6 ms·

Career Advice (2013)

68 points by jor-el 11y ago

henrik_w 11y ago
By no means as radical or daring advice, but I've been very happy with my own career as a SW developer (working professionally for close to 25 years now, still loving it). I wrote about why I still think it's a good choice in "5 Reasons Why Software Developer is a Great Career Choice": http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-developer-is-a-great-career-choice/ http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-dev...
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  Hmm, from Stockholm, eh? Been programming for 25 years? <insert Stockholm syndrome joke here> But seriously, just because you're happy with your own career doesn't mean that it's a good choice for most people.
pm90 11y ago
This is very good advice. However, its often not that easy to really stake it out on your own in other countries with no skills, especially in a labor rich country like China or India. In that context, developing skills that allow you to earn something is the no.1 priority. It was only after I started a career in Software Engineering that I had the means to explore other directions as well.
AYBABTME 11y ago
This might look like a very traditional advice, but I think spending some time in the military is a pretty good thing to do. In particular, because it's really hard, and to someone who's more intellectually oriented, it's really alien and uncomfortable. You learn a lot about yourself when pushed to your limits, and then going back to normal life, everything looks very easy and achievable. The author suggests doing something that makes you uncomfortable and makes you learn about yourself. He proposes a bunch of interesting things that have something lacking in common. They're all intrinsically good or semi-anarchistic things. I prefer my "go in the military" advice because it's completely opposite to one's anarchist penchant. And I think that's something important: to have a well formed perception, you need to experience things you don't necessarily agree with. Note: here I assume that the reader is more prone to a free, somehow anarchist, anti-authoritarian point of view, and I suggest spending a decent effort in something contrarian to that.
- sarciszewski 11y ago
  Good luck, to anyone who goes through with this suggestion. You'll need it to come home alive, in one piece, in good mental health, and with your presumably anti-authoritarian character intact.
  - asdfologist 11y ago
    Next assignment: play Russian roulette to learn about probability.
- kelseydh 11y ago
  My main hesitation is wasting my precious years of my youth on something that won't advance my skills. E.g. as somebody who picked up programming at 25, I already fear that my brain is now struggling to pick up concepts that my younger brain would have.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    Don't be afraid of that. The programmer's profession is one of constant study and learning. It would be impossible if people actually had trouble learning things by 25, and the field won't move at the pace it does. if people, or at least some people, lost the ability to constantly learn by 45 or 55 or whatever age looks ridiculously old to you.
    - kelseydh 11y ago
      There's no denying the fact that many engineers quit programming by the age of 35.
      - judk 11y ago
        Mostly because they found rewarding opportunity as leaders of teams.
        11y ago
thelettere 11y ago
Love this. One caveat that I wonder about: asking about the meaning of one's life outsides the strictures of culture yields nothing - structures in that case are more helpful (providing guidance) than harmful (foreclosing other options). Does the same apply for career?
afarrell 11y ago
> In 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted a psychological experiment that is now popularly known as the “Stanford Prison Experiment.” Why does a non-reproducible study without a control group in which the experimenter was an active participant get cited so much? It wasn't an experiment; It was a historical incident.
- mercer 11y ago
  The same applies to Mazlow's hierarchy of needs and the addiction study involving mice that is referred to every time an article on addiction appears on HN (which seems to be a weekly thing almost). I see these things as little more than memes at this point. I suppose the purpose they serve is to question commonly-held beliefs, which is not all bad. I just wish we'd question these things based on valid information. (to be clear, it's not so much that the two examples I'm using are considered 100% bunk. It's rather that they're generally accepted to not be too well-supported, and definitely not well enough to cite them so much)
  - afarrell 11y ago
    I thought Mazlow's hierarchy was a theory, one that should hopefully be tested by experiment somehow. Why is the addiction study not reproducible? I agree that you should perhaps take an additional step of having 4 groups: heroin+rat park, placebo heroin+rat park, heroin+rat jail, placebo heroin+rat jail. And blind the researcher making the observations as to the nature of the substance.

68 points by jor-el 11y ago

By no means as radical or daring advice, but I've been very happy with my own career as a SW developer (working professionally for close to 25 years now, still loving it). I wrote about why I still think it's a good choice in "5 Reasons Why Software Developer is a Great Career Choice": http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-developer-is-a-great-career-choice/ http://henrikwarne.com/2014/12/08/5-reasons-why-software-dev...

sarciszewski 11y ago
Hmm, from Stockholm, eh? Been programming for 25 years? <insert Stockholm syndrome joke here> But seriously, just because you're happy with your own career doesn't mean that it's a good choice for most people.

pm90 11y ago

This is very good advice. However, its often not that easy to really stake it out on your own in other countries with no skills, especially in a labor rich country like China or India. In that context, developing skills that allow you to earn something is the no.1 priority. It was only after I started a career in Software Engineering that I had the means to explore other directions as well.

AYBABTME 11y ago

This might look like a very traditional advice, but I think spending some time in the military is a pretty good thing to do. In particular, because it's really hard, and to someone who's more intellectually oriented, it's really alien and uncomfortable. You learn a lot about yourself when pushed to your limits, and then going back to normal life, everything looks very easy and achievable. The author suggests doing something that makes you uncomfortable and makes you learn about yourself. He proposes a bunch of interesting things that have something lacking in common. They're all intrinsically good or semi-anarchistic things. I prefer my "go in the military" advice because it's completely opposite to one's anarchist penchant. And I think that's something important: to have a well formed perception, you need to experience things you don't necessarily agree with. Note: here I assume that the reader is more prone to a free, somehow anarchist, anti-authoritarian point of view, and I suggest spending a decent effort in something contrarian to that.

sarciszewski 11y ago
Good luck, to anyone who goes through with this suggestion. You'll need it to come home alive, in one piece, in good mental health, and with your presumably anti-authoritarian character intact.
- asdfologist 11y ago
  Next assignment: play Russian roulette to learn about probability.
kelseydh 11y ago
My main hesitation is wasting my precious years of my youth on something that won't advance my skills. E.g. as somebody who picked up programming at 25, I already fear that my brain is now struggling to pick up concepts that my younger brain would have.
- nine_k 11y ago
  Don't be afraid of that. The programmer's profession is one of constant study and learning. It would be impossible if people actually had trouble learning things by 25, and the field won't move at the pace it does. if people, or at least some people, lost the ability to constantly learn by 45 or 55 or whatever age looks ridiculously old to you.
  - kelseydh 11y ago
    There's no denying the fact that many engineers quit programming by the age of 35.
    - judk 11y ago
      Mostly because they found rewarding opportunity as leaders of teams.
      - 11y ago

thelettere 11y ago

Love this. One caveat that I wonder about: asking about the meaning of one's life outsides the strictures of culture yields nothing - structures in that case are more helpful (providing guidance) than harmful (foreclosing other options). Does the same apply for career?

afarrell 11y ago

> In 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted a psychological experiment that is now popularly known as the “Stanford Prison Experiment.” Why does a non-reproducible study without a control group in which the experimenter was an active participant get cited so much? It wasn't an experiment; It was a historical incident.

mercer 11y ago
The same applies to Mazlow's hierarchy of needs and the addiction study involving mice that is referred to every time an article on addiction appears on HN (which seems to be a weekly thing almost). I see these things as little more than memes at this point. I suppose the purpose they serve is to question commonly-held beliefs, which is not all bad. I just wish we'd question these things based on valid information. (to be clear, it's not so much that the two examples I'm using are considered 100% bunk. It's rather that they're generally accepted to not be too well-supported, and definitely not well enough to cite them so much)
- afarrell 11y ago
  I thought Mazlow's hierarchy was a theory, one that should hopefully be tested by experiment somehow. Why is the addiction study not reproducible? I agree that you should perhaps take an additional step of having 4 groups: heroin+rat park, placebo heroin+rat park, heroin+rat jail, placebo heroin+rat jail. And blind the researcher making the observations as to the nature of the substance.