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The reality is that you're going to have an easier time making connections and getting access to opportunities if you're well-mannered, sociable, and attractive.
This must be fake. This does not describe any software developer I’ve ever met. (Maybe because I’m on the east coast but engineering culture can’t be that different, can it?)
I'm pretty convinced that the most important thing you can do for your career after achieving basic technical competence is to be more attractive, both physically and socially. The reality is that you're going to have an easier time making connections and getting access to opportunities if you're well-mannered, sociable, and attractive.
This just in: there's bias based on appearance. Outside of SV, being the wrong skin tone, wrong gender, not pretty enough, too pretty, not tall enough, etc are all attributes that have been unfairly affecting workers, since, well, forever.
I'm pretty convinced that the most important thing you can do for your career after achieving basic technical competence is to be more attractive, both physically and socially. The reality is that you're going to have an easier time making connections and getting access to opportunities if you're well-mannered, sociable, and attractive.
> Only the previous week, he says, he returned from a 10-day trip to Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Before that, he boasts, he journeyed to a yoga retreat and juice cleanse in Bali, the perfect setting to unload the stress he absorbs working at a well-known tech company in Silicon Valley. After ending a five-year marriage and shedding 10 pounds of subcutaneous fat several years back — his sun-kissed body now carb- and toxin-f…
> Only the previous week, he says, he returned from a 10-day trip to Italy’s Amalfi Coast We really need to start CO2 emissions from flying / day of vacation, because 10 days to Italy is really ridiculous.
However, as you get older, develop wrinkles and grey hair, that appearance of being older far outweighs your experience in initial impressions that you make. I've personally been a software engineer since 1995, quite a while now. My hair is grey, my face has wrinkles, and I'm an expert in several domains. When I go interview for a new job, it's typically by people younger and less experienced than me, since I'm definitely past the median age in this industry. I get asked questions like, "do you feel you still have relevant knowledge", or "we do things differently than in your day", or "do you think you can work in a fast paced environment", etc.
Tech is arrogant and judgmental and image matters a lot. I can understand how people might resort to plastic surgery to buy themselves a few non-judgmental years.
> Only the previous week, he says, he returned from a 10-day trip to Italy’s Amalfi Coast We really need to start CO2 emissions from flying / day of vacation, because 10 days to Italy is really ridiculous.
Wouldn't you prefer _longer_ vacations? With shorter vacations you're incurring the carbon cost for flights for less value. Unless that's what you were implying.