Rules of thumb for a 1x developer • Hacker News Board

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#71

Post by swilliamsio » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

jki275 wrote: post #29

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

I know plenty of devs who are 40+ and still writing code and getting paid well to do it. In fact I worked with a consultant who was over 60 not too long ago. I am almost certain there is something else going on here other than your age. In fact, I've never once been asked my age in an interview, and I'm a couple of years into my second career doing this after I retired from my first.

Even if the interviewers were concerned about your age, you'd never be asked how old you were in an interview. That's grounds for a discriminatory law suit basically anywhere in the world.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#72

Post by sanderjd » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

I don't have experience with this yet, but being in my mid 30s now, I worry about it of course. But (again granting that I don't have your experience with this) what it looks like to me out there is that there seem to be fewer jobs that make sense for me at smaller more speculative companies, unless it's a CTO type role, but I see "senior" roles at large established companies that are more attractive anyway. (The problem is that I have to go study irrelevant undergrad algorithms in order to do the interviews, but that has been worth it for the jobs so far.)

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#73

Post by hycaria » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:24 PM UTC

codesections wrote: post #56

I was very surprised to read > 90%, of what I learn at one job is completely useless for the next one. That has not been my experience at all (and I've had some pretty major job changes, including lawyer -> software developmer). If I had to put a number on it, I'd say more like 50% of what I've learned at each job is transferable. How about everyone else? Closer to 10% or 50%?

veterinary medicine to software development is around 10% too, maybe less.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#74

Post by AlexMoffat » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

joelbluminator wrote: post #22

mozey wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?" -Brian Kernighan Over time I've come to appreciate this sentiment. Banging out clever code super fast isn't that important... Spending some time up front thinking about types and architecture pays off in the long run. Especially for server side c…

So every dynamic code is a "super fast" banged out clever code, and every static code is a well thought out architectural masterpiece right? Could you be more biased?

Obviously someone has hurt you in the past. Do you need to talk about it?

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#75

Post by LandR » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

I keep hearing that it's like this in the US. In the UK I don't know anyone in their 40s struggling to find software developer jobs in the UK!

I'm almost 40 and are constantly getting harassed by recruiters.

My mate in his 60s not long ago got hired for a software developer role, and easily at that. Two interviews and he got an offer.

Another mate near 40 stepped back from manager type role into a developer role, and his age is not an issue.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#76

Post by tumetab1 » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

maps7 wrote: post #58

I'm not sure how I should be reading the article so maybe it's going over my head. > Rule 10: When to make a microservice > I would use a microservice when I have a relatively small and simple chunk of code that needs to run every once in a while. Isn't this wrong? There's no reason a microservice should just run once in a while. It also creates a lot of complexity for a simple chunk of code.

I think there's a hidden assumption that the author didn't expose.

> when I have a relatively small and simple chunk of code that needs to run every once in a while.

I think "run every once in a while" actually means stable requirements.

I think the number of executions per time is irrelevant. Being stable is the important thing.

My theory is that "run every once in a while" is substituting stable requirements because that's what I also see in organizations. What is execute a lot usually has an higher importance for business which also translates to unstable requirements.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#77

Post by MaxBarraclough » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:30 PM UTC

micael_dias wrote: post #57

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #8

This is poorly titled. A '1x developer' is by definition an average developer. The page is mostly listing basic knowledge that any developer, even a very junior one, should already have. If you aren't aware of the relative strengths and weaknesses of Java, C, and Python, you aren't a 1x developer, you're a trainee. Anyone know of any better articles truly targeted at '1x' developers? (This isn't snark, it's an invita…

So a frontend developer is a perpetual trainee in your opinion?

I'm talking about very basic background knowledge of general software engineering. Yes, a professional frontend developer should have at least an elementary understanding of the differences between the major programming languages.

An expert frontend developer will necessarily be competent in many languages, and might be competent to, for instance, contribute code to the Qt project.

I can see the value in the Project Management section of the article, as that's the sort of 'soft' topic that will be new to, say, a fresh graduate. If someone doesn't know the first thing about programming languages, though, they're a long way from the standard of a developer.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#78

Post by devnullbyte » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

Just in case anyone reads this and gets very worried about getting older and being destitute, its certainly not always the case.

I am 48 years old and having a blast. I am team lead working in the companies CTO office. I play around with build systems, making everything cloud native (kubernetes) and I get to work on a good amount of upstream open source projects. My company does not see my age at all, they just see me keeping busy and constantly pushing to learn new tech. I would say overall in our team, the under 25's are the minority.

I think you're attitude helps. I still feel like I am a kid in my head and I get massively excited about tech , even more as time passes. There is always something new to learn.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#79

Post by zentropia » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

noad wrote: post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

I am 46 and here in Spain I get plenty of offers to work.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#80

Post by The_Colonel » Thu, Apr 30, 2020, 1:31 PM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #63

deweller wrote: post #44

> PHP is banned at Amazon due to security reasons, but its successor, Hack, runs a lot of.. Just to be clear, Hack is not PHP's successor. Hack is a fork of PHP developed by Facebook. Hack will not overtake PHP any time soon. PHP has had security issues in the past. Sure you can do stupid things with it if you want, but modern PHP is security conscious out of the box. Frameworks like Laravel make great default choice…

A small question. Is PHP still a preferred platform for any sort of complex web development? I have never even looked at the php site or docs, but I am curious. In this day and age, is there a subset of Apps that PHP is suited for?

Traditional (non-SPA) web apps is where PHP is quite strong.

Also depends on the team, if you have a PHP team and it's a web project, you probably want to use PHP.