Same Stop: Life after 26 years as a programmer for Apple

Post by asdfman123 » Mon, May 22, 2023, 9:46 AM UTC

gymbeaux wrote: post #200

totorovirus wrote: post #157

What I've seen in the past two years, a lot of people who have seemingly no fit to a life of a programmer have joined software industry. In my experience the best devs were the people who self-taught programming for pure joy of building a software, making a glimpse of imaging to something real through writing code. The others who were on this job because the compensation was hefty - they were likely to opt out to a m…

I think I’m conditioned to have reduced respect for managers because in my experience they are former devs who were “promoted” out of touching the code. As a result, when they offer technical advice, it’s bad technical advice, or at best merely “unhelpful”, usually because it’s obvious (e.g. “did you try {first thing I tried}?” I pose that such people shouldn’t be devs or managers, but “manager” is a role that tends…

Post by asdfman123 » Mon, May 22, 2023, 9:50 AM UTC

tnova wrote: post #203

pavlov wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing the same story was told 600 years ago in Spain: "My father, an Inquisitor himself, told me of the time when the Grand Inquisitor promoted him. Ordinary priests are a dime a dozen, the great man said, but it takes special skill to be an Inquisitor. And that's why you never let them go back to the pulpit when you do find a good one."

I’m not sure I follow the analogy here, are you implying technical leadership is committing heinous crimes against humanity?

Post by urthor » Mon, May 22, 2023, 9:54 AM UTC

biorach wrote: post #173

pavlov wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Several years ago my father got promoted to some leadership role. In our conversation about it, he told me he had asked to get back closer tech, but his boss declined and said tech specialists are a dime a dozen. Technical leadership is very expensive to find though, and once you find one you don’t let them go back to the production line." Ah, the foundational myth of middle management.

Middle managers are a dime a dozen. However a good technical lead - who can contribute to the engineering team's discussions _and_ lead the team are very very hard to find.

Post by arvinsim » Mon, May 22, 2023, 10:00 AM UTC

victor9000 wrote: post #172

kstenerud wrote: post #142

In 2 days time I'll mark my 27th year as a professional programmer (and just over 40 years since I started programming). I've worked in small companies, big companies, and mega-corporations. I've been a programmer, manager, team lead and CTO. And in doing so I discovered that I don't like managing people, I don't like meetings, and I don't like paperwork. I like long periods of focus. So I'm a software dev/architect…

I took the same path and came to the same realization, yet my current architect role is still nothing but meetings. Ugh.

Post by arthur_sav » Mon, May 22, 2023, 10:03 AM UTC

szundi wrote: post #178

kstenerud wrote: post #142

In 2 days time I'll mark my 27th year as a professional programmer (and just over 40 years since I started programming). I've worked in small companies, big companies, and mega-corporations. I've been a programmer, manager, team lead and CTO. And in doing so I discovered that I don't like managing people, I don't like meetings, and I don't like paperwork. I like long periods of focus. So I'm a software dev/architect…

I am not sure what I want more anymore. I love these periods of flow, but I am so good at integrating other people's work, making them agree on the best while being happy and feeling productive. Also flow makes time fly and I feel I would just die very soon, heh. Anyone feeling this too? But I crave this feeling very much anyway.