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A career ending mistake

bitfieldconsulting.com

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Re: A career ending mistake

#191

Post by znq »

hinkley wrote: post #90
znq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope people don't see this as spam (especially since in the past I've talked a lot about this), but I've started Mobile Jazz (my first company) specifically because I wanted to created a place where I and others feel happy. A place where increasing revenue and profit to the extreme is not the focus, but employee happiness is. We call it "Optimizing for Happiness". We've written a lot about it in our company handboo…

You have to be careful here because you're trying to make sure that people are happy, not fat and happy. Complacency eventually threatens the livelihood of your employees, and that is stressful at any company, but the magnitude of that change is greater when everyone has been bopping along without a care in the world. Being happy is not a capitalistic goal and the capitalists will eat your lunch. Being happy and kick…

Thanks for your input! I think we have been at those points ("fat and happy") a couple of times and I noticed it, because I especially got bored myself. Luckily I have to say, we quickly got to a point again where another problem or challenge presented itself.

Also our business doesn't have huge profit margins like some of the big tech companies. So financially we're always somewhere between "it is not critical, yet", but also never reach the "100% comfortable".

Re: A career ending mistake

#192

Post by dadkins »

ryandrake wrote: post #62
ansible wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you find a good niche, and develop a lot of domain expertise in that area, you can likely make it to the senior levels of an IC, even if you don't have the most super-awesome technical skills. The trick (and of course there is a trick) is to find a narrow enough niche that you would enjoy working in, where you can get paid well, but isn't so narrow that you have very limited choices regarding who to work for.

I think it's kind of rare to find a company that will promote you to "the senior levels of an IC" on just your technical domain expertise. I mean REALLY rare. At most places I've seen, you can get promoted on purely technical knowledge up to a certain level, but beyond that level, you're expected to show "leadership" and "influence" and "cross-team impact" and all that jazz. Same expectation of social skills as if yo…

Yeah, the expectation that _everyone_ excels in leadership and influence leads to some absurd situations, like everyone on a team being "tech lead" for some part of the project. Or the all-"senior" team. Presumably they're all leading each other? Same game goes for cross-functional impact.

The whole point of the separate individual ladder was to give an alternate career path to management. What a lie that's turned out to be.

Re: A career ending mistake

#193

Post by jimmaswell »

Jaruzel wrote: post #118

I hate my job. I don't know how I got here. Like many I started out in small scale IT just as desktop computers were becoming a thing. I transitioned from mainframe support to desktop support, from there I worked through several desktop support roles, wishing I was server support but never managing to get there... over time I became a desktop architect, and then infrastructure architect, and now well.... I just don't…

Maybe you just need more hobbies or interests outside of work. Working remotely and making good money gives you a lot of freedom outside of work hours, and even during work hours it sounds like nobody will notice if you spent half the day painting or woodworking. I don't think it's necessary in life to be in love with your job - most people out there aren't.

Re: A career ending mistake

#194

Post by jimmaswell »

onion2k wrote: post #23

If you love what you're doing now and don't ever want to change jobs, great: you've reached the end of your career, even if it plays out over many decades. Even if you love what you do and you don't want to change anything, the world around you is going to have other ideas. Especially in tech.

It depends how dynamically you can define "what you're doing now." I don't really care what I do so long as it's remote with a good work-life balance and pays well, and I'll do what it takes to keep up with tech stacks. I expect this to carry me just fine to retirement.

Re: A career ending mistake

#195

Post by bckr »

whatshisface wrote: post #185
jrm4 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> happiness is the causal parameter

Also on the front page today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30424181

Re: A career ending mistake

#196

Post by afterburner »

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…

If you lied, and they found out, you would have been fired for that reason alone. On the other hand if you told the truth right away, it's hard to say if you would have been fired; where I've worked you wouldn't have been fired for telling the truth and doing that (having seen people fess up to much worse failures). Lying on the other hand is a serious problem since it betrays trust (if caught, of course).

That said, I've also been at a company where people in charge had admitted to not having a backup copy of something rather important. I was flabbergasted.

Re: A career ending mistake

#197

Post by PragmaticPulp »

jrm4 wrote: post #94
duxup wrote: post #42

I changed careers at 40+ years old. I'm very happy that I did it. People have all sorts of constructs / ideas about how careers work (based on experience) or how they think it works, or how they want it to work. I talk to some college graduates who tell me what they're planning for and have ZERO clue what industry they're talking about, their description is unrecognizable to me ... even tho I know it is the one I wor…

Right? I teach college students going into IT, and this feels like something they would write. Offhand, I can't think of too many people (myself included) who are a) very happy in their jobs and b) planned very diligently to get to that exact space. Mostly the opposite, "A lot of random stuff happened, I followed through on some stuff that felt right at the time, and just kind of did that over and over."

I mentor college students through a local group. I agree that this reads exactly like something they pick up from spending too much time on cynical subreddits where people gather to complain. I frequently have to remind them that they shouldn't get career advice from online forums dedicated to venting and complaining.

> Offhand, I can't think of too many people (myself included) who are a) very happy in their jobs and b) planned very diligently to get to that exact space.

> Mostly the opposite, "A lot of random stuff happened, I followed through on some stuff that felt right at the time, and just kind of did that over and over."

IMO, that's because most of the people who plan career paths diligently only look at one metric: "TC" (total compensation). They may say they value autonomy, growth, good teammates or any other number of things, but when it comes down to offer time most young people will reliably pick the highest offer, no matter what.

The more serendipitous career paths involve a lot of networking, identifying who you like working with and what you like working on, reputation building, and eventually flowing into a great position within your network. The pay may come slightly later, but it's a much happier path.

Re: A career ending mistake

#198

Post by Melatonic »

asdfman123 wrote: post #148
hinkley wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The conclusion I think is missing from the 10k hours theory of mastery is that there is more than enough time in a full lifespan to master 4-6 things, depending on how good you are at managing your time. People who are only good at one thing may find that they aren't good at anything because of it. Don't neglect your passions, even if you don't see how you could ever make money from it, experience in other verticals…

We're making a huge mistake when we see mastery as an end goal. I played band in grade school, pushed myself hard, burnt out, etc. Learning classical piano as an adult has been a MASSIVELY instructive experience. Here's why: I'm never going to be a professional classical pianist. Ever. It's far too competitive, I'm probably not talented enough, and it's not worth the effort. Therefore, the ONLY reason I'm doing it is…

You can view mastery as an end goal and still enjoy it - you just have to be willing to do it a bit slower.

Re: A career ending mistake

#199

Post by math_denial »

jimmaswell wrote: post #189

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.

I have yet to start a career and I'm already at that point. The things I'm passionate about are just not monetizable or you need to be the 0.00000001% (without counting luck and connections) to make some profit.

Re: A career ending mistake

#200

Post by nefitty »

groby_b wrote: post #186
nefitty wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Eng…

Perfect framing, thank you.
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