Some career advice (2019)
lethain.com
lethain.com
Idolizing people like Musk, Bezos and Gates, brilliant though they certainly are, only serves to put "just work hard/smart" blinkers on young career professionals, when sometimes, you really just need to introduce some chaos, roll the dice again, or divert effort into opening new pathways for yourself via networking or some such activity, instead of spending those extra hours on polishing technical skills.
Case in point, I've had several internships as a student. My first one, I landed in a team that effectively did product management of a backend system, whilst my coursemate landed into a role assisting a high-up VP on innovation projects.
Later, as a consultant, my first project was on some dying database system that needed to be kept alive a short while longer. In this case, I'd learned already, that you don't have to always accept your circumstances as they are. I politely complained to management that this is not what I was hired for and did not match my skills, and was transferred to a way more interesting and career rewarding project.
I think the cornerstone of luck in career comes down to a few things:
1) Always Ask / Register interest - good things can't come your way if no one knows that you're looking
2) Keep an ear to the ground - so much information spreads via word of mouth. Being in chatrooms/groups or just having friendly relationships with various people in a company or sector, is like having sensors planted all around, alerting you to new opportunities
3) (polite) STUBBORNNESS - I can't emphasize this enough. Rejections, or unanswered job applications don't have to mean anything. After looking objectively at yourself and your attempt, to see if anything could have been improved, it pays you to then be stubborn and just keep trying. I recently got a brilliant job because my application was rejected from the 10th job posting of my favourite company, but a recruiter saw my application and forwarded it to another internal position that was based in another location and offered remotely. Everything clicked from there and I eventually got an offer. This happened because after the 9th rejection and I said "F*k it" and sent out another CV.
This is bold and I approve. Not many of us have this fck it mechanism built in. So we make excuses not to impose ourselves which is first class BS. My last agency gig was with an award winning agency with massive clients, I was interviewed with a director in the room. The meeting was scheduled for 20 minutes. It ended up lasting 2 hours.
However, we are always in the right time and right place for a breakthrough. But it's unfair to not give credit to those that saw the opportunity, believed in it, and made it happen.
How's this?
I'm a self taught programmer who did not start to learn programming til I was in my 40s. It was not super easy to get my first full time job.
One day, I went to a tech meet up. Got a t shirt.
Six months later, I wore that t shirt to a hiring fair. Someone recognized the t shirt because he was at that meet up too. We started talking. I end up joining the start up he worked for.
Two years later I'm looking to leave and start job hunting but completely fail on my first phone technical interview. Decide to study some more "interview questions" before applying to another job.
Find out the next month our start up is in acquisition discussions with Big Tech Co. Decide to stop job hunting.
The acquisition happens. I now work for Big Tech Co. They never would have hired me if I had applied cold for the job. I'm doing well there.
So, the secret to my success: a t shirt and flubbing an interview.
i know that timing and luck really helped me out and i am grateful for it.
so when people say "wow, you taught yourself programming and now you work as a software engineer at Big Tech Co -- that's impressive" i don't think "it is because i'm awesome!".
i think "i did work hard to get here but i sure had some lucky breaks along the way and if the timing had been different i could be in a very different spot right now".
There was a conscious choice made to go to a meet-up (networking) and going to a career fair (or conference or further meetups) where you could run into people you've networked with in the past. Without that choice, none of the downstream lucky events would have mattered. So you can acknowledge the role of luck in those uncontrollable downstream aspects (T-shirt, career fair meetup) while also acknowledging what OP's role in creating that situation.
You're not "unlucky" if you had decided to play video games instead of going to either the meetup or the career fair. You could be unlucky if you did both of those and the opportunity never arrived. The former is (bluntly) making excuses about somebodies lack of success.
Or you can just say that someone was lucky to not be born in a country where they're forced into military conscription as a child at which point everyone is back to being lucky. It's all a matter of what you decide to focus on and what perspective you bring into things looking forward or backwards.
You taught yourself programming in your 40s. That’s hard work and discipline to gain a skill. There’s plenty of other stuff you could have chosen to do with your time, but you chose to do this instead.
The very fact that you were going to meetups is a sign of diligence and eagerness, which are both conscious traits that can be consciously nurtured.
Yes, there’s an element of chance involved in that person recognizing your shirt and him having a job to offer you and that company getting acquired. But you put yourself in the position to take advantage of that serendipity through working hard at your skills and spending your time wisely at meetups.
There are things we can control and things we can’t, and both play a significant role in our outcomes.
And if that hadn't happened you would have just.....given up?
My dad told me that most people did not recognize opportunity because it came disguised as hard work.
This is important. I used to think that you're supposed to be doing what you're told, but this is often very bad for your career. You should do what will get you your next job. Introduce new technologies that are hot because you'll get to work on them, it doesn't matter so much if its good for the employer.
Of course there are a lot of reasons not to follow this advice: maybe you don't want to be promoted, or your boss is an idiot, or you fundamentally hate your role, etc. In that case other tactics may apply, but be aware there's a glass ceiling if you only rely on job-hopping for your growth opportunities.
I've been mentoring young people and college students on and off for years. The influence of luck on their success is a constant topic. Definitely not ignored.
If anything, they tend to overestimate the role of luck and external factors in career development. Each year it seems like I talk to more students who have been convinced that success can only be the result of pure chance. I watch a lot of them lose motivation because they think they need luck and nepotism and connections and wealthy parents to be successful.
For example: All of them have heard the phrase "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Some of them take it so literally that they lose motivation to learn things, instead assuming that their career success is going to come down to whoever their parents or friends can introduce them to. This leads to a lot of frustration come internship time when they see a couple of their less-knowledgeable friends land great internships at their parents' or friends' parents' companies.
I feel like I spend a lot of time convincing some of these students that they do, indeed, have a lot of influence over their career trajectory. Their outlooks tend to change quickly when they arrive at a job and realize that what they know really does matter a lot more than who their parents are when it comes to getting anything done. I also have to emphasize that "who you know" isn't some fixed quantity, and that they will meet a lot of people in their career. The more they deliver good results, the better the impression they leave on the "who you know" and the more valuable their reputation becomes. You're never going to expand your network without putting yourself out there.
It's tough to compete with the constant onslaught of cynicism they consume on TikTok, Reddit, and other websites every single day, though.
Of course when you confront them they retreat to their motte and say that talent is also luck, and not getting cancer is luck etc, and therefore everything in life is actually luck, so they weren't wrong!
I read years ago that 40% of cancers are attributable to lifestyle choices. For example, your odds of mouth/throat cancer increase steadily the more you drink. Getting the HPV vaccine reduces your chances of the associated cancer by a factor of 22.
I post often here about "getting your share" by buying stocks in successful companies, that you can get started at no cost, and can buy fractional shares if you don't have much to invest. I get lots and lots of push back. Last year, stocks increased what, 30%? All those missed opportunities.
(Of course, stocks don't go up 30% every year, and often go down. But you can't get lucky investing in stocks if you never invest .)
On the positive side, they now have a friend at the company that can refer them...
I would argue that this would be too cruel for the "unwashed masses" to digest/fathom. The myth of meritocratic rise in a capitalistic system rests on the fundamental premise that luck plays little to no role in one's success. That is why you often hear bunkum like "the harder I work luckier I become" and others in desperate attempts to trivialize externalities. The very fact you you won/or didn't win the genetic lottery (born to rich/high IQ/hard working parents) could be a big strike in favor/against you. Furthermore, there is also ample anecdotal/research evidence to show that people who think that they are self made or downplay the role of luck in their success also tend to be more selfish and more uncaring for the less fortunate. I don't exactly recall who said this (most likely a leader from some socialist country a while back) that: since majority of life's success (wealth/riches) is mostly due to luck it can't be morally wrong/unjustifiable to take some of that away through high taxation.
I find your moral calculus about taxation rather odd. Just because someone didn't earn something doesn't mean other people have a right to take it. For example, just because someone is blessed by genetic lottery with a luxurious head of hair doesn't mean I have a right forcibly take that hair and make a wig to cover my own balding head.
The odds that you drew those exact 5 cards are very low. You were lucky to draw those cards.
However, the odds that you end up with 5 cards anyway is 100%.
Its the same with your career. The odds that you ended up taking the exact path that you did, with all the serendipity and chance involved, is lucky. But the chance that any halfway decent programmer ends up with a high paying job is damn near 100% right now.
There are a lot of forks in the road on the way to success. Looking back, each of those forks looks lucky to you because they landed you in you current success. But you could have taken the opposite road at any of those forks and still been successful.
> You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight... I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!
For example, if you drop out of school, do drugs, and commit crimes, what are your odds of a successful life? Zilch.
If you stay at home playing video games all day, what are your odds of meeting the partner of your dreams? Zip.
If your startup does no marketing, does not attend trade shows, and doesn't write a decent manual, what are the odds of business success? Zero.
If you bring a sack lunch to work every day, and eat at your desk instead of stepping out to lunch with the gang, what are your odds of promotion? Pretty meager.
And so on.
I'm not sure if I have heard that point before, but it's very interesting. At different points in my career I've tried to be consistent about packing my lunch to save money, but I guess that might be an example of being penny-wise and pound-foolish.
It also depends upon who you are going out to lunch with. If you're only going out to lunch with other peons, it's probably not going to help you much.
You'd be surprised. Today's peons are often tomorrow's movers and shakers. But yes, going to lunch with diverse people in your organization helps.
This is also a huge problem with WFH. WFH doesn't build valuable social/work connections. It's easy to overlook the contributions of WFH people. It's easy to forget their names. They're often the first to get laid off in a downturn, and last to get promoted. Meeting your customers face-to-face is far more likely to end in a sale, than with zoom.
This is definitely true. I started working from home a year before the pandemic to help take care of a sick family member, and I felt like I was forgotten about. When COVID hit and everyone was forced to WFH, it was actually a boon for me because I was now on an even playing field with my coworkers and they suddenly remembered my existence.
My life circumstances have changed somewhat so that I probably could go back into the office, but our company is still fully remote so I'm glad to be at home. I'm really just trying to figure out what I'll do once our offices open back up. I'm thinking going into the office 1-2 days a week is probably enough to help me capture some of those opportunities while still keeping the benefits of WFH.
Dressing cheaply also saves money. But it's a mistake for one's career. Wearing clothes that are a cut more expensive than your peers and competitors is a good investment in your future.
People adamantly deny that they're so shallow as to be affected by this, but I've seen it happen too often to discount it.
Back in my Zortech days, we decided on a policy that our employees would wear a suit whenever meeting customers. We even paid for the suits. Initially, there was a lot of grumbling about it. But it paid off. Our customers loved it, because they were sick of seeing software people dressed like slobs. For many of our employees, it was their first suit, and they loved the effect it had on their interactions.
(Joking, but what you've written is largely true.)
This also depends on luck, search for the fundamental attribution error.
One can't decide where one is born, and in some places the hostile environment you live in, can cause you to take those decisions/behave like so.
That denies that people have agency. Nobody makes anyone make those choices.
Following your logic, could we explain all crime the world just because criminal 'dont have agency'?
I doubt it
On a personal level, I think what you're saying makes sense and is a good healthy approach to life and maximizing potential by not doing stupid things. It is good to hold yourself to account and those around you as well.
From a social/macro perspective though, I think it's important to look towards the data on things like crime in a scientific and empathetic mindset if we want to build a stronger society and optimize for bringing out the best in people and making sure everyone has a fair shot.
Crime happens for all sort of reasons, probably a non-negligible amount is committed by people channeling the abuse they received as children and their abusers probably never got held to account in any explicit way. Or say you're a young kid raised in Sinaloa without much education, your parents actually poked fun at you for going to school and talked down at the things you learned in the classroom. Around you, not only are the most successful and powerful people narcos, but your economy is defined on the gains from crime. Of course the line blurs, are you a criminal if you join up with the traffickers, are you a coward for not and choosing to do 'honest' work?
If the world is waging war against you and your options while telling you it's your fault for being in the position you are in, maybe you stop thinking like a middle class civilian and more like a soldier on a dead man's mission.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/features/mental-he...
High schoolers are not children. The justice system properly gives a lot of breaks to juvenile delinquents, in recognition of their immature judgement. But that doesn't mean they aren't responsible for their choices. I remember being that age, and I clearly made choices.
> choices a person feels capable of
When people say they had "no choice" they are making excuses.
> raised in Sinaloa
I'm talking about America. I don't buy that Americans are forced into crime, taking drugs, and dropping out.
I'd be interested in your response to this article that focuses on the American city of Baltimore: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/693972661/a-high-crime-neighb...
I did all that. It was fun. Doing OK now, I think. How do I check and see if I have a successful life?
Last year "60 Minutes" profiled a guy who spent maybe 10 years in prison. He used his time to study law, and became a successful lawyer when released. He was profiled because of how unusual this was, not how common.
If it looks like a cost center, it's a waste of your time.
Finally, I suppose, I’d say that a surprising amount of a good career is about getting lucky and taking advantage of when you’ve gotten lucky. It’s clear to me that many of the best things that have happened to me were only partially in my control, if that.
Happened to me just this morning, even, that I saw a publisher say they were accepting submissions I had some games that would be a good fit but I'm still trying to iron out a few things (and could have done that by now, but hadn't).
I'm a good deal wealthier than some much harder working + smarter friends of mine because I lucked into joining some (moderately) successful startups.
No, luck does not favour the prepared, but survivorship bias makes it seem so.
That is one of those 'small privileges' you get from an upbringing that teaches how to succeed I think, much like personal finance, travel, building strong relationships and so on. I know it's hard to get through to kids sometimes, but just having them keep in mind that they should be aware of these topics puts them miles ahead of others in terms of living a well lived life.
Knowing how to do so - or even what ‘full advantage’ includes - is almost certainly one of those ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ things. Obvious later in your career, but invisible at the time.
Still, recognizing that you can do more, or less, with converting a lucky opportunity into lucky career growth is important. Especially for those of us who are of average skill.
> Don’t assume you’ll make this much money forever.
There is a 90% chance that your salary will increase by 10% per year, on average, during your career.
On average means that sometimes your company will find a lousy excuse not to give you a raise on a given year (you know if it's your fault or not. If in doubt: it's not your fault, they are just being cheap, and you are letting them get away with it).
When this happens, you need to look elsewhere for a better paid job (which are also, on average, more interesting than worse paid ones).
Given that you apply this advice, and barring any black swan event such as the dot-com bubble bursting, you should be able to earn more and more as time passes.
Use this to your advantage!
Stuff like that is the point of the sentence you're replying to. And how can you be so confident about the salary growth over whole careers in software? If you laid 30 year careers end-to-end, the entire industry of software has had enough time for about 2.
There are a huge number of folks making high 6-figures or low 7-figures over the last decade due to tech stock growth. An entire generation of programmers has no idea what a buyers market for talent looks like. SAVE.
To save means keeping money in a low interest rate account, which lowers your short term risk and increases your long-term risk (you are not enjoying the higher returns of high-risk, high-return, investments such as stocks over the long term).
As young people, you should think long term.
If you want to minimize short-term risk in your life, then please, by all mean, save!
But be aware that there is no free lunch, and reducing risk right now will most probably reduce your opportunities in the long term.
Please take into account that I am reasoning with averages and averages are just a massive simplification of real life.
Adjust according to your own assessment of your context and situation. Don't follow random advice from strangers on the internet.
I would buy this t-shirt. This is so true. At certain points in your life you can take wild risks - eg. work for a company that has 4 months of runway and live on the co founders couch. This type of opportunity can teach you more in 4 months than 4 years at other positions. Small companies having difficulties can be a fun place to lead, fix and build. You will have plenty of years to do: 2 hour code reviews, long sprint planning sessions and write endless unit tests.
I think you are right that certain things cluster together: Jobs where you are treated like crap pay you like crap, jobs where you are paid in riches treat you like a princess. Exceptions apply.
If you are regularly applying for jobs, it should be apparent when your value is declining.
I know many more extreme examples where friends working at startups hit it big. No, a 25 year old SWE is not going to be able to job hop to another job paying them $1m/y right out of the gate
I'm not sure where you are or how old you are but after 10-20 years this definitely does not hold. Often you'll have to take a pay cut to get good skills.
I noticed a positive correlation between salary and skills. The higher the pay, the more I learnt on the job.
But maybe I was just lucky to pick Python before it was cool and just ride the wave.
I took a massive pay cut when I stopped freelancing and started a product company instead, but it was totally worth it in the long run.
Make sure you take a pay cut for the right reasons, and for the right amount.
You can do 10% YOY during the first decade, maybe even the second. It gets harder after that. 10 years experience makes you much more valuable than a first-year worker, but 30 years doesn't make you that much more valuable than someone with 20.
Particularly if you start off recently(ish) on the SWE FAANG track and were lucky with RSU timing etc., you'll find a lot of the options that come your way don't pay nearly as well. But you may find them exciting anyway.
That seems a bit unrealistic to me.
It was fairly easy for me, as I was a high-school dropout with a GED.
I never made any of the stratospheric salaries that I hear about, these days, but always had what I needed, and have been able to retire relatively early (55, as opposed to 35, but not too shabby).
Also I was looking for 20-30% raise, end up getting 2x. Amazing, mind blowing, luck, blessing, not sure what it is.
Usually, increased salary means a better, more interesting job. Otherwise, why would they pay you more?
Occasionally, it means "This is how much we have to pay to attract someone to do the work."
Realize both are possibilities, and be active in your interview to suss out which it is, and whether you'll be happy with that.
(Said after a 50% salary bump landed me in a dumpster fire)
Money can't replace now time. But it can certainly buy future time.
Well because previous one was in small agency, I was basically doing all the work. It includes devops, backend, frontend, only couple of devs. Now it is obviously much more focused with different teams for different purposes. Not sure how it will go but well, big tech company is pretty cool. I love my job now (meaning not burnt out yet lol)
Try and maximize your luck by making sure you’re well prepared for interviews and apply for positions where your skills and interests really line up perfectly to the job description. But if it doesn’t work out, try not to take it personally, just reset and try again.
Most people underestimate the amount of risk they can take on simply because they still have living parents and could move back home for awhile.
As someone who has never had a safety net of any kind, use your safety net if you have it.
For me I try to look at my jobs as a way to build a portfolio of skills. When I feel like I am not learning anything (and probably stagnate in the long term) I try to move on.
Can someone explain this advice for me? Is he trying to say to go for it or not?
There is definitely the other side as well.
That is to say, let's say you have a database problem that you can't solve. You hire a consultant for three days to sort it out. Two people apply, one is laser focused on database performance optimization, lists lots of previous engagements solving similar problems. Second one is a "full stack developer" who asserts he can solve database performance problems as well.
I reckon the first one, the specialist, can command a much higher daily rate than the second, the generalist. Even though the second might well be able to solve your problem.
I think it's because it looks like the first one has been spending all their time solving problems similar to yours. Whereas the second has spent some of their time solving problems similar to yours, and the rest of their time doing other stuff.
I'm not saying I like this state of affairs, I think generalists have a lot to offer, but this is how the market for consultants works I reckon.
Consultancy is obviously not the same as salaried positions. But still, I think it's worth pointing out that being a specialist doesn't always have to be less lucrative, it can often be more.
It's not advice to "go for it" or "stay away from it". Rather, it's pointing out a tradeoff that isn't obvious to a lot of early career folks.