13 ms·

"Programmer. Come Work For Us"

345 points by mkrecny 13y ago

rcamera 13y ago
"Programmer: I'll be forced to learn things outside of programming. Things like how to design, how to market and how to do customer service. MBA: But you, are a programmer. Programmer: I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do." I graduated in business administration, and when I tell people I can actually code and have been learning how to do it for the past few years, I mostly get blank stares, which is sometimes followed by the question: "why do you learn it if you ain't a programmer? You should hire a programmer instead." They don't get it when I explain that the programmer I would need to do the work I want done wouldn't need me as much as I would need him. They also question me why didn't I graduate in something related to programming instead of BA, as if studying something outside of your area of expertise is waste.
- kaeawc 13y ago
  If learning multiple disciplines is your thing then keep going for it. I've gotten similar reactions being on the opposite side -- I'm a dev that has some business and design knowledge. "Why don't you just stick to back-end data crunching analytics services?" Because I like interacting with people, and I'm not as useful to others if I can't communicate my ideas and thoughts.
- tjr 13y ago
  I once had a job interview for a programming job in which I was asked about the several (programming-related) publications I had listed on my resume. "Why did you do this? It looks like you want to be a writer, not a programmer!" I find it hard to imagine being so consumed with programming that you don't do anything else at all, even things that are related to, but not actually, programming. But even harder to imagine is why anyone would expect someone to be that consumed with only programming?
  - npsimons 13y ago
    At my current job, it seems like I am constantly being pressured into being a "systems engineer" or somesuch. The fact of the matter is, I really love writing code, finding and fixing bugs, and just generally all around playing with software. I can appreciate, and am even very interested in, things such as hardware, materials science, physics, chemistry, etc. But there is more than enough for one lifetime (multiple lifetimes!) in software, and I just find it so cool that I don't want to do much else. Don't get me wrong; outside of work I'm an amateur musician and a volunteer SAR member. I also appreciate stretching your mind, getting a different POV and cross-training, etc, etc, but as long as people are willing to pay me to make software, that's the job I'll continue to do. Try to push me into something I'm not interested in, and you'll have to find another code monkey. I'll dive into wildly differing domains, but mainly so I can tackle them better in software.
  - johnjlocke 13y ago
    I would find it off-putting if someone pulled that line on me in an interview too. Being a programmer does not mean that you are a simply a code monkey, incapable of expanding your knowledge of the field. You would think that all companies would want someone who understood programming enough to be able to write about it in a way that others could understand, but perhaps not. Some places "get it" and some don't.
- saraid216 13y ago
  This is the worst thing about the "college major" system. Yes, comparative advantage is a good thing, but that doesn't logically conclude in overspecialization.
  - invalidOrTaken 13y ago
    With humans, specialization is often another word for structurally imperfect information.
- Gepsens 13y ago
  For a few years after my MS I started focusing on programming exclusively. After a trip to NY and meeting lots of interesting people in Brooklyn, I remembered that things such as cross expertise, learning totally different disciplines and inspiration are actually the most important things if you are going to spend more time thinking than coding.
sharmanaetor 13y ago
Work "for" us? How about work "with" us?
- notb 13y ago
  The work FOR us theme is present throughout. I'd guess it was intentional...
Nursie 13y ago
Kinda true BUT.... Maybe you'd be surprised how many programmers there are out there who don't care if anyone uses what they do, don't want to interact with users and aren't really bothered who it affects, and would rather be left alone with the purity of "here is a task, go, be a programmer". I'm not like that now, but I used to be, and I know a lot of people that still are. All that messy stuff like business decisions, market research/development, customer support, requirements capture... all that is so much more soft and ill defined than me, my DE, a defined goal (that I may or may not have helped set) and a paycheck at the end of it. Then I don't have to think about anything but the code.
- richardlblair 13y ago
  And I think you would be surprised by how equally dispersed it is out there. For every developer that doesn't care there is at least one more who does.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    Errr... I'm not saying there isn't, and it would be very hard to put a number on it, I just wanted to point out that there does exist a large group of tech folk who actually want the sort of situation described.
- mseebach 13y ago
  I broadly agree with you, but I can't help but feel that you're patronizing the position needlessly. I think it's perfectly respectable for someone to care if anyone uses what they do and to want to interact with users and care if their problems are solved - but, at the same time, desiring to do this within an order of magnitude of 40 hours a week, receive benefits, not have to worry about paying the bills, even if the client can't be bothered to, don't have to deal with the nitty-gritty of sales and bookkeeping and boardmeetings and fundraising and the landlord and sourcing a new datacenter[1] and dealing with the ISP[1] and making sure the Jenkins box is keeping up with backups[1] etc etc. The career options for a developer (especially a good one) is a broad spectrum of opportunities, not just a black and white selection between the machine room of a bank or your own startup. Edit: 1: Unless that's what you want to do.
fredley 13y ago
I've worked in very large companies, small companies and I'm now in a 4-man startup. At the end of the day it's about the environment and challenges you enjoy, and the ways in which you want to grow. Some people get a kick out of being a tiny cog in a huge, complex and influential machine, and others would rather that their tiny cog be the only (and therefore largest, and most important) cog. You can use a fish/pond based analogy if you prefer.
untog 13y ago
Developers are an extremely varied bunch. I'd suspect that HN leans towards the wide interests side because startups tend to disrupt (in the traditional sense of the word) your ability to program rather than enhance it. But not everyone is like that. Some developers want nothing more than a real, meaty technical challenge. Scaling up a site that's crashing every hour. Crunching huge datasets and extracting important data. If you find one, you might actually be lucky- they probably have more focus than I do.
- Nursie 13y ago
  Yup. Some are deeply focussed on the technical and see that as their mission in life/work. Some are in a similar position but are blinkered (I think I was here) and some are simply insecure about softer skills or striking out on their own (may have been here too).
- shanelja 13y ago
  Personally, while the whole starting a business idea seems pretty cool to me, it's just far too grand, far too difficult and far too expensive right now! I'm 20, I want to go to my simple 9 to 5 job, tackle a really difficult challenge, maybe debug some Magento because that's where the real challenge is at my company, then maybe for the last couple of hours I'll work on some of our in house products to enjoy the freedom of custom development. Then I'll go home, make something to eat (at a reasonable hour) and hopefully spend a great night cuddling with my girlfriend while we watch old movies on my laptop. While being a billionaire business man is very enticing, right now, at this point in my life, all I want is to be happy, and working 80 hour weeks to risk it on a 3% chance to make it something amazing just isn't worth it for it.
  - obviouslygreen 13y ago
    Debugging Magento is a real challenge because Magento is horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. It's horrible. I like your outlook, but man, even in PHP land there are vastly better frameworks that won't make you hate your life (Magento has a nasty track record for me and several other devs I worked with). ExpressionEngine, CodeIgniter, even Symfony... if you want to do PHP, do yourself a favor and do something that's not Magento.
notb 13y ago
This has been my experience with recruiters but once you get past the wall of pleasantries and fake attitudes, they usually talk with more sense. Edit: Sibling comments are talking a lot about the author's personal motivating factors but are ignoring the bigger message of poor hiring tactics like repeating talking points and marginalizing personal goals. I got you, though, op.
acron0 13y ago
I wish this was an accurate mindset of the kinds of programmers I have to work with. Sometimes I picture myself tying my scarf around my head, leaping onto my desk and screaming "Come on! Lets go! F--k this place, we can do it better than they do it. You don't have to sit here day-in, day-out doing the same monotonous things. We can do better this, we owe it to ourselves to do this properly. No more people in suits ranting about deadlines, no more shitty coffee, no more PowerPoint. We'll do it better, we'll do it cleverer and you will feel so much the lighter for it. To the door!" But they'd just stare at me in horror.
- dools 13y ago
  But they'd just stare at me in horror Maybe try without the scarf?
  - willismichael 13y ago
    I think you should do it, with the scarf. You never really know what will happen until you try.
    - evan_ 13y ago
      Once with the scarf, once without, and compare results.
      - willismichael 13y ago
        AB testing. Nice.
        FramesPerSushi 13y ago
        You'll need a project manager for that.
- JonnieCache 13y ago
  You should definitely do this. Do it now. Post video. Use the video as part of your pitch deck.
jasallen 13y ago
So. wait. I can't actually write software for alien beings? Tease. Anyway, agree with the sentiments personally, but not sure that's true of those who identify strongly with the moniker "programmer".
yesimahuman 13y ago
> How quaint. Perhaps the best way to describe the condescending startup hiring culture where aspirational devs are encouraged to give up their dreams to work for yet another VC funded rocket ship that is "changing the world." Another recent article with this attitude: http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/01/your-2013-resolution-come-to-terms-with-being-only-an-engineer/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/01/your-2013-resolution-come-t... My guess is developers are starting to see through this BS and realize that they very well can run their own companies.
- dools 13y ago
  It appears to be that in most cases they can't and end up working for Facebook or Google anyway though right?
- beatpanda 13y ago
  Wow, I knew PandoDaily was bad but that is just out of control. This end of the tech cycle is terrible. We're due for an adjustment.
- ryanSrich 13y ago
  > My guess is developers are starting to see through this BS and realize that they very well can run their own companies. A tiny, tiny, minority that is well represented on this site. In reality most developers out there have no clue how to run or startup a business and they frankly shouldn't because they will fail.
  - gboudrias 13y ago
    I think failing a business is good life experience, especially for programmers, since the starting costs are relatively very low.
    - ryanSrich 13y ago
      A failed startup is a great learning experience but when you're not ready for it or don't learn from it, it becomes less of a benefit and more of a poor choice. Having said that the circumstances one must be in to startup his or her own business are very specific. > since the starting costs are relatively very low I'd have to disagree. Unless you're weighing "cost" on just monetary value. A startup will cost you your free time, your health, your current career, and in some cases your relationship if you have one. Truly being successful in the startup world is extremely challenging and one that comes at many costs.
umsm 13y ago
One thing I learned from an honest manager: He felt his managerial position was more at risk than his position as a developer.
hodgesmr 13y ago
I couldn't agree with this more. Unfortunately, for every "I am a person" developer out there, there are 2-3 "all I care about is code" developer. It's depressing.
- Anderkent 13y ago
  Alternatively, some people realize that a statistically significant impact on billions of people matters more than the fuzzies you get from a good review or a personal email.
- AlisdairO 13y ago
  I'm not sure why it's depressing that someone would enjoy coding and not business + coding. Some people tend towards specialism, some generalism. It's probably good that we have both sorts of people. Me, I'm a specialist at heart - I have no interest at all in business. All I want in the world is for someone to come to me with an interesting problem to solve, and to help them solve it. Fortunately, I have that, and I get plenty of enjoyable interaction from helping less technically able (but more customer-focused) people to produce what they want to produce. Classifying specialists as not-people is condescending and pathetic, every bit as much as it would be for someone like me to dismiss generalists as morons because of their lack of technical depth.
  - gordaco 13y ago
    And don't forget about people who don't like to specialize, yet wouldn't like to be anywhere near business administration. The idea of being only a programmer seems to me as depressing as running a business. It's just not for me; there are a ton of things to learn, and I prefer those that stimulate my brain before anything that stimulates my wallet (and yes, business administration may stimulate someone's brain, just not me). I prefer to have a 9-to-5 job that pays the bills and then, back home, study anything else.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
pooriaazimi 13y ago
> Yes. But when I affect someone's life, I'll get a email, maybe a call about it, and I'll have a real conversation with someone. I'll know who they are and how I affected them. And a few hundred 1-star reviews on the app store(s), saying that while they use your app daily, it really isn't worth the $1.99 they paid for, and people should use X instead, which is FREE. Or 3-star reviews that say the app is PERFECT, they love it, but it needs feature X (assuring you that they'll bump up their reviews to 5 star when you add the said feature). At times like that, I'm sure you'd rather you worked for some giant corporation and didn't have to deal with customers directly.
- jwwest 13y ago
  You're making a pretty big assumption that everyone works in consumer-facing markets, and not with small- to medium-sized businesses. The app store model is broken because it has too much Internet in it. Anonymity + Platform = arsehat. Dealing with clients one-on-one is really rewarding.
  - sdoowpilihp 13y ago
    Clients can be rewarding or a nightmare. I have dealt with both. There are good and bad clients you deal with just as there are "arsehats" in the consumer facing businesses.
timjahn 13y ago
I'm young (in the scheme of life). But I think the quicker you learn what's truly important to you, you start to spend more time on those projects/with those people/in that place/etc and you feel more fulfilled, and that you're making more of an impact, than you ever did before.
- mtext 13y ago
  Then you learn that all places are terrible and become an old grumpy man (in the scheme of life) like me.
  - timjahn 13y ago
    I suppose that's one option. :)
addlepate 13y ago
To each his own. I don't work for the world's largest anything, and while programming is only one thing I do, it's the only one I'm interested in doing professionally. How quaint, I guess. Do you want to run a business, or do you aspire to be the kind of person who runs a business, because magazines told you that means something? One is sexy and the other isn't.
lhnz 13y ago
This is how I see myself, too. I will just continue reading and doing things by my own will until somebody finally realises that domain dependent thinking is rarely innovative and that they might be able to get a competitive advantage from utilising the broad-range of expertise I am trying to grow. Everybody is different; some of us require variety to focus; and some of us get-off on bridging gaps in between disparate domains.
Kurtz79 13y ago
You can affect people's lives even if working at Big Corp X. Often, you can ask to do more things than programming at Big Corp X, if you show interest and are valued as an employee. Not every Big Corp X. deals with social networks for alien life forms on earth : there are big corps X developing medical devices, airplanes and space vehicles, public infrastructure, or researching new, game changing technology. A lot of people working at Big (or Medium/Small) Corp X. are passionate about their work. I agree that by doing your own thing you have a much more direct impact on the result, but I don't think there is such a manichean and romantic division.
- mehrzad 13y ago
  >there are big corps X developing medical devices, airplanes and space vehicles, public infrastructure, or researching new, game changing technology. Please let this always be true. I don't want to get into software if it's just gonna be webapps, not that those aren't cool, but I don't know if I like it much.
HunterV 13y ago
Yay! Everyone start their own company! I mean why not? Who needs salaried work? It's just so easy and risk-free if you already know how to program! Come on now, start a company when you've identified a problem that really needs a fix, and that has a huge potential of profit. A great way to find that problem is in a paid position. Starting a company for the sake of starting a company won't get you anywhere.
- tracker1 13y ago
  I'd started my own company at one point, and utterly failed at it... didn't enjoy it at all, and it wasn't at all freeing.. in fact I never felt more constrained. I also spent 8 months in a Director level position, managing several teams and several projects. Also much more constrained. Though, I did learn that there is far more mediocrity in the majority of programmers than greatness at that time. Now, I'm much more about putting in my time, making the projects I work on better when I leave than when I start. I enjoy contract work as I get to learn new things constantly (domain knowledge in diverse cultures), which to me is a lot of fun. Right now, I'm working for an internal development operations group, which means creating services for other development groups... It's interesting for the moment, though I'm enjoying the slower pace so far. I spent the last year and a half before where I am working on changing the environment of a set of very stale projects that had become maintenance nightmares, and bringing them into more current structures. Enhancing the UI as well as simplifying other systems. It really depends.
gdulli 13y ago
It's an interesting interpretation of the fields of marketing and customer service to lead one to believe it would be desirable to do more work in those roles and less work in software engineering. To each, their own.
B-Con 13y ago
> I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do. This is not universally true. Yes, we're all people, but some people don't want to serve as tech support, marketing, etc, themselves. Some people just want to show up and work in a specific, technical problem. HN isn't filled with that type, I don't think, but they certainly do exist. And I'd guess they're the majority, too.
- rocky1138 13y ago
  A lot of this depends on timing. My interest in doing more than solving a bunch of meaty technical problems (where doing more includes managing a team, speaking to people, customer service) follows a sort of sine wave pattern. Sometimes for 6-12 months all I want to do is immerse myself in programming. Other times I want to "change the world."
theleethaxor 13y ago
I dont want to sound rude, but thats such a bullcrap.
orangethirty 13y ago
Entrepreneurship fluff. These posts seem to forget the reality of life. What about health care? House payments? The cost of raising children? The social network job will allow for those. The business? Good luck with that. Oh, but you might get some funding, you say? Try explaining to a VC how you are using their money to pay for your children. Many of them don't even want you to have base salary.
- mccolin 13y ago
  Entrepreneurial folks -- younger ones especially -- are more apt to take the risks or shirk the responsibilities you list. Not everyone will have those responsibilities and many will grant themselves the flexibility to try their own business and see how it goes, because they put a higher value on self-run small business autonomy. And not every business needs to grow to a VC-backed behemoth. It's possible to manage a smaller business and keep it that way. OP also notes he's looking forward to the challenges associated with that path.
- mtext 13y ago
  These posts are written by 20-somethings that don't have children or thing about health care.
z5h 13y ago
Haha. This would be great compared to emails headhunters like to send. "Come work for a company we won't mention here. You will need all of these skills: ... Interested?"
catshirt 13y ago
respectfully, i honestly cannot even guess what the point of this post is.
mccolin 13y ago
:-)
sultezdukes 13y ago
The mooninites (http://aqua-teen-hunger-force.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mooninites http://aqua-teen-hunger-force.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mooninites) are the perfect voice for that persuading.
quackerhacker 13y ago
I love the ending! "I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do." I'm a programmer, but creating a product of their own is difficult and I commend those that do so. I've learned while doing my projects that aside from programming, I need to be... An Investor...investing money into hardware, but MOST importantly, time. Time to code, to learn, and time from work and for family. My Own Boss...doesn't mean I don't answer to anyone, it means I need to be harder on myself to get *ish done, because there is no team to offload work on. Open-minded...even though working a 9-5 would allow me to specialize in a specific area and a lovely paycheck bi-weekly, my projects/businesses required that I learn so many new things that it's continually frustrating and irritating. Ex: filing articles of incorporation, learning photoshop (I was strictly a coder), micromanaging lists of tasks, formulate a way to pay the bills while donating time to my projects (emphasis on donating). Side Note: Even though at times I may get jealous of my peers that I know that work at Google and the state...there's a fire inside me burning, just knowing that I will be something big, and I am my only true investor...programming IS just one of the things I do.
danalmeida 13y ago
Was I supposed to learn something from this?
jokoon 13y ago
This shit comes from the fact the industry consider tech-savvy people like inhuman monsters. Nerds and geeks and otakus and such, are considered like a plague, while in fact there were pioneers. Computing is still considered like magic, and it will stay like that for a long time.
J_Darnley 13y ago
Why on Earth is this linking to some shortener rather than to the actual page, http://edu.mkrecny.com/thoughts/programmer-come-work-for-us http://edu.mkrecny.com/thoughts/programmer-come-work-for-us ?
- thomasbk 13y ago
  Presumably because the submitter's username is also the domain, so by using a link shortener he can hide the fact that it was submitted by the author.
fnoblesse 13y ago
Good :)
wfunction 13y ago
> At times, new code that you write will correlate with a statistically significant change in one of the numbers on that dashboard. You will then know that you have affected billions of beings. Correlation == ...causation?
pamelafox 13y ago
I work at Coursera now, and we have tens of thousands of users in each class. Like the post author, I really like to feel connected to users, to feel that individual connection, so I go out of my way to get that by wandering around the support forums and monitoring Twitter mentions. Every once in a while, I run into people I know too, and the world feels that much smaller. :-) So, yes, it's easy to feel disconnected from people when you work on a product with many users, but if you want to, I think there's often a way to find them.
- ericd 13y ago
  This is exactly what I do as well, and it works quite well. It's also one of my favorite parts about running a small company, and I think I'd like to make it a policy that programmers should interact directly with the customers at least sometimes.
taurath 13y ago
This is why I pushed to have my company fly me across the country to an client event we're doing. I've been working here for a year but I've never met a single person who uses the code I write on a daily basis.
anasuddeen 13y ago
Very pain full, but very very valuable. Being a human.
nkoren 13y ago
Where exactly are the programmers of which this article alludes? I recently received seed funding for my next startup (http://www.podaris.com/jobs.php http://www.podaris.com/jobs.php), and am finding hiring developers to be extremely difficult. Yes, the work will be extremely diverse, you'll get to interact directly with customers, and you'll get to shape and take significant equity a product which can genuinely change the world -- but most developers out there don't seem to be looking for that. So far, 99% of the developers I've encountered have fit into one of two categories: 1.) Freelancers, who are committing to remaining so because of the lifestyle perks -- they want to be able to bugger off to that Australian walkabout more or less whenever they feel like it -- and the level of commitment which a startup requires just isn't appealing to them. 2.) 9-to-5ers, who want the safety and security of job with a large corporation or agency, and really don't mind dealing with the world through a dashboard. I can understand where both types of people are coming from, and can't fault them for it. What I haven't found is an abundance of developers who have the appetite for the high-commitment, high-uncertainty life which a startup entails.
- eloisant 13y ago
  There is an other category: people who want high-commitment, high-uncertainty, and chance of high reward they get by starting their own startup. Maybe you're asking people the same sacrifice you're doing, except that they'll be doing it for you rather than for themselves?
- droelf 13y ago
  That's because your startup is likely to fail. why should people want to design a multi-million dollar system in a "HTML5" - Browserbased - Solution done by a (max) 10 person-team? I just don't get how you'll ever appeal to your target group. But maybe -- hopefully -- I am wrong.
- jasonkester 13y ago
  I think you answered your question yourself. The guys who want to do it all are all busy doing it all. Notice the quote in the linked article: "I was actually thinking of starting my own business." That's what those guys are doing. If you're looking for somebody who's motivated to run every aspect of a business, but would prefer to run every aspect of your business rather than one in which he'd get 100% of everything, then yes, you're going to have a tough time of it. I'd recommend hiring one of those Australian Walkabout guys on their terms. They're probably just as capable of doing what you want done, and they don't come with any unrealistic expectations of what you'll give them. Pay them money in exchange for work until you either don't need them anymore or the money runs out. Then let them go with no hard feelings on either side.
arti5m 13y ago
Hooray!

345 points by mkrecny 13y ago

"Programmer: I'll be forced to learn things outside of programming. Things like how to design, how to market and how to do customer service. MBA: But you, are a programmer. Programmer: I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do." I graduated in business administration, and when I tell people I can actually code and have been learning how to do it for the past few years, I mostly get blank stares, which is sometimes followed by the question: "why do you learn it if you ain't a programmer? You should hire a programmer instead." They don't get it when I explain that the programmer I would need to do the work I want done wouldn't need me as much as I would need him. They also question me why didn't I graduate in something related to programming instead of BA, as if studying something outside of your area of expertise is waste.

kaeawc 13y ago
If learning multiple disciplines is your thing then keep going for it. I've gotten similar reactions being on the opposite side -- I'm a dev that has some business and design knowledge. "Why don't you just stick to back-end data crunching analytics services?" Because I like interacting with people, and I'm not as useful to others if I can't communicate my ideas and thoughts.
tjr 13y ago
I once had a job interview for a programming job in which I was asked about the several (programming-related) publications I had listed on my resume. "Why did you do this? It looks like you want to be a writer, not a programmer!" I find it hard to imagine being so consumed with programming that you don't do anything else at all, even things that are related to, but not actually, programming. But even harder to imagine is why anyone would expect someone to be that consumed with only programming?
- npsimons 13y ago
  At my current job, it seems like I am constantly being pressured into being a "systems engineer" or somesuch. The fact of the matter is, I really love writing code, finding and fixing bugs, and just generally all around playing with software. I can appreciate, and am even very interested in, things such as hardware, materials science, physics, chemistry, etc. But there is more than enough for one lifetime (multiple lifetimes!) in software, and I just find it so cool that I don't want to do much else. Don't get me wrong; outside of work I'm an amateur musician and a volunteer SAR member. I also appreciate stretching your mind, getting a different POV and cross-training, etc, etc, but as long as people are willing to pay me to make software, that's the job I'll continue to do. Try to push me into something I'm not interested in, and you'll have to find another code monkey. I'll dive into wildly differing domains, but mainly so I can tackle them better in software.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  I would find it off-putting if someone pulled that line on me in an interview too. Being a programmer does not mean that you are a simply a code monkey, incapable of expanding your knowledge of the field. You would think that all companies would want someone who understood programming enough to be able to write about it in a way that others could understand, but perhaps not. Some places "get it" and some don't.
saraid216 13y ago
This is the worst thing about the "college major" system. Yes, comparative advantage is a good thing, but that doesn't logically conclude in overspecialization.
- invalidOrTaken 13y ago
  With humans, specialization is often another word for structurally imperfect information.
Gepsens 13y ago
For a few years after my MS I started focusing on programming exclusively. After a trip to NY and meeting lots of interesting people in Brooklyn, I remembered that things such as cross expertise, learning totally different disciplines and inspiration are actually the most important things if you are going to spend more time thinking than coding.

sharmanaetor 13y ago

Work "for" us? How about work "with" us?

notb 13y ago
The work FOR us theme is present throughout. I'd guess it was intentional...

Nursie 13y ago

Kinda true BUT.... Maybe you'd be surprised how many programmers there are out there who don't care if anyone uses what they do, don't want to interact with users and aren't really bothered who it affects, and would rather be left alone with the purity of "here is a task, go, be a programmer". I'm not like that now, but I used to be, and I know a lot of people that still are. All that messy stuff like business decisions, market research/development, customer support, requirements capture... all that is so much more soft and ill defined than me, my DE, a defined goal (that I may or may not have helped set) and a paycheck at the end of it. Then I don't have to think about anything but the code.

richardlblair 13y ago
And I think you would be surprised by how equally dispersed it is out there. For every developer that doesn't care there is at least one more who does.
- Nursie 13y ago
  Errr... I'm not saying there isn't, and it would be very hard to put a number on it, I just wanted to point out that there does exist a large group of tech folk who actually want the sort of situation described.
mseebach 13y ago
I broadly agree with you, but I can't help but feel that you're patronizing the position needlessly. I think it's perfectly respectable for someone to care if anyone uses what they do and to want to interact with users and care if their problems are solved - but, at the same time, desiring to do this within an order of magnitude of 40 hours a week, receive benefits, not have to worry about paying the bills, even if the client can't be bothered to, don't have to deal with the nitty-gritty of sales and bookkeeping and boardmeetings and fundraising and the landlord and sourcing a new datacenter[1] and dealing with the ISP[1] and making sure the Jenkins box is keeping up with backups[1] etc etc. The career options for a developer (especially a good one) is a broad spectrum of opportunities, not just a black and white selection between the machine room of a bank or your own startup. Edit: 1: Unless that's what you want to do.

fredley 13y ago

I've worked in very large companies, small companies and I'm now in a 4-man startup. At the end of the day it's about the environment and challenges you enjoy, and the ways in which you want to grow. Some people get a kick out of being a tiny cog in a huge, complex and influential machine, and others would rather that their tiny cog be the only (and therefore largest, and most important) cog. You can use a fish/pond based analogy if you prefer.

untog 13y ago

Developers are an extremely varied bunch. I'd suspect that HN leans towards the wide interests side because startups tend to disrupt (in the traditional sense of the word) your ability to program rather than enhance it. But not everyone is like that. Some developers want nothing more than a real, meaty technical challenge. Scaling up a site that's crashing every hour. Crunching huge datasets and extracting important data. If you find one, you might actually be lucky- they probably have more focus than I do.

Nursie 13y ago
Yup. Some are deeply focussed on the technical and see that as their mission in life/work. Some are in a similar position but are blinkered (I think I was here) and some are simply insecure about softer skills or striking out on their own (may have been here too).
shanelja 13y ago
Personally, while the whole starting a business idea seems pretty cool to me, it's just far too grand, far too difficult and far too expensive right now! I'm 20, I want to go to my simple 9 to 5 job, tackle a really difficult challenge, maybe debug some Magento because that's where the real challenge is at my company, then maybe for the last couple of hours I'll work on some of our in house products to enjoy the freedom of custom development. Then I'll go home, make something to eat (at a reasonable hour) and hopefully spend a great night cuddling with my girlfriend while we watch old movies on my laptop. While being a billionaire business man is very enticing, right now, at this point in my life, all I want is to be happy, and working 80 hour weeks to risk it on a 3% chance to make it something amazing just isn't worth it for it.
- obviouslygreen 13y ago
  Debugging Magento is a real challenge because Magento is horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. It's horrible. I like your outlook, but man, even in PHP land there are vastly better frameworks that won't make you hate your life (Magento has a nasty track record for me and several other devs I worked with). ExpressionEngine, CodeIgniter, even Symfony... if you want to do PHP, do yourself a favor and do something that's not Magento.

notb 13y ago

This has been my experience with recruiters but once you get past the wall of pleasantries and fake attitudes, they usually talk with more sense. Edit: Sibling comments are talking a lot about the author's personal motivating factors but are ignoring the bigger message of poor hiring tactics like repeating talking points and marginalizing personal goals. I got you, though, op.

acron0 13y ago

I wish this was an accurate mindset of the kinds of programmers I have to work with. Sometimes I picture myself tying my scarf around my head, leaping onto my desk and screaming "Come on! Lets go! F--k this place, we can do it better than they do it. You don't have to sit here day-in, day-out doing the same monotonous things. We can do better this, we owe it to ourselves to do this properly. No more people in suits ranting about deadlines, no more shitty coffee, no more PowerPoint. We'll do it better, we'll do it cleverer and you will feel so much the lighter for it. To the door!" But they'd just stare at me in horror.

dools 13y ago
But they'd just stare at me in horror Maybe try without the scarf?
- willismichael 13y ago
  I think you should do it, with the scarf. You never really know what will happen until you try.
  - evan_ 13y ago
    Once with the scarf, once without, and compare results.
    - willismichael 13y ago
      AB testing. Nice.
      - FramesPerSushi 13y ago
        You'll need a project manager for that.
JonnieCache 13y ago
You should definitely do this. Do it now. Post video. Use the video as part of your pitch deck.

jasallen 13y ago

So. wait. I can't actually write software for alien beings? Tease. Anyway, agree with the sentiments personally, but not sure that's true of those who identify strongly with the moniker "programmer".

yesimahuman 13y ago

> How quaint. Perhaps the best way to describe the condescending startup hiring culture where aspirational devs are encouraged to give up their dreams to work for yet another VC funded rocket ship that is "changing the world." Another recent article with this attitude: http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/01/your-2013-resolution-come-to-terms-with-being-only-an-engineer/ http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/01/your-2013-resolution-come-t... My guess is developers are starting to see through this BS and realize that they very well can run their own companies.

dools 13y ago
It appears to be that in most cases they can't and end up working for Facebook or Google anyway though right?
beatpanda 13y ago
Wow, I knew PandoDaily was bad but that is just out of control. This end of the tech cycle is terrible. We're due for an adjustment.
ryanSrich 13y ago
> My guess is developers are starting to see through this BS and realize that they very well can run their own companies. A tiny, tiny, minority that is well represented on this site. In reality most developers out there have no clue how to run or startup a business and they frankly shouldn't because they will fail.
- gboudrias 13y ago
  I think failing a business is good life experience, especially for programmers, since the starting costs are relatively very low.
  - ryanSrich 13y ago
    A failed startup is a great learning experience but when you're not ready for it or don't learn from it, it becomes less of a benefit and more of a poor choice. Having said that the circumstances one must be in to startup his or her own business are very specific. > since the starting costs are relatively very low I'd have to disagree. Unless you're weighing "cost" on just monetary value. A startup will cost you your free time, your health, your current career, and in some cases your relationship if you have one. Truly being successful in the startup world is extremely challenging and one that comes at many costs.

umsm 13y ago

One thing I learned from an honest manager: He felt his managerial position was more at risk than his position as a developer.

hodgesmr 13y ago

I couldn't agree with this more. Unfortunately, for every "I am a person" developer out there, there are 2-3 "all I care about is code" developer. It's depressing.

Anderkent 13y ago
Alternatively, some people realize that a statistically significant impact on billions of people matters more than the fuzzies you get from a good review or a personal email.
AlisdairO 13y ago
I'm not sure why it's depressing that someone would enjoy coding and not business + coding. Some people tend towards specialism, some generalism. It's probably good that we have both sorts of people. Me, I'm a specialist at heart - I have no interest at all in business. All I want in the world is for someone to come to me with an interesting problem to solve, and to help them solve it. Fortunately, I have that, and I get plenty of enjoyable interaction from helping less technically able (but more customer-focused) people to produce what they want to produce. Classifying specialists as not-people is condescending and pathetic, every bit as much as it would be for someone like me to dismiss generalists as morons because of their lack of technical depth.
- gordaco 13y ago
  And don't forget about people who don't like to specialize, yet wouldn't like to be anywhere near business administration. The idea of being only a programmer seems to me as depressing as running a business. It's just not for me; there are a ton of things to learn, and I prefer those that stimulate my brain before anything that stimulates my wallet (and yes, business administration may stimulate someone's brain, just not me). I prefer to have a 9-to-5 job that pays the bills and then, back home, study anything else.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

pooriaazimi 13y ago

> Yes. But when I affect someone's life, I'll get a email, maybe a call about it, and I'll have a real conversation with someone. I'll know who they are and how I affected them. And a few hundred 1-star reviews on the app store(s), saying that while they use your app daily, it really isn't worth the $1.99 they paid for, and people should use X instead, which is FREE. Or 3-star reviews that say the app is PERFECT, they love it, but it needs feature X (assuring you that they'll bump up their reviews to 5 star when you add the said feature). At times like that, I'm sure you'd rather you worked for some giant corporation and didn't have to deal with customers directly.

jwwest 13y ago
You're making a pretty big assumption that everyone works in consumer-facing markets, and not with small- to medium-sized businesses. The app store model is broken because it has too much Internet in it. Anonymity + Platform = arsehat. Dealing with clients one-on-one is really rewarding.
- sdoowpilihp 13y ago
  Clients can be rewarding or a nightmare. I have dealt with both. There are good and bad clients you deal with just as there are "arsehats" in the consumer facing businesses.

timjahn 13y ago

I'm young (in the scheme of life). But I think the quicker you learn what's truly important to you, you start to spend more time on those projects/with those people/in that place/etc and you feel more fulfilled, and that you're making more of an impact, than you ever did before.

mtext 13y ago
Then you learn that all places are terrible and become an old grumpy man (in the scheme of life) like me.
- timjahn 13y ago
  I suppose that's one option. :)

addlepate 13y ago

To each his own. I don't work for the world's largest anything, and while programming is only one thing I do, it's the only one I'm interested in doing professionally. How quaint, I guess. Do you want to run a business, or do you aspire to be the kind of person who runs a business, because magazines told you that means something? One is sexy and the other isn't.

lhnz 13y ago

This is how I see myself, too. I will just continue reading and doing things by my own will until somebody finally realises that domain dependent thinking is rarely innovative and that they might be able to get a competitive advantage from utilising the broad-range of expertise I am trying to grow. Everybody is different; some of us require variety to focus; and some of us get-off on bridging gaps in between disparate domains.

Kurtz79 13y ago

You can affect people's lives even if working at Big Corp X. Often, you can ask to do more things than programming at Big Corp X, if you show interest and are valued as an employee. Not every Big Corp X. deals with social networks for alien life forms on earth : there are big corps X developing medical devices, airplanes and space vehicles, public infrastructure, or researching new, game changing technology. A lot of people working at Big (or Medium/Small) Corp X. are passionate about their work. I agree that by doing your own thing you have a much more direct impact on the result, but I don't think there is such a manichean and romantic division.

mehrzad 13y ago
>there are big corps X developing medical devices, airplanes and space vehicles, public infrastructure, or researching new, game changing technology. Please let this always be true. I don't want to get into software if it's just gonna be webapps, not that those aren't cool, but I don't know if I like it much.

HunterV 13y ago

Yay! Everyone start their own company! I mean why not? Who needs salaried work? It's just so easy and risk-free if you already know how to program! Come on now, start a company when you've identified a problem that really needs a fix, and that has a huge potential of profit. A great way to find that problem is in a paid position. Starting a company for the sake of starting a company won't get you anywhere.

tracker1 13y ago
I'd started my own company at one point, and utterly failed at it... didn't enjoy it at all, and it wasn't at all freeing.. in fact I never felt more constrained. I also spent 8 months in a Director level position, managing several teams and several projects. Also much more constrained. Though, I did learn that there is far more mediocrity in the majority of programmers than greatness at that time. Now, I'm much more about putting in my time, making the projects I work on better when I leave than when I start. I enjoy contract work as I get to learn new things constantly (domain knowledge in diverse cultures), which to me is a lot of fun. Right now, I'm working for an internal development operations group, which means creating services for other development groups... It's interesting for the moment, though I'm enjoying the slower pace so far. I spent the last year and a half before where I am working on changing the environment of a set of very stale projects that had become maintenance nightmares, and bringing them into more current structures. Enhancing the UI as well as simplifying other systems. It really depends.

gdulli 13y ago

It's an interesting interpretation of the fields of marketing and customer service to lead one to believe it would be desirable to do more work in those roles and less work in software engineering. To each, their own.

B-Con 13y ago

> I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do. This is not universally true. Yes, we're all people, but some people don't want to serve as tech support, marketing, etc, themselves. Some people just want to show up and work in a specific, technical problem. HN isn't filled with that type, I don't think, but they certainly do exist. And I'd guess they're the majority, too.

rocky1138 13y ago
A lot of this depends on timing. My interest in doing more than solving a bunch of meaty technical problems (where doing more includes managing a team, speaking to people, customer service) follows a sort of sine wave pattern. Sometimes for 6-12 months all I want to do is immerse myself in programming. Other times I want to "change the world."

theleethaxor 13y ago

I dont want to sound rude, but thats such a bullcrap.

orangethirty 13y ago

Entrepreneurship fluff. These posts seem to forget the reality of life. What about health care? House payments? The cost of raising children? The social network job will allow for those. The business? Good luck with that. Oh, but you might get some funding, you say? Try explaining to a VC how you are using their money to pay for your children. Many of them don't even want you to have base salary.

mccolin 13y ago
Entrepreneurial folks -- younger ones especially -- are more apt to take the risks or shirk the responsibilities you list. Not everyone will have those responsibilities and many will grant themselves the flexibility to try their own business and see how it goes, because they put a higher value on self-run small business autonomy. And not every business needs to grow to a VC-backed behemoth. It's possible to manage a smaller business and keep it that way. OP also notes he's looking forward to the challenges associated with that path.
mtext 13y ago
These posts are written by 20-somethings that don't have children or thing about health care.

z5h 13y ago

Haha. This would be great compared to emails headhunters like to send. "Come work for a company we won't mention here. You will need all of these skills: ... Interested?"

catshirt 13y ago

respectfully, i honestly cannot even guess what the point of this post is.

mccolin 13y ago

:-)

sultezdukes 13y ago

The mooninites (http://aqua-teen-hunger-force.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mooninites http://aqua-teen-hunger-force.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mooninites) are the perfect voice for that persuading.

quackerhacker 13y ago

I love the ending! "I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do." I'm a programmer, but creating a product of their own is difficult and I commend those that do so. I've learned while doing my projects that aside from programming, I need to be... An Investor...investing money into hardware, but MOST importantly, time. Time to code, to learn, and time from work and for family. My Own Boss...doesn't mean I don't answer to anyone, it means I need to be harder on myself to get *ish done, because there is no team to offload work on. Open-minded...even though working a 9-5 would allow me to specialize in a specific area and a lovely paycheck bi-weekly, my projects/businesses required that I learn so many new things that it's continually frustrating and irritating. Ex: filing articles of incorporation, learning photoshop (I was strictly a coder), micromanaging lists of tasks, formulate a way to pay the bills while donating time to my projects (emphasis on donating). Side Note: Even though at times I may get jealous of my peers that I know that work at Google and the state...there's a fire inside me burning, just knowing that I will be something big, and I am my only true investor...programming IS just one of the things I do.

danalmeida 13y ago

Was I supposed to learn something from this?

jokoon 13y ago

This shit comes from the fact the industry consider tech-savvy people like inhuman monsters. Nerds and geeks and otakus and such, are considered like a plague, while in fact there were pioneers. Computing is still considered like magic, and it will stay like that for a long time.

J_Darnley 13y ago

Why on Earth is this linking to some shortener rather than to the actual page, http://edu.mkrecny.com/thoughts/programmer-come-work-for-us http://edu.mkrecny.com/thoughts/programmer-come-work-for-us ?

thomasbk 13y ago
Presumably because the submitter's username is also the domain, so by using a link shortener he can hide the fact that it was submitted by the author.

fnoblesse 13y ago

Good :)

wfunction 13y ago

> At times, new code that you write will correlate with a statistically significant change in one of the numbers on that dashboard. You will then know that you have affected billions of beings. Correlation == ...causation?

pamelafox 13y ago

I work at Coursera now, and we have tens of thousands of users in each class. Like the post author, I really like to feel connected to users, to feel that individual connection, so I go out of my way to get that by wandering around the support forums and monitoring Twitter mentions. Every once in a while, I run into people I know too, and the world feels that much smaller. :-) So, yes, it's easy to feel disconnected from people when you work on a product with many users, but if you want to, I think there's often a way to find them.

ericd 13y ago
This is exactly what I do as well, and it works quite well. It's also one of my favorite parts about running a small company, and I think I'd like to make it a policy that programmers should interact directly with the customers at least sometimes.

taurath 13y ago

This is why I pushed to have my company fly me across the country to an client event we're doing. I've been working here for a year but I've never met a single person who uses the code I write on a daily basis.

anasuddeen 13y ago

Very pain full, but very very valuable. Being a human.

nkoren 13y ago

Where exactly are the programmers of which this article alludes? I recently received seed funding for my next startup (http://www.podaris.com/jobs.php http://www.podaris.com/jobs.php), and am finding hiring developers to be extremely difficult. Yes, the work will be extremely diverse, you'll get to interact directly with customers, and you'll get to shape and take significant equity a product which can genuinely change the world -- but most developers out there don't seem to be looking for that. So far, 99% of the developers I've encountered have fit into one of two categories: 1.) Freelancers, who are committing to remaining so because of the lifestyle perks -- they want to be able to bugger off to that Australian walkabout more or less whenever they feel like it -- and the level of commitment which a startup requires just isn't appealing to them. 2.) 9-to-5ers, who want the safety and security of job with a large corporation or agency, and really don't mind dealing with the world through a dashboard. I can understand where both types of people are coming from, and can't fault them for it. What I haven't found is an abundance of developers who have the appetite for the high-commitment, high-uncertainty life which a startup entails.

eloisant 13y ago
There is an other category: people who want high-commitment, high-uncertainty, and chance of high reward they get by starting their own startup. Maybe you're asking people the same sacrifice you're doing, except that they'll be doing it for you rather than for themselves?
droelf 13y ago
That's because your startup is likely to fail. why should people want to design a multi-million dollar system in a "HTML5" - Browserbased - Solution done by a (max) 10 person-team? I just don't get how you'll ever appeal to your target group. But maybe -- hopefully -- I am wrong.
jasonkester 13y ago
I think you answered your question yourself. The guys who want to do it all are all busy doing it all. Notice the quote in the linked article: "I was actually thinking of starting my own business." That's what those guys are doing. If you're looking for somebody who's motivated to run every aspect of a business, but would prefer to run every aspect of your business rather than one in which he'd get 100% of everything, then yes, you're going to have a tough time of it. I'd recommend hiring one of those Australian Walkabout guys on their terms. They're probably just as capable of doing what you want done, and they don't come with any unrealistic expectations of what you'll give them. Pay them money in exchange for work until you either don't need them anymore or the money runs out. Then let them go with no hard feelings on either side.

arti5m 13y ago

Hooray!