Ask HN: Career advice needed – How do you plan your long run? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Career advice needed – How do you plan your long run?

3 pointsrajeshmr6 comments

Dear HN'ers,

I have a humble request for advice. I have been pondering over this for quite a while and i thought i would ask the best online community i have known so far - for your advice.

I quit my job and have been pondering over my next move - but when i looked at it in the most elementary way - i felt, having a sense of direction is clearly important in desiging your career. But what if, you didn't have a clear sense of direction of what you wanted to become ?

There are millions of articles online which ask you to set goals, define what you want from your life etc. But there is something elementary about how you "feel" about things and this is different for each of us. What if you "feel" you are unsure of what you wanted ?

Letting go of the philosophical aspect, how do you plan your careers ? I have discussed this topic with a few people, and some seem to be floating in whichever direction the wind blows and some seem to be sailing in the direction they want to.

But just how ? Any leads / comments / book suggestions / advice / sharing of your personal journey is highly welcome.

I wish to have a healthy discussion on this topic as this has been bothering me for quite some time and i hope the discussion would be fruitful for all !

Thanking you all in advance.

You are unlikely to ever figure out an exact answer, though some people apparently do, but at the very least you can make every job search a little better.

A minimal bar: avoiding bad jobs. Crazy long hours, boring work, harassment... unfortunately jobs can get very bad, so it's worth spending the time to avoid places that will actively make you unhappy. (More here: https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/10/14/job-you-dont-hate/)

Beyond that, you can figure out goals from what's worked for you in the past. Every job I get teaches me something new about my goals, based on how it works or doesn't work for me. And my goals change over time, too.

So one thing to do is to start with looking at the past: what parts of your past jobs were wonderful? What parts were bad? What did you feel you were missing?

My personal aims at this point are work that I find useful (applying a personal idiosyncratic definition of useful, and to have a sane workweek. I'm working on a book about how to get to a sane workweek, there's a out-of-date but somewhat accurate outline here: https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/09/16/sane-workweek/

Hi,

I have read your blog and it's awesome to get a reply from u!

I have had a couple of bad jobs in the past - I made poor choices in spite of being an able and talented person. But I am learning my lessons.

My gripe is that majority of the big MNCs don't have a clear why and they don't seem to utilise my talents fully. And on top of it, there is utter nonsensical deadlines, repetition of work and harassment and long work hours. At present i am interested in opportunities that would give me better opportunities to refine my skills!

I was worried about the long term - as you would have read elsewhere on the internet, there is a bias in hiring towards college grads than people having 30-35 years of age.

How is the tech landscape gonna look like ? Would we be able to cope with the stress ? What if automation makes most jobs redundant - how to differentiate ? There are other questions lingering in my mind.. but that's a few of them.

The tech landscape is changing so fast that I could clearly notice it within my roughly 8 years of IT experience itself.

It sounds like maybe you do know what your goals are, you just aren't sure how to get there?

I am skeptical automation will make all jobs redundant. Someone needs to figure out what to do, for example; there's no way a computer can do requirements gathering, or UI design, or process improvements.

> It sounds like maybe you do know what your goals are, you just aren't sure how to get there?

I kinda know the direction in which i want to proceed, but as you said i do not know the how! Actually, i am lost on my next steps - caught up between a craving for mastery and moving to the next phase of my career which might involve handling people.

> I am skeptical automation will make all jobs redundant. Someone needs to figure out what to do, for example; there's no way a computer can do requirements gathering, or UI design, or process improvements.

Exactly! But at present, in bigger corporations - the "what to do" requirements gathering is done by sales interactions and customer feedback / requests - which makes the techies redundant in the chain. I read elsewhere that some big university is researching on generating code from code by using code snippets from open source - if this successfully gets implemented then tech jobs would become difficult to find - just sharing a thought!

What do you love to do? Do you love coding? Do you love design? Would you love to open your own business?

Whatever you really like to do, learn more about that craft but also learn new skills. We are in a world that is moving so fast and you want to try new things continuously.

It works also if you don't really love to do any particular thing right now. Trying new things will let you explore and find something that you would enjoy doing it for the next 5-10-15 years.

Don't be in a rush to set your goals in stones. Stay patient and optimistic. Life is long.

This is just my opinion. How I would do it if I was in your position. You do you in the best way you can :)

I love to build stuff from the ground up - but I rarely get such opportunities in the corporate world. And I am unable to take risk by going on my own (financial constraints)

The corporate life just sucks the soul out of me, and by the time am back to home.. I have nothing left to do creative work. It would be great to have a partner with whom I could collaborate, but I seem to be socially awkward too :(

Reply on news.ycombinator.com