6 ms·

What does "playing the game" mean for you? How have you changed how you approach work or a new job?

by turdnagel 6y ago

scarface74 6y ago
Constantly job hopping, resume driven development, networking and being better at politics and soft skills.
- hddherman 6y ago
  Other than a better financial situation, what else have you achieved doing this? This makes me feel like software development world is just some big hollow game where making a positive change to the world takes the back seat.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Other than a better financial situation.... What other reason would I go to work everyday?
    - discordance 6y ago
      Fulfillment through solving meaningful challenges?
    - mgkimsal 6y ago
      Arguably, "job satisfaction" is a factor as well, but... it's hard to have job satisfaction when you see others earning 50% more for doing less (or inferior) work, especially if it's in the same company. And it's also hard to have 'job satisfaction' when decisions are made outside your control. I can live with fewer decision making abilities if compensated for in other ways, and that's usually pay rate.
    - sombremesa 6y ago
      Once I had my first real existential crisis, I realized that the things I wanted to leave behind weren't things that someone else could've easily (and honestly, might as well have) done. Furthermore, I wanted to spend my life doing things I actually want to do. So now I have a job that pays below market rate but leaves me with a lot more time, in which to write my novels. I have more than enough money - more money won't make me any happier, but less discretional time will certainly make me worse off.
      - platz 6y ago
        you might feel different about this tradeoff when you're older (read: less easily in demand) or have family to support. There is no such thing as having money to burn at the middle-class level unless you want to live on peanuts when you're in retirement.
        sombremesa 6y ago
        To begin with, I'm not a person who 'burns' money - I'm sure I'd be in a different place if I was. When I say 'enough money' I don't just mean enough money for current expenses. In my opinion, there really is an amount of money beyond which you're probably just adding a measure of unhappiness to your life, if you're making money your first-order objective.
        nightski 6y ago
        You are correlating pursuing a higher salary with longer hours. That doesn't have to be the case. I quadrupled my income by just going freelance and I generally work 20-30 hours a week. By focusing on money you can actually reduce your overall burden. In my humble opinion this far and away beats taking some low salary job just to get more time.
        scarface74 6y ago
        “I wish I had less money”. Said no one ever. While you are busy not being concerned about money. I bet your employer is glad to be getting you cheaply.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        rurp 6y ago
        A great many people raise families and live comfortable lives on less money than a somewhat below market dev salary. If you want to live in the middle of San Francisco or buy luxury goods then sure, you need to strive to earn a lot of money, but that doesn't describe most people.
    - joshspankit 6y ago
      I mean based on the comment, presumably “making a positive change to the world”
    - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
      I feel bad for people whose are trapped by a paycheck in a career they don't love. STEM delights me and if I became financially independent, I'd probably still go on learning about and building software & hardware just for the fun of it.
      - non-entity 6y ago
        > I feel bad for people whose are trapped by a paycheck in a career they don't love. This is kinda of where I am right now. I still enjoy programming, but its becoming more and more apparent that I should have kept it as a hobby and pursued something else as a career.
      - virgilp 6y ago
        > I'd probably still go on learning about and building software & hardware just for the fun of it. That's the thing - this is much easier to do when you're financially independent. If you have kids, and have to put them through school, and maybe have sick parents to care for - costs can add up fairly quickly; and it's easy to find yourself in a position where you can't lose your job, which is a lousy position to be in. Interesting part is - it can also be easier to choose what you work for when you have more money (or at least that's been my personal experience so far). A different version of the "rich getting richer" dynamic, basically - it's easy to say "no" to stupid things, to avoid or leave crappy jobs. Also if you're highly paid that often means you're listened to/ your voice has some weight - so chances of working on stuff that delights you increase significantly.
        scarface74 6y ago
        To put it more succinctly. It’s nice to be in a position of F%%% you. (NSFW:Language) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI
      - scarface74 6y ago
        I have been programming as a hobby since the 80s when I was in middle school writing 65C02 assembly, I don’t hate my job, but by the time I graduated in the mid 90s, it became purely a method to maintain my short term addiction to food and shelter and my long term desire not to be old and broke.
    - bpyne 6y ago
      I enjoy learning about the industrial area I'm in (higher education). I enjoy creating software that people use daily. I enjoy creative problem solving. I enjoy learning how different organizations fulfill their reason for being while handling operational details. I go to work for these reasons, as well as, a comfortable pay. I don't mind working. I would just like to do it less. A few years ago I dropped to part-time in order to be in a grad program in CS. I found that 25 hours provided me with the perfect life balance.
    - vitro 6y ago
      For a sense of an accomplishment and knowing that you have made world a bit better place while enjoying what you do, maybe? Japanese has a nice word for it, "Ikigai".
      - redisman 6y ago
        Don't look to the Japanese for work-life balance though.
  - shuntress 6y ago
    It's not specific to software development. Every field has people who's main focus is to "climb the ladder". Whether making a positive change to the world is in the front or back seat (or in the vehicle at all) will depend on company culture and may even differ within a single org.
  - ivanche 6y ago
    Better financial situation * many, many years = freedom. You have to live like no one else until, one day, you'll live like no one else.
    - war1025 6y ago
      Sounds like the whole Mexican fisherman story. I make good money. I work 10am-5pm every day. I don't make as much money as people who are more career oriented. But I also save 50% of my paycheck even factoring in that I have a wife and three kids, and my wife stays home with them. What's the point of chasing more money? If anything, I'd like to scale back, but that's not the easiest thing to do.
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  This post makes me want to usher in the socialist revolution.
- swagonomixxx 6y ago
  This is not meant to be offensive in any way, as I'm not judging your entire being just by the way you approach employment, but developers that do "resume driven development" are by far the worst to work with, and are so obvious to spot. Resume driven development often involves not giving a damn about what you're actually trying to solve, and trying to make what you're doing sound as impressive as possible to onlookers who have no clue what you actually did. Complicated architectures, hip technologies, fancy percentage based "improvements", it's all bollocks. I agree largely that Western society has created a work culture where working for "the man" is not a desirable thing to do; employment, by and large, should not be the purpose of our lives. There are so many other things, like social life, family, sports, playing the guitar, and so on, that humans can do so well, but because of the capitalist structures that have been put in place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, it's not hard to understand why this kind of approach to employment exists.
  - maerF0x0 6y ago
    > are by far the worst to work with, and are so obvious to spot. So? It gets them hired and at better rates than those who accurately estimate the size of the projects to boot. Companies need to stop rewarding irrational behavior, but right now lack the right feedback loops including investors willing to "Venture" capital into a losing business, passive + TARP-like investing driving asset prices up despite inherent risks and bosses who care more about politics/appearances than facts.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    Well, once companies stop having policies where they only give internal employees slightly above cost of living raises and bringing in new employees in at market rates - ie salary compression and inversion - then maybe employees won’t look out for their own best interest. The choices are either have relevant skills to keep yourself marketable or be willing to do the “leetCode monkey dance” and remember how to reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  > soft skills Improving soft skills isn't the same as playing the career development game by job hopping. Soft skills are as much a part of a developer job as programming. I'd actually argue it's the harder part.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    A developer with soft skills can pivot into being an overpaid “digital transformation consultant” or “enterprise architect”.

What does "playing the game" mean for you? How have you changed how you approach work or a new job?

scarface74 6y ago

Constantly job hopping, resume driven development, networking and being better at politics and soft skills.

hddherman 6y ago
Other than a better financial situation, what else have you achieved doing this? This makes me feel like software development world is just some big hollow game where making a positive change to the world takes the back seat.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Other than a better financial situation.... What other reason would I go to work everyday?
  - discordance 6y ago
    Fulfillment through solving meaningful challenges?
  - mgkimsal 6y ago
    Arguably, "job satisfaction" is a factor as well, but... it's hard to have job satisfaction when you see others earning 50% more for doing less (or inferior) work, especially if it's in the same company. And it's also hard to have 'job satisfaction' when decisions are made outside your control. I can live with fewer decision making abilities if compensated for in other ways, and that's usually pay rate.
  - sombremesa 6y ago
    Once I had my first real existential crisis, I realized that the things I wanted to leave behind weren't things that someone else could've easily (and honestly, might as well have) done. Furthermore, I wanted to spend my life doing things I actually want to do. So now I have a job that pays below market rate but leaves me with a lot more time, in which to write my novels. I have more than enough money - more money won't make me any happier, but less discretional time will certainly make me worse off.
    - platz 6y ago
      you might feel different about this tradeoff when you're older (read: less easily in demand) or have family to support. There is no such thing as having money to burn at the middle-class level unless you want to live on peanuts when you're in retirement.
      - sombremesa 6y ago
        To begin with, I'm not a person who 'burns' money - I'm sure I'd be in a different place if I was. When I say 'enough money' I don't just mean enough money for current expenses. In my opinion, there really is an amount of money beyond which you're probably just adding a measure of unhappiness to your life, if you're making money your first-order objective.
        nightski 6y ago
        You are correlating pursuing a higher salary with longer hours. That doesn't have to be the case. I quadrupled my income by just going freelance and I generally work 20-30 hours a week. By focusing on money you can actually reduce your overall burden. In my humble opinion this far and away beats taking some low salary job just to get more time.
        scarface74 6y ago
        “I wish I had less money”. Said no one ever. While you are busy not being concerned about money. I bet your employer is glad to be getting you cheaply.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - rurp 6y ago
        A great many people raise families and live comfortable lives on less money than a somewhat below market dev salary. If you want to live in the middle of San Francisco or buy luxury goods then sure, you need to strive to earn a lot of money, but that doesn't describe most people.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    I mean based on the comment, presumably “making a positive change to the world”
  - ThrowawayR2 6y ago
    I feel bad for people whose are trapped by a paycheck in a career they don't love. STEM delights me and if I became financially independent, I'd probably still go on learning about and building software & hardware just for the fun of it.
    - non-entity 6y ago
      > I feel bad for people whose are trapped by a paycheck in a career they don't love. This is kinda of where I am right now. I still enjoy programming, but its becoming more and more apparent that I should have kept it as a hobby and pursued something else as a career.
    - virgilp 6y ago
      > I'd probably still go on learning about and building software & hardware just for the fun of it. That's the thing - this is much easier to do when you're financially independent. If you have kids, and have to put them through school, and maybe have sick parents to care for - costs can add up fairly quickly; and it's easy to find yourself in a position where you can't lose your job, which is a lousy position to be in. Interesting part is - it can also be easier to choose what you work for when you have more money (or at least that's been my personal experience so far). A different version of the "rich getting richer" dynamic, basically - it's easy to say "no" to stupid things, to avoid or leave crappy jobs. Also if you're highly paid that often means you're listened to/ your voice has some weight - so chances of working on stuff that delights you increase significantly.
      - scarface74 6y ago
        To put it more succinctly. It’s nice to be in a position of F%%% you. (NSFW:Language) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I have been programming as a hobby since the 80s when I was in middle school writing 65C02 assembly, I don’t hate my job, but by the time I graduated in the mid 90s, it became purely a method to maintain my short term addiction to food and shelter and my long term desire not to be old and broke.
  - bpyne 6y ago
    I enjoy learning about the industrial area I'm in (higher education). I enjoy creating software that people use daily. I enjoy creative problem solving. I enjoy learning how different organizations fulfill their reason for being while handling operational details. I go to work for these reasons, as well as, a comfortable pay. I don't mind working. I would just like to do it less. A few years ago I dropped to part-time in order to be in a grad program in CS. I found that 25 hours provided me with the perfect life balance.
  - vitro 6y ago
    For a sense of an accomplishment and knowing that you have made world a bit better place while enjoying what you do, maybe? Japanese has a nice word for it, "Ikigai".
    - redisman 6y ago
      Don't look to the Japanese for work-life balance though.
- shuntress 6y ago
  It's not specific to software development. Every field has people who's main focus is to "climb the ladder". Whether making a positive change to the world is in the front or back seat (or in the vehicle at all) will depend on company culture and may even differ within a single org.
- ivanche 6y ago
  Better financial situation * many, many years = freedom. You have to live like no one else until, one day, you'll live like no one else.
  - war1025 6y ago
    Sounds like the whole Mexican fisherman story. I make good money. I work 10am-5pm every day. I don't make as much money as people who are more career oriented. But I also save 50% of my paycheck even factoring in that I have a wife and three kids, and my wife stays home with them. What's the point of chasing more money? If anything, I'd like to scale back, but that's not the easiest thing to do.
shrimp_emoji 6y ago
This post makes me want to usher in the socialist revolution.
swagonomixxx 6y ago
This is not meant to be offensive in any way, as I'm not judging your entire being just by the way you approach employment, but developers that do "resume driven development" are by far the worst to work with, and are so obvious to spot. Resume driven development often involves not giving a damn about what you're actually trying to solve, and trying to make what you're doing sound as impressive as possible to onlookers who have no clue what you actually did. Complicated architectures, hip technologies, fancy percentage based "improvements", it's all bollocks. I agree largely that Western society has created a work culture where working for "the man" is not a desirable thing to do; employment, by and large, should not be the purpose of our lives. There are so many other things, like social life, family, sports, playing the guitar, and so on, that humans can do so well, but because of the capitalist structures that have been put in place where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, it's not hard to understand why this kind of approach to employment exists.
- maerF0x0 6y ago
  > are by far the worst to work with, and are so obvious to spot. So? It gets them hired and at better rates than those who accurately estimate the size of the projects to boot. Companies need to stop rewarding irrational behavior, but right now lack the right feedback loops including investors willing to "Venture" capital into a losing business, passive + TARP-like investing driving asset prices up despite inherent risks and bosses who care more about politics/appearances than facts.
- scarface74 6y ago
  Well, once companies stop having policies where they only give internal employees slightly above cost of living raises and bringing in new employees in at market rates - ie salary compression and inversion - then maybe employees won’t look out for their own best interest. The choices are either have relevant skills to keep yourself marketable or be willing to do the “leetCode monkey dance” and remember how to reverse a binary tree on the whiteboard.
dehrmann 6y ago
> soft skills Improving soft skills isn't the same as playing the career development game by job hopping. Soft skills are as much a part of a developer job as programming. I'd actually argue it's the harder part.
- scarface74 6y ago
  A developer with soft skills can pivot into being an overpaid “digital transformation consultant” or “enterprise architect”.