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Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

matthewgrohman.substack.com

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Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#121

Post by BeetleB »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #57
throwawaysleep wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I little reorganization yielded a $385,000/yr cost optimization. And your reward for that was? Were you rewarded? Did they give you 30K as a bonus? Or was it just the weasel words of "this will be considered favourably at performance review time." I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job…

I'm curious, would you say any of your motivation and feeling of reward in your job comes from doing a good job, or helping your organization achieve it's goals? Or does your motivation and reward (what gets you out of bed, what makes your job tolerable or enjoyable) come mostly/only from maximizing your paycheck? Or other things?

The problem someone like me has with your query is the (somewhat arbitrary) separation of "job" with "rest of life".

I seek non-monetary rewards. I like doing interesting and/or meaningful work. But I define what that means to me, and short of starting my own business, it is rare that an existing job will give me more interesting work than what I can do in my spare time.

Hence, the incentive is to maximize my spare time. Sure, I could look for an interesting project at work, but once you factor in all the organizational constraints (will not have much autonomy, must make money, etc), it's not even half as interesting as my own projects in my spare time.

So I optimize for spare time.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#122

Post by 93po »

nixpulvis wrote: post #38
SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #30

I travelled to Yellowstone National Park. I wandered into the back country office and spoke with the ranger. She was super friendly and informative. One interesting fact she shared is that Yellowstone is almost 4,000 sq. miles and receives 5 million visitors a year. 99.9% of those visitors never travel more than 50 feet from the main road. This means that most of those visitors experience less than 1/10th of 1% of th…

But just like at state parks, tread lightly. I've gotten in trouble before while exploring and then being accused of putting my nose where it shouldn't be. It can look like you're wasting your time looking for distractions, or trying to dig up dirt. Not everyone in all parts of your company is going to like you poking around. You also risk picking up new responsibilities if people catch wind that you might be offerin…

I had this happen to me too. I started researching a solution for a different department and was told to stop and get back to my own work.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#123

Post by hardlianotion »

atorodius wrote: post #117
KineticLensman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every company I've worked for, from startups to Fortune 500, it was very clear what products the engineers contributed to I joined a company that was a privatised spin-off from a large civil service organization. A new CEO interviewed each department head, asking them how their accruals were doing this FY. A couple, allegedly, said 'Our what?' and were immediately shown the door. The next CEO, by the way, asked 'ho…

Out of curiosity, what are accurals and FY?

Accruals are revenue and costs that are not yet formally accounted for, I think (just looked it up). FY is financial year.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#124

Post by ghaff »

atorodius wrote: post #117
KineticLensman wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every company I've worked for, from startups to Fortune 500, it was very clear what products the engineers contributed to I joined a company that was a privatised spin-off from a large civil service organization. A new CEO interviewed each department head, asking them how their accruals were doing this FY. A couple, allegedly, said 'Our what?' and were immediately shown the door. The next CEO, by the way, asked 'ho…

Out of curiosity, what are accurals and FY?

FY = fiscal year

accruals: Larger companies especially do accounting on an accrual basis. So what most matters is when the service was delivered or the product sold--not when the cash was received. (Large companies care about cash flow too but cash is king at small companies.)

Basically what's being asked is "In what ways does our cash balance not reflect our income and expenses?" Perhaps more common would be ask about bookings but accruals is broader.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#125

Post by bartvk »

idopmstuff wrote: post #63

This is a great article, and my only issue with it and my only issue with it is that I think it's too limited. This isn't just a tech thing - the world we live in is one where having more context in a professional environment is almost always useful. If you spend time learning about how HR functions, it'll help you understand how things like promotions work. Spend time with marketing, and you'll learn lessons about h…

I have the feeling that I'm missing something here. Reading the headline, I expected a real, genuine and directly applicable advantage for a software engineer. But I couldn't find it.

While it leads to an interesting life for sure, I don't see how the writer's suggestions (or your suggestions) make for an unfair advantage for any particular role in tech.

Your examples also don't map to a direct advantage in a tech career. If you'd say that it helps indirectly and in intangible ways, then perhaps, yes. But in interviews I did, the lessons from your examples would not have helped. (I'm an iOS software engineer, by the way).

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#126

Post by unwind »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #118
throwawaysleep wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I little reorganization yielded a $385,000/yr cost optimization. And your reward for that was? Were you rewarded? Did they give you 30K as a bonus? Or was it just the weasel words of "this will be considered favourably at performance review time." I am aware of about a 50K a year in cloud waste. But in my org, I know I won't get anything for reporting it as I am not going for a promo (promos pay a lot less than job…

It's fun being a sysadmin sometimes. I tripped over a similar cost savings and instead of opening up a ticket I just spent 30 sweeping up the unneeded resources. Later I ran the numbers and realized this alone covered about half my total cost to the company. You don't often get feedback that direct about your impact on the bottom line.

You spent 30 seconds? Minutes? Dollars? (Virtual) brooms? Aargh so confusing! But well done!

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#127

Post by ghaff »

hardlianotion wrote: post #123
atorodius wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, what are accurals and FY?

Accruals are revenue and costs that are not yet formally accounted for, I think (just looked it up). FY is financial year.

Sorta. They've presumably been accounted for in some manner but revenue hasn't been collected or expenses paid out. (Doubtless lots of other things related to investment income etc.)

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#128

Post by lifeisstillgood »

SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #30

I travelled to Yellowstone National Park. I wandered into the back country office and spoke with the ranger. She was super friendly and informative. One interesting fact she shared is that Yellowstone is almost 4,000 sq. miles and receives 5 million visitors a year. 99.9% of those visitors never travel more than 50 feet from the main road. This means that most of those visitors experience less than 1/10th of 1% of th…

Ah, the days when you didn't have a manger asking for status updates daily on your deliverables that are vaguely defined. Having time to investigate interesting detours

I get it. But sometimes there are people focused on their 1% and see you as part of that.

Re: Want an unfair advantage in your tech career? Consume content for other roles

#130

Post by ldayley »

I developed a knack for this in practice (thanks HN and 2010's Twitter!) and formalized it on paper just days before I heard an interview with the author David Epstein regarding his then-newly-released book which gave my instinct a better name: RANGE.

Merely consuming content for other roles hardly builds range on its own. But It DOES help solve a related problem: it helps you learn about what to learn to begin to see/think/empathize with others in those roles.

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