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Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

yosefk.com

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Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#101

Post by tempestn »

Having just hired two senior programmers (admittedly for a small "software company"), I couldn't possibly agree more with this: "To me, however, a programmer is who I'm looking for, while a resume full of revenue increases and cost reductions sounds like an 'anomalously high-cost parasite who types some mumbo-jumbo into Excel and PowerPoint'."

Resumes full of marketing-speak go onto the discard pile very quickly. I want to hear about your skills, and I want to see that you can present them effectively (which is your first opportunity to demonstrate your intelligence and aesthetics). People who claim to be programmers but talk about revenue growth and such in their resumes are always the types who want to talk to you about how they "have tons of great ideas, [they] just need a team to implement them!" Well great, then start your own company. I'm certainly looking for smart people with ideas, but we already have a product and work that needs to be done. We're not here to provide a team to implement our new hire's hand-wavey built-for-adsense get rich quick site or whatever.

Whew. OK, veered a bit into hyperbole there, but it demonstrates the visceral sort of mental response that kind of resume can provoke...

Edit: Given other comments that agree with focusing on costs and revenues, maybe the take-away is that you should really have two separate copies of your resume, and do your best to find out whether a programmer or non-programmer will be reading it before choosing which one to send. Because it seems like the reactions are essentially polar opposites. Which honestly I find surprising. I would expect that what sounds like mumbo-jumbo to one intelligent person would largely sound like mumbo-jumbo to another intelligent person, regardless of specific discipline - even if those disciplines are as different as marketing and programming. Perhaps I just haven't ever received a good resume that focused on financials.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#102

Post by lsc »

dmoney wrote: post #94
lsc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Yes, I know this sounds kind of... angry and juvenile. Bitter. That is what I meant when I said that I clearly don't have the correct solution. a big part of the problem is that I don't even know what most of these words I'm using mean - And honestly? I think it's "confidence[1]" that other people say they do. Of course, I know I'm not competent enough in that area to know that for sure. >I've recently found my…

It's like entropy: the emotional bullshit in a closed system only increases. Until one person leaves, or you bleed off the pressure outside it. With negotiation, my understanding is that the real negotiation starts weeks beforehand, because the game is about getting an information advantage, enough to make the other side's shady tactics irrelevant. All the nonverbal skills are just used to hide the math layer of the…

>With negotiation, my understanding is that the real negotiation starts weeks beforehand, because the game is about getting an information advantage, enough to make the other side's shady tactics irrelevant.

You say 'shady' - I say 'professional' because this is what the big guys do. the bullshit isn't nearly as thick when you are dealing with a smaller company, generally speaking. They are less interested in wasting time.

Even when dealing with professionals, information is essential, but it doesn't make the emotional bullshit irrelevant. It's irritating, as first? I don't know if I want to do something unless I know what it costs. The negotiated price is generally 30% to 50% of the list price (but that varies a /lot/ both by vendor and by industry.) And the only real way to get prices is to negotiate with a vendor. So, yeah, I'm looking at a /lot/ of work to just find out if a business that, say, requires more bandwidth makes any sense at all.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#103

Post by ExpiredLink »

diminoten wrote: post #34
ExpiredLink wrote: post #11

I don't call myself a programmer because software development is not programming, probably not even mainly. Moreover, programmer gives other people a false impression of your work. Outsiders consider a 'programmer' to be a 'trained monkey that does the typesetting'. Software developer, in an all-encompassing sense, is the best description I have found for my work.

I promise you, outsiders have no concept of what a programmer does beyond, "Works magic with a computer." "Software developer" and "programmer" are equivalent to the layman. The negative association with the word "programmer" is an industry-specific thing.

Zed Shaw on corporate programmers (not mainly on titled ACLs): http://vimeo.com/2723800

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#104

Post by gdy »

zura wrote: post #44

In Georgia, it is the mostly used title - "Programisti". Because, we don't have one single word, the synonym of "Software". So word by word translation of "Software Engineer" in Georgian would be: Computer Program Provisioning Engineer. Nobody uses this title.

Your Georgian language looks exactly like Russian J

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#105

Post by dmoney »

lsc wrote: post #102
dmoney wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like entropy: the emotional bullshit in a closed system only increases. Until one person leaves, or you bleed off the pressure outside it. With negotiation, my understanding is that the real negotiation starts weeks beforehand, because the game is about getting an information advantage, enough to make the other side's shady tactics irrelevant. All the nonverbal skills are just used to hide the math layer of the…

>With negotiation, my understanding is that the real negotiation starts weeks beforehand, because the game is about getting an information advantage, enough to make the other side's shady tactics irrelevant. You say 'shady' - I say 'professional' because this is what the big guys do. the bullshit isn't nearly as thick when you are dealing with a smaller company, generally speaking. They are less interested in wasting…

So the business wouldn't make sense (but just be less profitable) if you had to pay the list price?

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#106

Post by el_fuser »

tempestn wrote: post #101

Having just hired two senior programmers (admittedly for a small "software company"), I couldn't possibly agree more with this: "To me, however, a programmer is who I'm looking for, while a resume full of revenue increases and cost reductions sounds like an 'anomalously high-cost parasite who types some mumbo-jumbo into Excel and PowerPoint'." Resumes full of marketing-speak go onto the discard pile very quickly. I w…

I totally agree.

If I'm hiring someone for my team, I need to see skill. Or smarts.

If we're hiring an outside consultant, it's always for technical knowledge that we don't have. Again we need to see skill.

If we need to hire another team lead, it's usually because we have no one to promote from within (either due to experience or lack of volunteers), and again we need to see skill.

I don't hire for marketing, but I'd hope that they also want to see results and could care less if you've programmed before. Indeed it's likely irrelevant.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#107

Post by el_fuser »

coldcode wrote: post #6

I have been a professional programmer for 32 years. When I stop calling myself a programmer I will call myself dead (if I could).

My "career" aspiration in school was to be a bearded, suspenders wearing unix admin/hacker.

I don't ever want to get non-technical. I've been a project manager, and found the work excruciatingly boring.

I've been a freelancer, and found the work mind numbingly boring.

I much prefer working for a company where I can be neck deep in designing and building challenging products.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#108

Post by bobbydavid »

tempestn wrote: post #101

Having just hired two senior programmers (admittedly for a small "software company"), I couldn't possibly agree more with this: "To me, however, a programmer is who I'm looking for, while a resume full of revenue increases and cost reductions sounds like an 'anomalously high-cost parasite who types some mumbo-jumbo into Excel and PowerPoint'." Resumes full of marketing-speak go onto the discard pile very quickly. I w…

something to consider, though: your job may not be the best opportunity for this hypothetical candidate we're musing about. for pure programming skill, there is no well-defined "value" for the business, which means you simply want to hire the best programmer for the least cost. in many markets today this is about $200k for an entry level programmer (employer costs). why pay more than that?

the point of marketing mumbo-jumbo is that it frames the value of the individual. if a candidate is capable of making you $10 million extra dollars, why not pay them $1m? you'd be a fool not to!

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#109

Post by _yosefk »

bobbydavid wrote: post #108
tempestn wrote: post #101

Having just hired two senior programmers (admittedly for a small "software company"), I couldn't possibly agree more with this: "To me, however, a programmer is who I'm looking for, while a resume full of revenue increases and cost reductions sounds like an 'anomalously high-cost parasite who types some mumbo-jumbo into Excel and PowerPoint'." Resumes full of marketing-speak go onto the discard pile very quickly. I w…

something to consider, though: your job may not be the best opportunity for this hypothetical candidate we're musing about. for pure programming skill, there is no well-defined "value" for the business, which means you simply want to hire the best programmer for the least cost. in many markets today this is about $200k for an entry level programmer (employer costs). why pay more than that? the point of marketing mumb…

Erm... because that $10M is a conjecture, while the $1M is a cost paid upfront with complete certainty? Or do you want to pay in equity? Also - because someone else is willing to do the same job for less? I'm not sure that "framing my value" will help me when someone is willing to do the same for less money.

Re: Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice

#110

Post by _yosefk »

dschiptsov wrote: post #98

First of all, taking patio11 too seriously is a sing of having inadequate mental representation of so-called reality. Ironically, there is some unintentional truth is his blogpost - one really shouldn't call oneself programmer, because what he described is a dumb coder. Programmer could realize what is blogging, not vise versa.) A programmer (one who understands how things works and why) will easily avoid such scenar…

You know, somehow your comment conveys a uniquely Russian atmosphere, making me feel slightly nostalgic.
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