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Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

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Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#11

Post by theshackleford »

credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

> don't fool yourself into thinking they are gold currency on the job market.

I must have gotten lucky then because I’ve built most of my career off my incredible troubleshooting capacity and my communication capability.

I’m not earning Silicon Valley money (because thankfully I don’t live there) but I’m at the top end for salaries in my country. I out earn the vast majority of devs/devops people I know.

Maybe it’s a bit unfair though because I troubleshoot at a very different level to most I suspect.

edit

Or maybe I’ve been applying the wrong word to what I do my entire career…or misunderstanding why I’m valued. This is more possible than it might seem.

edit

For further context, i've held a wide variety of positions now within IT, including executive management. The problem is still, and I know this will sound stupid, I don't know how it is I got here, or why people valued me enough to keep me promoting me. I never even asked for the promotions they just...happened. This has made applying for new jobs harder, because I've never actually been entirely sure what my value is, so I often take jobs that are lower than my last job, but then everytime its not long before I end up well above that again.

I eventually assumed it must be my troubleshooting capacity. I asked a CEO I worked with once at a smaller startup why it is he kept promoting me, and I got this story about how by just being in the room, everyone around me wants to do better work. Not because they are being told to do so, but because the work I do apparently just inspires people around me to do better. I was the truest example he had seen apparently of 'lead by example.'

It's been very problematic because despite earning good money, and having never struggled to find, retain or advance in a job, I still don't truely know what it is exactly i'm good at.

I think im terrible at explaining this. Every time I have tried to talk to someone about it in real life they just end up telling me I have impostor syndrome. Of course I do, I don't really know what the fuck it is I do.

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#12

Post by foo_barrio »

xerox13ster wrote: post #6
credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

This mentality through most of my career has left me trapped as technical support, and it's damn near impossible to climb out of the pit I've dug for myself. What you say about being seen as a car mechanic is true.

This played out at my last place. My boss would assign my co-worker to build the world's crappiest car in the least amount of time and when it broke down I would be the only one that seemed to be able to fix it (while my co-worker was busy building some other crappy car). I would have built a much better car in the first place! However I would have taken more time and the goal was to build and release as fast a possible. My boss was okay with the risk of said crappy car, my co-worker got promoted and I slowly burned out.

It's a tough balancing to make sure you sell yourself correctly and fight to work on things you want to!

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#13

Post by pinkmuffinere »

Cpoll wrote: post #10
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it isn’t just your _appearance_ or _pay_ you should be worrying about. If you fix a nitpicky bug that affected 5% of the users — congrats that’s a pretty big bug! But could you have built a new feature that would roll out to 50% of users in that same time? In many situations, building the new feature will have a bigger impact on the world than the bug fix. Obviously will depend on the exact circumstance. But you…

> But could you have built a new feature that would roll out to 50% of users in that same time? No.

If the impact of debugging is expected to be larger than building something new, then debug. Else, build something new.

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#14

Post by jemmyw »

credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

> But reliable car mechanics don't get paid a lot

I dunno, the mechanic I go to is reliable and so busy it's hard to get a slot these days, and he seems to be doing very well for himself. So many mechanics are unreliable

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#15

Post by rokhayakebe »

sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #8
credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

I think you may be leaning too far in the other direction. I'm a troubleshooter. I fix problems. I keep my head straight in a crisis. Every job I've had across 3 decades, regardless of my actual title or formal responsibilities, I'm the firefighter. People call me when they can't figure something out. People call me when something big breaks and needs to be fixed urgently. Even if I'm not an expert in the broken thin…

In fact you could easily be the guy they keep on a monthly retainer just for peace of mind.

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#16

Post by rokhayakebe »

xerox13ster wrote: post #6
credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

This mentality through most of my career has left me trapped as technical support, and it's damn near impossible to climb out of the pit I've dug for myself. What you say about being seen as a car mechanic is true.

Until you start your own company, even if it is just you.

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#17

Post by [deleted] »

credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

[deleted]

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#18

Post by bee_rider »

pinkmuffinere wrote: post #7
credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

And it isn’t just your _appearance_ or _pay_ you should be worrying about. If you fix a nitpicky bug that affected 5% of the users — congrats that’s a pretty big bug! But could you have built a new feature that would roll out to 50% of users in that same time? In many situations, building the new feature will have a bigger impact on the world than the bug fix. Obviously will depend on the exact circumstance. But you…

Hmm. Well, of course it isn’t on any one person to fix a systemic issue. But, I really would not want to use a system where the institutional decision was made to focus on new features instead of fixing bugs that hit 5% of users.

Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete

#19

Post by imglorp »

credit_guy wrote: post #3

> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…

If you are debugging your work too much, maybe it's you.

Obligatory Kernighan’s law: “Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

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