9 ms·

Let me guess, you're single and 24 years old. You know what I do at home "just for the hell of it"? I play with my kids.

toolz 6y ago
Have you ever lost a job because you don't have side-projects? This notion that we're being forced out of software jobs because we don't have side-projects just hasn't manifested anywhere that I've seen. It very much feels like an argument that you should be able to advance in your career with 40 hours/wk as much as the person willing to spend 50. So, you have kids, great! Spend time with them, enjoy your life. Presumably you're a software engineer so you're making more money than the vast majority of the world. Enjoy that, but do you feel entitled to go as far in your career as someone who dedicates more of their life to their career? Should those people be punished by being displaced by someone like you who presumably has less expertise due to spending less time on your career? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but I'm struggling to understand why our current system should change to cater to your lifestyle choices of having kids.
- webmaven 6y ago
  > Have you ever lost a job because you don't have side-projects? I am aware of hiring decisions between several candidates that hinged on their side projects (or lack thereof).
  - justatdotin 6y ago
    so what? some workers like to spend time coding off-clock: that's fine. some employers prefer those workers: that's fine too. I'm not interested in being one of those workers, and quite happy to avoid those employers. I have no trouble finding workplaces that respect my time.
    - webmaven 6y ago
      I think you mistake my comment. Perhaps I just should have said "yes".
  - caenorst 6y ago
    Then isn't it the pool of candidate that is setting the norm, and not the employer ?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Yup. Personally, I like doing coding stuff on the side. And even though I'm not going to let any company tell me what side projects to do (I use these projects to reclaim some autonomy), I'm also not going to leave them out of my CV to be "fair" to other candidates. After all, they won't leave out their superior university or FAANG experience either. I think what we want to limit is employers pressuring people into side-projects as a form of unpaid overtime. Other than that, I'm not sure if I see the problem here - but I guess I'm a part of it too.
  - occams_chainsaw 6y ago
    COBOL?
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  > by being displaced by someone like you who presumably has less expertise Can you see how this presumption could be problematic? Edit: fixed grammar
- bee_rider 6y ago
  A system that doesn't "cater" to people having and raising kids has trouble coming up about 20 years down the road. If the general solution to career advancement is just to work more hours, we'll be a bunch of unhealthy, overworked burnouts.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    The general solution to getting better at anything is to put more hours into it. Where's that expectation that you have to be best of the best coming from? (Not to mention, the expectation to be seen and treated as the best of the best, without putting in the work.)
    - Twisell 6y ago
      True but the false narrative lie elsewhere. Sure you can put more hours into something to get better and improve your performance. But why should you spent more hours on your free time? Some employers grant a free "afternoon" every-week for employees side projects. Guess what more side projects, less burnout... Source: The company that support PostgreSQL for my workplace do that. Which we were doing the same.
  - undreren 6y ago
    Few companies live longer than 15 years, even fewer employees and managers. In my experience, people rarely cares about consequences, they won't suffer from.
  - toolz 6y ago
    If anything our world is overpopulated. It seems to me we'd be remarkably better off with fewer kids. I reject the notion that systems optimizing for raising kids would put society in a superior place. I'm not against anyone having kids, but I reject the notion that it's a benefit for society that we encourage people to bear and raise children. People will bear and raise children regardless and I think reducing incentives there would ultimately have better societal outcomes. This is reflected all over the world with developed countries having fewer kids per family. Correlation != causation, but it's certainly evidence.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  There’s an interesting statement there that the extra ten hours makes a difference for career advancement. I wonder how much that’s really true.
- bryanrasmussen 6y ago
  >Should those people be punished by being displaced by someone like you who presumably has less expertise due to spending less time on your career In my experience, the people who have kids generally have more experience because they built up the experience before getting the kids.
- madeofpalk 6y ago
  > Enjoy that, but do you feel entitled to go as far in your career as someone who dedicates more of their life to their career? As a 20-something year old with no kids, I certainly do not feel any more entitled to "go far in my career" than anyone else, just because im dead inside and write code on the weekends after work. Anyone who thinks like this is an asshole who I don't want to work with.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - toolz 6y ago
    This seems like an unnecessarily hostile response. I hope you find a hobby or passion that gets you out of any funk you might be in. I hope you can understand my opinions are made with good intentions. Feel free to disagree with them and feel free to avoid working with people who hold these opinions, but I'd prefer if you avoided calling me names just because you're incapable of understanding my good intentions at the moment.
cmonnow 6y ago
Whenever I see them use two adjectives side-by-side as in "I will be very and highly..", I automatically assume they are young-blooded
bumby 6y ago
While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not having side projects, I also understand how it can be a (somewhat sloppy) proxy for evaluating if somebody treats it as a profession vs a job.
- justatdotin 6y ago
  could just as well indicate someone who's due to crash.
  - bumby 6y ago
    I don’t know, but I suspect the proportion of those who are consummate professionals with side projects is greater than those with side projects who are about to crash. I guess it matters whether those side projects are intrinsically motivated. If you’re just doing it because you’re expected to, I can see it leading to burn out as it’s essentially a side job. But if you’re doing it out of intrinsic interest, it’s more of a hobby that also builds your professional skills
segmondy 6y ago
Since you asked, nope. I'm with really young kids, one an infant. So sleep is a luxury. ... and kids are a time sink. I'm also a senior engineering manager, I don't have to code again in my life if I don't want since I committed to and enjoy the management track. But with that said, here's a few tech I have learned as in really dove into in the last few years by myself that I didn't need to learn for work, golang, angular, typescript, kubernetes, some ML, scikit-learn, J(APL), couchbase, hybrid mobile development with ionic framework, these are just a few that I can think off my head. I started & run the k8s meetup in my city. In the last 5 years, I have probably build 20+ side software projects for the fun of it and currently have 3 brewing in my head right now. Besides wasting time on social media (twitter, facebook, reddit) and watching netflix/prime/hulu like normal folks, I also have the occasionally hobby of minor home repairs (My house is over 100+yrs old), fixing up my "classic car" 85 bmw, and teaching myself the piano. My typical work week is about 50-60hrs. Since March I have been the one to take care of the kids while WFH since my wife is an essential health care worker. So what's the point of telling you all this? I'm not single, not young, now north of 40+. I'm just a doer. Here's what I googled and read up on this weekend, how to repair rotted roof rafter tails because the garage needs work. I was looking at the repair manual of the broken elliptical to see if I can repair too. As for coding, I was building a daycare app before the pandemic put a lid to that and I shelved that for now. Since the pandemic, I have just written toy throw away sim codes to run simulation of whatever that came to my head, predicting the pandemic numbers, housing market, etc. Point is, I can somehow find out a little time here and there to play on the computer, most people can.
- haolez 6y ago
  You've made time to learn J! That's some commitment. I'm waiting for my first child right now and have recently been into J in my spare time. I'm also a manager now (CTO at a non-startup company).
  - segmondy 6y ago
    Yeah, someone mentioned it on here a while ago and I decided to give a go. jsoftware has really amazing resources/free books if you dive into it. It's really enjoyable if you use jupyter cuz you write in literate style so you can remember what the heck you just wrote months down the line. lol. https://github.com/martin-saurer/jkernel-docker https://github.com/martin-saurer/jkernel-docker. yeah for a few months I was addicted to it, and it's the only language where I feel like a sculptor since you are literally sculpting and transforming the array to yield your solution. For me the saddest thing was that I can't bring that experience to other languages,
barumi 6y ago
> You know what I do at home "just for the hell of it"? I play with my kids. And that's great and all, but it also ensures that the only thing you did that was noteworthy for prospective employers was whatever project you happened to be stuck with your current job. If you happen to be privileged and work on architecting exciting cutting-edge projects that use any of the relevant or even popular technologies then you have nothing to worry about. If, instead, you happen to be like the most of us and are working on maintaining legacy projects with technologies that you hate and are obsolete and became irrelevant to the eyes of prospective employers, or even worse you are stuck on doing boring stuff that tangentially have anything to do with development at all... Then how do you work on your marketable skills? Do you honestly expect to be the best candidate to a job position when you're competing with people who spent years working on exciting and interesting cutting-edge technologies when all you have to show for is years of maintaining a legacy application that was mostly done except with the minor updates you were charged to do? So yeah, please do enjoy spending all your free time playing with your kids. Some of us are compelled to, in the very least, brush up their skills outside of work because otherwise we might not have a shot at a job that allows us to play with the kids, or even get a job in the near future.
- etripe 6y ago
  What evidence do you have that even the majority of programmer side projects are interesting and/or cutting edge? Your line of reasoning doesn't actually benefit you unless you can negotiate a higher wage because of your side projects. In most cases, it's a proxy for an employer getting away with not paying you for training - either your current employer or a prospective new employer.
- dsaron 6y ago
  I logged on just to comment, this one hits home and its incredibly accurate - at least in my current circumstance. Thanks for the bit of insight.

toolz 6y ago

Have you ever lost a job because you don't have side-projects? This notion that we're being forced out of software jobs because we don't have side-projects just hasn't manifested anywhere that I've seen. It very much feels like an argument that you should be able to advance in your career with 40 hours/wk as much as the person willing to spend 50. So, you have kids, great! Spend time with them, enjoy your life. Presumably you're a software engineer so you're making more money than the vast majority of the world. Enjoy that, but do you feel entitled to go as far in your career as someone who dedicates more of their life to their career? Should those people be punished by being displaced by someone like you who presumably has less expertise due to spending less time on your career? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but I'm struggling to understand why our current system should change to cater to your lifestyle choices of having kids.

webmaven 6y ago
> Have you ever lost a job because you don't have side-projects? I am aware of hiring decisions between several candidates that hinged on their side projects (or lack thereof).
- justatdotin 6y ago
  so what? some workers like to spend time coding off-clock: that's fine. some employers prefer those workers: that's fine too. I'm not interested in being one of those workers, and quite happy to avoid those employers. I have no trouble finding workplaces that respect my time.
  - webmaven 6y ago
    I think you mistake my comment. Perhaps I just should have said "yes".
- caenorst 6y ago
  Then isn't it the pool of candidate that is setting the norm, and not the employer ?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Yup. Personally, I like doing coding stuff on the side. And even though I'm not going to let any company tell me what side projects to do (I use these projects to reclaim some autonomy), I'm also not going to leave them out of my CV to be "fair" to other candidates. After all, they won't leave out their superior university or FAANG experience either. I think what we want to limit is employers pressuring people into side-projects as a form of unpaid overtime. Other than that, I'm not sure if I see the problem here - but I guess I'm a part of it too.
- occams_chainsaw 6y ago
  COBOL?
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
> by being displaced by someone like you who presumably has less expertise Can you see how this presumption could be problematic? Edit: fixed grammar
bee_rider 6y ago
A system that doesn't "cater" to people having and raising kids has trouble coming up about 20 years down the road. If the general solution to career advancement is just to work more hours, we'll be a bunch of unhealthy, overworked burnouts.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  The general solution to getting better at anything is to put more hours into it. Where's that expectation that you have to be best of the best coming from? (Not to mention, the expectation to be seen and treated as the best of the best, without putting in the work.)
  - Twisell 6y ago
    True but the false narrative lie elsewhere. Sure you can put more hours into something to get better and improve your performance. But why should you spent more hours on your free time? Some employers grant a free "afternoon" every-week for employees side projects. Guess what more side projects, less burnout... Source: The company that support PostgreSQL for my workplace do that. Which we were doing the same.
- undreren 6y ago
  Few companies live longer than 15 years, even fewer employees and managers. In my experience, people rarely cares about consequences, they won't suffer from.
- toolz 6y ago
  If anything our world is overpopulated. It seems to me we'd be remarkably better off with fewer kids. I reject the notion that systems optimizing for raising kids would put society in a superior place. I'm not against anyone having kids, but I reject the notion that it's a benefit for society that we encourage people to bear and raise children. People will bear and raise children regardless and I think reducing incentives there would ultimately have better societal outcomes. This is reflected all over the world with developed countries having fewer kids per family. Correlation != causation, but it's certainly evidence.
meheleventyone 6y ago
There’s an interesting statement there that the extra ten hours makes a difference for career advancement. I wonder how much that’s really true.
bryanrasmussen 6y ago
>Should those people be punished by being displaced by someone like you who presumably has less expertise due to spending less time on your career In my experience, the people who have kids generally have more experience because they built up the experience before getting the kids.
madeofpalk 6y ago
> Enjoy that, but do you feel entitled to go as far in your career as someone who dedicates more of their life to their career? As a 20-something year old with no kids, I certainly do not feel any more entitled to "go far in my career" than anyone else, just because im dead inside and write code on the weekends after work. Anyone who thinks like this is an asshole who I don't want to work with.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- toolz 6y ago
  This seems like an unnecessarily hostile response. I hope you find a hobby or passion that gets you out of any funk you might be in. I hope you can understand my opinions are made with good intentions. Feel free to disagree with them and feel free to avoid working with people who hold these opinions, but I'd prefer if you avoided calling me names just because you're incapable of understanding my good intentions at the moment.

cmonnow 6y ago

Whenever I see them use two adjectives side-by-side as in "I will be very and highly..", I automatically assume they are young-blooded

bumby 6y ago

While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not having side projects, I also understand how it can be a (somewhat sloppy) proxy for evaluating if somebody treats it as a profession vs a job.

justatdotin 6y ago
could just as well indicate someone who's due to crash.
- bumby 6y ago
  I don’t know, but I suspect the proportion of those who are consummate professionals with side projects is greater than those with side projects who are about to crash. I guess it matters whether those side projects are intrinsically motivated. If you’re just doing it because you’re expected to, I can see it leading to burn out as it’s essentially a side job. But if you’re doing it out of intrinsic interest, it’s more of a hobby that also builds your professional skills

segmondy 6y ago

Since you asked, nope. I'm with really young kids, one an infant. So sleep is a luxury. ... and kids are a time sink. I'm also a senior engineering manager, I don't have to code again in my life if I don't want since I committed to and enjoy the management track. But with that said, here's a few tech I have learned as in really dove into in the last few years by myself that I didn't need to learn for work, golang, angular, typescript, kubernetes, some ML, scikit-learn, J(APL), couchbase, hybrid mobile development with ionic framework, these are just a few that I can think off my head. I started & run the k8s meetup in my city. In the last 5 years, I have probably build 20+ side software projects for the fun of it and currently have 3 brewing in my head right now. Besides wasting time on social media (twitter, facebook, reddit) and watching netflix/prime/hulu like normal folks, I also have the occasionally hobby of minor home repairs (My house is over 100+yrs old), fixing up my "classic car" 85 bmw, and teaching myself the piano. My typical work week is about 50-60hrs. Since March I have been the one to take care of the kids while WFH since my wife is an essential health care worker. So what's the point of telling you all this? I'm not single, not young, now north of 40+. I'm just a doer. Here's what I googled and read up on this weekend, how to repair rotted roof rafter tails because the garage needs work. I was looking at the repair manual of the broken elliptical to see if I can repair too. As for coding, I was building a daycare app before the pandemic put a lid to that and I shelved that for now. Since the pandemic, I have just written toy throw away sim codes to run simulation of whatever that came to my head, predicting the pandemic numbers, housing market, etc. Point is, I can somehow find out a little time here and there to play on the computer, most people can.

haolez 6y ago
You've made time to learn J! That's some commitment. I'm waiting for my first child right now and have recently been into J in my spare time. I'm also a manager now (CTO at a non-startup company).
- segmondy 6y ago
  Yeah, someone mentioned it on here a while ago and I decided to give a go. jsoftware has really amazing resources/free books if you dive into it. It's really enjoyable if you use jupyter cuz you write in literate style so you can remember what the heck you just wrote months down the line. lol. https://github.com/martin-saurer/jkernel-docker https://github.com/martin-saurer/jkernel-docker. yeah for a few months I was addicted to it, and it's the only language where I feel like a sculptor since you are literally sculpting and transforming the array to yield your solution. For me the saddest thing was that I can't bring that experience to other languages,

barumi 6y ago

> You know what I do at home "just for the hell of it"? I play with my kids. And that's great and all, but it also ensures that the only thing you did that was noteworthy for prospective employers was whatever project you happened to be stuck with your current job. If you happen to be privileged and work on architecting exciting cutting-edge projects that use any of the relevant or even popular technologies then you have nothing to worry about. If, instead, you happen to be like the most of us and are working on maintaining legacy projects with technologies that you hate and are obsolete and became irrelevant to the eyes of prospective employers, or even worse you are stuck on doing boring stuff that tangentially have anything to do with development at all... Then how do you work on your marketable skills? Do you honestly expect to be the best candidate to a job position when you're competing with people who spent years working on exciting and interesting cutting-edge technologies when all you have to show for is years of maintaining a legacy application that was mostly done except with the minor updates you were charged to do? So yeah, please do enjoy spending all your free time playing with your kids. Some of us are compelled to, in the very least, brush up their skills outside of work because otherwise we might not have a shot at a job that allows us to play with the kids, or even get a job in the near future.

etripe 6y ago
What evidence do you have that even the majority of programmer side projects are interesting and/or cutting edge? Your line of reasoning doesn't actually benefit you unless you can negotiate a higher wage because of your side projects. In most cases, it's a proxy for an employer getting away with not paying you for training - either your current employer or a prospective new employer.
dsaron 6y ago
I logged on just to comment, this one hits home and its incredibly accurate - at least in my current circumstance. Thanks for the bit of insight.