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

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

#171

Post by RhodesianHunter »

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…

> 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 think this is only true if what you're working on is simple, like crud apps.

It takes longer to be intimately familiar with a language's concurrency model, pros and cons of major libraries and frameworks and the ability to make such decisions quickly and without learning hurdles, etc.

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

#172

Post by SomeOtherThrow »

curuinor wrote: post #141
pascalxus wrote: post #133

Much of what he says about business and programming is all true, at least in theory for well run, competitive businesses. But, for instance, sometimes in govt, they never actually calculate the ROI of a project or employee. They just think: well, we have money that needs spending, let's higher some people to build some seemingly useful software. Determining what's useful and what's not ahead of time is harder than it…

Don't be in the bay area, that's how. That's why they pay bay area peeps the big bucks: the standard of skill is higher here, because of the community and other factors.

Nah it’s just harder to fix wages low when you can job hop so easily.

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

#173

Post by booleandilemma »

scarface74 wrote: post #44
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…

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?

Agreed. The job doesn’t exist to train you.

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

#174

Post by fimdomeio »

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'm not in the usual hiring circuit but went to one or two interviews for having a feel for that world. I always had the attitude of being the guy who will learn whatever is needed to successfully finish the task at hand, and I have work to show for it. It's amazing how's that was worth nothing for people that interviewed me, compared with how many years of react experience I had.

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

#175

Post by candybar »

abtinf wrote: post #158
candybar wrote: post #152

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? I would separate this into two separate categories - big tech companies (or others with…

> It was a little painful but everything shipped on time. Your last sentence would seem to contradict the entire body of your comment. You describe mobile development as a fundamentally different thing, but then your first gig was to work on a large project, the result of which was shipping on time at the cost of a “little” pain.

That's fair - what I meant by it being a different career isn't that skills aren't transferable at all but that you solve different kinds of problems entirely, as distinct from a difference in stack. And if you hired me then as a mobile developer, I'd have quit, so you don't want to hire non mobile engineers into mobile roles. Language/stack is a red herring here in the sense that Java backend development is a lot closer to Ruby backend development than it is to Android development.

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

#176

Post by RhodesianHunter »

codingslave wrote: post #146
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…

Learning rate doesnt really matter anymore. If you want to do really well you basically have to work for FAANG, who will basically only vet you on your algorithms skills. They completely negate everything else. So none of it matters, all that matters is if at interview time you can find the most optimal solution. If you want to work for companies paying less money, then sure, experience counts.

There are lots of opportunities to make that same type of comp at non FAANG companies. They're just not so clumped together, and don't have a cult-like following pumping them up in every thread.

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

#178

Post by Gunax »

rgoulter wrote: post #12

> ... just like how most good candidates aren't on offer. I know this is a minor statement (and not really important to the advice otherwise), but I liked this discussion that there can be various reasons why good candidates would struggle to find a job: https://danluu.com/hiring-lemons/

Thanks for the read... That was exactly how I've felt only I was not able to articulate it so well.

The best dev I know didn't go to college (he tried to be a traffic controller when other people would have been at university). He's exactly the kind of person who would be doing "elliptic curve partial nonce bias attacks" over the weekend.

I've seen him have to explain stuff like endianness to people with masters degrees.

I don't know him well enough to ask, but I think he is stuck working for us because 80% of jobs are off-limits without a degree.

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

#179

Post by clarry »

mcloide wrote: post #29

”Writing bug-free code is not a goal. ” Debatable. A poorly written software will generate as much cost as a manual labor if not more.

> Debatable. A poorly written software will generate as much cost as a manual labor if not more.

Debatable. There's lots of poorly written and buggy software out there that still saves people time. Fixing it might not be worth the cost.

And, on the other hand, for some company, fixing bugs is generating them money. Broken window fallacy much? Yeah, someone has to pay.

It's sad to see that in our industry, selling pristine and flawless windows is difficult once the party who has to pay sees its cost. Turns out it's often much easier to sell a cheap window made by duck taping pieces of broken glass, nevermind if there are some gaps and holes in it.

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

#180

Post by mplanchard »

dejawu wrote: post #124

Sure, this post might objectively get you to a higher paying software job, but good God I hope I never start seeing the world like this guy or ever have to work with people who do. Am I really reading the same article as everyone else? The one I'm reading is filled with these sociopathic gems: > Add revenue. Reduce costs. Those are your only goals. > You’re in the business of unemploying people. If you think that is…

Elsewhere in this thread, someone posted this rebuttal to the article, which I think is much more nuanced and well thought through. It also emphasizes the value of relationships and kindness in a way the original article does not: https://yosefk.com/blog/do-call-yourself-a-programmer-and-ot...

I wound up subscribing to that blog’s RSS feed, because the articles, though infrequent, seem to be generally interesting and thoughtful.

Edit: I also completely agree with you re: TFA.

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