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Life's too short to write shitty software

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Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#51

Post by [deleted] »

ajross wrote: post #42
edw519 wrote: post #12

For those of you now browsing Hacker News at his cubicle during his break under soul-sucking fluorescent lights : You can have it both ways (work for BigCo and build cool stuff), but it's not easy. You have to make it happen within the corporate systems and structure. I have many times. A few examples: - Boss to me: "Purchasing is complaining that the legacy system isn't doing what it should. Go find out what they ne…

One warning with this kind of behavior is that it doesn't actually insulate you from the insanity of the environment. Some of your cool stuff is going to be buried because people don't understand it and won't buy in, or because it obsoletes something they did, etc... People will complain about you "not being a team player" when you do things they don't expect. Some managers simply can't handle employees like this and…

[deleted]

Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#52

Post by wpietri »

bri3d wrote: post #6

The basic idea of this article is awesome - right now is certainly the right time to get a non-shitty job. However, I disagree strongly with the idea that startups are some sort of panacea for bad jobs. There are plenty of bad startup jobs, and they're generally easier to get than a corporate job. It's easy to talk yourself out of the bad corporate job somewhere in the 5 levels of HR review and background check. It's…

I agree that not all startups are good. But I think your odds are better at a startup. At IBM, you're 0.00025% of the company. At a startup, it's more like 10 or 20 percent. You have a lot more ability to shape your job and the company so that it's non-shitty.

Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#53

Post by eli_gottlieb »

daeken wrote: post #3

At the end of the day, you should be having fun. I lost sight of that for a long time and wrote a lot of software that I thought would make money (it didn't), but I hated working on. This led to me falling out of love with software for a long while. It's only in the past few months that I've really come to love it again. Between my day job at Mozilla, working on ridiculously fun optimizations, and a startup that went…

How do you get a day-job with Mozilla optimizing code (or do you mean writing optimizers and optimizations?)?

Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#54

Post by daeken »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #53
daeken wrote: post #3

At the end of the day, you should be having fun. I lost sight of that for a long time and wrote a lot of software that I thought would make money (it didn't), but I hated working on. This led to me falling out of love with software for a long while. It's only in the past few months that I've really come to love it again. Between my day job at Mozilla, working on ridiculously fun optimizations, and a startup that went…

How do you get a day-job with Mozilla optimizing code (or do you mean writing optimizers and optimizations?)?

So, most of what I do is optimizing the graphics stack on Boot2Gecko (Mozilla's new mobile OS). That ranges from coming up with new techniques to offload work to the GPU to digging deep into code to find slow portions and optimize them until my fingers bleed. As for how I got it, a friend on the team prodded me and told me about the project, and during the interview process they found out that I had fairly deep knowledge of graphics optimization, and it just went from there.

Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#56

Post by kevingadd »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #53
daeken wrote: post #3

At the end of the day, you should be having fun. I lost sight of that for a long time and wrote a lot of software that I thought would make money (it didn't), but I hated working on. This led to me falling out of love with software for a long while. It's only in the past few months that I've really come to love it again. Between my day job at Mozilla, working on ridiculously fun optimizations, and a startup that went…

How do you get a day-job with Mozilla optimizing code (or do you mean writing optimizers and optimizations?)?

There's always stuff to speed up in gecko, and mozilla has a jobs page! :)

Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#57

Post by kacy »

cpeterso wrote: post #46

The "non-shitty" software the author works on is an ad-serving platform. Advertising is only one or two steps above TPS middleware.

That hurts a little. Sorry you feel that way. :-/ I particularly enjoy working on the technical challenges, but to each his own. Cheers.

Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#58

Post by paulhauggis »

kirinan wrote: post #27
paulhauggis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse knowing you are slaving away your life (which can't be replaced) only to make someone else rich and get a sliver of the profits. Oh yeah, if the wind blows the wrong way, the boss may just decide your are fired and all of your hard work is no longer yours. I quit my job 2 years ago after I saved enough money to live on for a year (which took 4 years). I always hated working for other people. I not only cou…

I know this feeling. Its painful knowing that I should be making my own decisions and deciding my own fate, rather than seeing the VP's bringing home the million dollar salaries for the value I am adding to the business. I promised myself I will escape and never look back. Obviously there is no certainty in startups, but from my point of view, that's comforting. Even though there is no certainty, you always know you…

I made almost nothing and I was living on my savings for a year. I learned more and felt more alive than when I made $80K/year working for someone. It's never really been about the money for me..it's about the freedom. Money just happens to be required for that freedom.

Re: Life's too short to write shitty software

#60

Post by mhurron »

pelemele wrote: post #28
fusiongyro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a hard time imagining that this guy reading HN is going to let his/her skills become obsolete. Besides that, was there really no writing on the wall? They really had 40 hours of work to do every week, and then suddenly none, with no warning?

1. Comfort zone - if you ever worked in corp world you know what I'm talking about (he mentioned that he enjoys family time after 8 hour work shift so I would like to know how he keeps up to date with skill set). 2. I've seen it myself at least two times - no warning, nothing. Thank you for your service, here is you severance package - 2 weeks of pay and application for COBRA coverage.

Yes the only way to keep your skills up to date is to completely ignore your family.
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