5 ms·

I like to think about this like compound interest. What skills can you invest time in, continuously & over time, that will make it impossible for people to cat

by mildbow 10y ago

I like to think about this like compound interest. What skills can you invest time in, continuously & over time, that will make it impossible for people to catch up with you? Consequently, I'm not convinced "keeping skills current" is the way to go. Most of us are curious about new tech: it's probably what brought us into, and keeps us in, the field. But, anyone can pickup "current tech X". Sure, you might become faster at learning something, but I'm not convinced that 5 years of experience vs 10 years makes much of a difference.

huherto 10y ago
I feel that you are onto something. I would like to hear examples of it. I learned unix long ago. The ROI has been very big because I have used those skills over and over for a long time. Other skills not so much. But what type of skills have compound growth ?
smrtinsert 10y ago
Math math and more math.
- zallarak 10y ago
  Can you elaborate? Do you have any personal experience that makes you say this?
  - engi_nerd 10y ago
    I'm not the parent, but I agree with 'math, math, and more math' as good advice. My own situation is this: I've been working as an RF telemetry and instrumentation engineer for 8 years. Time and time again, I've been able to rise above because I put in the time to understand the fundamental math underlying what we're doing, and use that understanding to troubleshoot issues. Surprisingly, most of my colleagues have not put in this level of effort and their career trajectories have suffered as a result. I would also add this: learn to program. Now, the vast majority of people here already do know how to program, but many people in the aerospace and mechanical engineering fields really don't, or don't use what knowledge they gained in school. I put in the time on the side to learn some data science and programming skills. I was able to use these skills to solve some rather tricky problems, gaining me additional recognition. I have now used this success to switch career tracks to a software engineering position. I start the new position next month, wish me luck!
    - madengr 10y ago
      Good luck with the new position. I'm also an RF guy, but do some SDR programming, mainly as a hobby, but had a job offer over it recently.
      - engi_nerd 10y ago
        In a related note, I just had a conversation with an Aerospace Engineer here who said that throughout his degree he never had to program. Now he's trying to find other employment (as this program is winding down) and all the jobs that he is seeing require some programming skills.
- Koshkin 10y ago
  More specifically, Knuth Knuth and more Knuth. His series on the Art of Computer Programming has enough relevant mathematics (among other things) to get one busy for a long, long time. Mathematics per se is too wide a subject (which may be why the word is given in plural in English and French). It is also extremely deep and complex even in its "universally reusable" parts, and, frankly, not much of it finds application in software engineering.
justinhj 10y ago
I work in video games and at mid-40s probably wouldn't a) be employable and b) wouldn't enjoy my job if it didn't involve completely different languages and types of work over time Learning random new tech X is one thing, but learning targeted new tech Y that you suspect will dominate and improve your industry , then helping push it into production, is a valuable skill
GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago
>Consequently, I'm not convinced "keeping skills current" is the way to go. Depends on what you mean by "keeping skills current". Certainly, chasing the latest fad framework / language is clearly a losing game. However, there are plenty of fundamental areas that are worth learning (or refreshing), such as statistics + data analysis (the basis of the recent "data science" hype), systems programming (e.g. driver development, embedded systems (the basis of the IoT hype), DSP + signal processing, and so forth that broaden your capabilities and are both independent of language and essentially timeless.

by mildbow 10y ago

huherto 10y ago

I feel that you are onto something. I would like to hear examples of it. I learned unix long ago. The ROI has been very big because I have used those skills over and over for a long time. Other skills not so much. But what type of skills have compound growth ?

smrtinsert 10y ago

Math math and more math.

zallarak 10y ago
Can you elaborate? Do you have any personal experience that makes you say this?
- engi_nerd 10y ago
  I'm not the parent, but I agree with 'math, math, and more math' as good advice. My own situation is this: I've been working as an RF telemetry and instrumentation engineer for 8 years. Time and time again, I've been able to rise above because I put in the time to understand the fundamental math underlying what we're doing, and use that understanding to troubleshoot issues. Surprisingly, most of my colleagues have not put in this level of effort and their career trajectories have suffered as a result. I would also add this: learn to program. Now, the vast majority of people here already do know how to program, but many people in the aerospace and mechanical engineering fields really don't, or don't use what knowledge they gained in school. I put in the time on the side to learn some data science and programming skills. I was able to use these skills to solve some rather tricky problems, gaining me additional recognition. I have now used this success to switch career tracks to a software engineering position. I start the new position next month, wish me luck!
  - madengr 10y ago
    Good luck with the new position. I'm also an RF guy, but do some SDR programming, mainly as a hobby, but had a job offer over it recently.
    - engi_nerd 10y ago
      In a related note, I just had a conversation with an Aerospace Engineer here who said that throughout his degree he never had to program. Now he's trying to find other employment (as this program is winding down) and all the jobs that he is seeing require some programming skills.
Koshkin 10y ago
More specifically, Knuth Knuth and more Knuth. His series on the Art of Computer Programming has enough relevant mathematics (among other things) to get one busy for a long, long time. Mathematics per se is too wide a subject (which may be why the word is given in plural in English and French). It is also extremely deep and complex even in its "universally reusable" parts, and, frankly, not much of it finds application in software engineering.

justinhj 10y ago

I work in video games and at mid-40s probably wouldn't a) be employable and b) wouldn't enjoy my job if it didn't involve completely different languages and types of work over time Learning random new tech X is one thing, but learning targeted new tech Y that you suspect will dominate and improve your industry , then helping push it into production, is a valuable skill

GrumpyYoungMan 10y ago

>Consequently, I'm not convinced "keeping skills current" is the way to go. Depends on what you mean by "keeping skills current". Certainly, chasing the latest fad framework / language is clearly a losing game. However, there are plenty of fundamental areas that are worth learning (or refreshing), such as statistics + data analysis (the basis of the recent "data science" hype), systems programming (e.g. driver development, embedded systems (the basis of the IoT hype), DSP + signal processing, and so forth that broaden your capabilities and are both independent of language and essentially timeless.