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You just spouted the most popular response and opinion posted to HN. For an actual unpopular opinion, if you want to stagnate and work applying the same repeti
by Kranar 5y ago
You just spouted the most popular response and opinion posted to HN.
For an actual unpopular opinion, if you want to stagnate and work applying the same repetitive skillset over and over again, work for a company where stagnation is not only fine but more than welcome. Those include government jobs, non-profit organizations, and very large companies that have little to no risk of competition, such as telecom, large banks, or various zombie tech companies that have not managed to produce any significant innovations in more than 2-3 decades... like IBM or Oracle.
Most other companies in the tech field simply do not have room for stagnation and a company that has stagnating workers will find itself highly vulnerable to disruption by a company that prefers to hire people who have a genuine interest in constantly keeping their skills up to date.
It also causes major productivity issues for a company that has stagnating employees because it inhibits the ability of experts from distributing their knowledge. The majority of the value from senior most experts does not come from their direct output but rather from the distribution of their knowledge and expertise to people less skilled. All of that potential gets lost if there's a substantial group of people who simply want to stay put in their skillset.
- throwawayboise 5y agoI have such a stagnatory job right now, in a large state university. Odd as it may sound, I currently do not report to anyone. Nobody is tasking me with anything, nobody is supervising me. I therefore have about 5 hours of real work to do in an average week. The rest of the time I can use to learn about and explore things that interest me, so personally I am not stagnating.
- UK-Al05 5y agoKeeping technical skills updated and innovation are rarely the skills that move you up the hierarchy
- johnnyanmac 5y agoIt sounds like we're discussing a person who very specifically doesn't want to move up the hierarchy. But rather stay updated enough to keep afloat.
- alkonaut 5y ago> people who have a genuine interest in constantly keeping their skills up to date. These (wanting to progress to completely different duties vs improving your skills in your current role) are orthogonal though. I don't mind learning a new language every week or whatever it might be. What's being discussed isn't someone who isn't willing to learn new skills. It's about not completely wanting to change career paths (e.g. Engineering into management).
- silicon2401 5y agoThis is exactly the kind of advice I was hoping to find in this thread. Do government contractors, large orgs like IBM, etc often offer remote jobs? Frankly I've always been content to just coast, and my current job is an environment a little more high-pressure and competitive than most, which has just confirmed that I don't care about anything beyond the paycheck. I could see myself at some same org coding happily and adding value for quite some time, as long as permanent wfh is part of the job and the expectations of 'ambition' aren't too high.