Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

muldoon.cloud

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 505 posts

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#241

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

theli0nheart wrote: post #169
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Confidence and desperation hardly ever align. Confident people who plan don't get desperate. Desperate people don't make good decisions. People who let themselves reach levels of desperation are either extremely unlucky (unlikely, but not someone you want on your team regardless) or chronically make bad decisions. At the worst, they're a person who chronically makes bad decisions and thinks they're unlucky. Standard:…

> Confident people who plan don't get desperate. Desperate people don't make good decisions. People who let themselves reach levels of desperation are either extremely unlucky (unlikely, but not someone you want on your team regardless) or chronically make bad decisions. At the worst, they're a person who chronically makes bad decisions and thinks they're unlucky. Disclaimer: I'm saying this for your own benefit, but…

Those things you list are pretty rare, though. And I say this as one who is both disabled and has seen more than anyone's normal share of bad luck.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#242

Post by jimbokun »

austincheney wrote: post #142

There is so much that is wrong with this. Follow this advise only if you are currently employed and your employment is extremely safe because your employer is deemed essential or because they are financial strong in the current economy. For everybody else very carefully consider why an employer should hire you when the current economy is failing, programmers generally are very expensive and add very little value to t…

> programmers generally are very expensive and add very little value to the employer's revenue

Then either they are very bad at their job or working at a very bad company. Software companies have some of the highest revenue per employee numbers, compared to other industries.

> The article opens with having kids and so they cannot work more than 8 hours a day in a specified time slot. This is an absence of ambition and nothing else.

Many developers who work 8 hours a day accomplish more than many other developers who work 12 hours a day.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#243

Post by jamespollack »

wikwocket wrote: post #115
ScottFree wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sounding desperate. Why is that a negative signal? The company has the opportunity to get top talent temporarily down on his/her luck for a reduced rate.

Would you want to date someone who seemed desperate to get into a relationship? Who seemed like they were having trouble getting a relationship at all, let alone a good healthy one? Same principle.

it's not a relationship, it's a job - you don't have to fall in love with every candidate.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#244

Post by jonfw »

falcolas wrote: post #136
neogodless wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 40 and I don't suppose anyone has ever called me a 10x developer or a rockstar or a ninja, though I was recently described as having "a superpower to crush tickets." I have a feeling you have not applied "everywhere" in the United States, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I've never left my home state, and the deluge of recruiter spam on LinkedIn hasn't slowed down yet. And no I'm not an architect or team lead…

> the deluge of recruiter spam on LinkedIn hasn't slowed down yet Recruiters spamming you is not a correlative metric for companies hiring you. SV is worse than other locations, but even the midwest company I work for (I'm also over 40) much prefers to hire people straight out of college. They're cheaper, willing to work longer hours, and easily molded into an image the company wants. EDIT: To provide a small anecdot…

> They're cheaper, willing to work longer hours

So now we've hit the real root of the problem. If you expect significantly more money than competitors in your role- than ageism may not be why it's getting harder to find jobs.

It isn't 'ageist' to disagree on the value of prior experience.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#245

Post by hef19898 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #141
LandR wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"Cultural fit" SV start-ups need bright shiny twenty-somethings for their "About us" pages and their IG lifestyle feed, with a few wise old thirty-somethings to ride herd on them. It leaves room for the forty-something and fifty-something VCs to do what they enjoy, which is pretending to be the team coach. Put in some wrinkly old guys - or worse, some old women - and there goes your brand identity.

Start-ups in general. I had the same experience in the few start-ups I know in Germany.

Only result of this is to repeat mistakes over and over again...

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#246

Post by jimbokun »

The_Colonel wrote: post #80
kumarvvr wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does PHP see much use to serve backend REST APIs?

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#247

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ses1984 wrote: post #13
bearjaws wrote: post #11

I hate the notion of "10x developer". It focuses on hiring the best person, rather than firing individuals who undermine the team. The reality is, there are some 1x developers, and some .5x developers. Even worse though are the -1x developers. So many times I see a corporate culture of firing = bad, so lets just try to find someone who is a "10x", when really all you need is to remove the people who cause more work f…

I knew two 10x developers at my previous job. One of them was humble and a great mentor and elevated everyone around him. One was a grump who made everyone around him feel stupid. Imo toxicity is independent from productivity.

There are plenty of 10x developers who are socially inept but do very well doing work by themselves, and then there are 10x managers who can deal with those devs well enough so they can work effectively enough in team environments. Unfortunately, good 10x managers are rarer than toxic 10x devs (and a real monster is a toxic 10x manager).

There are also devs whose technical skills have outpaced their social skills temporarily, but they get better later...

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#248

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

throwphoton wrote: post #218
scarface74 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 45, and was last in the job market in 2018 and before that in 2016. I’m in Atlanta. The last two times I looked for your standard senior/lead enterprise dev roles it took less than two weeks to get an offer just by using local recruiters. Edit: There is a huge difference between random spam from recruiters who throw a big net and working with local boutique recruiters who have relationships with local firms. I ig…

I'm in my 40s in the SF Bay Area and recently landed a new software development job. The process took several months. My initial interviews were disastrous; it had been many years since my last job search and I didn't know I wasn't prepared for the "leetcode era". Drilling on "leetcode medium" problems with a time limit got me to the point where I was at least in the game that's being played nowadays. It wasn't prett…

Yeah, SF is probably the problem here... get out to a cheaper state... come down to florida and sling some code for insurance companies... it will be boring but alcohol exists.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#249

Post by akhilcacharya »

onion2k wrote: post #49
rezeroed wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only read the start. I'm not sure what I make of someone going from zero to Amazon. Is that normal?

Amazon recruit huge numbers of graduates, so obviously that's a yes. I think their graduate roles pay quite well too. But if this article is to be believed, they also do things like using 15 different languages on the tech stack (16 to choose from minus PHP because it's banned) and give you the idea that estimates are worthless. If your workplace is doing things like that it's a very bad sign in my opinion.

> they also do things like using 15 different languages on the tech stack

Teams have a lot of flexibility to choose the best tool for the job. It's not surprising that you'd have those options if you're tackling everything from UAV avionics to distributed systems to facial recognition.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#250

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

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…

Embedded development is safe from the young turks in the US. Nobody is being taught how to competently develop in C and work with hardware. There is no apparent ageism where I work because older devs are in demand for skills that aren't available in a younger cohort.
Post reply on HN