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Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

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Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#141

Post by gwittel »

derwiki wrote: post #58
tilolebo wrote: post #42

There are companies out there who value the experience of senior software engineers (and I mean real seniority, not the job title that you update to senior after 3 years in the field). Such companies will have a career ladder up to Principal or Distinguished engineer. You will have to share your knowledge, of course, but without having to give up coding and do people management, if you don't want that. I'm 39, happy…

Principal (even many Staff roles) at my company is reduced coding and many have direct reports, so YMMV. To stay coding, stay “senior” level.

It really depends on the company (or even part of the company if its bigger).

As a Principal I do code less than I used to as Staff or Senior. But I still do a fair amount of coding (along with design, arch, mentoring/guiding). I've made it clear that I want to remain a hands on engineer, and my company has let me remain so.

Not everyone is so lucky to have a choice, but if you do -- In the end, its finding a place where you can get the balance that makes you happy.

Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#142

Post by d--b »

It’s not really a dead end, since you can go coding and you can stay in your job.

What you worry about is what will happen in 10 years...

Thinking that choosing a path now may lead to a dead end in 10 years is overthinking it to me.

You can always switch back to engineering management if/when you need it.

Ageism is likely going to be less pronounced in the future than it has been in the 2000s as well. New companies were created by young people, but all these companies are still there, managed by people who also get old.

The way I see it is that we’re in an industry with no shortage of jobs, and that’ll likely be the same for the foreseeable future. We are so lucky that is is the case. So maybe try and stop worrying, you’ll be fine coding...

Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#143

Post by goodpoint »

giantg2 wrote: post #105
plank_time wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 50 and I don’t feel like I’m aging out. I’m going to go through a dozen interviews over the next several months so we will see how that turns out though.

Nice. I've been in the industry and in the same company for 9 years. I'm a midlevel dev. They've had me switch stacks 4 times. Every time it becomes much more difficult to learn the new stack. I think part of it is lack of motivation - why try my hardest if the knowledge will be thrown away in a year or two? (And they don't follow their own policies, to my detriment)

> why try my hardest if the knowledge will be thrown away in a year or two?

This is not a bad attitude. It's perfectly rational not to waste time on the framework or tool of the month.

It's the industry's fault for generating endless unnecessary churn.

We can fight it by focusing on understanding core principles and concepts (that changed very little since 1970) and ignoring the noise.

Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#145

Post by mmmm2 »

giantg2 wrote: post #131
tubularhells wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask your wife if she wants a miserable or a happy husband. I moved for my wife and I didn't regret it. She is willing to move for me too, if it ever comes to that. But most IT jobs are remote now anyway. Look for those opportunities. Don't be scare.

I haven't seen very many remote jobs. Are those mostly at the big tech companies? I've spent my career (and other jobs) at non-tech companies.

Tech Companies in general.

What I have seen happen in the last year is the following:

1. Covid forced most people to work remotely, at least at tech companies. 2. The world didn't end for those companies, so now many more are amenable to remote workers. 3. Even the ones who aren't happy can't really force everyone to come back to the office, so they're still remote friendly.

I don't know how long this situation will last, but for now it's a good time to be a remote worker.

Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#146

Post by ornornor »

tolbish wrote: post #99
mkl95 wrote: post #47

Like others have pointed out, a career in tech doesn't necessarily follow a linear path. I landed my highest profile job so far as a fresh graduate, but I quickly found out it was a miserable place to be in. I have made a healthy work environment my top priority ever since. In my opinion you should chase what makes you happy, which may or may not be what makes some random HN users happy.

A healthy work environment is the answer. Sounds simplistic, sounds trite, sounds like something not worth taking seriously. But it is correct.

And yet it’s a crapshoot more often than not. There are places that are absolutely terrible and these are easy to spot, but there are many functionally toxic places that you just can’t spot until you’ve accepted the job and are a few months in. What then? Suck it for a while? Quit and start over?

Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#147

Post by rammy1234 »

avmich wrote: post #117
rammy1234 wrote: post #104

Life is a long term game. Don't box yourself with status and compare yourself with others. Take a step back and assess what you want out of life and what you like to do. Go behind experience rather than money. Money will follow you when you have gained experience. There is no end to learning in this life. Think Long term always. 35 is an age where we are no junior or seniors. You have lot of options to chose from, so…

> Money will follow you when you have gained experience. Don't rely on this; it could be spectacularly wrong. Heaps of experience can lay aside unused if some other critical ingredients of good approach aren't there.

When I meant experience, I not only meant work experience, but soft skills, networking and you encountering wide variety of lessons over time. Monetizing your experience is the key but when you do, chose long term benefits over short term. Just thought to elaborate on this point so experience is not a narrow term but a wider one.

Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#148

Post by lensopra »

monster_group wrote: post #94
PenguinCoder wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waste of time, effort, energy, and fear of rejection. Plenty of downsides.

And also they can't interview at Google for another year after rejection. So failing the interview has multiple costs associated with it. It's better to prepare well and then appear for the interview.

I feel like if you interviewed with Google, you should put "interviewed with Google" on your resume.

Re: Ask HN: I feel my career is at a dead end. Any advice on what could I do?

#149

Post by kaeruct »

recursivedoubts wrote: post #12

This is my experience, and your mileage may vary: Multiple times in my coding career I have felt stalled and/or like I was regressing. Early on, I worked on a programming language, gosu ( https://gosu-lang.github.io/ ) which ended up not really going anywhere. Once the work on it was done, I returned to more mundane web programming for a while (over half a decade.) A long while after that, and unexpectedly, I turned…

For a moment I was very confused since I remembered hyperscript being this and existing for a longer time: https://github.com/hyperhype/hyperscript

Hopefully you are already aware of the name clash.

I am definitely interested in your hypescript more than the old one but the name clash is unfortunate.

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