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Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
211–220 of 311 posts
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't see much advantage in building software for my farm. Controlled environment agriculture is heavily data driven and is a fast growing field. Same with genetically modified crops.
All agriculture is heavily data driven. It is not that you couldn't put your skills to use, in theory, but it is not economically viable to do so as there are businesses who have full-time employees doing it better and cheaper. In order to stay competitive with other farmers you have to turn to the third-party providers, not hack it yourself. To make such a thing economically viable you'd have to find a problem space…
Maybe genetic algorithms could help you optimize correlated questions you might need answering.
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They make embarrassingly more than I do, have been programming for a scant few years, and I couldn't care less. I think the bigger question is, with programming being made more common to the public (aka being taught in elementary school), will the supply/demand ratio that makes US development a six figure job go away with the influx of "new would-be coders"?
Unlikely, it will just eliminate the "easy" jobs. Just look at writing, mass literacy surely eliminated many jobs but lawyers are still quite well compensated. Another area is mathematics with actuaries. Democratization of computing will lead to greater stratification of programming jobs. The "Excel Programmer" won't exist being supplanted by the "Office Drone" whereas the "Distributed Systems Engineer" (or whatever)…
Ops is getting commoditized through no-code/IaaS-turnkey solutions -- not there yet but I can see what is hard now, becoming easy for 80% of a business needs.
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear, courses such as "category theory" and abstract algebra are not required to be a good engineer.
Go to an engineering school and ask if calculus is required to be a good engineer ;-) You can be a programmer without a lot of math skills. You can do a good job in a number of different areas. You can be promoted and lead other programmers. You can write a lot of good code. However, there are a lot of areas where knowing linear algebra will help you enormously. Many people who don't know linear algebra often don't s…
The good news is that linear algebra is one of the easiest forms of algebras out there to learn.
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure that's a saying outside of agriculture.
It was on HN that I first heard it. I'm not sure it is a saying within agriculture. We take for granted the advanced technology that we get to play with.
Advanced compared to what? Probably not microchip factories...
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
All agriculture is heavily data driven. It is not that you couldn't put your skills to use, in theory, but it is not economically viable to do so as there are businesses who have full-time employees doing it better and cheaper. In order to stay competitive with other farmers you have to turn to the third-party providers, not hack it yourself. To make such a thing economically viable you'd have to find a problem space…
Maybe genetic algorithms could help you optimize correlated questions you might need answering.
And if that's the case, someone has already thought of it and I can simply buy their product at a fraction of the cost that would require me to implement the same. Not only that, but it will be higher quality too as they have staff working on it day in, day out, while I've only got time here and there, between farm work, to work on it. There is no economic incentive for me to build it myself. It would be a net drain on my business to try.
I know from working in other industries that there is often a business advantage to building custom tools. I don't see it in farming. Being a commodity business, the businesses are pretty much carbon copies of each other. There is no real advantage in differentiating yourself with specialized tools like there is in non-commodity businesses.
If you really, honestly, feel like you've found a novel idea that could help your farm business, you'd be better to quit farming and focus on building a tool that you can sell to all farmers. But it remains, if you can think of it, it is almost already guaranteed to exist. Agriculture is fiercely competitive.
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#217> I've been coding for half my life, out of pure interest for the building things and never got into it for the money.
This gives you years of valuable experience and insights your colleagues won't have as they switch in from finance.
> CS career being obviously a good choice and every smart kid I know majoring in it, mostly for the cash, honestly makes me worried about the future of the field in terms of whether it'll still be a good career in the future.
It's been this way for ages. What the folks switching in don't realize is those folks won't get hired at a FAANG because people like you have a decade of experience on them, and there's only so many spots. So long as there's more folks like you than spots the rest is noise.
> I think smart people will do good work, just for the wrong reasons ($) and this might impact the field negatively.
Only if they get hired :) Once you're aboard you get to help shape who makes it in after you. If this is something you're passionate about, get involved in recruiting and hiring. Bring in the folks with non-traditional backgrounds who are amazing, and leave the switchers aside.
> In 5 years maybe things will still be okay, but if the trend continues for 10 years? Will CS become unsustainable hours like working in the quantitive funds or unsustainable competition and workload like in medicine, or both?
It already is. It's been like this forever, and will likely remain like this anywhere competitive, and at every start-up. Work-life balance is lip-service at most companies certainly as you level up (exponentially more so the smaller the company).
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#218I graduated from a programming bootcamp about 6 years ago. I decided to go into full CS degree but my bootcamp instructors said to me "it is a waste of time and will cost you a lot of opportunity cost". A lot of my friends from that bootcamp without CS degree already have good careers as engineering managers, senior staff software engineers at startups, or regular engineers (around junior and mid level) at Facebook/G…
Your comment resonated with me. Sounds strange, but - any advice on finding a worthwhile bootcamp? I'm in in the middle of a career-transition effort myself. I'm a ChemEng & do fine financially so the motivation is not money-based. Honestly though, the faster I can switch the better. I completed a Graduation CS Foundations program (5 courses at Master's level university credit) and now I'm starting a Master's CS prog…
Where are you located? I am at NYC. I recommend Fullstack Academy. I graduated from there, wrote a really long Quora answer that asks about bootcamp experience and got voted as one of the top viewest answer, I have since removed that because the current Fullstack Academy community (the community, not the curriculum) is not for me anymore.
With bootcamp skills, you can definitely land FAANG jobs. I know a person that did not go to bootcamp or CS degree at all but just study Data Structures and Algorithms and got a job at Facebook (since then the person got fired because of performance review, but landed at Google, and it seems that Google does not fire people).
Your MS program will not advance you toward making SE salary soon, so I believe that a bootcamp program probably will be a better bet. MS program though, will prepare you for a good CS foundation and will make you a well rounded SE overall. However, it has little correlation to the amount of money that you will be making, unless, you are so damn good and famous that literally FAANG will be knocking on your door.
There are too many things to study, and CS is not programming. Programming is not CS. You can program without knowing CS. If you want to optimize for money in a short amount of time, I recommend bootcamp, built a few projects, and then study the heck out of Data Structures and Algorithms. Make sure it is a reputable one and has support structure to help you find a job.
Also it helps to focus either on Frontend or on Backend. Thi will make your career transition even faster. I am a fullstack by choice. I don't recommend this path to anyone. It is too much trouble to keep up with the techs, and don't pay that much more (if it pays more) compared to pure backend or pure frontend. I just do it because one day I foresee to create my own company. I need to be a generalist.
So to summarize. If (goal === make more money within short time): - Do bootcamp - Make sure the bootcamp is reputable, has support structure to find you a job and optimize your resume - Focus on either frontend or backend if you can - Build a few projects (maybe 2 or 3) - Study Data Structures and Algorithms
else: - do MS - just study whatever is interesting. AI, ML, Compilers, Hardware, Graphics, maybe build a small project in one of these areas. These topics are hard topics, so even just one project is hard to do - still do Data Structures and Algorithms
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#219I suspect CS and programming will still be a very good career choice even if there is a shakeout. More importantly do you see anything out there that looks like a better career choice in 3-5 years? I don’t see any clear winners.
You sound like you love computing. That’s fantastic, because you love something that also happens to be a viable career choice. Even if there is a serious downtown in the market (which will be painful) it’s like there won’t be a continuing need for programmers, and it sounds like you are/will be a good one with excellent credentials. The start of your career might be less remunerative than you’d like, but I find it unlikely you wouldn’t be able to establish a career in computing at all.
That being said if there is another path that truly interests you consider a double major or minor. I was about to pick up a 2nd major in Poli Sci with only 3 extra classes and a whole lot of creative accounting of my other credits. I did it because I was interested in it, and because all the coolest people I know also had multiple majors. As I reluctantly enter what can only be considered a mid-career stage with increasing non-technical responsibilities , I find myself reflecting a surprising amount on the lessons I learned in that second major. It’s proven surprisingly valuable to me.
Re: Ask HN: CS, still a good career in 3-5 years?
#220hiring good talent is still extremely tough. i haven't seen the skill level in new hires get much better over the past 3-5 years. we get recruitment companies asking for $60/hr salary on people who can't even write a simple function in an interview
Demand exceeds supply of cognitive ability. This job requires well above average intelligence and there always will be a relatively limited pool to select from. I would guess the average intelligence/competence of developers has decreased over the last 10 years.