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Have you ever considered working technical support? As a lifelong generalist programmer, I never imagined I would work in a support role beyond what every progr

Have you ever considered working technical support? As a lifelong generalist programmer, I never imagined I would work in a support role beyond what every programmer at a startup is expected to do, but I was persuaded to cross over by someone I greatly respect. That support team was the most talented team I ever worked with in almost twenty-five years in tech, and working in that role grew many different skills both in and out of tech in ways I never imagined. Hacking broken production environments back online and writing and pushing bugfixes is exhilarating, and it was the single most valuable experience of my career.

gmanis 6y ago
Never considered support role to be honest. Maybe it feels a little inferior after having those degrees I guess but that’s my own bias. I did think of like a product management role at startups but they all expect you to have pedigree or previous work ex in similar role. Catch-22!
- fapjacks 6y ago
  Yeah, that's exactly what I thought, too. It is just one of those weird cultural artifacts that when someone says "tech support" we automatically conjure this mental image which is both not really technical and not really flattering. It was definitely one of those life moments when I had to sit down and talk myself out of a baseless prejudice. Also, the sibling commenter mentions one of the big reasons I found so much joy in it. This kind of hardcore technical support is in many respects closely related to working on greenfield projects. In my experience, the fun stuff usually ends up with some unfun caveats like company bureaucracy, office politics, or having the tech stack chosen beforehand, this kind of thing. But there's an interesting inversion when a company's production environment is broken and you're the one that can fix it. Obstacles magically disappear and you have a tremendous amount of freedom to do your job, with effectively two different companies doing what they can to enable your work, because the only thing everyone cares about is getting it working again. You do have to be able to walk the walk -- and I cannot stress enough that it takes a certain type, and just knowing your shit isn't going to cut it -- and you also have to get some personal enjoyment out of chaotic environments, and be able to talk people out of a tree sometimes. But you'll never run out of new and interesting problems to solve, you'll be testing your mettle far more frequently than your peers, and you'll be expanding your professional network every week about as much as everybody else does once or twice a year when they go to a convention. It's the closest thing the tech industry has to a firefighter or superhero or something.
  - Davertron 6y ago
    Maybe infosec or cyber security would be similar? I'm a fullstack turned mostly FE developer these days, but I'm very interested in security and it seems like there is a lot of demand out there for that skill set and plenty of opportunity. It seems like it would push a lot of the same buttons that you mentioned (fixing broken systems, lots of autonomy, working with smart folks). I tend to get bored with long-term projects unless there are still interesting problems to be solved so working on lots of smaller projects sounds pretty appealing, and there's seemingly no end to new systems/devices/websites that are just riddled with holes. Seems like a perfect role and potentially more lucrative than IT (although this is just pure guessing, I haven't compared numbers).
    - gmanis 6y ago
      I have explored security world too. Lots of experiments with reversing tools like IDAPro, ollydbg. Recently a client asked if I can help reverse their own android app because the developers were holding their source code hostage. It was lots of fun and lots of struggle but overall satisfying. Maybe something like basic security freelance work especially basic webapp security(xss,sqli,csrf, the likes) and some process security with maintaining proper logins, maintaining and rotating credentials etc. Thank you for your ideas.
  - gmanis 6y ago
    Thank you for your insights. The firefighters analogy is definitely very refreshing take on a role which I didn’t consider much before. I’ll definitely explore opportunities on this front.
ctrl4 6y ago
I once read about devs that get bored with long projects and thrill at starting new things, and the other kind that doesn't want to take new projects until the one that she/he is working on is "finished". Maybe you are the first kind and that's why you are enjoying the unexpected situations you face giving technical support.

gmanis 6y ago

Never considered support role to be honest. Maybe it feels a little inferior after having those degrees I guess but that’s my own bias. I did think of like a product management role at startups but they all expect you to have pedigree or previous work ex in similar role. Catch-22!

fapjacks 6y ago
Yeah, that's exactly what I thought, too. It is just one of those weird cultural artifacts that when someone says "tech support" we automatically conjure this mental image which is both not really technical and not really flattering. It was definitely one of those life moments when I had to sit down and talk myself out of a baseless prejudice. Also, the sibling commenter mentions one of the big reasons I found so much joy in it. This kind of hardcore technical support is in many respects closely related to working on greenfield projects. In my experience, the fun stuff usually ends up with some unfun caveats like company bureaucracy, office politics, or having the tech stack chosen beforehand, this kind of thing. But there's an interesting inversion when a company's production environment is broken and you're the one that can fix it. Obstacles magically disappear and you have a tremendous amount of freedom to do your job, with effectively two different companies doing what they can to enable your work, because the only thing everyone cares about is getting it working again. You do have to be able to walk the walk -- and I cannot stress enough that it takes a certain type, and just knowing your shit isn't going to cut it -- and you also have to get some personal enjoyment out of chaotic environments, and be able to talk people out of a tree sometimes. But you'll never run out of new and interesting problems to solve, you'll be testing your mettle far more frequently than your peers, and you'll be expanding your professional network every week about as much as everybody else does once or twice a year when they go to a convention. It's the closest thing the tech industry has to a firefighter or superhero or something.
- Davertron 6y ago
  Maybe infosec or cyber security would be similar? I'm a fullstack turned mostly FE developer these days, but I'm very interested in security and it seems like there is a lot of demand out there for that skill set and plenty of opportunity. It seems like it would push a lot of the same buttons that you mentioned (fixing broken systems, lots of autonomy, working with smart folks). I tend to get bored with long-term projects unless there are still interesting problems to be solved so working on lots of smaller projects sounds pretty appealing, and there's seemingly no end to new systems/devices/websites that are just riddled with holes. Seems like a perfect role and potentially more lucrative than IT (although this is just pure guessing, I haven't compared numbers).
  - gmanis 6y ago
    I have explored security world too. Lots of experiments with reversing tools like IDAPro, ollydbg. Recently a client asked if I can help reverse their own android app because the developers were holding their source code hostage. It was lots of fun and lots of struggle but overall satisfying. Maybe something like basic security freelance work especially basic webapp security(xss,sqli,csrf, the likes) and some process security with maintaining proper logins, maintaining and rotating credentials etc. Thank you for your ideas.
- gmanis 6y ago
  Thank you for your insights. The firefighters analogy is definitely very refreshing take on a role which I didn’t consider much before. I’ll definitely explore opportunities on this front.

ctrl4 6y ago

I once read about devs that get bored with long projects and thrill at starting new things, and the other kind that doesn't want to take new projects until the one that she/he is working on is "finished". Maybe you are the first kind and that's why you are enjoying the unexpected situations you face giving technical support.