Ask HN: I am not a programmer but a coder, what should I do? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I am not a programmer but a coder, what should I do?

9 pointssidcool12 comments

As mentioned in this old article [1], I have mostly done assembly line coding for 10+ years. I have mostly made enterprise Java software. Basically Web applications that do CRUD. I have had ambitions to carve my own path. But it hasn't succeeded. Don't get me wrong, I am in a reputed firm with good salary. Nothing to complain on surface. But internally I find my job meaningless. I have great colleagues. But the work is that of a coder. Stitching programs. Nothing very challenging.

I envy those working in startups on cutting edge tech. Those at FAANG making real impact on the world. I am not sure if this is even a problem. What are my options?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3591243

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Reality check: Most of those at FAANG companies are writing CRUD apps or fixing trivial bugs or improving the performance of selling ads by .1%. Yes, the code is deployed widely, but most of what people are doing is still menial. Additionally, if you follow HN news, you might realize that while FAANGs are having a "real impact on the world", that impact is largely negative.

I wouldn't build your life satisfaction on your job/career. Do what makes you money, clock in your time and get your check. Then put your real mental investment into a side project that intrigues you. And if you're lucky, someday someone will pay you for it.

People don't seem to understand that. You maybe have 5% of the engineers/researchers doing the really technical stuff and breakthroughs, the rest is an army of average devs doing the implementations and grunt work. The bad part is that somehow people started to think that working for FAANGs is the end goal in itself. I still remember a colleague of mine who left our startup to go work for Amazon, between his application and his first day he got affected to another team and ended up working on shitty legacy Perl projects and being on call during weekends... Every single aspects of his work was worst than before but hey, he worked for Amazon™️

There's a cynical joke at Google that's something along the lines of "we're mostly calling other services and moving protocol buffers around."

I think most people at FAANG companies probably end up doing the same. For every Jeff Dean doing something cutting edge there are probably like a 1000 engineers working on things that really aren't that glamorous, like iterative product improvements and integration.

Does it make sense to continue stitching services? God knows I have paid my dues. I owe myself something meaningful.

Honestly, if you're unhappy with your work it's worth looking around. I'd just think about what you would find fulfilling, because it differs from person to person.

A good framework is from the book Drive by Daniel Pink. He argues work motivation can come from (a combination) of three things: autonomy (being able to self-direct your work), mastery (being good at and improving at your craft), and purpose (seeing a connection between your effort and some impact you care about). Which of those matter more and in what way are unique to you. If you care about mastery and intellectually stimulating work, you should seek it out. And not all challenges are purely technical, sometimes there are interesting product or team challenges as well. On the other hand if you're happier working on some mission you're passionate about, maybe that's more important to look for.

I just felt like you held too much reverence for FAANG type companies. They are obviously successful and full of smart people, but may not scratch the itch you're looking for.

I would hesitate to label yourself with those ambiguous terms, especially if it's in any negative light. It's like trying to differentiate between "software engineer", "developer", "programmer", etc. It's mostly made up, and the points don't matter.

If you're interested in joining one of the FAANG companies (if only to dispel the myth that it's all real impact), a strong computer science foundation is very helpful. Unfortunately, success in their interviewing processes is more reflective of your ability to solve algorithm problems on a whiteboard rather than your ability to get work done, but the good news is that like anything else, it's doable with a good foundation and practice.

The next question is what to do once you make it to one of those companies and find yourself stitching programs again, but that exercise is left to the reader.

I think the simplest way is to just pick a side project to work on. You have full control over what you create. I always encourage my team to do this if they have the time.

I have done it myself to learn new things.

> I envy those working in startups on cutting edge tech. Those at FAANG making real impact on the world.

Startups don't work on cutting edge tech. FAANG employees aren't making any more of an impact than you're making wherever you're working.

Start ups do work on cutting edge tech, you just need to be at the right one. Most FAANG employees work on incredibly boring projects. The competition at google to get into a top project is fierce.

> Start ups do work on cutting edge tech, you just need to be at the right one.

Sure, let me put it in a different way - working on cutting edge tech isn't dependent on the maturity of your company.

I am in exact same situation as you and been looking for ways to get out of it. I'm looking for answers too here so not much to suggest but my approach is to learn a different tech/role that I find interesting and try to get job there, in my case machine learning. Try doing that and slowly overtime you will gain the skills and hopefully a job that makes some impact

What do you mean by carving your own path?

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