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It's worth remembering this article seems to come from a rather clichéd and narrow frame of reference - overly driven by money and perceived status - one which

It's worth remembering this article seems to come from a rather clichéd and narrow frame of reference - overly driven by money and perceived status - one which seems to drive a lot of very similar advisory posts. That's cool if it's what you want to dedicate your life to, but if you are in a happy position with a great work life balance that encourages and enables you to both improve yourself and - particularly - your non-worklife then that's a thing worth holding on to, whatever the article-heavy career gurus seem to be selling you. Edit: as this comment has been significantly upvoted to visibility, I think I should acknowledge jasode's (and others) fair point that the author doesn't specifically focus on money. While I believe it is an implied strategic goal (which is fine) my concern is with the general over-focus on writing like this with careerism and the corresponding values which are definitely not shared by all. Thanks for the useful counterpoints to my reading.

jasode 6y ago
>It's worth remembering this article seems to come from a rather clichéd and narrow frame of reference - overly driven by money But the blog author wrote the opposite of your characterization. Excerpt from article of not letting money distort your goals: >Staying in a job for loyalty or money's sake is like staying in a bad marriage for the sake of kids. [...] Optimizing learning over money early in your career. [EDIT to the many downvoters: Did I totally misunderstand the author's blog article? Where is the "overly driven by money" message? His framework chart doesn't have money anywhere on it. See: https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F55cda1a8-942b-4e38-b861-9c890da06931_1274x506.png https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q...]
- mellosouls 6y ago
  My actual quote ended "...and status", and "frame of reference" was important. The article is a reflection on I recently saw this tweet asking people about their career's most expensive mistake which appears to at least indicate a long term financial (and no doubt time/energy/status/skills/etc) view. It's not to say there aren't useful (if rather overly played) points in there and similar articles; but the whole thrust is about "career growth" and "brand" and dismissing either directly or by implication engineers who prioritise life as being vastly more important than work.
- leokennis 6y ago
  The point of mellosouls holds. The person writing this post lives for his job. His goal is to have a job that brings him some combination of achieving job related results, learning job related skills and earning money from that job. And if the current job situation is not optimized for that (no learning opportunities, no achievement opportunities limiting future employment opportunities etc.) it should be seen as a cancer. While it’s a completely valid point of view to not live for your job, but to do your job to (financially) facilitate your life: earn money in a stable (but from the authors point of view boring and pointless) job so you can take nice vacations with your wife and kids. Or keep a “9 to 5 job” because you like to explore foreign cinema and Russian literature from “5 to 11”, while the author is still busting his ass so he’ll end high on the corporate ladder in the future.
  - robocat 6y ago
    > The person writing this post lives for his job I think you are completely mischaracterising the author. The article is about career: for most of us a career is a necessary evil that cannot be avoided. If you read the article as though the heading were “optimising your career to suit your lifestyle”, the article still makes sense. Nowhere in the article does it imply that you should prioritise work/money over living. There are multiple references to ensuring that you achieve personal goals inside and outside your job: “if you don't want your talent to go to waste” “Staying in a job for loyalty or money's sake is like staying in a bad marriage for the sake of kids. It's not healthy for anyone involved.” “Am I excited and happy to go to work every morning and see my teammates.” “She had grown tired of her role and was burnt out.” The author mostly talks about the time cost (not $) of your choices - most of us are given similar lifespans so choose how you invest your time wisely. PS: “Valley Girl Newsletter” - @leokennis: assuming “his” is impolite IMHO.
    - leokennis 6y ago
      Regarding his/her: that was a dumb assumption on my part. Apologies. It should be her. To the content of the article. This is what the author describes as the scenario to be avoided: > Your choice becomes limited to employers who want a cog in the big machine while your career will fade into a 9-5 job. As if this is per se a bad thing. As I said, if your career is your life then indeed, follow the authors advice. However if your career is just a tool to financially enable your real life, it’s great to be a cog in a 9-to-5 machine: you get to go home in time for dinner every day and you probably have mental energy to spare when you do. Further down, this is written: > If you're not paying attention, you lose precious years stagnating and being unhappy. Below, signs of unhappiness are: lack of work accomplishments, lack of “resume worthy work”, lack of new skills for future employment, lack of overthinking work problems in the shower, lack of kinship with colleagues felt. Again, for many people, work is not a goal in itself. I like my colleagues and I enjoy my job, but in the end the place I really want to be is not my office (but my home) and the people I really care about are not my colleagues (but my family and friends). Final exemplary quote: > You have at best 120 quarters left to make something of yourself. A year wasted at a poor job or role is equivalent to you throwing away 3.3% of your career. Again, apparently “making something of yourself” is equivalent to not wasting time at a job and having a good career? I fully stand by my points: * It’s fine to be very career and job minded. * You need to read the linked article with a lot of flexibility and creativity to come away with any other impression than the author is very career and job minded. * It shows a lack of perspective (or an abundance of personal insecurities) to write a preachy article like this without even considering that your goals (the authors goals) might not be the same as everyone else’s.
m463 6y ago
Depends on your motivations. It might also depend on your location. Silicon Valley culture sort of expects you to move around every few years - you will get a more well-rounded perspective both technically and personally. In other places, particularly with different employment opportunities, the picture might be different. The one that got me here was "misplaced loyalty" because looking back, most of the companies I've worked for are either radically different or ...gone.
humanrebar 6y ago
> if you are in a happy position with a great work life balance that encourages and enables you to both improve yourself and - particularly - your non-worklife Someone needs to write "waste your personal life, one comfortable year at a time".
- rbinv 6y ago
  More like uncomfortable.
- ranit 6y ago
  >> Someone needs to write ... And skip “comfortable” in the title.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Yes, this is much more important. I love my job, but I'm not defined by it. I long ago realized and decided that I had no interest in chasing the next step up if it meant never having a stable personal life.
- itronitron 6y ago
  The overachievers can do that in less than a year.
- sobani 6y ago
  or: "waste your personal life, one competitive year at a time"
robocat 6y ago
The article strongly applies even for non-monetary career goals. And it is an article focusing on your career, not any life goals outside of that.
otras 6y ago
> a happy position with a great work life balance that encourages and enables you to both improve yourself and - particularly - your non-worklife Any advice for scoring this on my personal OKRs? I’m vacillating between 0.6 and 0.7 for this quarter, and I’m circling back with the other members of my household this afternoon.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Put your family members in the parking lot and follow up offline.
hellisothers 6y ago
I wrote a whole reply echoing another reply about how this article isn’t about maximizing money or status (though most of these articles are about that), that this article is just about staying competitive. But then I really thought about what you wrote and I think you’re saying that is besides the point, if you have good work life balance and really value that then it’s essentially maybe ok to give up some competitive edge. Here I will caution you, that is a trap which I think the article is trying to get at. I am one of those people who stayed too long at a job where I was losing my competitive edge because I felt like I had a great work-life balance! And work was fun! But one day I realized I’m actually being asked to eat a lot of crap so to speak that I hadn’t really noticed before and once I started to look for the exit it was obvious it was going to be harder than it should be because I had stagnated. Moral of my story (and this article), is stay competitive, you don’t have to crush it, but don’t lean back too far either.
- munchbunny 6y ago
  that this article is just about staying competitive. Moral of my story (and this article), is stay competitive, you don’t have to crush it, but don’t lean back too far either. There are a large number of people, including smart and successful and accomplished people, who work to live, not live to work. For the people who live to work (myself included), it's a good reminder to stay competitive and avoid complacency. But you have to understand yourself and what you're looking for. And that's what I think the real moral of the story is: understand what you want, what makes you happy, and what gives you meaning and purpose. Then make sure you're working towards that. Too many people forget to do the first thing and skip straight to the second because they inherit the answer from their environment without questioning it. For lots of people the answer to that question is not career related.
  - runawaybottle 6y ago
    But my dear friend, the economy doesn’t give two fucks about what you want. It is making part time door dash delivery drivers and Uber drivers out of college educated people. It’s making Classics majors into web developers via bootcamps, it’s hiring out in India, and it’s making the tech you know today sound literally stupid on your resume within 3 years. You’re also in a ageist industry, so there’s time working against you too. What you or I want is no longer a question afforded to us sadly.
mylons 6y ago
It’s also worth remembering that this is written by someone who is approaching 30 years old.
- uchman 6y ago
  Very true. As I grow older I realize that one should take the authors age in consideration when reading articles like this should be read.
  - onecommentman 6y ago
    The problem is you need to read the article to find out the author is...young. Perhaps they assume that the title screens out those of a certain depth of experience. Like misspellings in Nigerian scam emails...
- parsley27 6y ago
  Do you mean that perspectives change into the 40s and 50s? I find that I'm considering this much more now that I'm in my 40s, because I know that as a generalist developer, I will be slowing down in skills compared to the younger devs, so I need to make sure my career is developing in areas that value my experience and soft skills. I think it's even easier to get complacent with not challenging those soft skills and "tech wisdom" by staying too long in one role.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    >Do you mean that perspectives change into the 40s and 50s? You may still want to try new roles or at least take on new projects where you can learn new things. But... I find the older devs I know (I'm not actually one myself) mentoring, managing, possibly speaking in public more than they do just writing code. And, especially as people get into their 50s, at a larger company that's doing reasonably well, there's nothing wrong with seeking out a comfortable position that plays to your strengths.
  - axetheone 6y ago
    I already feel this slowdown and I'm barely into my 30s.
mytailorisrich 6y ago
One thing to always keep in mind is that your job can disappear very quickly. If, or when, that happens those who've spent years in the comfort of that nice work-life balance and often, frankly, mediocrity (you don't improve yourself by staying in the comfort of such a job) are in for a shock.
- mellosouls 6y ago
  Absolutely (with the qualification there are certainly comfortable jobs you can continuously advance your skills in), but the counter is that life disappears very quickly too, and if you have spent your whole energy and time prioritising your career you are in danger of finding a far greater shock when you are looking back on what is actually meaningful in your life.
Nemi 6y ago
For me, keeping yourself relevant is not about money per se, but about freedom. Freedom to control your life instead of being controlled by an employer. By trading some current comfort (good work-life balance and low stress) for current discomfort (finding a new job and challenging yourself to grow) you make your "personal business" stronger (that is what value you and your career bring to prospective employers). That means if I do lose my job or my current employment situation goes south, I have less stress because I know my personal brand is strong and can go many places without fear. Bottom line, moving to a new job regularly is about investing in yourself and allowing you to control the direction of your life and not allowing others to control it.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  A lot of young people around here dismiss money and status as superficial goals and hurt themselves in the long run. Once you leave the roughly egalitarian youth and college phase where everyone is roughly at a similar level (at least in your bubble), roads start diverging and money and status become more important than people especially idealistic nerds would imagine. The world is a cold hard place that doesn't give two shits what happens to you, whether you can make a living, provide your family or not. I don't mean to say that you have to enter the rat race and keep up with the Joneses and burn out. I just mean that money and status are these dirty words that are taboo to admit caring about in some circles, but it is money and status that earn you freedom and the ability to not give a fuck what people who you don't respect think about you. It is the only thing that will make annoying people you don't care about still act as if they respected you so you can concentrate on all the people and things you do care about.
  - david-gpu 6y ago
    > money and status that earn you freedom and the ability to not give a fuck what people who you don't respect think about you Please, help me understand. It seems to me like not being bothered by what anybody thinks of you requires neither money nor status. Not only that, obtaining or maintaining social status, by definition, involves other people thinking highly of you in one way or another. And it would seem like one would need to be keenly aware of that in order to climb that ladder. I say this as somebody rather uninterested in their social status (what's the point of it?), who went from relative poverty to relative wealth and saw no difference in how much I care about either money or status. So, very much interested in understanding how this works for others. What am I missing?
alecbz 6y ago
Really I think the only part of the post that's particularly status/money driven is: > If you are an average 30 yr old engineer, let's say you want to retire reasonably by the time you are 60. You have at best 120 quarters left to make something of yourself. A year wasted at a poor job or role is equivalent to you throwing away 3.3% of your career. The older you get, the steeper your loss is. Which sort of implies that what matters is where you end up at the end of your career, not enjoying yourself a long the way. I guess this isn't so much "status/money" as it is "destination vs. journey", but I feel like those can be related. That said, I found most of the rest of the post to be much more broadly applicable. The Accomplishment/Impact/Growth/Challenge/Community framework I thought was especially good/useful to keep in mind.
xivzgrev 6y ago
exactly. I work with a guy who has a family, and probably stopped growing career wise years ago. But he makes good money, he enjoys the company, and he seems happy. He has enough depth of skill that if he were to get laid off, he could easily find another job in that area. For a while I looked down at him, like “dude why are you stagnating?” But over time I could see why he’s doing what he’s doing, and it works for him. Maybe I’m wrong and if he got laid off he would have difficulty finding another job. But that’s his choice, relative to living with daily stress of stretching and pushing to the next level. I think the people who are making poor choices are those who are driven by fear - they want to grow, they aren’t, and they are afraid to make a move. Or they fear being disloyal, or whatever. I myself stayed in my second job far too long, and have regretted it since. Since being at my current company, I’ve done something like this, though less formally. I went thru a period of 6 months where I was having less impact and I felt like I hit a “ceiling”, so I kept pushing for a different role. Then covid hit, some people left, priorities change, and now I have a perfect role and am growing again. If covid hadn’t happened I think I would’ve needed to start looking. I love my current company so was willing to wait it out a bit longer.
Lammy 6y ago
Unfortunately the modern world has been structured so money is a necessity to achieve most things humans naturally need. “Comin’ up as a coder in the cash game / Livin’ in the fast lane / I’m for real.”
EpicEng 6y ago
>It's worth remembering this article seems to come from a rather clichéd and narrow frame of reference - overly driven by money and perceived status - one which seems to drive a lot of very similar advisory posts. That was exactly my reaction. I was a lead for three years and recently decided to go back to a purely technical role. I just didn't like the work, and the prospect of spending the rest of my career in middle management was not appealing. I currently received an offer from a FAANG(M) company. This was a real offer from someone I had worked with in the past which would have required a very thin interview process. I declined because I very much enjoy the work I'm doing today. It may turn out to be a bad idea down the road if all I consider is money and that nice company name on my resume. I decided I don't care. I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond and work on truly interesting tech than be another cog in the wheel. I'm well past the "live to work" phase of my life, I just want to be happy, and I can't complain at all about my salary and benefits.
- nine_k 6y ago
  Fortunately, many companies have individual contributor engineering ladder all the way up. My personal ideal endgame is a position like a principal / staff engineer. While I can't compare to people like John Carmack or Rob Pike or Greg Kroah-Hartman, but they show what can be achieved. (Founding a company is another possible route, much more risky, though.)
  - EpicEng 6y ago
    Yep, I'm currently Principal and am enjoying it very much.
  - jjav 6y ago
    I wish, but haven't really seen any company with IC ladder "all the way up". The other problem is that high level IC roles are very rare whereas the equivalent management roles are plentiful. At a previous company I was the one and only Principal engineer in a division with enough Sr.Directors (equivalent level there) to fill a school bus. Currently I'm at a Distinguished engineer level which is even more limited, but it is still less than a VP. But we have hundreds of VPs of this and that on the management ladder. The fact that you bring up celebrity engineers as examples pretty much showcases the problem. There are very, very few of them.

jasode 6y ago

>It's worth remembering this article seems to come from a rather clichéd and narrow frame of reference - overly driven by money But the blog author wrote the opposite of your characterization. Excerpt from article of not letting money distort your goals: >Staying in a job for loyalty or money's sake is like staying in a bad marriage for the sake of kids. [...] Optimizing learning over money early in your career. [EDIT to the many downvoters: Did I totally misunderstand the author's blog article? Where is the "overly driven by money" message? His framework chart doesn't have money anywhere on it. See: https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F55cda1a8-942b-4e38-b861-9c890da06931_1274x506.png https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q...]

mellosouls 6y ago
My actual quote ended "...and status", and "frame of reference" was important. The article is a reflection on I recently saw this tweet asking people about their career's most expensive mistake which appears to at least indicate a long term financial (and no doubt time/energy/status/skills/etc) view. It's not to say there aren't useful (if rather overly played) points in there and similar articles; but the whole thrust is about "career growth" and "brand" and dismissing either directly or by implication engineers who prioritise life as being vastly more important than work.
leokennis 6y ago
The point of mellosouls holds. The person writing this post lives for his job. His goal is to have a job that brings him some combination of achieving job related results, learning job related skills and earning money from that job. And if the current job situation is not optimized for that (no learning opportunities, no achievement opportunities limiting future employment opportunities etc.) it should be seen as a cancer. While it’s a completely valid point of view to not live for your job, but to do your job to (financially) facilitate your life: earn money in a stable (but from the authors point of view boring and pointless) job so you can take nice vacations with your wife and kids. Or keep a “9 to 5 job” because you like to explore foreign cinema and Russian literature from “5 to 11”, while the author is still busting his ass so he’ll end high on the corporate ladder in the future.
- robocat 6y ago
  > The person writing this post lives for his job I think you are completely mischaracterising the author. The article is about career: for most of us a career is a necessary evil that cannot be avoided. If you read the article as though the heading were “optimising your career to suit your lifestyle”, the article still makes sense. Nowhere in the article does it imply that you should prioritise work/money over living. There are multiple references to ensuring that you achieve personal goals inside and outside your job: “if you don't want your talent to go to waste” “Staying in a job for loyalty or money's sake is like staying in a bad marriage for the sake of kids. It's not healthy for anyone involved.” “Am I excited and happy to go to work every morning and see my teammates.” “She had grown tired of her role and was burnt out.” The author mostly talks about the time cost (not $) of your choices - most of us are given similar lifespans so choose how you invest your time wisely. PS: “Valley Girl Newsletter” - @leokennis: assuming “his” is impolite IMHO.
  - leokennis 6y ago
    Regarding his/her: that was a dumb assumption on my part. Apologies. It should be her. To the content of the article. This is what the author describes as the scenario to be avoided: > Your choice becomes limited to employers who want a cog in the big machine while your career will fade into a 9-5 job. As if this is per se a bad thing. As I said, if your career is your life then indeed, follow the authors advice. However if your career is just a tool to financially enable your real life, it’s great to be a cog in a 9-to-5 machine: you get to go home in time for dinner every day and you probably have mental energy to spare when you do. Further down, this is written: > If you're not paying attention, you lose precious years stagnating and being unhappy. Below, signs of unhappiness are: lack of work accomplishments, lack of “resume worthy work”, lack of new skills for future employment, lack of overthinking work problems in the shower, lack of kinship with colleagues felt. Again, for many people, work is not a goal in itself. I like my colleagues and I enjoy my job, but in the end the place I really want to be is not my office (but my home) and the people I really care about are not my colleagues (but my family and friends). Final exemplary quote: > You have at best 120 quarters left to make something of yourself. A year wasted at a poor job or role is equivalent to you throwing away 3.3% of your career. Again, apparently “making something of yourself” is equivalent to not wasting time at a job and having a good career? I fully stand by my points: * It’s fine to be very career and job minded. * You need to read the linked article with a lot of flexibility and creativity to come away with any other impression than the author is very career and job minded. * It shows a lack of perspective (or an abundance of personal insecurities) to write a preachy article like this without even considering that your goals (the authors goals) might not be the same as everyone else’s.

m463 6y ago

Depends on your motivations. It might also depend on your location. Silicon Valley culture sort of expects you to move around every few years - you will get a more well-rounded perspective both technically and personally. In other places, particularly with different employment opportunities, the picture might be different. The one that got me here was "misplaced loyalty" because looking back, most of the companies I've worked for are either radically different or ...gone.

humanrebar 6y ago

> if you are in a happy position with a great work life balance that encourages and enables you to both improve yourself and - particularly - your non-worklife Someone needs to write "waste your personal life, one comfortable year at a time".

rbinv 6y ago
More like uncomfortable.
ranit 6y ago
>> Someone needs to write ... And skip “comfortable” in the title.
ineedasername 6y ago
Yes, this is much more important. I love my job, but I'm not defined by it. I long ago realized and decided that I had no interest in chasing the next step up if it meant never having a stable personal life.
itronitron 6y ago
The overachievers can do that in less than a year.
sobani 6y ago
or: "waste your personal life, one competitive year at a time"

robocat 6y ago

The article strongly applies even for non-monetary career goals. And it is an article focusing on your career, not any life goals outside of that.

otras 6y ago

> a happy position with a great work life balance that encourages and enables you to both improve yourself and - particularly - your non-worklife Any advice for scoring this on my personal OKRs? I’m vacillating between 0.6 and 0.7 for this quarter, and I’m circling back with the other members of my household this afternoon.

Scoundreller 6y ago
Put your family members in the parking lot and follow up offline.

hellisothers 6y ago

I wrote a whole reply echoing another reply about how this article isn’t about maximizing money or status (though most of these articles are about that), that this article is just about staying competitive. But then I really thought about what you wrote and I think you’re saying that is besides the point, if you have good work life balance and really value that then it’s essentially maybe ok to give up some competitive edge. Here I will caution you, that is a trap which I think the article is trying to get at. I am one of those people who stayed too long at a job where I was losing my competitive edge because I felt like I had a great work-life balance! And work was fun! But one day I realized I’m actually being asked to eat a lot of crap so to speak that I hadn’t really noticed before and once I started to look for the exit it was obvious it was going to be harder than it should be because I had stagnated. Moral of my story (and this article), is stay competitive, you don’t have to crush it, but don’t lean back too far either.

munchbunny 6y ago
that this article is just about staying competitive. Moral of my story (and this article), is stay competitive, you don’t have to crush it, but don’t lean back too far either. There are a large number of people, including smart and successful and accomplished people, who work to live, not live to work. For the people who live to work (myself included), it's a good reminder to stay competitive and avoid complacency. But you have to understand yourself and what you're looking for. And that's what I think the real moral of the story is: understand what you want, what makes you happy, and what gives you meaning and purpose. Then make sure you're working towards that. Too many people forget to do the first thing and skip straight to the second because they inherit the answer from their environment without questioning it. For lots of people the answer to that question is not career related.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  But my dear friend, the economy doesn’t give two fucks about what you want. It is making part time door dash delivery drivers and Uber drivers out of college educated people. It’s making Classics majors into web developers via bootcamps, it’s hiring out in India, and it’s making the tech you know today sound literally stupid on your resume within 3 years. You’re also in a ageist industry, so there’s time working against you too. What you or I want is no longer a question afforded to us sadly.

mylons 6y ago

It’s also worth remembering that this is written by someone who is approaching 30 years old.

uchman 6y ago
Very true. As I grow older I realize that one should take the authors age in consideration when reading articles like this should be read.
- onecommentman 6y ago
  The problem is you need to read the article to find out the author is...young. Perhaps they assume that the title screens out those of a certain depth of experience. Like misspellings in Nigerian scam emails...
parsley27 6y ago
Do you mean that perspectives change into the 40s and 50s? I find that I'm considering this much more now that I'm in my 40s, because I know that as a generalist developer, I will be slowing down in skills compared to the younger devs, so I need to make sure my career is developing in areas that value my experience and soft skills. I think it's even easier to get complacent with not challenging those soft skills and "tech wisdom" by staying too long in one role.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >Do you mean that perspectives change into the 40s and 50s? You may still want to try new roles or at least take on new projects where you can learn new things. But... I find the older devs I know (I'm not actually one myself) mentoring, managing, possibly speaking in public more than they do just writing code. And, especially as people get into their 50s, at a larger company that's doing reasonably well, there's nothing wrong with seeking out a comfortable position that plays to your strengths.
- axetheone 6y ago
  I already feel this slowdown and I'm barely into my 30s.

mytailorisrich 6y ago

One thing to always keep in mind is that your job can disappear very quickly. If, or when, that happens those who've spent years in the comfort of that nice work-life balance and often, frankly, mediocrity (you don't improve yourself by staying in the comfort of such a job) are in for a shock.

mellosouls 6y ago
Absolutely (with the qualification there are certainly comfortable jobs you can continuously advance your skills in), but the counter is that life disappears very quickly too, and if you have spent your whole energy and time prioritising your career you are in danger of finding a far greater shock when you are looking back on what is actually meaningful in your life.

Nemi 6y ago

For me, keeping yourself relevant is not about money per se, but about freedom. Freedom to control your life instead of being controlled by an employer. By trading some current comfort (good work-life balance and low stress) for current discomfort (finding a new job and challenging yourself to grow) you make your "personal business" stronger (that is what value you and your career bring to prospective employers). That means if I do lose my job or my current employment situation goes south, I have less stress because I know my personal brand is strong and can go many places without fear. Bottom line, moving to a new job regularly is about investing in yourself and allowing you to control the direction of your life and not allowing others to control it.

bonoboTP 6y ago
A lot of young people around here dismiss money and status as superficial goals and hurt themselves in the long run. Once you leave the roughly egalitarian youth and college phase where everyone is roughly at a similar level (at least in your bubble), roads start diverging and money and status become more important than people especially idealistic nerds would imagine. The world is a cold hard place that doesn't give two shits what happens to you, whether you can make a living, provide your family or not. I don't mean to say that you have to enter the rat race and keep up with the Joneses and burn out. I just mean that money and status are these dirty words that are taboo to admit caring about in some circles, but it is money and status that earn you freedom and the ability to not give a fuck what people who you don't respect think about you. It is the only thing that will make annoying people you don't care about still act as if they respected you so you can concentrate on all the people and things you do care about.
- david-gpu 6y ago
  > money and status that earn you freedom and the ability to not give a fuck what people who you don't respect think about you Please, help me understand. It seems to me like not being bothered by what anybody thinks of you requires neither money nor status. Not only that, obtaining or maintaining social status, by definition, involves other people thinking highly of you in one way or another. And it would seem like one would need to be keenly aware of that in order to climb that ladder. I say this as somebody rather uninterested in their social status (what's the point of it?), who went from relative poverty to relative wealth and saw no difference in how much I care about either money or status. So, very much interested in understanding how this works for others. What am I missing?

alecbz 6y ago

Really I think the only part of the post that's particularly status/money driven is: > If you are an average 30 yr old engineer, let's say you want to retire reasonably by the time you are 60. You have at best 120 quarters left to make something of yourself. A year wasted at a poor job or role is equivalent to you throwing away 3.3% of your career. The older you get, the steeper your loss is. Which sort of implies that what matters is where you end up at the end of your career, not enjoying yourself a long the way. I guess this isn't so much "status/money" as it is "destination vs. journey", but I feel like those can be related. That said, I found most of the rest of the post to be much more broadly applicable. The Accomplishment/Impact/Growth/Challenge/Community framework I thought was especially good/useful to keep in mind.

xivzgrev 6y ago

exactly. I work with a guy who has a family, and probably stopped growing career wise years ago. But he makes good money, he enjoys the company, and he seems happy. He has enough depth of skill that if he were to get laid off, he could easily find another job in that area. For a while I looked down at him, like “dude why are you stagnating?” But over time I could see why he’s doing what he’s doing, and it works for him. Maybe I’m wrong and if he got laid off he would have difficulty finding another job. But that’s his choice, relative to living with daily stress of stretching and pushing to the next level. I think the people who are making poor choices are those who are driven by fear - they want to grow, they aren’t, and they are afraid to make a move. Or they fear being disloyal, or whatever. I myself stayed in my second job far too long, and have regretted it since. Since being at my current company, I’ve done something like this, though less formally. I went thru a period of 6 months where I was having less impact and I felt like I hit a “ceiling”, so I kept pushing for a different role. Then covid hit, some people left, priorities change, and now I have a perfect role and am growing again. If covid hadn’t happened I think I would’ve needed to start looking. I love my current company so was willing to wait it out a bit longer.

Lammy 6y ago

Unfortunately the modern world has been structured so money is a necessity to achieve most things humans naturally need. “Comin’ up as a coder in the cash game / Livin’ in the fast lane / I’m for real.”

EpicEng 6y ago

>It's worth remembering this article seems to come from a rather clichéd and narrow frame of reference - overly driven by money and perceived status - one which seems to drive a lot of very similar advisory posts. That was exactly my reaction. I was a lead for three years and recently decided to go back to a purely technical role. I just didn't like the work, and the prospect of spending the rest of my career in middle management was not appealing. I currently received an offer from a FAANG(M) company. This was a real offer from someone I had worked with in the past which would have required a very thin interview process. I declined because I very much enjoy the work I'm doing today. It may turn out to be a bad idea down the road if all I consider is money and that nice company name on my resume. I decided I don't care. I'd rather be a big fish in a small pond and work on truly interesting tech than be another cog in the wheel. I'm well past the "live to work" phase of my life, I just want to be happy, and I can't complain at all about my salary and benefits.

nine_k 6y ago
Fortunately, many companies have individual contributor engineering ladder all the way up. My personal ideal endgame is a position like a principal / staff engineer. While I can't compare to people like John Carmack or Rob Pike or Greg Kroah-Hartman, but they show what can be achieved. (Founding a company is another possible route, much more risky, though.)
- EpicEng 6y ago
  Yep, I'm currently Principal and am enjoying it very much.
- jjav 6y ago
  I wish, but haven't really seen any company with IC ladder "all the way up". The other problem is that high level IC roles are very rare whereas the equivalent management roles are plentiful. At a previous company I was the one and only Principal engineer in a division with enough Sr.Directors (equivalent level there) to fill a school bus. Currently I'm at a Distinguished engineer level which is even more limited, but it is still less than a VP. But we have hundreds of VPs of this and that on the management ladder. The fact that you bring up celebrity engineers as examples pretty much showcases the problem. There are very, very few of them.