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Bill Gates Resume (1974)

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Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#121

Post by scarface74 »

cosmodisk wrote: post #88
a1pulley wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned my newborn in all of my job interviews because I didn't want any surprises on either side of the table. I interviewed at six places and got five offers - two at FANGs, three at unicorns. I don't think there's a culture of discrimination against young fathers at large companies, and I don't think it's necessarily bad if there is at early-stage, high-growth start ups.

Any company worth working for would accept it as a fact of life- most people end up having kids at some point. If the opposite is the case,well, it's better to stay away from them.

Unpopular opinion: why is that necessarily the case? I’m 45 for context.

If the company needs someone that can work 60+ hours a week, with less than market pay, but a promise of equity (or if I were starting something risky with friends) , if I were younger, wanted to build my resume and didn’t have grown folks bills, that would be an opportunity I would jump on. On the other hand, if I really didn’t need the money and wanted to work on something interesting, I might do it. Does that necessarily mean the “company isn’t worth working for” or it’s not the the right company for me?

If I cared about paid paternity leave and the company couldn’t offer it, that also doesn’t mean it’s a bad company - just not the company for me.

On personal note, I’m at a point in my career where I’m being heavily recruited for consultant type jobs that require a lot of travel. I have a son graduating this year. I had to turn those types of jobs down even though they pay more than I make now. Is the job necessarily bad because they require travel?

Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#122

Post by rb808 »

dan-robertson wrote: post #108
codeulike wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raw ascii text It was typed on a manual typewriter - you can tell by the weight of the punctuation.

Why is the punctuation so heavy? Would it be too delicate otherwise or is it just that the area is smaller so the pressure is higher when the key is struck?

yes pressure is more concentrated, like being stepped on with a stiletto vs a regular shoe.

Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#125

Post by codeulike »

charlesism wrote: post #114
codeulike wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the CV of an 18/19 year old, don't forget. In context this CV would have screamed 'whizz-kid' at anyone that saw it.

If we're being pedantic, aside from "Harvard," it wouldn't have screamed much to most people in 1974: "What are all these acronyms, and what on earth is an 'operating system'?" This resume was written three years before anyone normal had access to a computer. I'm not even sure how many bank branches and travel agents had a terminal yet.

They might have wondered why he was earning equivalent of $80k

Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#126

Post by codeulike »

agumonkey wrote: post #111
codeulike wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raw ascii text It was typed on a manual typewriter - you can tell by the weight of the punctuation.

well you got what I meant, also, wasn't ASCII already a thing at the time ?

Yep it was around. I dont think typewriters had support for it though ; )

Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#127

Post by cosmodisk »

scarface74 wrote: post #121
cosmodisk wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company worth working for would accept it as a fact of life- most people end up having kids at some point. If the opposite is the case,well, it's better to stay away from them.

Unpopular opinion: why is that necessarily the case? I’m 45 for context. If the company needs someone that can work 60+ hours a week, with less than market pay, but a promise of equity (or if I were starting something risky with friends) , if I were younger, wanted to build my resume and didn’t have grown folks bills, that would be an opportunity I would jump on. On the other hand, if I really didn’t need the money a…

It may not be popular,but it's an opinion nonetheless. I don't disagree with working extra hours on stuff per se, especially if one is passionate about it. However,this is often abused.What is one man's passion,is other man's nightmare. These things are also very hard to balance from the management point of view. Also,60 hours a week of pure work is a lot and unless it's your own business,I would neither want anyone to do this in my own team nor myself. I'm a fan of "work smarter" not "work harder,aka longer hours". Even if you are out of school, there are many ways to shine and develop portfolio without grinding long hours. The company that is not worth working for isn't the one that allows people,who have a lot of time and motivation to do extra hours, to work longer,but one that finds it's not normal to become pregnant or go on paternity leave. Aa for paid paternity:I imagine you are commenting from the US perspective,while I do it from the European,so this needs to be taken into consideration,as on tbis side of the pond is not an option not to get it, it's more about what company can offer on top of statutory pay. As for consulting, I'm in a very similar situation,only my daughter is much younger, that's why I'm having a job that pays substantially less compared to what I'd get in consulting. And no, the requirement to travel doesn't make the job bad,even though business travel is a tiring experience,but,as you said,it could be a perfect fit to a lot of people.

Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#128

Post by scarface74 »

cosmodisk wrote: post #127
scarface74 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: why is that necessarily the case? I’m 45 for context. If the company needs someone that can work 60+ hours a week, with less than market pay, but a promise of equity (or if I were starting something risky with friends) , if I were younger, wanted to build my resume and didn’t have grown folks bills, that would be an opportunity I would jump on. On the other hand, if I really didn’t need the money a…

It may not be popular,but it's an opinion nonetheless. I don't disagree with working extra hours on stuff per se, especially if one is passionate about it. However,this is often abused.What is one man's passion,is other man's nightmare. These things are also very hard to balance from the management point of view. Also,60 hours a week of pure work is a lot and unless it's your own business,I would neither want anyone…

I’m thinking more of working harder as in one person wearing too many hats because a company can’t/ doesn’t want to hire more people. I’ve worked up and down the stack over the years from the front end all the way down to infrastructure (AWS/Dev ops) and have had to be my own project manager doing Statements of work during the last days of a dying company. No matter how smart I work, if I am stuck doing a job of more than one person, I’m going to work more hours.

I’ve also worked extra hours voluntarily to work on new to me technology to build my resume.

Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#129

Post by Waterluvian »

tasuki wrote: post #69
jimmaswell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the belief really that age is irrelevant to mental performance, or do we just want people to be able to continue being employed for moral reasons?

Oh, of course it is related. Also, apart from declining mental performance, with age comes valuable experience.

I've seen that in action. An older dev was an absolute burden on a hack day moving at a snail's pace. But for long term architecture he always had super valuable "oh I didn't think of that" things to say.

He was so awesome to have on the team, at the cost of sometimes having to watch him crawl toward a few lines of code. Not a hard choice in my opinion.

Of course I've seen the whole spectrum. Useless old people. Useless young people. It's best to simply be a meritocracy.

Re: Bill Gates Resume (1974)

#130

Post by SilverSlash »

segmondy wrote: post #58
cosmodisk wrote: post #39

Pay attention to the $15K salary he wants- that's about $75K in today's money. Not much has changed,even though companies nowadays make many tons more money from the dev work...

Interesting that you paid attention to his salary. What about his course work? What about the hardware and languages he knows? He was more skilled than the average developer today in his freshman year.

He was more skilled than the average graduate developer today.
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