111–120 of 135 posts
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This is unhealthy, try to find what you enjoy! At least a little bit. If you haven't noticed it yet this will start wearing you down.
I dont enjoy any of it and have been looking for an out into management for 12 years. At this point im a depressed robot with hardly any useful output. Life sucks.
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Ignoring the framework of the day and “learning the fundamentals” won’t get you past the either HR filters or make you competitive with developers who are constantly doing Resume Driven Development and have a resume that is buzzword compliant. Especially if you are an older developer (I’m 45) and you will just be seen as just another old out of touch developer. That being said, the further down the stack you go, the…
Thanks for great advice! May I know how you keep yourself relevant at that age and what approach you changed from earlier when you get old?
As far as staying relevant, I’ve developed a network of trusted local external recruiters and I speak with them to see what companies want.
When I’ve been looking for a job, I’ve found jobs where I have the listed “must have” skills and I want the “nice to have” skills. Rinse and repeat.
I don’t do non work related side projects. I will work extra hours and volunteer for a low risk project using new to me technology just to learn.
I want to say that I would change jobs if I saw the technology that my current company is using is out of sync with the job market all other things being equal. But, every job change I’ve done in the past decade has come with both more pay and more resume building opportunities.
Now after job hopping and following my own advice for a decade, I’ve reached close to the local market (Atlanta) maximum unless I start working for a consulting company (not contracting/staff augmentation).
>Working on boring, crappy projects for a living is just killing me, and you never know until you get on the job. How do you deal with this? I deal with it by choosing not to work on crappy projects. If a company or the project they want you to work on is crappy, don't choose them! There aren't many non-crappy tech jobs in my neck of the woods, so I branched out on my own. I do the odd consulting gig if you're a smal…
Most don't have this luxury, and have to eat what moldy bread they can get their hands on.
There isn't enough to go around in most places.
Motivation is fickle. Cultivate discipline. Set aside time to do something every day. No exceptions. Don't worry about how long you do it for. Discipline is something you can learn.
I agree with this, but when you get drained all day on mindless tasks, you want to go home and forget all that rather then jump straight into work again even if it's interesting own project
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Ignoring the framework of the day and “learning the fundamentals” won’t get you past the either HR filters or make you competitive with developers who are constantly doing Resume Driven Development and have a resume that is buzzword compliant. Especially if you are an older developer (I’m 45) and you will just be seen as just another old out of touch developer. That being said, the further down the stack you go, the…
There are paths and trade-offs. a) Focus on technologies that have staying power. I don't think Java EE jobs will really ever disappear b) instead of flavour of the month, focus on the flavour of the decade? i.e. Go and Kubernetes seems to be the trend :) c) instead of resume-driven development, focus on having a network. Most of my jobs have merged because a former colleague, classmate or friend realized I knew some…
B) There are still a relatively few jobs in Go and they don’t seem to be paying more than your standard enterprise language. I’m not wasting my time learning a language/technology with both a smaller market and no pay premium.
But K8s while I think is overhyped and something being chased because of the ooh shiny effect, it is the type of technology I would jump on, insist on a pay premium and ride the hype curve.
C) you still need to do RDD. Who you know will only get you so far. Who you know gives you the inside scoop on opportunities but you get jobs based on what you know. No one is going to stick their neck out for someone who is objectively unqualified.
I don't. Turning my hobby into my career killed my hobby and, really, that's fine. It affords me a good life and the ability to discover and enjoy new hobbies. If you're worried about "keeping up," then I would suggest you 1) ignore the rat-race that is framework-of-the-day and 2) focus on learning fundamentals of your domain. Sure, you'll miss out on some hip startup jobs but typical employers don't care about your…
I know a lot of people (myself included) got into the field by turning a hobby into a career, but I don't think it's healthy to try to force yourself to spend 12 or 14 hours a day crunching away at the keyboard. Even if you truly do love programming.
Honestly, my advice is to find other hobbies and interests to do outside of work that are not programming related. Recharge during the week and use weekend time to work on side projects if you feel up to.
If you are feeling burnt out by the daily slog, I don't see how forcing yourself to "be motivated" to do more work will help.
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Good luck with that.
In 17years I’m yet to have an interview where I’m quizzed on any JS framework or a store that isn’t relational, as a web and back end dev. Not heard the word GraphQL uttered In person ever :-). A lot of jobs exist where they just want to know you can code and assume you’ll learn what you need as you go along. Experience in their languages seems most important.
By the time I got back out on the market ten years later, I was already 35 and I was able to talk about projects, architecture, trade offs involved in shipping, etc and I was applying for mid level roles - partially because I had become an expert beginner “engineer” even though I was good “developer” and they were getting me cheaply.
Eight years and three jobs later, my engineering skills had caught up with my age and I was applying for jobs where they needed a “change agent” or “someone who could speak experience into the team”. Now, I rarely get asked any programming questions. It’s mostly architectural and soft skill questions.
But, in the grand scheme of things. There are only two reasons anyone is interviewing for a job. Either they are being forced to find another job because of a layoff or the current environment has become inhospitable or they are choosing to find another job for more money/new challenges.
In the former case, where I need to find a job now, I need my resume to be buzzword compliant so I can find a job/contract fast. I also need to be ready to for more technical interviews especially for contracting.
In the latter case, I can be more picky and find jobs where they are looking for “principal developers”/team lead type of positions and the interviews tend to be more architectural/theoretical.
On a side note, I’m not sure what I want to do next. If I choose the cloud consulting/“digital transformation consultant”/“enterprise solution architect/consultant” route. Knowing a little about everything will come in handy - including something like Graph QL.
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So what? I don't care to compete with those developers or work for the companies who hire them.
If you live in a place where you can be selective with who you work for, I think this is the right approach.
>Working on boring, crappy projects for a living is just killing me, and you never know until you get on the job. How do you deal with this? I deal with it by choosing not to work on crappy projects. If a company or the project they want you to work on is crappy, don't choose them! There aren't many non-crappy tech jobs in my neck of the woods, so I branched out on my own. I do the odd consulting gig if you're a smal…
> working on an algorithmic trading bot right now. Any suggestions on how to approach building algorithmic trading bots?
https://qoppac.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html
A google will turn up plenty of videos and interviews too.
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There are paths and trade-offs. a) Focus on technologies that have staying power. I don't think Java EE jobs will really ever disappear b) instead of flavour of the month, focus on the flavour of the decade? i.e. Go and Kubernetes seems to be the trend :) c) instead of resume-driven development, focus on having a network. Most of my jobs have merged because a former colleague, classmate or friend realized I knew some…
A) and now you’re competing in a commoditized market where they can easily hire someone cheaply. This would be the type of skillset I would keep up to date if I need a job/contract now and I wasn’t on the market by choice. B) There are still a relatively few jobs in Go and they don’t seem to be paying more than your standard enterprise language. I’m not wasting my time learning a language/technology with both a small…