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I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

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Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#221

Post by dmd »

__s wrote: post #213
seisvelas wrote: post #207

I started during the 2008 recession. I think the people who hurt the most back then were the people who'd just attended 6 week Ruby on Rails bootcamps and gotten 70k/year jobs (which was a cliche at the time). Suddenly, that was no longer realistic. And even among them, the passionate people found a way. I got into tech with no education during the recession just on psychotic passion alone. I was working at but hacki…

> I intuit that if you are insanely dedicated enough the universe has a weird appreciation for that kind of thing, and eventually throws you a bone. I know it's wrong and irrational but everytime I've tried that it's worked, so there's some anecdotal personal truth. I've experienced this too, & entered the profession in 2011 without completing post secondary Essentially I believe it comes down to the fact that if you…

> if you take a 0.3% chance every day, you'll land it once a year.

"actualllyyy" you've got a 2 in 3 chance of landing it each year.

1-((1-(0.3/100))^365) = 0.66

EDIT: stop upvoting me, he's right. The question isn't "what is the probability of at least one success in a year", but rather "how many trials, on average, does it take to get one success" - and the answer to THAT is in fact 333, from the geometric distribution.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#222

Post by BoorishBears »

cushychicken wrote: post #218
BoorishBears wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the article expecting there to be some inspirational story and the sour grapes were wrong, or some self-congratulatory mess not widely applicable to anyone and the sour grapes have a point... I don’t really know what that was. Right where you think the story described by the title would start, it just ends. The title is pretty inspirational in a “everything will be ok.” sort of way, but then instead of “here’s…

Things got better, of course. We were doing pretty well until 2008, when we weren’t doing so well. Then we did pretty well again. That’s the nature of life, isn’t it? It oscillates, like a sine wave, like the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe in and out. Call it intentional vagueness if you want, but I think the author's point is: this too shall pass. The particulars of the author's story are likely so speci…

I think that’s kind of my point though.

> There are ups, there are downs. Keep calm, and carry on.

That’s pretty much the title and subheading

The author’s story ends up not really adding any meat to that statement though.

They delve into their own story and I wouldn’t say there were any ultra specific Hail Mary moments that make it inapplicable to others (like people who’s stories are “I was sad then I won the lottery so that could be you”)

But it’s just, you go in expecting the author’s point to be expanded upon, and it just isn’t.

I actually read it like 3 times imagining I was missing something honestly

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#223

Post by seisvelas »

complianceowl wrote: post #214
seisvelas wrote: post #207

I started during the 2008 recession. I think the people who hurt the most back then were the people who'd just attended 6 week Ruby on Rails bootcamps and gotten 70k/year jobs (which was a cliche at the time). Suddenly, that was no longer realistic. And even among them, the passionate people found a way. I got into tech with no education during the recession just on psychotic passion alone. I was working at but hacki…

Siempre me asombra ver la diversidad de personas en HN. En que parte de Mexico estas? Saludos!

Saludos de Mérida, Yucatán!

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#224

Post by jschwartzi »

sverona wrote: post #198
imgabe wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really that hard to distinguish reassuring rhetoric from a scientific claim? Like, if you got laid off and your friend said "Hey man, it'll be ok" do you demand a peer reviewed study proving it?

You know, at this point, I probably would. But I'm a depressed person about to graduate into the middle of what looks an awful lot like the end of the world as we know it, so...

It'll probably be fine in another couple of months. It's just difficult to know for sure and payroll obligations are tough to roll back.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#225

Post by scraggz »

seisvelas wrote: post #207

I started during the 2008 recession. I think the people who hurt the most back then were the people who'd just attended 6 week Ruby on Rails bootcamps and gotten 70k/year jobs (which was a cliche at the time). Suddenly, that was no longer realistic. And even among them, the passionate people found a way. I got into tech with no education during the recession just on psychotic passion alone. I was working at but hacki…

What kinda dev work? Would definitely be interested.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#226

Post by cushychicken »

BoorishBears wrote: post #222
cushychicken wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things got better, of course. We were doing pretty well until 2008, when we weren’t doing so well. Then we did pretty well again. That’s the nature of life, isn’t it? It oscillates, like a sine wave, like the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe in and out. Call it intentional vagueness if you want, but I think the author's point is: this too shall pass. The particulars of the author's story are likely so speci…

I think that’s kind of my point though. > There are ups, there are downs. Keep calm, and carry on. That’s pretty much the title and subheading The author’s story ends up not really adding any meat to that statement though. They delve into their own story and I wouldn’t say there were any ultra specific Hail Mary moments that make it inapplicable to others (like people who’s stories are “I was sad then I won the lotte…

The author’s story ends up not really adding any meat to that statement though.

Yeah, but it sure helps their SEO rankings. XD

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#227

Post by anticsapp »

I survived the Dot Com bubble pop.

I was at the DoubleClick Willy Wonka party where they rented out Centrofly, had topless Chelsea male models made up like Oompa-Loompas. One high up executive said to me "The sushi finally arrived, it's late. $80,000 for food and it's late.".

I saw questionable startups give away $50,000 trips to Monte Carlo as some sort of weird Silicon Alley user acquisition strategy.

When the tide goes out that's your time to strike. If you have downtime start on your passion project. It might even become a product one day.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#228

Post by at-fates-hands »

formercoder wrote: post #141
hanoz wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software is still the most well paid, expanding industry of the last 40 years. In a lot of the world it's nowhere near as well paid as most of the professions which have comparable requirements in terms of the amount academic study, vocational apprenticeship and natural aptitude needed.

Even in the U.S. I’m not sure where this myth of SWE being the most well paid industry comes from. Try many finance jobs and big law, also medicine in certain specializations. They all pay much better than 95% of all software engineering jobs. It’s also well known that to be an incredibly high paid SWE, you need to be at a large public tech company. That means you’re making a huge bet on their stock - the folks makin…

> Try many finance jobs and big law, also medicine in certain specializations. They all pay much better than 95% of all software engineering jobs.

But the stress levels and amount of hours you have to put in for both finance and law are exponentially higher than being a SWE. I honestly can't remember the last time I had to work 60-70 hour weeks, non-stop for months on end as a developer. The amount of stress in those industries also pales in comparison to the stress of being a SWE.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#229

Post by anticsapp »

ritchiea wrote: post #110
Consultant32452 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really have a specialty. The last 3 years I've been doing Identity and Access Management. Before that I've done everything from physical security systems, insurance, enterprise web development, truck dispatching, point of sale... all over the place really. I'm aware of how awful this is going to sound, but I'm totally unfamiliar with the process of applying to tons of places and getting rejected. When I'm sho…

Hey I am a bit younger than you but have a very similar resume of working contracts, never applying to FAANGs and reaching out to people/networks when I am looking for work. I definitely feel like I'm doing well but it would be great to speak to someone else who has succeeded at this sort of "alternative" career path. Is there a way I can reach you to ask for some specific advice? Or would you contact me? ritchiea at…

I just emailed you.

Re: I graduated into the dot com bust as a programmer and made it – you will too

#230

Post by socketnaut »

dmd wrote: post #221
__s wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I intuit that if you are insanely dedicated enough the universe has a weird appreciation for that kind of thing, and eventually throws you a bone. I know it's wrong and irrational but everytime I've tried that it's worked, so there's some anecdotal personal truth. I've experienced this too, & entered the profession in 2011 without completing post secondary Essentially I believe it comes down to the fact that if you…

> if you take a 0.3% chance every day, you'll land it once a year. "actualllyyy" you've got a 2 in 3 chance of landing it each year. 1-((1-(0.3/100))^365) = 0.66 EDIT: stop upvoting me, he's right. The question isn't "what is the probability of at least one success in a year", but rather "how many trials, on average, does it take to get one success" - and the answer to THAT is in fact 333, from the geometric distribu…

“actualllllyyyyy” he’s saying something different. If you take a 0.3% chance for N days where N is large, you’ll land it 0.003N times, or once every ~333 days.

The chance of landing it within any particular window of K days is a different concept (which you showed how to reason about).

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