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Career Advice (2013)

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Re: Career Advice (2013)

#171

Post by ornornor »

gcanyon wrote: post #124
mejutoco wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ten years ago it was PHP and Jira. Ten years before that ... I recognize this is a matter of perspective, because to me the examples you mention are fundamentally not very different. A middle manager working in a programming language might be a way to put it that sounds the same as the old job. Which exact programming language, etc. can be seen as details, depending on the context. When seen through this lens the p…

Granted, Notion isn't that different from Jira experientially -- it is vastly more flexible. But there's no comparing today's "everyone has a ticketing/task management system" setup to how things worked in the ~2000 Java era. We produced massive word documents to describe what we were going to do, and then broke them down to gantt charts in excel, and agreed what we were going to build in advance with formal sign-off…

I worked at a large-ish company like that recently, that is stuck in the past.

On the surface, they’re “Agile(tm)” because they have sprints and retros. But at the level above middle managers, it’s all huge word documents, Gantt charts, formal sign offs, and then later the blame game when it invariably fails to meet both deadline and requirements.

I was too young to work in the 00s, but that was a miserable job. I had colleagues who had been there for decades and others that started as apprentices there and retired in the couple of years I was there… that’s all they’ve ever known and worked at this one place only. It totally blew my mind.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#172

Post by da39a3ee »

> As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there

Ok hang on but there aren't any old people at my software company that's 4 years old. The author didn't seem to address this possibility, despite the fact that they were writing about careers in software.

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#174

Post by r0rshrk »

gumby wrote: post #133
farmeroy wrote: post #43

I spent my twenties riding freight trains across the US and cycling across Europe and Asia, living off of music. I'm not sure I would recommend that to anyone who is looking for career advice - Now I'm trying to build a solid career for myself as a software developer and I have no idea if it is easier with all that behind me or not. While I'm hoping that the soft skills and self knowledge I may have acquired over the…

My gf asked me to apply for a big company job (she’s worked for all of FAANG). The second time a recruiter asked me to explain to them what the “narrative” was in my resume cause they couldn’t see it, I figured I had good reason not to work for one of those places. They were looking for a simple A -> B -> C while my life has been more A -> G -> B -> -> -> Q... I haven’t worked for a big company in 35 years, and I can…

Thing is though, they're literally just looking for that - a narrative. Could be as difficult as layoffs or as easy as just that you were bored.

They're just looking for a compelling reasoning behind it. Source: interviewed for FAANG companies with a similar resume

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#175

Post by [deleted] »

ornornor wrote: post #170
jhatemyjob wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. I wish I found Cal's writings earlier in my life. I followed the line of thinking in OP for 5 years. Since I was following my "passion", I wasn't making that much money and thus was obsessing over my career day in and day out. Then at one point I decided to sell my soul to big tech. After some time, I realized that I actually don't care about my career that much. Ultimately all I want is to increase my hourly…

I see the pragmatism of this, but can’t reconcile the cognitive dissonance. I personally hate when quality is a nice to have rather than a first class citizen because it results in so much more misery, stress, burnout, micromanagement that is 100% avoidable. By working someplace that (dys)functions that way, I feel like I’m enabling and contributing to ruining everyone else’s lives… and that makes me feel worthless,…

[deleted]

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#176

Post by vladisov »

moffkalast wrote: post #97
Swizec wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved countries soon after college with not even a job lined up. From Slovenia straight into SFBA because if you're gonna do something that hard, you might as well go all the way. To anyone asking if they should do the same, I say: Don't do it. Because if you have to ask, the answer is no. The ones who succeed don't ask for permission, they ask for tips about how to get it done. The mind is already made up. Same is…

As a fellow Slovenian who's also worked with Americans, the last part is both hilarious and real. It's just such a weirdly large cultural difference in general behaviour that's hard to explain. I would personally find it near impossible to adapt to that always-fake-cheerful attitude that's common on the west coast.

I had a meeting with my manager in a few months after move and he asked: hey why o you never smile, is smth wrong? And I was thinking I actually smile a lot...

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#177

Post by [deleted] »

ornornor wrote: post #170
jhatemyjob wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. I wish I found Cal's writings earlier in my life. I followed the line of thinking in OP for 5 years. Since I was following my "passion", I wasn't making that much money and thus was obsessing over my career day in and day out. Then at one point I decided to sell my soul to big tech. After some time, I realized that I actually don't care about my career that much. Ultimately all I want is to increase my hourly…

I see the pragmatism of this, but can’t reconcile the cognitive dissonance. I personally hate when quality is a nice to have rather than a first class citizen because it results in so much more misery, stress, burnout, micromanagement that is 100% avoidable. By working someplace that (dys)functions that way, I feel like I’m enabling and contributing to ruining everyone else’s lives… and that makes me feel worthless,…

[deleted]

Re: Career Advice (2013)

#178

Post by jhatemyjob »

ornornor wrote: post #170
jhatemyjob wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto. I wish I found Cal's writings earlier in my life. I followed the line of thinking in OP for 5 years. Since I was following my "passion", I wasn't making that much money and thus was obsessing over my career day in and day out. Then at one point I decided to sell my soul to big tech. After some time, I realized that I actually don't care about my career that much. Ultimately all I want is to increase my hourly…

I see the pragmatism of this, but can’t reconcile the cognitive dissonance. I personally hate when quality is a nice to have rather than a first class citizen because it results in so much more misery, stress, burnout, micromanagement that is 100% avoidable. By working someplace that (dys)functions that way, I feel like I’m enabling and contributing to ruining everyone else’s lives… and that makes me feel worthless,…

Yeah maybe you're right, I'm just rationalizing it. But money is sooooo important. I feel like everyone should give big tech a shot, even if it's for a few months. You get paid so much and the expectations are so low at the beginning. You can easily coast during that 6-month trial period and spend most of your time working on your own stuff. If it's remote, and you structure your time right, it's basically free money
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