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Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

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Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#181

Post by danielweber »

vonmoltke wrote: post #133
hjnilsson wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot: 3) People with 10+ years experience generally don't go out looking for work and applying for interviews. By then you have enough connections that if you want to change job, you'll find it through old colleagues. Not by shopping around like younger devs. This applies to most all professional occupations, not just Software Engineering. If you look at people applying for positions in economics / law you'll s…

This perception has really been hurting me, I think. Nearly all of my professional connections are lifers at my original employer, and a significant number of them are in the 75% group mentioned in Ed's post at the top.

I hear you. I moved from Boston to Charlotte 10 years ago for family, and I've had a hard time building a local network because of spending (too) many years at one employer here. I have a very nice network back in Boston, but my local one is still much weaker.

Here's something you can try: what do you wish you did 5 years ago (that you could have done with your knowledge at the time)? Now, imagine what you in 5 years will want the you of today to do. Go attend some local conferences or meetups. If you have trouble making connections quickly, prefer repeated events.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#184

Post by judk »

Anderkent wrote: post #108
ep103 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you say this about every industry though? I feel like I could have read the exact same post, with the word engineer literally substituted for any other job name, and it'd still read the same. Is that a fair assessment, or is my experience just limited?

Hm, I don't think it's strictly every job, but it's a common syndrome. Say for example a surgeon - in my mental model he moves from being an assistant during ops to leading op teams or research. I might have a completely wrong model how surgeon careers progress, though :P But in general it makes sense for experienced people to move into managerial roles where they can leverage their knowledge on a meta level, rather…

A surgeon isn't even ready to be the lead hand-on surgeon in am operation until ay east age 30, after years of apprenticeship.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#185

Post by danielweber »

hcho wrote: post #167
MCRed wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I build cool stuff, I have kept up to date on new technologies, and languages. But I don't have a big network of people who "need a website" and I don't build websites, so I don't have people constantly calling me offering me work. That doesn't make me someone who has "done the same job for 30 years". My skill is not marketing my skills on a freelance basis. My skill is in engineering.. and a variety of others (like…

I am finding a bit difficult to understand the "I am not good at networking" angle. Assuming a job change every 3 years, and 2 people to vouch for you at each, one would have a 10 people "marketing team" after 15 years. I am not talking about schmoozing with higher ups here; just impressing peers with the quality of work. Am I missing something?

> Assuming a job change every 3 years

There you go. I spent (really too many) years at one small company after moving from a top-5 city to a top-20 city. And some of my contacts have left town.

Also, even if I've got people who can vouch for me, how do I tell them I'm looking for work? (This might sound trivial but I haven't figured it out.)

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#186

Post by fencepost »

shams93 wrote: post #76

You wind up taking "haircuts" and doing without equity here in Los Angeles till you are like me, 43 and forced to live in a squat with no running water because the startup you were working for decided to kick up your hours to 21 days, 7 days a week with no overtime, and then cuts your base pay by 2/3 so the founders don't take a haircut, this has been happening over and over for 14 years for me to the point where thi…

"Sorry, I'll be in late, I have a job interview for a floor job at Costco - if I can get it, they're going to pay me 50% more than you do."

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#187

Post by walshemj »

Anderkent wrote: post #108
ep103 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you say this about every industry though? I feel like I could have read the exact same post, with the word engineer literally substituted for any other job name, and it'd still read the same. Is that a fair assessment, or is my experience just limited?

Hm, I don't think it's strictly every job, but it's a common syndrome. Say for example a surgeon - in my mental model he moves from being an assistant during ops to leading op teams or research. I might have a completely wrong model how surgeon careers progress, though :P But in general it makes sense for experienced people to move into managerial roles where they can leverage their knowledge on a meta level, rather…

Been done read up about the Chief Programmer Team model which was doing software dev using the same paradigm as a surgical team.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#188

Post by MrDom »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #177
hcho wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am finding a bit difficult to understand the "I am not good at networking" angle. Assuming a job change every 3 years, and 2 people to vouch for you at each, one would have a 10 people "marketing team" after 15 years. I am not talking about schmoozing with higher ups here; just impressing peers with the quality of work. Am I missing something?

What am I supposed to do exactly? Call up some co-worker from 3+ years ago and say "hi, remember me? Can you get me a job?" I don't have a network. I have friends and I have colleagues, but I don't really have anyone that could get me job leads (maybe a couple of my friends)

Or you could call them up, ask them how they're doing, meet them for a coffee, then ask if their company is hiring for X and if they could refer you. At the very least this gets your resume put in front of the hiring manager and lets you bypass the HR nonsense. At the very worst, they say no and you go back to talking about his dog or whatever.

Keep in mind that most companies offer referral bonuses and programmers like to work with people they know and trust. I used to avoid doing this like the plague because I thought I was being a burden to people I consider friends. In reality, asking for a referral is mutually beneficial for both parties.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#189

Post by danielweber »

chton wrote: post #35
edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

"one year's experience 30 times, not 30 years experience." is a fantastic sentence and I'm stealing it. I've seen too many developers to whom it applies, and it's a great way to express that.

"One year's experience 5 times" is a very old expression. I first heard it applied to real-estate agents, and it was very old then.

I went Googling for its origin and the first link just took me back to HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4627373

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#190

Post by ryandrake »

shanemhansen wrote: post #154
edw519 wrote: post #23

59, programming for 42 years, the last 35 professionally. Here on HN for 7.5 years. I've always been very busy (one of the main reasons I don't post on HN as much any more). I don't have a resume. I'm not on LinkedIn. If I ever ran low on work, it would probably take me a day or two and a few phone calls to find something. I don't work on anything unless I find it incredibly compelling. I write applications. I've see…

Right now there is a firehouse of job offers from recruiters on linkedin, and all a good developer has to do to find work is take a drink from that firehose. While I enjoy the current situation, it's unlikely to last. Sometimes we forget that there's plenty of people who have simply built up a clientele and a repuation through plain old networking. These jobs tend to be more lucrative and probably don't require you t…

If you're an older tech worker, for the most part, LinkedIn is just a firehose of crap. At worst, it's:

Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. How would you like to do [JOB minus 4] at [COMPANY minus 2]? We have Beer Thursdays and your fellow employees will all be young enough to be your sons (and yes, they're all male).

And at best it's:

Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. How would you like to do the same job, but at a different, but very similar company, with the same lack of a future career path?

What you never see is:

Hi, I see you're doing [JOB] at [COMPANY]. You probably feel like you're in a rut there, and are ready to advance to [JOB + 1] at [COMPANY + 1].

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