I think the title on HN is different than the title in the actual article, and has different implications. The HN title implies that getting "demoted" wasn't the goal but a bad effect of following dreams. The title from the actual article, "I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer," is much better: clearly the "demotion" was the goal of following their dreams.
I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
151–160 of 309 posts
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#152It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but at Facebook when an IC switches to EM, I often hear people offer their condolences. When an EM switches to IC, they are congratulated on their promotion.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#153Can 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…
> When you make a decision as a manager or a director, the impact of that decision has a multiplicative force.
Every time I hear this explanation, I can't help but think "so we're still smoking Luck Strikes, huh?"
When you make a decision as a software engineer, the impact of that decision can often have a multiplicative or even exponential force.
The goal of 21st century organizations -- especially software organizations -- should be to make things scale in way that's at most sublinear with the number of people you throw at it.
Automation prints money and businesses that can harness automation have huge profit margins.
People are expensive and body shops are shitty companies waiting to be replaced when technology catches up with whatever work they're throwing bodies at.
It's not 1960 anymore. Invest in your automators and treat your people managers as a low-value-add cost center.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Higher risk begets higher premiums.
Why? The relationship between contribution and compensation is obvious. If you bring more value to the company, the company compensates you directly with a portion of that value. But why does a position with greater risk necessitate greater compensation? EDIT: Everything below here was in the original post. However, I re-read it and realized it had little to do with the relationship between risk and compensation. I d…
> But why does a position with greater risk necessitate greater compensation?
There are various methods to address risk:
1. Avoid the risk
2. Reduce the risk
3. Transfer the risk
4. Accept the risk
When you buy insurance, you're doing #3. If you self-insure, you're doing #4. Either strategy requires putting some money towards premiums, the expected possible cost of the risk.
It's much cheaper to pursue #1 or #2. You're then saving an amount exactly equal to the premiums don't have to pay under #3 or #4.
Thus, you can pay a person to do #1/#2 a fraction of the equivalent cost of #3/#4 and still come out ahead.
> A lazy manager can get along by just regularly pruning reports who produce more liability than reward.
Yup, and the books will balance.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't say anything hateful towards women. I think women get this better treatment then men but I didn't say they should turn it down nor did I say they didn't deserve it. I simply pointed out a difference. And what wrong with switching from Janitor to SWE? Same basic job switch from one another field with completely different skillets but completely different treatment due to perceived ranking.
The problem is that you are likening her to a janitor to create the impression that she has zero programming experience. First of all, if you'd read the article you'll find she probably has as much experience as a lot of bootcamp grads. You're also kind of insulting janitors by assuming none of them could possibly have any coding skills. So many people nowadays learn coding using "non-traditional" means, and some of…
>The problem is that you are likening her to a janitor to create the impression that she has zero programming experience.
You're completely right. Change "janitor" to "janitor who went to bootcamp" and my statement still stands. This girl didn't even go to bootcamp.
Stop implying I have insulted people. I haven't said anything hateful at all.
>If this story were about a man, how would your reaction be different?
My reaction would be completely different. You're right. You could actually go find a similar story for a man, post it here and that can help change my view on this subject. The more similar stories you find for men who have done this the more evidence you will have to support your case. As it stands I find that it is much less likely for a man to be offered this act of charity.
My views are based off of anecdotal evidence and I will flip flop my views and do a full 360 based off of all available data.
As a side note, men tend to find rank more important learning a new skill or career. Due to this less men will even try to take up this deal when offered the opportunity. I think it has happened but it's just much less likely.
To build a realistic data set you need to find the percentages success vs. failures of both men and women who have tried a horizontal career switch within the same company. Unfortunately this data is likely very hard to build so both of our arguments are quite speculative. Still I have anecdotal data, you haven't offered any.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#156If 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…
You can't find someone else's anecdotes untrue.
Reverse sexism is completely real, just like "regular" sexism. It doesn't compensate for it in any way, of course.
Reverse sexism helps some women, some of the time.
It doesn't help women, as such, in the big picture.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#157When you think Managers (Directors) are more worth then the peoples who actually create something. Maybe have a look at Gates and Musk who are actually engineers rather then Managers....or more correct Managing-Engineers. But congratulation for your "demotion".
Most of the value that Gates created was as a pure manager. He was a programmer before, possibly amazing at it too, but I'd hardly say his role at Microsoft was that of an engineer-manager. He regularly attended engineering meetings throughout his tenure as CEO (he says so in that Netflix mini-series about him) but by far his largest drivers for creating value were how he envisioned software eating the world (esp. th…
I think he was more engineer than manager, hence Steve Ballmer.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#158I think the title on HN is different than the title in the actual article, and has different implications. The HN title implies that getting "demoted" wasn't the goal but a bad effect of following dreams. The title from the actual article, "I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer," is much better: clearly the "demotion" was the goal of following their dreams.
Right, and given HN's policy towards preserving the original title when you can, it's especially puzzling as to why the title was edited to introduce this shade of negativity.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#159Don't think in categories of promotion/demotion.
The best you can do for yourself is to find the right place for you. If you don't feel well with what you are doing it does not matter how high on the corporate ladder you are.
Treat it as a whole package of which prestige and pay is only one factor. I know personally a guy who left being a director at a large company and moved with his wife to a small farm. They don't earn a fraction of what he earned before but he said he would not come back.
I have skipped over promotions to keep working with code because I don't feel well spending more than fraction of my time managing projects and teams.
I have recently built my own electronics lab and am tinkering with increasingly complex designs because it is just fun. Complemented with my ability to code I plan to use that to maybe build some some products. No concrete plans other than explore what feels interesting to me and do it at my own pace.
Re: I followed my dreams to get demoted to software developer
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Found the feminist.
Where'd the comment go? I wanted to say tell that guy that my manager is actually competent, so he has my respect, but I would not capitalize the word "boss". He may pay your bills, yet that doesn't make him family[1]. Anyway, I see guys mentoring guys all the time. There's nothing sexual 'bout it! [1] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/capitalization-family-title/
I've mentored guys and girls and I knew one coworker who literally had sex with the interns he "mentored." It can be both sexual and non-sexual and both at the same time. Definitely if the minuscule "possibility" of sex is open, that is an "advantage" that a woman may knowingly or unknowing take advantage of.