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Web Development as a career – the realities

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Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#71

Post by Moru »

robotkilla wrote: post #37
xupybd wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't think I'd want to work for this guy. Keeping up is one thing. What makes a mature dev is language/tech agnostic.

i have 12 years experience and my interviews have gone to complete train wrecks in the past - i cringe to think the interviewer might have had the same point of view as this guy, that I had just watched some videos and knew things at a high level. What a flat out ignorant view point.

This is often the case, the interviewers are completely clueless on selecting the right person for the job. Wasn't it on the news recently how a random selection did just as well?

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#72

Post by Terr_ »

mikekchar wrote: post #40
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…

Sometimes you need someone who knows every detail of whatever system. It can really pay off and you are willing to throw money and titles to get someone good. It doesn't mean they are a great senior dev, but if you need that person, then you need that person. I've done embedded work, application work and now I'm doing web development. I often seen the "5 year senior wannabes". Hell, after 5 years of work, I was one o…

> I think the key piece of experience that can help you be a good senior developer is to watch a system that you built collapse under its own weight.

Yeah, I like to assume this is the weakness of job-hopping/stack-changing candidates (as opposed to my not-so-glamorous self.)

Everything you build will fail and need replacement somehow, but you can't improve if you're always gone before it happens.

It echoes the same criticism we (tech-folks) often level at short-sighted Dilbertian managers.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#73

Post by Terr_ »

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.

Unions are suitable for measurable and substitutable tasks, but most programming is actually custom work.

Show me a unionizeable programming job and I'll show you something that's about to be replaced with a library or shrink-wrap app.

A comparison to law/medicine is more appropriate.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#75

Post by robotkilla »

falcolas wrote: post #50
robotkilla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 view…

well, speaking as an american from the midwest, unions are usually sneered at as a waste of resources by people who have to pay for union workers.

We need to make sure that we aren't getting taken advantage of by our employers (examples: shitty pay, terrible work environments, bad equipment, conspiracies to lower wages), aren't implementing poor practices (things like backdoors for the government), and aren't subject to things like sexism, racism, ageism (as you age and learn more and get better at what you do, its going to be harder to get a job - does that seem fair?).

I'd prefer to be part of a tech union that helped ensure my safety in these areas.

admittedly i don't know enough about unions to know how the current structure would benefit our industry, but we need something similar at least.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#76

Post by robotkilla »

Terr_ wrote: post #73
robotkilla wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need a union.

Unions are suitable for measurable and substitutable tasks, but most programming is actually custom work. Show me a unionizeable programming job and I'll show you something that's about to be replaced with a library or shrink-wrap app. A comparison to law/medicine is more appropriate.

> A comparison to law/medicine is more appropriate.

Which are both regulated and treated completely differently than the tech industry. I speak of unions because the way we are treated (not the level of skill) is more akin to a construction worker.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#77

Post by fennecfoxen »

gaius wrote: post #19
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…

5 years! A career these days is 40-45 years. If you are "senior" in only 5 then where do you expect to go from there? 20 years experience, on a wide range of technologies, in a variety of roles, then we'll talk senior. Until then calling yourself "senior" just invites people not to take you seriously.

> If you are "senior" in only 5 then where do you expect to go from there?

Depends. After 5 years of being a senior developer, you might begin to think about being a junior architect or tech lead of some sort.

Now, I think I was a pretty senior developer after 5 years, but then I also had preprofessional experience going back another 5 years, and a few years of hobby experience before that... :P

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#78

Post by fennecfoxen »

gaius wrote: post #67
aswanson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years in this industry invites people to treat you as a fossil and not even hire. Technology moves too fast, nobody cares what you did in 1995 anywhere near as much as what you did in 2013.

As I said on another thread, 2010's MongoDB is just 1970's MUMPS. Once you have been through a few cycles, you see that actually technology comes round and round again. Centralize, distribute, centralize again, just one repeating pattern. Thick clients, thin clients, thick again. Compile, interpret, compile again. Just the buzzwords and the syntax changes.

Oh, sure, trends in the libraries come and go, but if you don't think they're only going in circles, you should consider whether you'd rather be programming: a Ruby on Rails web app, or a COBOL-backed green screen application on an IBM AS/400.

Myself, I'll take those 45 years of progress, thank you kindly :)

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#79

Post by ritchiea »

michaelchisari wrote: post #57
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…

If you immediately write someone off because they work with technologies you don't work with[1] then you're doing it wrong. I've had a hell of a time interviewing for just this reason. For the first set of interviews, I was emphasizing my experience with patterns as opposed to technologies . That didn't work. I was routinely dismissed, despite decades of industry experience. When I decided to grind through the latest…

It may be frustrating and require a lot of patience on your end, but if you look at it in another light it may be a sign you don't want to work at that company.

Re: Web Development as a career – the realities

#80

Post by gaius »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #78
gaius wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said on another thread, 2010's MongoDB is just 1970's MUMPS. Once you have been through a few cycles, you see that actually technology comes round and round again. Centralize, distribute, centralize again, just one repeating pattern. Thick clients, thin clients, thick again. Compile, interpret, compile again. Just the buzzwords and the syntax changes.

Oh, sure, trends in the libraries come and go, but if you don't think they're only going in circles, you should consider whether you'd rather be programming: a Ruby on Rails web app, or a COBOL-backed green screen application on an IBM AS/400. Myself, I'll take those 45 years of progress, thank you kindly :)

Do you think there is a difference, other than you have a bigger screen to do it on now?
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