role to another.

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#248

Post by TheArcane »

rufius wrote: post #107
DIVx0 wrote: post #38

Taking a chance and joining a very large corporation. Previously I was all about startups or small companies and was very much against the mega-corp environment. Over several months a colleague "recruited" me to join their team and I don't regret it. I've been able to climb pretty high within this corp and it has been a wild ride. Never in a million years would I have thought I'd have any sort of influence over techn…

Conversely, I took the opposite leap from a relatively successful corporate career to startup. I’ve learned a huge amount and appreciated the opportunities and flexibility I have. I think experiences in both worlds are valuable and wouldn’t trade either experience for anything else.

I'd love to read a write-up on the trade offs between the two in 2018's context.

Re: Ask HN: What was the best decision you made in your career?

#249

Post by ChrisRackauckas »

To start using Julia. I was using that weird smattering of Python + Cython/Numba, MATLAB, R, C, and Fortran for a long time during my PhD. When I was developing stochastic differential equation solvers for a paper, I gave Julia a good try. The competitive advantage that it gave me accelerated my research a massive amount and the resulting research was instrumental in landing a position at MIT. I learned: don't follow trends and look for tools that give you an advantage over others. Invest the time when you can, and reap the rewards.
Post reply on HN