The site appears to be hugged to death for me.
Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
31–40 of 141 posts
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#32> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
This mentality through most of my career has left me trapped as technical support, and it's damn near impossible to climb out of the pit I've dug for myself. What you say about being seen as a car mechanic is true.
I feel this way about documentation. I do it, a lot. I get compliments and positive feedback on it. It helps me remember things I would otherwise forget. I hope that others would be inspired by my example but it hasn't happened. I could be selfish and horde my own documentation and let others sink or swim. But that hurts me too as I'd have to pick up their slack.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#33> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
> But reliable car mechanics don't get paid a lot.
If you're a wizbang mechanic working for an import car repair, you can get paid a lot more in hourly labor fees than some of us make.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#34> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
You get more credit for putting out fires you started than building something that doesn't catch on fire in the first place.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#35> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
I think you may be leaning too far in the other direction. I'm a troubleshooter. I fix problems. I keep my head straight in a crisis. Every job I've had across 3 decades, regardless of my actual title or formal responsibilities, I'm the firefighter. People call me when they can't figure something out. People call me when something big breaks and needs to be fixed urgently. Even if I'm not an expert in the broken thin…
> I do not feel this has held me back professionally. I have been loved by management and peers in all of these jobs.
If only your experience was universal in that regard! I once had that role in an early-career job -- but I was looked down upon by peers and management because I was doing mostly maintenance work. The "good" developers, in their minds, were the ones shipping the most new features -- the irony being that those features would then blow up out in the field, at which time they landed on my desk to turn them into production-worthy code.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#36> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
I think you may be leaning too far in the other direction. I'm a troubleshooter. I fix problems. I keep my head straight in a crisis. Every job I've had across 3 decades, regardless of my actual title or formal responsibilities, I'm the firefighter. People call me when they can't figure something out. People call me when something big breaks and needs to be fixed urgently. Even if I'm not an expert in the broken thin…
> I'm a troubleshooter. I fix problems. I keep my head straight in a crisis. ... People call me when they can't figure something out. ... Even if I'm not an expert in the broken thing, they call me in. They call me because the experts are often floundering ...
This describes a sizable portion of my career. It's lucrative, it's gratifying, and it's fun. It's as close as I'm going to get to being a "kick-ass mercenary".
Seeing new environments, new applications, and new problems never gets old. The stories that come from the work are priceless, too.
> I wish troubleshooting skills were as common as typing and document formatting skills.
When I conduct interviews this is the main skill I screen for. I think it can be taught, but somebody who already has it and is missing some particular technical experience is vastly more valuable.
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#37> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
I have found myself to be someone that loves learning a little bit about various tech disciplines, but I've ended up as a "master of none" because I get bored quickly. Any advice for a career path that would reward such a thing?
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#38The site appears to be hugged to death for me.
Yes, sorry. I have scaled up my hosting and it's back :)
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#39> Realizing that I spend more time troubleshooting than I do building or doing ... That's not good. The problem with troubleshooting is that it messes up with your reward system. After you fix a hard-to-debug problem, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Which would be ok, but the problem is that this sense of accomplishment is often time higher than it should be. You go home at the end of the day thinking "well, toda…
I have found myself to be someone that loves learning a little bit about various tech disciplines, but I've ended up as a "master of none" because I get bored quickly. Any advice for a career path that would reward such a thing?
CTO :)
Re: Troubleshooting: A skill that never goes obsolete
#40Hugged to death for me right now, here's an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250228192142/https://www.autod...
Thanks for posting an archive link. My site has survived previous HN traffic spikes on Fly.io's free tier, but 256mb of RAM wasn't quite adequate this time :)