Hot answers tagged career-development
116
What on earth does the choice of programming language have anything to do with your career?
This question is like asking, "I have two choices for a place to work. Should I work at the one where the boss has a norwegian accent, or the one where the boss has a spanish accent?"
There are much more important career considerations.
Startup or established ...
97
The biggest thing I can think of is both an advantage and a disadvantage: everything you put online under your real name will follow you. This is good when you are posting good, constructive things. It's bad when you post a picture of you from that night or when you say something offensive or just plain stupid.
I find that using my real name helps keep me ...
90
You should write a letter.
The amount of notice should be in your contract - assuming you have one. Even if you didn't sign the contract you should abide by its terms. By working and getting paid you and the company are working to that contract even if it's not "official". If nothing else you'll be seen to be doing "the right thing" and it will be harder ...
87
Getting a PhD does two things to you and it uses up 4 or more years. You will need to decide whether those two things are worth the time. First, it gives you some initials after your name. For the rest of time, people who see those initials will think "wow, you must be really smart!" (and often, they will say it out loud.) On a resume it will generally help ...
82
When I have to work with other "experienced" people that fall into the same category as you, my biggest concern is that they would feel they have enough seniority that whatever they did for the last 15 years has always worked for them and they are happy with that. I've had some nice, clean organized code that has been completely trampled over by these ...
78
The only way to become really good at something is to try, fail spectacularly, try again, fail again a little less than before, and over time develop the experience to recognize what causes your failures so that you can manage potential failure situations later on. This is as true of learning to play a musical instrument, drive a car, or earn some serious ...
77
Do most companies work such a way that their highest paid technical people are far removed from writing code?
Most bad companies. There is a natural trend for more responsibility to involve less code writing and more focus on other aspects of software development. That said, it's very common for technical folks to lose touch with what is ...
71
I don't think it's the use of abstractions per se that's objectionable. There are two other possible explanations. One is that abstractions are all leaky at one time or another. If you give the impression, correct or not, that you don't understand the underlying fundamentals, that might reflect poorly in an interview.
The other possible explanation is ...
67
To what end?
Why would you want one? Some people use it as a way to sell themselves to employers. Others do it to help enrich the community and share information. Maybe both. I think you need to ask why you want a website before you determine how important it is.
If you want to sell yourself to employers, then yes a site or blog can definitely be of help. ...
64
As an HR goon, let me give you the perspective from the other side of the fence:
Objectively
very, very rare is the (wo)man who can be highly skilled at many disparate functions
skills that make someone a great manager do not completely correlate with those that make someone a great technical expert (being very generous here)
what most people enjoy doing ...
61
I'm 51 years old and have used at least 15 languages and/or frameworks since I got my first paying gig after graduation in 1987.
Bless you.
I never went into management because I didn't want to, but I know how to program and I know how to keep teams motivated and delivering good code. You need to work on people skills and look for interesting work that ...
60
I don't know anything about Blub itself, but I've been in a similar situation where there was something about my job that I think should be fixed, but don't want to burn bridges. Here are a few ideas that may help.
Try to fix the issue. Explain to your boss that you think Blub is a bad decision for the health and growth of the company. Provide specific ...
57
You never have to stop programming, ever, as long as you are enjoying what you are doing. However, your organization might have a ceiling that you reach, and you simply can't go into a higher position or obtain a greater salary unless you leave the company or leave programming and move into a leadership role as a manager or technical lead.
57
Most important thing:
Don't be impressed by the titles. In a short time, you will realize that your Ph. D coworkers, too, are just humans. And some people with a Ph. D never really created anything practically usefull. Always remember that, don't feel inferior.
What I'd expect of you?
To write good code and get things done. Chances are that you are someone ...
56
To the trends you mention I would add one more, which IMHO explains them:
There is vastly more programmers (needed) than ever.
The amount of tasks which require or include programming is ever increasing, and in an even higher rate than the number of programmers. Nowadays there are several microchips in an average car. In 5 years there may be a chip in your ...
55
Your best bet is to find a small company where basically everyone needs to be a jack-of-all-trades: something around 5 to 10 employees. It is very uncommon to see such small companies push their employees into rigorous categories, simply because they cannot afford to.
Of course, you need to be able with the downsides of small teams: smaller projects, ...
52
I had one job where I work up every morning wishing I was sick enough to go to the hospital so I wouldn't have to go to work.
At another job, I was working so many hours I was having trouble actually driving home at 2 or 3 am when I went home. Only job I ever quit without having another job, just physically couldn't take one more day and the final straw ...
52
Is personal branding (blogs, etc) required to find good programming work in the US?
No, but a personal blog, GitHub Id, or Stackoverflow Id can be a great way to demonstrate your ability to code solutions for interesting and challenging problems.
Bottom Line: While none of aforementioned are required for employment as a programmer, all of them can ...
49
Every programmer I know has been in your spot at least once. I know I have. It's a killer, for sure. The way I get to feel better is to take the problem to the boss, explaining it to him in exactly the vivid words you've so forcefully and heartbreakingly used here in your post.
Yes, of course your boss has noticed but he might not know that it's not your ...
48
I hear this broken record every day - "We can't find the skills we need"
Lets paraphrase the advert into an listing for a Truck Driver:
Wanted -- Skilled Truck Driver. Must have the following skill sets:
1990 Volvo Cab Over 10Speed Auto 250HP
Pulling twin dual axle trailers containing farm supply products.
Must have detailed knowledge of ...
47
You need to do three things...
Start conversations - and the best way to do this is to introduce yourself to someone and ask questions. Most folks love to talk about themselves and their opinions - even introverts! Here are a few you can try...
What's your favorite session so far?
Where are you from?
Do you use [a technology discussed at the conference]?
...
43
Any blog, if it covers technical topics rather than the adventures of your cat, can be useful in showing employers what you care about, what you know, and how you approach problems. Consider adjusting your entry style a little bit to eliminate the one negative, that it might show you once didn't know X, where X is some trivial thing that "everyone" should ...
42
I find that it's not blogging per se that makes you a better developer, but rather it's the practice at explaining things to other people. When you write up a blog post, you generally are compelled to learn more about the subject you're talking about or at the very least to explain it coherently. If you can explain it coherently in a blog post, you can ...
41
You can look at this as either a as time in limbo; or you can turn it into an opportunity to grow.
The core idea of being a maintenance developer is to put yourself out of a job. Each time you have to fix something; take the time to understand the problem well enough so that your solution (which could come a few weeks after you put out the fire) means you ...
40
You should just tell them, that the way things are, you are unwilling to stay.
Worst case, they take it very personally and start yelling at you. Since you intend to leave, you don't have to take it, just leave.
Maybe, they simply don't care. There's no discussion, they just let you go and you don't need to justify anything
Best outcome is, they engage in ...
40
Humility goes a long way
With your humble attitude, I seriously doubt you'll be annoying. Humility goes a long way. (This is true for hot-shots as much as for interns.)
If your role is explicitly to support the others, you can be sure of being useful by simply asking. "What annoying task can I take off your plate?"
Another thing you'll find is that most ...
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