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Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

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Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#71

Post by notapenny »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #41
epm7384 wrote: post #22

I'd argue differently. Congrats for having the courage to recognize your problem. The analogy that comes to mind is I've been playing basketball in my local town, and now I've gotten promoted to play in the big city. I now feel like a small fish in a big pond. If you enjoy software engineering, I'd say, double down. Now that you're at the medium software company, seek mentorship and coaching from others. In addition,…

> Now that you're at the medium software company, seek mentorship and coaching from others. Agreed. My abilities as a developer increased tremendously at one of my jobs, and I can attribute 90% of that to a single person at that company who mentored me and helped me grow. (Hi, René, you probably don't read this.) You can read all the articles and books you want, but actively pairing with someone on tasks and getting…

Totally agree with this. If you see someone who's better at something than you are, go up to them and ask if they are willing to spend some time with you working on a topic. You'd be surprised how many people would love to help out. Depending on the company they may even have decent learning/pairing programs for this.

Can share that experience as well, my first job there were 2 devs who were great programmers, highly educated. At every chance I tried to get as much knowledge from them as possible. They were happy to share and equally happy when they saw me improving.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#73

Post by wg0 »

This might happen and I have had similar issues at one point in time. Sometimes, I feel I still have those issues but here's the things that I would do:

1. Instead of a broader approach, I would pick one side, backend/frontend/mobile to start with. I would choose the one I have the most experience with.

2. From the chosen above, I would pick the most widely used language/library/framework (Python + Django or Ruby + rails) for example.

3. Find some open source projects of medium scale and READ their code. Module by module. Reading the real code would polish they way no Uncle Bob or Martin or their books can. You'll intuitively get to know idioms/patterns/tricks of laying out abstractions and organising functionality and of course, testing it.

Hope you find it useful.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#75

Post by aprinsen »

You've characterized your performance as "bad", but I'd challenge you to do a little more analysis. You can learn a lot from retrospecting over projects you've lead, especially as they transition into the hands of other people, who will inevitably find faults that you missed.

You're probably not bad generally but made some more specific mistakes. Maybe you rushed in without thinking about the use case. Maybe you didn't seek input early and had to go all in on a flawed design. Maybe your design could be made more modular with some careful diagramming.

If you get specific in your self review, you'll probably find a few actionable lessons, which will be more useful than this general sense of "badness".

By the way it takes competence to spot your own mistakes. Cheers.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#76

Post by rijoja »

cblackthornekc wrote: post #51

Why do you have to come at me like this? This is a feeling I go through all the time. It's partly imposter syndrome, but partly that you're probably holding yourself to a higher standard than others. > I'd been assigned a medium complexity task Who decided that it was medium? A manger? Some lead? You? You can't really compare what is easy and what is hard when it comes to software. I worked on a project that timeline…

"He assumed that developers were cogs in a machine that can be replaced."

Well large corporations do want this very much and there are things you can do to make it work like this. Not without investment of course.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#78

Post by brandall10 »

We hired someone like this last year who was a lead in the last role at a small firm, had senior titles over a couple roles prior.

This person is smart and well-liked and called out their concerns early on, so we're working with them and have seen considerable improvement in the half-year since they were hired.

So I'd say it really comes down to your environment. If you have a good, supportive culture, I would have a frank discussion with your supervisor. Either you'll find out you're doing better than expected (and it is imposter syndrome like some are saying), or you'll have a path for improvement and a supervisor who is appreciative of the self-awareness and desire to improve.

At the end of the day, an experienced manager will be aware of this type of situation, that there's a wide berth of quality when it comes to software firms, and an engineer typically will only be as good as the teams they've worked with.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#79

Post by moolcool »

nicoburns wrote: post #26

> I'm thinking about looking for semi senior roles but I'm afraid it'll look weird for the company interviewing me to hire a semi senior with +10 years of experience. I think this is definitely an option if you want to go for it. There might be some companies who will discriminate against you, but they'll definitely be some who won't. The key will be explaining to them (and convincing them) that the reason you're not…

With 10 years of experience, and ability to solve most problems given (even if it is hacky), I think junior is WAY too uncharitable.

Re: Ask HN: I've realized I'm a bad software engineer and I'm over 30, what's next?

#80

Post by BurningFrog »

You've encountered a Legacy Codebase. They're everywhere, and they are awful.

There are ways to work with them, and you can learn them.

If there are people you can ask and work together with who already know the codebase, that is by far the best way.

I mean, you could be an incompetent programmer, but the fact that this codebase is very hard to get into doesn't prove that at all.

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