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Career Advice for Engineers and Designers
- JohnyLy 11y agoGreat post! I think those notes are not limited to engineers and designers tho. They are interesting for marketers, finance professionals... It could be called" "Career notes for everyone"
- 100k 11y agoThe rest of the site is a helpful database of tech companies considered to be "breaking out" which would look good on your resume/teach you a lot/maybe make you some money.
- saurabhsharan 11y agoThis is a great summary and analysis of the best career advice from lots of different people. Also from the same person who made the breakout list (breakoutlist.com), which I've sent to my engineer friends who are looking for something other than Google/FB. Just sent this one to a few friends as well.
- dkarapetyan 11y agoVery startup centric. Maybe should say that in the title.
- jen729w 11y agoVery, very. It worries me sometimes - and I know we're on HN and that's the audience here, but still - that people see "a startup" as the one and only way. This will inevitably lead to pain and heartache for many. I've worked contract jobs through my 20 year career and have done very, very nicely out of it. (I started in the UK and am now in AU - our rates are healthy and consistent.) Now, with my 20 years' experience, am I thinking of branching out and doing my own thing? Sure. Would I have recommended that to my 18 year old self? Hell no.
- morgante 11y ago> Now, with my 20 years' experience, am I thinking of branching out and doing my own thing? Sure. Would I have recommended that to my 18 year old self? Hell no. Working at a startup you can also do very well for yourself.
- peteretep 11y ago> Working at a startup you can also do very well for > yourself Sure, just like joining a rock band.
- morgante 11y ago> Sure, just like joining a rock band. What? As far as I know, most early rock bands don't pay their musicians $150k+.
- onion2k 11y agoYes, but those who do are statistical outliers in a field of people who are underpaid and see very little money even if there's an exit at the end - you might get a $100k check but if you've been earning $50k below the market rate for 5 years that's not a very good deal. There are plenty of great reasons to work for a startup (challenging problems, freedom to work how you like, meeting smart people, learning huge amounts of tech very quickly, etc) but if you think it's a good way to get rich you are plain wrong. If you're a developer who wants lots of money go and work for a bank.
- morgante 11y agoIf you're making under-market at a startup, you're doing it wrong. Equity is compensation for increased risk and work, not for a subpar salary.
- aesthetics1 11y agoHow do you get into something like that, if you don't mind me asking? What's your specialty, and where were you in your career path 20 years ago that set you up for it?
- hkmurakami 11y agoWell the argument of the post is that a well thought out technical career should necessarily land a person at a Startup early in their career. Given this position that the post is taking, adding "startup specific advice" to the title would conflict with the premise of the article. Now, said premise may very well be entirely wrong (I think the optimal career for most people is to be a lifer at Google), but isn't that what the comments here are for?
- BreakoutList 11y agoI'm curious to hear -- why is the optimal career for most people to be a lifer at Google?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- UK-AL 11y agoIn terms of money and skills I guess
- YorkianTones 11y agoAs much as startups can "disrupt" by creating new businesses, big tech companies can also create entirely new products or businesses and when they attempt to do so they often succeed. Google has a good shot at eventually being successful with products like glass, self-driving cars, etc. Amazon is already succeeding with AWS and at some point will launch drone delivery. Even if you just own a small feature, it's fulfilling to work on large important products with high impact (legacy products too e.g. gmail). Plus, there is little risk and great payout guaranteed. Contrary to Thiel's comments, I think you're surrounded by brilliant people at a place like Google and will learn constantly and won't stagnate. The key is to not stay on the same team/product forever.
- BreakoutList 11y agoI think that's definitely true if you're on a team like Glass v2 or self driving cars.
- vonmoltke 11y agoNot just startup-centric, but Valley startup-centric. I love how it assumes the reader has their pick of companies to work for. Kind of insulting to those of us outside the Valley who don't. :/
- jasonmcalacanis 11y agoactually, if you have great skills you have your pick.... you can get on a flight and go work for any of these companies!
- MichaelCrawford 11y agoThere is a very good reason why ethics are more important than stock options and craft beer on tap: Every Engineer's Solemn Duty http://www.warplife.com/ethics/duty.html http://www.warplife.com/ethics/duty.html In 2006 I filed a "Radar" at http://bugreport.apple.com/ http://bugreport.apple.com/ to - POLITELY! - suggest that Apple avoid needless deaths and billion dollar lawsuits by recalling, redesigning and replacing its MagSafe Power Adapter, as mine burned through its insulation, very nearly catching my house on fire. Apple's response was to link its stated policy on unsolicited product suggestions then close the bug. As a result of a class action lawsuit, Apple actually DID recall, redesign and replace the adapter. It's latest MacBook charges via USB rather than MagSafe. Apple made that design change without any public comment that I am aware of. I was offered a free replacement if I turned in my torched MagSafe but I paid eighty bucks so I could keep it. I figured it would look cool with an evidence tag attached to it. Also in 2006 I resigned in protest what at first seemed like quite a good job as an industrial control systems engineer because Glenn Wadden, founder and one-third owner of Trihedral Engineering of Bedford, Nova Scotia thought it quite funny that his product enabled anyone with the most basic understanding of computers to detonate a large industrial facility like a bunker buster bomb, all from the comfort of their own home. I stayed silent for seven years in hopes Trihedral would fix its steaming pile of code, then went public in hopes that public pressure would ensure a fix. The Stuxnet and Flame worms that attacked Iran's industry - notably its Uranium Hexafluoride Gas Turbine Centrifuge Cascades - attacked vulnerabilities in a Siemen's industrial control system product. It's not like Iranians don't know how to write computer programs.
- JamesBarney 11y agoIs it just me or does anyone else think that any advice that relies on a 19 year old's ability to pick successful tech startups is rubbish?
- cjbarber 11y agoI'm interpreting your comment to mean that because an engineer won't be able to pick a successful company anyway, it is useless that they follow any career advice. If that's a correct interpretation, then no, absolutely not. Most engineers (you see this if you sift through linkedin) make far less optimal (I believe) choices than they would by simply picking a Series A/B company backed by a tier one firm like Sequoia/A16Z/Greylock/Benchmark. And surprisingly, people take very little time to think about what they want, what they care about, what they believe the world needs, what they enjoy, and so on. Doesn't seem like a good idea given they'll/you'll spend 50%+ of your waking hours at work.
- 100k 11y agoPerhaps folks working at also-ran startups are not there because they are bad at picking but bad at getting hired[1] at more successful companies. [1] This doesn't mean they're bad -- they could have trouble interviewing, or be subject to conscious or unconscious discrimination.
- soham 11y agoIn life, it's often about picking from what's available to you at the time of making the choice, instead of what's optimal. Especially true of young people. Many engineers that come to me for interview training (http://InterviewKickstart.com http://InterviewKickstart.com), have been at their workplaces for several years, mostly since college. When in college, you just want a job and a job in a brand name company like Cisco is amazing. It's usually too late until you realize that you were in a team that nobody cared about. Then you try and interview to get into a good startup, only to realize that interviewing landscaping has shifted. Your only option then, is to go join an also-ran startup because they paid no attention to the interview process. It's a vicious cycle.
- peeyek 11y agoActually, with currently title from HN > "Career Notes for Engineers and Designers" My expectation is they excerpt content from real-word engineer like head of engineering or head of design some of giant tech companies. But it seems they excerpt content from bunch of VC and i think is good from entrepeneur perspective.
- DavidHm 11y agoAnd therein lies the problem. It is in the VC's interest to push more and more people to take risky bets - this gives them more horses to bet on, while managing the risk through diversification. For the individual horse (or er, engineer), this still remains a risky proposition. Which becomes far less risky if before you launch in the startup world, you take a couple of years after graduation to work for a well known and reputed company (say google). That will guarantee a soft landing if your startup experiment fails, which is very likely.
- BreakoutList 11y agoYes. Though part of the crux of this advice is to choose a company that is already growing revenue at a solid rate, from a solid base. This is not as risky as you might think. Also, generally, if you are a good engineer (as long as you learned things and improved, if you worked at a company that didn't become a big success), Google et al will welcome you back with open arms.
- DavidHm 11y agoI agree with you. Joining a company that has a clear revenue model (or has found a decent way to monetize their user base) and is growing by leaps and bounds seems like an easy bet. But how many of these companies are out there? Granted, we are a few waves after the deluge of social startups with gigantic user bases and no idea on how to monetize them, but what you describe is still a minority of startups. And the suggestion doesn't seem to be "join a company that is already doing well", it's "join a startup or create one, instead of going to work for some corporation". This is what I think: in engineering (and even more, in business), right after your graduation there is this window where you have large and famous companies with deep pockets who are eager to get the cream of the class. If you join them even for an year or two, you have significantly smoothed the rest of your working life. Sure, you can always join them years later, and you don't need them to succeed - but statistically, the impact of taking advantage of this window cannot be denied.
- PascLeRasc 11y agoFor something meant for designers, I felt that the site was poorly designed. The main menu makes it hard to see who each picture is of, and it's hard to tell at times if we're reading the editor's opinion or the subjects'.
- aralipo1900 11y agoProgrammer is not the same thing as engineer.
- zaf 11y ago> Some programming tasks are especially suited to states of flow Thats as close a match I found to "Programmer" vs 10 for "engineer".
- eitally 11y agoThat may be true, but many, many companies equate them.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y agoI worked one Uk Telco t where "engineer" meant Lineman aka the guy in the van who climbed poles for a living
- r3bl 11y agoSeems like this page is open source: https://github.com/breakoutlist/career-notes https://github.com/breakoutlist/career-notes So maybe we could create pull requests with our suggestions?
- suttree 11y agoFor actual careers advice from real people, not the looking-back-from-my-yacht type, try https://www.somewhere.com https://www.somewhere.com. Yes, I'm the founder, but this is what we do best - asking questions about work and getting responses from people who are right there, right now, e.g. https://www.somewhere.com/provocations/latest https://www.somewhere.com/provocations/latest
- dferlemann 11y agoIt looks pretty and all. How is it different from LinkedIn? I'm always weary getting myself on another "social network" thing instead in the end getting my data sold - or worse - stolen. (actually I'm not sure which is worse...)
- suttree 11y agoI could talk a lot about how we're different from LinkedIn, and how looking pretty as a website is a hindrance at times, but we're less about what you've done and more about how you do it. For a lot of people things like job titles and descriptions are out of sync with what we do, and we don't really have any good tools to show or share our work. Developers have Github, designers have dribbble, but for everyone else there's not a good tool out there. But, I hear you on the YASN problem, and we're not solely a social product as a result of that.
- davidamarquis 11y agoI clicked one of the links http://calacanis.com/2015/07/04/the-most-important-piece-of-advice-for-folks-starting-their-careers/ http://calacanis.com/2015/07/04/the-most-important-piece-of-... The 6th piece of wisdom this particular thought leader has for us is "NEVER GET INVOLVED IN POLITICS & NEVER BE NEGATIVE." Which is followed immediately by this: "The people who are killed, the deer, tend to huddle around the kitchen or go on cigarette breaks and bitch and complain about everyone and everything at the company. The tigers are too busy killing it to be bothered with such things... Deer: “Bitch bitch, moan moan, blame blame, cry cry. Tiger: “Hmmm…that’s an interesting take on things. I gotta get shit done, good luck with that.” Apparently turning himself into a killer tiger who just fucking kills all the time has left him without a sense of irony.
- juliangregorian 11y agoYeah, the other pieces of advice -- work super hard (for your employer), don't ask for money... doesn't sound very tigerly to me.
- wcummings 11y ago>Never leave work before she does, respond to her emails quickly and without excuses. Here are things to say to her when she gives you amazing responsibilities that will make her love and trust you more. >Don’t bust your ass and sharpen your skills for your boss alone, do it for yourself and your boss. Taking on all the problems at a startup is not being taken advantage of — it’s taking advantage of. >Don’t worry about your salary, just get enough money to live in a closet close to work. Is this guy serious? Is this satire? From the sidebar: >If you're a winner please email winners@calacanis.com The more I read the more I hate this person.
- jasonmcalacanis 11y ago100%
- jasonmcalacanis 11y agoThe piece states that you shouldn't worry about short term $, you should worry about gaining skills and experience so that you can -- some day -- be the boss. Early in your career, if you're aspire to be great, you should really just take on as many projects and get as close to the leadership as possible. The good news, if that if you take on a lot the leadership will naturally get close to you -- because that's how they (probably) got their slot in leadership. I've seen many folks go for the quick money (say at a big company) and miss out on the massive experience you can gain being part of a startup (even, perhaps especially, if that startup fails).
- omouse 11y agoI like the "after getting hired" quotes; they're all good advice that benefit you, the only caveat is to make sure you aren't getting taken advantage of. Don't overwork yourself to enrich someone else; enrich yourself first.
- BreakoutList 11y agoYes. And often the best way to enrich someone else is to enrich yourself (i.e. people are happy when they are skilled, good at their work, liked by their coworkers, etc; turns out employers also like this).
- jasonmcalacanis 11y agoWhat I've learned about getting "taking advantage of," is that if you're learning and growing you can't be "taken advantage of." Who cares if your boss is getting some great deal on a $ basis if you're getting the experience to be the boss? My advice in this piece is for people who aspire to accomplish great things in their life--not folks who want a "great life" (defined as balance, vacations, etc). So, if you're 35 and have a family this isn't the advice for you (that should be obvious).
- throwaway1410 11y agoVery programmer centric. I was hoping to read advice that relates to all kinds of engineers, not just software ones.
- BreakoutList 11y agoGreat point. Though some of the general concepts still apply, for example, on identifying who you want to be working with, what you care about, etc.