I took a sort-of similar route. I was a Senior Data Analyst who loved to code, and managed to transition to Junior Software Developer. I’ve stayed hungry and constantly improved as a dev, and over the years have incrementally moved up to my current role, Staff Software Developer. Stick with it Kristina! One of the great things about programming is that bright, passionate, hard working people can be highly successful despite coming from non-traditional backgrounds.
I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
111–120 of 309 posts
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#112If she didn't get a pay downgrade to associate swe then she is not even remotely close to starting from scratch. The company is basically letting her learn a new field on their dime, which is fine, but this is basically a story less about her earning her skills as a software engineer and more about the charity of her Boss and the company allowing her to learn these skills. This is not an economic move for the company…
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Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#113If she didn't get a pay downgrade to associate swe then she is not even remotely close to starting from scratch. The company is basically letting her learn a new field on their dime, which is fine, but this is basically a story less about her earning her skills as a software engineer and more about the charity of her Boss and the company allowing her to learn these skills. This is not an economic move for the company…
I find these anecdotes to be completely untrue. Women are often assumed to be less competent, and are often passed over during hiring for men of equal competence. I've seen some incredibly useless dudes sit back and rest and vest for months and months without any repercussions. I don't have an equivalent story for women because I work with significantly less women. Let's try focusing on the apparent and obvious biase…
Found the feminist.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Making a big mistake as a manager can cost the company a lot more than a big mistake as an individual Engineer, Architect or Developer, especially if you consider that the latter roles will catch many of each others' mistakes. The manager level can result in entire teams quitting, failing to support each other or an atmosphere where catching each others' mistakes is discouraged. Some jobs are paid based (roughly) on…
Why does potential for costly mistakes result in greater perceived value and higher pay?
Higher risk begets higher premiums.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably due to the very poor and misleading article title, which frames the situation as a "demotion", something that happens to us, not something that we decide to do. The article has a good message, but the title is absolute click-bait. Many people might come across the title, and although not interested in reading it, walk away with the idea that following dreams leads to negative consequences. I hope the author…
> Probably due to the very poor and misleading article title, which frames the situation as a "demotion", something that happens to us, not something that we decide to do. Not seeing the connection with that and feeling inferior. I agree with your point, just still can't figure out the top level comment.
Not feeling inferior, but feeling insecure. The message in the title can easily reinforce people's insecurities and discourage them from pursuing their dreams, because they'll just get "demoted".
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find these anecdotes to be completely untrue. Women are often assumed to be less competent, and are often passed over during hiring for men of equal competence. I've seen some incredibly useless dudes sit back and rest and vest for months and months without any repercussions. I don't have an equivalent story for women because I work with significantly less women. Let's try focusing on the apparent and obvious biase…
Found the feminist.
Yes you did, did you expect me to be ashamed about this?
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#117Can someone explain to me why titles like Engineer, Architect, and Developer are perceived as having less value than titles like Manager or Director? Managing products requires a completely different skill set from managing people. Both skills are vital to the success of a business and neither are trivially developed or easily replaced. If you ask me, the "demotion" in this article is not going from Director of Desig…
When you make a decision as a manager or a director, the impact of that decision has a multiplicative force. As an individual contributor, the impact of your decisions may be broad, but however broad your individual impact is, your manager's impact on you is [broad * number of directs], so it's always "greater" (note: not better , just greater ). So in that sense, the "value" of a manager/director is "higher". IMO it…
> So in that sense, the "value" of a manager/director is "higher".
That depends on how high the multiplier is and how many direct reports a manager has. A manager with 5 direct reports and a multiplier of 110% is only producing as much net value as 0.5 of his/her reports. A manager with 20 direct reports and a multiplier of 106% produces a net value of 1.2 of his/her reports.
It's not safe to say that managers in general produce more value. Some do, some don't. It depends on their ability and the abilities of those they share a management relationship with. But the same could be said about engineers/architects/devs.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#118A terrible career move. As other commenter said, if there wasn't a pay cut, is because of the company charity. Now she has to be not only a good coder but a great one, (and in a tech stack she didn't had used already). Otherwise, a year from now, they might not feel so charitable, and the story will be "from director of design to fired IC". A friend of mine made a similar mistake once, believing the BS of the "parall…
I'll add my reply that I was typing out for the other post before it was deleted.
To make your assertion requires far too many assumptions for you to know whether this was an act of "charity" or not.
People are with more than their paper skill sets. If this person had been working at Stack Overflow for years, then she probably knows far more about the company itself than a new CS grad. That can be a huge asset. Likewise, her experience of being a manager of the Production Design team, and the Director of Design, can be great experiences to add depth to the development team.
I am a senior software engineer. I am far from the best programmer on my team. A new CS grad could probably out-whiteboard any CS problem thrown at me. But my knowledge of 12 years of the company's development history, my gut-understanding of what kinds of decisions are good for the company, my ability to communicate well with product owners and elicit the right kinds of information and foresee design problems before they happen all contribute to me being an invaluable member of the team.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#119If she didn't get a pay downgrade to associate swe then she is not even remotely close to starting from scratch. The company is basically letting her learn a new field on their dime, which is fine, but this is basically a story less about her earning her skills as a software engineer and more about the charity of her Boss and the company allowing her to learn these skills. This is not an economic move for the company…
This is such a horrible misogynistic comment, it saddens me greatly this crap is on top, tells a tale about HN audience. Janitor? Charity? Hot female? Just listen to yourself, you're so full of hate.
Consider the last sentence : "I think most men and people in general like to think of themselves as non-biased so most of this happens as subconscious actions."
Pretty sure this commenter thought of themselves as non-biased. Irony is a cruel mistress.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably due to the very poor and misleading article title, which frames the situation as a "demotion", something that happens to us, not something that we decide to do. The article has a good message, but the title is absolute click-bait. Many people might come across the title, and although not interested in reading it, walk away with the idea that following dreams leads to negative consequences. I hope the author…
She was a director (manager of managers), so going from that to an IC developer is absolutely a demotion by any definition of the word.
If you want to be strict, sure. But there's no arguing that when people hear the term "demotion", it's almost universally regarded as a non-voluntary change of negative consequence. Perhaps if the title was "To follow my dreams I asked my manager for a demotion" it would be decent usage, but the current phrasing in the title is entirely misleading. It's probably the use of the word "got", implying that it was an external decision, not their own.