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Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

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Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#101

Post by buscoquadnary »

agentultra wrote: post #75
buscoquadnary wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can and do practice those things in my own time. I love my craft I love to excel at it. I have a period of time coming up where I will not work for several weeks (still paid though), during this time I am planning on working through The Art of Computer Programming and learning mobile development. The responsibility for me to keep my skills sharp is upon me not my employer.

As someone who collects and follows and works through AoCP, one does not simply, "work through the Art of Computer Programming," in a few weeks. That's something that comes through piecemeal. Many of the exercises are great but require work to really understand. It's not a series of books one reads cover to cover.

Thanks for the advice. I figured it would be something like that but thought this is probably the best chance I have to take a stab at it.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#102

Post by bornfreddy »

blululu wrote: post #63
buscoquadnary wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here. I realized long ago I should do whatever I can to the best of my ability. If my superiors want to do something stupid or use my skillet in a suboptimal way my responsibility is to do my best to council with them, share what I see and then do the best job I can at whatever I am assigned to, assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. My job is not my Identity we have an economic a…

You know who is going to be the first one fired and the last one promoted? The SWE who is being asked to do some bogus tasks that aren't even close to what they are capable of. In many cases you are in one way or another obligated to act as you suggest, but it is not always good for you personally and simply pretending that you aren't getting screwed is pretty naive. You often don't really have much of a choice in th…

Life if too short to work for a bad boss.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#103

Post by away271828 »

>I've tried to fit myself into what she needs like a square peg in a round hole. I have a very different vision for my role, and a specific understanding of how my strengths contribute to our team.

It happens and it's not necessarily anyone's fault. A new manager comes in with different views of what work needs to be done and what doesn't. For whatever reason maybe transferring internally is hard right now for whatever reason or maybe there just aren't other roles internally that excit you.

(What I have seen though is managers who come in, make changes in roles, and really try to hang onto headcount even if some of that headcount is people they wouldn't have hired. That's on them.)

Depending on a lot of factors maybe it makes sense to hang on for a while. But, at the end of the day, if you're in a job you don't really care for and don't really have the background for--especially if you're supposedly very senior--that's just not a stable or good situation.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#104

Post by bombcar »

nimblegorilla wrote: post #58
buscoquadnary wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This right here. I realized long ago I should do whatever I can to the best of my ability. If my superiors want to do something stupid or use my skillet in a suboptimal way my responsibility is to do my best to council with them, share what I see and then do the best job I can at whatever I am assigned to, assuming over course it doesn't cross legal or moral boundaries. My job is not my Identity we have an economic a…

I sort of agree. Jobs usually have aspects that seem unrewarding. But if you spend most of your time cleaning break rooms then it doesn't let you grow the type of skills needed to land a SWE salary at the next place.

This will often be a small company/large company divide.

If you started at a small company, you'll be used to doing all sorts of things "outside of your job description" (usually below) like restocking toilet paper, etc, simply because there is nobody else to do it.

If you started at a large company, you'll likely be used to "you cannot whatsoever move your computer to the other side of your cubicle without contacting building management" and other such things - stepping outside your job description could get you yelled at or even officially reprimanded.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#105

Post by eckza »

jmartrican wrote: post #62
eckza wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learn a statically-typed FP lang and get a job doing that. Even if you end up at a "Simple Haskell" place, you'll still have all sorts of opportunities to reinvent the wheel (so that you can run yourself over with it, of course).

Great suggestion. Maybe my programming language is the problem and I need to tackle this issue by learning a different language.

Another upside is that if you use a less-common language, there is _not_ a library or package for everything just yet... so sometimes, that creates the opportunity to work on open source at your day job!

Some people will say that this is a downside, because you can't build new things or ship new features as quickly… But I suppose that it comes down to what you want to get out of your career, and what your goals are.

If you are careful and diligent, you can find a way to get paid to solve problems within the domain of your interests. It might take a few years of study on your own time, but I pulled it off; and if I can pull it off, that means that just about anybody can!

Plus, learning new stuff is fun, and I would not have spent the time that I did learning the things that I have learned, if I didn't feel like it was worth it for its own sake.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#107

Post by ajkjk »

mattw2121 wrote: post #9

I had a situation once where we had a minor re-org and I ended up with a new manager. Literally day one, he made an attempt to change everyone's role. We were a team of developers and business analysts. He decided that everyone would become both and spend 50% of their time on each activity. Not sure why he thought this was a good idea, but he did. After he announced it, I had a 1x1 with him and clearly let him know t…

> I had a 1x1 with him and clearly let him know that he was the boss and I'd do my best to accomplish anything he assigned me.

Never understood this attitude. I'd have told him that what he was doing was very inappropriate (without buy-in from the team), and if he doesn't back off I'll quit. He can ask around for other opinions so it's not just coming from me but it's a hard line.

Of course this mostly works cause as a developer you don't need to be afraid of finding another job. But that's good. Workers having leverage over bosses is good.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#108

Post by akudha »

Generally speaking, making major changes in our character/passions/work etc just to please someone is not sustainable, this is true in both personal and work lives. I am facing something similar, but from a family member.

In my previous job, I was asked to do QA work. I have never done QA work before - I don't mind doing it, but I didn't want to do only front end (color, pixel etc) QA work. Needless to day, it didn't work out for me and for my manager.

The best thing to do in such scenarios is to just leave, if that is an option. Especially in professional situations. I have had a lot of jobs in my life - some good, some bad, some super bad. The only thing that was common in ALL these jobs was this - nobody gave a fuck about anyone else, beyond using them to get stuff done. Yes, most people are polite and nice - that doesn't mean they care about you or anyone else. This is not bitterness speaking, this is just the reality. So the best thing to do, is just leave and find a better job

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#109

Post by duxup »

mooreds wrote: post #56
duxup wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So many developer stories out there where it doesn't sound like they ever really had a direct talk with their boss.

> it doesn't sound like they ever really had a direct talk with their boss. Sure, but why? Why wouldn't you have a direct, honest conversation with your manager? I'll tell you why. Because it can be terrifying. You don't know how they will react, whether you'll be forced off interesting projects, put at the top of the layoff list, or similar. You can watch how they handle other situations and get an inkling, but you…

Maybe "communicating with your boss" is a skill folks need to be taught.

Uncomfortable, scary, yup, but necessary.

Re: Tell HN: Beware 'Ungrowth' in Your Job

#110

Post by wing-_-nuts »

Let me guess, your boss tried to force you into a lead / staff / management role?

Same thing happened to me. As I've gotten older management has been been more insistent on me taking a 'leadership' role. What they don't tell you is this is 2x the work (and the sort of work you hate the most) for ~ 10% more pay.

10% is the carrot. The stick is that they start telling you you're 'top of band' for a sr dev and that they can't give you raises going forward despite meeting and exceeding expectations. That particular shoe hasn't dropped just yet, but when it does, I might have to make some hard choices to keep my career moving forward.

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