Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#1

Post by nielmalhotra » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:39 PM UTC

I got started programming a couple of years ago because I like problem solving. The harder, the better. I know I'm not alone in feeling that way. I've gotten a bachelor's degree and learned a bit of ruby, rails, and other frameworks/languages, but I'm running into a problem. It seems like all jobs are just simple CRUD apps. I look at 99 percent of the software out there and know that I could do it if I had the time.

My question is how do you get to work on the hard/fun stuff? A quintessential example for me would be self driving cars. It's challenging and would have a real impact on the world.

I'm looking into becoming a data scientist because it's newer and seems to have more challenges. I also have a theory that any challenging computer science problem requires a lot of math. Do you need a PhD to work on these hard problems? Can anyone give advice on how to avoid a career of working on simple CRUD apps? (CRUD is a metaphor for simple problems in this case)

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#2

Post by javinpaul » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

try Google, if you are really good and have passion to develop tough stuff like machine learning languages, dealing with large data. By the way have you tried any problem given in http://www.topcoder.com/, if you like that stuff and also can do, Google is worth trying.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#3

Post by irahul » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:47 PM UTC

I think employers will be interested in hiring you for such projects only if you have demonstrated knowledge and experience in the field. If your work experience primarily consists of RoR web development, most employers will pass. It's not that it's implied that if you do RoR, you won't know about algorithms and AI, but there is a high correlation, and sorting through a ton of RoR resumes to find a worthwhile candidate is too much work.

You can work on hard projects on your own. Once you have made substantial contributions, you will have credentials to interest the employers. Most of the open, hard projects have very few full time developers. PyPy has only 3 I believe. If you have something to contribute, people will be more than happy to have you on-board.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#4

Post by alakin » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:47 PM UTC

Im channeling Peter Thiel here: there is little connection between hard and valuable. The goal of most companies is to create value, and do it without expanding too much effort.

If you really want to challenge yourself give yourself a goal like:

1. Decode the genome 2. Find the correlation between all aspects of someones lifestyle, diet, and their health. 3. Solve poverty - maybe there is an economic solution.

The world is full of hard problems, but you have to take the lead if you want to work on them.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#5

Post by dumby » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:51 PM UTC

Try looking for bioinformatics jobs. It involves big data where the amount of data to be analyzed is growing exponentially every year, a lack of knowledge on what to research to provide meaningful results, and huge benefit when people come up with novel ways to interpret data successfully.

It will involve acquiring some domain specific knowledge to be truly successful (what hard problem doesn't?), but you will be able to dive in straight away and make huge contributions just by making current analysis more efficient!

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#6

Post by rikacomet » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

Lets consider Maths, as an example to answer that. Well, up till college, we are taught to solve problems that are already solved, towards our PhD, we come across problems that haven't been solved, they are hard, but they are not the end of it, beyond that lies a sanctum, where you must find a problem and fix it. Thats what entrepreneurs do, it may sound easy, but do not be fooled by it, because being an entrepreneur it seems easy when you have found a problem and its solution, or as Steve Jobs said " looking back, the dots connect but 20 years ago, looking forward, they did not"

Billions of people around the globe haven't even noticed many a problems, yet a handful of entrepreneurs did, wasn't that the first part of problem solving, and if you haven't probably noticed, you are here after all, so you might unconsciously know the answer lays somewhere around here.

So from my eyes, whether its programming or maths, the hardest problems that exist are the problems no one has noticed yet.

For your case, you might want to find a problem of programming, if you have programmed for that many years, you will surely run into one, that no one has noticed. If you haven't, as Steve Jobs also said "Keep Looking"

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#7

Post by 31reasons » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:55 PM UTC

It sounds like going to a Disney Land and complaining that all rides are easy. If you want tough and challenging rides go to SixFlags.

If you want to tackle tough challenges may be ruby/rails is not the ideal place. Perhaps learn C,C++ and implement faster ruby or javascript interpreter or implement a distributed filesystem in ruby or java. You can also contribute to the rails framework.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#8

Post by petercooper » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:55 PM UTC

It's not the only way but a PhD will certainly open a lot more doors at the "high end" research end of things. That said, even Microsoft Research will hire "Research Software Development Engineers" who work with researchers to implement cutting edge stuff as well as migrate it into regular Microsoft products, and only a bachelor's is required: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/technical.... .. these sort of roles can blossom into more challenging and more research oriented work over long periods of time.

This is a rather crude generalization, but PhDs are often demanded at high end research positions not to prove you know your stuff, but to guarantee you have the mettle to do research and bounce back from failure after failure.. a must if you're working on someone else's dime. Of course, if you can find another way to support yourself, you can do (almost) any research you like in your own time without strings attached ;-)

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#9

Post by btilly » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:57 PM UTC

Follow the advice in http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/math-for-programmers... and learn math. Once you have the skills to do the interesting stuff, you start to see opportunities to do it in the oddest of places. For instance I've been paid to do things like statistics and machine learning on "simple CRUD apps".

Maybe you won't be that lucky. But if you don't have the required skills, then you definitely won't be that lucky.

Incidentally a fun place to test the intersection between math and programming is http://projecteuler.net/. Besides, it is fun.

Re: Ask HN: Where are the hard programming challenges/jobs?

#10

Post by Maro » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

Writing a distributed database is pretty challenging. That's part of the reason I started a NoSQL company some time ago. Unfortunately it failed due to lack of funding, but if you're interested, here's a technical write-up:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.3860