32 ms·

True, but... Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate, or your company opens a new office near them. It is more important tha

True, but... Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate, or your company opens a new office near them. It is more important than ever to differentiate yourself. To do that you need to find something to do that you love, and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that you become one of the top ten people in within your context. By context I mean you don't need to be the best in the world, you can be the best at X within the Y industry, or within defense consulting, or in the U.S. And you don't need to be the best (though see the quote about being the only), but at least in the top 10. There are two quotes I am fond of that say similar things much better than I can: "Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it." - Steve Jobs "You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only one who does what you do." - Jerry Garcia

rb808 6y ago
> Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate, This where immigration restrictions make a difference. A Brazilian developer has trouble working in SV, but no trouble working remote.
- jedberg 6y ago
  You vastly underestimate the tax and legal implications of an American company hiring and paying a Brazilian in Brazil.
  - filleduchaos 6y ago
    You vastly underestimate the difficulty of immigrating to the United States (or even just _visiting_ it legally).
  - the_svd_doctor 6y ago
    That really seems like something that can be figured out, especially if the result is 3x less in wages. Unlike immigrating to the US, which is sometimes plain impossible.
    - cvlasdkv 6y ago
      It is only worth it for companies beyond a certain size. Smaller companies will always opt for visas vs. figuring out remote taxes.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - BubRoss 6y ago
    Interesting, what are they?
  - dragandj 6y ago
    They don’t hire that Brasilian to be their employee. The Brasilian is a one-man company. They contract the company to render whatever service. The Brasilian company does whatever Brasiliantaxes and procedures are necessary.
  - mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y ago
    I know a first-world company hiring third-world people. All the taxes are handled by the contractor himself. There are no legal issues to speak of, you only need an invoice from the contractor, or from an intermediator company, such as fiverr.
dh5 6y ago
Relocation is a big barrier to those already married, and even more if they have kids. That's a large portion of senior guys.
- jedberg 6y ago
  Most of the senior people will have already relocated during their junior years though.
klmadfejno 6y ago
Anyone can already take your job, but currently they require local level wages to live with your local cost of living. Outsourced people can take your job, for much less money.
booleandilemma 6y ago
...and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that (sic) you become one of the top ten people in within your context Whatever happened to just getting a normal job and putting in an honest day’s labor? Now we’re expected to become “one of the top ten”... what exactly? How is that supposed to work? What about those of us with families for goodness sake. We can’t all be super Linus Torvalds ninja hackers putting out code 12 hours a day.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  What happened is that it turned out that there are two billion people who can put in an honest day's labour and it no longer matters where they live.
  - Avicebron 6y ago
    But shouldn't we account for that and adjust accordingly so we aren't ruining society in a race to the bottom? It's all choices, we don't HAVE to allow it to happen.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      Should we? I don't see why one guy making $70k and two guys making nothing is superior to three guys making $20k.
      - dmitriy_ko 6y ago
        Economy is not a zero-sum game. There's no reason you can't have everyone making $70K.
        renewiltord 6y ago
        Sure. And that's a no-brainer. We'd all agree on that. The interesting part is when there are trade-offs. So that's my position on the trade-off.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Your recommendation to become the top 10 in something is either impossible, or only achievable by narrowing definitions down to inanity. I can easily be the top 10 in <industry> <feature> written in <specific language version> <specific framework version> run on <specific infrastructure>, but who cares? Recommending that people become the top 10 in their industry is an impossible recommendation; as there might be hundreds of people in my company who perform a similar role, let alone within my industry. It’s a bit like recommending someone become one of the top 10 basketball players to make money; someone will do it, but the chances are so slim that it’s a bad recommendation. Also, how do you define “top 10”?
- Communitivity 6y ago
  'Top 10' is a convenient label. It's more about the answer to the question 'who are the most respected experts in X within the Y', and maybe even make X be instead 'X using Z'. Several careers having been made by being known as a leader using a particular technology, or a co-creator of the technology from the beginning, though it always comes with other things to back it up as well: * Tim Berners-Lee - the web, W3C * Peter Saint-Andre - XMPP, messaging RFCs * DHH - Ruby on Rails * Martin Fowler - Design Patterns ..and many more. Yes, getting to the Tim Berners-Lee level of industry recognition is unreasonable to expect for most. But I think it is reasonable to think that this is doable, with the depth of the expertise niche needed to be outstanding being inversely proportional to the talent of the expert. One person might have an expertise niche of messaging, while another has RabbitMQ as their main niche. Both are viable to base a living off of.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    At a certain point you’re talking about programmer celebrities and trying to draw general career advice from them, which is silly. We can’t all be celebrities, and any career advice based on that is kind of pointless. Now talking about having a niche is a fair argument, but that’s literally a completely new argument. “Be in the top 10” and “specialize” are not the same pieces of advice, at all.
thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
>>> And you don't need to be the best (though see the quote about being the only), but at least in the top 10. Basically, you're saying only the top 1% will be employable. This is going to be a new experience for a lot of devs in the bay area that have been spoiled with job offers. Those days are over. I'd say it's time to hunker down, save as much as possible because future employment will be scare. And, there's already a vast oversupply of talent. I'd hate to think what it would look like in 5 years time.
asdff 6y ago
In a world where everyone has about the same skills, more or less after some onboarding period, network is everything.

rb808 6y ago

> Anyone can already take your job, as long as they are willing to relocate, This where immigration restrictions make a difference. A Brazilian developer has trouble working in SV, but no trouble working remote.

jedberg 6y ago
You vastly underestimate the tax and legal implications of an American company hiring and paying a Brazilian in Brazil.
- filleduchaos 6y ago
  You vastly underestimate the difficulty of immigrating to the United States (or even just _visiting_ it legally).
- the_svd_doctor 6y ago
  That really seems like something that can be figured out, especially if the result is 3x less in wages. Unlike immigrating to the US, which is sometimes plain impossible.
  - cvlasdkv 6y ago
    It is only worth it for companies beyond a certain size. Smaller companies will always opt for visas vs. figuring out remote taxes.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- BubRoss 6y ago
  Interesting, what are they?
- dragandj 6y ago
  They don’t hire that Brasilian to be their employee. The Brasilian is a one-man company. They contract the company to render whatever service. The Brasilian company does whatever Brasiliantaxes and procedures are necessary.
- mD5pPxMcS6fVWKE 6y ago
  I know a first-world company hiring third-world people. All the taxes are handled by the contractor himself. There are no legal issues to speak of, you only need an invoice from the contractor, or from an intermediator company, such as fiverr.

dh5 6y ago

Relocation is a big barrier to those already married, and even more if they have kids. That's a large portion of senior guys.

jedberg 6y ago
Most of the senior people will have already relocated during their junior years though.

klmadfejno 6y ago

Anyone can already take your job, but currently they require local level wages to live with your local cost of living. Outsourced people can take your job, for much less money.

booleandilemma 6y ago

...and then find (or more often make) a niche in that that that (sic) you become one of the top ten people in within your context Whatever happened to just getting a normal job and putting in an honest day’s labor? Now we’re expected to become “one of the top ten”... what exactly? How is that supposed to work? What about those of us with families for goodness sake. We can’t all be super Linus Torvalds ninja hackers putting out code 12 hours a day.

renewiltord 6y ago
What happened is that it turned out that there are two billion people who can put in an honest day's labour and it no longer matters where they live.
- Avicebron 6y ago
  But shouldn't we account for that and adjust accordingly so we aren't ruining society in a race to the bottom? It's all choices, we don't HAVE to allow it to happen.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Should we? I don't see why one guy making $70k and two guys making nothing is superior to three guys making $20k.
    - dmitriy_ko 6y ago
      Economy is not a zero-sum game. There's no reason you can't have everyone making $70K.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        Sure. And that's a no-brainer. We'd all agree on that. The interesting part is when there are trade-offs. So that's my position on the trade-off.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Your recommendation to become the top 10 in something is either impossible, or only achievable by narrowing definitions down to inanity. I can easily be the top 10 in <industry> <feature> written in <specific language version> <specific framework version> run on <specific infrastructure>, but who cares? Recommending that people become the top 10 in their industry is an impossible recommendation; as there might be hundreds of people in my company who perform a similar role, let alone within my industry. It’s a bit like recommending someone become one of the top 10 basketball players to make money; someone will do it, but the chances are so slim that it’s a bad recommendation. Also, how do you define “top 10”?

Communitivity 6y ago
'Top 10' is a convenient label. It's more about the answer to the question 'who are the most respected experts in X within the Y', and maybe even make X be instead 'X using Z'. Several careers having been made by being known as a leader using a particular technology, or a co-creator of the technology from the beginning, though it always comes with other things to back it up as well: * Tim Berners-Lee - the web, W3C * Peter Saint-Andre - XMPP, messaging RFCs * DHH - Ruby on Rails * Martin Fowler - Design Patterns ..and many more. Yes, getting to the Tim Berners-Lee level of industry recognition is unreasonable to expect for most. But I think it is reasonable to think that this is doable, with the depth of the expertise niche needed to be outstanding being inversely proportional to the talent of the expert. One person might have an expertise niche of messaging, while another has RabbitMQ as their main niche. Both are viable to base a living off of.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  At a certain point you’re talking about programmer celebrities and trying to draw general career advice from them, which is silly. We can’t all be celebrities, and any career advice based on that is kind of pointless. Now talking about having a niche is a fair argument, but that’s literally a completely new argument. “Be in the top 10” and “specialize” are not the same pieces of advice, at all.

thorwasdfasdf 6y ago

>>> And you don't need to be the best (though see the quote about being the only), but at least in the top 10. Basically, you're saying only the top 1% will be employable. This is going to be a new experience for a lot of devs in the bay area that have been spoiled with job offers. Those days are over. I'd say it's time to hunker down, save as much as possible because future employment will be scare. And, there's already a vast oversupply of talent. I'd hate to think what it would look like in 5 years time.

asdff 6y ago

In a world where everyone has about the same skills, more or less after some onboarding period, network is everything.