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- The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard. Nobody notices, and even if they do you will likely not get anything out of it. Do you
by rmk 6y ago
- The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard. Nobody notices, and even if they do you will likely not get anything out of it. Do your job, but don't kill yourself over it. Work-life balance is king.
This has been my experience as well. Nowadays I work hard only while most of the following are true:
- I'm making top dollar (good salary + equity value is high)
- Work is interesting (something new to learn, or challenging, or both)
- My home life is not going great (there are ups and downs, and working hard during the downs is a pretty decent way of coping)
I absolutely do not work hard if any one of the following is true:
- Project Manager is applying pressure.
- People who do not deliver value have been promoted over me.
- Manager/Technical leadership has repeatedly ignored my advice and leanded the team in hot water (cutting corners to make arbitrary timelines, only to incur high support costs or maintenance costs later)
- Performance Management is not occurring at the company (underperformers are not thrown out, or, worse, promoted).
- Company is not doing well (equity value is down).
- Salary has not kept pace with market (i.e., nothing more than 3-4% raises per year).
- There is an over-reliance on junior people and they start calling the shots, thereby making my hard-won experience useless to the team.
- GeorgeTirebiter 6y agoWow, Great List! The last one (juniors calling the shots) really hit home; when I worked in <automobile industry>, I was ultimately standing on the shoulder of midgets. The worse part? As a CS grad, I knew how to do better, but: nobody with the power to change things understood how or why what I was suggesting was better(!). I've long thought about this afterward, and concluded it's that 'my world' (which includes a lot of experience, and facility with Math) required me to study a lot and learn a lot; and these 'coders' simply did not have the background to understand what I was trying to teach them. I would have had to fill in several semesters in order to get my points across. Yes, I left. (And yes I tried simplifying - but that only goes so far.)
- rmk 6y agoIt's very prevalent in this industry. Newbies cost less and there is usually a lot of mundane work that needs doing, so they comprise the majority of any average team. Even more so in established or mid-size companies where the sudden expansion or huge existing base necessitates a lot of grunt work. Sadly, there is also a trend of managers bending over backwards to please newbies (otherwise the hiring pipeline is thought to dry up; also, it's easier to hand out raises that appear larger if pay is lower) which exacerbates the situation.
- monsieurbanana 6y agoI'm curious, what kind of things did you learn in your cs curriculum that applies to that job, and the other coders didn't have? I'll precise I'm not being sarcastic, genuinely curious. My math background could be better and I'm planning on improving that, but it would be for personal satisfaction as it's not hurting my work (legal tech). But maybe it is, you don't know what you don't know.
- justinclift 6y agoSounds like you're an algorithms guy, and the other coders didn't have the background needed for understanding their use? I'm self taught, and for many years didn't know about algorithms, big-O notation, and similar. You can do a lot of stuff without that knowledge, but there are definitely some areas that require it.
- wesleywt 6y agoJust to add to the list. Keep a paper trail of all communications between you and your line management or any other colleague. Especially abusive communications. It will look really bad when you read these out aloud at a HR meeting for them.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- wintercharm 6y agoHiring Newbies to call the shots becoming a cost saving pillar that eroded work culture at Boeing is one of those things that indirectly contributed to the recent debacle.
- rmk 6y agoIs a bean counter still heading Boeing? Technology companies really need to be run by technologists first, businessmen second. It's fine to have a COO handle the nitty-gritty of running the company, but the vision and culture need to be set by a technical person and should be very technology-focused in general.
- acntr_employee 6y agoThrowaway for obvious reasons I work for a company belonging to Accenture. I can only agree. Shareholders get +10%. Employees get nil. It is expected that we do at least 15 - 25% overtime without compensation. Project manager promises everything the client asks for. Even if they know we cannot in any universe deliver this without massive overtime. At the same time they introduce new mandatory processes to follow costing additional time. Performance management is a joke. Employee development non existent. Promotion and raises have nothing to do with performance. If managing directors do not like you, you are out of luck as they ultimately decided on your salary, promotion and bonuses. I am still there because I can only switch jobs after Sept 2021 for private reasons. After that it is jobhunting season. If anyone is of the opinion that you do not deserve adequate pay, can be bullied by project managers or others - do yourself a favor and look for another company that does value you.
- 908B64B197 6y ago> Accenture Large consulting firms seems to operate this way, being basically a pyramid with endless layers of non-programming "Enterprise Architect Solution Expert". I've had folks tell me explicitly when joining these firms post-grad that their goal was not to code in two years.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoAny company that has to change its name to avoid bad publicity is not worth working for.
- WalterBright 6y ago> Nobody notices This is a common problem. It doesn't work to do great work and expect others to notice. You've got to promote yourself and your work. Nobody is going to do it for you.
- aurelius 6y agoA good manager should.
- WalterBright 6y agoYou'll be much happier with the career results of taking care of this yourself rather than waiting for someone else to do it. I've seen too many people become embittered waiting for someone else.
- citelao 6y agoI upvoted both this and the parent. Without much experience in the industry, I would say that both perspectives are important: The person most invested in your success is you, so leverage that and promote yourself. But you absolutely deserve management and teammates who celebrate your accomplishments and help you get rewarded for them. Discrimination and prejudice also affect this—it’s probably hard to advocate for yourself if your management just doesn’t believe you’re capable for some reason—but I’ve generally found solace in the synthesis of both attitudes. Fight for yourself, but find people who fight with you. Maybe put it like this: if you yourself were a people manager, wouldn’t you want to advocate for your reports?
- p0nce 6y agoThis is generally true, however in a toxic workplace being effective might set you as a target for doomed projects or envy - even sabotage. You may see people getting promoted by threatening to leave rather than doing good work. You can't assume good intent in every situation sadly.
- qznc 6y agoWhen I switched to a different team a year ago, I talked with my ex-manager and asked what he considers be strengths and weaknesses. I found the answer quite funny because it was a random sample of mostly minor things. It showed my that my manager has actually no clue what I'm doing all day. He is a nice guy and wants to be a good manager but that is harder than it looks. His biggest criticism was that 20 months earlier, I skipped him and addressed his bosses boss for some bureaucratic thing. I find that argument reasonable but it showed me that he was not aware of the full context. Either I never explained it to him or he forgot. The context is: At that time I was in a special two week task-force team where his bosses boss was officially involved as Scrum Master. As such he was officially responsible for impediments. The impediment was: We either get this bureaucracy thing out of the way today or I'm unable to participate in the task-force anymore. Given the urgency and him being our Scrum Master, I found skipping levels the right thing to do.
- arvinsim 6y agoThis just convinced me to look for another job ASAP.
- EricE 6y ago>The primary lesson I learnt is that it doesn't matter if you work hard. Nobody notices, and even if they do you will likely not get anything out of it. Do your job, but don't kill yourself over it. Work-life balance is king. I dunno - I worked hard, especially early in my career and people noticing lead to four new jobs, two of which included substantial pay/benefit raises. Then again more than a bit of that hard work was on cross-organizational teams; I wasn't acting solely in my direct organizational unit. So hard work can pay off if you are doing it somewhere it is visible by others. Getting involved in working groups outside of your company, even if you have to do it after hours, is a great way to network and help others notice your work ethic. I see far too many people who burrow into their current organization and then just bitch about it without doing something about it. If people can't see you they won't be able to recognize your work. This isn't directed at you but just a general observation - if you don't like your current organization, get proactive and do something about it. I have little sympathy for people who just complain without doing anything.
- efavdb 6y agoAgree. Not always easy to be rewarded within a company. However, others will notice you do good work (assuming you can make it visible) and they’ll be a great resource when seeking next positions.
- p0nce 6y agoIt's fun because sometimes all of your points are true at once :)