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Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

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Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#11

Post by TrueDuality »

I'm doing the CTO thing for a I come from a history of being an individual contributor (15 years of that) and I would say overall as I've gotten more senior in my positions I've done less coding as a % of my time, but the coding that I have been doing is individually more impactful or sensitive.

The non-coding part of my time has gone more into mentoring, reviewing, design, business discussions & goal setting, policy writing and implementation, team organization & management, and interactions with operations.

I think that about covers it, but feel free to follow up if you have anymore questions.

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#12

Post by hnthrowaway0328 »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #7
hnthrowaway0328 wrote: post #4

Almost zero. I refuse to classify YAML as code.

It's code, you're just not allowed to know what language it's written in.

If it's not a marketable skill it's not. I'm getting out of the door as soon as I get an offer.

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#13

Post by janosdebugs »

I work on OpenTofu since November, lots of coding, docs, the rest is helping the community or coordinating contributions.

I used to work for Red Hat (OCP on oVirt/RHV, Arcalot/Arcaflow, etc), in a little over 2 years I wrote somewhere around 40.000 lines of code that I can account for with 80%+ time spent, but that diminished greatly around the end as a lot of changes into the "Scrum to rule everything" direction happened, which decreased the amount of code produced by a lot.

Depending on what you do you may want to go window shopping for jobs where coding skills are valued and that are low on process. If the interview process already puts heavy emphasis on your code, that may be a place for you. If, on the other hand, the quality of your code isn't appreciated as long as it works... Smaller companies/projects tend to work better.

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#14

Post by thewizardofaus »

Solo founder; it tends to change rapidly depending on the stage of the product.

Probably 90% of the time writing code currently. Once the hardware product is released publicly it drops to 10% (maintenance) and then ramps up when new significant features are added.

Broadly speaking..

Stage 1: design specs 0% code

Stage 2: prototyping 50% code

Stage 3: the hard work 90% code

Stage 4: selling and maintenance 10%+

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#15

Post by cmaggiulli »

My title is director of product development. I manage a team of roughly 30 people with 1 layer of management between most ICs. While it’s not evenly distributed, over the course of a year I spend about 10% of my time writing code. I’ve worked in strictly development roles before where I was still coding less than 50%

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#16

Post by danielEM »

malux85 wrote: post #9

I work at a hedge fund, and I spent 98% of my time writing code. I usually work on 2-3 experiments simultaneously, and every day or two take 2 hours off to work on "zany schemes" -- moonshot type ideas that occasionally are very lucrative, and therefore justified time-wise. 1 meeting a week, for 1 hour. I work 3AM to 11AM, then about 12:30PM to 6PM on my side gig https://atomictessellator.com

Out of curiosity - are you working in NZ?

What software stack you're using at hedge fund?

Can you tell how many lines of code did you commit in a first week of December? :-)

Not asking, but asking - what is your hourly rate? :-)

Congrats on side gig - interesting idea!

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#17

Post by lopis »

thewizardofaus wrote: post #14

Solo founder; it tends to change rapidly depending on the stage of the product. Probably 90% of the time writing code currently. Once the hardware product is released publicly it drops to 10% (maintenance) and then ramps up when new significant features are added. Broadly speaking.. Stage 1: design specs 0% code Stage 2: prototyping 50% code Stage 3: the hard work 90% code Stage 4: selling and maintenance 10%+

Fun y you call it the hard work. I guess you mean hard as in, more "physical" so to say. The. Doing part is the easy work and flows well. The debugging and figuring out what do to solve problems is the hard part.

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#18

Post by bob1029 »

I am the most senior technology person in a After doing this a while, I realized that writing the code isn't the part that takes a long time. It's rewriting it over and over because you didn't fundamentally solve what the business was asking for the first time. I prefer to focus on that part of the puzzle now. Making sure it gets done right the ~first time. Help others on the team avoid lava pits that they can't see yet.

I try really hard to avoid writing any code until I am nearly certain how something should be implemented. Exploratory rabbit chases are quite rare for me these days. A younger me would be appalled, but I enjoy a new kind of game - Making the customer happy for minimal effort and then getting paid.

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#19

Post by [deleted] »

malux85 wrote: post #9

I work at a hedge fund, and I spent 98% of my time writing code. I usually work on 2-3 experiments simultaneously, and every day or two take 2 hours off to work on "zany schemes" -- moonshot type ideas that occasionally are very lucrative, and therefore justified time-wise. 1 meeting a week, for 1 hour. I work 3AM to 11AM, then about 12:30PM to 6PM on my side gig https://atomictessellator.com

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How much code do you write in your job?

#20

Post by malux85 »

danielEM wrote: post #16
malux85 wrote: post #9

I work at a hedge fund, and I spent 98% of my time writing code. I usually work on 2-3 experiments simultaneously, and every day or two take 2 hours off to work on "zany schemes" -- moonshot type ideas that occasionally are very lucrative, and therefore justified time-wise. 1 meeting a week, for 1 hour. I work 3AM to 11AM, then about 12:30PM to 6PM on my side gig https://atomictessellator.com

Out of curiosity - are you working in NZ? What software stack you're using at hedge fund? Can you tell how many lines of code did you commit in a first week of December? :-) Not asking, but asking - what is your hourly rate? :-) Congrats on side gig - interesting idea!

> Out of curiosity - are you working in NZ?

Yes

> What software stack you're using at hedge fund?

Cant discuss

> Can you tell how many lines of code did you commit in a first week of December? :-)

43 commits, 3440 lines added, 374 removed

> Not asking, but asking - what is your hourly rate? :-)

Wont discuss with strangers

> Congrats on side gig - interesting idea!

Thanks! It's heaps of fun and it's only just started making new discoveries, time to lab-test some soon

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