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Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

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Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#321

Post by seestheday »

Wintamute wrote: post #320
protonfish wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2 - 4 agree with my experience, but you could not be more wrong about #1. The developers that I see with problems adapting to new developments tools and paradigms are younger people who only know 1 framework. Us old timers who are solid in the basics can pick up a new language fast and easy.

I did qualify #1 with "obviously not true for everyone, but could account for something". And I speak from some experience too. I'm 34 and have lived through the platform I was invested in disappearing almost over night and having to quickly get up to speed on some new platforms and languages over the course of about 6 months while I supported myself. It was quite exciting, but also quite stressful and tiring. If I w…

Honestly, once you learn 5 or 6 languages/frameworks they get really easy to learn. There is not a lot that is truly new with different frameworks, just different combinations of the same things.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#322

Post by exelius »

porker wrote: post #308
exelius wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went and got an MBA and jumped into consulting. Because I worked for a number of startups before that, my niche started out being helping big companies foster innovation internally. At this point, I'm more on the marketing/product side of the equation, which is extremely interesting in my mind. You really need a tech background to do product for anything but retail goods these days anyway; and in the media products…

> I'm more on the marketing/product side of the equation, which is extremely interesting in my mind. You really need a tech background to do product for In this context, what would you define as 'product'? I'm curious as I hear it mentioned and it sounds fun, but conjours up mental images of inventing the next Gilette razor.

It can be :) What you're talking about is the typical CPG (consumer packaged goods) model: a product manager would be responsible for selling that product, identifying a market, etc. The work isn't really all that different, but CPGs don't usually require much deep knowledge.

IMO, product in tech companies is a much more exciting role because you get your hands dirty with creating the product. Let's say I'm the product manager for Facebook's News Feed. I would work with designers, developers and marketing folks to determine the features of the product. For example, I could say "Hmm, let's show more ads to people between the ages of 18 and 29 than we show to people between 13 and 18". We would test the hypothesis either through focus groups or A/B testing and determine if users are like/hate/neutral on it, and if they're like/neutral and it provides more money, it's now a feature in the mainline product. The role is slightly different at different companies (product managers at Google are expected to write a little code and lead engineering teams, for example) but the core tenet of the job is answering the question of "What should the product be?"

Product management is the central role at any startup for the first few years. A good product manager is worth their weight in gold. A great product manager can make you billions. For me, it's the perfect mix of creative, technical and business disciplines. You have to have the vision to see what the product can be, the technical chops to know how to get it done, and the business sense to know what levers you should be pulling at any given time.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#323

Post by Wintamute »

seestheday wrote: post #321
Wintamute wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did qualify #1 with "obviously not true for everyone, but could account for something". And I speak from some experience too. I'm 34 and have lived through the platform I was invested in disappearing almost over night and having to quickly get up to speed on some new platforms and languages over the course of about 6 months while I supported myself. It was quite exciting, but also quite stressful and tiring. If I w…

Honestly, once you learn 5 or 6 languages/frameworks they get really easy to learn. There is not a lot that is truly new with different frameworks, just different combinations of the same things.

Sure, frameworks are easy to pick up. But becoming expert enough in a new platform and/or language to walk into top global companies and charge exorbitant freelance day rates for highly technical work and consultation? Personally, I don't find that "really easy" - and I don't think anyone should.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#324

Post by drivingmenuts »

hcho wrote: post #167
MCRed wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I build cool stuff, I have kept up to date on new technologies, and languages. But I don't have a big network of people who "need a website" and I don't build websites, so I don't have people constantly calling me offering me work. That doesn't make me someone who has "done the same job for 30 years". My skill is not marketing my skills on a freelance basis. My skill is in engineering.. and a variety of others (like…

I am finding a bit difficult to understand the "I am not good at networking" angle. Assuming a job change every 3 years, and 2 people to vouch for you at each, one would have a 10 people "marketing team" after 15 years. I am not talking about schmoozing with higher ups here; just impressing peers with the quality of work. Am I missing something?

My network consists mostly of people who know I'm a "programmer" and that's about it. I hang out with tabletop gamers, artists and costume designers, video editors, etc. We're more connected by our hobbies than our jobs. Most tech people I've tried to hang out with aren't all that into discussing tech when we're not on the job. Heck, my enthusiasm for tech usually ends at 5pm.

I also don't talk to former co-workers much because I've moved on to different problems.

So, yeah, I'm bad at networking.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#325

Post by Too »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #177
hcho wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am finding a bit difficult to understand the "I am not good at networking" angle. Assuming a job change every 3 years, and 2 people to vouch for you at each, one would have a 10 people "marketing team" after 15 years. I am not talking about schmoozing with higher ups here; just impressing peers with the quality of work. Am I missing something?

What am I supposed to do exactly? Call up some co-worker from 3+ years ago and say "hi, remember me? Can you get me a job?" I don't have a network. I have friends and I have colleagues, but I don't really have anyone that could get me job leads (maybe a couple of my friends)

Yes? Assuming your relation with this co-worker was good, why not? Many companies have recruitment bonuses so he would probably also be very happy to refer you.

Re: Career planning: Where do old devs go to?

#326

Post by Too »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #205
exelius wrote: post #42

That's because programming is an entry level job. No, I'm not trolling: I'm quite serious about that. Engineering has almost always been an entry level job; computers or not. You start as an engineer; and as you get better, the number of engineering management jobs is pretty limited, so there's nowhere to go for the vast majority of people. But you get pulled into enough internal projects you start to develop a bit o…

There is a common trope floating around which says that some developers are 10x more productive than others. This has led to a lot of questioning of whether or not that is actually true in practice, what it means, whether it's possible to become a "10x" developer, and so on. The truth is that it's looking at the problem in the wrong way because it relies on the underlying assumption that development is like factory w…

It's not just about creating work oneself. I'd say there is another aspect of the 10x developer and that is one that can make a team of 10 mediocre developers run at 1x speed each instead of 0.1x

Some unexperienced developer might be stuck with a small issue for days just to complete some bigger task. Here the experienced developer can answer the question in 15 minutes and the unexperienced one can continue with the simpler tasks.

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