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Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

zephony.com

291–300 of 308 posts

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#291
post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a six figure job from the comfort of your own home/office is fucking magic Everyone should get the chance to experience it. Most people don't get to experience a six figure job, period; the median income at peak earning agree is around $80k.

Where do you live? US median income is closer to US$63k and something like US$40k in the UK.

Yes, overall median income is around that, it's higher in some age bands and lower in others: https://www.bankrate.com/personal-finance/median-salary-by-a...

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are places in the US where this is the rate of appreciation on real estate. While there are periodic setbacks (see: 2008-2012), real estate is remarkably stable across the country, especially in major cities. The small, somewhat rural area I live in had an average appreciation of 13% last year, which is not sustainable for this area but still indicative of the overall trend.

10-15% after property tax?

And interest, maintenance, insurance, and upkeep?

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's really no other words for it: a six figure job from the comfort of your own home/office is fucking magic Everyone should get the chance to experience it.

Yes, and some of us reject it. When you work with people you never or rarely meet in person loneliness can be a big issue. If you have addiction problems, having the freedom to drink, game, smoke, ect whenever you want can also be a huge issue. Yes, not having a commute can be great, but if you are young you can usually find apartments close to your work (I bike to work for instance). What I feel is best is having th…

I have also experienced peer pressure to drink when working WITH other people, so I guess that problem can affect people either way.

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working in a different room (NOT your bedroom) is critically important to me. Sometimes it's fun to kick back and code, but the separate space that is yours, optimized for work, and assigned mentally to work is useful in that you can walk away from it and also leave your work behind. Going to bed at night with your laptop stashed close by does not inspire relaxation / restfulness.

Last year we moved out of our old (large) home in Philadelphia, where I had stolen the back 1/3 of the separate garage to be my office. My commute was about 50 feet, but it was to a separate (physically, acoustically, psychically) building. Now we live in a lovely but much smaller house where I still have an office, but it is inside the house. We've been here for 9 months so far, and we have still not really figured…

Totally. This took us months to figure out, even after a lot of "hey this is gonna be hard" pre-planning. I started by sharing Rands' "Nerd in a cave" post among others talking about interruptions and remote work (https://randsinrepose.com/archives/a-nerd-in-a-cave/) - my reactions were... uh... not the most civil initially haha - but then mostly tried a number of things until we got to "as much as possible, please try to contact each other like we're in an office" which is a good convention.

We figure out the schedule of the day before I head "in", we communicate via text, and if that fails typically it's a knock at the door just like in an office. I also mention when I have big meetings or other face-time meetings so there's awareness.

That said, after all of that it was really the threshold for things that caused interruptions was what took the most adjusting.

Most of the day I wear headphones and listen to music, which is helpful - you don't feel compelled to shout answers or run down and help unless the person asks. Eventually though we found our rhythm, and it works well. And we both appreciate that when we need each other, we're right there, and that's great.

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Frixion pens they sell in Japan are incredible for this. They're truly erasable, not like the shitty ones I remember from my childhood. The multi-color pens are especially useful. All the fun of brainstorming and erasability, without the bad smells and imprecise lines of whiteboard markers. http://www.frixion.jp/lineup/work.html?pid=product_ball-3-sl...

I would never use those to write something important in a notebook. I did this and left it in my bag, the sun shone on the bag and because of the heat most of my notes got erased. Well because friction = heat, so it was the same thing.

For the original stated purpose of "whiteboarding", they're great. And like others stated, you can recover what you wrote if you really need to by cooling the paper past a certain threshold.

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#296
post #229

> You would think that the more time you spend working, the more results you produce. No, if you are a remote worker who sits at a desk and forces yourself to work at specific times solely because you feel you should be working, you are doing it wrong. Go the other way. Figure out what times naturally work best for you, and work at those times. If you are sluggish in the afternoon, take breaks. Work early mornings, l…

I agree, but my employer runs a scrum meeting each morning. I've talked to them about moving the time later, but they are inflexible. Thus, I typically work starting at that time until quitting time. It's far from my most productive time, but it's forced upon me. They get whatever productivity I can scrounge up. If that's not much because I'm not working at peak hours, and often working at the worst possible hours fo…

seems like a no-win situation, unless everyone is on the same productivity curve as you. if they moved the meeting, couldn’t that negatively affect your coworkers?

i'm a morning person and am pretty useless later in the day now. it wasn’t like this when i was younger.

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#297

As someone who developed their career from the comfort of their bedroom, I always find it very interesting to see people all over the world from different cultures experiencing the same basic issues with this kind of work set up. I absolutely loved working from my bedroom for years. It was great (despite the common down falls like the ones listed here). My family used to make fun of me at parties and seasonal celebra…

I think you've no idea what commuting costs anymore. 100 a week would be absolutely ridiculous. If the company provides parking you're looking at around 70 per month. If you have to pay for parking that might be as much as 250 per month, so still way below 100 per week. This kind of contribution certainly adds up, but you're not looking at 1 million in retirement funds. Also, you built yourself a detached office, which isn't uncommon and you frequently needed to purchase office supplies and I'm guessing your own hardware and computer software. That's a substantial initial overhead that eats away at how much you might be saving by working from home.

Also, consider that many companies now allow employees to work from home for part of every week while still supplying hardware and office supplies. That 250/70 per month commuting cost is down to about 150/40. Just accounting for the expense of building your home office you could already be in the hole compared to people commuting only some of the time for the same job.

Also, none of this accounts for the additional considerations office's typically provide like free lunches and social/professional networking opportunities.

Personally, I'm a software developer so I can pretty much decide for myself if I want a job that allows me to work from home, and after doing the real math, I found you can basically go either way and expect roughly the same financial outcome, so the real choice is about what you actually want. I like the social aspects, so I take jobs where I can come in and expect coworkers to be present. What you want may be different, but neither option is inherently more advantageous.

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#298
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean I can put my old, blanked out by sun, notes in the fridge and they will reappear ? If that works you made my day, sir !

Incredible indeed. Please update to let us know if it worked!

It worked ! I'll check if it stays dark but my notes have been restored ! Thanks !

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#299

As someone who developed their career from the comfort of their bedroom, I always find it very interesting to see people all over the world from different cultures experiencing the same basic issues with this kind of work set up. I absolutely loved working from my bedroom for years. It was great (despite the common down falls like the ones listed here). My family used to make fun of me at parties and seasonal celebra…

I think you've no idea what commuting costs anymore. 100 a week would be absolutely ridiculous. If the company provides parking you're looking at around 70 per month. If you have to pay for parking that might be as much as 250 per month, so still way below 100 per week. This kind of contribution certainly adds up, but you're not looking at 1 million in retirement funds. Also, you built yourself a detached office, whi…

If you use the IRS standard rate of $.58 per mile as the cost of driving, then if you have a ~17 mile commute (each way), you'd expect to spend about $100 per week on average. That doesn't include the opportunity cost of your time or parking.

A quick googling suggests that the average driving commute is 16 miles so $100/week seems like a reasonable estimate (again assuming parking is free and you value your time at $0/hr).

Re: Becoming a high performing software developer working from your bedroom

#300
post #296
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but my employer runs a scrum meeting each morning. I've talked to them about moving the time later, but they are inflexible. Thus, I typically work starting at that time until quitting time. It's far from my most productive time, but it's forced upon me. They get whatever productivity I can scrounge up. If that's not much because I'm not working at peak hours, and often working at the worst possible hours fo…

seems like a no-win situation, unless everyone is on the same productivity curve as you. if they moved the meeting, couldn’t that negatively affect your coworkers? i'm a morning person and am pretty useless later in the day now. it wasn’t like this when i was younger.

I doubt it as the meeting is pointless bullshit for the managers like all scrum meetings I've ever been part of. Also, there is no need to be alert or mentally present for it. The engineering team is ok with moving it, but management isn't. Also, I'm talking about 10:30 or 11 instead of 9:30. It's not exactly a huge move. Starting the day off with the most unproductive task possible, is a terrible idea. I'm not a morning person, but I do get decent work done once I'm awake. I bet it's even worse for morning people to have half an hour to an hour at the start of their day be a pointless, monotonous meeting hearing about other people's projects that one simply does not give a fuck about (every scrum meeting ever).
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