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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?

#21
almost at any place that rate is not really stable over time and overall if you have something close to 65-70% then it's probably just average situation.

From my experience places where more programing happening are: - mid-big companies where you role could be very specialized - small companies with focus on creating tech products or where tech has lot of impact on end customers (like if fixing few bugs could instantly lead to making additional money for a company)

Companies from non-tech word usually value non-coding stuff much more.

(I currently have about 50/50 rate and sometimes even less)

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

#23
post #17

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.

The figuring out and doing are the easy part. The hard part is breaking up your work in a way so you have something for the daily standup to talk about.

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

#24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

^ just to clarify, I work from home in NZ but the company I work for is in USA

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

#26

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…

I’m sure that being an IC for 15years helped you develop the technical sharpness that allows you to make decisions and do deep dives occasionally.

I want to be in the 70-90% of coding now because as I improve and move up I will not have had a stretch of deep programming experience.

If you can think of anything, what would you advise me to do?

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

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Like 25 years ago I dreamed of visiting NZ :-) Never been there, but still want to learn to perform Haka! :-)

Thanks for answers!

That is hell a lot of the code for one week! About software stack - how do you post job ads if you can't say what you're working with? :-)

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

#28
post #24
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

^ just to clarify, I work from home in NZ but the company I work for is in USA

similar here, except I'm in PL

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

#29
post #18

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…

Sounds like a lot of fun. I work as Platform Engineer so I’m also on call for about 30+ a week sometimes. The only thing I don’t get to do is programming a lot, I mean I do write some Terraform, YML, Go, scripts etc but not the type of coding that you spend a month building something rather than small programs to automate and facilitate our ops work.

I want to shift from ops to systems programming and find a completely new role.

I’m really good at the debugging and diving into new codebases, but companies don’t like the fact that I don’t really have a previous full time coding role.

Happy to ear how things are going for you and how you have grown technically.

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