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Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice (2011)
- jayd16 5y ago>Perceptive readers will note that 100 does not actually show up on a d100 Yes it does.
- jakearmitage 5y agoFact: https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamescience.com%2Fassets%2Fimages%2FImported%2520d100%2520Blue_White.jpg&f=1&nofb=1 https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
- xwdv 5y agoOof, pointing out an error like that already takes away any motivation from reading the featured article.
- thomasahle 5y agoHe included 0, so I guess his d100 is a [0, 99] kind
- hacoo 5y agoMany d100s use ‘00’, which I always interpreted as ‘100’. Fitting 3 digits on a tiny die face is hard.
- MattGaiser 5y ago> You really want to be attached to Profit Centers because it will bring you higher wages, more respect, and greater opportunities for everything of value to you. I’m experiencing this now. I was attached to a theoretical (in the way that startups are) profit centre which just got whacked and now I am being shifted over to “business support.” Accordingly, we are the last to hear about anything. Boss used to be consulted on things. Now he is told via email of who he now reports to.
- whiskeytuesday 5y agoWow is this ever condescending
- jeffkeen 5y ago*confident
- yellowapple 5y agoThose ain't mutually exclusive, as this article demonstrates rather plainly.
- ModernMech 5y ago> If you really like the atmosphere at universities, that is cool. Put a backpack on and you can walk into any building at any university in the United States any time you want. I would not follow this advice if your really have no business being there. Most universities in the US are in fact private institutions and this would be considered trespassing if you are found out. You might have an easy time blending in, but if any faculty (not just police, at least at my institution) asks to see your school ID, you are required to produce it.
- pfraze 5y agoOne thing I know some schools offer is, IIRC, auditing classes. I did this at UT a few years ago. You basically pay a filing fee and then can attend classes without enrolling. No credits or degree possibility AFAIK, but you get to learn.
- bitwize 5y agoMost universities these days also have their buildings locked with an RFID lock that responds to a valid university ID. To get into the buildings you will have to "tailgate" on someone else, which looks really sus.
- leetcrew 5y agomeh, it's pretty common for students to lose/misplace their ID cards. where I went to college, people would usually let any college-aged person follow them into a building without a second thought.
- jongorer 5y agoHave you ever been to uni? Tailgating is performed on a regular basis, even by ppl w/ cards that are too lazy to take them out of their backpacks.
- MattGaiser 5y agoI graduated university two years ago. Anybody would let anyone in to anywhere unless you looked long term homeless. You could randomly tap the glass and people would let you in.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- the_only_law 5y ago> You radically overestimate the average skill of the competition because of the crowd you hang around with: Many people already successfully employed as senior engineers cannot actually implement FizzBuzz. Just read it and weep. Key takeaway: you probably are good enough to work at that company you think you’re not good enough for. They hire better mortals, but they still hire mortals. As much as I want to believe this, I think the ability of developers separates itself in different “classes”. The senior devs who can’t complete a fizzbuzz are probably not the competition for the jobs I want.
- borski 5y agoYou’re wrong, from my experience. I’ve interviewed many a “senior developer” who simply cannot code any longer because they’ve spent all their time doing other things or at a higher level. Some can still code, and that’s your competition. Many cannot.
- slumdev 5y agoThe people who can't code any longer are still typically able to describe an algorithm, at least in pseudocode. Whiteboarding Yet Another Graph Search Problem With Perfect Syntax[1] might be beyond their current short-term abilities, but I'd be surprised if they couldn't produce pseudocode and architectural design that solves most real-world problems. On the other hand, there are plenty of "seniors" who couldn't write code in the first place. [1]Everyone knows which employer does this.
- eysquared 5y agoAs someone that has held that title at multiple FAANGS and done hundreds of interviews: please don't equate performance in the absurd interview process with ability to code. Most of the best developers I know would fail a technical interview for their current job.
- swader999 5y agoAmen to that.
- pfraze 5y agoMmm. I get the idea, but I think there’s a better way to describe this. Programmers are in such high demand that it’s the opposite of a dirty word. What’s being described feels more like mid- or late-career advice where you might want to specialize to keep advancing. That can mean deep-diving a domain, like the post suggests. It can mean focusing in a category of comp sci, like distributed systems or ML. It can mean consulting. It can mean management. Etc.
- SwiftyBug 5y ago> Don’t call yourself a programmer: “Programmer” sounds like “anomalously high-cost peon who types some mumbo-jumbo into some other mumbo-jumbo.” That's a perfect description of what I do. I'm proudly a Programmer.
- BulgarianIdiot 5y agoYeah, WTF is wrong with that. It's the job description. Programmers are essentially a type of translator. They translate constraints expressed in human language to constraints expressed as computer language. At the higher levels you have more say how exactly that happens in terms of system topology, but at that point you're no longer just a programmer, but an architect.
- LennyWhiteJr 5y ago> Yeah, WTF is wrong with that. Nothing is 'wrong' with it. You just do it at the detriment of your own career.
- BulgarianIdiot 5y agoThat's the thesis in this article. But it's non-sense BS. Even an idiot can put two and two together and conclude that if their business value depends on programs, then programmers create business value.
- slumdev 5y ago> Yeah, WTF is wrong with that Nothing is wrong with it. Donald Knuth proudly describes himself as a programmer. But a good chunk of the people reading this comment probably make more money than he does, and title inflation is part of the stupid game we have to play to earn outsized rewards. So proceed with caution.
- quietunivac 5y ago"I am a programmer. On my 1040 form, that is what I put down as my occupation. As a programmer, I write programs." -- Ken Thompson, in his 1983 Turing Award lecture, "Reflections on Trusting Trust". https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/358198.358210
- ku-man 5y agoThe author of this blog post uses the words engineer and engineering way too haphazardly. In my opinion, calling yourself engineer, when you are not a registered one, is a disservice to the actual engineers (that have to pass technical and ethical exams)
- bickeringyokel 5y agoConversely, engineers can be "registered" and relegated to other adjacent roles because their credentials have been eclipsed by their lack of meaningful experience, and their ideas are no better than the smart programmers in the room. So I do understand the haphazardness to a degree, anyone can engineer, but not everyone can be an engineer.
- yellowapple 5y agoThat's exactly why I don't call myself an "engineer" beyond whatever formal title some employer might assign to me.
- tengbretson 5y agoDon't engineers have engineering degrees or else have some other sort of credentials?
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoI do have an electronic engineering degree.
- Mikeb85 5y agoThey're supposed to. Do all 'software engineers' have professional engineer credentials? Probably not.
- ku-man 5y agoThat was the case until the 2000's. Nowadays, if you can tweak a wordpress website you are an "engineer"
- atoav 5y agoI have a MA of fine Arts. And a certification to do work on the German electrical grid. I also am the best programmer in the whole IT department and the only one who has no CS background.
- swader999 5y agoThat's more common than you think. A respectable company Thoughtworks hired this way and boot camped and mentored people well the first couple years of their careers. I always like looking at the code and working with projects from their teams. Communication, working nicely with others, humility and the soft skills help you build a network so that when you need help you don't spin your wheels. The bigO crowd will disagree but even the hard core comp sci types will go much further with real soft skills.
- ku-man 5y agoSo, you consider yourself an engineer then. How are your partial differential equations modeling skills? did you enjoy your strength of materials course?
- fxleach 5y agoWritten by someone who sounds like they haven't done any programming.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- newpatio11 5y agoWelcome to HN. Type less read more. Or has said else where: lurk more.
- fxleach 5y agoNot sure what your comment means. Welcome to HN as well, I guess?
- newpatio11 5y agoshould've named this account patio12 oh well
- csa 5y agoWelcome to HN. You’re relatively new here. Patio11 is one of the grands hommes of this site. I strongly suggest you have less certainty and more curiosity when you come across something like this.
- fxleach 5y agoWhile my account may be new here, I am not. Being a "grands hommes" of this site doesn't change anything and you've given absolutely no extra information to counter my point.
- yellowapple 5y agoWell yeah, I think that's the premise of the article :)
- fxleach 5y ago
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoWhen I was young I didn't cally myself a dev so that people would view me as more. Now that I have enought, I do call myself a dev so that it filters annoying interractions.
- yawboakye 5y agoThe bigger problem is the forced march of hobbyist programmers (who had to get this job just to pay the bills) into some corporate automata climbing up and down some ladder in the name of career. The only thing worse than a career is career advice, especially if given by a career programmer. Enjoy being a programmer, from this you'd never have to retire. Enjoy the freedom; it shouldn’t be all about money and optimizing the optics of what you do, just to force some perspectives.
- croes 5y agoI think this explains a lot of the buggy software, companies should have employed someone who calls himself a programmer. And maybe companies should learn that they need programmers especially good ones otherwise you get something like Salesforce
- ChrisArchitect 5y ago(2011) anything new to add? Some previous discussion: 2 years ago (which is basically same as now) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21303181 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21303181 5 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12548043 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12548043 7 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8147008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8147008
- blippage 5y agoThe older I get the louder I shout at clouds. "Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things" FFS. True enough, but it's still claptrap. One quote from George Orwell really struck for me: "speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." It's why now when people ask me what I do, I say "programmer", not "software developer". Actually, I usually say "computer programmer", because otherwise people get confused and think it might be to do with programming videos. Like programming your video recorder was a job, or something.
- rekabis 5y ago> Many people already successfully employed as senior engineers cannot actually implement FizzBuzz. The f*ck?? * For loop, int 1-100 * if int%3 == 0 && int%5 == 0, print fizzbuzz * else if int%3 == 0 , print fizz * else if int%5 == 0, print buzz * else print int. How difficult is that??
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- otabdeveloper4 5y agoVery difficult for a person that only ever copy-pasted existing code into an IDE and fixed the squiggly lines by trial and error. (And remember that "senior" only references to years of experience; if you have 10 years of copy-paste experience, then congratulations, you're now a "senior".)
- denton-scratch 5y agoI was once a programmer. I was promoted to "Assistant Systems Analyst" (but I wasn't actually assigned to assist anyone). I was promoted again to "Systems Analyst" (I wasn't in fact a systems analyst - real systems analysts don't program, and I've never analysed a client's processses and systems). I was promoted to "Consultant". I confess I did do some consulting for clients; but the job was mainly programming, as before. I was hired as an Engineer (I was nothing of the sort). I was hired again, as a "Senior Developer". I was "senior", in that I was the oldest person in the company. I had no reports, and my duties were the same as all the other peons in the company. I've done many other things than programming during that time; for example, I've designed complex systems of interacting components (which I understand is now known as "architecture"). I've done a lot of sysadmin; in fact I once had the job-title "systems adminstrator" for a short while. The whole time, my real job has been programming computers. I'm not a professional; I belong to no professional bodies. I'm a tradesman, or perhaps a journeyman craftsman. I know I'm not a Master Craftsman. My trade is programming, so in point of fact I am a programmer. I'm certainly not ashamed of that; most people I know are incapable of doing the work I do. There's no shame in being a tradesman. Hell, my electrician probably earns more than me; he has to get certified every year. He's more like a "professional" than I am. And FWIW, I'd much sooner have my pay inflated than my job-title.
- pdimitar 5y agoSeeing all of the dismissals of the article makes me think you all are proving the author's point for him. Read: you are not ready to step up your career and are stuck in the phase of taking pride in your craft and optimizing for job stability in your current company. If you are completely fine with your salary and job atmosphere and have no further ambitions then great, that's good for you; not the case for me and many other programmers looking to break their back less and make more money however. I've personally been a real-time witness to how I flunked interviews -- and rarely, some sort of business negotiations -- due to sending the wrong signals: clothing, general demeanor, tone of voice, wrong topics (programming languages or amount of servers etc.), and others. I've been there when I failed those, I even cried after some of them, but I gave myself time to reflect and extracted my lessons. Are people super shallow in how they judge you? Feck yes they are, there's no ways around that fact. But one thing I am learning after I hit 40 and wanted something more than being a yet-another-programmer-drone-fearing-for-his-job, is that rebelling against reality and not making a strategy to exploit the said reality is foolhardy and downright at a teenager level of being disconnected with reality. Or, to use more HN-friendly lingo: it's not productive. I find it interesting how many people here rebel against the realities the author outlined. And yes they are realities, not fantasies. People will judge you by your clothes and people will try to negotiate you down and the moment you budge they lose all respect for you; to them you are no longer a potential business partner, you are now a lowly slave they can boss around so they want to quickly wrap up the dinner with you and leave. Those dynamics do exist. IMO it pays off to see all this, acknowledge it, stop rebelling against it, take a few deep breaths, and learn how to exploit it. Evolution. Those who adapt best will survive. I am looking to change my life and that's why I feel the way I do about all this. If you are happy with your life I can only envy you and congratulate you for being in a state of internal harmony.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago> The decisionmaker at a company knows he needs someone. He tells his friends and business contacts. One of them knows someone — family, a roommate from college, someone they met at a conference, an ex-colleague, whatever. Introductions are made, a meeting happens, and they achieve agreement in principle on the job offer. Must be an American thing. Where I'm from this screams "did not practice due diligence", which is a big management ouchie.