It's later than you think • Hacker News Board

Re: It's later than you think

#61

Post by icebraining » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

dlandis wrote: post #50

CalRobert wrote: post #25

Remember that performative workaholism is poison to life. Every time you put in more hours over the weekend "just because", dial in to a meeting on your vacation, or get on Slack at 10 PM "just to check a few things" - you're shifting the culture to make it that much more acceptable to demand it of everyone. The parents in your meetings that run until 7:30 bitterly hate you. It might seem OK when you're single, child…

> The parents in your meetings that run until 7:30 bitterly hate you. It's just not true at all, and seems quite dramatic. A lot of people enjoy working on weekends or putting in long hours some days. When I was younger I would do it regularly, and I certainly don't begrudge or "hate" younger, childless colleagues who do that now, even if they involve me sometimes. Nor did I build myself a "prison". Stop demanding pe…

Did you miss the "meetings" part? Even if you enjoy burning the candle, you should be mindful of what you ask others to do.

Re: It's later than you think

#62

Post by whymauri » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #30

CalRobert wrote: post #25

Remember that performative workaholism is poison to life. Every time you put in more hours over the weekend "just because", dial in to a meeting on your vacation, or get on Slack at 10 PM "just to check a few things" - you're shifting the culture to make it that much more acceptable to demand it of everyone. The parents in your meetings that run until 7:30 bitterly hate you. It might seem OK when you're single, child…

This also applies to new technologies and skill gaps. I'm over 30, and have stopped following the latest javascript trends. I want younger people to be satisfied with the tools that I learned; they're perfectly adequate. The treadmill of re-inventing the technology wheel also looks like a prison.

Only on HackerNews can a somber discussion about family and lifelong priorities turn into dunking on javascript. Not a jab by any means, just amusing.

Re: It's later than you think

#63

Post by forgotmypw » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

>The big question is how to return to work in a way that won’t leave me again with the regrets I have now. To be honest, I’ve considered not going back. But I believe in the words of Kahlil Gibran who said, “Work is love made visible.''

Imagine you just came into enough money that you never have to work again.

What would you work on, then?

What is something that you can do that no one else can?

What can you do to help make the world more harmonious?

How can you help humans, animals, plants, machines, and the planet as a whole?

Think about these questions, and then do that.

Ignore money.

Re: It's later than you think

#64

Post by vzidex » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 5:59 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #25

Remember that performative workaholism is poison to life. Every time you put in more hours over the weekend "just because", dial in to a meeting on your vacation, or get on Slack at 10 PM "just to check a few things" - you're shifting the culture to make it that much more acceptable to demand it of everyone. The parents in your meetings that run until 7:30 bitterly hate you. It might seem OK when you're single, child…

As someone who's young, childless, and just getting started in the tech industry at a big company: thank you.

Re: It's later than you think

#65

Post by jschwartzi » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

JeanMarcS wrote: post #48

codebeaker wrote: post #5

I took a step back in my career to work from home, and bring my kids to the kindergarten with my bike some days, and take a late lunch and eat their "dinner" with them, and it has been totally, totally worth-it. Remote work being a set-back is possibly a side-effect of how I selected my new gig, but it has suited me so well, I don't care about the (temporary) career stagnation. Beautiful story, I felt it hard.

I had the opposite path 4 years ago. After working from home (and watch my kids grow) I had an opportunity to work to help finishing a big project that would make money. It was just 3-4 month of hard work (including almost every week ends and some nights) and then back to normal hours when the project would be on track. Well, as often, months turned to a year, then a year and a half, and no real end of the "hard" par…

Yeah, I've never had the experience that those project schedules ever turn out to be realistic. You get to the end and then there's just more stuff to do in less time. And now that you've put in all those hours everybody wonders why you're backing off from the project.

Re: It's later than you think

#66

Post by dcolkitt » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #46

edmundsauto wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also applies to new technologies and skill gaps. I'm over 30, and have stopped following the latest javascript trends. I want younger people to be satisfied with the tools that I learned; they're perfectly adequate. The treadmill of re-inventing the technology wheel also looks like a prison.

The struggle with that is how do you step off the treadmill but stay relatively current. I think about how web pages looked 10 years ago, and in a world of React, I feel like very, very few of the things I learned then help me for more than the very, very basics.

The reality is that engineers with a strong foundation in the fundamentals can pretty much pick up any new technology. The details are different, but the underlying principles of software engineering, algorithms, data structure, distributed systems, etc. are the same.

I guarantee you that a talented kernel hacker, with a few weeks of reading the docs and writing some toy examples, would be just as productive in React as the front-end developer with years of experience.

I work in a pretty niche industry, where hiring people with specific experience in the tech stack is rare or impossible. So, I see this up-close and personal all the time. Fluid intelligence, an understanding of computer science fundamentals, and a demonstrated history of delivering results trumps specialized experience with the specific technology. Every. Single. Time.

Keeping this in mind relieves some of the anxiety of keeping on the treadmill. You might feel like if you don't start getting experience with Kubernetes or Typescript or Airflow that you'll be left behind. The reality is that if you're smart, then if/when you need Kubernetes/Typescript/Airflow, you'll be able to pick it up in a week or two.

I think some of the industry-wide problems with this come down to the fact that HR is too involved in the recruiting process. The typical job listing gets written by someone who's never written a line of code in their life. They just walk down to engineering, talk to the manager, hear something like "we're using Kotlin", then decide to add "5 years of Kotlin experience required".

Re: It's later than you think

#67

Post by feistypharit » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 6:07 PM UTC

codebeaker wrote: post #5

I took a step back in my career to work from home, and bring my kids to the kindergarten with my bike some days, and take a late lunch and eat their "dinner" with them, and it has been totally, totally worth-it. Remote work being a set-back is possibly a side-effect of how I selected my new gig, but it has suited me so well, I don't care about the (temporary) career stagnation. Beautiful story, I felt it hard.

Same here, except I quit completely to stay home with our two kids. The decision was easy. One day when I was working remotely from home, the nanny rushed in carrying my 6 month old daughter. She was completely unresponsive, having her first of many febrile seizures. Eyes rolled back, body limp. We called 911. By the time they arrived she had mostly recovered, crying, but could respond to us. I quit a few months later.

She's now 5 and her brother is 7. They grow out of febrile seizures and luckily she hasn't had one now for about 2 years. Overall she had about half a dozen.

Besides that, the reason I also it is because if one day, my child is a drug addict, asshole, school shooter, or any other "failure" of sorts. If someone asks me if I did everything I could to prevent it. My answer will be yes, I gave it my all.

It seems in the US when people say I want to provide for my children, they mean money. But more money doesn't really help your kids, it helps you. What kids really need is people to provide time.

Re: It's later than you think

#68

Post by Konnstann » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 6:10 PM UTC

kasane wrote: post #54

dlandis wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The parents in your meetings that run until 7:30 bitterly hate you. It's just not true at all, and seems quite dramatic. A lot of people enjoy working on weekends or putting in long hours some days. When I was younger I would do it regularly, and I certainly don't begrudge or "hate" younger, childless colleagues who do that now, even if they involve me sometimes. Nor did I build myself a "prison". Stop demanding pe…

> A lot of people enjoy working on weekends or putting in long hours some days. Who are these people? Don't extrapolate your anecdote.

I come in on the weekends sometimes, because I'm bored or lonely or have work that needs to be done. I get paid for the privilege and I love my job, and it means I never have to stay past 5 during the week. Granted I work in academia where the norm is to stay till 8:00 and weekend work is necessitated by the projects we work on, but I personally don't have to. If I had a family things would be different though.

Re: It's later than you think

#69

Post by dgzl » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 6:11 PM UTC

klik99 wrote: post #43

I'm in tears reading this and his wife's account ( https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-remains-dr-jessica-brande... ) - I didn't realize how short life was until I realized I only had 52 weeks with each of my one-year-old sons, and stories like this are a reminder about what's really important. A friend said it well when I was feeling guilty I wasn't putting more time into my work, "No one has ever looked back on thei…

> "No one has ever looked back on their life and said 'I wish I spent less time with my family'".

Not everyone has a family worth being with.

Re: It's later than you think

#70

Post by SketchySeaBeast » Tue, Sep 10, 2019, 6:12 PM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #66

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The struggle with that is how do you step off the treadmill but stay relatively current. I think about how web pages looked 10 years ago, and in a world of React, I feel like very, very few of the things I learned then help me for more than the very, very basics.

The reality is that engineers with a strong foundation in the fundamentals can pretty much pick up any new technology. The details are different, but the underlying principles of software engineering, algorithms, data structure, distributed systems, etc. are the same. I guarantee you that a talented kernel hacker, with a few weeks of reading the docs and writing some toy examples, would be just as productive in React…

> I work in a pretty niche industry, where hiring people with specific experience in the tech stack is rare or impossible. So, I see this up-close and personal all the time. Fluid intelligence, an understanding of computer science fundamentals, and a demonstrated history of delivering results trumps specialized experience with the specific technology. Every. Single. Time.

I think that actually helps you look for generic skills and generally good people - if you're guaranteed that your interviewee doesn't have the direct skills your position requires, you look for the generic stuff. I don't know if that translates to other places, who like you said don't need someone smart who can roll with things, but instead a very particular set of skills.