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Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

muldoon.cloud

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Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#81
post #58

I'm not sure how I should be reading the article so maybe it's going over my head. > Rule 10: When to make a microservice > I would use a microservice when I have a relatively small and simple chunk of code that needs to run every once in a while. Isn't this wrong? There's no reason a microservice should just run once in a while. It also creates a lot of complexity for a simple chunk of code.

Some might say that you should only write one when you need to scale across servers or teams. These projects where everything is a microservice and a single team manages 30 of them are kind of insane.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#82

I was very surprised to read > 90%, of what I learn at one job is completely useless for the next one. That has not been my experience at all (and I've had some pretty major job changes, including lawyer -> software developmer). If I had to put a number on it, I'd say more like 50% of what I've learned at each job is transferable. How about everyone else? Closer to 10% or 50%?

I think there's a point of view component.

If you think of it is "Today I learned how to use $PROPRIETARY_AMAZON_TOOL to set up a new project which will use $PAT to deploy to a $PROPRIETARY_AMAZON_INTERNAL_CLOUD and sets everything up to $PA_MONITORING and $PA_ALERTING in my... etc. etc. etc., you get the idea, then yes, you will feel like what you "learned" is not transferrable.

On the other hand, if you look at it like "Today I learned some best practices for setting up a new industrial-strength projects through the particular manifestation of this tool, learned about setting up monitoring through the particular manifestation of this other tool,", etc. etc., then even though you may have learned via particular local tools, you also learned a lot of stuff that may be useful later.

The question is, let's say you did change jobs and had to learn some new set of tools. Will you learn them faster than you learned the first set of tools? Will you find a new perspective on the issues from learning the new set of tools? The answer should generally be yes. This is broadly speaking why I expect a 5-year veteran to pick things up faster than a fresh grad; OK, sure, you've never "used git", but I expect you've used source control somewhere. You may not "know React", but I expect you to have used something similar enough that you just have to learn React qua React and are not also learning about cookies and the basics of the DOM, etc.

Pretty much the first professional thing I ever did was writing what we would today call a "static site generator" in a tool called Frontier, in its custom programming language, more or less from scratch. On the one hand, completely useless skill, Frontier has been dead for over a decade and was fairly zombie-ish for a good 5-8 years before that. On the other hand... the HTML basics I learned are still mostly good (I think it's fair to say at this point my frameset tricks & skills are not that useful anymore...), and the general skill of knowing how to write a static site generator is almost even low-level trendy right now, even though I would have to write it in some other language, of course.

I dunno what the exact transfer number is. 90% seems high, certainly, but 10% way too low. There's only a small number of tools that are so bad that while working with them, you learn almost nothing about the problem space you are working in because the quirks of the tool completely dominate, and even then I'd submit a lot of it is still attitude.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#83
post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

A startup CTO role might work for you if you can build the product grounds all alone (frontend, backend, DevOps).

Forget CTO. I'm in the exact same boat as the OP, (20 years experience, over 40 years old) and I can't even get an interview for a manager position.

I've been trying to move out of an individual contributor role for a while, but it's always the same story: 1) We need you to build this super-important thing; you're too valuable as a developer right now 2) We're growing fast, we need experienced managers right now (or 2A: Your team is performing at a high level, we don’t need managers) 3) We're cutting back, we don't have a position for you right now. And in my most recent case 4) We're shutting the company down, good luck.

I find most places only want experienced managers, yet the industry as a whole is terrible at providing any sort of career development path for developers.

OP is right - make a backup plan now. If you want to move into management, start laying that groundwork BEFORE you're ready to move on.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#84
post #75
post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

I keep hearing that it's like this in the US. In the UK I don't know anyone in their 40s struggling to find software developer jobs in the UK! I'm almost 40 and are constantly getting harassed by recruiters. My mate in his 60s not long ago got hired for a software developer role, and easily at that. Two interviews and he got an offer. Another mate near 40 stepped back from manager type role into a developer role, and…

I'd say in the Netherlands it looks almost the same I am 33 and usually work with people in their 40's. Seems like all kids are moving to US and take jobs of older people :)

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#85
post #36

I don't think the author is a 1x programmer. He has learned the first secret of 10x programming. It's not about being a genius programmer. Its about being an efficiency expert and a problem solver. Soft skills play an outsized role here. I have seen immensely talented developers with hard skills for days manage to deliver nothing over long periods of time. Learning that rules are guidelines not religious artifacts ha…

He's working at amazon so perhaps their talent pool is a little better than the average non-coastal company.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#86
post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

I'm over 50 and have a great job with lots of interesting work, coding and engineering, at a large company. I worry what would happen should I get laid off, though.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#87
post #75
post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

I keep hearing that it's like this in the US. In the UK I don't know anyone in their 40s struggling to find software developer jobs in the UK! I'm almost 40 and are constantly getting harassed by recruiters. My mate in his 60s not long ago got hired for a software developer role, and easily at that. Two interviews and he got an offer. Another mate near 40 stepped back from manager type role into a developer role, and…

Me to mate. I think its silicon valley thing.

I am 48 and having a blast in my career now, I am getting my hands on all sorts of interesting things to learn.

The only people who I have seen struggle with this are those who just go stale. I have friend who is a C++ programmer, and for 30 years all he has worked on is some logic controller software used in trains and energy systems. He is getting close to retirement, but if things go tits up due to COVIDs impact, he will very likely be unemployable. Me on the other hand. I get daily connect requests and job interests put my way on linked in.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#88

> PHP is banned at Amazon due to security reasons, but its successor, Hack, runs a lot of.. Just to be clear, Hack is not PHP's successor. Hack is a fork of PHP developed by Facebook. Hack will not overtake PHP any time soon. PHP has had security issues in the past. Sure you can do stupid things with it if you want, but modern PHP is security conscious out of the box. Frameworks like Laravel make great default choice…

A small question. Is PHP still a preferred platform for any sort of complex web development? I have never even looked at the php site or docs, but I am curious. In this day and age, is there a subset of Apps that PHP is suited for?

Wordpress ;)

Here in The Netherlands I've seen a lot of recent projects using PHP backends (mostly REST) using Laravel or other frameworks. Front-ends are all React/Angular though.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#89
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know plenty of devs who are 40+ and still writing code and getting paid well to do it. In fact I worked with a consultant who was over 60 not too long ago. I am almost certain there is something else going on here other than your age. In fact, I've never once been asked my age in an interview, and I'm a couple of years into my second career doing this after I retired from my first.

Even if the interviewers were concerned about your age, you'd never be asked how old you were in an interview. That's grounds for a discriminatory law suit basically anywhere in the world.

One can easily infer age based on career experience, college graduation date, etc.

Re: Rules of thumb for a 1x developer

#90
post #21

I used to get called a 10x developer, I was also called a rockstar and a ninja and a 100x dev and every other compliment that was hip. Then I hit 30. That type of talk stopped. Then I hit 40. Now I will not be considered for any entry level, mid level, or senior level software dev job anywhere in the United States, despite being very desperate and willing to relocate for anything. Doesn't matter. Too old. I'm suppose…

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