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Programming Is a Dead End Job

thecodist.com

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Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#31

Post by maerF0x0 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #8
chrisdevereux wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also own my company, zero is not a limit.

Exactly, you can go waaaaay past zero :-)

no, zero is the bottom limit. Unless you do something stupid like personal guarantees on loans or do not incorporate. Thats the point of LLCs. Limit the liability of shareholders.

Edit: I guess I should add, of course legal matters depend on location. AFAIK much of the developed world has legal structures that allow risk to be limited to the "company" and not risk the shareholders' personal assets (ie Your personal assets).

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#32

Post by scotty79 »

You don't get to be 4bln $ companys CEO doing management job 9 to 5 any more that you are going to be Marcus Persson or John Carmack doing programming job 9-5.

Sky is the limit only for people who have right combination of skill and luck.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#33

Post by pduszak »

Click bait. You're saying if I'm a programmer I might not be a millionaire someday? Oh no! That's the only reason I wanted to be a programmer in the first place. Better reevaluate my life decisions. /s

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#34

Post by atarian »

tomasien wrote: post #30

I'm about to stop programming at my company because I have too much to manage as a founder. It makes me really sad and also pretty scared. Anyone else experience this?

New Relic's CEO has some tips on how to keep coding: http://blog.newrelic.com/2014/03/11/sxsw-coding-ceo-recap/

  1. Surround yourself with amazing people.
  2. Carve out specific times for development work.
  3. Focus on high-value projects.
  4. Make it clear why a coding CEO is good for the company.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#36

Post by jw2013 »

No offense to the author, but what a terribly written article full of logic holes. For example:

'Our parent company's former CEO started off as a programmer 25 years ago, switched to manager; in 15 years he went all the way to being CEO of a $4B company. After 10 years he retired recently with mansions and cars and no worries. Meanwhile I work with people who started around the same time and who are still senior software engineers.'

So the author just picks one person that happens to be the CEO evetually? What about the rest majority of managerial forks? They probably are stuck in corporate ladder and even may be fired already. The chance of a person working on a corporate managerial job evetually becomes a CEO is likely no higher than a tech person eventually becomes a CTO. So why just pick one CEO person to illustrate managerial role is more promosing than tech role? Comparing the max value of a group to the average of another group is unfair.

Also, I program because I love programming. Even if you gave me one billion dollar making me manage people for the rest of my life instead of writing code, I would still turn it down. If doing the thing I love is dead end, then I beg a different definition of dead end. Okay, just use author's definition of dead end as slight chance of moving up, but I just don't care as long as I love the job I am doing.

__

An interesting side note is programming as a hobby. But I would still rather programming both at work and a spare time, as long as the day job I do making me happy.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#38

Post by chmullig »

declan wrote: post #9

It's a well-written essay (I say this as someone who has been a journalist/editor/manager and is now doing quite a bit of programming again for Recent.io). But really you could say the same thing about many other jobs: * Do you love to report the news? In most jobs as long as you continue to be a reporter you will likely have a limited set of promotions you can get... * Do you love woodworking? In most jobs as long a…

(I don't particularly agree that it's well written.)

However I entirely agree. By the definition of "who gets to be CEO," every job except senior executive is dead end!

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#39

Post by ChuckMcM »

nostrademons wrote: post #13
ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I respond really negatively to the notion of 'dead end.' Programming isn't a dead end job any more than welding is a dead end job or painting. But it is a trade . What is more, managing is a different job than programming. Not a lot of programmers really internalize that until they try out being a manager. Architecture, and technical leadership in general, is still another job. It takes the ability to internalize mas…

Being able to combine programming with communication, sales, and analysis skills can be incredibly valuable, though. That 1000 line/day programmer, if he looks around and observes the functioning of the org, could probably easily find several areas where those 10 programmers are writing 100 lines/day that could easily be automated away. If he can then write a solution that does this and sell it to upper management, h…

Agreed, but if she can observe the "functioning of the org" then she probably will try management at some point. There is an old quote my Grandfather had which went something like "soldiers control battlefields, generals control objectives, and kings control countries." The gist of it was that if you could see the path to success you rose to the level where you could use that vision to make that level of change happen.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#40

Post by eternalban »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I respond really negatively to the notion of 'dead end.' Programming isn't a dead end job any more than welding is a dead end job or painting. But it is a trade . What is more, managing is a different job than programming. Not a lot of programmers really internalize that until they try out being a manager. Architecture, and technical leadership in general, is still another job. It takes the ability to internalize mas…

You are right. Programming is a blue collar trade.
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