17 ms·

This career feels like a few key hours with year-long cool-down periods

• ram_rar 5y ago
  you can play musical chairs with Soft dev jobs for a while, but soon you'll plateau or/and eventually replaced by fresh out of college dev.
  • mnkmnk 5y ago
    If you are going to get replaced by fresh out of college dev anyway, as well make money by switching companies lots of times.
  • ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Depends. If you're switching jobs just for more money and don't get any useful experience or skills along they way, effectively coasting along and becoming a junior with X years of experience, then yes you can be replaced. However, if you're smart and a little bit selective, making sure to only job hop to gigs that provide some challenge and growth opportunities, not just going with every recruiter that promises you more $$$, then the skills you'll develop and pick up should guarantee that no junior can easily replace you. My $0.02.
    • raverbashing 5y ago
      Yeah I think in a similar way The market is filled with "Juniors with X yrs experience". Even 10, 20 yrs experience. No kidding. A lot of newer developers are more accustomed to copy-pasting React stuff from SO. Which is fine, but it doesn't solve all problems. That's how you end up with people that only know how to deploy stuff using Docker containers (which, again, is fine for most situations). At some point the grown-ups have to show up. Can you be the grown-up?
  • b9a2cab5 5y ago
    No senior I've worked with could be replaced by a fresh out of college dev. You don't deserve to be called senior if you can.
    • trutannus 5y ago
      SoP - Senior on Paper. There's a lot of places where senior is just a title they slap on someone to fit them into a position.
      • throwaway210222 5y ago
        Indeed, which is why my trusted definition of 'senior' is that you have a budget and can sign off on a decent signed purchase order. There are very few senior people.
  • EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
    Here's where the code obfuscation skills come handy. Make enough of a mess and you are irreplaceable.
• jcun4128 5y ago
  I'm so glad I have experience now (few years). I remember how hard it was to get in (I'm not from a tech background). I don't have to memorize random things I don't even use in my day job. I agree though I got a 40% raise jumping to a new job, I'm still below $100K but it's something for me in the midwest. I don't aim to stay in it professionally for a long time though, will save/invest and get out. Do it on my own time for fun/to build things. Edited: took out random crap about me not relevant
  • grecy 5y ago
    Shoot me a message if you'd like to sell any of those G lenses :) I promise to put them to good use exploring the world. Email in profile
    • jcun4128 5y ago
      haha put your money where you mouth is right, I just got them have to hold on to them for a bit. just thinking it's crazy how much they cost despite how little you might use them. Gear Acquisition Syndrome as they say, I bought them used anyway. I checked out your sites, pretty cool what you do.
  • lordlic 5y ago
    > I don't have to memorize random things I don't even use in my day job Yeah, imagine what kind of nerd would be interested in the field and genuinely want to learn all they can, ha ha.
    • jcun4128 5y ago
      Oh I'm not a pro developer man, I'm mediocre. I can get things done but I'm no John Carmack or something. I do have random interests though and write code outside of work in other topics. I guess specifically I don't know much about algorithms/big-o stuff like that (working on it, trying to change fields where I can use that). I do acknowledge being weak in math, I'm concerned if I can actually do ML. I'm a glue-er is the term, crud apps. The OT talked about leetcode/that's something I hear people grind while also applying to "hundreds" of jobs.
• dasil003 5y ago
  This attitude is terrible and corrosive to your own sense of self-worth. Yeah, life isn't fair, let alone performance reviews. No matter who you are, someone else has it easier, like the trust fund kid you see driving past in the Tesla, but do you think he's happy? We all have to eat, so by all means take the next job that will pay you more. But when you're at that job, whatever you are working on, take pride in it! Always do the best you can, even if you hate your boss. This is not for the benefit of the company, it's for your own mental health and integrity. Over time this builds your skills and competence, which opens more doors. Petulantly slacking off because you weren't sufficiently recognized hurts no one but yourself; the universe does not care.
  • khazhoux 5y ago
    And yet, is he wrong? It's a plain fact that after busting your ass for a year, your promotion will in most cases be shot down during performance review for all the usual scope ("not enough scope", "I want to see more leadership", "almost there but let's consider it in a year", etc)... and yet a single day of strong interviews can get you that bump just like that.
    • secondaryacct 5y ago
      Yes he's wrong: to be promoted you must be doing the next job already and the management must be terrified you leave. You can love your job and hop out sometimes. But petulantly slacking off like OP says, is not going to make you happy.
      • Aeolun 5y ago
        So getting hired for 20% more salary is much easier than performing at the next level and getting a promotion? Op is not saying he’s slacking off. He’s saying it doesn’t matter what he does.
      • Sanguinaire 5y ago
        It's not about petulance, it's about motivation. I'm in a similar position to the author but acting more like you would want; I care about being good at my job and want to deliver because that is how I was raised, but there is a constant tension in me that this is the "wrong" approach since no company actually rewards loyalty or expertise, at least not nearly as much as self-promotion and being a corporate mouthpiece. Regarding promotion and being indispensable, that cuts both ways - in some roles being impossible to replace also means you are impossible to promote, since the next step up the rigidly defined corporate ladder may not have sufficient overlap with your current role.
• angarg12 5y ago
  So this person figured out the current meta-game of tech: jump jobs every 1-2 years early in your career to maximise comp. But that's not the whole story. First, this works in your early career where growth and learning are very fast, but at some level of seniority this strategy wont work as well. Second, I disagree that "what you do in between barely matters". Is like an athlete winning a medal and saying that those years of training were useless. That time is where you learn, grow, and get prepared for the next jump. If that's not the case, you are setting yourself up for failure. Third, the market is red-hot right now. It says more about the market than your personal abilities. It might not be always be like this. Fourth, companies are terrible at retaining talent, and sadly job hopping is often the easiest way to get a raise and a promotion. That's the point you got completely right.
  • quanto 5y ago
    I totally agree with your 4 points. However, OP, in my interpretation, is arguing that the job change process is so much more dependent on those few hours of interview rather than career-long growth that career-long growth (or on-the-job performance) doesn't matter. Of course, interviews are meant to test candidates on their career development and growth as well, but in reality, it is uncertain whether they do, especially if they are focused on LeetCode/theory questions.
    • secondaryacct 5y ago
      I dont know which domain you work in, but in banking everyone knows everyone and the interview either doesnt happen or doesnt lead to hiring if you ve been visibly slacking off.
    • ALittleLight 5y ago
      Once I wanted a role change. I worked on it with my manager, tried to pick up work related to the new role, set career plans, all that stuff, for months. Couldn't quite get it done because I always wound up paying more attention to the duties of my current role than the one I wanted. Interviewed with a different group for the role I wanted and got it with a few hours of interviews. It was absolutely not the case that I learned anything relevant from my experience trying to switch roles on my current team. It absolutely was the case that the 3-4 hours of interviewing (plus luck of the draw on my interviewers and their questions) meant way more to my career than months of planning and effort.
• khazhoux 5y ago
  Unaddressed in all these comments: are companies simply too stingy with promotions? Take a look at startups with strong engineers they got from FAANGs. I'm willing to bet in most cases, those people jumped because they were sick of being denied promotion. Take a look at the number of engineers on your team who have been contributing for years and are still stuck at junior engineer level. The next candidate who "seems strong" will get slotted in higher.
  • sime2009 5y ago
    Companies are happy to compete with each other in the market for people when hiring, but they forget that they are still competing with the market to retain their existing employees. The situation is even dumber when you consider the costs incurred by on-boarding new employees and the knowledge lost when employees leave.
    • alecco 5y ago
      More like the CEO/CFO are only expected to have a churn rate similar to competitors. Above: raise comp. Below: slow down. Source: I was involved in comp decision meetings in previous jobs. They don't say it explicitly but the expected rates lead the discussion. Blame investors and boards whose goals are never past a year or two. This is the same in startups and in large companies.
      • hammock 5y ago
        >More like the CEO/CFO are only expected to have a churn rate similar to competitors. Above: raise comp. Below: slow down. Honest, curious question- What exactly is it that's wrong about that? Doesn't that exactly reflect the point that "they are still competing with the market to retain their existing employees"?
        • alecco 5y ago
          It's a path to mediocrity.
    • 5y ago
• BrianOnHN 5y ago
  Takeaway: we aren't changing jobs enough. The OP suggests some "decision" was made so employees compensation is increased minimally, unless you change jobs. The only decisions that was made was by complacent individuals, which are apparently also here in the HN comments. Change jobs more frequently. If we all do that, the compensation increases from performance and job-change will converge.
  • bagels 5y ago
    This works well in the current market. It doesn't work as well when there is restraint in growth
• nravic 5y ago
  Do people out of college even do Leetcode anymore? Surely there's a better use of time once you're in a paying job.
  • wayoutthere 5y ago
    Yeah, grinding leetcode is still effective below the staff engineer level. Above that we start looking at what you’ve done that’s not code (conference talks, open source leadership, whitepapers, managing consultants, etc).
    • shamiln 5y ago
      I am interviewing for a Staff Software Engineer, SRE role and I expect leetcode to come up as part of the interviewing process.
      • wayoutthere 5y ago
        Oh the leetcode is a given at the staff level — it’s a filter, not selection criteria.
  • djur 5y ago
    I have never heard the word "Leetcode" where I work, or indeed anywhere other than HN, and I've interviewed candidates for every rung of the IC ladder. Never seen it on a resume, either.
    • strikelaserclaw 5y ago
      Software engineer salaries are increasing following a bimodal distribution, i always thought you had to be a genius level person to work at FB, GOOG, then i see my own coworkers (whom i consider smart but not exceptional) do the leetcode grind and 2x their salary. I'm pretty much in the same boat with you, i worked mainly outside of SF/Seattle for a long time and i'm amazed how much these engineers get paid compared to other cities.
• jedberg 5y ago
  I have to praise Netflix here for getting this right. They don't do pidly raises. They look at how much they have to offer to get good candidates in the door, and they give everyone doing the same work a raise up to that level. Some years I got 20%+ raises (and so did all of my peers). Almost no one left Netflix for more money. If they left it was either to do work they couldn't do at Netflix, to get a much larger scope (like going from manager to director), or to start their own company.
  • hammock 5y ago
    What is it about Netflix that they pay so well? Lots of tech companies have tons of cash, that's not it. Other tech companies are equally profitable, that's not it. What is the tradeoff that Netflix is making, in order to invest in its employees the way that it does?
    • tacostakohashi 5y ago
      In general companies in the growth phase operate somewhat like Netflix. Once companies have reached their maximum / optimum size, they start focusing on operational efficiencies.
    • jedberg 5y ago
      I think it's because the founders were engineers, but more than that, engineers who actually worked for someone else first and also had another company before Netflix. So unlike say Facebook or Microsoft, the company culture was created by someone who has actually been an employee before. Also unlike a lot of the other tech companies, the salaries of the engineers aren't their biggest cost -- content is. So they don't take as big a hit on their stock price or profitability when their engineering costs go up because they are dwarfed by content costs. And lastly because they believe that overpaying for talent makes sense in the long run because then a lot of the best talent wants to work there, so they can get paid a lot and be surrounded by other people who like a culture where poor performance is rewarded with a big severance. I won't lie, the culture isn't for everyone. I personally enjoyed the pressure of having to constantly perform, I felt it made me do better work, but not everyone is like that.
• omginternets 5y ago
  > Impostor worries about being found out. Scoundrel thrives on the hilarity of not being found out. This comment immediately reminded me of Alan Watts’ description of the scoundrel. I’m inclined to consider this to be the correct framing and attitude.
• qq4 5y ago
  I'm curious why this upvoted (on HN, not reddit). It boils down to whining to me, with a bit of insecurity, "cowardly.. take forever.. lacking in discipline" tacked on the end of the post. Maybe the work they do doesn't matter, and maybe they are quite mediocre.
• black_13 5y ago
  Wow yeah thats about it
• SergeAx 5y ago
  I beleive it is just a Peter's principle scaled out to the entire market. Substandard performing engineers are not getting promoted on their jobs and leaving for another, less tech savvy companies where their skill level is good enough. In the end everybody are just burning the investor's money, inflating the tech bubble.
• unobatbayar 5y ago
  > Succeed. Fail. Get a star performance review. Get a mediocre performance review. Fuck around and do nothing. It doesn't seem to matter. It actually matters because no matter how much you're getting paid, your time is on the line. You could be doing something better. If you decide to do something, and start it, why not do a great job?
  • ALittleLight 5y ago
    Some people just work for money. Alternately, in some organizations you can work as hard as you want but be prohibited from doing a great job. e.g. If the product design is fundamentally flawed and you can't convince people of that you might not feel like doing a great job. Suppose you're working on a 5 year old project that has a small and dwindling user base, the only contact you get from users is complaints and requests for features that are strictly forbidden by legal. The UI is incomprehensible to users and product management keeps trying to make it more complicated or add features that won't be useful. Would you be focused on doing a great job, or just putting in time while you looked for something else and played Ping Pong?
    • unobatbayar 5y ago
      I understand what you're saying, I too get completely tilted when things aren't working out. But, soon after, I get overwhelmed by guilt and start focusing on doing a great job again.
• Andy_G11 5y ago
  Thank goodness for people like this person - I would not be surprised if many firms would do as well, if not better and with improved internal culture, if promotion was done simply by random selection of candidates in the different role categories. The amount of randomness for a new candidate is higher when going external than it is for promoting from a pool of people you know, so good on you for using this path.
• culopatin 5y ago
  What does a Sr Developer do? Most days I feel like I’m not ready for the entry level and other days I feel like some people in the field know less than I do. This post makes me think that I should be able to work in the field by now.