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I actually love this. I've never worked in the valley, and honestly I feel no pressing urge to based on what I hear with regards to the bias in favour of twent
by headmelted 10y ago
I actually love this.
I've never worked in the valley, and honestly I feel no pressing urge to based on what I hear with regards to the bias in favour of twenty-somethings who can work 15+ hour days and live off of ramen.
I'm pushing into my mid-thirties this year, I'm married with two young children, and I simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago.
The thing is, I didn't do it then either, even when I could. I've always had the mentality that if I'm going to commit to your project, you're going to compensate me in cash or equity. It may also be why I'm happier in my career now that I contract than I ever was before. A days (genuinely hard) work for a days pay.
I simply never understood why someone would give so much of themselves for free in the pursuit of someone else's goals without a substantial slice of the pie. I still don't. And I suspect this is in large part why older developers are looked over (although maybe there's more to it).
Good job on the site, it certainly looks like its getting a lot of traction!
- EliRivers 10y agoI simply can't work the kind of hours that I could ten years ago. I find this is true in two ways; not only do I have better things to do now than donate free overtime to my employer, I am far better at not needing to. My best work in recent memory involved reading and thinking and sketching for a day and a half, and then adding six characters and a space to the front of one line of code; a decade ago, there is a real chance I would have ploughed into the problem with rewrites and architecture changes and all sorts of bad ideas. This does not solve the perennial problem that a less-skilled programmer thrashing away for days appears to be doing a lot more for the company than someone who sits unmoving for a morning and then strokes the code with a feather.
- DeltaWhy 10y agoWhat were the six characters? Reminds me of the old joke/parable about the mechanic charging $1 for turning a screw and $499 for knowing which screw to turn.
- ex_amazon_sde 10y ago> I simply never understood why someone would give so much of themselves for free in the pursuit of someone else's goals without a substantial slice of the pie. They believe what they are told - that hard work will be rewarded by salary increases, ability to work on interesting stuff and much respect.
- headmelted 10y agoI must admit there was a time I believed that nonsense myself, so I shouldn't really judge!