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I've found that the kind of company that cultivates a culture in which degrees are paramount is not the kind of company I want to work for. I skipped college be
by maxaf 11y ago
I've found that the kind of company that cultivates a culture in which degrees are paramount is not the kind of company I want to work for. I skipped college because I was alone in NYC and had to make ends meet. In that I'm wholly a self-made man, yet I choose to look forward to my future achievements instead of past ones. Anyone who is incapable of accepting my approach to life has nothing to offer me which I could learn.
A word of caution: don't fall prey to the Peter principle. You seem to have marketable hard skills, which brought you some success to date. You're better off capitalizing on those hard skills instead of moving up the management ladder. Think of it this way: at 28 you still have 30-ish years of professional work to look forward to. Assuming you can make the jump to CTO right now, will you be able to sustain movement along a continuum of CTO-level employment until your retirement? That sounds unlikely because it is. You're better off pacing yourself by building out a technical base of unassailable solidity. You will reap rewards for this in the long term.
- wanderinghacker 11y agoThis is excellent advice, thank you. I think that after rising through the ranks quickly, I'm worried that my advancement (and earnings) are now capped for a while. Meanwhile I see less skilled developers fresh out of school making near what I make, getting signing bonuses, etc. and no doubt on their way to better pay at more interesting jobs. So there is an element of envy. Often it feels like I'm on the outside looking in on the tech industry because of all of the opportunities that seem unattainable (described here in another comment).
- Zelmor 11y agoRelax. You are young and have a lot of time ahead of you. Look not at what your neighbour has, for his gain is not your loss. I'm 30 and I have just decided on transiting from application support positions to linux and coding. All with an unfinished English BA, haha. What do I care for the young who figured their paths earlier and did well in school? All the better for them.
- akulbe 11y agoI'd be interested in talking with you more about how you're getting this done.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago> I'm worried that my advancement (and earnings) > are now capped for a while. That is probably true, but why worry? Lifetime earnings are the area under the curve, if you hit the cap early you get to go longer at the cap and end up with higher lifetime earnings. If you want to remove the limits on your compensation then you need to be the CEO of a company. The easiest way to do that is to start your own company and learn from your experiences doing that. You might also fail completely as a CEO for a variety of reasons and that will not only cut off your earnings now, but make it harder to get a job back in your "old" role of individual contributor. It is a risk you take.