Being OK with not being extraordinary • Hacker News Board

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#301

Post by lowiqengineer » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:54 AM UTC

firstplacelast wrote: post #286

rvn1045 wrote: post #86

The internet has made everyone feel inadequate as it's easy to compare yourself to people you see on the internet. Couple of things to keep in mind if your comparing yourself: 1. There aren't as many uber successful people out there as the internet makes it seem. It's far fewer than you think. Lets take a simple example of dudes who go to the gym and are strong. Instagram makes it seem like all dudes bench press 400…

Maybe it's because of how you grew up, but I've found myself in several different groups/scenarios throughout the years that blew my mind how many people (young people who hadn't worked a day in their lives) had trust funds. I always thought that was crazy Gossip Girl shit, yet I got into a good university and was in certain clubs and social circles where I met a ton of people with trust funds (1M-30M). That's when I…

Ive never met a single one. I feel completely insulated from the top strata of society that looks down on me because of it - it’s really depressing what going to a state school has done to me.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#302

Post by syndacks » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 4:58 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #235

wjossey wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my career so far in a nutshell. I’m an average programmer. I’m an excellent problem solver. I have an above average work ethic. I’m an excellent communicator. Basically, I combined all of these traits and found roles that leveraged these traits to maximize my impact. Not for nothing, but this is why my liberal arts college was profoundly impactful for me, despite not getting a “top tier” CS education. My writ…

Being an excellent communicator is a great virtue to have and something I come to value more and more in co-workers. Once upon a time in my career it was standard for devs to wander off into the woods to painstakingly craft a wonder over 3-4 months, now collaborative working is the thing and it's far more productive. Those people who have the right balance of not being constantly dependent on others but knowing when…

>Once upon a time in my career it was standard for devs to wander off into the woods to painstakingly craft a wonder over 3-4 months

Care to elaborate on that more? Curious to hear what kind of work streams you were a part of, and how they differ from the more 'collaborative' norm of today.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#303

Post by TheColorYellow » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:03 AM UTC

wjossey wrote: post #263

dominotw wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m an excellent problem solver. Don't mean this to be a mean comment but how did you assess this? I think i am good problem solver but i don't know if i am better than anyone else.

Despite the answers below, it’s not an IQ question (I likely have an above average IQ, but nothing remotely special). If I see a problem, particularly in a business context (I’m not a trained scientist curing cancer here), I can solve it. Whether that’s marketing, product, sales, devops, engineering, you name it. I don’t mind jumping between disciplines, getting my hands dirty, and doing the work that needs doing (no…

What roles and companies do you typically search for when job hunting?

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#304

Post by brain5ide » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:05 AM UTC

benhurmarcel wrote: post #187

petra wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is him being funny helpful for career advancement ?

"Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?"

Oh man! Haven't heard that one in a while. Need to rewatch it and write a TPS report.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#305

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#306

Post by kumarvvr » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

There has to be a change in culture, where a sense of duty, persistance, consistency and reliability should be encouraged and taught, over being 'clever' or 'genius'.

Anyone can develop the former qualities, bit the latter qualities are more difficult and rare, in the sense that the amount of work required to reach a genius level in any field is tremendous.

Perhaps its the fault of todays startup culture, where everyone is expected to have a breakthrough workaholic temperment.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#307

Post by 082349872349872 » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

non-entity wrote: post #41

ZainRiz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 And as patio11 says, combining engineering with good writing skills makes it very easy to be one of the top with your combined skills I’ve been trying to lean more into that advice the past couple months by publishing on my blog :) Surprisingly enough, just this morning I woke up to realize someone had shared an article I wrote and it was on the HN front page! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24251068#24262190

But does being in the top of those combined skills command top pay?

According to legend, a new student of Euclid’s once asked him, “What shall I get by learning these things?” In reply, Euclid beckoned his slave and told him, “Give him a coin, since he must make gain out of what he learns.”

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#308

Post by no_wizard » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

wjossey wrote: post #267

mettamage wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do leverage these strengths? I have a somewhat similar profile and I simply feel like a fish judged by its ability to climb a tree. Yet, I: - Help with hiring/marketing/leading scrum sessions (when the actual scrum master is ill) - Conduct pentests - Do the frontend and backend (what I was hired to do) If they'd let me, I'd help with the writing efforts as well as my writing ability is better than that of…

Join companies with problems worth solving, add value as quickly as possible, and then find problems that you can tackle and start advocating to be granted the latitude to tackle them. Most companies and teams are thrilled to have people who proactively seek to solve thorny issues. The difference with me is that most programmers are attracted to solving “problems” in a code base, which might add value but have arguab…

Better take, to add in to this:

My unique (well one of) internalized properties I have is having a keen eye for good problem to technology fit. Steve Jobs said it best with

“start with the experience and work backwards toward the technology”

In another words, it’s extremely valuable to be able to understand when you can re use an existing tool (in this case, existing code) to achieve the result, which is different from trying to shoehorn your existing code to fix/improve/add a feature to an existing problem space or product domain.

That’s the real key, to me, in a nutshell

(And why I almost never buy in on complete re writes)

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#309

Post by tonymet » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:29 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #290

tonymet wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's unfair that "mediocre" is seen as a bad word. We have so many things to do, I think it's perfectly good to be mediocre in many ways. We're competing on a global scale, it's impossible to be exceptional on many dimensions. I'd like to encourage more people to be happy being mediocre.

It's also true that even a "mediocre" engineer is elite in many ways - they are "mediocre" compared to all the other folks who managed to carve out a sustained engineering career. However, even somebody in the middle of that group has elite engineering skill relative to the population at large. This is true of many careers, of course! I always feel bad for the professional athletes who "suck." It's kind of hilarious…

When i first joined my cycling club, i was dead last every ride. Even then i used to say "i'm faster than all the blokes who were too lazy to get out of bed". Slowly i got a bit better. Reminding my self of that was a great motivator.

Re: Being OK with not being extraordinary

#310

Post by Talanes » Tue, Aug 25, 2020, 5:40 AM UTC

InfiniteRand wrote: post #236

taylorlunt wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem solving ability is basically just IQ.

I think problem solving is knowing when and what terms to google

The amount of times I've solved something no one else could, just because I went the extra check of looking up the manufacturers documentation when the companies fell short...