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Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

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Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#71

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

jacknews wrote: post #65
SillyUsername wrote: post #47

With your C skills I'd consider a parallel market in embedded or low level work to expand your skills in those areas. You might be able to move from that up to to mobile development etc. Tech stacks there tend to be Java, Swift, C, React Native (similar to React web) so it opens a lot of areas. P.S. I'm not far behind in age but I code in 2 different tech stacks daily at work, on FE and BE, and stick my nose into par…

But it seems embedded pays horribly, is not respected, and can be way more frustrating due to hardware bugs etc.

Pay could be better, and hardware bugs can be frustrating, but I definitely respect embedded guys a lot. More than most generalist developers, in fact, due to the atoms-adjacent nature of their work.

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#72

Post by giantg2 »

erbdex wrote: post #40
kstenerud wrote: post #4

I remember in 1999 thinking "Damn! The world's moved on to Java and I'm still writing in C! I won't last much longer..." Then I got a job writing C code for those wireless credit card doohickies (a nasty mess of Z80s with crazy paging schemes to access 2mb of memory, but I digress). A few years later I actually started working in Java and Python, and then iPhone came along and I was right back in C land again! Then i…

Perhaps a biased view but fter teaching students from colleges I feel that most who are "born in the high level" world float comfortably without needing to understand fundamentals (memory, OS interfaces, arch, drivers, crashes, ..). As soon as something basic goes down or when you have unexpected dives into low level stuff, the fair weather pilots are suddenly out of their depth. I started with C, eventually moved in…

"As soon as something basic goes down or when you have unexpected dives into low level stuff, the fair weather pilots are suddenly out of their depth."

Then they just jump jobs and get a 50% raise after enduring the "poor work environment" at their previous job.

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#73

Post by giantg2 »

amerkhalid wrote: post #69
gizajob wrote: post #20

Lie about your age and fabricate new skills on your resume/CV. Put “I code in C/Java/Go/Python/Javascript/whateverYouNeed”. Also you’re in the EU so could feasibly move to where needs your exact skill set. But web/frontend/backend is needed everywhere so it’s likely worth adding that to your C skills.

I believe it is illegal in the US to ask someone's age during interview. Only after you are hired and filling out paperwork is when they ask for your birthday. Not sure if it is same in the EU, but if it is illegal don't volunteer your age. No need to lie.

They don't need you're birthday to see you're old.

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#74

Post by v3ss0n »

instagraham wrote: post #27
v3ss0n wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Founder , I believe it is not fair for someone to look for job applications on company time and sharpening your skills for next job - in time and resources that your company had paid for. Since you have problems with upper management - tough it up , talk about it face to face in a polite manner and highlight their toxic behavior . Tell them you don't like the way you are being treated and you can't continue this…

The unfair thing in the scenario you describe is the employee choosing to upskill while they continue to do their jobs? And not the company firing them for speaking their mind - giving them 3 months of runway to switch careers in a situation OP already said felt like a shit job market? Micromanaging employee time is one of the worst signs of a toxic company culture. And definitely not a sign of an efficient one

Op is not upfront about the toxicity situation to their management.And he haven't said anything about how toxic it is.

> Micromanaging employee time is one of the worst signs of a toxic company culture

I agree micro managing alot is bad but I don't agree it is toxic. I agree if leadership knows nothing about software engineering and microing it it is bad.

There's always two sides. I had seen projects fail because developers are doing what they want with their time, doing things unrelated to current project and end up missing delivery deadlines. I had seen company fail because they don't say anything to their developer because they afraid their developer will feel bad. I had saved client projects by joining in and driving their team to their potentials.

There's nothing rude or toxic about it.

Unless OP provide more details we can't really know if his company really toxic or not.

If job market is shit, build something in your own time, take ownership, make it grow and showcase it. A good C++ dev can learn new things so much faster than others.

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#75

Post by v3ss0n »

dakiol wrote: post #53
v3ss0n wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Founder , I believe it is not fair for someone to look for job applications on company time and sharpening your skills for next job - in time and resources that your company had paid for. Since you have problems with upper management - tough it up , talk about it face to face in a polite manner and highlight their toxic behavior . Tell them you don't like the way you are being treated and you can't continue this…

I do sharpen my skills every day at work. Sometimes the skills I sharp are used at work, sometimes they are not (but they are still relevant to my career and so relevant to any software-related job) How else are we going to keep ourselves sharp? Besides, is on the benefit of the current company that I become more knowledgeable. Crazy to hear this retrograde way of thinking.

I agree that, but he should stand up to toxicity case first.

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#76

Post by fragmede »

fxtentacle wrote: post #62
kstenerud wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been like this for a long time already. I still remember a colleague complaining to me in 2001 about a crash they were having in the data entry app (written in Java) that was wreaking havoc in the bank's check clearing department. The stack trace would go to JNI, into a vendor's .so and then SIGSEGV with an address of 0. The trouble was, nobody knew anything below Java. I tracked down the issue after examining t…

"Once the old guard is gone, I wonder what they'll do..." Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Maybe now's the right time to start the cult of the machine wizards and secretly pass on your wisdom about disassemblers. I'm only half joking because reality already passed the point where regular people pray for the machine to respect their wishes. And make sure you price your Java exorcis…

Instead of a church, how about 383k followers on YouTube? Joe Grand is flamboyantly that level of hacker, and that's the currency of today. In the GP's story theres no bitcoin wallet at the end of the rainbow, but that kind of knowledge is out there for those who look. It's even gamified at http://microcorruption.com. It won't be mainstream, but there's always going to be a culture of hackers that know how things actually work. the existence of stack overflow/ChatGPT programmers is the field widening, not the core shrinking.

Joe Grand and $3M of Bitcoin: https://youtu.be/o5IySpAkThg

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#77

Post by no_time »

kstenerud wrote: post #61
erbdex wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a biased view but fter teaching students from colleges I feel that most who are "born in the high level" world float comfortably without needing to understand fundamentals (memory, OS interfaces, arch, drivers, crashes, ..). As soon as something basic goes down or when you have unexpected dives into low level stuff, the fair weather pilots are suddenly out of their depth. I started with C, eventually moved in…

It's been like this for a long time already. I still remember a colleague complaining to me in 2001 about a crash they were having in the data entry app (written in Java) that was wreaking havoc in the bank's check clearing department. The stack trace would go to JNI, into a vendor's .so and then SIGSEGV with an address of 0. The trouble was, nobody knew anything below Java. I tracked down the issue after examining t…

>Once the old guard is gone, I wonder what they'll do...

The current generation of addy addicted highschoolers posting anticheat bypasses on unknowncheats will grow into the job market and take up the mantle.

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#79

Post by jacknews »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #71
jacknews wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it seems embedded pays horribly, is not respected, and can be way more frustrating due to hardware bugs etc.

Pay could be better, and hardware bugs can be frustrating, but I definitely respect embedded guys a lot. More than most generalist developers, in fact, due to the atoms-adjacent nature of their work.

Sure, but I mean that they are not so respected in the hierarchy within hardware companies, the way devs are in big tech, say.

Re: Ask HN: Am I dead meat already?

#80

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

jacknews wrote: post #79
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pay could be better, and hardware bugs can be frustrating, but I definitely respect embedded guys a lot. More than most generalist developers, in fact, due to the atoms-adjacent nature of their work.

Sure, but I mean that they are not so respected in the hierarchy within hardware companies, the way devs are in big tech, say.

Ahhh, that makes much more sense to me. Dovetails a bit with the dick measuring contest folks in the hard sciences like to do about purity.
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