Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

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">You have to be performing at the next level for several months

Total BS too. Maybe in India."

This is not BS. My company in the US expects you to be performing at the next level before promoting you. Where do you work? I work at a company that is regarded as doing the right thing and having good intentions, yet they will make you work for up to years in a role above your own before promoting you.

I did this for at least a year before getting promoted to midlevel. Then I performed the role of senior dev and then tech lead for a year each and still did not get promoted. (They started to talk about it, but wanted me to take a 13% increase in hours for a 7% raise - that's not a real promotion in my book)

I would say the list the OP posted is not great. It might be generally applicable, but every company is so different that it doesn't really matter. Even in the same company with a standardized process, promotions can vary greatly from manager to manager.

I hate visibility. I do begrudgingly agree that it's necessary to get promoted in most companies. I really think that talent identification and rewards should be handled by the managers. Having people toot their own horn can take away from the team spirit between members and even create a perverse motive for what work/tasks people are willing to do. I've seen terrible tech leads that only for to where they did because they were yes men and would take credit for putting out fires - fires that were a result of their own shortsighted designs.

But hey, I guess that's why I'm still a shitty midlevel dev that's only seen a 30% (22% inflation adjusted) pay increase over 9 years and doesn't even make $100k.

>I hate visibility. >I'm still a shitty midlevel dev that's only seen a 30% (22% inflation adjusted) pay increase over 9 years and doesn't even make $100k.

My advice: 1. Buy cheapest black or dark blue suit, buy few cheapest white shirts, buy cheapest leather shoes. You can do it under 120$ - and it will be best investment in your life.

2. BRAG when you do amazing stuff.

Managers WILL notice if you CC them in email or talk about it in public. No need to "steal" success from anyone from your team - honestly brag about stuff that you personally made!

You can for example send email at 9 PM to your team, boss and HIS boss such us:

HI! I'm glad to announce that FEATURE XYZ IS WORKING, I will further test it in night, but it seems that its ready for production. WE MADE IT :)

Otherwise your BOSS and HIS BOSS will never know that you are amazing! You need to show them that you are doing fantastic work - otherwise, they might be too busy to notice.

1) A suit at or under $120 will probably be mostly or entirely synthetic. Even used, you may have trouble finding something in good shape that's wool at that price. You're gonna lose a lot of time trawling through estate and garage sales to achieve that, most likely. You don't need a super-expensive suit, but it needs to 1) fit (off-the-rack will need a tailor's hand unless you're the luckiest person in the world) and 2) not look like it's made out of nylon. If you're buying new and plan for regular wear over a long time, also consider getting a second pair of trousers with it.

2) Don't buy a black suit. It screams "I only own one suit, and it's this". It's the suit-color of CEOs who own 20 suits in many colors, and college interns who own exactly one. Navy or charcoal (a very dark grey) are much better for a business-oriented sole suit. Unless your family and friends are pretty fancy, the charcoal can probably do wedding & funeral duty, too, without getting you any funny looks. Works alright for a fancy dinner or evening event, too, unless we're talking something upscale enough that you need to be looking into dinner jackets (tuxes).

3) $120 might get you used leather shoes that are in OK shape. If you pay that much for new leather shoes, they are assuredly not leather and will fall apart in a hurry under actual wear. It'll also probably be obvious they're not real leather, especially as they wear in. Leather shoes (not boots—they're higher as there's more material) start around $200-240 new. If you're actually going to wear these shoes more than a couple times a year, go for the real thing. Used is fine, but, again, $120's pushing it on price (most of the used shoes on the market didn't start at $200ish, but more like $300+, is why most are still at or over $120 if they're in good condition)

I'm talking here about bare minimum survivor kit :) [also I'm not from US so prices are lower here I guess]

Even worst and cheapest possible suit ["slim fit" preferably] is still making you looking better than 95% of people around - as they don't know the difference.

Modern nylon can look and feel GOOD if mixed with viscose. Such suits are ridiculously cheap. I have few of such suits, and to be honest - people(let's say ladies on the street) do not see the difference between those and 90% wool ones. :)

Same goes with cheap Chinese shoes. If you take care of them - they will last even if they are shit. For example I still wear 100% leather shoes I bought for 40$ over 4 years ago. I just take great care of them and I fix them on my own.

My thesis is: get cheapest stuff and make most of it. Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax

On a budget, I'd favor getting a blazer or three and one or two pairs of good shoes/boots over buying a suit, if a person's really starting from nearly-scratch in the nice clothes department. They're (decent blazers) easier to buy used at a fairly low price, aren't quite as tailoring-required as suits, and can be dressed up or down very easily. They also blend in better at anti-suit tech companies.

> Modern nylon can look and feel GOOD if mixed with viscose. Such suits are ridiculously cheap. I have few of such suits, and to be honest - people(let's say ladies on the street) do not see the difference between those and 90% wool ones. :)

This is true! 1) a lot of people aren't great at telling the difference to begin with, so depending on your "audience", it may not matter much, and 2) if you are good at telling the difference, it is possible to find modern materials that don't scream "this is polyester" the way older synthetic suits do.

Clark's are decent dress shoes. They hold up for 1-2 years of daily wear. They fit, feel, and wear as good as the good Florsheims I had previously (not the rubber soled stuff they make now).

I doubt there are many places in the US that sell really good leather shoes. You can go to Europe and have excellent custom made shoes for about 200 USD. Maybe there are some places still around in NYC or somewhere like that, but I'm guessing the cost will be a lot more.

https://www.amazon.com/Clarks-Tilden-Oxford-Black-Leather/dp...

> You can go to Europe and have excellent custom made shoes for about 200 USD.

Good lord, where? I'm aware of one place in... I want to say Romania? That can get you down to around $350 for custom shoes, which is about the same cost as middle-high quality stock shoes. Cheapest decent shoes I'm aware of that are available in the US are Spanish (Spanish company, Spanish designed & finished, but mostly manufactured in China) and start around $200, but that's not custom-made (and also you'll probably have to order them online, as I think they have one US store and it's in NY City, and few or no other stockists, last I checked).

Most other options in the US are $300 and up (new—again, you can save a lot of money buying used on, say, Ebay, though at the cost of time). I doubt you could get anything custom fitted and made for under $500 in the US, and I'm not sure where you could go that would be that cheap, even. Europe does have more options for that than we do, it seems, but the prices are mostly similar AFAIK.

Several years ago my dad went to Spain and stopped in a small shoe makers shop. He told them what he wanted, they took some measurements, and told him to come back in the next day or two. They were great shoes and only cost around $100 (I doubled it to be on the safe side for inflation/exchange rate changes). These aren't mass produced factory made shoes, they have real craftsmanship.

People at my company don't wear suits. Wearing one outside of a really important meeting a would actually show a lack of corporate culture. I dress better than most but still in the culture (decent dress shoes, dress pants, dress shirts).

I have sent emails when working late at night, mostly so I don't forget to send them in the morning. I doesn't really matter. My boss is generally aware of the work I do since they are in the daily meetings. Copying department heads on elevation emails is a way to get on their bad side in my experience.

IIRC you had talked in the past about working on a not widely adopted tech stack?

I spent most of my career on Neoxam and Filenet. I'm in AWS now, but the work is shit.

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