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Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

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Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#211

Post by yarcob »

nightski wrote: post #114
Trasmatta wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those examples I was giving did provide lots of value, to the client. The section from the article was talking about optimizing for visibility. Deep technical problems with lots of value are not always visible, and I think it's fine to build a career around those types of things.

I wasn't disputing what you said, kind of agreeing with it actually. Although as a consultant for over a decade myself I have to make an effort to make sure my work is visible. I'm not sure I could lurk in the shadows with no one seeing the value I create and still get paid :)

Do you actually get most of your work from promoting yourself to strangers via Github or similar?

In my experience, if you do good work, it's usually not that hard to get more work even without a public showcase of your work. Your clients will come back the next time they need to get a job done. Your clients also tell others about you, and word-of-mouth is extremely valuable advertisement.

I guess promoting yourself on Github and on personal blogs is one way to go about it, but real life personal relationships shouldn't be undervalued in my opinion. Most consultants I know have a surprisingly bare website.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#212

Post by kybernetyk »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #205
dzolob wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me when I left academia. No “real credentials”. Math expert with strong computer background (phd, published papers, years of experience in research/teaching) didn’t said more than “one year data science ‘masters’ abroad”. It took me quite some time to translate my expertise into marketable skills. Before that, I got passed on even for entry level positions.

Well I had a “math expert” join my team recently and the problems were: they couldn’t work in a team, verbally expressed their intellectual superiority to everyone else, didn’t have the technical ability to get anything into production, could not follow instructions from superiors, thought most of the work they were given was “boring” and invented their own projects to work on, etc. I don’t know if that type of attit…

>didn’t have the technical ability to get anything into production

This is the biggest problem with fresh graduates.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#214

Post by nicbou »

piokoch wrote: post #60

"Don't try to make a career out of optimizing the SQL queries to display a preference page on a line of business app at a company that no one has ever heard of. That is not the straightforward path to having other people learn you are capable of doing meaningful work." This is so sad. Optimizing that SQL might require being really clever and can bring enormous value for the company that maybe nobody heard about but m…

I worked on highly visible internal work. Improving your colleagues' quality of life can be highly visible.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#215

Post by nicbou »

vbtemp wrote: post #171

I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? Am I an incredibly defective human being or something - I cannot even fathom working anything even CLOSE to that (in software/tech, maybe if you're in med school or work an an ER I can see it). There is no way in hell I could ever even be close to productive for that period of time for more than, say, one week a year or something (and even th…

I'm young, single and without children, and even 40 hours a week feels like a tad much, even when I realistically worked 5-6 hours a day.

I can't imagine a life of 60-90 hour weeks be worth whatever carrot they dangle in front of those poor sods.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#216

Post by nicbou »

gitgud wrote: post #100
currymj wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your blog is very high quality and i've enjoyed it in the past (Metropolis-Hastings post especially). however there's a problem if everybody is going to do this, if it becomes standard that you want to have a blog in order to promote yourself during a job hunt. i think this is why search results are cluttered with a proliferation of largely useless "awesome X" GitHub repositories, repetitive bad Medium articles on ba…

> "i think this is why search results are cluttered with a proliferation of largely useless "awesome X" GitHub repositories, repetitive bad Medium articles on basic ML topics, and so on." This is such a sad way to view blogging and Github contributions... There's nothing wrong with people writing bad articles. In fact everyone writes badly to begin with. The same goes for Github contributions, everyone starts off wit…

I think it becomes a problem when people do those things because it's required to stay competitive, and not out of genuine interest.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#217

Post by mepiethree »

vbtemp wrote: post #171

I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? Am I an incredibly defective human being or something - I cannot even fathom working anything even CLOSE to that (in software/tech, maybe if you're in med school or work an an ER I can see it). There is no way in hell I could ever even be close to productive for that period of time for more than, say, one week a year or something (and even th…

Workaholism is an addiction and a mental health problem. I have worked for 50+ hours a week for 4 years and last year I became a manager and have worked 60-80 for the last year. On bad weeks, I joke to my wife that I am headed to my 9-5... because I sometimes work 9am to 5am and get up the next day for another 9am meeting.

I am absolutely doing real work, if anything, it's my non-work life that is "theater." I won't check my phone, or even eat because I'll lose minutes of work. It's clearly bad for me and my productivity.

I'd love to "work on" my workaholism but...

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#218

Post by brigandish »

Swizec wrote: post #119
Klinky wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you even know the actual impact you had on revenue/profits? Engineering is often many layers removed from customer interactions, sales and accounting. Some companies have complex and opaque revenue channels. Frankly I take any claims of direct revenue/profit growth/generation with a grain of salt. Typically at best, you're wildly guessing, at worst, you're outright lying.

The PM you worked with should be able to answer this question. If they can’t, your project is likely a waste of time. The signal from a hiring standpoint is that you asked and cared about this. Engineers who will just do whatever are less useful/impactful than engineers who push back and care about the value they’re delivering. Even if it’s sometimes fuzzy to estimate.

How does the PM know? Are they told or is it something they are required to ascertain?

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#219

Post by laurent92 »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #205
dzolob wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me when I left academia. No “real credentials”. Math expert with strong computer background (phd, published papers, years of experience in research/teaching) didn’t said more than “one year data science ‘masters’ abroad”. It took me quite some time to translate my expertise into marketable skills. Before that, I got passed on even for entry level positions.

Well I had a “math expert” join my team recently and the problems were: they couldn’t work in a team, verbally expressed their intellectual superiority to everyone else, didn’t have the technical ability to get anything into production, could not follow instructions from superiors, thought most of the work they were given was “boring” and invented their own projects to work on, etc. I don’t know if that type of attit…

> thought most of the work was boring

It’s my biggest problem, both with people who want trendy frameworks, and myself who was bored with work in my younger years (til I started drinking and made changes and created my company). “From a million dollars, anything is your passion” is quite true (was it Joel on Software?), but IT is quite boring when evolving at the lower levels.

I’ve loved the book “Tribal leadership” which defines levels of career,

1-Almost dropout;

2-Bored worker (apathetic victim, but delivers work - This was me);

3-Working like an as but executing on your own skills (“lone warrior” - This is me now);

4-Executes well with a mentor above and mentoring below, which pushes the organization forward by “belonging” to the social fabric;

5-Executes for others - Creates relationship between people so they can execute together - that’s the “startup ecosystem” or corporate leader style, those people often look like gurus amazed by the smartness of people in their ecosystem, which, if they are contagious and humble, becomes true leadership.

Re: Don't End the Week with Nothing (2014)

#220

Post by brigandish »

vbtemp wrote: post #171

I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? Am I an incredibly defective human being or something - I cannot even fathom working anything even CLOSE to that (in software/tech, maybe if you're in med school or work an an ER I can see it). There is no way in hell I could ever even be close to productive for that period of time for more than, say, one week a year or something (and even th…

> When you work those kind of hours, are you _actually_ doing value-adding or value-optimizing things, or just engaging in work theater?

You're going to be doing a similar total amount of productive work to elsewhere (possibly less because you're so tired), and engaging in work theatre for the rest of the time.

As I wrote just last week [0], Japan's worker productivity is not good but that's only one measure and possibly not the most important to those who set the rules in Japan.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26450579

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