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Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

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Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#271

Post by kharak »

slimed wrote: post #268
kharak wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. I don't care about CS at all. Still like the work, but wouldn't do it if it weren't for the money. Am I good at SE? No. But I went from terrible to average in a period of 4 years and am now earning 6 figures. All without side projects or unpaid learning.

If you've really not put in any time for independent study and have only 4 years experience on the job, you are not "average". You are below average, and apparently unaware of it. Not to mention a cancer on the industry. It's my job to make sure people like you don't pass the phone interview.

Comparing others to cancer, that's always a great display of character. There is much to unpack here, but I'll enjoy myself a bit and simply leave you with the concept "eternal September". Google, if you haven't heard of it.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#273

Post by andrewem »

TrackerFF wrote: post #158
d-d wrote: post #91

Unpopular opinion: it's not a good career unless you are the best of the best. IMO blue collar work is a better option because it's easier work and more stable, and lets you have a life outside work. In software the hours are increasing to no real benefit, and free time is burnt just keeping with the times. The evolution of tools, best practices and high availability of quality knowledge has made it trivial to spin u…

Before, and during my college years, I worked some pretty gnarly manual labor jobs. From decent blue-collar trade jobs, to downright digging ditches, longshoreman, to a gopher on construction sites. I can tell you this, there were some recurring themes at those places: - Injuries - Work never stops, no mater what weather - People in their 30s getting college degrees because that's the only way to get promoted in a co…

On the topic of the physical toll taken on workers (and their families) by manual labor jobs, OSHA says "Out of 4,674 worker fatalities in private industry in calendar year 2017, 971 or 20.7% were in construction — that is, one in five worker deaths last year were in construction."

Probably the most physically dangerous part of a programming job is getting there (car crashes etc).

https://www.osha.gov/oshstats/commonstats.html

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#274

Post by andreilys »

OP your comment comes across as very puritanical.

It’s okay that some people haven’t been coding since they were 8. It’s alright that they choose to have hobbies outside of work that don’t involve coding. It’s also okay that they are getting into CS to make money.

Programming has turned into a very lucrative career. Yes some people might be getting into it for “all the wrong reasons”, but it’s a job. Mercenary or missionary, both have value.

If you’re concerned about your viability in the marketplace, you shouldn’t be. The cream always rises to the top, it’s just a matter of time.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#275

Post by heedlessly3 »

Dowwie wrote: post #94

I think you have no idea how privileged you are for having the opportunity to enter the market with your background and a computer science degree in three years. I interned during summers during university starting around 2000. The dot com bubble had burst before I even graduated. The party was over. Managerialism was in full force. IT Managers at what was then a Fortune-10 financial powerhouse were going on an on ab…

I disagree with "double major".

Instead graduate in 3 years, get a master's

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#276

Post by andreilys »

kerkeslager wrote: post #236

I think that people who think money is a wrong reason to do something end up spending more time and effort getting money because they don't bother to come up with a system for making it efficiently. Which is a bit ironic. If you really don't want to care about money, make it efficiently so you can spend less time on it. If I were to do it all again, I'd do something that produces more passive income. You can make a l…

“ You can make a lot of money working for FAANG, but you are going to be working hard and for long hours. It's not an easy job, and it's fairly pointless to have money if you work away all your best years. Programming is a service industry, and real money comes from owning things, not from doing things, because things you own make you money even when you're not doing anything. ”

Except the principal you earn from your FANG job can then be used to purchase income generating assets (equities that produce dividends, real estate, etc.)

It’s not uncommon to save $50-100k+ per year which can then be put to work making money for you. This is still one of the few industries where if you start working at 22, you can achieve financial independence by 35-40 years old with fairly high probability.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#277

Post by nscalf »

iliketosleep wrote: post #176
nscalf wrote: post #163

Someone capable of making an app, website, software used inside of a company, script that gives a company insight, or whatever else you could possibly think of can make a 6 figure company on their own within a year for nearly zero dollars. This is not going away. If you think everyone will go into software, GOOD! We need more people in software, we have too many people doing less important or lower leverage things. B…

> Someone capable of making an app, website, software used inside of a company, script that gives a company insight, or whatever else you could possibly think of can make a 6 figure company on their own within a year for nearly zero dollars. I think you are overemphasizing the importance of technical skills in the context of starting a business. Marketing and management skills are far more important. I have seen peop…

If you have any capacity for those things though, they're far easier to learn and practice with. It takes years to become good at building products, but I've gone from almost no knowledge to being good enough to manage a product's marketing/advertising in just a few months. But I disagree, I think having technical skills is the most important part to starting a business. You can test as many things as you want before committing, you can build a project you're committed to for "free" (no cost out of pocket, just your time) until it's ready, etc. I don't want to understate the value of the non-technical roles, but I don't think you can overstate the value of being able to own the entire tech stack yourself.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#278

Post by agentultra »

RandomGuyDTB wrote: post #255
agentultra wrote: post #5

I've heard of people going from a bootcamp course straight into Google and optimizing 100% for the career path. They make embarrassingly more than I do, have been programming for a scant few years, and I couldn't care less. I've been programming for most of my life. I've poured hours into learning 6502, BASIC, 8086, C, C++, Perl, Python, Javascript, Common Lisp, Haskell... to say nothing of physics, linear algebra, g…

Do you recommend any books or lessons online to learn the math you mentioned? Trying to break into it but right now I'm only in Algebra II (MAT 111) in HS so a lot of stuff I look at requires more prior knowledge than I have.

Well I'm not a mathematician so I'm not sure my advice is going to be useful.

The standard pedagogy is algebra then calculus by the end of HS. For me it was learning to program computers by way of making video games that solidified my understanding of HS level geometry, trig, and calculus. That was so long ago though that I don't really have any recommendations for current courses or books to go that route. I would recommend learning enough Javascript or something to get a canvas up in your browser and start making boxes move around, accelerate, rotate, follow your mouse, etc. It doesn't have to be anything sophisticated but it can teach you a lot.

If you're eager and enjoy a challenge I'd say my one regret was not learning how to construct my own proofs until much later on. Learning how to apply maths to solve problems is a lot of fun but learning how to think abstractly and make your own arguments is much more satisfying. There's a great book that doesn't require too much more than HS level math to understand which starts to make this connection called, Introduction To Graph Theory [0] and it's one of my all-time favorites.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Graph-Theory-Dover-Mathe...

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#279

Post by mikegreenberg »

randomdata wrote: post #92
giancarlostoro wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CS isn't a career. CS is part of all careers. This right here. I was in awe when I realized that software engineering affects all industries. Even farmers, it might not be necessary, but it can make a huge difference. Also I too have been coding for a long time because I love programming. The way I see it, if I ever tire of it, I can switch careers. I'd still code regardless of who pays me to do what.

> Even farmers, it might not be necessary, but it can make a huge difference. As a software developer by day, farmer by night, I'm not sure there is much overlap. Some of the problem solving skills I learned on the farm have made me a better programmer, I expect, but I don't see much advantage in building software for my farm. Anything you can dream of is available commercially at a fraction of the cost it would take…

Consider your ability to automate tasks on your farm (watering, checking soil health, product QA). All of those tasks being automated potentially increase your output.

Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?

#280

Post by slimed »

kharak wrote: post #271
slimed wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've really not put in any time for independent study and have only 4 years experience on the job, you are not "average". You are below average, and apparently unaware of it. Not to mention a cancer on the industry. It's my job to make sure people like you don't pass the phone interview.

Comparing others to cancer, that's always a great display of character. There is much to unpack here, but I'll enjoy myself a bit and simply leave you with the concept "eternal September". Google, if you haven't heard of it.

I'd hire someone qualified, motivated, and hungry to improve over someone who barely scrapes by without wasting a single cycle worrying about their word choice on an internet forum.

Perhaps we have a different understanding of what constitutes "character".

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