Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

gregmckeown.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 270 posts

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#161

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

aristofun wrote: post #118

The general sentiment of being aware about your career and decisions is true. But this reminds me of what I hate about modern corporate “culture” the most. And what is broken about it the most. Im speaking about the rat race. Tge fact, that you have to waste a noticeable part of your work time, effort and energy to sell your work instead of doing it. To the point where good salesmen make a “career” and become your bo…

How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? There is an entire theory called the “luck surface area” that says you need to do the work and tell people you did the work.

https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck

There is another similar school of thought that the only thing that matters in your career are “results and relationships”. It took me way too long to figure all of this out. But once I did, it made my life much easier and it made it much easier to navigate within my company and getting opportunities on the outside.

During the last ten or so years as a “developer” without doing a single coding interview because I do know how to sell myself (and deliver)…

1. I’ve gotten three jobs where the new manager/director/CTO hired me as one of their first technical hires to lead major initiatives

2. Got a job at BigTech without any coding interviews even though my job required hands on keyboard coding as part of the job - cloud consulting specializing in app dev (yes full time direct hire with bonuses and RSUs)

3. Left there and had a job within a week as a staff consultant (full time) with another consulting company.

I’m not smarter than anyone else, I learned how to network, talk the talk and play the game.

On another note, you don’t and shouldn’t get a promotion based on doing your current job well. Just because you are a good developer doesn’t mean that you have the skills to lead other developers. That’s the entire point behind the “Peter Principle”. You have to show you are capable of working at the next level by working at the next level.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t make more money if you bring more value to a company than do done else at your level. But how is a company suppose to objectively manage that? You pulled more stories off the board? You had less QA defects?

For what it’s worth, I flew to close to the sun myself about a decade ago and realized I would suck as a manager of people. But I was getting better at leading projects. I chose the IC route.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#162

Post by nrvn »

lanstin wrote: post #153
skeeter2020 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this demostrates a far more important perspective than "have a vision" - which is easy to explain and almost impossible to execute, which is be curious, intentional and open to lots of things. The curious & open part leads you to new oppportunities, and the intentional part helps you figure out how to evaluate & where to go next.

This sounds like much better advice. Trying to plan out a tech career over decades seems like very premature optimizing. Being curious and making sure you keep learning is not only very pleasant, it’s useful. And when the tech changes, fine, no problem. Most of the big features of my life have not been plannable ahead of time.

Exactly. You can “have a vision” to accelerate full speed and hit the hard wall and just before going full throttle you are offered an opportunity to enter an open door around the corner which you have never even thought about. And that door helps you discover a new vision, that might stick for lifetime.

Also, while the original advice about “vision” sounds reasonable, it also sounds a bit dogmatic. The filpside of “career vision” is “tunnel vision”. And life is not deterministic, it has a much more probabalistic nature. Hence, curiosity and open mind.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#163

Post by baxtr »

Xunjin wrote: post #55
keiferski wrote: post #27

The main thing missing from this IMO is an element of chance or randomness, the ability to incorporate “unknown unknowns” into your life. The most interesting people I’ve come across have had a variety of jobs, many of which they knew absolutely nothing about when starting out. There is a genuine value add when you’ve worked beyond the same white collar profession your entire working career. In other words, the probl…

In a society where everything needs to be optimal, randomness is seen as a mistake.

Societies that promote experimentation will - in the long run - become superior.

Because: The interesting things that give you leverage are at the frontier of knowledge. In business, as well as, in science.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#164

Post by VirusNewbie »

agentultra wrote: post #113
Swizec wrote: post #6

My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…

Hamming was also writing from a highly privileged position. He was able to work at Bell Labs for the majority of his career. That just doesn’t exist today. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is a great book but it needs context. The last edition was released in 1994. Programmers had a lot of labour power back then. Today though? The median house costs more than a third of the median income. Inflation has raised…

When I got into the industry over 20 years ago, it was unheard of for an IC software engineer to retire early. Unless you got extremely lucky like working at Microsoft or Apple pre-IPO, you just weren't making the kind of money big law or doctors made.

That is not the case now. Yes the competition is incredibly fierce but the pay has skyrocketed.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#165

Post by cheapbussy »

+++ Non native english speaker, machine-edited text +++

English Version (clean, correct, humorous) “Whoever ignores success because it doesn’t count as a mistake will make very little progress.”

The “Little Brother” Misassessment Now, bro once said: “If there’s no mistake, then I can’t learn anything from it. Without a mistake, there’s nothing to learn.”

But if his recipe for success - all the right, good, subtle, less noticeable things - isn’t even registered by his mind...

…then isn’t that a problem with the mental template he’s using?

“Fixed points of social polarization”...

Hey bro, before I hug you as the “Hero of Labor” - sincerely, warmly - 2,800 hours of work this year...

Tell me honestly: Did only you earn that praise, or do the employees of high‑performers like you also deserve some recognition?

I probably don’t know them - but I do know you, which is why I’m asking.

Self‑reflection: Learning also comes from questioning routine Keyword: Extremes (Mistake vs. Non‑Mistake)

Thesis: “You only learn from mistakes.” Antithesis: “Then I must be a genius, considering how often I mess things up…” Paradox: “If you never see success, you can’t do anything wrong.”

The “Little Brother” misjudgment is ultimately a cognitive trap. It reduces learning to mistakes and filters out success, cooperation, and quiet contributions.

The Mistake Olympics Gold for the colleague who filled the coffee machine with dish soap. Bronze for the intern - eventually you only learn how to apologize.

Punchline: “I don’t make mistakes - I produce learning material.”

“My success is invisible, boss, because - as I’d like to emphasize - I couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong.”

“Hero of labor? I’m a hero of coffee breaks. Without me, there wouldn’t be any work at all.”

“If mistakes were the only source of learning, my life would count as a Harvard degree.”

Whoever ignores success because it doesn’t count as a mistake will make very little progress.

+++ COMMERCIAL BREAK! +++

LIFESTYLE: THE WIRELESS MOBILEBUTTON ?

The wireless button lifestyle is a practical and simple solution for users who want reliable communication without unnecessary distractions.

Because modern smartphones can do way too much.

Forget apps, streaming, selfies, and endless notifications - and yes, even without emojis: finally real words again.

Pure minimalism: One button, one life, your direction!

“Since I started using the one‑button phone, I actually know what my friends look like.” - A convinced ex‑smartphone addict

“I just wanted to quickly check something online… Now I meditate.” - A satisfied user

Because sometimes less is simply… less.

+++

hoped that it adds something ...useful...nor... hahaha!

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#166

Post by aristofun »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #161
aristofun wrote: post #118

The general sentiment of being aware about your career and decisions is true. But this reminds me of what I hate about modern corporate “culture” the most. And what is broken about it the most. Im speaking about the rat race. Tge fact, that you have to waste a noticeable part of your work time, effort and energy to sell your work instead of doing it. To the point where good salesmen make a “career” and become your bo…

How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? There is an entire theory called the “luck surface area” that says you need to do the work and tell people you did the work. https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck There is another similar school of thought that the only thing that matters in your career are “results and relationships”. It took me way too long to figure all of this o…

> I’m not smarter than anyone else, I learned how to network, talk the talk and play the game.

Congratulations that you learned how to game the system. Fair enough. That doesn't mean you should brag about it or celebrate that terrible "school of thought".

> How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them?

That's a simple part: it's your manager's direct and one of the main job responsibilities. It's like 80% of what manager job is all about. To be perfectly aware of what his team is doing, what was done good, what was bad, performance, strong, weak sides etc. For every individual report.

The hard part is to find the manager who at least understands that, even harder to find someone who are good at it. But in my limited experience it's not much harder than to find and spot a decent engineer.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#167

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

Swizec wrote: post #6

My favorite lens on this comes from Hamming: > It is well known the drunken sailor whos taggers to the left or right n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin. But if there is a pretty girl in one direction, then his steps will tend to go in that direction and he will go a distance proportional to n. In a lifetime of many, many independent choices, small and large, a…

> n independent random steps will, on the average, end up about sqrt(n) steps from the origin

AKCSHUALLY

The root of the mean of the squared distances is sqrt(n).

The phrase as you quoted is the mean of the absolute distance. In general those are different. I don't know the latter from memory, and a quick look at the wikipedia page for Brownian motion doesn't have it.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#168

Post by hampelm »

aristofun wrote: post #166
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? There is an entire theory called the “luck surface area” that says you need to do the work and tell people you did the work. https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/surface-area-of-luck There is another similar school of thought that the only thing that matters in your career are “results and relationships”. It took me way too long to figure all of this o…

> I’m not smarter than anyone else, I learned how to network, talk the talk and play the game. Congratulations that you learned how to game the system. Fair enough. That doesn't mean you should brag about it or celebrate that terrible "school of thought". > How will someone know what you’re doing if you don’t tell them? That's a simple part: it's your manager's direct and one of the main job responsibilities. It's li…

Game the system? That _is_ the system!

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#169

Post by agentultra »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #164
agentultra wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hamming was also writing from a highly privileged position. He was able to work at Bell Labs for the majority of his career. That just doesn’t exist today. The Art of Doing Science and Engineering is a great book but it needs context. The last edition was released in 1994. Programmers had a lot of labour power back then. Today though? The median house costs more than a third of the median income. Inflation has raised…

When I got into the industry over 20 years ago, it was unheard of for an IC software engineer to retire early. Unless you got extremely lucky like working at Microsoft or Apple pre-IPO, you just weren't making the kind of money big law or doctors made. That is not the case now. Yes the competition is incredibly fierce but the pay has skyrocketed.

There were a lot of factors that went into making salaries sky-rocket. One of those was leverage: there was more demand for skilled programmers than there were available. You also had the ZIRP era from 2008-2021ish. If you could write fizz buzz and breathe you could get a good paying job.

In the 90s inflation-adjusted salaries were still rather high. A 75k USD salary in 1995 is roughly 150k USD today. And the median house was less than a third of your income. And in the 90s there was even more demand for programmers.

The early 2000s were a bit rough unless you were insulated inside Google and big tech.

But 2025 is a very different landscape. I’ve talked to lots of highly talented developers who’ve been consistently employed since the early 2000s who have been on the job search for 9 months, a year.

It’s one thing to have a goal for one’s career but it’s not like you can wait around to find that perfect opportunity forever, right?

Some times you have to find something and work. It might not fit into your plans for your career but it might provide you with the income you need to keep your family afloat and maybe let you indulge in a hobby.

Re: If you don't design your career, someone else will (2014)

#170

Post by underlipton »

cardanome wrote: post #38

I do something similar for development of me as a human being. I ask myself how can I improve, what kind of person do I want to be, how can I help make the world a better place. My "career" is just a means to an end to put food on the table. Also being in my 30s I think I have mostly maxed it out anyway. Sure I might increase my wage a little bit but all in all as for being an IC it is a good as it gets. Sure there i…

If you make a lot of money doing something that makes the world a worse place sometimes, and your goal is to simply "not starve," you can probably find something else to do which fulfills that requirement while also making the world a better place instead.
Post reply on HN