Ask HN: Developers, how do you deal with socials, blogging, etc

In my current job they asked me to update my linkedin. I said "haha nope". Latest entry is from 2017. Never heard from it again in the past 5y.

In a previous job, they asked me to post a review on glassdoor. I said "haha nope". They came back after 6 months insisting I do so, I told them "no.". They came back at it after another 6 months, I asked what was their budget for bribing glassdoor into removing a bad review. They finally go it.

I've never had issues with not having "social" accounts. Every time it was mentioned during an interview I just jokingly said it is time that I reinvest in my own projects then usually they were (rightfully) more interested to see what I did which I would show from my laptop or my personal website (that would be up during my job search and put to rest right after). So in other terms, I'm playing the game when I want to and/or when there's something in it for me.

That said my profile is a bit of a niche one and I'm not really making public talks etc so ymmv.

A few thoughts...

- I have written a book and the publisher obviously wants to spread the word. Do I want to spread the word? Yes, I also want to spread the word. Why? Because I think it's a good book and it might help some people. So I try to create content to spread the word. This results in 80% of people coming across this content thinking "I don't need that, that's marketing", vs. 20% who might think "Great, I need that".

- If I want to join a new company, a technical blog or active developer advocates help me decide. I can get a sense of a company culture through what they chose to post and whom they hire for their advocate roles.

- Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are a complete waste of time for me personally. But again, other people build their presents their to sell you their ideas. Is it legit? Sure, why not. How else do you get informed about new ideas and thoughts?

All of that means there is tons of noise, since everyone is using the same channel (s), and for you, the consumer, means you have to filter these channels _a lot_.

I think in the current day&age, where computation and technology is part of every day life, your job description changes, and educating and "spreading the word" is part of it. But, this can be done in an authentic manner. You don't have to lie, or put up a big show. Writing and exposing your ideas can also help identifying who you are and getting in touch with people and the community can help shaping your thoughts and reflecting back on yourself.

So all in all, these environments are great for narcissists and "bubble people" , which is "bad", but I personally just see these social media platforms as channels now of information, where I can get new insights, articles and ideas from.

I personally restrict the usage of these platforms now to exactly this: Inflow of information. I am building actively a social network which is close to me, has nothing to do with being online. But I, every now and then, try to contribute to the online discourse through articles and blog posts.

What I find liberating is seeing how other professions are doing this: I follow endurance sports and psychology on YouTube, and what they do is is basically teaching and answering questions.

When Frederick the Great repeatedly ordered Seydlitz to attack at Zorndorf, eventually threatening that he would pay with his head for insubordination, Seydlitz replied:

> Tell the King my head will be at his disposal after the battle. During the battle, I hope he will allow me to employ it, to gain victory for him.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/26/Le...

(I've been RIF'd before, and it's nothing like decapitation)

Simple

- No linkedin, no instagram, no fb, and afaic not even a google account (yes android works, rooted)

When my employer asks me to "publish", "have a presence" or "shine for the company" in any way I find the NDA, security rules and legalese I've signed and reply

1. This is against cybersecurity rules, can you sign me a paper stating you want me to break rule #37 and rule #61

2. Then I ask him to accept all the end-user agreements in the company name or its own personal name, and send me back the login+password so I can contribute daily BS - oh and buy me a company owned phone if such interactions involve using a MobileApp(tm), no way I'm mixing personal and work on my phone

The discussion stopped here, never got a reply, did this to 3 employers already

I use twitter (https://twitter.com/strzibnyj) and I have a blog (https://nts.strzibny.name) but I don't think you have to market yourself this way per se at all. But it's 100% helpful.

I'm not on Twitter/LinkedIn and have basically nothing on public on Github. Hasn't been an issue for me somehow.

I just say I don't have any social media accounts and that I'm a private person. I've not felt pressured to post something, but if I was, I'd just refuse. I guess in the worst case they fire me, but I'd just find a job somewhere somewhere else.

I guess my advice is just keep ignoring the bullshit as long as the consequences aren't something you can't handle. Obviously if you're the single earner in your family and barely making ends meat, you might have to suck it up.

Most people I work with just laugh and ignore it. Our employers are welcome to make any request they want, but unless you work in marketing it falls outside the scope of our jobs, and we can simply not do it. It doesn't even need a reply of any kind.

I don't do any of this stuff. I have never had an employer ask me to. If they did, I would tell them honestly that I don't want to participate in that. I would be surprised if that were a deal-breaker, since I am a lot more better at the job they hired me for than I am at marketing.

Is it a requirement as in you are told to post on these mediums by your employer or do you feel its a requirement in order to be hired?

Personally, I find many LinkedIn posts a bit ridiculous to the point it's a negative signal in some instances. I would just avoid a workplace that require this kind of things. What is ok though, is the occasional blog post to present an interesting piece of technical work without overselling it.

Hardly any presence. I have a twitter account but it's practically dead. The only social media account I use regularly is my reddit account but only for administrative purposes: I'm a moderator of one of the top-5 largest subs. Some people at work know about this but not because they needed to know, I just shared it in an informal conversation. Also my reddit account can't be tied to me so... Also, as I said, purely administrative and I don't really engage with users or the content. Most of what I do is fully automated at this point. Blogging - I try to get in it every now and then but purely for the sake of keeping track of what I do in my spare time as experiments but I don't have enough time to devote to it unfortunately.

>I've been gainfully employed in industry for ~2 decades

For someone with that amount of history, it will not matter.

But for new people: Just keep a generic linkedin that looks professional (you dont have to use it, just have a profile). It's going to look sus to have zero social presence; might as well give HR something to chew on. Don't add your managers or bosses on your personal social accounts.

You're better off having some generic stuff up when someone google's your name than nothing at all or worse- some embarrassing shit you posted 10 years ago.

All of those things are just signals to help hirers make the right hiring choices. Some folks are too rigid with requirements, but in my experience other signals will generally suffice. Show them you're the right choice.

> how do you deal with the ongoing requirements it appears that jobs place, such as social network involvement

I have no idea who on earth is bothering you with this but I know for sure that if you tell them that you are happy to post about the company at their behest on your Gab/Parler account they will immediately leave you alone. Try to keep a straight face.

I market myself sometimes, but I never market my company

read the next job listing

Not my job. If they make a big deal out of it they can find a new engineer that really needs to be active on social networks.

Anything I'm active on gainfully is as a psuedoanon; it's none of their business what I do there. Separation of business and pleasure. If asked any accounts that do happen to exist do not exist.

Only real name thing I have is a LinkedIn for old coworkers to find me on / networking.

Say no and find a better job if your manager doesn't like it.

The same way you deal with other processes you don't like - don't. Same goes for leetcode, work trials, etc.

It is a kind of cultural filter. If you think doing it would make you better at your job, then use it as motivation to do it. Otherwise, there's plenty of other places to work. It will likely get worse once you join; sometimes things like "knowledge sharing" becomes part of the performance review.

> continuing my ongoing work as a principal engineer, without marketing externally

Then you have misunderstood the responsibilities of a principal engineer.

While I don't think there is any need to have social media accounts, publishing engineering articles is a perfectly reasonable ask as part of your work responsibilities.

If you think the blogs are little more than spam, then be the one writing better articles instead of complaining.

I largely just don’t.

My employer regularly asks us to share/like/discuss company content on social media.

I just don’t have accounts, so don’t participate. To be honest even if I did I still would not.

I was only asked about this once and I just said I didn’t do social media in general and they were happy with that answer.

Employer / Employee has to be a match. If an employer prefers employees who have a social presence, then you and them are not a match.

Like many others and OP - I don't participate in "social" part at all and the employer does not require it and I too have been employed for ~2 decades in the industry, 17 of which with same employer (with full freedom to be creative and everything a senior dev expects from a good employer).

I'm not interested in writing blogs, I use Obsidian to create snippets and link up things I stumble upon and find useful or to note down my own code snippets, techniques and similar. I find blogs very hard to read, I often need technical info only (i.e. config reference, code sample or syntax example).

The whole "social" part of the current web is not something I can relate to at all, it feels fake and too inflated with useless information so I tend to avoid it.

If there were requirements to virtue signal, to write blogs, to write all over Linkedin "I am great but I would not be here without my $team of awesome $people who inspire me $some_other_generic_motivational_anal_alpinism" - I think I'd burn out and pursue a different career.

I ignore the popular "social" platforms, I use IRC and phpbb/vbulletin based forums to interact with people that have similar non-work-related interests. I don't think I'm missing out on anything and I feel no curiosity to be a part of this post-2010. part of social web.

I sense some FOMO from your post. If it works for you without having these accounts and engaging in getting more social online, then why bother with getting onboard, but it really feels you don't want any of this.

> I just want to focus on the things we're collectively doing to be successful.

What's preventing you doing it?

I personally have a bunch of social media accounts and post stuff regularly, but only stuff I care about, so I can get behind them 100%. Sometimes it's deep stuff, but mostly rubbish shitpost, it just entertains me.

I don't think it's required to land a job to have these accounts. A LinkedIn one is the only one that's good to have, but only to get discovered more easily. You don't need to contribute to the cringefest that's 98% of the content there.

Usenet and IRC were the socials when I started. And mailinglists. There was always a crowd there, but I figure most people were just doing work without bothering to post about it. Same as now.