6 ms·

Ask HN: What insight was key to growth of your career or startup?

• lordnacho 10y ago
  The fact that the learning curve is mostly climbed at the beginning. You will come across many very competent people with only a few years of experience, who are still at the bottom of the ladder due to how organisations are structured rather than a lack of ability. Understanding this is key to overcoming impostor syndrome.
• wheaties 10y ago
  You will never just be given something based on merit even if you feel you've earned it. You need to ask for it, then if you've earned it you will be given it. People can't read your mind and it's surprising how what you want is not what they think you want. A simple 5min convo on what you actually want and tracking the steps outlined to get you there will push you faster along than anything else.
  • jorblumesea 10y ago
    I would almost say the opposite at my place. Excelled in my position, everyone felt I was competent and able for the next step. But after asking for more work and more responsibility I was basically told that I was out of line and this was something given to me, not asked for. I would say it's very dependent on culture.
    • bsvalley 10y ago
      +1. I've seen a mix of both... though, if you fill very confident about your skills, just ask for it. It will put the pressure on them even if the culture is about waiting for someone to name you king. They know you can get it somewhere else so it'll move the needle.
  • jzl 10y ago
    There's a book I've never actually read that has a brilliant title, so good I don't even feel the need to read it. :) "In Business As in Life, You Don't Get What You Deserve, You Get What You Negotiate" Yes, that's the name of the book, just google it. :) But I have most definitely found this to be true. While it is sometimes the case that good deeds are rewarded, to really get what you want and to go beyond what you thought was your potential you need to be assertive and go after things. Negotiate for yourself rather than waiting around for something to happen. Push the boundaries.
• stray 10y ago
  My key insight was "humans do not read". I say it jokingly but early on -- I gained quite a reputation among people far smarter than I am, for being able to solve the most difficult problems. But I never really did anything other than read. And most of the time I never had to go beyond the documentation. The trick I guess, is to slow down and really read. There is no shortcut to understanding. And there is no solution without understanding. - RTFM - Slow is smooth, smooth is fast
  • franze 10y ago
    Completely agree! R.T.F.M. and you ahead of 99.999999..% on anything (compared to the whole earth population on one specific topic)
  • pavlov 10y ago
    Completely agreed on the "slow down and really read" part. Googling for immediate answers on Stack Overflow is not reading and doesn't lead to understanding. It's "fast food calories" for your mind, and if one solves every problem that way, it's like eating at McDonalds for every meal.
    • Strom 10y ago
      Googling for immediate answers on Stack Overflow definitely leads to understanding in my case. The trick is to not just immediately paste the code, but to dig into it and understand why that specific set of instructions is the solution. A bit of reverse engineering if you will. It tends to be faster than reading through all the docs (which contain too much info about things you won't need right now) and inventing the wheel yourself.
      • marktangotango 10y ago
        I don't know why you're being downvoted, this is a good insight. Particularly in the Java Enterprise world, the documentation can be very wordy, and of the form 'indoctrinate you into this way of thinking'. A barebones example from someone who knows the framework can be much more illuminating than pages of prose.
• pklausler 10y ago
  Your employer gives you their best current job offer every paycheck.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• tenpoundhammer 10y ago
  Career insight: If your boss isn't invested in your success you won't succeed.
• shawndumas 10y ago
  don't leave until you are reasonably certain it's not you that's the problem; otherwise you are taking your problem with you.
• ImTalking 10y ago
  The fact that no one really knows what to do; that no one has the magic formula. That you just have to try different things and see what sticks. Keep moving forward. Shakespeare was right: we are poor players that strut our hour upon the stage and are heard no more.
• trjordan 10y ago
  "There is no magic." Before I started my career, I thought there was a point where products mostly built themselves. Coding changed that. When I was in engineering, I thought there was a point where products mostly sold themselves. Sales changed that. When I was in sales, I thought there was a point where the message mostly spread itself. Marketing changed that. When I started my own company, I thought there was a point where most of the business ran itself. I certainly never reached that point.
  • mgregory22 10y ago
    Tell me how sales changed your view that there was a point where products mostly sold themselves.
    • mdadgar 10y ago
      Once you’ve spent some time in sales, you realize that sales is a TON of work.
      • mgregory22 10y ago
        Oh I'm sure it is, but surely a well-engineered product is easier to sell than a badly-engineered one?
    • trjordan 10y ago
      A bit late, but hopefully still helpful. The main insight here is that people don't need more software. There are a lot of people out there that can validate whether your product is cool, or provides something that nobody else does, or that there is a pain point they're currently working around. But especially in B2B, most people aren't in the business of buying software. To get around this, you need to paint the picture of what life will be like after they've bought your software. With good products, this can be as easy as explaining it to them, then helping them rally the support to sign the $25,000 check to purchase the software. With less good products, this can mean doing providing real, actionable advice that the software sort of supports. I'll give you an example. I used to sell performance monitoring software: think of New Relic or Datadog, but better for distributed environments. This is pretty crucial for bigger teams, as performance problems tend to cross ownership boundaries. Most engineers believe that performance is important. However, it is not easy to convince any given engineer to make performance their crusade, especially their crusade across multiple teams. So not only do they have to be convinced the product is easy to set up and maintain (a good onboarding flow in product can do most of this for you), but you also need to educate them on how to sell this to their boss and how to evangelize this to other teams. Or go evangelize for them. Our best customers had one person who was fired up about what we did, but a lot of their help was to point us to the right 5 people in their organization that might also care about performance. Freemium helps here, but if the main problem is "getting my coworkers to care sounds hard", freemium and frictionless signup will never be the answer. So you need to sell the product, even if it's something the organization desperately needs.
• bobosha 10y ago
  Focus, focus, focus. Seriously, I was one who used to sneer at the advice, thinking I can handle multiple things and by trying several things in parallel I increase my chances. Boy, was I wrong! Pick one and only one battle (market), and fight it with all you have. Iterate quickly.
• franze 10y ago
  Understanding Limiting Factors: Growth is not controlled by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource.
• s_kilk 10y ago
  Not insight exactly, but the advice that changed my career for the better: "No, stop fucking around, do it right."
• jsgoller1 10y ago
  My major insight in 2016 was realizing that literally everyone has impostor syndrome. After talking to a few people about it, I've started asking pretty much everyone I meet who works in tech and found this to be universally the case (even John Carmack, according to Wikiquote - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack, the "Seriously? I'm good?" quote and the one at the bottom about not being Richard Garriot). What this has allowed me to do is 1) recognize that I'm really not a failure because I can't do X, just that I haven't yet gotten experience with X, so I need to read and play/experiment with X more (and therefore there's pretty much nothing that I or anyone else _can't_ do with enough experience), and 2) learn how to better talk to my coworkers and technical friends so as not to say things that might make them feel impostor-y (because there are definitely things other say that will set off that anxiety in my brain, even unintentionally). I feel like both of these things have allowed me to be more effective and productive at work.
  • mgregory22 10y ago
    I've never had impostor syndrome, but I imagine it comes from not realizing that everyone is finite and has a finite amount of time to experience the universe. But the universe is infinite, so you can never know everything there is to know. Even if you limit it to a narrow field like programming, the infinitude is still there. The universe is literally infinite in every respect; you cannot escape it. No matter how small you limit your focus, there is an infinite amount of information to learn in that thing. I think studying fractals gave me this insight, but it's not hard to realize that the universe itself has the same property that no matter how carefully you examine some aspect of it, the complexity is never eliminated. In fact it only increases.
    • marktangotango 10y ago
      I've never had imposter syndrome either. I don't really relate to your fractal example. My experience was when I was 13, my older cousin was bragging that he'd used up all the memory on his trs-80 making an adventure game (BASIC). I was very impressed until I saw his program. It was all if/else statements, he hadn't used any subroutines. I was astounded. That was an early lesson to me, no one knows all this stuff. That and the realization that these damn machines make fools of us all at one time or another :) Everyone is just at different stages of learning. When you've been doing this long enough, you've forgotten a lot you knew before. At some level, 'refreshing your memory' about what your forgot is not much different than learning it the first time.
• peterhartree 10y ago
  Sam Altman's advice to "always ask" has been very helpful. I can't find the link but the sense is: do not skip asking for something you want because you assume you'll get a "no".
  • anotherturn 10y ago
    Totally agreed. I got my degree from a mediocre university. Then went on to get PhD from a top 5 university. I audited a few classes and the difference in student behavior was immediately evident. They freely questioned assertions or topics that didn't make sense! At my first university students would just muddle on and hope to figure things out as exams approached. That little experience changed the way I approached learning and life in a massive way.
• F_J_H 10y ago
  Work to increase your luck surface area. Network, meet new people, get involved in OSS, go to meetups, volunteer. When you are just starting out, get good at a tangible skill that people will pay you for, and which will let you play in the arena where you ultimately want to be. For me, it was IT development, even though I had a business background. If you are in technology, or work as a developer, work in a non-tech firm that leverages technology, rather than in a technology firm. It will be easier to stand out, and your contributions will be held in much higher regard. This point was actually made by Zed Shaw in one of his books, and although he took some flack for it, it's actually very good advice. I've seen it play out a number of times.
• swombat 10y ago
  Embrace the desire to make money. Don't let it dominate your life, of course, but you are unlikely to make money unless you actually want to, and you are unlikely to build a successful business without actually making money somewhere along the way. There's nothing wrong or distasteful about money. It's a neutral substance with a lot of good uses.
  • bsvalley 10y ago
    That's a good one. In life %99 of the people are looking for 1.security 2.comfort 3.rich I will go to school and get a degree, get a nice and stable job. Buy a house (mortgage) a car (loan) then in my spare time, i'll try to launch my business! I want to get rich so bad! Life is tough... Rich people simply think the other way 1.rich 2.comfort 3.security Why would I spend most of my time working on things that are not inline with my goal? I'll buy a house and pay cash when I'll get rich. Let's go get that money!
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• seibelj 10y ago
  Don't rely on someone else to make your career (or your life) better. If you want something, it's on you to do it. The loser blames something else (other people, society, bad luck) for their problems. The winner takes control of their life, accepts personal responsibility, and creates their own future.
  • jsgoller1 10y ago
    This is definitely true. However, as a sort of tangent, I think there are some types of problems in our industry that are systemic (like sexism) that can perpetually inhibit someone's success. I don't want to derail this conversation into a political one, but I also don't want to unfairly tell someone "the reason you aren't successful is because you blame others for your problems" when it may in fact be the case that the person has the odds unfairly stacked against them.
    • seibelj 10y ago
      I don't disagree. But I recommend you assess the reality of your situation and fight for what you want and deserve. One person can't end sexism, but plenty of people overcome sexism and other -ism's. Be the person who overcomes it and inspires others. Don't be the person that uses sexism as an excuse.
• kayla210 10y ago
  Nobody expects you to know everything when you're starting out, even if you have that fancy degree that you spent years on. That degree just shows them you have the aptitude to learn how their business works and they're willing to take the time to train you if you're willing and able to learn.
• LouisSayers 10y ago
  Career: 1) You can increase your salary dramatically by changing your job 2) Job interviews are like exams, study for them, find and practice example questions 3) In tech, contracting is where you make bank. If you work it out, with the same breaks you take with salaried employment you're still much better off. Startups: 1) The goal is to make money, not build something. Focus on that. 2) It typically takes a long time (many months or years) to create a business. Be patient, stick with it. Think of it as a marathon, and an experiment. Courses, e-books: 1) There's much more involved in their creation as what you initially think. It'll take much longer to build than you imagine (if you're about doing a proper job) 2) They won't sell themselves, you need marketing channels. 3) the trick with courses / books is to build audiences and funnel the audience into them. You can do this by creating free books / courses and upselling collected emails, or by collecting emails from other places / affiliating and collaborating. So don't count on a single book / course from making you so much money you can quit work. Build a series of books / courses instead - you'll see the results of compounding.
  • nnd 10y ago
    By contracting you mean non-remote opportunities?
    • LouisSayers 10y ago
      Specifically I'm referring to my personal experience doing on-site contracting, can't comment on 100% remote positions
• shuzhang 10y ago
  I'll comment on career growth. First of all, make sure you can learn from the team you're joining. If you get an offer, ask if you can grab a drink or lunch with the team before you decide. If a manager says no to this, that's actually a pretty big red flag. When you hang out with the team, probe their experience and get an idea of their communication style. Understand what you can learn from them and understand how different people might mentor you. You should also make sure your manager is strong and will do regular one on ones with you. Groups that do occasional skip-level 1on1s are even better. When you're working, look to take the initiative when you can and always try to over deliver. Work hard and find opportunities to take leardership roles on something. Good managers will encourage this. But don't be annoying, look for real needs you can fill. Talk to your manager very explicitly and figure out your career path. You can and should talk to your manager about exactly what it takes to get to take the next step in your career; a good manager will define this very clearly. Then, I'd say every 2-4 1on1s with your manager, check in on your progress. This is also a good opportunity for for him/her to point you to additional learning resources to get there. You should do something similar with other members of your team, especially those you respect the most. It also doesn't hurt to ask everyone what they're favorite books and blogs are. Being on strong teams and working on complicated problems is key. Once you feel like you're not learning a lot anymore, make a career change. Early on in your career, I think your rate of learning should be the main factor in changing jobs. Change a few times early on (1-2 years a job), I thinks is also very healthy since you get exposed to some different environments/perspectives.
  • rainhacker 10y ago
    > Talk to your manager very explicitly and figure out your career path. You can and should talk to your manager about exactly what it takes to get to take the next step in your career; a good manager will define this very clearly. Asked this in 1-1 with my manager yesterday. Got mostly vague answers. I feel it's easier to get both raise and next level by changing companies then trying internally. Have seen good people leave the company, they'd Hire from outside and give that person raise/promotion + the additional training and time to ramp up.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• clay_to_n 10y ago
  Have confidence in what you do. When you're starting something new - a new company, a new role, a new technology - you'll often find yourself wondering if you're doing it normally, or correctly, or the best way. It's good and normal to ask people who might know, or research the answer. But sometimes the quickest way to learn is doing the thing naively, and then asking yourself what worked and what didn't. Don't let your own second-guessing remove your confidence in what you're doing, or slow you down to the point of inaction.
• yokisan 10y ago
  1. Nobody cares how hard you work. Results — not effort — are the only things that matter. 2. It's infinitely easier to produce excellent results when you like the job you're in. You may never find "The perfect job" but the closer the match to your skills, the better. 3. You'll be amazed at how few people give a sh*t about your new startup. 4. Paychecks are addictive. Then often essential. If you want to start your own business, try not to become dependent. 5. Learn to recognize The Dips from the cul-de-sacs (http://guykawasaki.com/the_big_dip_ten/ http://guykawasaki.com/the_big_dip_ten/).
  • Chromozon 10y ago
    My seventh grade teacher strongly enforced #1. Parents would complain to her all day long that their kid spent a lot of hours on so-and-so assignment only to receive an average grade. Her response was always that she did not care how much time was spent on an assignment- if the end result was crap, you were not going to get a good grade.
• SandersAK 10y ago
  Privilege is king.
• pcsanwald 10y ago
  Key insights for me: - For me, doing what I am good at makes me happy. - "what I am good at" is often very different from what I think I will be good at, or what I think I should be good at, or what I would like to be good at. - I find working on big, daunting, time-bound things where I need to educate myself to deliver on, very rewarding (not necessarily easy and not necessarily fun). - The right job for me is a mix of doing things that make me happy, and doing things that I find rewarding. These are all broad generalizations but they are derived from my career. I worked in the music industry as a technologist for many years, and because I'm also a musician, I thought I should be happy doing this. I wasn't. I moved to working at an investment bank, the work was a mix of very challenging things that were a huge stretch for me, and also specific technical things that I was very good at delivering. I loved it, my career took off, and has been great since (I've done a number of different things after said investment bank). Superficially, you wouldn't think that a person like me would be happy working in a large bank, but it turned out I really liked it, and was great at it. and if you met me, you would have thought I'd have loved the music industry, but I didn't, and didn't do very good work as a result.
• MK999 10y ago
  Part 1: If you are so smart that the manager / boss can't/won't/doesn't understand what you bring to the table -- don't expect to get a big raise. Part 2: if you want a big raise, get a new job (then get another new job for yet another big raise, etc.)
• FLGMwt 10y ago
  There isn't a designated person assigned to the thing you want or want to change. "We don't have a tech blog" "This process is annoying" "No one has fixed X yet" You earn a lot of recognition if you make yourself that person.
• bsvalley 10y ago
  Corporate World - Micromanagement 1. You work for your direct report not for the company's mission. 2. You leave your manager, not your job. 3. People got to management at some point based on the amount of words that came out of their mouths. The more words the more "visibility" Startups - Anarchy 1. Warm referrals - we value your network because who cares about your product??? 2. "We just got $30 million in series B, you should come work for us you'll be engineer #4, with close to zero equity (sorry we took all the risks already) but you'll get a competitive base-salary! We're backed up by sequoia, etc. Oh... and we're building the next eCommerce t-shirt website!" 3. "Do you want to become my cofounder I have the best idea that will change the world! I'll be the CEO working on the idea and you'll build the rest. You'll be the developer!" These are my highlights over the past 10 years.
  • moxious 10y ago
    None of this is wrong, but it is a pretty exclusively negative picture on both sides.
    • bsvalley 10y ago
      As people said... you learn from you failures :) These are all the valuable lessons I've learned
• ian0 10y ago
  Business: - The core value of a company is its assets (market & placement, employees, financial situation) and its ability to execute iterating upon a product. If a company is in a changing market or is a startup the value is nearly wholly driven by the later. There are hacks around this, but they are rarely pretty or pleasant. This is "the" hard problem in making money. - Big corporates are almost entirely dysfunctional. It beggars belief but its true. The simple fact is the markets are so mature that they don't need to do much beyond a few basic, core, routine actions. All they can do is fail from here, so everyone inside are afraid of doing something wrong instead of failing to do something. - Always, always go the extra mile for people, loose gracefully, be nice - even when the situation is completely unfair. Your time will come, and when it does you will have gained an undervalued but lucrative chip. The moral high-ground :) - In addition to being the right thing to do, playing nice and paying it forward are great strategies in business Personal: - Given a task find out its context/goals. You may have been asked to do the wrong thing. - For most, your mentor's will have the largest impact on your career. Find good ones. - Don't be responsible for surprises. If you see something strange - shout. - Be methodical in whatever you do: Analyse. Record. Measure. - If you need a raise ask, but have your line in the sand. - Read, research. Know your stuff. - Ask questions. Speak up.
• sytse 10y ago
  Most money in the git hosting space is made on-premises instead of in SaaS. Realized that in 2013, a year after starting GitLab.com.
  • samblr 10y ago
    Love gitlab.
• oldmancoyote 10y ago
  Memory usage and run-time don't matter any more. When I started programming, 1968, minimizing these was the core value used in judging how good a programmer you were. This has not changed in many people's minds. Once I stopped caring, my imagination became free to consider doing things others wouldn't even consider. One program ran for three days. People thought I must be brilliant because of the unheard of things I was doing. Nope. I was just uninhibited by these hobgoblins of the past. I wasn't even a very good programmer. I do admit there are situations where this principle doesn't really apply.