Web Development as a career – the realities • Hacker News Board

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#41

Post by analog31 » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

To me, it's interesting that an article on Web development is hosted on Google Docs. This is not to point out an irony, but that like any technology, web development can be democratized pretty rapidly. The website for my side business is hosted on a similar platform.

What was considered best in class 5 years ago is literally frowned upon now as the technologies and the standard of our applications have evolved rapidly.

Moreover, what was considered best in class 5 years ago can now be set up by a non-expert.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#42

Post by benihana » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 1:55 PM UTC

rifung wrote: post #6

"when asked what makes you a senior developer, they answer 'Because I have been coding for 5 years'." Maybe 5 years is insufficient, to be considered senior, but isn't the amount of time you've been coding what defines how senior you are? I get that technologies come and go and you have to stay up to date, but I would think that if someone were looking for a senior developer they would be looking for someone with a l…

For me, John Allspaw's article On Being A Senior Engineer[1] lays it all out pretty well. It addresses the issues we all seem to have with this article better than I could.

Generation X (and even more so generation Y) are cultures of immediate gratification. I’ve worked with a staggering number of engineers that expect the “career path” to take them to the highest ranks of the engineering group inside 5 years just because they are smart. This is simply impossible in the staggering numbers I’ve witnessed. Not everyone can be senior. If, after five years, you are senior, are you at the peak of your game? After five more years will you not have accrued more invaluable experience? What then? “Super engineer”? Five more years? “Super-duper engineer.” I blame the youth of our discipline for this affliction.

http://www.kitchensoap.com/2012/10/25/on-being-a-senior-engi...

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#43

Post by dcosson » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:04 PM UTC

mkozlows wrote: post #34

philipn wrote: post #31

I like pretty much everything someone takes the time to write about development, but this rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not sure what it is exactly the author is trying to express here: that engineers need to stay current on new, hot technologies? Everyone knows that. But then he seems to deride people who, based on his interviewing, haven't used a in production / in a new project. You can't have it both ways. You nee…

Exactly what you said. The other part that got me was his "as an entry-level programmer, be prepared for grinding, endless tedium." Maybe that's how his workplace treats junior devs, but the reality is that a developer with very little experience but a lot of skill is someone who can add a lot of value, and can find a workplace where they'll be able to do that. If you try to make a great junior dev "pay their dues,"…

I see where you're coming from, but in context I don't think the author was advocating for treating junior devs badly on purpose. More like everyone ends up banging their head against the wall sometimes as a developer, and you should be prepared for that if you're a new programmer and considering doing it as a career. In some sense it is paying dues but it's not imposed by anyone else, it's just that the less experienced you are the more often you get stuck.

His related advice actually really resonated with me, basically just to be humble.

"However with one or maybe two of the students I sensed overbearing confidence that now that could write some code and create prototypes they were valuable commodities in the industry."

I've also come across this kind of person who's sure they can do no wrong, and there's no one worse to bring into an organization. Anybody that's gonna come in and do things their own way, not bothering to spend time learning how the team and codebase works and why, will cause a lot of friction. But when it's a junior dev it can be a lot more destructive because "their own way" will often be flat out bad as opposed to just incongruent with the way the rest of the team works.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#44

Post by bbody » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:09 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #41

To me, it's interesting that an article on Web development is hosted on Google Docs. This is not to point out an irony, but that like any technology, web development can be democratized pretty rapidly. The website for my side business is hosted on a similar platform. What was considered best in class 5 years ago is literally frowned upon now as the technologies and the standard of our applications have evolved rapidl…

My guess is that the author is afraid their website can't handle a HN view influx.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#45

Post by frostmatthew » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:19 PM UTC

mkozlows wrote: post #34

philipn wrote: post #31

I like pretty much everything someone takes the time to write about development, but this rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not sure what it is exactly the author is trying to express here: that engineers need to stay current on new, hot technologies? Everyone knows that. But then he seems to deride people who, based on his interviewing, haven't used a in production / in a new project. You can't have it both ways. You nee…

Exactly what you said. The other part that got me was his "as an entry-level programmer, be prepared for grinding, endless tedium." Maybe that's how his workplace treats junior devs, but the reality is that a developer with very little experience but a lot of skill is someone who can add a lot of value, and can find a workplace where they'll be able to do that. If you try to make a great junior dev "pay their dues,"…

> The other part that got me was his "as an entry-level programmer, be prepared for grinding, endless tedium."

Tediousness is in the eye of the beholder. I enjoy coding, and as a junior developer (~3 years exp.) I get to spend the majority of my time doing that.

When I look at the more senior developers all I see is that the better you get at writing software the less they have you write. Their days are filled with meetings, emails, triaging bugs, and reviewing other people's code.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#46

Post by mrrrgn » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:27 PM UTC

neverminder wrote: post #32

rifung wrote: post #6

"when asked what makes you a senior developer, they answer 'Because I have been coding for 5 years'." Maybe 5 years is insufficient, to be considered senior, but isn't the amount of time you've been coding what defines how senior you are? I get that technologies come and go and you have to stay up to date, but I would think that if someone were looking for a senior developer they would be looking for someone with a l…

Web development is like an entry point for programming these days, the lowest hanging fruit if you will. I would not exactly call anyone who does exclusively web development "senior". It's like being a nurse - I suppose you can become a senior nurse, but you're not going to be a doctor. There's only so much you can progress professionally in web development, and each new stack gets easier to pick up, almost no challe…

"Web development is like an entry point for programming these days"

Web development is just a _type_ of development. You're creating a hierarchy where none aught to exist.

I've known many system programmers who said the same thing about data engineering: "what kind of a lame made up job is that? They write Python and SQL queries, wow, that's barely programming."

It's all non-sense. You can employ techniques which vary over a wide range of sophistication to create web pages, embedded systems, or ETL pipelines. There is no clear cut hierarchy.

source: Have worked as a web dev, data warehouse engineer, and release engineer.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#47

Post by alphapapa » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #27

UK-AL wrote: post #17

This is why development is ageist. Keeping programming skills up to date after work, and spending hours after work trying different languages and libraries is fine when your young. Its not so fine, when you have kids and a wife to look after. Probably have about an hour to myself everyday.

It's not only ageist. As long as developers keep accepting that they have to spend 15 hours a month on their own dime just to keep up, it's outright exploitative. Developers are generally expected to keep current in the breakneck technology rat race with no support from their employing organization. This could (maybe) be considered reasonable if technology moved more slowly, but not the way the world of computer soft…

That's a very good point. Other fields have Continuing Education, sabbaticals, in-service training, etc. (e.g. medicine, education).

But then, computers and software change so much more rapidly--and arbitrarily--than other fields, that it's very different. Software is as much art as science, and a lot of "keeping up-to-date" with software is simply learning whatever is popular at the moment, not what is necessarily more advanced, better, or newly discovered.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#48

Post by tbrownaw » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:42 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #27

UK-AL wrote: post #17

This is why development is ageist. Keeping programming skills up to date after work, and spending hours after work trying different languages and libraries is fine when your young. Its not so fine, when you have kids and a wife to look after. Probably have about an hour to myself everyday.

It's not only ageist. As long as developers keep accepting that they have to spend 15 hours a month on their own dime just to keep up, it's outright exploitative. Developers are generally expected to keep current in the breakneck technology rat race with no support from their employing organization. This could (maybe) be considered reasonable if technology moved more slowly, but not the way the world of computer soft…

As long as developers keep accepting that they have to spend 15 hours a month on their own dime just to keep up, it's outright exploitative.

Why? How is this any different from working an extra... 4 hours a week? It sounds like long hours are fairly common, and we tend to be on salary and not get paid extra for that either.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#49

Post by jared314 » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

sfk wrote: post #33

philipn wrote: post #31

I like pretty much everything someone takes the time to write about development, but this rubbed me the wrong way. I'm not sure what it is exactly the author is trying to express here: that engineers need to stay current on new, hot technologies? Everyone knows that. But then he seems to deride people who, based on his interviewing, haven't used a in production / in a new project. You can't have it both ways. You nee…

It's the pop culture mentality which is now worse than ever: [2004] http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1039523 "So I think the lack of a real computer science today, and the lack of real software engineering today, is partly due to this pop culture." "Like I said, it’s a pop culture. A commercial hit record for teenagers doesn’t have to have any particular musical merits. I think a lot of the success of various progr…

It's been said that the population of programmers doubles every ~5 to 10 years. And, that loosely correlates to the hype cycle of "hot technologies".

I don't think it's possible to avoid a pop culture with that many young and inexperienced programmers, especially with a cultural emphasis on self-training over mentoring.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#50

Post by falcolas » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:59 PM UTC

robotkilla wrote: post #38

UK-AL wrote: post #17

This is why development is ageist. Keeping programming skills up to date after work, and spending hours after work trying different languages and libraries is fine when your young. Its not so fine, when you have kids and a wife to look after. Probably have about an hour to myself everyday.

We need a union.

It will not happen anytime soon.

For one, (speaking as an American) unions are sneered at as a waste of resources by your average citizen.

This leads to the second problem: there will always be a pretty decent sized group who do not believe in unions, meaning companies will have a choice in who to hire. It's usually not in a corporation's best interest to hire a unionized worker, at least not a corporation which views "profit" as their primary goal.