gentleteblor

I'm not sure it's that simple, especially on large systems. I've seen several cases where an employee was responsible for only a small section of a huge system but was actually the only one who knew how the whole thing fit together.

We (his co-workers) all knew it, we were asking him questions all day. Our manager had a vague idea he was good, but that was it.

The system doesn't always reward the best performers...it doesn't even know who they are (that's why performance management is a multi-billion dollar industry).

There are some good points here (asking for feedback, self examination), and i'll happily confess to not knowing much about the subtleties of employer-employee relationships in NZ.

But there are also some missteps.

I did not recommend brandishing your accomplishments. I do recommend knowing what they are and being able to prove them though. Knowledge of self is never a bad thing.

This whole spiel also isn't about individual managers. When i refer to the employer-employee relationship, the employer side isn't one person (usually), it's a process, structure, system. So it's possible for you to be the best manager (smart, compassionate, aware of your subordinate's contributions) and for the system to still suck e.g. too few promotions/raises to go around, manager has to sell his boss on you etc. etc.

Here's the rub. We are all responsible for our careers. You, me, all of us. It is always the individual's responsibility to champion himself/herself (all external support is of course welcome). Telling employees to work hard and leave the "championship" to their managers seems rather naive to me (and a little paternal).

Great careers don't just happen. Your manager isn't (always, or even frequently) going to bestow one upon you after noticing all the good things you do.

It's all you.

Being irreplaceable is only step 1 (see: "...killing at work").

Some companies probably don't know which employees are irreplaceable (lower level managers might, but that might not mean much [e.g. stack ranking environment]). Even worse, there are tons of employees that don't realize, track or display their value.

It's not enough to be irreplaceable.

More frequent performance feedback is a good thing. Just don't think for a second that it changes the nature of the employer-employee relationship.

The employer wants: best work at the lowest price. The employee wants: to do best work (hopefully) at the highest price.

That tension in price comes into play in all the big (hiring, raises, promotions, bonuses) moments of this relationship and the deck is mostly stacked against the employee.

What's an employee to do? Get leverage. And when i say get, I mean earn it (because you work hard and smart and are killing it at work) and show it (be savvy). You need to track every instance of your good work, every demonstration of your value to the company. You need to know what form your performance feedback will take (quick meeting? annual review? panel?) and be ready with all the ammo/leverage/savvy/whatever you want to call it. You have to be able to show what you're worth, what the company loses by losing you (loss aversion works on your boss too) and all that.

I'd love an office. But i fear it might be too late to go back to private offices. Besides the open floors, open communications ra-ra spiel, i'm sure employers have noticed the cost savings in stuffing everyone together.

I've been working on https://jobrudder.com . It's a suite of career tools for professionals.

I agree that there are difficulties in assessing the value of some of the assets (like the article mentions).

I just don't believe "what they can get" should be one of our options.

Ideally, there would be an impartial entity responsible for settling these valuation disputes (how do we handle this between corporations?). Heck, I'd even take using market valuations (which isn't the same thing as whatever the IRS can get from FB).

Isn't this confusing the "free" market with the tax code?

Why is Facebook's tax liability some arcane figure that can only be determined by IRS clout, Facebook lobbying/marketing/lawyers and the revolving door between the private and public sector?

Are you missing a word on your first bullet? Consulting "for?" Clients? What does that consulting involve? Advice or actual implementation?

I'd be a little more specific with what technologies you're using. I see Containers/Kubernetes for your current position but I have no idea what technology the applications themselves are built on.

I'd also try to quantify/specify how you added value. Right now, i get a general idea of things you did but no sense of value other than "did my job". Shoot for some benefits along with your "features"

What did you do as a lead? Arch stuff? Code Reviews? Initial Design?

Good luck!

Those middle books are indicative of something...i'm just not sure if it's planning or rework :)

I'd be interested to hear what you think of the approach (planned or reworked) when you hit the Sanderson books.

Enjoy!

I just started using Zoho Mail a few weeks ago. So far so good.

As requested, i've added screenshots to the landing page. I also updated the messaging. Hopefully things are clearer now.

Thanks for checking it out.

I've added several screenshots, and cleaned up the messaging quite a bit. Hope it's more informative now.

Thanks again for checking it out.

"information is power" <-- amen to this. It's also important to gather another type of information, and that's information about yourself. You've got to be able to prove (detailed instances, dates even) how you've added value in the past (which hopefully means you can again). You need leverage for these negotiations and that involves knowing what you're worth and what the market thinks you're worth (not always the same).

Heh that makes sense. Do you expect these AI capabilities to grow until their poetry is indistinguishable from ours? I think i'd be a little sad about that. I'm all for AI synthesizing the hell out of some new molecules or curing a few diseases, poetry though...that feels like our thing.

Thanks!

Adding screenshots to the home page is at the top of my list. Until then, here are some screenshots of the dashboard and timeline.

http://imgur.com/X2z6bP9 http://imgur.com/nLFtn3Y

I just released my side project: JobRudder [1]. It's a career management app for the individual. It's got one click resume and performance review generation, career analytics etc.

[1]: https://jobrudder.com

I built it because i realized:

- Even if i work hard (i do) and smart (i try), a great career isn't just going to happen to me. I have to make it.

- Updating my resumes, writing performance reviews, all the career/hr tasks i dislike are necessary tools. My work speaks for itself but it needs help.

- I don't own my own career data, it's split up in all the employee engagement/hr compliance/goal setting systems i've used at all the companies i've worked for.

Anytime.

That (similarity to a child telling a story) is an interesting comparison. I usually chalk up being able to immediately identify AI content as some kind of low grade, literary uncanny valley. Comparing it to the way children tell stories feels way more optimistic (because children grow into proper storytelling fairly quickly).

This is pretty neat. There was a short piece on NPR a few weeks ago about AI poetry [1]. The goal was to make your AI poem indistinguishable from poetry sent in by listeners. The AI stuff was good, but the judge could tell every time what was written by a human and what was written by the machine. Interesting stuff.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/06/27/480...

Thanks for checking it out.

Screenshots are a good idea. I'll try to get those added to the home page soon. Until then,. here's a few i just put on imgr.

http://imgur.com/X2z6bP9 http://imgur.com/nLFtn3Y

In general, JobRudder works like this:

In: You add in what you're doing at work, your deeds and accomplishments

Out: We generate performance reviews and/or resumes for you in one click. Plus analytics, search, tags etc.

Hi all,

I built this thing. Please check it out, i'd love to hear what you think or answer any questions you have.

Is this what's happening with Skype and the upcoming Redstone 2 builds for windows? If i remember right, mobile to pc messaging was pulled from Redstone 1 and will be included in Skype later on.

This isn't all true, is it?

I replied to one of those "Welcome to Azure" emails and mentioned I had some questions about integrating the Key Vault with a bunch of their other offerings. Someone from MS reached out to me and setup a meeting with a developer from one of the (many) Azure team. And this guy knew his shite, and was very helpful (still have notes from that meeting on my desk, many months later).

I was a solo developer, with a startup idea, no revenue, no company. And I got help ASAP. I thought it was awesome.

I'm sure my experience doesn't reflect the whole picture, but i think that's true all around.

I've gotten more than a hundred rejections in a year (140+), and i gotta say, it was terrible.

Having said that, i think this is generally good advice.

Looking back, there are a lot of similarities to the common "failed startup" experience. I worked on the novel for five years (got plenty of feedback along the way) but getting it picked up (traction?) was a bust.

And it wasn't "safe to fail" as someone mentioned up above. It hurt, emotionally, physically (90 hr weeks).

Lesson learned. I try to be comfortable with failure now, it's not a friend or anything, but it'll stop by, a lot.

True. It's going to be interesting to watch things play out. The portion of the article about consumers not wanting to subscribe to too many streaming services rings true to me. I think a lot of the newer (cable) network streaming services might die off in the next few years if they don't become one of the dominant few. If Netflix is on top of this (dominant) heap it should give them a lot of leverage when it comes to content costs which might lead to higher profits etc etc.

The most interesting thing (to me) in this piece, is how many pivots Netflix made/is still making. Many of those moves were very much unsafe/risky (which is why the networks didn't make em themselves)...brave for what was already an established company then.

I wonder what impact this knowledge would have on the public's perception of Silicon Valley (and the tech industry in general) if it got very popular. The current thinking seems to be something akin to: Oil & Gas Industries bad, Tobacco Industry bad, Fast Food Industry Bad, Big Pharma bad. Startups Good! Silicon Valley Good. Tech will fix everything. But it's the same old game.

This has been a pain point for anyone who wants SSL on Azure. A few site extensions (e.g. the one for Lets Encrypt) have tried to address it but they haven't succeeded all the way. Looks like MS has finally made it a few clicks process.

Fire and forget SSL, here I come.

I am considering it for sure (just waiting for some reviews of the new Lumias).

Why am i considering it?

- I also find the universal app vision appealing.

- Windows Phones have had some really great cameras

- I'm increasingly worried about increasing search/advertising penetration into every facet of Android. This is purely anecdotal, but it feels like Microsoft is still a few years behind Google/android ecosystem in this area (despite the windows 10 telemetry kerfuffle).

- I actually like Microsoft as far as I like any of our digital overlords.

Well said. I've also got RP, though I've still got plenty of day vision left. It makes me glad to hear you're doing well.

Were you worried about passing it (RP) on? Apologies if this too personal for HN, I am just curious.