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A career ending mistake

bitfieldconsulting.com

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Re: A career ending mistake

#181

Post by asdfman123 »

nefitty wrote: post #174
asdfman123 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staying a productive IC your whole career is fairly straightforward: I really think it comes down to never "coasting" and always being open to learning new things. The problem is a lot of older people seem to believe that once they get to a certain point, they're entitled a position and respect. Is it a wonder why younger people, who might be more up-to-date than them, don't want to work with them? The trick is to ne…

It seems like some people fall into this trap if they manage to get into FAANG. I would be scared of that happening to me. It's like, your entire view of the industry was built around hitting the winner's podium, and once you've achieved that, where do you go? There's only so many gold medals to go around on the podium itself, anyways.

Depends on why you do it and what you do there.

I'm at FAANG and still learning plenty. I'm not here to hit an arbitrary goal but because I have to have a job and it pays well, so might as well turbocharge my savings.

But yes, you should always respect the journey. It never stops: keep participating in it, and keep your eyes open.

Re: A career ending mistake

#182

Post by goodpoint »

> A consultant is independent, for example; a contractor is not. The difference is that the client tells a contractor what to do, while a consultant tells the client what they should do.

Huh? The two terms are very often used to mean the same thing.

Re: A career ending mistake

#183

Post by Gatsky »

rscho wrote: post #49
krageon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think I'll ever find the position where I feel I belong I had this same feeling (including the despairing tone), until I changed where I work. Perhaps you can find a job in a meaningful industry (public transport, charity, a utility, etc) so that you can be certain you have a material positive impact on other people's lives. This impression helps a lot with work enjoyment.

Healthcare... No, just kidding. Don't do that.

The more I read this thread I’m not sure healthcare is such a bad deal…

Re: A career ending mistake

#184

Post by mattgreenrocks »

eulerian wrote: post #40

Curious if there's anyone who's made a plan for this sort of a thing. I'm never able to plan even the rest of my week and follow through with it. What does a plan for your career look like and how do you get the discipline to stick to it?

It's not about discipline, it's about cultivating the ability to find your own north star of sorts, follow that, and ignore the noise.

In my example: I consulted in 2010-2012 doing Rails and hated it (despite having a great client). Decided I was not compatible with the webdev culture of shipping fast and breaking things, so I started self-studying compilers. Landed a job at an R&D firm in 2012 working on LLVM stuff, then have hung out in the research-y space ever since.

I'd always set that as my career endpoint, but lately I'm not as sure. I think my next step is working towards being able to work for myself creating products on the side, and working for others part time eventually. I realized I like working on other people's problems, but I have a lot of skill and vision in programming that I can use in other ways, such as product design. The idea of learning how to be more independent is very exciting to me, including learning about marketing, UI design, talking to users, etc.

After that? Who knows! Maybe I will teach part time, or write ebooks, or give trainings, or write games with friends. Computing is a big world and I feel very grateful to be able to move around in it as I get older.

Re: A career ending mistake

#185

Post by whatshisface »

jrm4 wrote: post #131
bckr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "the opposite", do you mean that not only were their paths random, but they are not very happy? Can you think of and describe anyone you know who belongs in xor(a, b)?

WOO MATH. Among the happy people I see, most have the "randomness" I talk about. Among unhappy people, I see a mix of both.

That makes it sound almost like happiness is the causal parameter and being willing to say yes to random opportunities outside of your plan, is a consequence.

Re: A career ending mistake

#186

Post by groby_b »

nefitty wrote: post #174
asdfman123 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staying a productive IC your whole career is fairly straightforward: I really think it comes down to never "coasting" and always being open to learning new things. The problem is a lot of older people seem to believe that once they get to a certain point, they're entitled a position and respect. Is it a wonder why younger people, who might be more up-to-date than them, don't want to work with them? The trick is to ne…

It seems like some people fall into this trap if they manage to get into FAANG. I would be scared of that happening to me. It's like, your entire view of the industry was built around hitting the winner's podium, and once you've achieved that, where do you go? There's only so many gold medals to go around on the podium itself, anyways.

I'd overall suggest stepping away from the idea that growth is so one-dimensional that you can "win" at it. But even if it were, there's plenty of room within them to grow, and just getting in is far from "you've achieved it all"

If we stay with that idea for a second: FAANG companies have tens of thousands of engineers. Getting there isn't a "gold medal". You're barely in the stadium. If you made it to Principal Engineer, congrats, you've gotten through the qualifying rounds. Still plenty of room to strive.

There are plenty of valid reasons for why you choose or don't choose FAANG. But "Where would I go once I've achieved that" really shouldn't hold you back.

Re: A career ending mistake

#187

Post by krosaen »

bckr wrote: post #140
krosaen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to this for me has been to transition to something more specialized: from full stack developer to working in robotics. The previous skills are still relevant and all the new domain knowledge keeps me interested. The combo of domain knowledge and software skills is more rare, so it feels a bit more satisfying than working as a senior IC the way I did 10+ years ago 5 years into my software career out of coll…

Could I contact you about how you made this transition? My email is Anthony at yesrobo dot net

I'll send you an email

Re: A career ending mistake

#188

Post by giantg2 »

sbarre wrote: post #116
giantg2 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"therefore all companies are evil" Not evil, but that they lie and screw over employees. Are there any companies on Glassdoor with 100% positive ratings (with n>100)?

Glassdoor is a terrible metric for measuring companies. Like any rating system it is biased towards people with grievances, as they are motivated to look for an outlet to express that grievance.

And it's likely thar at least some of those grievances where born out of misconduct by the company. Bringing us back to my position that all companies lie and screw over workers, that the ones that look good just mean you aren't witnessing it.

Re: A career ending mistake

#189

Post by jimmaswell »

I just want to work from home 9-5 without too much stress and have enough money and time to do what I want outside of it. Thankfully looks like I've already reached the end of my career as the article calls it pretty early.

Re: A career ending mistake

#190

Post by hogrider »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #108
danity wrote: post #87

A long time ago, after interviewing for months, I finally landed my first job as a developer. It was VERY hard to get your foot in the door back then. On my first day, I was given someone's old computer that had a bunch of junk on it. While cleaning it up, I accidentally deleted all files on the company's file share. Shortly after, I started hearing murmurs of missing files and then, panicking inside, realized what I…

Do you really think you would have been fired? It sounds like it was easy for you to fix. Sounds like it would have been easy for them to fix. Rather than fire you they could say, "Oh yeah we should make sure that something like this doesnt happen again. It could happen to anyone." Firing seems like a big leap here.

Yeah... People are not rational like this lol I've definitely seen people fired for fucking up in ways that were actually sysstemic issues.
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