Maybe you'd be surprised how many programmers there are out there who don't care if anyone uses what they do, don't want to interact with users and aren't really bothered who it affects, and would rather be left alone with the purity of "here is a task, go, be a programmer".
I'm not like that now, but I used to be, and I know a lot of people that still are. All that messy stuff like business decisions, market research/development, customer support, requirements capture... all that is so much more soft and ill defined than me, my DE, a defined goal (that I may or may not have helped set) and a paycheck at the end of it. Then I don't have to think about anything but the code.
And I think you would be surprised by how equally dispersed it is out there. For every developer that doesn't care there is at least one more who does.
Errr... I'm not saying there isn't, and it would be very hard to put a number on it, I just wanted to point out that there does exist a large group of tech folk who actually want the sort of situation described.
I broadly agree with you, but I can't help but feel that you're patronizing the position needlessly.
I think it's perfectly respectable for someone to care if anyone uses what they do and to want to interact with users and care if their problems are solved - but, at the same time, desiring to do this within an order of magnitude of 40 hours a week, receive benefits, not have to worry about paying the bills, even if the client can't be bothered to, don't have to deal with the nitty-gritty of sales and bookkeeping and boardmeetings and fundraising and the landlord and sourcing a new datacenter[1] and dealing with the ISP[1] and making sure the Jenkins box is keeping up with backups[1] etc etc.
The career options for a developer (especially a good one) is a broad spectrum of opportunities, not just a black and white selection between the machine room of a bank or your own startup.
I certainly didn't mean to come across as patronising, sorry about that, it's a mindset I've been in and one I sympathise with and frankly one I'm tempted to go back to.
It's really nice to have only(!) the technical challenges laid out in front of you and not have to deal with the business fluff.
> Maybe you'd be surprised how many programmers there are
> out there who don't care if anyone uses what they do,
> don't want to interact with users and aren't really
> bothered who it affects, and would rather be left alone
> with the purity of "here is a task, go,
> be a programmer".
We're really talking about people who have single domain expertise versus those who have multi-domain expertise. Most people can get by just fine with single-domain expertise, and have little motivation to go through the growing pains of learning another.
Interestingly, I've noticed that along with the increased amount of "startup porn" on the interwebs, I'm encountering more and more programmers who think that they want to move out of their comfort zone and deal with all of that messy business stuff. I suspect that it's articles like this that are causing programming specialists to become insecure, as there's a subtle arrogance to them. From TFA:
> I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do.
As if those who choose focus on programming are not people.
You can NOT have a single domain of expertise as a programmer, and be a great programmer.
You have to at LEAST have a good base knowledge of both programming, how to solve/codify problems and solutions, AND the domain knowledge of the problem you are trying to solve. Almost no programming is providing programming solutions for programming alone... the vast majority come from real world business needs.
Yes, there are some domains that are programming tools.. languages, platforms and frameworks... and many programmers focus on that, which is why there are plenty of options. However, that alone will not make you a great programmer.
I've spent most of my career doing contract work, because I absorb domain knowledge like a sponge, and enjoy it... I think my most productive time was in aerospace e-learning. It meant becoming a domain expert in e-learning, as well as the subject matter for the content of the e-learning. Now, I'm not a jet engine mechanic, and have no inclination to be, but being able to create a simulated interface for some of those systems was really enlightening, and I learned a lot about sheer engineering from that experience.
I've also had the chance to learn about systems security, and business processes in other positions... Not to mention providing a clear user interface and experience for interaction along the way. I love to learn, and have never enjoyed traditional education. Programming has given me the opportunity to learn in more depth about more subjects than a typical person does in several lifetimes.
If you aren't learning in this industry, and are only focused on programming, then you will be continuously behind... then again, there is plenty of work out there for mediocre code monkeys.
> You can NOT have a single domain of expertise as a
> programmer, and be a great programmer
Nobody said anything about great programmer.
edit: And you're defining great only one way: Someone with multi-domain expertise. Certainly someone who is expert at databases can be a great programmer too.
edit 2: great is measured relative to the problem at hand... If you have a deep technical problem, then multi-domain expertise doesn't really give you any edge. If you have a business problem that needs a technical solution, then having expertise in both the business side and technical side is an advantage.
Personally, I have no problem consulting the domain experts before coming up with a solution. Personally, that's all a great programmer really needs to be able to do in my opinion.
You really think you're a domain expert because someone discussed their business requirments with you in order that you complete a job? Ah maybe you are, but's it's not the impression I feel you're giving off right now.
No offense though, it's probably just a cultural thing. I have a hard time calling myself an expert in anything, yet many with much less skill sell themselves quite a bit harder.
No... I only said I became an eLearning domain expert... What I said was you need to know more than just programming, and insight into the problem domain is critical to delivering the best product (in terms of time, and budget constraints)... knowing what is really needed is important.
I don't really consider myself as much of an expert on anything... I know I'm better than most at JavaScript, and that I (used to) know a lot of current technology surrounding e-learning specifically (haven't followed the tincan project much, which is replacing SCORM).
I never meant to imply that one had to be an expert in the problem domain, only that you had to learn the domain to deliver an exceptional product.
There are also people who write insanely complicated and featured software for themself. They open-source or might even sell it, but their only target user is themself.
You can code a long way solely - because you spend no time on communication.
Sometimes their software is useless for anyone but themself. Sometimes it is useful and then it forms a whole fanatical community around it.
How to determine you've hit this piece of software: it has tons and tons of features and they all interact beautifully, provided your needs fit whatever task the Creator had in mind. Everything you can think of is already there and works.
Example: Far Manager (for windows; early versions, anyway).
Paradigm shifts tend to leave such projects on the sideway because the previous paradigm was pretty fine for the Creator so he sticks to it.
I've worked in very large companies, small companies and I'm now in a 4-man startup. At the end of the day it's about the environment and challenges you enjoy, and the ways in which you want to grow. Some people get a kick out of being a tiny cog in a huge, complex and influential machine, and others would rather that their tiny cog be the only (and therefore largest, and most important) cog. You can use a fish/pond based analogy if you prefer.
Developers are an extremely varied bunch. I'd suspect that HN leans towards the wide interests side because startups tend to disrupt (in the traditional sense of the word) your ability to program rather than enhance it.
But not everyone is like that. Some developers want nothing more than a real, meaty technical challenge. Scaling up a site that's crashing every hour. Crunching huge datasets and extracting important data. If you find one, you might actually be lucky- they probably have more focus than I do.
Yup. Some are deeply focussed on the technical and see that as their mission in life/work. Some are in a similar position but are blinkered (I think I was here) and some are simply insecure about softer skills or striking out on their own (may have been here too).
Personally, while the whole starting a business idea seems pretty cool to me, it's just far too grand, far too difficult and far too expensive right now!
I'm 20, I want to go to my simple 9 to 5 job, tackle a really difficult challenge, maybe debug some Magento because that's where the real challenge is at my company, then maybe for the last couple of hours I'll work on some of our in house products to enjoy the freedom of custom development.
Then I'll go home, make something to eat (at a reasonable hour) and hopefully spend a great night cuddling with my girlfriend while we watch old movies on my laptop.
While being a billionaire business man is very enticing, right now, at this point in my life, all I want is to be happy, and working 80 hour weeks to risk it on a 3% chance to make it something amazing just isn't worth it for it.
Debugging Magento is a real challenge because Magento is horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible.
It's horrible.
I like your outlook, but man, even in PHP land there are vastly better frameworks that won't make you hate your life (Magento has a nasty track record for me and several other devs I worked with). ExpressionEngine, CodeIgniter, even Symfony... if you want to do PHP, do yourself a favor and do something that's not Magento.
Unfortunately, my company took over a Magento project the last developers majorly screwed up on - we didn't know anything about Zend or Magento until we jumped in to it. I do agree though, Magento is a minefield - but that's part of the fun.
That being said, I am a big fan of CodeIgniter, I love the simplicity of it's MVC system and I wish I did more work with it.
I haven't done an ecommerce project in quite a while, what would you suggest instead of Magento?
I had the dubious honor of setting up a heavily customized Magento site barely after they released 1.0 - it was a nightmare. No docs, barely any participation in the forums, blog posts with outdated (already) information... I didn't have a say in picking Magento and eventually the client moved to something else as updates and expansion became too much of a hassle.
I hear good things about Woocommerce [1] these days if you're using Wordpress for your main site. It's no where near in the realm of Magento, but fine if you're looking for something simpler but less powerful.
I'd also be very interested in this. I'm looking for an ecommerce package that does faceted search, supports catering for non US regions, and doesn't require the effort Magento requires to reskin. Something where the goods-in process is easy, no EPOS integration required. Anybody got any good recent experiences?
I've used Lemonstand for a few projects and really enjoy working with it. There are a few features it's lacking still (no gift certificates, no faceted search) but it's a very flexible system.
Why do you say "even Symfony"? The buzz I hear is that Symfony is pretty much the most forward thinking framework in PHP and that it's offspring such as Laravel take cake if you're looking for something a bit more streamlined.
Just looking at job boards tells me those tech + drupal seems to be where all the work is (in the UK at least), so yeah, why the "even"?
Well, its 2013, you can't talk about php frameworks and leave out laravel. And I think you should've also mentioned the cool set of packages available on composer.
The one counter-argument I'd give to that is that you'll never have more time or freedom than you do right now. If you're interested in starting a business, don't feel any rush to do it immediately, but your twenties are a great time to try it.
But don't get trapped working for a startup and kidding yourself that their success is your success. If it isn't your company you probably don't own a meaningful amount of stock- it's never worth busting your gut over.
In a way, my company is a start up, I was employee 9, there are now eleven, the company is only a year or so old (and I've been here for 7 months now.)
But they showed faith in me when I really needed a job, they hired me on the day of the interview and even paid me early when I was about to be homeless (again.)
I love the culture at my company, I love table tennis at lunch and Bacon Fridays, I enjoy my work and the people I'm with. Regardless of where I want to be in 5 years, why would I give all that up for a minor chance at being rich?
You're twenty. Your twenties will continue for about nine years.
It's a good question. Why would you? Maybe it's just because it's a vast challenge. There's plenty of time though, don't worry.
Sometimes, people grow apart from the environment they're in - for what I've seen and thought, that's probably when we're open for a larger challenge and with that, some new risk/opportunities.
The minute you have kids your discretionary free time drops massively (in many cases to zero for a while, especially if both parents work). Plus your view of your finances change - you have other little people depending on you so that steady income from that steady job looks really appealing.
If you're not someone who wants to set up on their own, that's great. Personally I have other priorities too (damn pesty kids...), but I'd say if you don't think you want to do it in your early / mid 20s when you have energy and time, you probably need to accept you actually don't want to do it at all.
Twenties does seem a great time to start a business, but somehow in real statistics the average age when successful entrepreneurs start their companies is 40+. You won't have more time, but you will have more resources, skills, and in-depth understanding of some problem domain, which is a key part of any successful business.
I think most people who start a business are people who worked in that sector and at some pointed decided that they can do it better. Think for example about a bakery.
That is however very different from the type of startup that we usually talk about here, which does not an have an well established businesses model already.
I can't remember the source now, but IIRC the actual measurement was the age when they founded their first company. But quite a few of them by that time had hands-on business experience managing businesses owned by others.
Thanks for the update. Though it would still be intriguing to see how past business failures affect future successes. Is it better to try and fail in your 20s, or not try at all until you are 40+, for instance? I wonder if that kind of data is available anywhere?
> somehow in real statistics the average age when successful entrepreneurs start their companies is 40+.
Given just this information, it's still possible that people who start companies in their twenties are more likely to be successful; but most people who start companies are 40+. I don't necessarily expect that to be the case, but do you happen to know offhand?
"But don't get trapped working for a startup and kidding yourself that their success is your success"
I hear this line a lot on HN and frankly, I have to call bullshit on it.
A real startup (which I define as "a currently small business with large, untapped potential market") with a real business, (which I define as "make something you can sell to people for money"), is a great place to find work at with a real chance to make significant amount of money (which I define as, "I can take 1/2/3 years off to do whatever I like without worrying about paying the rent") in case of success. And the odds of that level of success are not bad if you're smart about choosing your company carefully.
How do I know ? Personal experience on multiple occasions.
(btw, note that my definition does not include "this website/mobile-app we hope will catch Marissa Meyer's eye for a quick $X0 Million flip.)
Time is on your side. Keep learning about technology, keep learning about yourself. In this learning process you are going to make mistakes. Make them on someone else's dime.
I personally have always been an entrepreneur at heart. It wasn't until a month ago (at the age of 33, married with one kid) that I decided to strike it out on my own. Ultimately, I knew I would regret not doing it. I have built up plenty of experience both technically and leadership wise. I've made a ton of mistakes in the past 11 years, but most importantly have lived with and learned from them.
It's quite possible to run a meaningful startup doing 9-5 hours, without burning yourself doing 80 hour work weeks. Sure, it won't be a billion or a million $ company but it'll be a successful business.
Even Nostradamus can't predict which startups will succeed and by how much. Yet you can, simply by adding up the hours worked? That's pretty simplistic.
> Some developers want nothing more than a real, meaty technical challenge.
That's a big reason why I left a cushy office job - working at the Twin Towers - to work as an engineer in a factory. Coding software for robots was more satisfying than whatever the hell I did at the consultancy I worked with.
This has been my experience with recruiters but once you get past the wall of pleasantries and fake attitudes, they usually talk with more sense.
Edit: Sibling comments are talking a lot about the author's personal motivating factors but are ignoring the bigger message of poor hiring tactics like repeating talking points and marginalizing personal goals. I got you, though, op.
I wish this was an accurate mindset of the kinds of programmers I have to work with. Sometimes I picture myself tying my scarf around my head, leaping onto my desk and screaming "Come on! Lets go! F--k this place, we can do it better than they do it. You don't have to sit here day-in, day-out doing the same monotonous things. We can do better this, we owe it to ourselves to do this properly. No more people in suits ranting about deadlines, no more shitty coffee, no more PowerPoint. We'll do it better, we'll do it cleverer and you will feel so much the lighter for it. To the door!"
Not saying this is accurate, but the first thing I though of when reading this was http://xkcd.com/610/.
Edit: As an aside, to find this I searched for "xkcd everyone thinking the same thing". It was the first result on Google and the second on Bing. I'm honestly kind of amazed by current search technology.
Perhaps the best way to describe the condescending startup hiring culture where aspirational devs are encouraged to give up their dreams to work for yet another VC funded rocket ship that is "changing the world."
> My guess is developers are starting to see through this BS and realize that they very well can run their own companies.
A tiny, tiny, minority that is well represented on this site. In reality most developers out there have no clue how to run or startup a business and they frankly shouldn't because they will fail.
A failed startup is a great learning experience but when you're not ready for it or don't learn from it, it becomes less of a benefit and more of a poor choice. Having said that the circumstances one must be in to startup his or her own business are very specific.
> since the starting costs are relatively very low
I'd have to disagree. Unless you're weighing "cost" on just monetary value. A startup will cost you your free time, your health, your current career, and in some cases your relationship if you have one. Truly being successful in the startup world is extremely challenging and one that comes at many costs.
"Programmer: I'll be forced to learn things outside of programming. Things like how to design, how to market and how to do customer service.
MBA: But you, are a programmer.
Programmer: I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do."
I graduated in business administration, and when I tell people I can actually code and have been learning how to do it for the past few years, I mostly get blank stares, which is sometimes followed by the question: "why do you learn it if you ain't a programmer? You should hire a programmer instead."
They don't get it when I explain that the programmer I would need to do the work I want done wouldn't need me as much as I would need him. They also question me why didn't I graduate in something related to programming instead of BA, as if studying something outside of your area of expertise is waste.
If learning multiple disciplines is your thing then keep going for it. I've gotten similar reactions being on the opposite side -- I'm a dev that has some business and design knowledge. "Why don't you just stick to back-end data crunching analytics services?" Because I like interacting with people, and I'm not as useful to others if I can't communicate my ideas and thoughts.
I once had a job interview for a programming job in which I was asked about the several (programming-related) publications I had listed on my resume.
"Why did you do this? It looks like you want to be a writer, not a programmer!"
I find it hard to imagine being so consumed with programming that you don't do anything else at all, even things that are related to, but not actually, programming. But even harder to imagine is why anyone would expect someone to be that consumed with only programming?
At my current job, it seems like I am constantly being pressured into being a "systems engineer" or somesuch. The fact of the matter is, I really love writing code, finding and fixing bugs, and just generally all around playing with software. I can appreciate, and am even very interested in, things such as hardware, materials science, physics, chemistry, etc. But there is more than enough for one lifetime (multiple lifetimes!) in software, and I just find it so cool that I don't want to do much else. Don't get me wrong; outside of work I'm an amateur musician and a volunteer SAR member. I also appreciate stretching your mind, getting a different POV and cross-training, etc, etc, but as long as people are willing to pay me to make software, that's the job I'll continue to do. Try to push me into something I'm not interested in, and you'll have to find another code monkey. I'll dive into wildly differing domains, but mainly so I can tackle them better in software.
I would find it off-putting if someone pulled that line on me in an interview too. Being a programmer does not mean that you are a simply a code monkey, incapable of expanding your knowledge of the field.
You would think that all companies would want someone who understood programming enough to be able to write about it in a way that others could understand, but perhaps not. Some places "get it" and some don't.
This is the worst thing about the "college major" system. Yes, comparative advantage is a good thing, but that doesn't logically conclude in overspecialization.
For a few years after my MS I started focusing on programming exclusively.
After a trip to NY and meeting lots of interesting people in Brooklyn, I remembered that things such as cross expertise, learning totally different disciplines and inspiration are actually the most important things if you are going to spend more time thinking than coding.
I couldn't agree with this more. Unfortunately, for every "I am a person" developer out there, there are 2-3 "all I care about is code" developer. It's depressing.
Alternatively, some people realize that a statistically significant impact on billions of people matters more than the fuzzies you get from a good review or a personal email.
I'm not sure why it's depressing that someone would enjoy coding and not business + coding. Some people tend towards specialism, some generalism. It's probably good that we have both sorts of people.
Me, I'm a specialist at heart - I have no interest at all in business. All I want in the world is for someone to come to me with an interesting problem to solve, and to help them solve it. Fortunately, I have that, and I get plenty of enjoyable interaction from helping less technically able (but more customer-focused) people to produce what they want to produce.
Classifying specialists as not-people is condescending and pathetic, every bit as much as it would be for someone like me to dismiss generalists as morons because of their lack of technical depth.
And don't forget about people who don't like to specialize, yet wouldn't like to be anywhere near business administration. The idea of being only a programmer seems to me as depressing as running a business. It's just not for me; there are a ton of things to learn, and I prefer those that stimulate my brain before anything that stimulates my wallet (and yes, business administration may stimulate someone's brain, just not me).
I prefer to have a 9-to-5 job that pays the bills and then, back home, study anything else.
> Yes. But when I affect someone's life, I'll get a email, maybe a call about it, and I'll have a real conversation with someone. I'll know who they are and how I affected them.
And a few hundred 1-star reviews on the app store(s), saying that while they use your app daily, it really isn't worth the $1.99 they paid for, and people should use X instead, which is FREE. Or 3-star reviews that say the app is PERFECT, they love it, but it needs feature X (assuring you that they'll bump up their reviews to 5 star when you add the said feature).
At times like that, I'm sure you'd rather you worked for some giant corporation and didn't have to deal with customers directly.
You're making a pretty big assumption that everyone works in consumer-facing markets, and not with small- to medium-sized businesses.
The app store model is broken because it has too much Internet in it. Anonymity + Platform = arsehat. Dealing with clients one-on-one is really rewarding.
Clients can be rewarding or a nightmare. I have dealt with both. There are good and bad clients you deal with just as there are "arsehats" in the consumer facing businesses.
But I think the quicker you learn what's truly important to you, you start to spend more time on those projects/with those people/in that place/etc and you feel more fulfilled, and that you're making more of an impact, than you ever did before.
To each his own. I don't work for the world's largest anything, and while programming is only one thing I do, it's the only one I'm interested in doing professionally. How quaint, I guess.
Do you want to run a business, or do you aspire to be the kind of person who runs a business, because magazines told you that means something? One is sexy and the other isn't.
I will just continue reading and doing things by my own will until somebody finally realises that domain dependent thinking is rarely innovative and that they might be able to get a competitive advantage from utilising the broad-range of expertise I am trying to grow.
Everybody is different; some of us require variety to focus; and some of us get-off on bridging gaps in between disparate domains.
You can affect people's lives even if working at Big Corp X.
Often, you can ask to do more things than programming at Big Corp X, if you show interest and are valued as an employee.
Not every Big Corp X. deals with social networks for alien life forms on earth : there are big corps X developing medical devices, airplanes and space vehicles, public infrastructure, or researching new, game changing technology.
A lot of people working at Big (or Medium/Small) Corp X. are passionate about their work.
I agree that by doing your own thing you have a much more direct impact on the result, but I don't think there is such a manichean and romantic division.
>there are big corps X developing medical devices, airplanes and space vehicles, public infrastructure, or researching new, game changing technology.
Please let this always be true. I don't want to get into software if it's just gonna be webapps, not that those aren't cool, but I don't know if I like it much.
Yay! Everyone start their own company! I mean why not? Who needs salaried work? It's just so easy and risk-free if you already know how to program!
Come on now, start a company when you've identified a problem that really needs a fix, and that has a huge potential of profit. A great way to find that problem is in a paid position. Starting a company for the sake of starting a company won't get you anywhere.
I'd started my own company at one point, and utterly failed at it... didn't enjoy it at all, and it wasn't at all freeing.. in fact I never felt more constrained.
I also spent 8 months in a Director level position, managing several teams and several projects. Also much more constrained. Though, I did learn that there is far more mediocrity in the majority of programmers than greatness at that time.
Now, I'm much more about putting in my time, making the projects I work on better when I leave than when I start. I enjoy contract work as I get to learn new things constantly (domain knowledge in diverse cultures), which to me is a lot of fun. Right now, I'm working for an internal development operations group, which means creating services for other development groups... It's interesting for the moment, though I'm enjoying the slower pace so far.
I spent the last year and a half before where I am working on changing the environment of a set of very stale projects that had become maintenance nightmares, and bringing them into more current structures. Enhancing the UI as well as simplifying other systems. It really depends.
It's an interesting interpretation of the fields of marketing and customer service to lead one to believe it would be desirable to do more work in those roles and less work in software engineering. To each, their own.
> I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do.
This is not universally true. Yes, we're all people, but some people don't want to serve as tech support, marketing, etc, themselves. Some people just want to show up and work in a specific, technical problem.
HN isn't filled with that type, I don't think, but they certainly do exist. And I'd guess they're the majority, too.
A lot of this depends on timing. My interest in doing more than solving a bunch of meaty technical problems (where doing more includes managing a team, speaking to people, customer service) follows a sort of sine wave pattern.
Sometimes for 6-12 months all I want to do is immerse myself in programming. Other times I want to "change the world."
Entrepreneurship fluff. These posts seem to forget the reality of life. What about health care? House payments? The cost of raising children? The social network job will allow for those. The business? Good luck with that. Oh, but you might get some funding, you say? Try explaining to a VC how you are using their money to pay for your children. Many of them don't even want you to have base salary.
Entrepreneurial folks -- younger ones especially -- are more apt to take the risks or shirk the responsibilities you list. Not everyone will have those responsibilities and many will grant themselves the flexibility to try their own business and see how it goes, because they put a higher value on self-run small business autonomy.
And not every business needs to grow to a VC-backed behemoth. It's possible to manage a smaller business and keep it that way. OP also notes he's looking forward to the challenges associated with that path.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 221 ms ] threadMaybe you'd be surprised how many programmers there are out there who don't care if anyone uses what they do, don't want to interact with users and aren't really bothered who it affects, and would rather be left alone with the purity of "here is a task, go, be a programmer".
I'm not like that now, but I used to be, and I know a lot of people that still are. All that messy stuff like business decisions, market research/development, customer support, requirements capture... all that is so much more soft and ill defined than me, my DE, a defined goal (that I may or may not have helped set) and a paycheck at the end of it. Then I don't have to think about anything but the code.
I think it's perfectly respectable for someone to care if anyone uses what they do and to want to interact with users and care if their problems are solved - but, at the same time, desiring to do this within an order of magnitude of 40 hours a week, receive benefits, not have to worry about paying the bills, even if the client can't be bothered to, don't have to deal with the nitty-gritty of sales and bookkeeping and boardmeetings and fundraising and the landlord and sourcing a new datacenter[1] and dealing with the ISP[1] and making sure the Jenkins box is keeping up with backups[1] etc etc.
The career options for a developer (especially a good one) is a broad spectrum of opportunities, not just a black and white selection between the machine room of a bank or your own startup.
Edit: 1: Unless that's what you want to do.
It's really nice to have only(!) the technical challenges laid out in front of you and not have to deal with the business fluff.
Interestingly, I've noticed that along with the increased amount of "startup porn" on the interwebs, I'm encountering more and more programmers who think that they want to move out of their comfort zone and deal with all of that messy business stuff. I suspect that it's articles like this that are causing programming specialists to become insecure, as there's a subtle arrogance to them. From TFA:
As if those who choose focus on programming are not people.You have to at LEAST have a good base knowledge of both programming, how to solve/codify problems and solutions, AND the domain knowledge of the problem you are trying to solve. Almost no programming is providing programming solutions for programming alone... the vast majority come from real world business needs.
Yes, there are some domains that are programming tools.. languages, platforms and frameworks... and many programmers focus on that, which is why there are plenty of options. However, that alone will not make you a great programmer.
I've spent most of my career doing contract work, because I absorb domain knowledge like a sponge, and enjoy it... I think my most productive time was in aerospace e-learning. It meant becoming a domain expert in e-learning, as well as the subject matter for the content of the e-learning. Now, I'm not a jet engine mechanic, and have no inclination to be, but being able to create a simulated interface for some of those systems was really enlightening, and I learned a lot about sheer engineering from that experience.
I've also had the chance to learn about systems security, and business processes in other positions... Not to mention providing a clear user interface and experience for interaction along the way. I love to learn, and have never enjoyed traditional education. Programming has given me the opportunity to learn in more depth about more subjects than a typical person does in several lifetimes.
If you aren't learning in this industry, and are only focused on programming, then you will be continuously behind... then again, there is plenty of work out there for mediocre code monkeys.
edit: And you're defining great only one way: Someone with multi-domain expertise. Certainly someone who is expert at databases can be a great programmer too.
edit 2: great is measured relative to the problem at hand... If you have a deep technical problem, then multi-domain expertise doesn't really give you any edge. If you have a business problem that needs a technical solution, then having expertise in both the business side and technical side is an advantage.
You really think you're a domain expert because someone discussed their business requirments with you in order that you complete a job? Ah maybe you are, but's it's not the impression I feel you're giving off right now.
No offense though, it's probably just a cultural thing. I have a hard time calling myself an expert in anything, yet many with much less skill sell themselves quite a bit harder.
I don't really consider myself as much of an expert on anything... I know I'm better than most at JavaScript, and that I (used to) know a lot of current technology surrounding e-learning specifically (haven't followed the tincan project much, which is replacing SCORM).
I never meant to imply that one had to be an expert in the problem domain, only that you had to learn the domain to deliver an exceptional product.
You can code a long way solely - because you spend no time on communication.
Sometimes their software is useless for anyone but themself. Sometimes it is useful and then it forms a whole fanatical community around it.
How to determine you've hit this piece of software: it has tons and tons of features and they all interact beautifully, provided your needs fit whatever task the Creator had in mind. Everything you can think of is already there and works.
Example: Far Manager (for windows; early versions, anyway).
Paradigm shifts tend to leave such projects on the sideway because the previous paradigm was pretty fine for the Creator so he sticks to it.
But not everyone is like that. Some developers want nothing more than a real, meaty technical challenge. Scaling up a site that's crashing every hour. Crunching huge datasets and extracting important data. If you find one, you might actually be lucky- they probably have more focus than I do.
I'm 20, I want to go to my simple 9 to 5 job, tackle a really difficult challenge, maybe debug some Magento because that's where the real challenge is at my company, then maybe for the last couple of hours I'll work on some of our in house products to enjoy the freedom of custom development.
Then I'll go home, make something to eat (at a reasonable hour) and hopefully spend a great night cuddling with my girlfriend while we watch old movies on my laptop.
While being a billionaire business man is very enticing, right now, at this point in my life, all I want is to be happy, and working 80 hour weeks to risk it on a 3% chance to make it something amazing just isn't worth it for it.
It's horrible.
I like your outlook, but man, even in PHP land there are vastly better frameworks that won't make you hate your life (Magento has a nasty track record for me and several other devs I worked with). ExpressionEngine, CodeIgniter, even Symfony... if you want to do PHP, do yourself a favor and do something that's not Magento.
That being said, I am a big fan of CodeIgniter, I love the simplicity of it's MVC system and I wish I did more work with it.
I had the dubious honor of setting up a heavily customized Magento site barely after they released 1.0 - it was a nightmare. No docs, barely any participation in the forums, blog posts with outdated (already) information... I didn't have a say in picking Magento and eventually the client moved to something else as updates and expansion became too much of a hassle.
[1] http://www.woothemes.com/woocommerce/
(http://lemonstand.com/)
Just looking at job boards tells me those tech + drupal seems to be where all the work is (in the UK at least), so yeah, why the "even"?
But don't get trapped working for a startup and kidding yourself that their success is your success. If it isn't your company you probably don't own a meaningful amount of stock- it's never worth busting your gut over.
But they showed faith in me when I really needed a job, they hired me on the day of the interview and even paid me early when I was about to be homeless (again.)
I love the culture at my company, I love table tennis at lunch and Bacon Fridays, I enjoy my work and the people I'm with. Regardless of where I want to be in 5 years, why would I give all that up for a minor chance at being rich?
It's a good question. Why would you? Maybe it's just because it's a vast challenge. There's plenty of time though, don't worry.
Sometimes, people grow apart from the environment they're in - for what I've seen and thought, that's probably when we're open for a larger challenge and with that, some new risk/opportunities.
The minute you have kids your discretionary free time drops massively (in many cases to zero for a while, especially if both parents work). Plus your view of your finances change - you have other little people depending on you so that steady income from that steady job looks really appealing.
If you're not someone who wants to set up on their own, that's great. Personally I have other priorities too (damn pesty kids...), but I'd say if you don't think you want to do it in your early / mid 20s when you have energy and time, you probably need to accept you actually don't want to do it at all.
That is however very different from the type of startup that we usually talk about here, which does not an have an well established businesses model already.
Given just this information, it's still possible that people who start companies in their twenties are more likely to be successful; but most people who start companies are 40+. I don't necessarily expect that to be the case, but do you happen to know offhand?
I hear this line a lot on HN and frankly, I have to call bullshit on it.
A real startup (which I define as "a currently small business with large, untapped potential market") with a real business, (which I define as "make something you can sell to people for money"), is a great place to find work at with a real chance to make significant amount of money (which I define as, "I can take 1/2/3 years off to do whatever I like without worrying about paying the rent") in case of success. And the odds of that level of success are not bad if you're smart about choosing your company carefully.
How do I know ? Personal experience on multiple occasions.
(btw, note that my definition does not include "this website/mobile-app we hope will catch Marissa Meyer's eye for a quick $X0 Million flip.)
I personally have always been an entrepreneur at heart. It wasn't until a month ago (at the age of 33, married with one kid) that I decided to strike it out on my own. Ultimately, I knew I would regret not doing it. I have built up plenty of experience both technically and leadership wise. I've made a ton of mistakes in the past 11 years, but most importantly have lived with and learned from them.
You've got time, just keep learning.
That's a big reason why I left a cushy office job - working at the Twin Towers - to work as an engineer in a factory. Coding software for robots was more satisfying than whatever the hell I did at the consultancy I worked with.
They just don't all look for that "more" in their job.
Edit: Sibling comments are talking a lot about the author's personal motivating factors but are ignoring the bigger message of poor hiring tactics like repeating talking points and marginalizing personal goals. I got you, though, op.
But they'd just stare at me in horror.
Maybe try without the scarf?
Edit: As an aside, to find this I searched for "xkcd everyone thinking the same thing". It was the first result on Google and the second on Bing. I'm honestly kind of amazed by current search technology.
Anyway, agree with the sentiments personally, but not sure that's true of those who identify strongly with the moniker "programmer".
Perhaps the best way to describe the condescending startup hiring culture where aspirational devs are encouraged to give up their dreams to work for yet another VC funded rocket ship that is "changing the world."
Another recent article with this attitude:
http://pandodaily.com/2013/01/01/your-2013-resolution-come-t...
My guess is developers are starting to see through this BS and realize that they very well can run their own companies.
This end of the tech cycle is terrible. We're due for an adjustment.
A tiny, tiny, minority that is well represented on this site. In reality most developers out there have no clue how to run or startup a business and they frankly shouldn't because they will fail.
> since the starting costs are relatively very low
I'd have to disagree. Unless you're weighing "cost" on just monetary value. A startup will cost you your free time, your health, your current career, and in some cases your relationship if you have one. Truly being successful in the startup world is extremely challenging and one that comes at many costs.
MBA: But you, are a programmer.
Programmer: I'm also a person. Programming is just one thing I do."
I graduated in business administration, and when I tell people I can actually code and have been learning how to do it for the past few years, I mostly get blank stares, which is sometimes followed by the question: "why do you learn it if you ain't a programmer? You should hire a programmer instead."
They don't get it when I explain that the programmer I would need to do the work I want done wouldn't need me as much as I would need him. They also question me why didn't I graduate in something related to programming instead of BA, as if studying something outside of your area of expertise is waste.
"Why did you do this? It looks like you want to be a writer, not a programmer!"
I find it hard to imagine being so consumed with programming that you don't do anything else at all, even things that are related to, but not actually, programming. But even harder to imagine is why anyone would expect someone to be that consumed with only programming?
You would think that all companies would want someone who understood programming enough to be able to write about it in a way that others could understand, but perhaps not. Some places "get it" and some don't.
Me, I'm a specialist at heart - I have no interest at all in business. All I want in the world is for someone to come to me with an interesting problem to solve, and to help them solve it. Fortunately, I have that, and I get plenty of enjoyable interaction from helping less technically able (but more customer-focused) people to produce what they want to produce.
Classifying specialists as not-people is condescending and pathetic, every bit as much as it would be for someone like me to dismiss generalists as morons because of their lack of technical depth.
I prefer to have a 9-to-5 job that pays the bills and then, back home, study anything else.
And a few hundred 1-star reviews on the app store(s), saying that while they use your app daily, it really isn't worth the $1.99 they paid for, and people should use X instead, which is FREE. Or 3-star reviews that say the app is PERFECT, they love it, but it needs feature X (assuring you that they'll bump up their reviews to 5 star when you add the said feature).
At times like that, I'm sure you'd rather you worked for some giant corporation and didn't have to deal with customers directly.
The app store model is broken because it has too much Internet in it. Anonymity + Platform = arsehat. Dealing with clients one-on-one is really rewarding.
But I think the quicker you learn what's truly important to you, you start to spend more time on those projects/with those people/in that place/etc and you feel more fulfilled, and that you're making more of an impact, than you ever did before.
Do you want to run a business, or do you aspire to be the kind of person who runs a business, because magazines told you that means something? One is sexy and the other isn't.
I will just continue reading and doing things by my own will until somebody finally realises that domain dependent thinking is rarely innovative and that they might be able to get a competitive advantage from utilising the broad-range of expertise I am trying to grow.
Everybody is different; some of us require variety to focus; and some of us get-off on bridging gaps in between disparate domains.
Often, you can ask to do more things than programming at Big Corp X, if you show interest and are valued as an employee.
Not every Big Corp X. deals with social networks for alien life forms on earth : there are big corps X developing medical devices, airplanes and space vehicles, public infrastructure, or researching new, game changing technology.
A lot of people working at Big (or Medium/Small) Corp X. are passionate about their work.
I agree that by doing your own thing you have a much more direct impact on the result, but I don't think there is such a manichean and romantic division.
Please let this always be true. I don't want to get into software if it's just gonna be webapps, not that those aren't cool, but I don't know if I like it much.
Come on now, start a company when you've identified a problem that really needs a fix, and that has a huge potential of profit. A great way to find that problem is in a paid position. Starting a company for the sake of starting a company won't get you anywhere.
I also spent 8 months in a Director level position, managing several teams and several projects. Also much more constrained. Though, I did learn that there is far more mediocrity in the majority of programmers than greatness at that time.
Now, I'm much more about putting in my time, making the projects I work on better when I leave than when I start. I enjoy contract work as I get to learn new things constantly (domain knowledge in diverse cultures), which to me is a lot of fun. Right now, I'm working for an internal development operations group, which means creating services for other development groups... It's interesting for the moment, though I'm enjoying the slower pace so far.
I spent the last year and a half before where I am working on changing the environment of a set of very stale projects that had become maintenance nightmares, and bringing them into more current structures. Enhancing the UI as well as simplifying other systems. It really depends.
This is not universally true. Yes, we're all people, but some people don't want to serve as tech support, marketing, etc, themselves. Some people just want to show up and work in a specific, technical problem.
HN isn't filled with that type, I don't think, but they certainly do exist. And I'd guess they're the majority, too.
Sometimes for 6-12 months all I want to do is immerse myself in programming. Other times I want to "change the world."
And not every business needs to grow to a VC-backed behemoth. It's possible to manage a smaller business and keep it that way. OP also notes he's looking forward to the challenges associated with that path.
"Come work for a company we won't mention here. You will need all of these skills: ...
Interested?"