Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#81

Post by jpindar » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

keiferski wrote: post #15

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #6

I think if you call yourself a programmer you can do consulting at a relatively high rate for companies who need to get some project for their profit center done. You do that, demonstrate your worth, leave with lots of money, and they might just call you again next time they need to do something for their profit center. There's definitely ways in which being a programmer can be part of a rewarding career.

The point is that you should call yourself a consultant or businessperson, even if you want to be a programmer.

That depends on who you want to be hired by. Some companies already know exactly what they need - they need some specific software written so they are looking for a programmer.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#82

Post by scarface74 » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:26 PM UTC

williamdclt wrote: post #71

scarface74 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a company choose someone who doesn’t know the stack they are using over someone who does? Let alone 6-12 months. Knowing the ecosystem, best practices, frameworks, etc takes longer than a few weeks. Sure I could learn Java or Swift in a few weeks, but does that mean I would be a competent Android or iOS developer?

> Why would a company choose someone who doesn’t know the stack they are using over someone who does? If the two candidates are perfectly identical on every other criteria, sure. But that's not the case, the point is that most other criteria are more important that the specific tech experience when dealing with competent people. > Sure I could learn Java or Swift in a few weeks, but does that mean I would be a compet…

You’re not worried about their mobile experience until the app fails to work in a tunnel because they are expecting an always on connection or they have half their records on their mobile and half on their server and need to figure out which to use or they never had to figure out a syncing algorithm because you usually don’t have to sync things on the web since you never expect long periods of not being connected.

Edit: and I forgot to mention the biggest UI failure I made when I did mobile development a decade ago on WinCE ruggedized devices. I didn’t even think about actually taking the device out into the sun where are all of the field service techs would be working and seeing how the screen, colors and contrast looked.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#83

Post by usaar333 » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:28 PM UTC

claimred wrote: post #45

>In the real world, picking up a new language takes a few weeks of effort and after 6 to 12 months nobody will ever notice you haven’t been doing that one for your entire career. I've always been a bit baffled by notions like that. How in the world one becomes a professional in a foreign programming language tech in 6 months? It feels like every modern realworld battleworn programming stack (ecma, c++2x, .net, jvm w/…

Because most languages are highly similar and Google + your IDE is powerful enough to make up shortcomings. E.g If you have solid background in dynamically typed) languages (e.g. python, J's), GC static typed (Java) and lower level (C/c++ and/or one flavor of ASM), you've basically seen all ways of thinking. E.g. picking up something like Go can be done in a matter of weeks. Languages with more novel concepts though (e.g. That's memory model) will be much harder to onboard to.

> Is every C++ programmer a graphics programmer? Can a C++ programmer become one overnight? Highly doubt it.

That's different. It's the domain jump (be good at graphics) that is hard, not switching languages.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#84

Post by thestepafter » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:33 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #82

williamdclt wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would a company choose someone who doesn’t know the stack they are using over someone who does? If the two candidates are perfectly identical on every other criteria, sure. But that's not the case, the point is that most other criteria are more important that the specific tech experience when dealing with competent people. > Sure I could learn Java or Swift in a few weeks, but does that mean I would be a compet…

You’re not worried about their mobile experience until the app fails to work in a tunnel because they are expecting an always on connection or they have half their records on their mobile and half on their server and need to figure out which to use or they never had to figure out a syncing algorithm because you usually don’t have to sync things on the web since you never expect long periods of not being connected. Ed…

I would argue that this isn’t solely the responsibility of the programmer. This is where testing and QA comes in. Also, these are pretty basic considerations when building mobile apps and I would argue that they aren’t language specifics.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#85

Post by thestepafter » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:35 PM UTC

codegeek wrote: post #62

arbuge wrote: post #41

> Do Java programmers make more money than .NET programmers? Anyone describing themselves as either a Java programmer or .NET programmer has already lost, because a) they’re a programmer (you’re not, see above) and b) they’re making themselves non-hireable for most programming jobs. In the real world, picking up a new language takes a few weeks of effort and after 6 to 12 months nobody will ever notice you haven’t be…

I run a small company and I m looking for Web Developers. We primarily use PHP and getting into Golang but I really dont care about the language since what matters is concepts and experience with html/css/js http requests/response, client server architecture, database/CRUD, REST API etc. So i m not one of those employers :)

Same here, hire the person, treat them well, and the language doesn’t matter as long as they have experience in similar languages.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#86

Post by matz1 » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

ensiferum wrote: post #75

matz1 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then who program the things? Yup thats right: programmer. Program things and create business value can be two separate thing. Each in itself can be really hard and require different expertise.

Yes programmers program but the point was that programming new software should be the last option in solving a problem and only done as a last recourse.

>programming new software should be the last option

Sure, but thats not the concern of programmer.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#87

Post by FeatureIncomple » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:36 PM UTC

amirathi wrote: post #60

This is fantastic practical advice for software engineers early in their career. Here's some more based on the common pitfalls I see, - Don't apply to 50+ companies at one go thinking only a % of them will call you. Choose ~5 companies, do a lot of homework about their business & write to key people at these places telling in ONE paragraph what you can do for their business. If it fails, choose next ~5 and so on. - O…

- Don't apply to 50+ companies at one go thinking only a % of them will call you. Choose ~5 companies, do a lot of homework about their business & write to key people at these places telling in ONE paragraph what you can do for their business. If it fails, choose next ~5 and so on.

This is one of the best advices for people starting their careers. This comment should be at the top of this thread!

EDIT: Formatting

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#88

Post by krallja » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:37 PM UTC

mobjack wrote: post #50

goatinaboat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marketing department is a cost centre. The accountants are a cost centre. HR is a cost centre. Middle management is a cost centre. But the logic of profit centre vs cost centre is only applied to engineering departments, or workers in general. That’s really all you need to know about it.

Marketing is a huge profit center. Improving efficiency in marketing spend can bring in millions in new business value. If you can do that, it will definitely be noticed by the business.

Marketing spend is a cost. You are talking about reducing costs.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#89

Post by thestepafter » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

matz1 wrote: post #69

scarface74 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know what to code or whether you should even be coding at all if you aren’t willing to spend the time knowing the business and the customers?

In the case of me >How do you know what to code Someone need something to be made or done, I help them by writing code. >whether you should even be coding I've been doing it for long time >if you aren’t willing to spend the time knowing the business and the customers? That's precisely the reason I prefer code. I'm not that interested or even willing to spend time knowing the business and the customers.

I would argue that knowing the business and the customers makes you a much better programmer though. I would rather a programmer spend 75% of their time programming and 25% seeking to understand why they are programming instead of 90%+ heads down with little thought or attention to why they are programming.

Re: Don't Call Yourself a Programmer, and Other Career Advice (2011)

#90

Post by leetcrew » Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

cool-RR wrote: post #24

chasingthewind wrote: post #19

Re: Profit Centers vs Cost Centers I was once on a team that maintained a SaaS application that was in some sort of bizarre super-position of "cost center" and "profit center" a few years back. The company technically sold the app and made money from it, but they also tended to give it away almost for free as long as the buyer was going to be paying lots of money for the company's $FLAGSHIP_BUSINESS_SERVICE that inte…

My best conclusion is that there is no definition of "cost center" and "profit center" that makes sense. I challenge anyone to give me such a definition. This is as good a place as any to put this: Peter Drucker originally coined the term "profit center" around 1945. He later recanted, calling it "One of the biggest mistakes I have made". He later asserted that there are only cost centers within a business, and "the…

not sure this is an airtight definition, but think about employee skill vs revenue in a particular department. if you're selling software, you would expect revenue to go up a lot if you increase the overall skill of the developers. if you're a restaurant, you probably don't see a huge increase in revenue from hiring a very good website designer. basically, how hard is it to get people who do a "good enough" job? maybe "not very hard" means you're looking at a cost center and "very hard" means you're looking at a cost center.

of course the problem is that things are very interrelated at a company. maybe you can't hire good developers if you don't have good HR people to recruit them. if you have bad or not enough cleaning staff, maybe none of your "profit center" employees are actually willing to work for you because your office is filthy. maybe the event planning staff do really good parties that help with retention.

I guess I'm inclined to agree with you that there's no clear, workable definition of "cost center" or "profit center", but there are certainly areas of your company that generate more ROI than others, and I think that's kinda the point of this (crude) way of thinking about it.