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Non-linear career paths are the future

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Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#41

Post by 65 »

paulpauper wrote: post #15

for people who are tired of ads https://archive.is/zR9vF Specializers seem to be at a huge advantage in this economy. Switching careers to find your specialty may be a good idea. What can yo be among the best in the world at.

Yes specialists are a huge advantage, but I do believe in certain fields, being a specialist can be a big disadvantage.

For example, if you are a "product designer" aka someone who designs software user interfaces, I fundamentally do not believe you can be exceptional at your job unless you have experience programming front ends.

In web development, writing CSS forces you to think about everything on the page. Everything. Adding interactivity with Javascript forces you to think about user experience on a micro scale. Those details add up, and I have found the best product designers are often those who were previously developers.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#42

Post by ambicapter »

mabbo wrote: post #14

For a decade at Amazon, nearly everyone I worked with was following the linear, expected path. High school, university, degree, FAANG job. Amazon basically didn't interview SDE1s unless they were new grads. For a number of years that policy was explicit from our Director because "we find that works out best". Now I'm at Shopify, where it feels like a complete 180. More than half my team took non-traditional paths- fo…

You can make big money as a tech recruiter. Why work for one big salary if you can take a percentage commission off of many big salaries over the course of a year?

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#43

Post by whatever1 »

mabbo wrote: post #14

For a decade at Amazon, nearly everyone I worked with was following the linear, expected path. High school, university, degree, FAANG job. Amazon basically didn't interview SDE1s unless they were new grads. For a number of years that policy was explicit from our Director because "we find that works out best". Now I'm at Shopify, where it feels like a complete 180. More than half my team took non-traditional paths- fo…

Modern software engineering / data analytics jobs require 3 month prep (from 0 background) in total to be hire-ready. Of course people from other fields are jumping ship.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#44

Post by mabbo »

ambicapter wrote: post #42
mabbo wrote: post #14

For a decade at Amazon, nearly everyone I worked with was following the linear, expected path. High school, university, degree, FAANG job. Amazon basically didn't interview SDE1s unless they were new grads. For a number of years that policy was explicit from our Director because "we find that works out best". Now I'm at Shopify, where it feels like a complete 180. More than half my team took non-traditional paths- fo…

You can make big money as a tech recruiter. Why work for one big salary if you can take a percentage commission off of many big salaries over the course of a year?

Most don't.

There are some very talented recruiters that are very well-connected, very good at what they do, and very hard working, and they can make quite a bit of money.

But most recruiters are working for one company or one agency on a salary or hourly basis and it's not much money.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#45

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

bradlys wrote: post #21
skullone wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ageism is too much of a thing in tech. These young frontend js developers can't even hold down F2 to enter the BIOS. So much knowledge lost from companies letting decades worth of experience walk out the door. And it shows, so many modern products have shite architecture.

Boomer-esque speak. You're out of touch if you think that architecture is what anyone cares about these days. It's about getting PMF and first to ship. Everything else is not even secondary but completely forgotten. If you can manage to make good architectural decisions while shipping incredibly fast - hey, congrats, you got lucky on this project. But I've worked with plenty of devs with 20+ years of experience and w…

Oh, and this is neither her, nor there, but I work very fast. So fast, in fact, that the people I work with complain about it. I’ve learned to slow down, and spend a lot more time, “polishing the fenders,” so to speak. Folks seem to be happy with the results.

I do very good code, based on excellent architectures, very quickly.

I do it for free, because no one thinks that’s worth paying for, and that suits me just fine. The last thing that I want, is some money-crazed manager, insisting that I ship crap, so they can get rich. The poor folks that use my software will get a Quality level that far surpasses much of the commercial stuff out there.

I actually find that thought rather satisfying.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#46

Post by politician »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #29
bradlys wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boomer-esque speak. You're out of touch if you think that architecture is what anyone cares about these days. It's about getting PMF and first to ship. Everything else is not even secondary but completely forgotten. If you can manage to make good architectural decisions while shipping incredibly fast - hey, congrats, you got lucky on this project. But I've worked with plenty of devs with 20+ years of experience and w…

You’re right, of course. Sadly, I find that I have the heart of a craftsman, so I won’t compromise my own Principles. True, some (a lot, maybe) folks will sneer at me as a “poor,” and look down on me, for not being willing to compromise my personal Integrity for money, but I learned to ignore that, a long time ago. I’m not competitive, and I don’t care about dying with the most toys. I like making stuff that will imp…

Look on the bright side, if your principles are really good (by which I mean reproducible and high quality), then you should be able to use LLMs to crank out the boilerplate faster than the young folks who have no principles or work experience to lean into.

However, if you disclose this, expect large companies to demand your prompts as their work product, which will diminish the moat that you, as a craftsman, have created.

Unless you intend to do so, don’t accidentally turn your craft into a mass manufacturing template, that’s all I’m saying.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#47

Post by [deleted] »

mabbo wrote: post #14

For a decade at Amazon, nearly everyone I worked with was following the linear, expected path. High school, university, degree, FAANG job. Amazon basically didn't interview SDE1s unless they were new grads. For a number of years that policy was explicit from our Director because "we find that works out best". Now I'm at Shopify, where it feels like a complete 180. More than half my team took non-traditional paths- fo…

[deleted]

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#48

Post by dleslie »

mabbo wrote: post #14

For a decade at Amazon, nearly everyone I worked with was following the linear, expected path. High school, university, degree, FAANG job. Amazon basically didn't interview SDE1s unless they were new grads. For a number of years that policy was explicit from our Director because "we find that works out best". Now I'm at Shopify, where it feels like a complete 180. More than half my team took non-traditional paths- fo…

A major difference between Amazon and Shopify is that the latter is a Canadian company. The hiring and work culture is quite different here.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#49

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

politician wrote: post #46
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right, of course. Sadly, I find that I have the heart of a craftsman, so I won’t compromise my own Principles. True, some (a lot, maybe) folks will sneer at me as a “poor,” and look down on me, for not being willing to compromise my personal Integrity for money, but I learned to ignore that, a long time ago. I’m not competitive, and I don’t care about dying with the most toys. I like making stuff that will imp…

Look on the bright side, if your principles are really good (by which I mean reproducible and high quality), then you should be able to use LLMs to crank out the boilerplate faster than the young folks who have no principles or work experience to lean into. However, if you disclose this, expect large companies to demand your prompts as their work product, which will diminish the moat that you, as a craftsman, have cr…

Times, they are a’ changin’…

Prompt Engineering will probably become a thing.

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