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I'd argue the current culture is set up to create this very scenario. You've realized that your work is stripped of many elements of creativity in the name of
by mattgreenrocks 4y ago
I'd argue the current culture is set up to create this very scenario.
You've realized that your work is stripped of many elements of creativity in the name of making you replaceable. Of course, we can't say that last part, so we instead talk up how great tooling is, and how quickly we can onboard people (Nobody asks why there is such a need to onboard people so often, or so quickly.)
When your pursuit of mastery is thwarted by guardrails everywhere, you're not going to feel like you're progressing. And people have to feel like they're pursuing mastery.
To move forward here, you need to think hard about what you want from a job. It goes beyond just "being able to use my brain and an IDE to solve problems." What domain are you interested in? What type of stack would you like to work on? What would your ideal day look like? What type of people are your coworkers like? What markets do you want to serve?
I made a similar leap in 2012. I ditched webdev because I determined the culture at large to be toxic to the craft of engineering. Started self-teaching myself compilers because it seemed far enough from webdev that I wouldn't get sucked back in. 10 years later, doing similar stuff still. 10/10, can recommend. Now contemplating specializing in another domain to spice things up again.
- shaftoe444 4y ago> (Nobody asks why there is such a need to onboard people so often, or so quickly. Very good point
- ricardobayes 4y agoI really wish there were more non-web dev remote coding jobs. Web development is never-ending and super thankless. Plus there seems to be a brand new language popping up every 2 years now. With C I just needed to study the Kernighan-Ritchie book and that was it. I think my quality of life was a lot higher as an embedded dev, web stuff is just too easy to get into in order for companies not to treat you as disposable.
- mattgreenrocks 4y agoYep. Once you start getting to intermediate-level dev, I really think more devs should think about specializing if only to start accumulating leverage by virtue of expertise and authority on a subject. If your career is made to be safe and as similar to everyone else, it is much harder to gain leverage. You can't trust capital to take care of you.
- saulpw 4y agoSpecialization is a trap though too. You can make it work (and lucratively!) for 10-15 years, but that's nowhere near a full career, and then at some point you wake up to find out you've specialized in OS/2 or Smalltalk and the only jobs around are in defense or gambling kiosks.
- mattgreenrocks 4y agoGood point. And it can be hard to bootstrap yourself into specialized jobs. Once you're there you have a different set of problems: smaller job pool, more qualified candidates in general, and no guarantee that your specialization will always be needed. Beats the race to the bottom that is endemic to mainstream tech though!
- specialist 4y ago> I'd argue the current culture is set up to create this very scenario. Bureaucratization (aka "bullshit jobs") is the inevitable result of organizational psychology and risk aversion. More participants -> more coordination overhead -> more fallacies (groupthink, sunk costs, myopia, etc) -> delay, overruns, and failure. > Started self-teaching myself compilers... Fewer "stakeholders", more autonomy, less need for permission.
- strikelaserclaw 4y agoweb dev is the worst, things change so frequently but they almost always change laterally so you feel like you are learning a lot but it seems like you most can do the same things after all these learnings.
- the_only_law 4y ago> Now contemplating specializing in another domain to spice things up again. How do you get in? Basically any domain that’s not just enterprise line of business crap, and SaaS apps seems to only ever hire seniors/staff/whatever developers with 10 years of of hyper-specific domain knowledge or new grads they managed to source a [State University] Recruiting Event. Hell I’ve been rejected in otherwise normal web dev jobs here recently because I didn’t have experience in a specific domain. I mean I can teach myself lots of things, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll just be able to waltz into a job.
- mattgreenrocks 4y agoYou have to put the study time in to be competent enough to do an entry-level-ish in said domain and luck into the right opportunity. It's hard and partially driven by forces outside of your control. All you can do is be as ready as possible when something comes along.