Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

451–460 of 505 posts

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#451

Post by steve_adams_86 »

antihipocrat wrote: post #408
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I've tried to power through issues and leverage my ability to focus and grind through hard problems rather than communicate the problems and my situation. Sometimes it impressed people that I 'got things done', but that isn't as great of a gain as the inverse is damaging. People could become frustrated about delays if I didn't manage to power through it in time, or they'd be confused and/or concerned that…

I think a lot of reluctance to communicate problems is due to a lack of trust. If you are building an environment where management supports staff and mentors them, I believe it creates a culture where staff are also more likely to do the same with each other. In my experience this type of culture is quite rare, and I think it's great that you are encouraging this in your own organization.

I completely agree that it’s a matter of trust – I really like that observation.

At my current company I find the people I work with to be exceptionally good at support and mentoring, and it’s a real luxury. I can comfortably admit I’m rusty on some math or find certain tasks in Rust challenging, and I’m just met with support and encouragement. We might hit a whiteboard or share strategies to solve types of problems, and there’s no moment of wondering why I’m not already proficient.

Even if I struggle with a problem in my area of focus, where I’m expected to know the most, they never treat me like I should know better or like they’re somehow disappointed.

So while I hope I contribute to that culture of support and mentoring, I can’t help but point out that my team makes it effortless and I’m very fortunate for that. Like you mentioned, it really is rare.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#452

Post by steve_adams_86 »

atatatat wrote: post #286
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similarly, I've tried to power through issues and leverage my ability to focus and grind through hard problems rather than communicate the problems and my situation. Sometimes it impressed people that I 'got things done', but that isn't as great of a gain as the inverse is damaging. People could become frustrated about delays if I didn't manage to power through it in time, or they'd be confused and/or concerned that…

Do you have a blog//email address?

I used to blog on https://steve-adams.me, but stopped due to time and energy constraints. You can find me by emailing steve @ that domain, though.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#453

Post by _huayra_ »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #349
_huayra_ wrote: post #347

Perhaps it's not a huge mistake, but I definitely did not think through the pros and cons of getting a PhD. There have certainly been some benefits (e.g. being able to move from my home country to one I prefer), but the amount of forgone earnings and time working on problems all by myself (where I don't get the advantage of mentorship so much; profs really have checked out on coding since before y2k in the most part)…

I disagree with your conclusion but think your advice is good to consider. A PhD lets you be an expert in whatever you want for the rest of your life, if you want. Do it for selfish, ego-satisfying reasons (e.g., loving science, wanting to become a real expert in an area) not for the academic career path. Have fun with it, but don't drop out. Get the damn degree. Get it and get on with your life.

> e.g., loving science, wanting to become a real expert in an area

This is good advice, and sort of what I meant as a test to see if you want to do a PhD. Sadly, a lot of grad students did not use the time effectively and ended up anxiously trying to appease their advisor as somehow a proxy for getting accolades from their parents. Although I didn't know it, I, too, fell into this camp to a moderate degree.

In other words, going to grad school to /prove/ something to the world (e.g. "See, Dad, I am smart I AM A DOCTOR!") is a recipe for misery.

Despite not getting into a phd for the right reasons, it was a good lesson in learning how to salvage things. Research not working out? Well, try a different thing (thankfully my advisor was exceptionally great as a manager and adjucator of adequate progress). It was a great way to learn to persevere against a sea of disappointing results and learn to make progress on your own knowledge while being able to ignore the disparities from your own knowledge and the eminent researchers in the field (to whom its unlikely one will ever be comparable to on a research level).

Basically it was a kick in the ass to actually get it together mentally that I don't think I ever would have been able to do without those external forces foisting it upon me; I probably would've been miserable in silicon valley trying to buy things to grasp at happiness. Moving to a foreign country, having to learn the language and customs, being an 18 hour flight from my parents, etc, was the final set of straws that kinda forced me to either address my anxiety / depression, but it could have broke me. I consider myself lucky because I saw many other grad students who just couldn't take it anymore (due to absolute asshats of advisors mostly) and quit.

Still it's nice to now have the ability to live and work in a place that is nowhere near teetering towards being a failed state than where I grew up, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to get a visa to live and work here had it not been for this phd program.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#454

Post by HaNeThrowAway »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #170
eyelidlessness wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, nearly everyone in tech hops jobs frequently. In fact that’s common advice for comp advancement. In my personal experience that advice holds true, even though I change jobs much less frequently than most of my peers (which means my comp tends to lag behind theirs).

In my experience, it is hard to tell the difference between someone who killed it at a job for 1 year and moved on from someone who couldn't hack it and moved on. Promotion at a company signifies that they were well received and able to adapt and meet milestones. Same job title in and out reads to me to believe that they couldn't hack it and were no goes development opportunity. IMHO, a promotion before you leave con…

What if there are no promotions to be had? My longest tenure at any one company was 8 years and I never got promoted because it was all remote and I was technically an independent contractor. No one got promoted.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#455

Post by Copernicron »

goostavos wrote: post #199
barrkel wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've refused to hire people who job-hopped every year or two. With a record like that, there's zero reason to expect they're going to stick around. Why invest in bringing them up to speed if they're just going to leave?

Use this One Weird Trick to keep employees: pay them money. With the exception of my current gig, my early career was hopping non-stop. My shortest stint was literally 4 days, my average was probably about 1 year. Each time, pretty simple, you look at the paltry 2-4% increase being offered by your current employer versus the 20%+ increase from hopping literally anywhere else, and, well, you surely see why people hop…

Exactly. I'm happy where I am but I've currently got companies willing to increase my salary by 2-3x if I leave my current employer. I'm totally going to use that as leverage in negotiations for a raise. I'm due for one.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#456

Post by Zelphyr »

alexgmcm wrote: post #371
godelmachine wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have both books but yet to finish The latter book you recommend is Nand2Tetris I believe

I've read both books and done the Nand2Tetris course. I think Code by Petzold is decent in that it's a book you can read in bed etc. but it spends a long time discussing mechanical relays as an analogue and later discusses various processors in depth. I think Nand2Tetris is slightly better in that it focuses on what I'd consider to be the most important stuff, but it's an actual course and requires significantly more…

I agree somewhat with your assessment of “Code”. I read it first and then “Elements of Computing Systems” and I found reading them in that order was great because the latter puts into practice what the former simply describes.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#457

Post by Copernicron »

forbiddenvoid wrote: post #211
barrkel wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've refused to hire people who job-hopped every year or two. With a record like that, there's zero reason to expect they're going to stick around. Why invest in bringing them up to speed if they're just going to leave?

Frankly speaking you really shouldn't be hiring anyone with the expectation that they'll be in their role more than a year or two. Ideally, you're working with them to move into a position with more responsibility and then you need to backfill their position anyway. What does it matter if their next role is with you or somewhere else? It's a lot to ask for every company to have a role available for every employee whe…

I'm seeing this with my current employer. I'm helping out the hiring manager with interviews and technical assessment. He's trying to target people who will stay with the company for 8-10 years. It's ridiculous. (Almost) no one does that. Especially when you can make a whole lot more by changing jobs regularly.

Personally, I don't care about working on cool technology. I care about getting paid. I can't afford to buy an absurdly overpriced house without getting paid.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#458

Post by topkai22 »

qwertywert_ wrote: post #303
marto1 wrote: post #13

Not keeping up with professional connections as I made them from the start. Even a "happy birthday" card would've been enough, but here we are.

Happy birthday? That seems unnecessary really you don't need to send cards to all your connections. Just reach out if you want to reconnect don't overthink it - I feel it's pretty normal to drift in and out of connection/friendship even.

Yup! Not everyone will jump at it, but most will. I let some connections lapse for 10 years and then reached out. Ended up with some great conversations, good advice, and two job leads (from the hiring managers themselves.)

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#459

Post by Copernicron »

Zelphyr wrote: post #60
void_mint wrote: post #26

Twice I have built entire full-featured applications and then not shipped them out of embarrassment(fear of failing I guess?). Both times, a few years later similar applications became very popular. Very recently one of them showed upon the front page of HN to high praise. It's a mistake I'm still making, I guess, which is to assume that it could never "be me". It can be anyone. Just ship the damn thing.

Don’t feel too bad. My grandfather had the opportunity to buy some land in Atlanta in the late 60’s/early 70’s and turned it down because it was shanty town and the guy offering him the opportunity was a known crook. Shortly after that it became CNN Center.

I feel the same about bitcoin sometimes. I heard about it on /. when it first came out. If I'd gotten into mining in the early days I'd be rich by now. Assuming, of course, that I still had my wallet and everything.

Re: Ask HN: What huge mistake did you make early in your career?

#460

Post by Rietty »

exspook wrote: post #246
propogandist wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what made you leave?

I married a foreign national and was promptly walked out.

Is that a blanket policy on any foreign national? or only specific countries? For example is a Canadian treated the same as a French and are they considered the same as Chinese?
Post reply on HN