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Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

matthewgrohman.substack.com

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Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#91

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #78
inanutshellus wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand but don't agree. 'customer' implies commerce happened, 'listener' implies listening happened. 'consumer' is a higher abstraction than either of those. It's the most abstract word someone could think of to say "X internalized Y". e.g. "X took Y and added it to itself... let's not get distracted with how. the important thing is, X took Y and internalized it." I guess we could, uh, go with "internalizer". I…

> 'consumer' is a higher abstraction than either of those In the old days, we called those people the "audience". What your audience hopefully does with your work is "learn" or "be entertained".

[deleted]

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#92

Post by JohnFen »

inanutshellus wrote: post #80
JohnFen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply a concise way to say "read / watched / listened" when context of which media doesn't matter. It's barely tolerable when used in that sense, but typically it's not used in that sense. The problem is the widespread abuse of the term. When I first started hearing it used, it was weird but didn't irritate me because it was usually used in the sense you're saying here. But then it started being used all over…

You're letting something irritate you that's not wrong. It's like getting mad when someone says "I had noodles for lunch" when you know perfectly well they had /spaghetti/, and if they'd said /spaghetti/ you could get irate because they actually had /ragu/ spaghetti (meat in the spaghetti sauce). Using the abstract word it still "fine" if that's the level the speaker wants to give.

I don't think that analogy captures my problem with those words. My problem, really, is that they devalue what they refer to. "Consumer" devalues people, and "content" devalues creative effort.

Saying "noodles" doesn't devalue spaghetti.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#93

Post by scarface74 »

lhorie wrote: post #67
scarface74 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My title is not “software engineer”. I pivoted into “cloud consulting” to get into BigTech. I fell into that role because I do have the combination of skills that the article author spoke of - and I’m an MBA drop out. But my route was very circuitous and I would never recommend it. As someone who considers himself a student of organizational behavior and being on the inside informs my viewpoint. Being that I’m billab…

Many of us went through circuitous routes. My title is SWE at a big tech company and I interview SWE candidates, so I think I'm relatively close to how the sausage is made in terms of the pipeline through which most engineering candidates go through to get into big tech. Personally I think "grind LC" is a very common meme perpetuated by folks on the candidate side, but it lacks a lot of context in terms of how modern…

I have only been involved in software engineering interviews at BigTech for senior devs in the System Design round (because doing System Design is part of my $DayJob). Just to explain my perspective.

When I was in the real world and when I interviewed at my current job, I practiced being able to explain my experience in STAR format based on my “career document”.

In the real world, all of my “interviews” were mostly just my talking to CxOs and directors at small companies. My loop for my current job was all behavioral after the initial screening and even that was more system design than anything else.

If you know there is going to be a coding interview, wouldn’t it behoove you to practice that too - or “grind leetcode?”

I did DS&A back as part of my job during the first decade of my career bit twiddling in C across multiple architectures and later on maintaining a custom compiler toolchain. But I would definitely have to practice to be interview ready at this point. The coding part of my job has gotten a lot easier during the last decade. It’s been about knowing what to write and getting buy in

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#94

Post by boilerupnc »

idopmstuff wrote: post #63

This is a great article, and my only issue with it and my only issue with it is that I think it's too limited. This isn't just a tech thing - the world we live in is one where having more context in a professional environment is almost always useful. If you spend time learning about how HR functions, it'll help you understand how things like promotions work. Spend time with marketing, and you'll learn lessons about h…

>the world we live in is one where having more context in a professional environment is almost always useful

THIS. My career pivoted in a new direction simply because I asked a question to a co-worker [0]. The core qualities of curiosity and empathy leads to riches of mind, friendship and wallet. Some reminders I try to adhere to:

- Believing that seeking opportunities to help others is universally positive since trust blooms from the soils of good intentions. And trust opens up possibilities.

- Asking just one more question.

- Finding that extra minute to hear one more story

[0] https://medium.com/@boilerupnc/ten-lines-9a8403984bbf?source...

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#95

Post by JohnFen »

inanutshellus wrote: post #81
kqr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I learned from"?

I like to imagine some group of pedants sitting in a cliche smoky room ruminating on this, going through all these permutations and arguing why each word wasn't good enough (e.g. "you needn't have learned!") until they finally ended up with the eureka of 'consume' which was then hackneyed by business folk and thus led to irritating our buddy JohnFen here.

Don't worry about me. I'm fine. All that happens is that I think less of the work that talks that way. My reaction is of little impact to anyone in the end.

I mention it here, though, because the number of people who find that language problematic seems to be on the rise, and that may inform how authors write.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#96

Post by satvikpendem »

mindcrime wrote: post #58
geph2021 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people can't even describe where the money in their business comes from. I find this quite remarkable, and does not match my experience. Every company I've worked for, from startups to Fortune 500, it was very clear what products the engineers contributed to, and what that product portfolio revenue stream looked like, and what it meant to the business (right down to the product margins). For startups, pre-revenu…

Every company I've worked for, from startups to Fortune 500, it was very clear what products the engineers contributed to, and what that product portfolio revenue stream looked like, and what it meant to the business (right down to the product margins). This sounds quite remarkable to me, and definitely does not match my experience. I've found that most engineers have an incredibly vague notion - at best - of how the…

If you've worked in startups before and then go on to big companies, you will have learned those terms, so it just depends on where your fellow engineers are coming from.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#97

Post by AstixAndBelix »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #90
AstixAndBelix wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My income is a reflection of the value I bring to a company. If I do something extremely valuable without getting a raise or a bonus or a promotion then the company is not valuing me enough and I should look elsewhere. If I work for a for-profit company you can't expect me to do extra work for free. If I wanted that type of life I would have gotte a job in another kind kf venture

So, I'm curious, what aspects of your job would you say are what makes a job tolerable or pleasurable to you? Just maximizing your income, or are there other things? Getting along with coworkers? Enjoying solving programming puzzles? Anything? Or is this a stupid question, because all jobs are equally intolerable to you, they all suck the same, there is nothing that makes one more tolerable or even pleasurable than a…

I like my profession => I want to earn as much money as possible doing it => if I work my ass off and you don't reward me I will look elsewhere

It's not that difficult. As I already said, if I didn't want money I would have worked as a volunteer or something

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#98

Post by throwawaysleep »

SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #64
throwawaysleep wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I little reorganization yielded a $385,000/yr cost optimization. And your reward for that was? Were you rewarded? Did they give you 30K as a bonus? Or was it just the weasel words of "this will be considered favourably at performance review time." I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job…

I don't know how your company works but at mine we have a profit target associated with our annual bonus. By eliminating that waste I am helping to ensure we hit that target so I get paid. Imagine if I let it slip and we missed our target by $200,000 that would be dollars coming right out my pocket.

Value per hour might be a little low there, but they have certainly done more to align incentives with employees than my employers have. I do get bonus, but it is a fixed percentage based on getting above "meets expectations."

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#99

Post by feanaro »

JohnFen wrote: post #15

I don't "consume content". I read, watch, and listen to a wide variety of things, though, and highly recommend that practice. My apologies. "Consume content" has become a pet peeve of mine. It's a dehumanizing and overly reductionist phrase, and isn't even technically correct (the best kind of correct).

I came here triggered by this, to say exactly this. Pleasantly surprised I'm not the only one.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#100

Post by jrochkind1 »

AstixAndBelix wrote: post #97
jrochkind1 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I'm curious, what aspects of your job would you say are what makes a job tolerable or pleasurable to you? Just maximizing your income, or are there other things? Getting along with coworkers? Enjoying solving programming puzzles? Anything? Or is this a stupid question, because all jobs are equally intolerable to you, they all suck the same, there is nothing that makes one more tolerable or even pleasurable than a…

I like my profession => I want to earn as much money as possible doing it => if I work my ass off and you don't reward me I will look elsewhere It's not that difficult. As I already said, if I didn't want money I would have worked as a volunteer or something

Right, I understand that you want to earn as much money as possible, and if you don't feel you are being compensated adequately, you will go somewhere else.

That probably describes many, most, or all people, but isn't an answer to the question I was curious about.

I am not sure why you are refusing to answer to my question while still engaging in the discussion, but I guess I should take it as an answer that, in fact, no, nothing at your job contributes to whether you find it more or less tolerable or even enjoyable than another, except how much you get paid?

I am also curious, although I assume you won't answer, whether you'd say you generally "like" your jobs or "hate" them, or just don't even think of them in those terms, or what. And still curious how many jobs you've had, and how long you've been working in the field.

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