161–170 of 350 posts
Absolutely yes. I've been developing professionally for almost 30 years. I still love making software and I'm good at it. When I started in this industry, being able to do it at all was the barrier to entry. The processes were light; "here's what we need it to do, go figure it out." Responsibility (and impact) were both high. Somewhere along the line that changed. Teams blew up to be dozens of people. Process fads we…
For me it’s the insane hazing ritual of the tech interview process that makes me want to leave the industry. I’m going through it again now, and honestly am pretty miserable. It has a large negative impact on the rest of my life and my mental health. When I was younger it was manageable, but the fact you have to do this even mid or late career every few years is insane to me. Wish I had gone into literally any other…
> the insane hazing ritual of the tech interview process That's it, exactly. I was a hiring manager for 25 years, and never gave a single coding test, during that time. I never made any technical errors. The only bad hires were folks that couldn't adapt to the work environment. Some of them were quite technically proficient. Some of my most gratifying hires, were ones that came in, with little tech proficiency or exp…
Those things test one thing: how many of those puzzles have you memorized the solution to.
I'm also an "old" and suspect you're right about the young-pass-filter.
I've been in the industry 20+ years and have had my share of ups and downs. Some advice for what it's worth. Focus on what you enjoy doing and avoid what stresses you out. The industry is wide enough that you can likely find a job doing what you like in an environment you like. For me that meant being a little less ambitious in terms of income but working in a laid back environment with people I really enjoy and doin…
I originally started with multiple contracts doing various support and project work, these days i'm almost exclusively project work that i'm interested in. This puts me back in full control of my time, and I can (and do) take periods of time off.
You may have to slog it out at the beginning of your career, depending on your luck, but you'll develop "career capital" and can leverage it to do what you enjoy the most.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Switch into ecommerce or marketing. Product companies suck. Product companies: selling your software as a product means you're always going to feel like you're on an assembly line. Except you're not the assembly line worker, you're the assembly line. Ecommerce and marketing companies: you build software that enables the company to sell some product. You're not the assembly line, you're not even working on the assembl…
Interesting. By joining an e-commerce or marketing company, doesn’t it also mean that software is seen as a cost center since it’s not directly the product being sold?
Or to put it another way, if you're adding core value to the business proposition or enabling their core business you're probably not going to be seen as a cost center. If you're R&D or innovation focused, probably not a cost center.
For example, working on a Wordpress site for a newspaper, probably cost center unless they're extremely tech focused. NYT comes to mind, but they straddle the line between saas product and not. They're selling the subscription service which puts you in product camp but they also have engineering functions that work on enabling their writers produce content. The content is the thing being sold, not your software so its probably some mixed feels over there.
I should probably extend the original "ecommerce or marketing" to any more traditionally non tech business model that has built itself as a tech company. For example:
Working on a website for an architecture firm = cost center.
Working on cad plugins for an architecture firm to use internally = probably not.
And again, caveats, even for ecommerce you could be considered a cost center if the business is more like a traditional brick and mortar but they've "started selling online".
Best career decision I ever made.
Don't let the cliched-career ladder advice generally offered in life (I don't mean here) blinker or constrain you.
There's a difference between Programming and Software Development and I think it's important to recognise that difference when looking at your career. Programming is one small aspect of software development. It's an absolutely essential part, and it's the part you probably enjoy the most. But despite being an essential core part, it's also a part which only occupies maybe 20% of your time. Some software developers de…
If the meetings are useful, that's fine, but I have a hard time taking pride in a long series of meetings to decide the contents of a 15-page document describing the design for feature that could be like 200LOC but now must be 2000LOC and involve integration between multiple teams' services because the promo criteria says "collaboration."
Most meetings I attend are held out of habit more than need.
I've been in the industry 20+ years and have had my share of ups and downs. Some advice for what it's worth. Focus on what you enjoy doing and avoid what stresses you out. The industry is wide enough that you can likely find a job doing what you like in an environment you like. For me that meant being a little less ambitious in terms of income but working in a laid back environment with people I really enjoy and doin…
I highly recommend doing what I have done most of my career. Get a job at smaller to medium sized non-tech company. Every company, in any industry, has computers. They need you. You don't have to work with a bunch of tech or finance people. You can get a job working with chill people in some other industry with a better culture. When it comes time to negotiate, negotiate HARD. And not just for money, but especially t…
>> The one worry I am having these days is how long this strategy will remain viable.
I just started reading "Ask Your Developer" by Jeff Lawson, CEO and co-founder of Twilio. He advocates that ALL companies should be building their own software, but only software that differentiates them from their competitors. They wouldn't build the next Twilio, NetSuite, Oracle, Salesforce, etc but software that enhances their brand, customer engagement, etc.
And if you are sucked into the drama, you’re billing $250/hr for it!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree about having it the best healthwise. My back is killing me and I burned out multiple times from stress. I'm not comparing myself to a fireman or something like this, but I would change my job for something more outdoorsy anytime if it paid the same.
90% of outdoorsy jobs would ruin your back as well, just in a slightly different way and they'd pay a lot less which would mean your stress would come from money troubles instead of office politics and culture.