Comment by mettamage | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mettamage | Hacker News Reader

Having studied:

- computer science & business (bachelor)

- psychology (bachelor)

- game psychology (master)

- computer science (master)

It took 9 years :)

I feel I could have really helped on projects like this.

The issue is: I haven’t found a job that would tackle problems like this. Professionally, I am a software engineer. Does anyone has some tips on how to find one?

For example, I wonder if they know about self-determination theory. That theory is a good one when it comes to reasoning about intrinsic motivation (such as the “relatedness” dimension which says you need to feel “ Will to interact with, be connected to, and experience caring for others.”)

I really suck at matching my complete background and finding a good job for it. But it seems they’re out there and they are done by people who generally have less of an overarching view from the academic side.

@downvoters: I want to help solve problems like this (ed-tech companies reaching more users through skills that seem very useful for them). I so far had 0 chances in my life to do it because hiring in software engineering is a mess. I even gave some relevant thoughts about how they could’ve reasoned on a more first principles-based approach with SDT. Please, give me a break. I could use one. One shot is all I need. As far as I see it, my comment seems to be relevant to the topic. Feel free to give feedback.

And I don’t mind about the points. I mind that the sentiment is: what you studied for 9 years, we won’t give you that chance as we deem it irrelevant to this topic. This is the same HN community that did help people find the right jobs for people and make the world a better place. This downvote hurts. I didn’t breach site guidelines either (other than commenting on downvoting itself)

I have Psych + CS from undergrad w/ focus on game dev, then I got a masters in HCI from CMU. Have worked at companies, startups, and agencies doing both design and front-end dev.

Here are some of my takes: - build up a design portfolio that shows off your design thinking. You don't need a Masters in HCI, but you need 1-3 things that shows you think about these problems. Show that you care about this field, even if your thinking is flawed, it really helps if you speak the language, and show that you're adding fresh takes.

- if you want to do UX eng, then you have to build a few prototypes — doesn't have to be full-blown CRUD apps, but do something in the field you care about. If it's educational games, you can write about what you think should be an experience ramp for a language or other game, and then build what that looks like. You can even make it work as a web app prototype for bonus points if you're able to do it.

- make friends in the companies and sectors you love. If it's educational games, find those people on twitter, linkedin, socials, and hang out. Find those people in your city, if you're able to. Talk shop with them, and build rapport to get in the door

- some people like to re-skin and redesign other apps; I usually don't like that tactic, but apparently it does work. E.g. build a re-skinned prototype of Spotify w/ new functionality using their API. That shows you've thought about their app, users, product / PMF, etc. But do this from design and first principles thinking, don't just go around making things "prettier" — that might not impress those you want to hire you.

Hope that helps!

See it as an application of your skills: how can you use self-determination theory to convince an executive to hire you for that role? If you’ve mastered all those subjects, it should be easy.

> If you’ve mastered all those subjects, it should be easy.

Sometimes you can have correct knowledge of how to succeed at something without being able to personally implement that knowledge.

It's pretty common, actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhEIy-1CG8

Damasio (on phone, might be spelled wrong) has a hypothesis based on this in neuroscience. I might not say that fully accurately, but knowledge recitation and application: different parts of the brain

If you're not able to personally implement it then you're not qualified for the position, so the parent comment's point still stands

I also see myself as a software engineer first but with a keen interest on these topics. I found a good place calling myself UX Engineer; basically frontend engineering with close ties to design and product teams.

Maybe get more into HCI research? It's basically computer science + psychology. I actually used self-determination theory for a research project back when I was doing my CS master: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3274329

HCI research also extends nicely into UX research. You could look for UX Researcher roles, but that'd be non-engineering. That's why I like "UX Engineer" as a title for people like us.

That works as a title yea. And then I would just apply for frontend software positions?

I don’t want to be in academia. I don’t trust the academic system, their moral integrity has been broken by the publication crisis and related crises

I think the problem is that most of these projects would turn out to be adtech, but if you like that stuff then have at it.

I agree but duolingo is education. I’ve always been passionate about it (courtesy of being in the system for too long, thank you Dutch government! :D)

Duolingo is a marketing company. It acquires you, then you pay them monthly while it tries to retain you. This article is demonstrating the gamification techniques they used to achieve that.

If you want to do education, become a teacher.

Edtech is Adtech so ... yeah.

Aren't they downvoting you because your comment doesn't have anything to do with Duolingo?

But it has everything to do with gamification. They went for the standard stuff in my opinion: leaderboards. Self-determination theory helps you to go beyond that, for example. I stated that in my initial comment.

Moreover, I'm a fit at solving this problem and never have been able to. I'm literally using 10 to 20% of my skills and here I see a blog post that highlights 80% of my background. I think that is relevant, albeit tangentially since I'm probably not the only one.

Some specific thoughts on leaderboards and points that come to mind (just free flowing here):

We've had countless of lectures on how to do more than just leaderboards and I'm disappointed that Duolingo mostly went the leaderboard route. I've thought countless of times "what's the value of a point?" And came to the conclusion it's about social comparison. This is why competition works so well. For example, HN karma points are a vague proxy for how much the HN community values your comments (more precisely, but not precisely enough ;-) It values your combination of: comment_frequency * inherent_comment_upvote, where an inherent_comment_upvote is a proxy for inherent_comment_value_according_to_site_guidelines_and_human_biases). People care about that, which is why some HN'ers like to score for points or why feedback on downvotes is asked. In this particular case, I ask that as well precisely because of the fundamental mechanism behind it: I feel devalued while I think I'm pointing out something interesting. So there's a natural inclination to ask why. It's not about the points, it's about the message behind it: "your comment is irrelevant and distracting". Anyway, that's a small view on why I think why karma points on HN have a particular motivating effect, which is also relevant since it's a gamification mechanic (which is, in part, what the post is about).

Alright, I’m interested.

Any good reads to recommend on self determination theory?

Not really, we got a couple of 2 hour lectures on it. But good point: I should seek it out. Feel free to email me, if you want to be pinged

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