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Every element you mention as being part of an in-office experience has been completely absent from my career. Never made a connection that proved valuable late

Every element you mention as being part of an in-office experience has been completely absent from my career. Never made a connection that proved valuable later on. Never received any mentorship or even any guidance, I was always simply given a task and expected to complete it. Company culture doesn't even feel like a real thing outside of HR blurbs. Spontaneous collaboration was outweighed by interruptions and meddling from management. Maybe it's just because I've never worked at a FAANG or BigCo, but I have a hard time believing these points.

thisarticle 4y ago
> Never made a connection that proved valuable later on. Never received any mentorship or even any guidance That sounds awful, none of your senior or principal engineers offered/provided any mentorship?
- AdrianB1 4y ago
  Not every person works in a company organized this way, even IT people. In all my working years and all companies, I always had managers that were technically inferior to me (not bragging, most were not technical people at all, some had some basic tech skills). My only mentoring was for management skills, not guidance in any technical matter.
- snozolli 4y ago
  What senior or principal engineers? I graduated college with significant, real-world programming skills. I immediately went to work writing software. The only thing my first manager contributed was showing me where to find documentation, and even then, books that I found on my own were far more valuable overall. It was no different the first year from the tenth: here's what we want made, go make it. No mentorship, no training, just self-learning and resourcefulness. I can't even imagine what mentorship software people could need, besides general career or investment advice.
  - phphphphp 4y ago
    I don’t mean this as a slight against you because there’s a place in the world for every type of developer, but your description of work and collaboration is very cynical. You could be the most unlucky person in the world and thus you’ve never met anyone worth collaborating with, or, more likely, you’ve not attracted those people in your workplaces. I’ve worked at great companies and awful companies, and no matter what, I have always met talented people in these companies who I’ve been able to build meaningful professional relationships with. Even in the most toxic hell-holes, there’s people worth learning collaborating with — across all disciplines. The most valuable work you can do when in software engineering is to help non-swengs in businesses achieve their goals: code is just a means to an end, collaboration is how we discover what to build.
    - snozolli 4y ago
      your description of work and collaboration is very cynical. One man's cynic is another man's realist. In my opinion, OP's description of office life is idealistic, like a teacher describing the theme of Dead Poets Society or Mr. Holland's Opus. I’ve been able to build meaningful professional relationships with. I don't know what you mean when you say meaningful professional relationships, but despite having made many work friends, as stated previously none of them have led to career development (OP's mention of networking). Even in the most toxic hell-holes, there’s people worth learning collaborating with I STRONGLY disagree with this universal claim.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - koliber 4y ago
    One thing I got out of mentorship is that it’s one thing being correct, and and entirely other thing having people actually want to listen to you. It happens often enough that you have one and not the other. Until you have both, you won’t have impact and will grovel about others.
- silveroriole 4y ago
  I’ve not had mentorship or real guidance offered in my career. I would say I’ve made connections, but my experience was very much just “you’re in charge of this team now because someone left. Why are you sucking at being a lead? Geez, we even sent you on a single day management course! I don’t get it!”. And the same for being a manager. People are very complimentary about me when I’m just doing programming because I don’t need any help, but as soon as I get into a situation I’m not very good at, it’s criticism all the way. I would bet this is pretty normal since many managers don’t seem happy being managers, and that only a minority get significant career development value from managers/leads.
  - koliber 4y ago
    Have you ever received constructive feedback that did not feel like criticism?
    - silveroriole 4y ago
      Yes, especially from clients/customers. Most manager feedback, though, is of the form “you need to/should do X.” If you press them on HOW to do X, they often don’t really know, especially when it comes to soft skills issues or personality clashes. They see their role as providing the feedback, and it’s your job to figure out how to fix it. It feels like criticism because you’re left with the critical part and no clear path forwards. Of course knowing the problem exists provides SOME value, but I wouldn’t call it mentorship, guidance, or even constructive.
- molodec 4y ago
  I've never had any mentorship too from engineers in the company where I started my career. I learned a lot from books.
thrashh 4y ago
I haven’t worked at a FAANG but I still hang with people from old jobs. Idk it’s pretty normal to be able to make friends at most jobs I think you just had bad luck
- JohnFen 4y ago
  If so, it's far from just him. I've never personally observed any of that, either. You have "work friends", but those relationships are work relationships and don't translate to outside of work.
- snozolli 4y ago
  Idk it’s pretty normal to be able to make friends at most jobs I never said that I didn't make friends, I said that I never made a connection that proved valuable in the context of networking, i.e. career growth.
listenallyall 4y ago
> Never made a connection that proved valuable later on. Sorry buddy but that's on you. You make valuable connections by being generous and helpful to others. Then at some point down the road when they need to hire someone, they remember, hey 'snozolli' was a great coworker, let me see if they're available.
- snozolli 4y ago
  You're making some really huge assumptions.
  - brightball 4y ago
    The exact story of my career and many people I worked with. There's one guy I know who's had companies fighting over him because he was so great to work with.
- Clubber 4y ago
  >You make valuable connections by being generous and helpful to others. In my experience all my valuable connections have come from me working really hard on the same team as them and being goals oriented and meeting those goals; not wasting time dilly dallying in the hallways. Making meaningful connections in the hallway sounds like a middle manager thing.
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    Working really hard and meeting goals == helpful and generous. I'm sure at some point you had a roadblock on a piece of code and a co-worker helped you overcome it, or vice versa. Or you covered for someone that one day when his kid was sick so the team didn't fall behind it's timeline. Being sociable and taking an interest in other people via hallway convos is also a good way to build connections and/or friendships, but that has nothing to do with my earlier comment.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
gtvwill 4y ago
Man I feel ya. I hear all these idealic work life experiences and I'm like...man my first job I did 18 hour days and got essentially bullied by the 2nd in command. Next job, spent the entire time w seniors throwing spanners, yelling abuse, threatening to lock me in toolboxes and leave them in the sun (mine workers hate uni students it seems). 3rd job, forced to work w asbestos w zero health gear. Called worksafe basically got laughed at. Walked out of that one. My first decade of employment had zero mentoring and was basically just a gauntlet of abuse and unsafe work practices. Only time it got good was working w big blue, no abuse there. Idealic tbh. After that back into the slums of normie business. Got fired for upholding security standards lol. Business/work isn't as kind to some of us as it is to others it would seem.
KKKKkkkk1 4y ago
> Maybe it's just because I've never worked at a FAANG or BigCo, but I have a hard time believing these points. It's no different. American corporate culture has assimilated FAANG 100%. The only thing remaining is the free food and fancy offices (but not for long).

thisarticle 4y ago

> Never made a connection that proved valuable later on. Never received any mentorship or even any guidance That sounds awful, none of your senior or principal engineers offered/provided any mentorship?

AdrianB1 4y ago
Not every person works in a company organized this way, even IT people. In all my working years and all companies, I always had managers that were technically inferior to me (not bragging, most were not technical people at all, some had some basic tech skills). My only mentoring was for management skills, not guidance in any technical matter.
snozolli 4y ago
What senior or principal engineers? I graduated college with significant, real-world programming skills. I immediately went to work writing software. The only thing my first manager contributed was showing me where to find documentation, and even then, books that I found on my own were far more valuable overall. It was no different the first year from the tenth: here's what we want made, go make it. No mentorship, no training, just self-learning and resourcefulness. I can't even imagine what mentorship software people could need, besides general career or investment advice.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  I don’t mean this as a slight against you because there’s a place in the world for every type of developer, but your description of work and collaboration is very cynical. You could be the most unlucky person in the world and thus you’ve never met anyone worth collaborating with, or, more likely, you’ve not attracted those people in your workplaces. I’ve worked at great companies and awful companies, and no matter what, I have always met talented people in these companies who I’ve been able to build meaningful professional relationships with. Even in the most toxic hell-holes, there’s people worth learning collaborating with — across all disciplines. The most valuable work you can do when in software engineering is to help non-swengs in businesses achieve their goals: code is just a means to an end, collaboration is how we discover what to build.
  - snozolli 4y ago
    your description of work and collaboration is very cynical. One man's cynic is another man's realist. In my opinion, OP's description of office life is idealistic, like a teacher describing the theme of Dead Poets Society or Mr. Holland's Opus. I’ve been able to build meaningful professional relationships with. I don't know what you mean when you say meaningful professional relationships, but despite having made many work friends, as stated previously none of them have led to career development (OP's mention of networking). Even in the most toxic hell-holes, there’s people worth learning collaborating with I STRONGLY disagree with this universal claim.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- koliber 4y ago
  One thing I got out of mentorship is that it’s one thing being correct, and and entirely other thing having people actually want to listen to you. It happens often enough that you have one and not the other. Until you have both, you won’t have impact and will grovel about others.
silveroriole 4y ago
I’ve not had mentorship or real guidance offered in my career. I would say I’ve made connections, but my experience was very much just “you’re in charge of this team now because someone left. Why are you sucking at being a lead? Geez, we even sent you on a single day management course! I don’t get it!”. And the same for being a manager. People are very complimentary about me when I’m just doing programming because I don’t need any help, but as soon as I get into a situation I’m not very good at, it’s criticism all the way. I would bet this is pretty normal since many managers don’t seem happy being managers, and that only a minority get significant career development value from managers/leads.
- koliber 4y ago
  Have you ever received constructive feedback that did not feel like criticism?
  - silveroriole 4y ago
    Yes, especially from clients/customers. Most manager feedback, though, is of the form “you need to/should do X.” If you press them on HOW to do X, they often don’t really know, especially when it comes to soft skills issues or personality clashes. They see their role as providing the feedback, and it’s your job to figure out how to fix it. It feels like criticism because you’re left with the critical part and no clear path forwards. Of course knowing the problem exists provides SOME value, but I wouldn’t call it mentorship, guidance, or even constructive.
molodec 4y ago
I've never had any mentorship too from engineers in the company where I started my career. I learned a lot from books.

thrashh 4y ago

I haven’t worked at a FAANG but I still hang with people from old jobs. Idk it’s pretty normal to be able to make friends at most jobs I think you just had bad luck

JohnFen 4y ago
If so, it's far from just him. I've never personally observed any of that, either. You have "work friends", but those relationships are work relationships and don't translate to outside of work.
snozolli 4y ago
Idk it’s pretty normal to be able to make friends at most jobs I never said that I didn't make friends, I said that I never made a connection that proved valuable in the context of networking, i.e. career growth.

listenallyall 4y ago

> Never made a connection that proved valuable later on. Sorry buddy but that's on you. You make valuable connections by being generous and helpful to others. Then at some point down the road when they need to hire someone, they remember, hey 'snozolli' was a great coworker, let me see if they're available.

snozolli 4y ago
You're making some really huge assumptions.
- brightball 4y ago
  The exact story of my career and many people I worked with. There's one guy I know who's had companies fighting over him because he was so great to work with.
Clubber 4y ago
>You make valuable connections by being generous and helpful to others. In my experience all my valuable connections have come from me working really hard on the same team as them and being goals oriented and meeting those goals; not wasting time dilly dallying in the hallways. Making meaningful connections in the hallway sounds like a middle manager thing.
- listenallyall 4y ago
  Working really hard and meeting goals == helpful and generous. I'm sure at some point you had a roadblock on a piece of code and a co-worker helped you overcome it, or vice versa. Or you covered for someone that one day when his kid was sick so the team didn't fall behind it's timeline. Being sociable and taking an interest in other people via hallway convos is also a good way to build connections and/or friendships, but that has nothing to do with my earlier comment.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

gtvwill 4y ago

Man I feel ya. I hear all these idealic work life experiences and I'm like...man my first job I did 18 hour days and got essentially bullied by the 2nd in command. Next job, spent the entire time w seniors throwing spanners, yelling abuse, threatening to lock me in toolboxes and leave them in the sun (mine workers hate uni students it seems). 3rd job, forced to work w asbestos w zero health gear. Called worksafe basically got laughed at. Walked out of that one. My first decade of employment had zero mentoring and was basically just a gauntlet of abuse and unsafe work practices. Only time it got good was working w big blue, no abuse there. Idealic tbh. After that back into the slums of normie business. Got fired for upholding security standards lol. Business/work isn't as kind to some of us as it is to others it would seem.

KKKKkkkk1 4y ago

> Maybe it's just because I've never worked at a FAANG or BigCo, but I have a hard time believing these points. It's no different. American corporate culture has assimilated FAANG 100%. The only thing remaining is the free food and fancy offices (but not for long).