4 ms·

I totally agree that the most unpopular, foundational stuff is essential. I do think there are some timeless bits of technical knowledge, that will serve you n

by gen220 6y ago

I totally agree that the most unpopular, foundational stuff is essential. I do think there are some timeless bits of technical knowledge, that will serve you no matter what high-level tech (the ones you mention, and other) is fashionable. In roughly descending order of importance, I'd put forward: the shell (bash, zsh, ...), gnu coreutils, modal text editors (ed, vi, vim, emacs), fundamentals of linux sysadmin, git, the networking stack up to HTTP (starting at least from IP). these are all good examples of tools that have aged very well, provide a disproportionate amount of power relative to their learning curves, and have a very good shot at being timeless. They all also have the dual-benefit of not traditionally being taught in schools. I guess it's assumed you can pick it up along the way, which is true, but these are all complicated enough by now that they merit detailed study from time to time. In any case, because most people in the industry come from universities, they don't natively have these skills, and they can be an edge for you.

birdyrooster 6y ago
When I interview people I focus on those things you mentioned and so don’t bother trying to quiz them on anything domain specific to their past experience or our future expectations for them.
- mcguire 6y ago
  Chorus: "You grill them on irrelevant details?!?"
- gen220 6y ago
  I will upvote this, but it can unfortunately be seen as discriminatory towards the poor folk who have built their careers maintaining windows servers. :) although, like oil and water, it's probably unlikely they'd apply for a position at a *nix-based shop.
Consultant32452 6y ago
A friend and I were joking today that we could probably create a career out of helping people/companies fix their git issues. I've been to several employers now where most of the developers have an anxiety attack when they get merge conflicts. Being good at this is really great, though I'm not sure how to capture that on a resume, because basically everyone lists git these days.
- gen220 6y ago
  heh I've noticed this, too. There are a group of us at work that are known as "git surgeons", maybe that's the modifying noun you're looking for! In general, claiming status as a <technology> <noun> will get you positive attention, as long as it doesn't come off too arrogant (e.g. expert, master, w/e) e.g. git guru, nix nerd. It reminds me of this excellent article [0] that I like to share with all the engineers I work with, every year or so. In that case, you'd be a "taco bell programmer". But it's maybe too self-effacing depending on your opinion of taco bell :) [0]: http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell-programming.html http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell-progra...
- the_af 6y ago
  > because basically everyone lists git these days True! And apparently you cannot skip listing it. I recently changed jobs and was told one red flag in my CV was that I didn't list git as a tool I was familiar with. This wasn't a recruiter on a buzzword hunt, but the actual technical screener. I had explicitly removed all filler because I thought interviewers wanted to focus on the important bits... (got the job anyway, thankfully).

by gen220 6y ago

birdyrooster 6y ago

When I interview people I focus on those things you mentioned and so don’t bother trying to quiz them on anything domain specific to their past experience or our future expectations for them.

mcguire 6y ago
Chorus: "You grill them on irrelevant details?!?"
gen220 6y ago
I will upvote this, but it can unfortunately be seen as discriminatory towards the poor folk who have built their careers maintaining windows servers. :) although, like oil and water, it's probably unlikely they'd apply for a position at a *nix-based shop.

Consultant32452 6y ago

A friend and I were joking today that we could probably create a career out of helping people/companies fix their git issues. I've been to several employers now where most of the developers have an anxiety attack when they get merge conflicts. Being good at this is really great, though I'm not sure how to capture that on a resume, because basically everyone lists git these days.

gen220 6y ago
heh I've noticed this, too. There are a group of us at work that are known as "git surgeons", maybe that's the modifying noun you're looking for! In general, claiming status as a <technology> <noun> will get you positive attention, as long as it doesn't come off too arrogant (e.g. expert, master, w/e) e.g. git guru, nix nerd. It reminds me of this excellent article [0] that I like to share with all the engineers I work with, every year or so. In that case, you'd be a "taco bell programmer". But it's maybe too self-effacing depending on your opinion of taco bell :) [0]: http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell-programming.html http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell-progra...
the_af 6y ago
> because basically everyone lists git these days True! And apparently you cannot skip listing it. I recently changed jobs and was told one red flag in my CV was that I didn't list git as a tool I was familiar with. This wasn't a recruiter on a buzzword hunt, but the actual technical screener. I had explicitly removed all filler because I thought interviewers wanted to focus on the important bits... (got the job anyway, thankfully).