Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those categories, but bringing both together makes you stand out more.
I've found black/grey turtlenecks to be a nice middle ground, and apart from the occasional "one more thing" (Steve Jobs) or Elizabeth Holmes comment, those tend to work well.
If Vint Cerf can wear a three-piece suit, so can you!
:)
At two consecutive remote jobs with a lot of zoom time, I had the habit of wearing Tommy Bahama shirts - these are Hawaiian style shirts (or some of them are) that are expensive and perfectly made (e.g., the pattern matches perfectly on both sides of the buttons). My wife made sure I had a diverse collection.
I feel like if I wore that to a software engineering interview I’d run the risk of being judged as just not really getting the culture.
As I get older I found the nicer fabrics and older style more fitting.
The ritual of steaming, prepping while listening to podcast is great.
If they can't appreciate the effort. That's on them.
I have a bunch of nice clothes, life is too short to limit myself to just one style. Not extravagant of.course.
The places that have been the least strict about supposedly "professional" things like dress code, hours worked (etc.) have all been the most professional in terms of quality of work and mutual respect.
From that perspective, dressing more formally can be considered a signal of having the wrong priorities.
That said, while I don't think I would necessarily wear a suit to work, I want to use my dress-code freedom to dress up a bit, in a way that I think looks flattering.
Paradoxically, I would maybe shy away from the suit during the interview, but switch to it once you've been hired and established your credibility.
Jobs bought lots of them for everyone at Apple to wear, nobody accepted, and he kept them for himself.
Dark jeans can be fairly dressed up, but chinos are also a good option.
At the end of the day, every group of people -- all the way from ethno-national levels to your particular niche in industry -- have their social signalling implements, and clothing/appearance happens to be a very common implement.
There's thousands of specialists in most fields, but not nearly as many generalists or people who can walk in two interconnected worlds.
Finding a niche can be very valuable to oneself and others.
One way to carve that out is by going deeper than one's peers in a specialization, but another (sometimes more often overlooked) way is bridging the gap between two different ones.
Ugh, my advice is the opposite. You'll never really fit in if you're in two worlds. Most places don't want generalists. They want specialists who can crank out code quickly without asking too many questions.
In my experience, if you have too much business acumen, you end up asking questions that the business people can't answer, or don't want to answer. Things about business process flow, legal review, corporate strategy, and general process efficiency/improvement. Then they hate you for it, or at least think you're too "head in the clouds".
I have a fair chunk of knowledge in many diverse domains. Besides people occasionally finding one interesting (like people at work finding it interesting that I forage for mushrooms), they don't benefit me at all. In fact, I believe it hurts me (career wise).
I'm at the point where people (managers mostly) are starting to view me negatively. "What's this guy doing as a midlevel after 10 years here and a masters degree?", type of stuff.
Depends on context.
“How does governance oversee the regulatory aspect of this process?”: who is this annoying busybody?
“You asked me to automate this part of the flow, but it can get gummed up whenever the auditors request a six month look back. That happens about a couple dozen times a year, and the system we’re all designing so far doesn’t hold the governance information to automate this when that happens, are you folks okay with the process going to manual intervention about half the year?”: damn, he just saved our bacon, drinks are on us next time we go
The rules of the game are not mentioned publicly, so that people who know them can feel superior to those who don't. The mere knowledge of the rules signals good upbringing or great social skills.
What's a typical outfit look like for you? Do you have a "uniform"?
Hoodie under a suit jacket.
1960s programmers : white shirt, black tie With yeezyz.
Assuming you're wearing the same clothes in both situations, does it look like you're ready for a wedding or that you found the first few clothes in your closet with your eyes half closed and somewhat magically the color and fabric combination is eye-catching?
Edit: this is when dealing with the business folk that is, techies don't care.
If they want to keep you, you'll get a raise.
You'll probably also want to make sure your Linked In profile has been updated recently.
Sometimes you can spot sour grapes at 50 paces.
This is why models don't try to look or dress hot, they just are. Dressing nice is one thing but putting on the r/MFA uniform is a signal.
The business card scene in American Psycho comes to mind.
Peruse clothing from high-quality shops and try out a _lot_ of things to get a feel for how clothes fit you and what fabrics you like. Clothing look good because it fits you and goes well with your style and palette and makes you feel comfortable. You'll likely find soon enough that expensive clothes are generally expensive for good reason.
Find a good tailor (or a couple) and develop a simple wardrobe that can be combined easily. From then on be willing to experiment a bit and spend some money trying out a few things a bit further outside your comfort zone.
How does one know what shops are high-quality? I'm sure price is one place to start, but I doubt that all expensive shops are high quality. How do you tell the difference between the two?