Public speaking. It's a skill I developed later in life, and could have used very frequently had I had previously. The power of oration to influence people is quite amazing.
Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
41–50 of 194 posts
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#42I am in the middle of a technology pivot - moving away from the on-prem/Microsoft stack to AWS development/Devops/networking and the $cool_kids JavaScript full stack along with Python.
Also adding on Docker/Kubernetes and ElasticSearch.
Finally, I’ve railed against the need for LeetCode style studying and I haven’t had an interview in almost 20 years that has required it, but I guess I will get back to basics and start working through it.
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#43I would love for us tech folk to dip our toes in idea history, hermeneutics and rhetoric. We need to think about the way we think and talk about the way we talk. I mean reflect on the state of things, instead of blindly increasing shareholder value. We glorify engagement, but we’re arguably glorifying how addictive our creations are. What if apps maximized for less time spent, like help users just do their work and g…
I say dive in, don't be shy. There is so much that these specific intellectual paths lead to.
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#44You don't state your programming background but you mentioned C# in previous comments. I would recommend machine learning as a very useful skill to acquire. I have to be more specific because "machine learning", "artificial intelligence", and "data science" are really large topics that can encompass difficult math and PhD research. For application programmers, I think a very realistic subset is using an existing "mac…
> ...just like SQL was 25 years ago. Oh boy have I got news for you :)
What’s the news?
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#45Do something that would be orthogonal to the current sum of your life experiences.
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#46Empathy. The tech giants are having massive scandals because they lack it. Whatever you do, be here for the end user. Think about their lives and make it no worse.
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Empathy-Case-Rational-Compass...
That seems similar to the concept of "ruinous empathy". In other words, don't waste your feelings on others, especially if you may have to fire them.
Having been on both sides of that coin, being fired and having to fire others, it's clear to me that reducing the amount of pain is important, even if such an act must be done.
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#47a personal skill which improves life over time, e.g. take up meditation, tai chi, yoga, regular fitness or similar
If planning on going freelance/solo develop presentation skills. (reading up on stuff like https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321668790?ie=UTF8&tag=gar...)
For technical skills, really depends on where your interest and skills are ... look for longterm trends and learn stuff that matches your personality/interests/skills
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#48Sales. You will have a different job every day and meet different people until the end of this world.
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#49I've just begun my dive into games programming (coming from a web dev background) which has taught me to think about problems from a data-driven perspective, and how to write performant code.
It's also a great way to learn how complex programs are structured and iterated upon. Games have so many layers of abstractions which are fun to explore :) I'm following the Handmade Hero series which aims to create a production-quality game from scratch - https://handmadehero.org/ - building and engine and all.
Re: Ask HN: What skills to acquire in 2019?
#50Empathy. The tech giants are having massive scandals because they lack it. Whatever you do, be here for the end user. Think about their lives and make it no worse.
How I understand empathy in our context: in addition to privacy and security, have empathy for your real user, who chances are is not the middle class educated fashionable 20-something from the Google commercial. Your real user might be elderly, or poor, or uneducated, or a kid, or a harried parent.
If you convinced them to pay you, maybe that money wasn't just pocket change to them. Maybe you sold them a hope for an honest well earned diversion, or something that could make their lives a bit easier or more streamlined or fulfilling. Don't sell out that hope with nagging, annoying up/cross-sells, attempts to addict, or by making the user feel unsafe and paranoid, or by tripping them up with unasked for "innovative" features/UI overhauls or confusing ux.
Given the scale at which our work is deployed, any one of us has the power to unwittingly cause, in aggregate, huge amounts of stress, as if people need any more of that these days.
Excuse the rant, this year my cynicism with a big chunk of our industry has reached a high I couldn't have imagined.