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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

#111

Post by [deleted] »

msellout wrote: post #82
_yosefk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My replies to your points: 1. Do you have stats? In absolute terms, a whole lot of people hiring programmers have programmed themselves. How do you know the other people hiring programmers are "the vast majority"? (I sincerely wonder about it. I cited two numbers by two bloggers, one says it's 80% of the cases, the other says 90%. I have no idea, but I intuitively feel it's less than 50%. Are there real stats?) 2. I…

1. There are far more non-programmers than programmers. Even with a correlation between being a programmer and hiring programmers, it is plausible that the vast majority of hiring managers are non-programmers. This becomes more plausible if you step back a layer to the budget allocation for headcount rather than specific hiring decision.

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by corprew »

When I was first started out in programming, someone gave me the advice "never work at a company where you're a cost, always work at a company where your output is [directly tied to] the profit."

It seemed like a truism, and was somewhat memorable. To date, the only really bad jobs I've had in programming/engineering/what have you were ones where my work output was seen as a cost and not as a product or service, so anecdotally it's worked out.

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

#113

Post by dwc »

_yosefk wrote: post #54
dwc wrote: post #32

There's a major point in this article that not many commenters seem to be picking up on: there's a fork in the road of careers. To one side is a multilane highway over fairly level ground leading straigh to predictable suburbia. To the other side is an uneven dirt path leading through mountains and countryside to parts unknown and has many forks of its own. Neither path is right for everyone. And hardly anyone needs…

I'm not sure which part of what I said is described by the "dirt path vs highway" metaphor, so I don't quite follow this thread. I was speaking of a more "programmery" type of career vs a more "businessy" one. Within the continuum between the two, there seem to me to be plenty of "highways" and "dirt paths" everywhere, regardless of where you are on that continuum.

You did mention choice(s), and I went off on my own with my silly metaphor. And your point about a continuum is good. It's certainly not a binary choice.

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

#114

Post by dwc »

JRobertson wrote: post #63
dwc wrote: post #32

There's a major point in this article that not many commenters seem to be picking up on: there's a fork in the road of careers. To one side is a multilane highway over fairly level ground leading straigh to predictable suburbia. To the other side is an uneven dirt path leading through mountains and countryside to parts unknown and has many forks of its own. Neither path is right for everyone. And hardly anyone needs…

You contradict yourself. First you say: "Neither path is right for everyone" Then you say: "The sad part comes when some bright, young up-and-comer leaves off their interesting personal projects in less used languages in order to focus on only mainstream stuff." Why is that sad? It's just like you said, "Neither path is right for everyone." I was bright and young once and had an opportunity to go into a start-up and…

Perhaps I should have been more explicit than trying to imply with "interesting personal projects".

Too often IRL and in communities like this I come across people who are obviously wistful that the apparent "correct one-size-fits-all career path" means doing business stuff in Java, C#, or whatever.

If you realized your options and went mainstream then you aren't who I meant. I apologize if I didn't make that clear. I've also done mainstream business stuff, and with a good company it can be fulfilling work. I certainly don't mean to denigrate that choice or those who take it.

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

#115

Post by pstuart »

alxbrun wrote: post #5

I was having a beer in this small Brazilian town, mid-afternoon. Two girls come to my table. We try to chat ; they can't speak any foreign language and my Portuguese is awful. - Me: What is your job ? - The girls: Programma - Me (for the next 30 minutes): Oh great, me too ! Which languages ? Even "Java" didn't seem to mean anything to them. Strange. I assumed they had special programming languages in Brazil. 10 years…

In the end, we're all whores.

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

#116

Post by robertomb »

alxbrun wrote: post #5

I was having a beer in this small Brazilian town, mid-afternoon. Two girls come to my table. We try to chat ; they can't speak any foreign language and my Portuguese is awful. - Me: What is your job ? - The girls: Programma - Me (for the next 30 minutes): Oh great, me too ! Which languages ? Even "Java" didn't seem to mean anything to them. Strange. I assumed they had special programming languages in Brazil. 10 years…

Curious about which city you're talking about... :)

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

#117

Post by lsc »

dmoney wrote: post #105
lsc wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

some businesses, it makes the difference, like re-selling bandwidth or co-lo; the margin I get on that sort of thing is usually between 10-50% so if I negotiate badly from my supplier, yeah, I'm losing money on the deal (or charging above-market rates, which considering that I'm bad at negotiation, means I'm losing even more money because the space sits empty.) - usually you have to get commercial style leases on those resources, too... and so you have all the problems of commercial leases 'Oh,' the landlord says 'you are doing well... now that your lease is up, of course, the market rates have gone up!' even if there are empty units on either side of you.

So yeah, for co-lo? it makes all the difference in the world.

Other things, like VPSs? it's just a matter of profitability... the margins on VPSs are pretty good if you don't count labor, so it'd be a matter of just not raising my bandwidth quotas like I ought and maybe spending more money on hardware.

Sometimes, there are two substitute products, one where it's traditional to negotiate, and one where it isn't... for instance, if you buy pre-assembled servers? if you aren't getting 50% off list price, you are getting it in the shorts. But, if you are buying the parts used to build said servers? generally speaking, the lowest price on the internet is pretty close to the real lowest price.

This is the primary reason why I do my own assembly; assembling computers is way easier than negotiating Dell down to a reasonable price.

So yeah; this is starting to shape what businesses I want to get into. I mean, co-location only has margin if you own the building. (I'm working on that part, but I don't have an ETA.) - so yeah, if the 'owning the building' deal doesn't work out... well, I'm not going to dump existing customers, but I am not taking more at the moment.

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

#118

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…

>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.

I dono. my experience has been that the emotional bullshit comes and goes, like the tide. Part of that is, well, it's not a closed system, but part of it is that social bullshit, in my experience, mostly goes away when you rationalize it;

By 'rationalize it' I don't mean 'make it rational' I mean make up some (mostly bullshit) rational explanation for the emotional bullshit. I say mostly bullshit because, well, emotions are not logical, and all logical models for explaining emotions that I know of are really terrible (I mean, not very predictive) models.

But still, assigning a believable logical explanation to a difficult feeling, in my experience, makes that feeling not so difficult anymore. It makes me feel like I'm in control of myself, and this... makes me feel vastly better. If I feel like I'm in control, or even that it's /possible/ to control, I find that letting go and focusing on something else is way easier. If I don't feel like I have control, it's really hard not to obsess. (which seems like the opposite of what I would do if I was designing the system; why should I spend effort on something I can't effect? I want to spend effort where that effort has effect. Fuck you, limbic system.)

I think the other reason it seems to come and go in waves is that there are at least two people involved. If I am in good emotional shape, I can act as a buffer for the other person's emotional bullshit, and the total amount of bullshit in the system is much less than it would be otherwise. On the other hand, if I am feeling the effects of the social bullshit at the same time as the other person, the effect is almost multiplicative.

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

#119

Post by lucisferre »

msellout wrote: post #82
_yosefk wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My replies to your points: 1. Do you have stats? In absolute terms, a whole lot of people hiring programmers have programmed themselves. How do you know the other people hiring programmers are "the vast majority"? (I sincerely wonder about it. I cited two numbers by two bloggers, one says it's 80% of the cases, the other says 90%. I have no idea, but I intuitively feel it's less than 50%. Are there real stats?) 2. I…

1. There are far more non-programmers than programmers. Even with a correlation between being a programmer and hiring programmers, it is plausible that the vast majority of hiring managers are non-programmers. This becomes more plausible if you step back a layer to the budget allocation for headcount rather than specific hiring decision.

I'm not aware of many places (nor have I worked anywhere) where non-programmers hire programmers. Occasionally a hiring manager or some type is involved but as a facilitator at best.

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

#120

Post by tempestn »

a-priori wrote: post #31
nawitus wrote: post #12

I thought the general advice is to call yourself a software engineer.

Not in Canada. It's illegal here to call yourself an 'engineer' unless you're a licensed engineer. It's a protected term, like 'doctor'. So unless you studied Software Engineering, which there are many schools that teach it, and hold a P.Eng, then you can't use the term.

Technically you can also call yourself an engineer in Canada if you're an EIT (registered Engineer In Training), and you're working under the supervision of a P.Eng (Professional Engineer).

ISTM that the primary benefit of the P.Eng system is that 'Engineers' are required to uphold a precise ethical standard; passing the ethics exam is probably the most significant hurdle in getting a P.Eng after actually finishing your degree.

That said, it's also about the only hurdle aside from gaining 4 years of work experience in the field. (In theory you need to show improving technical skills, continuous learning, etc., etc., but in practice it's somewhat of a rubber stamp. (And coincidentally, at the end, you can get a rubber stamp.))

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