3 ms·

So what do you even do then? I'm completely at a loss now.

scarface_74 2y ago
I submitted this article to HN earlier. I’m not the author. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42818169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42818169 Short version is don’t be a “ticket taker”. Move closer to the customer/stakeholder and further away from the IDE. Think in terms of adding business value and focus more on strategy than tactics (pulling well defined stories off the board). https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html I didn’t just pull “scope”, “impact” and “ambiguity” out of thin air. The leveling guidelines of all the tech companies boil down to this in one way or the other. This is Dropbox’s for instance. https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/ https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/ I’ve been moving closer to the “business” for a decade now after spending almost two decades as your bog standard enterprise dev. I haven’t done much active coding except some simple Python scripts in almost 3 years. My focus is now strategic cloud consulting focusing on application development. I’m not saying necessarily “learn cloud”. Learning how to deal with “the business” and leading implementations that deliver business value is the objective. The “cloud” just happens to be my tool. I’m slowly adding Big Data/ML/“AI” to my tool belt.
- throw83288 2y ago
  Hmm. I maintain a pretty big open-source project, so I guess I'm already kinda that? I honestly love computing moreso than I love coding. I'm not very familiar with business concepts though.
  - scarface_74 2y ago
    I really hate to say this. But open source contributions don’t matter either. It’s only what you do for a company. No one has time to look at an open source repository. Every open job these days have thousands of applications. They aren’t going to look at your GitHub repo.
    - throw83288 2y ago
      I see now. You mean real business stuff. At that point I may as well do a startup.
      - scarface_74 2y ago
        So taking the wrong lessons from what I’m saying :). It’s even harder doing a startup straight out of college with no business skills, no network, and no real world experience.
        throw83288 2y ago
        I guess I'm just confused now. I can't do technical since that's too commodified, but I can't do business since I'm a youngster with no real world experience.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        My bad. I’m carrying on two threads within the same post. This was my suggestion to another question https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968258

I submitted this article to HN earlier. I’m not the author. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42818169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42818169 Short version is don’t be a “ticket taker”. Move closer to the customer/stakeholder and further away from the IDE. Think in terms of adding business value and focus more on strategy than tactics (pulling well defined stories off the board). https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/swe-level-framework.html I didn’t just pull “scope”, “impact” and “ambiguity” out of thin air. The leveling guidelines of all the tech companies boil down to this in one way or the other. This is Dropbox’s for instance. https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/ https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/ I’ve been moving closer to the “business” for a decade now after spending almost two decades as your bog standard enterprise dev. I haven’t done much active coding except some simple Python scripts in almost 3 years. My focus is now strategic cloud consulting focusing on application development. I’m not saying necessarily “learn cloud”. Learning how to deal with “the business” and leading implementations that deliver business value is the objective. The “cloud” just happens to be my tool. I’m slowly adding Big Data/ML/“AI” to my tool belt.

throw83288 2y ago
Hmm. I maintain a pretty big open-source project, so I guess I'm already kinda that? I honestly love computing moreso than I love coding. I'm not very familiar with business concepts though.
- scarface_74 2y ago
  I really hate to say this. But open source contributions don’t matter either. It’s only what you do for a company. No one has time to look at an open source repository. Every open job these days have thousands of applications. They aren’t going to look at your GitHub repo.
  - throw83288 2y ago
    I see now. You mean real business stuff. At that point I may as well do a startup.
    - scarface_74 2y ago
      So taking the wrong lessons from what I’m saying :). It’s even harder doing a startup straight out of college with no business skills, no network, and no real world experience.
      - throw83288 2y ago
        I guess I'm just confused now. I can't do technical since that's too commodified, but I can't do business since I'm a youngster with no real world experience.
        scarface_74 2y ago
        My bad. I’m carrying on two threads within the same post. This was my suggestion to another question https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968258 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42968258