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I’ve been solidly programming since I was a teenager, over 30 years now, in many languages, frameworks, operating systems, whatever. I have been building compl
by hn7d7a03c88fee2 6y ago
I’ve been solidly programming since I was a teenager, over 30 years now, in many languages, frameworks, operating systems, whatever. I have been building complex networked applications since the mid 1990s. I got tired of the constant “you must have 30 years’ experience in this four year old framework or language” filter used by hiring teams.
You see it here on HN often with people allegedly in hiring positions claiming that if you indeed have been in the industry for 30 years they expect you to shit diamonds and emit industrial strength code in whatever language and platform they decide is important right here, right now, on the spot. The fear of making a potential "bad hire" is so paramount that hiring managers would prefer never to fill the role than to consider maybe, just maybe, it is unrealistic to expect someone would have more years experience with a required skill than is actually possible.
If you are not 100% up to speed on the latest big thing you are a zero, no middle ground, no "give me a couple of days to see how the new new thing maps to last week's new thing".
Just tired of it. The credentialism, the sexism, the ageism, the misogyny, the thinly veiled nationalism.
I am not a genius, I don't have any patents. I'm a decent, solid, hard core coder. Give me a word mess of APIs and the target language or framework you want to use and I can pull together an MVP that solves your problem fairly quickly (is it production code at that moment? No, of course not, is it ready to be iterated and turned into production code? absolutely).
I can't get a phone screen, let alone an interview.
So, yeah, I am out of the software industry. I do other things that leverage what I have learned but I am not writing code, am not babysitting some system. I would not say I am happier, but I am content, and I sleep better at night than I ever did in the time I was "in the industry".
- cauliflower99 6y agoGreat account - thanks for sharing! Can I ask what you are doing these days? Personally, I see the problem solving skills of coders as completely transferable into other industries. I'm interested to hear where people go with their valuable skills.
- the_only_law 6y agoSadly credentials are not as transferable.
- strikelaserclaw 6y agowhere exactly are you located? There are a ton of "boring" software jobs that exist to support a business in medium sized cities, not like them "world changing" tech jobs in the bay area but they pay the bills.
- giantg2 6y agoHonestly, from everything I've heard about the tech jobs at tech companies, the boring business related jobs treat you worse, pay you less, and give you less satisfaction.
- killtimeatwork 6y agoI work as a tech lead in banking and honestly there's zero pressure and we're just pampered. The job is mostly bog-standard boring - i.e. we get to play with the newest tech for tech's sake (again - pampered), but the use cases are standard and simple. If you can get this job to pay well, it's basically a variant of "rest and vest", where you can top up your bank account and recharge for a couple years before your next adventure. And, if you're not the adventurous type, it's a great job for life.
- giantg2 6y agoThat hasn't been my experience in finance. There is zero tech for tech sake at my company. There is a lot of pressure to deliver on schedule and reduce cycle times. They pay ok, but not great.
- killtimeatwork 6y agoIt must depend on which area of business you're in. It's good to land in departments which generate most revenue (in our bank, that's trading) or in "this is the future" areas, which for us is big data and cloud. There, the money flows more freely and developers are more pampered. Also, I'm working in a Scandinavian bank and work-life balance is important there (overtime is very rare).