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A career-ending mistake

bitfieldconsulting.com

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Re: A career-ending mistake

#121

Post by ghm2180 »

ghm2180 wrote: post #119

Does someone know how to find good IC coaches that can mentor a mid-level(ish) engineer 8+ YoE? I have issues with rejection and I am working on them. I am a generalist, and I have been struggling with how to find opportunities myself by connecting to people 1:1 and discussing first hand the nature of the problem and whether I can help them with it. I imagine a coach help me typically with forming a coherent career s…

I want to be able to work as a generalist who can learn most coding stacks and a wide range of experience in backend(ranking/recommendation) systems, data engineering and some early career full stack experience.

Re: A career-ending mistake

#122

Post by mattgreenrocks »

f1shy wrote: post #4
tschellenbach wrote: post #3

It's not true that in all companies you have to chose between tech and management. It's true in some companies. But at many companies lead and director roles are very hands on. At Stream a lead is 80% technical, a director roughly 50% sometimes more. And even VPs and up are still somewhat technical. I think the idea of management without technical excellence track is just misguided. Small teams, technical excellence,…

> It's not true that in all companies you have to chose between tech and management. It's true in some companies. But at many companies lead and director roles are very hands on. I‘ve seen bad companies where it is true, but in good companies typically not true. Look for example Peter Norvig, 100% hands on technical type, but in a high management position.

These types of ultra-high IC positions tend to be gate-kept by companies, often requiring a lot of prestige and experience.

It's a nice gesture that they exist, but we're not all Rob Pike or Peter Norvig.

Re: A career-ending mistake

#123

Post by loup-vaillant »

rakejake wrote: post #106
loup-vaillant wrote: post #88

> You probably won’t get to choose what to work on, and you may not agree with all the decisions of the powers that be. In fact, it’s practically certain you won’t. After all, you know more about the subject matter than they do. Wait a minute if the people most suited to make a decision are overridden by people less competent than them (they have to be most of the time, given the different focus of their career), tha…

Less competent in what? The people with decision-making power are supposed to be good at some combination of product innovation, product management, sales, marketing and accounting. ICs are only suited to making some decisions in the first two, and have next to zero expertise in the others.

I'm afraid "supposed to" is the operating word here.

In practice, the people who make the calls more often does not do so because they inherited a crap load of money, not because their own genius or hard work raised them to the top.

Re: A career-ending mistake

#124

Post by mixmastamyk »

One thing I didn't anticipate when younger is the extent that other people will prevent your advancement. Whether by being in the way, *isms - a.k.a. refusing to hire you for positions you'd be great at, or very common today... the majority of companies that no longer train or encourage career development. Because you might leave?

Advancement seems to be lot of outmaneuvering these folks.

Re: A career-ending mistake

#125

Post by marmaduke »

mathattack wrote: post #84
donatj wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in small tech. I worked for an agency in the aughts and we would put up websites at roughly the pace of 1 a week. In my time there I'd guess I'd personally built a little over 100 websites and developed our internal framework for us to make doing so easier. Every couple years since, I've gotten a bug in my butt and investigated how many sites still had pieces I'd clearly worked on. On this most recent occasion,…

The code may be gone but not the impact. A gas station sells gas that is gone within weeks. But someone fills their car, and drives to Mountain View and gets a job that changes your life. Helping a business grow by 10% more each year because they were an early adopter to websites is something you impacted, even if your code isn’t there to remind people why. “All we are is dust in the wind.” (Kansas and Ecclesiastes)

I think “a cloud never dies” is more apt for this sentiment

Re: A career-ending mistake

#127

Post by MichaelRo »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #97
Attummm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree with your premise. The goal of many software engineers is to build software / systems they can be proud of. They love software and the machines it runs on. Many people here have Arduino projects, 3D printers, home servers, and similar hobbies. A few weeks ago, I was looking for compression algorithms for a particular use case and came across Brotli[0]. I was surprised to learn it was developed by G…

> The goal of many software engineers is to build software / systems they can be proud of. Maybe for people <30. Priorities change very fast, as you age. I’ve met a good chunk of very talented engineers through work and other venues who acknowledged that they stopped caring after some point.

>> Maybe for people This.

I read here on HN some time ago an article stating that teenager-ish people crave to find "meaning" in work due to being what in essence can be described as emotionally retarded (although intellectually normal). This all changes fast as they age and/or have kids or other inevitable live event that manages to pull their head out of their ass.

Basically Mark Twain's "When I was 17, my father was so stoopid" remark.

Re: A career-ending mistake

#128

Post by xboxnolifes »

reshlo wrote: post #117
frmersdog wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, taken at face value, it is a bit of an oxymoron. To contribute is to be part of a group; by definition, a contributor can't be wholly independent, because they're adding to a corpus, not producing it by themselves.

It stands for Individual Contributor, not Independent Contributor.

I don't read it negatively, but to play devil's advocate here... Managers are also individuals who are contributing to the group corpus. They just do it by interfacing with people instead of code.

Though, that's just semantics on the naming. IC just means not having direct reports.

Re: A career-ending mistake

#129

Post by GMoromisato »

ghm2180 wrote: post #119

Does someone know how to find good IC coaches that can mentor a mid-level(ish) engineer 8+ YoE? I have issues with rejection and I am working on them. I am a generalist, and I have been struggling with how to find opportunities myself by connecting to people 1:1 and discussing first hand the nature of the problem and whether I can help them with it. I imagine a coach help me typically with forming a coherent career s…

I'm always happy to talk through career and engineering issues.

Hit me up, if you're interested: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neurohack/

Re: A career-ending mistake

#130

Post by NilMostChill »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #63
toast0 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but for most techies, the most useful goal is to make money fast in a way that doesn't drain your life energy. And most of the time, this means responding to opportunities, not sticking to your guns. For example, a lifetime IC job may be ultimately worth less than a management job that gets you to VP level in a decade. If you can switch to management without draining your life energy, go for it? I hope you're a goo…

Draining but also rewarding? I think work is supposed to be hard and tiring - seems like most things of value are - but if it sucks your life force permanently that's not a good thing. I've found management is a bit of a muscle that can be worked and you increase your energy reserve with time & practice. Similar to being an IC I've found it's fear that drains the most, and building a perspective of "I don't know exac…

> I think work is supposed to be hard and tiring

I suppose that depends on what kind of work you are talking about and your perspective on what different kinds of work really are.

I wouldn't consider "The thing i do so me and my family don't starve" to have an inherent need to be hard or tiring.

Whereas "The thing i do to fill up my time with something i feel is meaningful" might have a hard and/or tiring component, but only if you personally feel like the hard/tiring part is required.

Things can be rewarding without being draining and value is subjective.

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