What I’ve Learned in 45 Years in the Software Industry

Post by jbaudanza » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

bcheung wrote: post #154

This is really good advice. Myself personally, I have been programming for decades as well and struggle with the curse of knowledge. Curious what other people do and what struggles they have had. Having spent time studying Category Theory I see a lot of value to using it in my code but it is not common knowledge and often confuses others when you start throwing around terms like functor, monoid, monad, etc. At the sa…

Post by ddingus » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:32 PM UTC

justin_oaks wrote: post #161

ddingus wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just occurred to me a sysadmin log would be very valuable: Installed update X to prevent risk Y Wrote script to advance process Z on input A Etc...

As a sysadmin, I actually keep a log, but I'm under no illusions that anyone will ever see it but me. I used to track my tasks in Jira with the thought that maybe my boss would look at it and see what I was doing. Of course he wasn't looking at it so I stopped doing it. My log is mostly for me to provide a list of achievements to my boss whenever there's a review, or if I'm questioned about what I spend my time on.

Post by sroussey » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

kstenerud wrote: post #129

noir_lord wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar to the systems administrator dilemma. Do your job well, it looks you are not doing very much, why are we paying you? Everything is on fire, it looks you are not doing your job properly, why are we paying you? I've worked with a few engineers over my career like the person you described and frankly they are worth their weight in gold, been able to bank on their output working reliably and consistently ove…

I've been bitten by this. I once worked at a place where the development process for the Windows version of their product was GLACIAL because there was no way to run the CI scripts locally or even set up a dev environment that could build the product. People actually edited code in a text editor and then submitted it to github and waited an hour for the CI job to build a virtual Windows instance, run updates, install…

Post by dave_sid » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:35 PM UTC

sli wrote: post #139

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #19

This is very wise: "When I was at GM, you were a failure if your next move was not up—managing more people or taking on bigger, more complex projects. For many, this made for a miserable career path" As I've said before, I think this is a corrosive aspect of the perf/promo process at many FAANGs. The "level" system encourages/pushes people to "upgrade" in this manner, and I think contributes to a number of problems.…

I'm about where you are, but when I read the word of veterans like this it just galvanizes my desire to leave the tech industry.

Post by rusk » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

peterangular wrote: post #35

motogpjimbo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience from being on both sides of the desk has been that devteams are relatively tolerant of candidates exhibiting personality quirks during the interview process - it's the candidate's skills that are in demand, not their winning personality. Maybe it's different when you interview at a FAANG company though? I imagine FAANG recruitment is a merciless sausage machine.

> My experience from being on both sides of the desk has been that devteams are relatively tolerant of candidates exhibiting personality quirks during the interview process - it's the candidate's skills that are in demand, not their winning personality. I'm growing further and further away from this mentality in hiring because the sad truth is most of those folks who come in with "quirks" lack maturity. To me, quirks…