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

Non-linear career paths are the future

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 90 posts

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#71

Post by sokoloff »

snek_case wrote: post #20
eointierney wrote: post #18

Polymath was always an idea that appealed, mainly due to Leonardo da Vinci (check out his drawings of turbulent water). I think the problem is career paths, as though a working life must optimise for linearity to achieve success, when instead those individuals who explore breadth and depth and fun are both most productive and creative. Anyone who can see a problem and potential solution through more than one prism of…

Part of the problem is the idea that people must have X years experience in Y. I once applied to a game development company. I have something like 20 years experience in systems programming. The problem is that my CV doesn't have any game development experience on it... But when I was about 20, I programmed my own 3D engine, and my own raytracer with soft shadows. A few years ago, I've worked with GLSL as well. I'm f…

Why would you submit a CV/resume to a game company without highlighting your game-dev-relevant experience?

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#72

Post by xthrown1 »

mdorazio wrote: post #56
xthrown1 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon also pays much less than the other top tier tech companies. Maybe that's changed in the last 6 months but that was yet another reason why top talent didn't go there.

A quick look on levels.fyi doesn't really support this. What are you basing that on?

Compared to Google, Facebook and Apple Amazon pays between 10 and 20% less for the same position according to that site.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#73

Post by dagw »

snek_case wrote: post #20
eointierney wrote: post #18

Polymath was always an idea that appealed, mainly due to Leonardo da Vinci (check out his drawings of turbulent water). I think the problem is career paths, as though a working life must optimise for linearity to achieve success, when instead those individuals who explore breadth and depth and fun are both most productive and creative. Anyone who can see a problem and potential solution through more than one prism of…

Part of the problem is the idea that people must have X years experience in Y. I once applied to a game development company. I have something like 20 years experience in systems programming. The problem is that my CV doesn't have any game development experience on it... But when I was about 20, I programmed my own 3D engine, and my own raytracer with soft shadows. A few years ago, I've worked with GLSL as well. I'm f…

I worked at a digital animation and FX studio and we got applications all the time from people basically just like you. People without any directly relevant experience on their CV, but with a passionate cover letter about how they spend their free time working on their own animation projects and links to fun things they've done. As long as they had something fun and interesting to show we almost always called them in for an interview. Admittedly we where a fairly small and quite anonymous shop and didn't get hundreds of applications. Probably at larger, more famous, places it is harder to do this.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#74

Post by [deleted] »

tennisflyi wrote: post #53
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…

I was told degree to FANG wasn't a common path and you had to "cut your teeth." lol

[deleted]

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#75

Post by jhoelzel »

I learned to program at 12 and with 16 i founded my first startup (which failed of course) and there i learned that coding is only half the game and added a bachelor in economical psychology instead of Comp-Sci.

My resume has over 20 years of experience: backend, frontend, platform, k8s, cto roles and much more.

Still Companies automatic filter sort me out because I don't have "the correct" degree unless i tell them that i have been freelancing forever.

Therefore sure, go for it, but no its not the future.

This is the "zuck was a college dropout" all over again.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#77

Post by logicchains »

planetwraith wrote: post #68
bradlys wrote: post #22

Sounds like survivorship bias to me. Seen plenty of people drop out of things and never make a return to some magical FAANG or whatever employment/founding/etc after. Those folks don't make the headlines though and you don't remember them because - well - why would you.

whew, I just spent the last hour of my life reading your post history. I'm 28, I make 170k/yr, and I drive a 2008 Nissan. I'm a 5'6" straight male, 150lbs, not unattractive, and I haven't had sex in five years. Frankly, I've never had a relationship longer than a couple months in my life. In almost every quantifiable aspect, you've got me beat - but I don't envy you at all. You're very intelligent and driven. There i…

>I'm 28, I make 170k/yr, and I drive a 2008 Nissan. I'm a 5'6" straight male, 150lbs, not unattractive, and I haven't had sex in five years. Frankly, I've never had a relationship longer than a couple months in my life

Assuming you're not religious (as most people on this site aren't), why not just pay for it? A higher class escort is no more likely to have STDs than a promiscuous bar hookup, and even then the chance of catching something is low; for HIV, for instance, on average someone'd need to have unprotected sex with a HIV positive person over a hundred times to catch it.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#78

Post by kris-nova »

Women and marginalized people who change jobs: Flakey and incapable. Unable to handle a job. Something must be wrong. Clearly a sign of caution to be taken as a reason not to work with them.

Men who change jobs: literally articles inventing new vernacular stemming from the mental gymnastics required to justify the hypocrisy — men aren’t incapable because they change jobs — they are prodigy — men aren’t untrustworthy for changing jobs — they are taking nonlinear career paths because of the uncertainty in the market

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#79

Post by bradlys »

logicchains wrote: post #77
planetwraith wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whew, I just spent the last hour of my life reading your post history. I'm 28, I make 170k/yr, and I drive a 2008 Nissan. I'm a 5'6" straight male, 150lbs, not unattractive, and I haven't had sex in five years. Frankly, I've never had a relationship longer than a couple months in my life. In almost every quantifiable aspect, you've got me beat - but I don't envy you at all. You're very intelligent and driven. There i…

>I'm 28, I make 170k/yr, and I drive a 2008 Nissan. I'm a 5'6" straight male, 150lbs, not unattractive, and I haven't had sex in five years. Frankly, I've never had a relationship longer than a couple months in my life Assuming you're not religious (as most people on this site aren't), why not just pay for it? A higher class escort is no more likely to have STDs than a promiscuous bar hookup, and even then the chance…

I don’t get this idea. When someone says they haven’t had sex - it usually isn’t indicating they only want unattached sex. It usually is shorthand for saying, “I haven’t had sex and I’d like to experience that with someone I have an emotional bond with. I’d also like to be loved and cared for and desired by someone that I feel similar to.”

We just say, “I haven’t had sex” because it’s shorthand and isn’t as emotionally taxing to the audience.

Re: Non-linear career paths are the future

#80

Post by rakah »

eunoia wrote: post #7
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #5

High School Dropout -> GED -> Redneck Tech School -> RF Tech -> OJT -> Electronic Test Engineer -> Extracurricular Learning -> Big Iron Programmer -> Extracurricular Learning -> Mac Programmer -> Major Corporation -> Major Engineering Company for 27 Years (as Engineer and Manager) -> Declared Persona Non Grata in the Tech Industry (for Being Old) -> Extracurricular Learning -> Working for Free on Stuff That I Find In…

> No one dared to ask his business, no one dared to make a slip > For the stranger there among them had a big iron on his hip

Oh great, now I have to shut down my 3270 and go play New Vegas.
Post reply on HN