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Comment by jmclnx | Hacker News Reader

>“The Path From Director to CTO: How to Follow It or How to Mentor It”

Well that sets the tone for me :)

There are two types of programmers, people who love the work, people who love the $. In my experience, most people in it for the $ are the worse programmers and always stressed out. If you love the work, you will end up having a fun career

If you are in it for the $, then this article is for you. Me, when I started out programming I took a 15% pay-cut because I wanted to do that. I am still programming decades after my first job.

Kids, do what you like, try not to take a job just for the pay. All you will do is pile stress on to yourself you could have avoided.

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You can love the work and be unemployable through no fault of your own (employers simply considering you too expensive, too much experience, “culture fit”, whatever). Maximize comp, get freedom, code for the love of it. Wealth is options, options are freedom.

Lots of people who have had their career they love cut short because young people are cheaper, outsourcing, incompetent management, market changes, etc. Ensure you can do what you love on your terms.

In Italy if you want a decent salary after 40 you have to move to a manager position. I truly like coding, but recent organizations changes lead to a change of role for, leading a team of 8 I have no more time to code. I'd like coding also because it's the easy part of the job for me, but a 15% pay-cut is huge when you are making, e.g., less than 40k/year, which average for a programmer in Italy.

Well that was in the late 70s and 80s. I was just starting out and back then many programming jobs (IT) did not pay that much. Well maybe did not pay that much at the company I was at :)

But within a few years I was making more and more as salaries for programming started to skyrocket. But to be honest, even if it didn't, I would have stuck with it.

The people who remained in my old job (manf), they were outsourced as the decade went on :( By the early 90s, all that manufacturing work was gone in my area.

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