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If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

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Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#81

Post by beezlebroxxxxxx »

nicbou wrote: post #68
keiferski wrote: post #27

The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career. In other words, the probl…

In Quebec we have a sort of college between high school and university where you are forced to take "bullshit classes" along with the stuff you chose to study. Mine included philosophy, Spanish, photography, canoeing, and a few others. At the time it felt like a diversion, but it was a welcome introduction to something other than computer science. In my first year of university, a senior grabbed me by the shoulders a…

I wish cegep, or an interstitial school where you have a year or 2 to just take tons of unrelated courses, was more common. So much focus is put on universities as job training that they lose a part of what historically has long made them special --- learning for the sake or learning.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#82

Post by jcims »

paulcole wrote: post #78
g947o wrote: post #40

I planned to get out of my current company and stop wasting my life two years ago. The job market and my visa status meant that it's either impossible or I need to make significant sacrifices. So that's life.

Why didn’t you make the significant sacrifices?

This is one of those areas where family starts to influence decisions. My wife and I had kids between 24 and 28. From that point forward, 'supporting the family' took priority over personal fulfillment.

Now that our kids are grown and self-supporting, it's wild how much simpler the risk calculation is. But at 52 with engineering manager being the dominant role in my CV, not particularly appealing to the small companies making big moves that I'm interested in.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#83

Post by xandrius »

haritha-j wrote: post #62
Swizec wrote: post #6

My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…

It's a lovely metaphor, but I find myself at odds with the logic. What you sacrifice with vision I think is flexibility to respond to serendipity.

Vision is not a dictator, it's just having half an idea of where you'd love to be in X years.

It can and probably will move as you age and gain experience.

But if you're thinking you'd love to be your own boss and, as you have that vision, you find something much more interesting, you can still re-assess.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#84

Post by zwnow »

ta1024768 wrote: post #73
zwnow wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the end my work just makes someone else richer, it doesn't have any meaning. This is something I struggle with a lot. I left companies before, because the job felt meaningless and making some rich guy richer doesn't sound meaningful to me. I am trying to come up with a business idea I can work on on the side, that actually is supposed to make the world a better place, but I am struggling to find anything I have…

> trying to make non tech people aware about how Amazon, Google and so on makes life worse for everyone. Or how anti privacy laws are probably a bad idea. I think a majority of people already know this, that's why it feels fruitless. Also more negativity ("these companies are bad because of x, y, z") will also make you feel negative. Why not make those sites, talk to those non-techy people, but provide _some_ form of…

> Do you have something tangible you can look back on that you did last week that helped achieve this vision? If not, what small thing can you do this week?

Not too sure, I am pretty delusional about the impact part. I want to achieve something big but have zero ideas on what I could start with. I have a ton of time and want to use it for something I actually believe in, the difficulty is in finding something I actually believe in...

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#85

Post by socketcluster »

ramon156 wrote: post #49
socketcluster wrote: post #41

I have a really hard time designing my career in tech because I believe that people already have more options than they need or can afford. What people need aren't more options. What they need is MONEY; which is the ability to obtain the options which exist. And the only way to give people more money is through political means. This is why I was interested in crypto; it seemed to get straight to the point... I later…

I resonate so much with you. I'm in the middle of getting my product out for people to use and naively kept thinking that a good product means people are interested. I need to integrate with tools that prematurely deny me because I'm not a big company. I basically already lost, despite my tool being much more reasonable and maintainable (I've worked at the competitors and it was a mess). The world doesn't care about…

Your last paragraph is an interesting way to frame it.

I also think it's true; what appeals to people is something superficial. The product has to be highly optimized to generate an initial 'wow' factor. But it's almost impossible to create such 'wow' factor without sacrificing something fundamental about the product.

The goal is to make such a good first impression that people will pay for your product and then will keep convincing themselves and their friends that your product is great... When it's not because actually there are many better alternatives out there which are higher quality and provide more flexibility.

Among financially successful products, I see a lot of rigid, inflexible, low-quality products. They create a 'wow' factor by removing complexity; also removing flexibility... Targeting a specific psychological bias... These products seem 'easy' and magical at first but what makes them easy also makes them inflexible and fundamentally useless. Because flexibility is what gives a competitive edge... But flexibility also scares people away.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#86

Post by maciejzj »

From the perspective of someone in their late 20s, the timing of this article feels quite off when entering 2026. The reality has become far different from the gist of what is presented here.

Career paths and opportunities have been getting broken and changing so much in recent years that I find it hard to plan anything. I don't even know what kind of "goal" is sustainable, let alone what the path towards it is.

The only sensible career that seems to offer a steady trajectory is medicine. Apart from that, my most successful peers were the ones that followed immediate money and speed-ran into owning some kind of real estate, which is a game changer. Besides that, people try to do as many side hustles as possible and diversify their income to save as much as they can and brace for a possible recession. I find it hard to apply any of these 8 steps in such volatile reality.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#87

Post by FromTheFirstIn »

paulcole wrote: post #76
firesteelrain wrote: post #72

I’ve spent my career chasing jobs that had kept me employed for over 20 years so I can support a family. Unfortunately I have had to let the ‘system’ take me where I am needed so I can pay my bills. It is life.

If you don’t design your career, someone else will.

If you don’t support your family, no one else will

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#88

Post by kamaal »

onion2k wrote: post #65
Swizec wrote: post #6

My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…

That's really nice, but the point where the vision is should move too. You learn as you progress. What you enjoy changes. The entire industry moves. Being focused on the goal you defined 30 years ago is almost certainly wrong for most people.

>>Being focused on the goal you defined 30 years ago is almost certainly wrong for most people.

I think there are certain things that are not likely to change, and must be aimed for. For starters, being healthy, proactively working towards a retirement nest egg, so that you don't end up homeless and starving in case things go south too fast.

There are many such things I hold as things I would want several years from now. Good health, free time and enough money to not need a job to just put food on the table, and a roof above my head.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#89

Post by danielfalbo »

> We have a sense of what we would most love to do but we immediately push it aside. Why? Typically because “it is not realistic” which is code for, “I can’t make money doing this.”

Reminds me of PG's "How To Do What You Love"[1]

[1] https://paulgraham.com/love.html

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#90

Post by esafak »

Xunjin wrote: post #55
keiferski wrote: post #27

The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career. In other words, the probl…

In a society where everything needs to be optimal, randomness is seen as a mistake.

Optimal by whose criterion?
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