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A career ending mistake

bitfieldconsulting.com

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Re: A career ending mistake

#291

Post by barrkel »

lstodd wrote: post #278
barrkel wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You learn different things at startups vs FAANG. A startup probably won't be able to afford the standard of engineering that you can find at places like Google. There are good practices you can learn there that you probably won't see at a startup. As a company scales up, coordinating effort across teams becomes more important for getting stuff done, even as a senior IC. You no longer know the whole stack (assuming yo…

> A startup probably won't be able to afford the standard of engineering that you can find at places like Google. A "standard of engineering at Google"? You must be joking. Best examples of engineering I have ever seen were done at 5-15 people startups. I'm proud of participating in some of those. FAANG on the other hand is a mire of bullshit.

Yes, I do mean it. The approach to data migrations, feature flags and testing with fakes that themselves have conformance tests, has been of a high engineering standard in my team. Automated release to production Monday to Thursday.

I can easily see it being different elsewhere, of course.

Re: A career ending mistake

#292

Post by fiznool »

> A consultant is independent, for example; a contractor is not. The difference is that the client tells a contractor what to do, while a consultant tells the client what they should do.

As someone who has worked as an ‘Independent’ for the past 8 years, this really resonated with me. I aspire to be a consultant, but realise now that most of the time, I’ve been a contractor. I think the lines are a little more blurred (e.g. a consultant can still advise based on a set of requirements, which usually come from the client) but it’s one of the most concise explanations of the differences between these two roles that I’ve heard.

Re: A career ending mistake

#293

Post by WJW »

xmprt wrote: post #265
WJW wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the off chance you haven't read it yet and might be inspired: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-si... It's not an exciting way where you get to be in the newspapers as the latest billionaire, but it does work and has very low variance.

I understand what they're saying but I don't trust their math when they claim "simply cutting cable TV and a few lattes would instantly boost their savings to 15%." That implies that cable TV and a few lattes accounts for $2.5k of spending in a year.

Feel free to plug in different numbers of course, preferably numbers from your own life. The point of the article is not to get you pondering about the finances of this hypothetical family and how much they may or may not spend on cable and coffee, but to get you thinking about your own finances in the same way.

Re: A career ending mistake

#294

Post by Jaruzel »

LurkerAtTheGate wrote: post #214
Jaruzel wrote: post #118

I hate my job. I don't know how I got here. Like many I started out in small scale IT just as desktop computers were becoming a thing. I transitioned from mainframe support to desktop support, from there I worked through several desktop support roles, wishing I was server support but never managing to get there... over time I became a desktop architect, and then infrastructure architect, and now well.... I just don't…

Regarding Forensics - if you were going to work in computer forensics, I did that for a bit after grad school. I didn't last 6 months: aside from a couple corporate espionage cases, everything else was child porn/abuse. Important job, but soul crushing digging through personal machines seeking that for 40 hours a week.

No, it was real forensics, dead bodies etc. Very interesting, but you needed a strong stomach for it.

Re: A career ending mistake

#295

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

fiznool wrote: post #292

> A consultant is independent, for example; a contractor is not. The difference is that the client tells a contractor what to do, while a consultant tells the client what they should do. As someone who has worked as an ‘Independent’ for the past 8 years, this really resonated with me. I aspire to be a consultant, but realise now that most of the time, I’ve been a contractor. I think the lines are a little more blurre…

> > A consultant is independent, for example; a contractor is not. The difference is that the client tells a contractor what to do, while a consultant tells the client what they should do.

It's not that rosy. At the end of the day, you still work for the client even as a consultant. You still have to produce things you would rather not. You still have to properly identify and solve the problem your client wants solved.

Also most people who work as consultants still occasionaly do some work which would be classified as a contractor job by this definition.

Re: A career ending mistake

#296

Post by Jaruzel »

hnthrowaway0315 wrote: post #224
Jaruzel wrote: post #118

I hate my job. I don't know how I got here. Like many I started out in small scale IT just as desktop computers were becoming a thing. I transitioned from mainframe support to desktop support, from there I worked through several desktop support roles, wishing I was server support but never managing to get there... over time I became a desktop architect, and then infrastructure architect, and now well.... I just don't…

I think you need to find some sort of "savior" in a hobby or something more than that. But maybe a hobby is going to be enough and you need something bigger in picture...maybe take some volunteering work. Anything that satisfies your search for meaning of life.

Thanks. I've been seriously considering Volunteering recently.

Re: A career ending mistake

#297

Post by fifilura »

That quote

The truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do. —Ursula K. Le Guin

Seems applicable to one or more of the world's dictators today.

Re: A career ending mistake

#298

Post by trentzboot »

pedrosorio wrote: post #259
trentzboot wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to university, went to grad school, got a PhD in a hard science, saw that science was a dead end career choice and tried to change career. I have ended up in IT, although I have never written code for my role, or actually done anything technical for my job. It was immediately into the writing documents, architecting infrastructure and systems that I have no fucking clue about. At no point have I gained any exp…

> It was immediately into the writing documents (...) More or less the path I took after finishing my Masters. Thankfully, at the time, I thought "leetcode-style" problems were cool. After a few months I got a remote interview from an online contest and got a "building stuff" position in SV. Can't say I've achieved happiness but financially it was so much better.

Enterprise architecture and UML diagrams, along with lots of text and diagrams. No pseudocode or leetcode to be found, only class diagrams at best. Not enjoyable. I don't understand how to get out of this position in all honesty.

Re: A career ending mistake

#299

Post by pracer »

giantg2 wrote: post #13
dahart wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about making your own company or career? Would that help? (It definitely helped me in a lot of ways.) I’m curious what you mean by ‘how broke the system really is’. Which system are you referring to, how is it broken, how could it be fixed, and what kind of expectations did you have going in that?

Companies lie and don't even follow their own policies, screwing over the workers (you could also apply this to the "justice" system, and many others). A good start would be a union to enforce the policies consistently and right the imbalance of power. I have an LLC for largely non-tech work. Tech work is terrible in my market, so I don't think I'd do well enough to support myself. Not to mention, the tech I spent ti…

I think it may be about expectations. It is a game and, no matter what people or company say, they are NOT your family. Face your job with that in mind, avoiding the cynical views/attitudes. You go there to make money and if you learn and improve yourself, don't do it for the company to congratulate you, but in order to have more options and/or because you want to learn that new thing.

Companies are there to make money, and policies are set not as laws in stone, but to have some control over the work environment. That means the company would use those policies as needed. You are replaceable in general, and that's a fact. The same way companies should be replaceable for you. In this case, in tech, we are lucky enough to have plenty of opportunities to get new jobs, so use it. Not to find the perfect fantasy company, but to get the money you need to live a life you want.

Re: A career ending mistake

#300

Post by pracer »

allisdust wrote: post #179
noisy_boy wrote: post #125

> I think there are three main kinds of career destination, at least in the tech industry: > Independent > Senior individual contributor (IC) > Management I guess I'll stick my neck out and just admit that I don't want to give any more fucks about any of the above and just wake up, sip my tea, read the news and take a bloody nap whenever I want to. Also volunteering/open source but mostly, not doing things I don't wa…

Sadly unless there is some kind of universal ABI or born to rich parents, doing what we want especially in the way we want is not an option. Its wage slavery all across the world and no end in sight for any number of future generations.

Oh man, if you see it like that, is probably becoming true. In other industries or jobs it could b, but in tech? Companies are the ones looking for more developers, and if you made it to senior, you have a lot of power.

ABI or rich parents are the only options for you, it seems. Such a sad view. We don't need to be the next Bezos to avoid the wage slavery. We just need to be financially independent: some investments, maybe some flats for rent... in general, the principles of FIRE are possible for those who work in tech or engineering. It is a matter of making the effort to get there (and a bit of luck, of course). But if you start defeating yourself since the start, of course you will lose.

Also, working for a salary is not wage slavery in every case. In fact, working for money is the modern equivalent of spending the day wandering around for food or going to a 3 days' hunting trip with the fellow cavemen. What I mean is that no matter what, you have to get food and shelter to live, so either you work for it or someone else does. Which is essentially what ABI is. Until automation reaches full capabilities (if it does and Skynet doesn't kill us), you have to work to get food (and other services we want and need today) so try to find the best way for you to get that. Don't rely on others, they have no obligation with you and your desires.

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