Humblebrag masquerading as self-reflection.
I caught the car
11–20 of 65 posts
Re: I caught the car
#12Who cares about titles?
It's a really bad signal when a software developer cares about their title.
All that matters is are you good at the work.
Re: I caught the car
#13Who cares about titles? It's a really bad signal when a software developer cares about their title. All that matters is are you good at the work.
When you work for a company like Google, that title change determines whether or not you are taken seriously. People that get stuck at the same level are often pushed out of teams with performance improvement plans. They expect you to strive for promotion and the culture in these places is reinforcing this progression. It's mostly theater but the outcomes for people's pay is very real, thus the focus on title.
Re: I caught the car
#14Re: I caught the car
#15Who cares about titles? It's a really bad signal when a software developer cares about their title. All that matters is are you good at the work.
When you work for a company like Google, that title change determines whether or not you are taken seriously. People that get stuck at the same level are often pushed out of teams with performance improvement plans. They expect you to strive for promotion and the culture in these places is reinforcing this progression. It's mostly theater but the outcomes for people's pay is very real, thus the focus on title.
Sounds awful, spending headspace and energy on trying to climb some stupid corporate ladder.
Re: I caught the car
#16Humblebrag masquerading as self-reflection.
Eh, kinda. But there was enough self-deprecation there that it doesn't leave a bad taste in my mouth, and I consider this a genuine reflection.
> Why did I need validation from my org chart? > Pretty quickly realized I was being kind of a bitch. > I have a bad case of Why Not Me syndrome.
These cut deeper than faux modesty and are clearly insecurities. It's the rebelling of a sensible superego against an id hungry for validation, and the author doesn't downplay either of the two.
But yes, I'm sure he also gets a perverse thrill out of advertising his achievement, even if he intends to disparage it. It's a complicated psyche I'm rather familiar with.
Re: I caught the car
#17So many kids on hacker news - I’d say SWE is an experienced engineer not a senior developer- for Pete’s sake he graduated in 2023 that was 3 freaking years ago I’ve been developing production software for 20 years now - What other profession counts someone with 3 years of professional experience out of college as senior? Maybe competitive sports? Or academic math? If it means this kid is smart and good at coding sure…
Haha, I know people who have worked on designing a single part smaller than a closed fist for over 5 years and were still considered just over junior because they didn't have enough experience with the system it was used in.
Re: I caught the car
#18> When I had learned that, my first instinct was to be happy for him, proud, impressed, etc (genuinely). My second was to want the same for myself. Badly.
> [...] Think back (addressing you, the reader, now) to the time when you were happiest in your career or academic life. Was it when some sinecurist asshole in a gown handed you your diploma?
Uh, what? This is what this person wanted. Now after the fact they’re an anti-credentialist rebel.
Well, thinking of people who make a lot of money and then insist that money doesn’t matter. It makes sense.
> Going forward, the only person I need to impress is myself.
Thinking of the few things that I take quiet pride in because I only want to impress myself... I keep myself in check by not talking about it. lol.
Re: I caught the car
#19Who cares about titles? It's a really bad signal when a software developer cares about their title. All that matters is are you good at the work.
The title often relates to the money, which is the bit you probably want.
Re: I caught the car
#20Who cares about titles? It's a really bad signal when a software developer cares about their title. All that matters is are you good at the work.
Junior programmers are the idiot foil of all anecdotes on HN in the last three years. Only juniors do that; everything went fine until the junior...; anyway, the junior sent me a eight thousand diff of obvious slop; so now I got my first gray hairs, thanks Jane Junior; juniors writing naive, clearly quadratic code.[1]
Naturally these are the least skilled of your colleagues so that part is a given. But almost all anecdotes are about them as foils. Very few about them as the next generation being mentored.
It’s so slanted that people have to actively temper the euphoria shared by tech billionaires and 100X engineers with 25+ years of non-slop code experience: well until the seniors get an immortality pill you still need to raise new 100X engineers.
Of course the response to this will be, “I never cared about titles! The “juniors I talk about have work experience ranging from zero to thirty years!”...
[1] Sources: all made up.