I heard from multiple people working at Stripe that selling yourself is a huge reason why they think it's a very bad place to work. You apparently have to make full-on folders to showcase what you have done.
Ugh, sounds horrible. This is what happens when extroverted bullshitters get to decide the rules around career advancement. Your ability to write self-promotional marketing slop counts for as much as or more than the actual work you were hired to do. I say this as someone who is right now grudgingly writing self-promotional marketing slop instead of doing my job.
All of the places I've worked at that have come close to this style of self-promotion have been dominated by kingdom builders and professional bullshitters.
> For the world to benefit from your work, and therefore for you to benefit fully from your work, you have to make it known.
I don't agree with this assumption. One does not necessarily follow the other. Outside of work, I write programs that I need and that further my own personal curiosity and education. I don't have to release any of it to the world, in order for me to fully benefit from it. I plan to take all of the source code on my computer to my grave and that's totally OK.
For any young programmers: live within your means, invest the difference, become independent, and work on what you enjoy. It’s the best (work related) gift you can give yourself. Skip the self promotion politics unless you enjoy it.
Respectfully disagree. If you're maxing out your spend so at the end of the month there is no surplus you aren't living within your means. For a lot of folks this is an ugly necessity, but programmers generally aren't in this group.
I'm sorry, but this advice can sometimes sound like "sell one of your kidneys so you can eat". What if your means are not sufficient to avoid hunger? Investing negative difference? What if on top of that you're trying to do the work you enjoy and your means - incomes - stop completely? Do you see the problem with advice?
Naturally not everyone is lucky enough to have the income to do this.
The first part though is key - living within your means. It assumes you have means, and that it's possible to live within them.
The advice is good - whether you use it or not is up to you, and of no consequence to the advice giver. Whether you are in a position to take the advice or not is up to you.
For those who can though I can agree with it. Forgoing a new car now might mean retiring a year earlier. Financial freedom (aka retirement) means doing work on your terms, not beholden to your employer. It doesn't mean "not working".
Of course the best way to a better job, more pay, and a sooner retirement is indeed to "sell yourself" making both yourself and your work more valuable.
Do this advice is a corollary to the article, not a repudiation of it.
I think you might modify the advice to be something like:
If you're a programmer, and you're paid well, don't assume that will last forever. Don't spend all your money (and beyond) on cars and rent. Invest as much as you can with the goal of being financially independent.
> What if your means are not sufficient to avoid hunger?
Not all advice is applicable to everyone. It's up to you to decide if you can and want to follow it. The advice was for young programmers and it is solid advice, but again, not applicable to everyone. It is applicable to a majority (probably even large majority). If you are young and earning a sw engineer salary it is very rare to not be able to cover your basic needs and have something left. Most people spends what is left in luxuries, lifestyle creep, etc; which is what the advice is trying to warn people about.
I don’t hate work. But at the end of the day, it’s a means to exchange labor for money.
Out of the million of things I enjoy, helping the bottom line of a for profit company isn’t one of them. It’s a necessity.
And I actually like the company I work for. It’s one of the best companies I’ve ever worked for (10 in almost 30 years).
The self promotion politics is the only way you get ahead in large companies with a structured promotion process where you have to show “scope” and “impact”.
I actually enjoy when my work isn't just fun and good, but also contributing to a bigger picture. It's bot just that it gives meaning. It's also that the added design constraints are intriguing, and help me determine when I can stop polishing.
It's not about self promotion, but building with a clear goal set fir me I have found to be much more rewarding than when I have to think of my own goal. The worst is when a fake goal is set, it's the thing about university I liked the least. If I can't interrogate or question the 'why' for the goal, because it is just 'to test me' then it isn't a real goal, just an artificial constraint.
I worked as a Technical Sales Engineer and have been a Software Engineer for three years. I’ve realized many technical professionals overlook the importance of selling and writing.
With LLMs advancing and may take over coding tasks, software engineers should focus on skills like selling, writing, and problem-solving.
I hear you, and I agree that coding is still core to being a software engineer. However, with tools like GitHub Copilot already automating parts of coding, it’s clear that the role of software engineers is evolving.
While coding remains important, skills like problem-solving, communication, and selling ideas are becoming just as essential. LLMs can assist with tasks, but they can’t replace the creativity and critical thinking that only humans bring. Focusing on these skills ensures we stay ahead as the industry changes.
Coding per se was never the crux of most seasoned software engineers.
The name engineering hints at it.
> skills like problem-solving, communication, and selling ideas are becoming just as essential
They always were. Coding was the easy part and you definitely were coding the wrong thing if you were not "problem solving".
Your conclusion of giving value to those things is right regardless of how you get there so I'll stop being an asshole but just remember that it was never specifically about coding but about automated systems with simplicity, maintainability and evolvability as characteristics.
You must have heard the phrase about spending more time reading than writing (code). Or thinking.
I have started doing this more,, the problem is however that I suck at marketing, I hate being too direct, so posting the odd interesting project or nugget of information on my website to maybe get a few more of my books sold or get some nice gig work in areas I like is the way I go.
As my paid work runs out and I get more towards retirement I guess I will start moving on to documenting some hobby projects, I don't see any down-side to it except running out of interesting things to talk about.
Of course nobody will visit your site unless you post it around, kind of a catch 22.
I started blogging weekly recently. I’ve been surprised at the efficacy of simply asking readers to subscribe. At the end of each post I make the request and provide an email box.
After only three articles, 28 people have signed up. It’s not a lot compared to some folks, but it validates two important things. First, being direct can work. Second, people care and want to hear more.
Everyone sucks at something they don't do so much of. Try it, learn from others and pick what you personally like.
The thing about marketing is that it's not a x->y kind of thing, so people can literally try something which they think is fun/interesting and trial it out.
I think you have to set your expectations low. Even if you have a great idea and/or product, the chance of it standing out in the crowd of other great inventions, are slim.
Start by telling your closest friends and colleagues. Seek feedback. Mention it in a few forums or other technical sites. Do a demo (a short one) and video record it for anyone to view at their leisure.
You will probably be disappointed if you expect some kind of viral response. It does happen, but like being struck by lightning, it doesn't happen often.
If however you're only having an idea of a product, even half-implemented, you still need to sell the idea to get money for the full implementation - enough for it to be sellable as a product. Catch 22 indeed...
Going through this today. I put a video online of my product and... no one cares. I knew it would probably be nothing but seeing nothing is something else
Similar. I spent the weekend writing my first technical blog post. I was finally proud enough of something I'd gone through to write about and share.
Submitted it to this place and not a single upvote or comment.
I'm okay with that, I wrote the piece for myself. I'm aware that the modal upvotes, possibly even the median upvotes, are zero.
Yet without even a single comment, it's hard to know if it was the wrong audience or bad writing. Or perhaps Monday lunchtime (GMT) was just a bad time to submit it, falling off /new before most people were even awake.
even if no one cares if you put it on your personal website a future employeer might care. Having a blog with technical posts can make you stand out from the crowd
Strongly disagree. You are allowed to create/do things that no one else know about. Share it if you want, keep it to yourself if you don't. Don't let other people dictate to you what you must do in order to be satisfied with yourself.
I think the unique perspective part is something I’m understanding. It’s easy to read or see other people’s work and think you don’t have anything to add
Sure, as long as you do it with intent. The thing is that a lot of people's intentions and ambitions often don't line up with the results. Because they forget to talk about their stuff.
People put a lot of effort in stuff they do in the hope that somebody will find it useful, will give them some praise, and maybe even some money. That stuff doesn't tend to happen if you don't talk about your stuff. Build it and they'll come usually doesn't work.
There is a certain type of tyranny to the mindset in this blog post. The constant pressure to perform for an imagine audience, the "self worth through the prism of others" trap etc. More chilling is the dismissing of others that do not "perform".
I presume the author doesn't fall for any of these and is happy. But for many it would be a dark pattern to follow.
I come from a long line of tinkerers that have sat in damp sheds playing with junk. Testing themselves, their tools and often others patience. There is an inherent beauty and calmness to this. This has value and shouldn't be dismissed.
> For the world to benefit from your work, and therefore for you to benefit fully from your work, you have to make it known.
"Fully" seems to be doing a helluva lot of heavy lifting in this piece. Does anyone think that they mean anything other than "making money", as they quickly segue into talking about entrepreneurship and founding businesses?
I'm happy to concede that if you don't tell anyone about the stuff you do, no one will know. But I am not willing to concede that you only "fully" benefit from your work if you sell it. Nor am I willing to concede that work only has value if sold. I'm also not entirely certain the author is pushing those views. Still, something about this piece doesn't sit well with me.
The author isn't saying that selling is necessary only to make money. At the end of the article he says "But the word "sell" doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means", which then leads to the aside:
"you can either do it in such a fashion that people can indeed build on what you've done, or you can do it in such a fashion that the next person has to essentially duplicate again what you've done"
I have a web extension I made as a pet project that does something useful to me (in the spirit of selling my work, it's called Favioli ).
It's free/open-source and will always be free. But the idea was inspired by my friend's code. When I made a blog post about how I made the extension, he reposted it on his relatively popular blog + Twitter.
Because of that, the extension has had around 1000 users since the very beginning, and I've gotten some prs and improvements here and there. And it feels good to have solved an issue for some people other than myself.
I think this is what the author means by "selling". I'm generally the type of person who doesn't self-advertise, because my mindset is that I don't want to bother people. So if my friend hadn't publicized it for me, the extension would probably have 5 users. So maybe 995 other people wouldn't have benefitted from my work. I think this article is not saying that you "have" to sell your work, but that if you're proud of it, don't feel ashamed to tell people that it exists.
I'll add that "sell yourself" has (Unfortunately) negative connotations in a Western context. (Possibly in other contexts as well, but I don't know.)
We teach children modesty. We correct people who brag. We emphasize the "everyone is equal " approach. Which are are correct things to do as children. Children's work is encouraged (regardless of quality) and is discarded.
But this mindset can work against adults. Primarily because the work is expected to be fruitful, not discarded. And for work to be fruitful it must not just be fine, it must be seen.
At my company we have a saying "if it's not documented, it's not done". (I write software libraries.) If I don't write docs, build examples, publicize new features, then no one will use them. That's a waste of my output, and a waste of the money the company spent for me to make it. This is not a "modesty" thing, it's a "that's my job" thing.
Now, can you write code on your own time, stick the result on the fridge, and admire it yourself? Of course yes. You don't have to publicize it. It's perfectly OK to have a hobby. Frankly it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. It'll serve its purpose and be forgotten.
"Selling" in this context may be the wrong word. "Documenting" or "Publishing" would have served a similar purpose without the stigma. But the author wants to stress test there's a "persuasion " aspect here as well.
My library might be better, faster, more secure, and so on, but there are other libraries our there competing for users. If I won't "persuade" others to try it, who will? If I'm not prepared to stand up and advocate for it, what that does that say about my perspective of the work? If I don't believe in it, why should they?
If you don't think your work is worth talking about, so be it. Just don't expect anyone else to talk about it either.
I do not understand the negatives. It is along the lines of what I was thinking. At least in my experience, "sell X" is often understood as "go borderline lying about how good it is". "Sell yourself" triggers kind of a negative image.
What works for me is just to talk about what I have done, and do not underestimate the achievements. But selling is like a step too much. At least in my cultural/social circle.
When I some says "sell X to Y", I hear "explain how X will solve Y's problem or otherwise make their lives easier". Because that's fundamentally what selling is.
I can talk for days about how marvellous the new iPhone is, the beautiful technology behind it, the marvellous processor and the high resolution screen that are, in their own way, feats of engineering that equal or surpass the Pyramids at Giza.
But that's not why people buy iPhones. They buy iPhones because having a portable device with internet that can make phone calls and take pictures and video and has GPS is actually really handy.
That's what "selling your work" is about.
"Hey guys, I made this open source operating system. If you're looking for an OS than enables you to completely control your machine, maybe you'll like it more than Windows." vs "Hey guys, I made this open source operating system. I wrote it in Rust because I like Rust."
<< Children's work is encouraged (regardless of quality) and is discarded.
I hesitated a little bit, because I agree with most of the post and what I am about to post is a bit of a tangent. That said, some of work can and will be discarded for sure, but our family unit is now looking into some way of preserving my kids work to show the progress made. I think it will be a fun memento.
Indeed, and for me the real value of “selling” my work has been the opportunity to do more of it, and more on my terms, than putting my head down and striving in silence.
I am already selling enough of my time, energy, skills, knowledge etc. I also have enough to not sell, things that provide me personal satisfaction and value, that is more important than what I sell to others. I got to look after my health first and finances second.
It also depends on what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to. Do it too much, and you’ll incur the wrath of the mob—or worse, be ignored into oblivion.
In the software world, salespeople are almost universally hated because of how obnoxious they can be. I recently attended a Couchbase talk, and now the salespeople are all over my inbox and LinkedIn DMs. You don’t want to sell your work like that.
While not all work needs to be published, monetized, and advertised, this piece only focuses on the kind that needs to be done but isn’t.
I absolutely agree on writing about software. I don’t write to advertise my thoughts. Writing is the process that helps me think deeply about a topic I’m interested in.
While I write for myself, and my blog[1] usually focuses on the things I’m currently tinkering with, it has garnered a solid number of readers. I even got hired at two places because someone higher up read my writing at some point. So I believe the author is encouraging everyone to publish and advertise these kinds of work.
This is what I was thinking too when I was a child. But now that I got to see how adults actually act I feel like a lot of these concerns related to selling are irrational.
If you have a new product and you want to market it to a wide audience then you have nothing to worry about because you have nothing to lose. Being "ignored into oblivion" doesn't mean that you can't try again, and nobody knows you so you won't attract a mob. The world is so vast that no matter what you do and how hard you try to sell something, your actions will affect very few people and leave only a barely noticeable footprint.
Maybe this is exactly what the problem is -- we now have means to connect with the whole world through the internet, but we tend to treat these connections quite conservatively as if it's our close circle. It's not acceptable to make yourself hated by a friend, but I think it's absolutely fine if it's thousands of strangers instead as long as it's done for what feels like a good cause.
There are many definitions of "sell" that aren't a dichotomy between building toy projects that never leave your private repo, and running a SaaS startup you're trying to grow via LinkedIn and HN.
I've found a lot of fulfillment in building tech products/services for friends and family, and making meeting their needs the complete scope of the project, with no intention to release it publicly. I present it as though it's a widely released product, including marketing materials, retail box, printed instruction manual, etc. I enjoy it thoroughly as a creative exercise, and it gives me the opportunity to integrate and combine lots of skills I'm not able to use at work.
I don't make any money doing this, but it scratches the itch I have to build things people will use, and I do enjoy showcasing and promoting my latest projects - and an audience of my (less technical) friends and family is a polite and encouraging one. Definitely less stressful than releasing things to the wider internet. This has brought improvements to my real job, where I'm finding myself more comfortable presenting and promoting my achievements.
Home cooked meals software is a nice phrasing for this kinda thing. I admire your packaging and documentation touches, going that far is cool and creative
It’s interesting that no one ever takes the other logical side of this: to really benefit from the work of others you have to look through the marketing bullshit and find the gems that aren’t aggressively sold.
I've generally been best served by NAVY: never again volunteer yourself.
Others will advertise for you... or simply pay attention when you do well. Being reliable is outstanding, a true rarity.
Plenty of folks will want to take advantage. Assuming you weren't actually hired to work alone in a closet, there will be opportunities to shine/get put on speed dial... if you really want that.
Plenty of people are in situations where they don't appreciate someone's value until they're removed, or want to exploit the person and conceal that the person, and not themself, is providing the value.
The flip side is, as the management abstractions go up, they have less visibility into who's providing the value, so people who sell themselves better will be perceived better than people who just assume their work will speak for them. If your manager is also an engineer, it's obvious how you provide value to them, probably, but what about their manager, or theirs?
And? The world and our experiences are incomplete; this will never be addressed. Non-optimal performance is both normal and expected.
This advice, like all before and after, is not some atomic function to keep mindlessly smashing.
It works well enough; I was born dirt poor and now struggle to have free time to enjoy my pile of gold. Despite doing zero self-promotion through my career, I'm exceedingly well-known. The work and others spoke for me. Too much, I'd say.
Have an environment where you need to regularly over-extend yourself? Find a new one, you're clearly desirable. Layoffs/life happens, whatever.
There are plenty of downsides from subscribing to the rat race, some upside too. Debasing nonetheless. Guess who has to control that ratio. You. Others will take everything being offered... and then some more.
If anything, I'm championing discretion. Filtering is important! Truly no judgement to those who choose to be more involved, just speaking on my experience. YMMV of course.
Stolen quotes to close: "it sucks to suck" or "that's life". Promotion is like terrorism, only have to be lucky once.
Thank you for coming to my crash TEDhn talk on Game Theory :)
Working Corporate for 20+ years... still waiting on the PIP the 'dead' (hidden) peer comment mentions. Replying to myself since I can't with them. It's been a pretty good run, if I say so myself. Heh.
Based on the fear put into people I'd guess I'm overdue! Well, a break sounds nice. Can we skip to the quarterly layoff... or does this not count? I know those decently. Would love to spare a more fair soul.
If you get a PIP while doing objectively good work for not acknowledging the secret handshake: "move on." Save your efforts for a time and place that's worth it. Being played, IMO.
Publicizing your work, will certainly let it be known to the masses, but aiming for the masses means that the half life of your work is in years. Work that stands the test of time, does not need publicizing. People of a high caliber will find it and proceed to further honor you for your work, your focus should be only on excellence which truly matters in standing the test of time.
Plus, am I the only one who is disgusted by the idea of Shell/Exxon/... using OSS in their operations?
Sharing technically-excellent software with parasites seems to be a net negative for the world, because many people are just takers who will ruin the world to make themselves a few more dollars.
OTOH, I love for regular people to have free quality SW to use for their lives.
Van Goughs work is only popular now because after his death his sister in law. [1]. She spent her life promoting and selling his work. And it took decades to do. Without her, his work would average simply disappeared.
Van Gough of course didn't sell his work. He lived in poverty (by choice I guess) and got whatever satisfaction he needed simply by painting them. (Now There's a rabbit hole to go down, given the nature of his death, which I'll avoid.)
So if you're hoping your work will be discovered by "the world " while you live in obscurity, then I'm not sure Van Gogh is an example you should emulate.
> People of a high caliber will find it and proceed to further honor you for your work
This is a romantic notion, made even more appealing by the fact that it has actually happened a handful of times throughout history, and they loom large in our collective memory.
But the cold, hard, distasteful reality is that most useful work does not rise to the level of brilliance, and even that which does might never find appreciation among people of any calibre, even after death. Disdaining self-promotion is a conceit available to a select talented few.
The article wasn't saying to aim for the masses. It was saying, do at least some documentation, and make it pleasant to read for your peers. That way, they can find your work, understand it, and build uppon it.
That's like saying all human's lives are wasted because no other species will know of them.
The ultimate experience is doing as many interesting things for yourself and not stressing about them "living on". It's 99% a closed system inside your head anyway
Despite the title of the article this is about building your personal brand, so people know you and the good work you do.
Most of us don't do that, those that do are sometimes eventually considered "influencers" and "thought leaders" (urgh), because they have focused on the visibility of what they do.
I have a personal rule which has worked really well for me: if I do a project, the price of doing that project is that I have to write about it.
Back when Twitter threads didn't suck (they could be viewed by people without Twitter accounts) I'd use those - tweet a description of my project with a link, then follow it with a few photos and screenshots.
Hi Simon, how do you decide when to blog on your personal website vs something like substack? Do you post identical articles on both? Do you prefer one or the other?
The one challenge I'm having at the moment is where to put short "thoughts" that aren't accompanied by a link. I used to use Twitter for those, but now I'm cross-posting to Bluesky and Mastodon and Twitter - but cross-posting a "thought" doesn't feel great.
I may have to invent a fourth content type for my blog (which is currently just entries, bookmarks or quotes) for this kind of very-short-form post with no link. Molly White started doing that recently so I may borrow her design: https://www.mollywhite.net/micro
No idea at all. My blog does really well on Google, so I think if either site is being penalized for duplicate content it's probably the Substack.
It looks like 8% of my newsletter signups are "from the app" according to the Substack dashboard - which I think is how they show signups that they've encouraged as opposed to signups I had myself.
I'm really just using Substack because they've solved email deliverability and they're free for me to use to send out emails.
If you have a blog with RSS and just need something that auto-emails people your updates you can run my project on a raspberry pi. No need to tie yourself into the substack ecosystem if you don't want to
Do you have any advice for someone like me, who has about 5 long form article ideas but would like to just get stuff out there? For example, I want to blog about matrix profiles because I just learned about them and they’re super cool. But it feels like much scaffolding needs to occur for an audience to see the light.
> But it feels like much scaffolding needs to occur for an audience to see the light.
tl;dr: Don't think about others. Just write, put it out there, with a couple of stickers pointing people. They'll see and come.
I'd not care about scaffolding, actually. I have three main outlets for what I do: Blog, Digital Garden, Mastodon, and arguably here.
Blog was meant to be technical, but instead it became a "life" blog. My digital garden is where my technical notes are, and where my project write-ups will be, and Mastodon and here is what I post links to these spaces.
My secret is, I don't write these for anybody. The format is for general consumption, but I'm not sad because nobody gives feedback about it or reaches me about these things. I generally do these for my enjoyment, and blog analytics show that there's some foot traffic in my blog. Digital garden keeps no analytics.
When you put it out there, can point people to what you do, people will start to come. Not in hoards, but in small groups, and that's enough IMHO. Otherwise you need to be your blog's servant to drive the numbers up.
Thanks for the reminder. I feel the same way about not playing the game. Moreso than wanting to drive the numbers up, which is not the goal, I like sharing things and want to at least be coherent so that someone can follow along. But considering your advice I think not sweating the details of scaffolding is a good adjustment.
Hey, I'm glad that my comment helped somewhat. Expanding on the scaffolding bit, I'm using the most minimal tools I can use, since they don't let me do (very) fancy things, I can't spend time needlessly adjusting things. A single, markdown aware, automatically theme changing blog space is enough for me. No fancy things, just text, plus RSS.
People can follow and share. That's enough. Even the webpages doesn't have any JS.
I would love to do this as well, but I'm put off by the time it would take away from pushing the project itself forward. How much time does it generally take for you to make a blogpost for a project?
This gets much easier with practice. One exercise that that worked for me was to force myself to share anything (projects, til, ideas, experiments, advice) daily for 111 days. Then scale down.
Compare untested.sonnet.io and sonnet.io/projects
The latter took 10 years to have a list of projects. With the former, there’s almost no friction, although I have spikes and slower periods.
Also, people appreciate people who share and talk about their work, and that can lower the bar for things like correct grammar/vocab/clear structure.
To improve my overall fluency I made a writing tool that separates editing from writing: enso.sonnet.io.
Another thing that can work well are weekly updates/summaries. But this gets harder if you struggle with building habits and prefer shorter feedback loops.
PS. I'm not at Simon's level here although he is one of my inspirations - my main untested feed posts take 1-2 hours minimum, the smaller notes/branches can be < 20 min.
PPS. I'm working on a short list of actionable tips / places to share work. Hit me up via email and I'll send it over when it's done.
Five paragraphs, about an hour or less. Don't overthink it. Below are some examples from my woodworking, but I think they illustrate the concept. The important thing to remember is the blog post is not the project: it is a very quick overview pointing readers to the project. Built up over time, these quick overviews add up to a longer representation of your body of work, which you can use to sell yourself.
> if I do a project, the price of doing that project is that I have to write about it.
Definitely something I need to do. I've been meaning to do a "what I did in 2024" blog post but since I didn't keep track, trying to figure it out has postponed the post for 3 months already...
I second this. Small chunks is easier than one massive thing all at once.
I also have the habit of keeping a `~/notes.md` file, which I can access at the drop of a hat with a shell shortcut (I use fish, so I have the function `nn` which calls `$EDITOR ~/notes.md`). If you use multiple computers, which I do, you can use a common git repo with a branch for each computer as a backup. I generally end up writing a few notes every day, which means if I want to publish something in the future I have good source material to use.
Apologies if this post was a bit self centered, I hope my sharing my methods might be useful :)
> I also have the habit of keeping a `~/notes.md` file
Oh, I did spin up a Honk instance to keep notes on "things-i-did". It ... does not have many posts (83 since 2022-05). Ironically it doesn't have "set up honk instance for note-taking" in there.
But the `notes.md`+`git` idea might work. Although I know the first time I get a conflict on the `pull`, it'll all fall down...
Agreed. I find for myself, for a blog post that is about something else I've done, the ideal length is about 5 paragraphs and it should take no more than an hour to write. Longer than that and it just doesn't get done, or it should be considered a project unto itself and should be managed as such with dedicated time set aside for it. Writing about everything I did in year would be a lot longer than 5 paragraphs, which means I need to break the concept down (perhaps into months, or write something per-project instead).
I like your diligency, thats pretty impressive track record. Although I need to point out a little readability issue: For me (likely ADHD) your blog is very hard to visually parse. It looks like single wall of unstructured text. It's hard to see where one post ends and where another one begins. The strongly emphasized links inside the content itself does not help. You have a lot of whitespace on left and right, but almost none in vertical direction and there is little use of font sizes. In the end every element seems the same importance. I see that you don't want to overdo with styling, which is fine, but a little more styling here and there could go a long way to help people get around.
It's https://datasette.io - I'm still having so much fun with it, especially since any idea I want to experiment with can be justified as a Datasette plugin!
A random example on Youtube "I will tidy up your garden for free". They do that based on the income they get from writing/videoing about it, mainly from big tech algos. If everyone did it, that monetary value is lost from the explaining of it.
It's taking advantage of a curve for self-advantage which you're aware of which is fine, but doesn't really provide value in productivity in the broadest sense. What if everyone blogged about their work? As in literally everyone.
"What if everyone blogged about their work? As in literally everyone."
That would be great. This isn't a zero sum game - what's important is that each individual has an opportunity to document their work, look back on it in the future and occasionally show it to interested people.
Maybe it does for your historical reference example, like a CV. If we presumed that those pages with that content would get any traction at all.
Generally the way it's working is people continually pump out content, big tech algos surface it to other people and within a few days those pages don't receive any visitors at all.
If you have a great channel where people see that link, great. But most information discovery is via the big tech algos.
> and within a few days those pages don't receive any visitors at all.
I think you're maybe talking about publishing things for different reasons, the quoted part kind of gives me that impression.
If the point is to get as many visitors as possible then yeah, just pumping out MVPs/concepts/hacks/prototypes might not be the best idea. But if your reasons are different, the amount of visitors might not even matter.
As many visitors as possible, not really. Just a channel where you may get interested visitors.
The point isn't about pumping out content to please the algorithms, it is that the algorithms prefer that constant churn of it, and it's overwhelmingly the method of information discovery on the web.
If the only viewer of my blog posts is myself (and often times it is), then I'd still keep writing if only just to keep a public journal of my thought process and things that I accomplished at certain times in my life.
Also fair, but most of the time the other people are a few close friends. I'm not trying to keep it a secret like a diary but I'm also not trying to get incredibly popular like a content creator or famous blogger.
185 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 257 ms ] threadWhy is it that we always see articles extolling the virtues of extroversion to introverts? Be more outgoing! Be more obnoxious!
But we never see articles suggesting that extroverts shut the fuck up and let the world be livable for the rest of us.
Like why can't I call an API and ask "what subscriptions is Joe on?". Why can't Joe unsubscribe via Stripe without me building something out.
I don't agree with this assumption. One does not necessarily follow the other. Outside of work, I write programs that I need and that further my own personal curiosity and education. I don't have to release any of it to the world, in order for me to fully benefit from it. I plan to take all of the source code on my computer to my grave and that's totally OK.
For any young programmers: live within your means, invest the difference, become independent, and work on what you enjoy. It’s the best (work related) gift you can give yourself. Skip the self promotion politics unless you enjoy it.
The first part though is key - living within your means. It assumes you have means, and that it's possible to live within them.
The advice is good - whether you use it or not is up to you, and of no consequence to the advice giver. Whether you are in a position to take the advice or not is up to you.
For those who can though I can agree with it. Forgoing a new car now might mean retiring a year earlier. Financial freedom (aka retirement) means doing work on your terms, not beholden to your employer. It doesn't mean "not working".
Of course the best way to a better job, more pay, and a sooner retirement is indeed to "sell yourself" making both yourself and your work more valuable.
Do this advice is a corollary to the article, not a repudiation of it.
If you're a programmer, and you're paid well, don't assume that will last forever. Don't spend all your money (and beyond) on cars and rent. Invest as much as you can with the goal of being financially independent.
Not all advice is applicable to everyone. It's up to you to decide if you can and want to follow it. The advice was for young programmers and it is solid advice, but again, not applicable to everyone. It is applicable to a majority (probably even large majority). If you are young and earning a sw engineer salary it is very rare to not be able to cover your basic needs and have something left. Most people spends what is left in luxuries, lifestyle creep, etc; which is what the advice is trying to warn people about.
I don’t hate work. But at the end of the day, it’s a means to exchange labor for money.
Out of the million of things I enjoy, helping the bottom line of a for profit company isn’t one of them. It’s a necessity.
And I actually like the company I work for. It’s one of the best companies I’ve ever worked for (10 in almost 30 years).
The self promotion politics is the only way you get ahead in large companies with a structured promotion process where you have to show “scope” and “impact”.
It's not about self promotion, but building with a clear goal set fir me I have found to be much more rewarding than when I have to think of my own goal. The worst is when a fake goal is set, it's the thing about university I liked the least. If I can't interrogate or question the 'why' for the goal, because it is just 'to test me' then it isn't a real goal, just an artificial constraint.
With LLMs advancing and may take over coding tasks, software engineers should focus on skills like selling, writing, and problem-solving.
You need to be a software engineer for longer if you think LLMs will take over more "coding" than writing.
But yes, communicating well and selling is crucial to maximize situations.
While coding remains important, skills like problem-solving, communication, and selling ideas are becoming just as essential. LLMs can assist with tasks, but they can’t replace the creativity and critical thinking that only humans bring. Focusing on these skills ensures we stay ahead as the industry changes.
The name engineering hints at it.
> skills like problem-solving, communication, and selling ideas are becoming just as essential
They always were. Coding was the easy part and you definitely were coding the wrong thing if you were not "problem solving".
Your conclusion of giving value to those things is right regardless of how you get there so I'll stop being an asshole but just remember that it was never specifically about coding but about automated systems with simplicity, maintainability and evolvability as characteristics.
You must have heard the phrase about spending more time reading than writing (code). Or thinking.
As my paid work runs out and I get more towards retirement I guess I will start moving on to documenting some hobby projects, I don't see any down-side to it except running out of interesting things to talk about.
Of course nobody will visit your site unless you post it around, kind of a catch 22.
After only three articles, 28 people have signed up. It’s not a lot compared to some folks, but it validates two important things. First, being direct can work. Second, people care and want to hear more.
The thing about marketing is that it's not a x->y kind of thing, so people can literally try something which they think is fun/interesting and trial it out.
All you need is mind control. I think the Beatles said that.
Start by telling your closest friends and colleagues. Seek feedback. Mention it in a few forums or other technical sites. Do a demo (a short one) and video record it for anyone to view at their leisure.
You will probably be disappointed if you expect some kind of viral response. It does happen, but like being struck by lightning, it doesn't happen often.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX-67I9D3Lo
Submitted it to this place and not a single upvote or comment.
I'm okay with that, I wrote the piece for myself. I'm aware that the modal upvotes, possibly even the median upvotes, are zero.
Yet without even a single comment, it's hard to know if it was the wrong audience or bad writing. Or perhaps Monday lunchtime (GMT) was just a bad time to submit it, falling off /new before most people were even awake.
You probably don’t think your work is valuable but someone is waiting for your unique perspective. It doesn’t need to be perfect; nothing is.
You can also write publicly but for your future self, which drops the barrier to entry.
Of course you’re allowed not to write or not to share. It’s not for everyone. But don’t let fear or self-doubt stand in your way either.
People put a lot of effort in stuff they do in the hope that somebody will find it useful, will give them some praise, and maybe even some money. That stuff doesn't tend to happen if you don't talk about your stuff. Build it and they'll come usually doesn't work.
I presume the author doesn't fall for any of these and is happy. But for many it would be a dark pattern to follow.
I come from a long line of tinkerers that have sat in damp sheds playing with junk. Testing themselves, their tools and often others patience. There is an inherent beauty and calmness to this. This has value and shouldn't be dismissed.
"Fully" seems to be doing a helluva lot of heavy lifting in this piece. Does anyone think that they mean anything other than "making money", as they quickly segue into talking about entrepreneurship and founding businesses?
I'm happy to concede that if you don't tell anyone about the stuff you do, no one will know. But I am not willing to concede that you only "fully" benefit from your work if you sell it. Nor am I willing to concede that work only has value if sold. I'm also not entirely certain the author is pushing those views. Still, something about this piece doesn't sit well with me.
Human endeavors have value beyond the monetary.
"you can either do it in such a fashion that people can indeed build on what you've done, or you can do it in such a fashion that the next person has to essentially duplicate again what you've done"
It's free/open-source and will always be free. But the idea was inspired by my friend's code. When I made a blog post about how I made the extension, he reposted it on his relatively popular blog + Twitter.
Because of that, the extension has had around 1000 users since the very beginning, and I've gotten some prs and improvements here and there. And it feels good to have solved an issue for some people other than myself.
I think this is what the author means by "selling". I'm generally the type of person who doesn't self-advertise, because my mindset is that I don't want to bother people. So if my friend hadn't publicized it for me, the extension would probably have 5 users. So maybe 995 other people wouldn't have benefitted from my work. I think this article is not saying that you "have" to sell your work, but that if you're proud of it, don't feel ashamed to tell people that it exists.
We teach children modesty. We correct people who brag. We emphasize the "everyone is equal " approach. Which are are correct things to do as children. Children's work is encouraged (regardless of quality) and is discarded.
But this mindset can work against adults. Primarily because the work is expected to be fruitful, not discarded. And for work to be fruitful it must not just be fine, it must be seen.
At my company we have a saying "if it's not documented, it's not done". (I write software libraries.) If I don't write docs, build examples, publicize new features, then no one will use them. That's a waste of my output, and a waste of the money the company spent for me to make it. This is not a "modesty" thing, it's a "that's my job" thing.
Now, can you write code on your own time, stick the result on the fridge, and admire it yourself? Of course yes. You don't have to publicize it. It's perfectly OK to have a hobby. Frankly it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. It'll serve its purpose and be forgotten.
"Selling" in this context may be the wrong word. "Documenting" or "Publishing" would have served a similar purpose without the stigma. But the author wants to stress test there's a "persuasion " aspect here as well.
My library might be better, faster, more secure, and so on, but there are other libraries our there competing for users. If I won't "persuade" others to try it, who will? If I'm not prepared to stand up and advocate for it, what that does that say about my perspective of the work? If I don't believe in it, why should they?
If you don't think your work is worth talking about, so be it. Just don't expect anyone else to talk about it either.
I can talk for days about how marvellous the new iPhone is, the beautiful technology behind it, the marvellous processor and the high resolution screen that are, in their own way, feats of engineering that equal or surpass the Pyramids at Giza.
But that's not why people buy iPhones. They buy iPhones because having a portable device with internet that can make phone calls and take pictures and video and has GPS is actually really handy.
That's what "selling your work" is about.
"Hey guys, I made this open source operating system. If you're looking for an OS than enables you to completely control your machine, maybe you'll like it more than Windows." vs "Hey guys, I made this open source operating system. I wrote it in Rust because I like Rust."
tangentially related, Ryan Dahl's I hate almost all software: https://tinyclouds.org/rant
> The only software that I like is one that I can easily understand and solves my problems.
selling is talking about your work with the end user in mind, rather than going on about the details of what you learned/how you did it.
That said, the latter approach is also interesting and useful, in that it helps others learn from your process.
I hesitated a little bit, because I agree with most of the post and what I am about to post is a bit of a tangent. That said, some of work can and will be discarded for sure, but our family unit is now looking into some way of preserving my kids work to show the progress made. I think it will be a fun memento.
But of course it has no value beyond the sentimental- the nostalgia and so on.
Of course your child's work means something to you, but the work itself isn't the value. It's the reminder of what they were.
Indeed, and for me the real value of “selling” my work has been the opportunity to do more of it, and more on my terms, than putting my head down and striving in silence.
In the software world, salespeople are almost universally hated because of how obnoxious they can be. I recently attended a Couchbase talk, and now the salespeople are all over my inbox and LinkedIn DMs. You don’t want to sell your work like that.
While not all work needs to be published, monetized, and advertised, this piece only focuses on the kind that needs to be done but isn’t.
I absolutely agree on writing about software. I don’t write to advertise my thoughts. Writing is the process that helps me think deeply about a topic I’m interested in.
While I write for myself, and my blog[1] usually focuses on the things I’m currently tinkering with, it has garnered a solid number of readers. I even got hired at two places because someone higher up read my writing at some point. So I believe the author is encouraging everyone to publish and advertise these kinds of work.
[1]: https://rednafi.com
If you have a new product and you want to market it to a wide audience then you have nothing to worry about because you have nothing to lose. Being "ignored into oblivion" doesn't mean that you can't try again, and nobody knows you so you won't attract a mob. The world is so vast that no matter what you do and how hard you try to sell something, your actions will affect very few people and leave only a barely noticeable footprint.
Maybe this is exactly what the problem is -- we now have means to connect with the whole world through the internet, but we tend to treat these connections quite conservatively as if it's our close circle. It's not acceptable to make yourself hated by a friend, but I think it's absolutely fine if it's thousands of strangers instead as long as it's done for what feels like a good cause.
I heard that called a definition of fascism once.
I've found a lot of fulfillment in building tech products/services for friends and family, and making meeting their needs the complete scope of the project, with no intention to release it publicly. I present it as though it's a widely released product, including marketing materials, retail box, printed instruction manual, etc. I enjoy it thoroughly as a creative exercise, and it gives me the opportunity to integrate and combine lots of skills I'm not able to use at work.
I don't make any money doing this, but it scratches the itch I have to build things people will use, and I do enjoy showcasing and promoting my latest projects - and an audience of my (less technical) friends and family is a polite and encouraging one. Definitely less stressful than releasing things to the wider internet. This has brought improvements to my real job, where I'm finding myself more comfortable presenting and promoting my achievements.
Others will advertise for you... or simply pay attention when you do well. Being reliable is outstanding, a true rarity.
Plenty of folks will want to take advantage. Assuming you weren't actually hired to work alone in a closet, there will be opportunities to shine/get put on speed dial... if you really want that.
Plenty of people are in situations where they don't appreciate someone's value until they're removed, or want to exploit the person and conceal that the person, and not themself, is providing the value.
The flip side is, as the management abstractions go up, they have less visibility into who's providing the value, so people who sell themselves better will be perceived better than people who just assume their work will speak for them. If your manager is also an engineer, it's obvious how you provide value to them, probably, but what about their manager, or theirs?
This advice, like all before and after, is not some atomic function to keep mindlessly smashing.
It works well enough; I was born dirt poor and now struggle to have free time to enjoy my pile of gold. Despite doing zero self-promotion through my career, I'm exceedingly well-known. The work and others spoke for me. Too much, I'd say.
Have an environment where you need to regularly over-extend yourself? Find a new one, you're clearly desirable. Layoffs/life happens, whatever.
There are plenty of downsides from subscribing to the rat race, some upside too. Debasing nonetheless. Guess who has to control that ratio. You. Others will take everything being offered... and then some more.
If anything, I'm championing discretion. Filtering is important! Truly no judgement to those who choose to be more involved, just speaking on my experience. YMMV of course.
Stolen quotes to close: "it sucks to suck" or "that's life". Promotion is like terrorism, only have to be lucky once.
Thank you for coming to my crash TEDhn talk on Game Theory :)
Based on the fear put into people I'd guess I'm overdue! Well, a break sounds nice. Can we skip to the quarterly layoff... or does this not count? I know those decently. Would love to spare a more fair soul.
If you get a PIP while doing objectively good work for not acknowledging the secret handshake: "move on." Save your efforts for a time and place that's worth it. Being played, IMO.
Publicizing your work, will certainly let it be known to the masses, but aiming for the masses means that the half life of your work is in years. Work that stands the test of time, does not need publicizing. People of a high caliber will find it and proceed to further honor you for your work, your focus should be only on excellence which truly matters in standing the test of time.
That's a fantasy which is just not true.
Sharing technically-excellent software with parasites seems to be a net negative for the world, because many people are just takers who will ruin the world to make themselves a few more dollars.
OTOH, I love for regular people to have free quality SW to use for their lives.
How to strike the balance?
Van Gough of course didn't sell his work. He lived in poverty (by choice I guess) and got whatever satisfaction he needed simply by painting them. (Now There's a rabbit hole to go down, given the nature of his death, which I'll avoid.)
So if you're hoping your work will be discovered by "the world " while you live in obscurity, then I'm not sure Van Gogh is an example you should emulate.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johanna_van_Gogh-Bonger
This is a romantic notion, made even more appealing by the fact that it has actually happened a handful of times throughout history, and they loom large in our collective memory.
But the cold, hard, distasteful reality is that most useful work does not rise to the level of brilliance, and even that which does might never find appreciation among people of any calibre, even after death. Disdaining self-promotion is a conceit available to a select talented few.
The ultimate experience is doing as many interesting things for yourself and not stressing about them "living on". It's 99% a closed system inside your head anyway
Most of us don't do that, those that do are sometimes eventually considered "influencers" and "thought leaders" (urgh), because they have focused on the visibility of what they do.
Back when Twitter threads didn't suck (they could be viewed by people without Twitter accounts) I'd use those - tweet a description of my project with a link, then follow it with a few photos and screenshots.
These days I use my blog, with my "projects" tag: https://simonwillison.net/tags/projects/
I blog all sorts of other stuff, but if I was ever to trim back the one thing I'd keep doing is projects. If you make a thing, write about that thing. I wrote more about that here: https://simonwillison.net/2022/Nov/6/what-to-blog-about/#pro...
Projects with a GitHub repository make this even easier: describe the project in the README and drop in a few screenshots - that's all you need.
(Screenshots are important though, they're the ultimate defense against bitrot.)
I have many projects from earlier in my career that I never documented or captured in screenshot form and I deeply regret it.
Everything substantial I write goes on my blog.
The one challenge I'm having at the moment is where to put short "thoughts" that aren't accompanied by a link. I used to use Twitter for those, but now I'm cross-posting to Bluesky and Mastodon and Twitter - but cross-posting a "thought" doesn't feel great.
Things like this: https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3lko5bg3c4s2...
I may have to invent a fourth content type for my blog (which is currently just entries, bookmarks or quotes) for this kind of very-short-form post with no link. Molly White started doing that recently so I may borrow her design: https://www.mollywhite.net/micro
It looks like 8% of my newsletter signups are "from the app" according to the Substack dashboard - which I think is how they show signups that they've encouraged as opposed to signups I had myself.
I'm really just using Substack because they've solved email deliverability and they're free for me to use to send out emails.
[0] https://github.com/MattSayar/rsspberry2email
What I do though is documenting for myself, everything.
It has helped me greatly in the last few years
I'm regularly kicking myself for not doing that, so I see the value, but some concrete examples might help my motivation.
As an example of the type of length my blogposts have: https://aneksteind.github.io/posts2022-03-04/index.html
tl;dr: Don't think about others. Just write, put it out there, with a couple of stickers pointing people. They'll see and come.
I'd not care about scaffolding, actually. I have three main outlets for what I do: Blog, Digital Garden, Mastodon, and arguably here.
Blog was meant to be technical, but instead it became a "life" blog. My digital garden is where my technical notes are, and where my project write-ups will be, and Mastodon and here is what I post links to these spaces.
My secret is, I don't write these for anybody. The format is for general consumption, but I'm not sad because nobody gives feedback about it or reaches me about these things. I generally do these for my enjoyment, and blog analytics show that there's some foot traffic in my blog. Digital garden keeps no analytics.
When you put it out there, can point people to what you do, people will start to come. Not in hoards, but in small groups, and that's enough IMHO. Otherwise you need to be your blog's servant to drive the numbers up.
I'm not playing that game.
People can follow and share. That's enough. Even the webpages doesn't have any JS.
That's absolutely the way to do this. Believe it or not that's still the way I think about my online writing.
Here are two recent examples where I mostly just quoted my release notes and added a tiny bit of extra flavor:
- https://simonwillison.net/2025/Feb/28/strip-tags/
- https://simonwillison.net/2025/Feb/19/files-to-prompt/
Compare untested.sonnet.io and sonnet.io/projects
The latter took 10 years to have a list of projects. With the former, there’s almost no friction, although I have spikes and slower periods.
Also, people appreciate people who share and talk about their work, and that can lower the bar for things like correct grammar/vocab/clear structure.
To improve my overall fluency I made a writing tool that separates editing from writing: enso.sonnet.io.
Another thing that can work well are weekly updates/summaries. But this gets harder if you struggle with building habits and prefer shorter feedback loops.
PS. I'm not at Simon's level here although he is one of my inspirations - my main untested feed posts take 1-2 hours minimum, the smaller notes/branches can be < 20 min.
PPS. I'm working on a short list of actionable tips / places to share work. Hit me up via email and I'll send it over when it's done.
https://www.aechairs.com/2025/01/15/black-side-chair/
https://www.aechairs.com/2024/10/15/painting-chairs-with-mil...
Definitely something I need to do. I've been meaning to do a "what I did in 2024" blog post but since I didn't keep track, trying to figure it out has postponed the post for 3 months already...
I also have the habit of keeping a `~/notes.md` file, which I can access at the drop of a hat with a shell shortcut (I use fish, so I have the function `nn` which calls `$EDITOR ~/notes.md`). If you use multiple computers, which I do, you can use a common git repo with a branch for each computer as a backup. I generally end up writing a few notes every day, which means if I want to publish something in the future I have good source material to use.
Apologies if this post was a bit self centered, I hope my sharing my methods might be useful :)
Oh, I did spin up a Honk instance to keep notes on "things-i-did". It ... does not have many posts (83 since 2022-05). Ironically it doesn't have "set up honk instance for note-taking" in there.
But the `notes.md`+`git` idea might work. Although I know the first time I get a conflict on the `pull`, it'll all fall down...
Just a random question for you. Of all of the projects you've created, which is your favorite?
A random example on Youtube "I will tidy up your garden for free". They do that based on the income they get from writing/videoing about it, mainly from big tech algos. If everyone did it, that monetary value is lost from the explaining of it.
It's taking advantage of a curve for self-advantage which you're aware of which is fine, but doesn't really provide value in productivity in the broadest sense. What if everyone blogged about their work? As in literally everyone.
That would be great. This isn't a zero sum game - what's important is that each individual has an opportunity to document their work, look back on it in the future and occasionally show it to interested people.
Maybe it does for your historical reference example, like a CV. If we presumed that those pages with that content would get any traction at all.
Generally the way it's working is people continually pump out content, big tech algos surface it to other people and within a few days those pages don't receive any visitors at all.
If you have a great channel where people see that link, great. But most information discovery is via the big tech algos.
I think you're maybe talking about publishing things for different reasons, the quoted part kind of gives me that impression.
If the point is to get as many visitors as possible then yeah, just pumping out MVPs/concepts/hacks/prototypes might not be the best idea. But if your reasons are different, the amount of visitors might not even matter.
The point isn't about pumping out content to please the algorithms, it is that the algorithms prefer that constant churn of it, and it's overwhelmingly the method of information discovery on the web.
Browse hackernews in CLI with hnterminal: https://github.com/Aperocky/hnterminal
Manager your task and add records in CLI with tascli: https://crates.io/crates/tascli
Just want to create your own cellular automata: https://aperocky.com/cellular-automata/
Or randomly generate terrain and see water flow down hills: https://aperocky.com/hydrosim/