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Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

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Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#191

Post by ScottFree »

scarface74 wrote: post #190
ScottFree wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bringing up "survivorship bias" every single time this topic comes up goes far, far beyond just talking about the possibility of failure. It's a self defeating mantra people use to justify their inaction. And even if it is "survivorship bias" and for every 1 example of someone that succeeds there are 1 million examples of people who have failed, the cost of failure is so low that you should try anyway. It costs you n…

How is the cost of failure low? If you decide to go in business for yourself and it doesn’t make any money for 3 years, and you are just making non west coast salaries, you’re still potentially out of half a million dollars or more in total comp. And any money that you invested in your company. If you are talking about starting a business on the side and working full time, that means you are sacrificing some combinat…

Let me be crystal clear: I'm talking about building up a side business in your spare time.

> If you are talking about starting a business on the side and working full time, that means you are sacrificing some combination of time with your family, exercise, and time that you could be putting in getting ahead at your current job or acquiring skills that would help you get a better paying job.

You think you somehow learn nothing attempting to build up a side project? I've yet to see an argument made successfully that you learn absolutely nothing marketable by working on a side project.

But let's say you manage to pull that off: all you've lost is a little bit of time. That's extremely low from a business perspective. Software is rather unique in that you don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars setting up supply and manufacturing lines. And, the potential payoff is huge.

Now, maybe running a company isn't your thing. That's a fair argument. But fear of failure is a terrible way to go through life.

On a side note, why are you so relentlessly negative? Most of the comments you've made in this thread are needlessly hostile, sarcastic and bitter. Did a side project touch you inappropriately as a child?

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#192

Post by marmaduke »

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #59
marmaduke wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're basically spamming the world with programming languages, libraries and products only to wind them down and start again Replace libraries, languages and products with statistics, hypotheses and figures and you have described scientific research. The point is that each iteration learns from the last, in principle, even if they aren’t backwards or forwards compatible.

Replace statistics, hypotheses and figures with bread, donuts and cake and you have described a bakery. Hmmm cake... How can you not like cake?

I do like cake. But I think baked goods are somewhat solved problem.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#193

Post by jondubois »

dyeje wrote: post #122
cryptica wrote: post #114

I cannot relate to this article at all. It's the polar opposite of my experience. I've been desperately trying to get into a management position for years. I started programming at age 14 and am now approaching 30. I created projects using basically every major programming language, created and maintained a complex open source project which now has over 5K GitHub stars and several tens of thousands of weekly download…

In my experience, people are usually promoted into management when they demonstrate leadership. I see you talk about your technical ability a lot, but that is generally not the core competency of an engineering manager. I suggest working on those abilities. It is very much so one of those situations where doing the job will get you the title.

I run and maintain a successful open source project which is used by thousands of companies and has a small team of contributors who work for free. So maybe your definition of leadership is outdated. It should be all about results. All the rest is BS IMO.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#194

Post by jondubois »

ikeyany wrote: post #129
cryptica wrote: post #114

I cannot relate to this article at all. It's the polar opposite of my experience. I've been desperately trying to get into a management position for years. I started programming at age 14 and am now approaching 30. I created projects using basically every major programming language, created and maintained a complex open source project which now has over 5K GitHub stars and several tens of thousands of weekly download…

It sounds like you're not quite used to the political game that comes with getting ahead in the corporate world. If that is the case, do you honestly believe you would be happy in management?

Yes. If I had the power, I would put an end to these games.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#195

Post by sk5t »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #156
wjossey wrote: post #22

I’ve been reviewing a lot of career path documents recently for different engineering orgs, and every one is fairly uniform in that you either progress into management, team leadership, or architecture (or some blend of the three). If not, you’ll stagnate at a pretty high level, but stagnate none the less. I’ve been noodling on this for a while, and I think maybe a fourth track at a lot of organizations should be spe…

Most of the companies I’ve worked for have utterly no possible capacity for formally managing special projects. It will either be an argument over what business goals the project must serve, whose autonomy gets to drive the project, politics about who gets to work on what. The only successful special projects I’ve ever seen are ones that are off the books initially, possibly even pissing off product managers or other…

I've done special projects at a large, somewhat stodgy company, and the general pattern was that you had about nine months to do good work, just engineering and business folks together, after which point the "project management office" would get their hooks into it, and any further scheduled meetings would be prevented from achieving anything productive in deference to the new project manager's interest in gantt charts.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#196

Post by wjossey »

awinder wrote: post #145
doppel wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this article a few months ago about being a Principal Engineer, https://blog.dbsmasher.com/2019/01/28/on-being-a-principal-e... , and ever since it’s been my designated career path / plan. I am in the lucky position of working in a small-but-growing team of developers, so I get to choose my career advancement and have support to follow this road. I think a principal engineer is the right mix of (still) develop…

I hopped between lead -> manager -> lead and I agree, though it’s informative to see the problem approached from both sides if you can stomach a manager stint (I had much trouble). Lead/Manager pairs have roughly the same success metrics IMO but split responsibilities and focus areas so you’re definitely right there, in my experience manager/lead is the same level on different career paths

If you ever decide to try the manager route again, look me up. My email is in my profile.

I do free one on one mentoring for managers, and my business also has a manager training program we run twice a year that really helps people perform better in the role. A lot of studies say some people aren’t “meant to be managers”, but I really believe that’s the exception not the rule.

Would be happy to help!

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#197

Post by scarface74 »

ScottFree wrote: post #191
scarface74 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the cost of failure low? If you decide to go in business for yourself and it doesn’t make any money for 3 years, and you are just making non west coast salaries, you’re still potentially out of half a million dollars or more in total comp. And any money that you invested in your company. If you are talking about starting a business on the side and working full time, that means you are sacrificing some combinat…

Let me be crystal clear: I'm talking about building up a side business in your spare time. > If you are talking about starting a business on the side and working full time, that means you are sacrificing some combination of time with your family, exercise, and time that you could be putting in getting ahead at your current job or acquiring skills that would help you get a better paying job. You think you somehow lear…

That even lessens the chances by starting it on the “side”. You will be competing with people who are better funded and are able to commit to it full time.

What are the chances that a “side business” is going to make $150K to 200K a year?

On a side note, why are you so relentlessly negative? Most of the comments you've made in this thread are needlessly hostile, sarcastic and bitter. Did a side project touch you inappropriately as a child?

The whole point of the article is about people who don’t want to be in management. It’s makes no sense to start a business if you don’t have any desire to be in management.

Also, one thing that I’ve learned over the years, is the easiest way to make money during a goal rush is to sell shovels. There are plenty of opportunities out there to make good money working for a consulting company that matters to well funded startups and corporations who want to outsource development/infrastructure. Guess what my two areas are?

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#198

Post by wjossey »

mads wrote: post #77
wjossey wrote: post #22

I’ve been reviewing a lot of career path documents recently for different engineering orgs, and every one is fairly uniform in that you either progress into management, team leadership, or architecture (or some blend of the three). If not, you’ll stagnate at a pretty high level, but stagnate none the less. I’ve been noodling on this for a while, and I think maybe a fourth track at a lot of organizations should be spe…

I used to have the same idea about those small teams given autonomy to hack and get some clear objective done whatever it takes. I think a lot of corporate environments is really missing this option. In my mind they were called "swat teams".

At my prior position, that was the term as well. I ran said team.

That being said, it wasn’t codified in our career mapping. It was sort of a “one off” experiment.

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#199

Post by wjossey »

heipei wrote: post #29
wjossey wrote: post #22

I’ve been reviewing a lot of career path documents recently for different engineering orgs, and every one is fairly uniform in that you either progress into management, team leadership, or architecture (or some blend of the three). If not, you’ll stagnate at a pretty high level, but stagnate none the less. I’ve been noodling on this for a while, and I think maybe a fourth track at a lot of organizations should be spe…

Thank you for saying that, this was exactly my conclusion when reviewing my own goals and notes on how other companies build products. If your company doesn't have this special-projects track in place, then your only option at some point is to quit and start your own thing I'm afraid.

Nah. You can advocate for change! Someone has to be the catalyst, why not you?

Re: Why Good Developers Are Promoted into Unhappiness (2007)

#200

Post by wjossey »

mooreds wrote: post #115
blub wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder? You are literally a one man marketing and finance department.

> You really think that you can spend most of your time designing and coding as a contractor or start-up founder? Sure, if you don't mind failing. :) I agree with blub. Coding and designing is part of a startup but if you spend a second more doing that than you have to, you are setting your company up to fail. Instead you should be talking to customers and churning out whatever the absolute minimum code is that will…

I spend a huge amount of time coding as a startup founder, but also a huge amount of time doing 10 other things too. Owning your own business tends to mean doing a lot of everything, with coding just being one of those things.
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