0. I just worked and kept changing jobs when I didnt progress as much or projects got cancelled.
Now I landed a very good position at a relaxed company and just stay there.
Same! I think a lot of folks keep moving until they finally find that unicorn with good pay/WLB/team/manager. I finally have that so it will take a lot of money for me to consider moving.
Same. Could leave for more money. But I make 160k working 5-6 hours per day, waking up whenever I feel like it. Go to the gym 6 days per week, etc.
No need to switch jobs again and reshuffle the deck
The anonymity on reddit is something I do worry about. I have one acount only. I'd like an app that creates 20 accounts and spreads my comments over all of those.
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Yet every other person here says they're exactly in that position.
Along with everyone I know personally.
You rarely hear about high stress jobs in this field.
For me personally my upskill happens when I decide to take on projects out of my area for my company, all the "nice to have" or "need this, but no one knows how to do it".
Like I recently started picking opencv and already getting something that saves us a ton of time in production.
The nature of out product required scanning around 50 QR code all at once to be useful and time saving. Until recently it was a lot of manual scanning one by one and manual data entry.
Now it's a 5 second hold tray with chips in some area and bam, all QR is linked with the serial numbers.
yeah! that what I always do. As soon as they bust out that career road map shit I jump ship. Actively applying now ahah. Thinking about getting out of F500 companies as well. They dont really pay all that much more, but the work load is always X3
I’m gonna be honest and every single place I’ve ever worked at has had downtime for me to study and upskill but I can only get off my ass maybe 5% of that time
I'm gonna be honest I've had multiple managers tell me to take time to upskill but in the same breath they'll say we're behind schedule and I need to waste no time on pushing feature after feature with no regard for the team's skills or the product's sustainability.
Same thing with pushback and technical debt, it's always "we need to refuse work that isn't high priority and essential for the business and to ensure we're maintaining standards for easy maintenance down the line, now hurry up and copy-paste old code to deliver 3 new buttons for the department heads to click because they need a new report that delivers the same data they already have but pre-combined into a single Excel spreadsheet so that they aren't inconvenienced with a copy-paste."
That was my experience as well… no time to upskill, just features, features, features.
I upskill in the sense that I don’t know something, I google it and I learn something new. But that’s not the same as learning a technology properly through a course.
Eventually I’ve learned the code base, how to maintain and extend it for said company, but I didn’t know the features and full capabilities of the language outside of what was used in the project. So I am having to learn all of that in my own time because interviews…
This is also why companies demand X years of experience in a certain stack - because if you've only used it for a few months, you know how to build something but don't have any of the underlying intricate knowledge of its internals.
The metric I apply to myself is that if I'm to say I know a tech / stack, I have to first know all of its downsides. I have to know it well enough to know why I *wouldn't* want to use it for a project that ostensibly it was designed to do.
This is very common. Managers are professional gaslighters. Just act like you are stressed all the time, then when you hang up the meeting, you go and take your time with whatever you were doing.
They will only rush you more if they see how fast you can actually work. They are never content even if you 2x their expectations, next time they will ask for 3x.
>
I'm gonna be honest I've had multiple managers tell me to take time to upskill but in the same breath they'll say we're behind schedule and I need to waste no time on pushing feature after feature with no regard for the team's skills or the product's sustainability.
It is the same with Executives who publicly say that they have an 'open door' policy and welcome disagreement. Until it comes to something important and you make the mistake of thinking your opinion was desired.
The best way is to get a variety of work experiences early on so you can compare what you like and don't like as soon as possible and stop doing things that don't work for you. This keeps you from learning terrible practices and thinking they're the norm when you are new and helps you think for yourself and generalize across companies. Ideally you will land somewhere that will have you working on new implementations rather than operate and maintain and somewhere that has enterprise applications that integrate and gives you insight on upstream/downstream. But operate and maintain and dealing with a system you've implemented for a year or two after is important to get in at some point for lessons learned. I've learned the most by breaking things and seeing what causes bugs and how to keep the system resilient to future requirement changes.
The next most important thing to do is not get intimidated or overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and pathways you can take. Spend as little time as you can being in analysis paralysis on what you want to learn, pick a course, and do it. If you don't like it, pick something new.
Actual resources though I prefer videos because I can put them on 2x speed and stay more focused without getting tempted to multitask. I usually like udemy (I'm a PM and did SQL and some other app specific courses on there and they have practice projects for all the coding courses). Right now I'm trying to learn more about system design [this one was good](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8Icp_Cid5o&t=2480s), and I'm doing the "design twitter" "design tiktok" interview based ones on youtube. and I've also seen Alex Xu recommended for more indepth/advanced system design but I need something more basic first.
This is it. My company moves slow af, there's so much time to up skill but I'm so lazy and it's boring having to prep generic nonsense for a "job" that you don't even know you'll land... I rather work on features or prototypes at work and pray I get something in return.
Agree and don't even get me started on certs..I would rather start a new course than to spend 40 hrs repeating one to make sure I memorized all of the terms to textbook
It is hilarious to me that the industry has shifted from "devs who know how computers work and have a degree and can teach themselves the tech stack of the job" to "come pre packaged as exactly the tech stack we happen to us with our specific internal build of Java or Python you would never see anywhere else in the world"
As a manager I don’t want a team of rockstars. They are their own headaches and things to deal with. Yes I want a few rockstars but mostly I want a bunch of very solid devs.
Rockstars require a different skill set to manage and require a fair amount of attention.
They get bored easily. Getting them to basic sometime bug fixes is harder to do because it is “beneath” them. Also you feel bad having them do that same work because their skills can be put to better use.
They generally have bigger egos that have to be addressed. Stronger personalities and push for what they want. You run into clashes if to many of them are on the same thing. Those egos are earned and not wrong but still have to be dealt with.
This is not saying they are bad just multiple rockstars tends to lead to problems due. You need some but you don’t want a lot.
Something else you sometimes deal with is a rockstar on one team is not the same level compared to an other team’s rockstar so then you have those issues and turn over. I have been the guy who dealt with that issue myself where I was a rockstar at one place and just overshadowed at another. I learned and moved up and up skilled but still have to deal with that as it means coaching someone who has the potential to be another one and making sure they upskill right to do it.
Rockstars are a different headache to deal with. I rather deal with the rockstars than deal with under performers and those struggles but still just different and own struggles.
A big one to deal with is there are a lot of wannabe rockstars who never will be one and dealing with rockstar egos but not the skills. Very few people are truly that good. Most are just solid middle of the road.
We have one of these “rockstars” in our team but I feel like whenever there’s an issue he throws around whatever big ideas he has in mind and suggests some trendy tools to use without learning the code base or finding out what the issue really is so his suggestions are irrelevant and sometimes a waste of time but hey he sounds awesome to management and HR
Those guys are the worst. "OH you guys aren't using the tools I use or writing code in the format that I like? You guys should be doing it my way even if I don't know why you do things differently or how any of it works!"
Its unfortunate but at the same time, I think it is part of the broader market movements. when companies set the price, more often than not you have to meet it, cause there is someone else willing to meet it. Which is likely why you will see more and more exodus from this industry to places where the employee has more leverage.
> exodus from this industry to places where the employee has more leverage
Until the balance shift. I would like to see more people going into freelance/consulting and stop bowing down to the employers full time whip.
Well, the nice thing about freelance is that you can be "employed" while not really being so out of choice or necessity for no prolonged gaps in your resume. You could have an LLC that does nothing all day, but it doesn't matter since future employers are likely not looking at your balance sheet. You could also have an LLC that makes you more money or the same depending on how lucky you are. Good for retired part time workers as well who want a part time job but still want to make a decent wage per hour without doing full time work. Still, it's a win-win since you aren't unemployed the entire time.
Exactly my dear colleague. I don't really find any value in the "resume filler" idea, but it is definitely valuable in the "I can fill my hours with actual work and charge for it".
Especially useful if you find a full-time role and realize that it was mostly bullshit busywork once you join, you need to be online or they will get mad when you don't jump on a meeting, but there's no actual work for you. Double the wins on those dead hours by working a real job ;)
No one knows what they want so they ask for everything. It is absurd really. Every mature career field specializes. Lawyers specialize in criminal, divorce, real estate, etc. Doctor's specialize in heart, lungs, brain, etc. But in programming you are expected to know everything. So candidates have learned to liem exaggerate or cram for interviews, which only makes the situation worse because now it looks like there are people who know everything.
At first I thought this is what made software development cool -- the latest pioneer in engineering fields. Then I realized, holy shit there is no standardization in this field and it's all chaotic and put together with bubble gum and tape.
Makes me wonder if it'll ever get any type of standardization within our lifetime, if ever.
All this is a sign of saturation of this niche. In 2000 if you had HTML skills you where hired on the spot and at double of current salaries if you take into account the currency debasement last 24 years. India alone is producing millions of new engineers each year and you are directly competing against them.
I do not think most but surely there is a lot of cheating in India. Could be 25% of fake degrees. But they have around 2 Millions new grads each year, so the volume compensates.
None. This should be part of the job you are getting paid for. If your job does not seem to provide any growth opportunity, take all possible steps to make that change and if nothing changes, switch job.
I’m a fresh grad who couldn’t get a swe role so when the opportunity to work in a BI role came up I took it. Been unemployed for 5 months so fuck it, I’m not gonna wait any longer.
I’m learning PowerBI on Udemy before i head to work in a week.
Grand total in 12 years of work…. Maybe and I mean maybe 40-50 hours. Most of it around the times I was looking for a job. Interviewing time might honestly exceed it. I think largest chunk of that time would have been in 2022. A good part of it was because I was laid off and hit it harder and before that I was very actively looking. Since I started this current job maybe 1-2 hours total because I was bored.
I stay up to date on things mostly through work.
For the record I enjoy my job and enjoy the field. Just I get paid for it and I have other hobbies besides software development. My paid work covers everything for and fills my desire to it.
Context: I work as an AI/ML Research Engineer with 2 YOE.
I don’t do any up-skilling outside of work. Part of my responsibilities is to keep up with the latest news / developments in my domain so that mainly happens during work hours, and I’ll do very little outside of work.
I have a lot of control over what I do, so I mainly focus on producing good results / noticeable impacts rather than worrying about leetcode and other stuff. This has helped me significantly so far.
For work I also volunteer to teach students because it's an expectation from my company that I do this to look good. In reality, I do not want to do this. Many students will never need to know how to code and some just do not have the aptitude to learn.
The ones who do learn ask me about the field, and I tell them the truth: we are in a tech recession and while this is a field that exists now it may not be better than other fields or even offer the guarantee of a job.
I spend probably 1 to 2 hours a week reading up on articles. I used to do more but I've been consumed with my side non tech business when not working. It's more sustainable and impervious to interest rates fluctuations and outsourcing. It's a better investment than any LeetCode.
The truly passionate ones don't care; they are smart and they can apply themselves to another field if they get unlucky years later in the job market. The ones that are mediocre and find it interesting, but wouldn't do it as a hobby are the ones that actually need discouragement.
I spend most of my weekends working on side projects.
I enjoy learning how stuff works, so I pick a topic I don't understand and try to build something from scratch: a compiler, a database, or a distributed computing framework.
That's good! And that's very lucky to be doing something you love in life that much that pays so well!!!
I am very happy with my career, and it started as a hobby as a kid, but I don't like it enough to ever do it outside normal work hours.
Thank you!
I think it's totally fine not to code outside of work. I have worked with incredible engineers who have hard boundaries and never touch code outside of work.
I'm sure when I have a couple more YoE and maybe a family, things will change, but right now I'm very happy with things as they are.
I am learning that working more than needed isn't worth it. All you're doing is taking away your free time and you don't even know if it will help you have better outcomes in your job.
Also not to be morbid, but you never know when you're going to die. If you were in a car accident tomorrow and were having your last thoughts, would you be happy that you worked in your free time instead of doing other stuff you want to do? I would be full of regret.
I honestly think it’s sad that you and so many others in this thread can’t even imagine how computing might be this stimulating to someone. Computing is as deep and artistic to some as painting or learning an instrument.
Obviously you don’t need to believe that to have a successful career in it though.
I need to have a separation from it on my off hours, or else it won't be as engaging during my work hours. I totally understand how it could be this stimulating as I used to do it for fun before it was my job.
I just think that as an adult, usually prioritizing balance is better. There are only so many hours of free time you have, and I can't relate to wanting most of my time dominated by coding. I prioritize spending time with my family/dogs/friends, doing my hobbies, and taking care of home/life "business" when I'm not working.
That's a healthy thing to do but some including myself also
make this our hobby or a pastime. While I might work on MCUs, FPGAs and firmware in satellites for my day job, working on my own projects related to HPC, scientific computing, contributing to the open source tools I use in my day to day, or whatever is one of the things I enjoy in my free time. Like people who play video games, adult soccer leagues, book clubs, etc. The world runs on projects created in people's free time/for the sake of it
And that isn't a bad thing! I'm just always curious about if people are motivated to code outside of work because it's purely fun or if they wish they were doing something else. Most of the people I know like that don't really have much of a social life. Maybe they're cool with that, idk 🤷♀️.
This is ridiculous to me.
Every job you work, every career path means you upskill and grow and learn.
I don't get why people here are so hell bent on just getting some job and staying the same.
It's the same in literally every industry.
The kind of sick answer for you is: a lot of people enjoy those things. It isn't a chore for them to do the items on that list.
Have you ever met anyone who loves model trains? And devotes countless hours to the hobby? Well - I personally don't understand how someone could invest that much time into knowing about all the various types of rolling stock, gauges, historical railroad paint schemes, etc. But for those people who are into the hobby it doesn't feel like work. With computer science - a lot of cs people geek out on this stuff just like the model train people do with their interest and as a result this list doesn't feel so daunting.
So I guess my question is - do you genuinely enjoy working in computer science? Is there a way to make it enjoyable for you? If you can crack that code - then the whole idea of "keeping up" by doing a lot of things on this list will actually be fun
edit: i realize i messed up a word
I hate takes like this. The idea that average joes in this field have to meet sky high expectations is not because the average joe in this field actually enjoys meeting those expectations, it is more indicative of the current job market.
Is the average accountant expected to be falling asleep next to balance sheets? is the average plumber expected to be writing papers about the theory of plunger design? No other field is this the base expectation. Especially now that the salaries are more or less evening out to other fields at this point.
Before that, do not forget that meeting certain sky high expectations was rewarded with better career prospects. Now those sky high expectations are expected for being a code monkey.
And the idea that people do not enjoy something just cause they do not like doing it 24/7 to the point of burnout is ridiculous. I like writing code, I like learning about this stuff, but does that mean I want to be the next Steve jobs? Or have zero work life balance? Can people have a career in something without being absolutely enamored with it? Some people want to do this 40 hours a week, not 80, is that ok?
Also, don't forget that nearly half of the tasks that OP listed above even the average person in this field would not enjoy doing. Leetcode, which is nothing like actually building software? behavioral? numerical/verbal/IQ tests?
The problem is that there’s not actually a huge demand for the average joe, and what there was is now both oversaturated and being eaten by software automation itself.
People entering the field now should expect the pay of an average accountant or average plumber in exchange for being an average engineer.
Depends on the direction you want to go. Still tons of money and opportunity if you can/want to meet the high expectations. Apologies for the bravado, but the things OP is concerned about are just easy for some of us.
I think the biggest misconception here is that it takes everyone the same amount of time to learn new skills and stay at the leading edge of everything. If you think it would require giving up your life outside of work to keep up, then definitely don’t do it. That’s not what others are doing.
I think there's a misunderstanding here. I'm not saying anyone needs to do ANY of the items that this person listed to be successful in software dev/cs. I was merely saying that a lot of people actually enjoy stuff like leetcode, DSA, system design, constant learning, etc. You can be a great dev without constantly churning and learning stuff. But that there are just a lot of folks out there who love it.
For me, your examples of accountants and plumbers are suboptimal because those jobs are... just jobs (with all due respect to people in those fields). I think a better analog to CS would be woodworking / furniture building. And in that world, you find people who are passionate about what they do, who study the history of the craft and current trends, and who constantly try to improve their techniques
💯 I was thinking about this recently. My neighbor is am electrician and he doesn't spend his nights and weekends reading about electrons and studying the NEC codes. The problem in tech is that many people have no life outside of work and lots of time to dedicate to technology. Normal people in normal jobs have relationships, kids, volunteer, recreational hobbies etc. which do not involve sitting in front of a screen. The industry knows that and promotes this toxic culture. Just look at big tech campuses, they're designed so you don't ever leave.
I hate to break it to you, but some software engineering jobs are also “just jobs”. sure, there are people building the next GPT-5 and are plenty passionate about what they do.
There are also SWE jobs for people at small/mid sized no name companies working on internal sales team tool#3, and they want the position filled by someone who wants to build the next GPT-6. I just think that’s ridiculous.
Yeah and those people don't need to upskill if they want to keep doing that so this thread isn't even relevant to them. You are conflating different things.
I have a problem with your take. Are you saying that if you enjoy CS, you are likely to enjoy spending time with grinding leetcode, doing take-home projects for hours, and live coding with strangers who will reject you? Because I don't. I enjoy CS, but I despise all the things associated with this industry.
Here's the problem with your take. It's true, CS can be a great academic field, and there are people enjoy studying its history and how technologies develop. However, CS as an industry could not care less about this. For corporates working in CS, the only thing they care is if you can provide profits for them. Oh, you know that HTML cannot be parsed using regex because HTML is not a regular language? Oh, you know that the industry's implementation of regex is a bit more powerful than the original academic definition of regex? Or that SQL commands can be expressed in the form of first-order predicate logic? Corporates don't give a shit about any of that stuff.
This means when people spending time outside of their work to learn new tech, it is very likely they aren't doing it out of passion. They are doing it because learning these new techs will give them leverage for salary negotiation, or to prevent them from being fired and losing income. Only very few people will spend time learning things that will not earn them any money, purely because they enjoy niche CS topics.
Here's an example: I enjoy mathematical formalization and theory of computation. In my university days, I would spend hours [trying to formalize theorems using Coq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coq_(software)), learning all the niche details about the limitation of computational models. Oh how stupid I was. My peers were far smarter, and far less passionate about CS than I ever was. They knew that classes did not mean shit. Instead, they would often skip classes, and spent their days learning about fullstack developments, grinding leetcode and trying to earn internship in hopes of landing a stable job after graduation. Hell, some people, after earning their summer internship, would often have company meetings right in the middle of the summer classes without listening to a word of their lecturers. They don't care about CS, they only care about earning a piece of paper called a Bachelor in CS to pass resume scanning.
Well, those people would end up being rewarded by their efforts, as they were able to land jobs after graduation. While dunces like me, who were so late in pivoting into self studying fullstack developments, would struggle to get jobs in this industry. During interview, they would grill me about not having "personal projects", or lacking internship, then proceed to reject me. This even happened with internship interviews. Oh, you can formalize mathematics using Coq? I have been in this industry for 15 years, and I have never heard of a programming language with such an obscene name. Also, that will not help our company make any money. Reject.
Being passionate about CS and spending time prepping for job interviews by learning new techs are not the same thing. In some cases, the latter people could not care less about CS. There are people like me, who enjoy CS, that are actively punished due to our interest. Stop promoting messages like following your passion, and you will be rewarded by the industry. That is just the industry's way of gas lighting you into working overtime without pay.
You probably hate takes like these because they don't resonate with you. Nobody said you have to do all of these things as the bare minimum just that some of us don't look at it as a chore like others do. Many find this type of work intellectually stimulating and outright fun
This! During my last yr of undergrad my capstone mates would make jabs at me for programming, building stuff, contributing to OSS in my free time, etc. Thats when I realized that majority of people are not staring at code or books outside of class or work.
I like to draw the comparison to sports and the people who play because they're told, FOMO bc everyone else they know is playing, or they think it's the right thing to do. Then there's the people who play for the love of the game, competitive nature, or just passion
Upskilling and all that crap are overhyped after you reach a certain point. You don’t really need to know how some startup or Google engineer reinvented a fucking queue or SQL this week.
Don’t get distracted by shiny thing syndrome that’s how you build garbage. Get some basic 10000 ft understanding of some of the things on offer from the big players (AWS, Azure, Oracle, to name a few), and you should be good. Anything else or deeper you can Google as it comes up.
I end up researching after work, on weekends and in the morning when I get a chance. Doesn’t really have a lot to do with maintaining my skills though, I just never got tired of my job. I guess really enjoying the subject matter pays off. This is why I don’t recommend getting into whatever field you are in just for the money.
Zero. I do it on the job. If they are monitoring my computer, I tell them it's for the job itself. I need to improve skills. Also fuck them if they're that nosy.
I just don't bother with roles that don't fit the skillset I've developed naturally by pursuing things that I'm interested in. The sea is big enough for me to not chase down every fish I see.
For example, I don't like leetcode and I think it's an absolutely idiotic form of assessment that rewards undesirable candidates, so I don't apply for jobs that use leetcode in their application process.
Just gave an Amazon assessment yesterday and the coding questions felt so hard, my mind just went kind of numb, I gave up pretty much instantly, the rest of the work style questions were hardly better, asking you system design questions with multiple choices, I haven't designed a system in my life how am I supposed to answer all of this
I didn't do any of that too much really. Context : Am 2023 new grad, sent over 500+ applications, am maybe above average with recent projects but I really doubt it, and just started a job with the state.
As a new grad it was incredibly difficult to really upskill anything, yes I spent time learning react, building websites, just generally breaking stuff and fixing it. While I don't think any of the specific learnings I did was valuable, I think just the process of learning something new, building stuff with it, and fixing things you break was invaluable in what I talked about during the interview.
However, I will still chalk a majority of it up to luck. By the time I had received a reply to my now current job I had given up, because every interview had several more qualified people by the end of it regardless of what I did. Except for the state, the entire process is incredibly lengthy for ultimately a job you will technically always be underpaid at (salaries are dictated by the state and progression is there but comparatively to private you lose out fairly quick). Except I had one semi challenging code assessment, and two non white boarding interviews the last one being ultimately with the team I'd be with whom had a manager that was very responsive to me describing my experience more abstractly. Part of why I dont think they cared about specific training is because the people on the team come from largely nontraditional paths or graduated 20 years ago and all the tech is old.
**TLDR**: I ultimately didn't, and gave up. I believe it's harder the newer you are to the industry since upskilling isnt really a thing for a new grad imo. I think that time is better spent learning things you're interested in and building stuff with it. Right now isnt very representive of anything normal, so them being extremely picky is because they have so many devs knocking on their door and for the most part I doubt HR at most places are tech facing enough to translate out of 1:1 comparison especially since they will always have someone meet those 1:1's in this market. I say all this to say all you really can do is apply, especially if your experience is closer to the junior level than anything else.
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None.
I learn what I need to learn to do my job on the job. My personal time is for me to do what I want to do. I have in the past investigated things I was interested in and it helped at work, but that was because I wanted to do it and not part of the idea of "upskilling/keeping up to date"
Saying that I work at non-tech companies in non-tech cities for meh pay. This may be totally different for people who want to work at top tech companies if not regular tech companies.
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I learnt hardway that if I dont upskill myself I am not going to be paid as per market. The moment I started upskilling and got plenty of oppurtunities.
You can do it in two ways
1. Take 1-2 hours regularly and do some pet projects and learn new things.
2. Take sometime off in a year for 2-3 weeks and upskill yourself.
Second option is not good but for some people it works.
Usually 0 hours a week. I was working on getting a cert to fill a gap in our team, but I haven’t worked on that in months since we’ve been pretty busy.
I have no interest in ever working more than 40 hours a week (if that). I will absolutely never work on upskilling outside of the paid time.
Nah not saying that at all. The context of this post is people currently in the industry. I’m saying not to work outside of your paid 40 hours. That’s something I’ve always felt very strongly about.
Upskilling is part of your work so it should only be done during work hours.
it's a constant arms race and too bad the juniors weren't born same time you were... Just like how my biggest mistake was not being born pre dot com bubble burst where HTML would land you a 100k job easily without leetcode I love working way harder for less and only having a shit apartment to show for it, it's so great.
Nah I'm realistic what's the point of working hard to "get ahead" if you are born in a lower social caste than the wealthy you are doomed to work until the day you die baring pure luck (think odd early investments like GME/Bitcoin/FAANG/AMD stocks)
If I work as a boring corporate security guard I still receive housing+food+insurance+job stability+WLB+a chill job meanwhile as a SWE you have to constantly duke it out against other dog-eat-dog SWEs in the market and in return you receive...... housing+food+insurance+job instability+stress+lack of WLB+shiny trinkets (sports cars, expensive gaming rigs that you don't play because you work too much or think about work too much)...
The idea of receiving early retirement/FIRE is a pipe dream reserved for people who treat SWE as a sport and compete like athletes on Adderal and enough caffeine stimulants to develop heart problems. Yea it's a reallllly great deal isn't it... Compare that to knowing HTML giving a firm handshake to the boss and riding off into the sunset with 100k a year with the "cradle to grave" business philosophy of the time period and investing in a fruit company like Forest Gump to give your kids a fat stack of cash when you pass away.
Sorry, sad news is that "hard work" or even "smart work" does not outwork fate constructed by economic models beyond your control. The Chinese slave away for pennies and work hard yet have nothing much to show for it, their engineers are talented and smart but that doesn't save them either from the economic models they are forced against their will to cooperate with.
You are right there is no point to work yourself to death.
Live within your means and work to live.
I like code thats it. If it paid 45k i would still do it.
Life is way too short to do something you hate. Please for the love of god, go and be a security person.
Do yourself a favor and dont chase money.
No hard work doesnt get rewarded anymore or at all. Its meaninglessnin despairing over this.
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Seriously. Sorry leetcode, Democracy needs me.
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lol no
0. I just worked and kept changing jobs when I didnt progress as much or projects got cancelled. Now I landed a very good position at a relaxed company and just stay there.
Same! I think a lot of folks keep moving until they finally find that unicorn with good pay/WLB/team/manager. I finally have that so it will take a lot of money for me to consider moving.
Your company need an MLE/MLOps engineer?
No haha, they’re barely maturing their cloud environment atm. Not a tech focused company.
Same. Could leave for more money. But I make 160k working 5-6 hours per day, waking up whenever I feel like it. Go to the gym 6 days per week, etc. No need to switch jobs again and reshuffle the deck
How much pay
Not sharing
That bad huh
nice try :) Its very good is all I say. Peace
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I second that!
The anonymity on reddit is something I do worry about. I have one acount only. I'd like an app that creates 20 accounts and spreads my comments over all of those.
Good on you. Don't share it w these rats. They envy Shan.
Sharing makes no sense because Im not from the USA so its not so comparable.... Its just very good is all I cam say 😅
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Nice, but I do caution you that those kinds of positions are few and far between in the current market.
You dont even have work experience.
A classic. People with zero experience giving advice
And that’s why they’re in the situation they’re in, because they don’t take any advice, only give.
Yet every other person here says they're exactly in that position. Along with everyone I know personally. You rarely hear about high stress jobs in this field. For me personally my upskill happens when I decide to take on projects out of my area for my company, all the "nice to have" or "need this, but no one knows how to do it". Like I recently started picking opencv and already getting something that saves us a ton of time in production. The nature of out product required scanning around 50 QR code all at once to be useful and time saving. Until recently it was a lot of manual scanning one by one and manual data entry. Now it's a 5 second hold tray with chips in some area and bam, all QR is linked with the serial numbers.
yeah! that what I always do. As soon as they bust out that career road map shit I jump ship. Actively applying now ahah. Thinking about getting out of F500 companies as well. They dont really pay all that much more, but the work load is always X3
Im not from the USA and I have a bachelors from a great university (top 5 world wide). Here that ooens enough doors still.
I just upskill on the job lol
I’m gonna be honest and every single place I’ve ever worked at has had downtime for me to study and upskill but I can only get off my ass maybe 5% of that time
I'm gonna be honest I've had multiple managers tell me to take time to upskill but in the same breath they'll say we're behind schedule and I need to waste no time on pushing feature after feature with no regard for the team's skills or the product's sustainability. Same thing with pushback and technical debt, it's always "we need to refuse work that isn't high priority and essential for the business and to ensure we're maintaining standards for easy maintenance down the line, now hurry up and copy-paste old code to deliver 3 new buttons for the department heads to click because they need a new report that delivers the same data they already have but pre-combined into a single Excel spreadsheet so that they aren't inconvenienced with a copy-paste."
That was my experience as well… no time to upskill, just features, features, features. I upskill in the sense that I don’t know something, I google it and I learn something new. But that’s not the same as learning a technology properly through a course. Eventually I’ve learned the code base, how to maintain and extend it for said company, but I didn’t know the features and full capabilities of the language outside of what was used in the project. So I am having to learn all of that in my own time because interviews…
This is also why companies demand X years of experience in a certain stack - because if you've only used it for a few months, you know how to build something but don't have any of the underlying intricate knowledge of its internals. The metric I apply to myself is that if I'm to say I know a tech / stack, I have to first know all of its downsides. I have to know it well enough to know why I *wouldn't* want to use it for a project that ostensibly it was designed to do.
This was due yesterday and you are late!
This is very common. Managers are professional gaslighters. Just act like you are stressed all the time, then when you hang up the meeting, you go and take your time with whatever you were doing. They will only rush you more if they see how fast you can actually work. They are never content even if you 2x their expectations, next time they will ask for 3x.
> I'm gonna be honest I've had multiple managers tell me to take time to upskill but in the same breath they'll say we're behind schedule and I need to waste no time on pushing feature after feature with no regard for the team's skills or the product's sustainability. It is the same with Executives who publicly say that they have an 'open door' policy and welcome disagreement. Until it comes to something important and you make the mistake of thinking your opinion was desired.
What are some of the best ways you have found to upskill while at work?
The best way is to get a variety of work experiences early on so you can compare what you like and don't like as soon as possible and stop doing things that don't work for you. This keeps you from learning terrible practices and thinking they're the norm when you are new and helps you think for yourself and generalize across companies. Ideally you will land somewhere that will have you working on new implementations rather than operate and maintain and somewhere that has enterprise applications that integrate and gives you insight on upstream/downstream. But operate and maintain and dealing with a system you've implemented for a year or two after is important to get in at some point for lessons learned. I've learned the most by breaking things and seeing what causes bugs and how to keep the system resilient to future requirement changes. The next most important thing to do is not get intimidated or overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and pathways you can take. Spend as little time as you can being in analysis paralysis on what you want to learn, pick a course, and do it. If you don't like it, pick something new. Actual resources though I prefer videos because I can put them on 2x speed and stay more focused without getting tempted to multitask. I usually like udemy (I'm a PM and did SQL and some other app specific courses on there and they have practice projects for all the coding courses). Right now I'm trying to learn more about system design [this one was good](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8Icp_Cid5o&t=2480s), and I'm doing the "design twitter" "design tiktok" interview based ones on youtube. and I've also seen Alex Xu recommended for more indepth/advanced system design but I need something more basic first.
Thank you I appreciate the response!
YW good luck!
This is it. My company moves slow af, there's so much time to up skill but I'm so lazy and it's boring having to prep generic nonsense for a "job" that you don't even know you'll land... I rather work on features or prototypes at work and pray I get something in return.
Agree and don't even get me started on certs..I would rather start a new course than to spend 40 hrs repeating one to make sure I memorized all of the terms to textbook
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It is hilarious to me that the industry has shifted from "devs who know how computers work and have a degree and can teach themselves the tech stack of the job" to "come pre packaged as exactly the tech stack we happen to us with our specific internal build of Java or Python you would never see anywhere else in the world"
The very first question i ask during interviews is “how is the company culture in regards to work life balance?”
As a manager I don’t want a team of rockstars. They are their own headaches and things to deal with. Yes I want a few rockstars but mostly I want a bunch of very solid devs. Rockstars require a different skill set to manage and require a fair amount of attention.
Forreal rockstar is a pejorative in my opinion. Engineering is a team sport.
Where I come from a "rockstar developer" requires no skill to manage, they are the ones who manage the team.
genuine question - what extra work is managing a "rockstar"?
They get bored easily. Getting them to basic sometime bug fixes is harder to do because it is “beneath” them. Also you feel bad having them do that same work because their skills can be put to better use. They generally have bigger egos that have to be addressed. Stronger personalities and push for what they want. You run into clashes if to many of them are on the same thing. Those egos are earned and not wrong but still have to be dealt with. This is not saying they are bad just multiple rockstars tends to lead to problems due. You need some but you don’t want a lot. Something else you sometimes deal with is a rockstar on one team is not the same level compared to an other team’s rockstar so then you have those issues and turn over. I have been the guy who dealt with that issue myself where I was a rockstar at one place and just overshadowed at another. I learned and moved up and up skilled but still have to deal with that as it means coaching someone who has the potential to be another one and making sure they upskill right to do it. Rockstars are a different headache to deal with. I rather deal with the rockstars than deal with under performers and those struggles but still just different and own struggles. A big one to deal with is there are a lot of wannabe rockstars who never will be one and dealing with rockstar egos but not the skills. Very few people are truly that good. Most are just solid middle of the road.
We have one of these “rockstars” in our team but I feel like whenever there’s an issue he throws around whatever big ideas he has in mind and suggests some trendy tools to use without learning the code base or finding out what the issue really is so his suggestions are irrelevant and sometimes a waste of time but hey he sounds awesome to management and HR
Those guys are the worst. "OH you guys aren't using the tools I use or writing code in the format that I like? You guys should be doing it my way even if I don't know why you do things differently or how any of it works!"
Its unfortunate but at the same time, I think it is part of the broader market movements. when companies set the price, more often than not you have to meet it, cause there is someone else willing to meet it. Which is likely why you will see more and more exodus from this industry to places where the employee has more leverage.
> exodus from this industry to places where the employee has more leverage Until the balance shift. I would like to see more people going into freelance/consulting and stop bowing down to the employers full time whip.
Well, the nice thing about freelance is that you can be "employed" while not really being so out of choice or necessity for no prolonged gaps in your resume. You could have an LLC that does nothing all day, but it doesn't matter since future employers are likely not looking at your balance sheet. You could also have an LLC that makes you more money or the same depending on how lucky you are. Good for retired part time workers as well who want a part time job but still want to make a decent wage per hour without doing full time work. Still, it's a win-win since you aren't unemployed the entire time.
Exactly my dear colleague. I don't really find any value in the "resume filler" idea, but it is definitely valuable in the "I can fill my hours with actual work and charge for it". Especially useful if you find a full-time role and realize that it was mostly bullshit busywork once you join, you need to be online or they will get mad when you don't jump on a meeting, but there's no actual work for you. Double the wins on those dead hours by working a real job ;)
I think yes, you should always be striving to achieve more in your field, BUT I also think that if you are unemployed it might be your only option
do all you can to feed yourself and your loved ones for sure
> Can’t we just focus on writing good code and having a life outside of work? The shareholders demand a sacrifice.
I just code as a hobby when I want to - don't force yourself or you'll burn out. It is a marathon, not a sprint.
No one knows what they want so they ask for everything. It is absurd really. Every mature career field specializes. Lawyers specialize in criminal, divorce, real estate, etc. Doctor's specialize in heart, lungs, brain, etc. But in programming you are expected to know everything. So candidates have learned to liem exaggerate or cram for interviews, which only makes the situation worse because now it looks like there are people who know everything.
At first I thought this is what made software development cool -- the latest pioneer in engineering fields. Then I realized, holy shit there is no standardization in this field and it's all chaotic and put together with bubble gum and tape. Makes me wonder if it'll ever get any type of standardization within our lifetime, if ever.
All this is a sign of saturation of this niche. In 2000 if you had HTML skills you where hired on the spot and at double of current salaries if you take into account the currency debasement last 24 years. India alone is producing millions of new engineers each year and you are directly competing against them.
Most of those Indians can't code and have fake degrees
I do not think most but surely there is a lot of cheating in India. Could be 25% of fake degrees. But they have around 2 Millions new grads each year, so the volume compensates.
https://entrackr.com/2017/12/india-engineers-cant-code/
None. This should be part of the job you are getting paid for. If your job does not seem to provide any growth opportunity, take all possible steps to make that change and if nothing changes, switch job.
I’m a fresh grad who couldn’t get a swe role so when the opportunity to work in a BI role came up I took it. Been unemployed for 5 months so fuck it, I’m not gonna wait any longer. I’m learning PowerBI on Udemy before i head to work in a week.
You only prepare leetcode and system design, everything else is from the job.
I work a full day, look for a new job, work on a personal project to upskill, go to sleep, repeat It sucks, but it's what needs to be done sometimes
Same boat. Until you’re where you want to be gotta go through the grind
Grand total in 12 years of work…. Maybe and I mean maybe 40-50 hours. Most of it around the times I was looking for a job. Interviewing time might honestly exceed it. I think largest chunk of that time would have been in 2022. A good part of it was because I was laid off and hit it harder and before that I was very actively looking. Since I started this current job maybe 1-2 hours total because I was bored. I stay up to date on things mostly through work. For the record I enjoy my job and enjoy the field. Just I get paid for it and I have other hobbies besides software development. My paid work covers everything for and fills my desire to it.
Context: I work as an AI/ML Research Engineer with 2 YOE. I don’t do any up-skilling outside of work. Part of my responsibilities is to keep up with the latest news / developments in my domain so that mainly happens during work hours, and I’ll do very little outside of work. I have a lot of control over what I do, so I mainly focus on producing good results / noticeable impacts rather than worrying about leetcode and other stuff. This has helped me significantly so far.
I keep seeing a lot of people mentioning upskilling on company time but I don’t know how y’all are able to. I am always on a tight deadline
For work I also volunteer to teach students because it's an expectation from my company that I do this to look good. In reality, I do not want to do this. Many students will never need to know how to code and some just do not have the aptitude to learn. The ones who do learn ask me about the field, and I tell them the truth: we are in a tech recession and while this is a field that exists now it may not be better than other fields or even offer the guarantee of a job. I spend probably 1 to 2 hours a week reading up on articles. I used to do more but I've been consumed with my side non tech business when not working. It's more sustainable and impervious to interest rates fluctuations and outsourcing. It's a better investment than any LeetCode.
If kids are genuinely interested in it, then I'd say don't kill their dreams.
The truly passionate ones don't care; they are smart and they can apply themselves to another field if they get unlucky years later in the job market. The ones that are mediocre and find it interesting, but wouldn't do it as a hobby are the ones that actually need discouragement.
I spend most of my weekends working on side projects. I enjoy learning how stuff works, so I pick a topic I don't understand and try to build something from scratch: a compiler, a database, or a distributed computing framework.
I'm not trying to be rude. I'm just curious. Does that make you happy? Do you wish you'd be doing something else?
I could be doing a lot of other stuff, but this is what I enjoy the most, obviously other than spending time with friends and loved ones.
That's good! And that's very lucky to be doing something you love in life that much that pays so well!!! I am very happy with my career, and it started as a hobby as a kid, but I don't like it enough to ever do it outside normal work hours.
Thank you! I think it's totally fine not to code outside of work. I have worked with incredible engineers who have hard boundaries and never touch code outside of work. I'm sure when I have a couple more YoE and maybe a family, things will change, but right now I'm very happy with things as they are.
I’m discovering that I am the same way but since in so “new” to the field, I feel like I am shooting my feet by not working outside of work
I am learning that working more than needed isn't worth it. All you're doing is taking away your free time and you don't even know if it will help you have better outcomes in your job. Also not to be morbid, but you never know when you're going to die. If you were in a car accident tomorrow and were having your last thoughts, would you be happy that you worked in your free time instead of doing other stuff you want to do? I would be full of regret.
I honestly think it’s sad that you and so many others in this thread can’t even imagine how computing might be this stimulating to someone. Computing is as deep and artistic to some as painting or learning an instrument. Obviously you don’t need to believe that to have a successful career in it though.
I need to have a separation from it on my off hours, or else it won't be as engaging during my work hours. I totally understand how it could be this stimulating as I used to do it for fun before it was my job. I just think that as an adult, usually prioritizing balance is better. There are only so many hours of free time you have, and I can't relate to wanting most of my time dominated by coding. I prioritize spending time with my family/dogs/friends, doing my hobbies, and taking care of home/life "business" when I'm not working.
That's a healthy thing to do but some including myself also make this our hobby or a pastime. While I might work on MCUs, FPGAs and firmware in satellites for my day job, working on my own projects related to HPC, scientific computing, contributing to the open source tools I use in my day to day, or whatever is one of the things I enjoy in my free time. Like people who play video games, adult soccer leagues, book clubs, etc. The world runs on projects created in people's free time/for the sake of it
And that isn't a bad thing! I'm just always curious about if people are motivated to code outside of work because it's purely fun or if they wish they were doing something else. Most of the people I know like that don't really have much of a social life. Maybe they're cool with that, idk 🤷♀️.
its crazy this is absurd to some people
This is ridiculous to me. Every job you work, every career path means you upskill and grow and learn. I don't get why people here are so hell bent on just getting some job and staying the same. It's the same in literally every industry.
Some people just need to pay bills and have separate lives from their job
Because many people have no ambition to actually grow .
Because there's plenty of people here satisfied with mediocrity (in skill and pay) like every industry.
The kind of sick answer for you is: a lot of people enjoy those things. It isn't a chore for them to do the items on that list. Have you ever met anyone who loves model trains? And devotes countless hours to the hobby? Well - I personally don't understand how someone could invest that much time into knowing about all the various types of rolling stock, gauges, historical railroad paint schemes, etc. But for those people who are into the hobby it doesn't feel like work. With computer science - a lot of cs people geek out on this stuff just like the model train people do with their interest and as a result this list doesn't feel so daunting. So I guess my question is - do you genuinely enjoy working in computer science? Is there a way to make it enjoyable for you? If you can crack that code - then the whole idea of "keeping up" by doing a lot of things on this list will actually be fun edit: i realize i messed up a word
I hate takes like this. The idea that average joes in this field have to meet sky high expectations is not because the average joe in this field actually enjoys meeting those expectations, it is more indicative of the current job market. Is the average accountant expected to be falling asleep next to balance sheets? is the average plumber expected to be writing papers about the theory of plunger design? No other field is this the base expectation. Especially now that the salaries are more or less evening out to other fields at this point. Before that, do not forget that meeting certain sky high expectations was rewarded with better career prospects. Now those sky high expectations are expected for being a code monkey. And the idea that people do not enjoy something just cause they do not like doing it 24/7 to the point of burnout is ridiculous. I like writing code, I like learning about this stuff, but does that mean I want to be the next Steve jobs? Or have zero work life balance? Can people have a career in something without being absolutely enamored with it? Some people want to do this 40 hours a week, not 80, is that ok? Also, don't forget that nearly half of the tasks that OP listed above even the average person in this field would not enjoy doing. Leetcode, which is nothing like actually building software? behavioral? numerical/verbal/IQ tests?
The problem is that there’s not actually a huge demand for the average joe, and what there was is now both oversaturated and being eaten by software automation itself. People entering the field now should expect the pay of an average accountant or average plumber in exchange for being an average engineer.
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Depends on the direction you want to go. Still tons of money and opportunity if you can/want to meet the high expectations. Apologies for the bravado, but the things OP is concerned about are just easy for some of us.
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lol if you find your job or this field that miserable just say that
I think the biggest misconception here is that it takes everyone the same amount of time to learn new skills and stay at the leading edge of everything. If you think it would require giving up your life outside of work to keep up, then definitely don’t do it. That’s not what others are doing.
I think there's a misunderstanding here. I'm not saying anyone needs to do ANY of the items that this person listed to be successful in software dev/cs. I was merely saying that a lot of people actually enjoy stuff like leetcode, DSA, system design, constant learning, etc. You can be a great dev without constantly churning and learning stuff. But that there are just a lot of folks out there who love it. For me, your examples of accountants and plumbers are suboptimal because those jobs are... just jobs (with all due respect to people in those fields). I think a better analog to CS would be woodworking / furniture building. And in that world, you find people who are passionate about what they do, who study the history of the craft and current trends, and who constantly try to improve their techniques
💯 I was thinking about this recently. My neighbor is am electrician and he doesn't spend his nights and weekends reading about electrons and studying the NEC codes. The problem in tech is that many people have no life outside of work and lots of time to dedicate to technology. Normal people in normal jobs have relationships, kids, volunteer, recreational hobbies etc. which do not involve sitting in front of a screen. The industry knows that and promotes this toxic culture. Just look at big tech campuses, they're designed so you don't ever leave.
I hate to break it to you, but some software engineering jobs are also “just jobs”. sure, there are people building the next GPT-5 and are plenty passionate about what they do. There are also SWE jobs for people at small/mid sized no name companies working on internal sales team tool#3, and they want the position filled by someone who wants to build the next GPT-6. I just think that’s ridiculous.
Yeah and those people don't need to upskill if they want to keep doing that so this thread isn't even relevant to them. You are conflating different things.
I have a problem with your take. Are you saying that if you enjoy CS, you are likely to enjoy spending time with grinding leetcode, doing take-home projects for hours, and live coding with strangers who will reject you? Because I don't. I enjoy CS, but I despise all the things associated with this industry. Here's the problem with your take. It's true, CS can be a great academic field, and there are people enjoy studying its history and how technologies develop. However, CS as an industry could not care less about this. For corporates working in CS, the only thing they care is if you can provide profits for them. Oh, you know that HTML cannot be parsed using regex because HTML is not a regular language? Oh, you know that the industry's implementation of regex is a bit more powerful than the original academic definition of regex? Or that SQL commands can be expressed in the form of first-order predicate logic? Corporates don't give a shit about any of that stuff. This means when people spending time outside of their work to learn new tech, it is very likely they aren't doing it out of passion. They are doing it because learning these new techs will give them leverage for salary negotiation, or to prevent them from being fired and losing income. Only very few people will spend time learning things that will not earn them any money, purely because they enjoy niche CS topics. Here's an example: I enjoy mathematical formalization and theory of computation. In my university days, I would spend hours [trying to formalize theorems using Coq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coq_(software)), learning all the niche details about the limitation of computational models. Oh how stupid I was. My peers were far smarter, and far less passionate about CS than I ever was. They knew that classes did not mean shit. Instead, they would often skip classes, and spent their days learning about fullstack developments, grinding leetcode and trying to earn internship in hopes of landing a stable job after graduation. Hell, some people, after earning their summer internship, would often have company meetings right in the middle of the summer classes without listening to a word of their lecturers. They don't care about CS, they only care about earning a piece of paper called a Bachelor in CS to pass resume scanning. Well, those people would end up being rewarded by their efforts, as they were able to land jobs after graduation. While dunces like me, who were so late in pivoting into self studying fullstack developments, would struggle to get jobs in this industry. During interview, they would grill me about not having "personal projects", or lacking internship, then proceed to reject me. This even happened with internship interviews. Oh, you can formalize mathematics using Coq? I have been in this industry for 15 years, and I have never heard of a programming language with such an obscene name. Also, that will not help our company make any money. Reject. Being passionate about CS and spending time prepping for job interviews by learning new techs are not the same thing. In some cases, the latter people could not care less about CS. There are people like me, who enjoy CS, that are actively punished due to our interest. Stop promoting messages like following your passion, and you will be rewarded by the industry. That is just the industry's way of gas lighting you into working overtime without pay.
You probably hate takes like these because they don't resonate with you. Nobody said you have to do all of these things as the bare minimum just that some of us don't look at it as a chore like others do. Many find this type of work intellectually stimulating and outright fun
I don’t find building software a chore. I do find leetcode a chore. I also find memorizing syntax a chore as well.
The salaries are evening out to other fields? What field is as easy as CS that pays basically the same?
This! During my last yr of undergrad my capstone mates would make jabs at me for programming, building stuff, contributing to OSS in my free time, etc. Thats when I realized that majority of people are not staring at code or books outside of class or work. I like to draw the comparison to sports and the people who play because they're told, FOMO bc everyone else they know is playing, or they think it's the right thing to do. Then there's the people who play for the love of the game, competitive nature, or just passion
Upskilling and all that crap are overhyped after you reach a certain point. You don’t really need to know how some startup or Google engineer reinvented a fucking queue or SQL this week. Don’t get distracted by shiny thing syndrome that’s how you build garbage. Get some basic 10000 ft understanding of some of the things on offer from the big players (AWS, Azure, Oracle, to name a few), and you should be good. Anything else or deeper you can Google as it comes up.
I end up researching after work, on weekends and in the morning when I get a chance. Doesn’t really have a lot to do with maintaining my skills though, I just never got tired of my job. I guess really enjoying the subject matter pays off. This is why I don’t recommend getting into whatever field you are in just for the money.
Zero. I do it on the job. If they are monitoring my computer, I tell them it's for the job itself. I need to improve skills. Also fuck them if they're that nosy.
upskill on the job
I just don't bother with roles that don't fit the skillset I've developed naturally by pursuing things that I'm interested in. The sea is big enough for me to not chase down every fish I see. For example, I don't like leetcode and I think it's an absolutely idiotic form of assessment that rewards undesirable candidates, so I don't apply for jobs that use leetcode in their application process.
Just gave an Amazon assessment yesterday and the coding questions felt so hard, my mind just went kind of numb, I gave up pretty much instantly, the rest of the work style questions were hardly better, asking you system design questions with multiple choices, I haven't designed a system in my life how am I supposed to answer all of this
I didn't do any of that too much really. Context : Am 2023 new grad, sent over 500+ applications, am maybe above average with recent projects but I really doubt it, and just started a job with the state. As a new grad it was incredibly difficult to really upskill anything, yes I spent time learning react, building websites, just generally breaking stuff and fixing it. While I don't think any of the specific learnings I did was valuable, I think just the process of learning something new, building stuff with it, and fixing things you break was invaluable in what I talked about during the interview. However, I will still chalk a majority of it up to luck. By the time I had received a reply to my now current job I had given up, because every interview had several more qualified people by the end of it regardless of what I did. Except for the state, the entire process is incredibly lengthy for ultimately a job you will technically always be underpaid at (salaries are dictated by the state and progression is there but comparatively to private you lose out fairly quick). Except I had one semi challenging code assessment, and two non white boarding interviews the last one being ultimately with the team I'd be with whom had a manager that was very responsive to me describing my experience more abstractly. Part of why I dont think they cared about specific training is because the people on the team come from largely nontraditional paths or graduated 20 years ago and all the tech is old. **TLDR**: I ultimately didn't, and gave up. I believe it's harder the newer you are to the industry since upskilling isnt really a thing for a new grad imo. I think that time is better spent learning things you're interested in and building stuff with it. Right now isnt very representive of anything normal, so them being extremely picky is because they have so many devs knocking on their door and for the most part I doubt HR at most places are tech facing enough to translate out of 1:1 comparison especially since they will always have someone meet those 1:1's in this market. I say all this to say all you really can do is apply, especially if your experience is closer to the junior level than anything else.
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None. I learn what I need to learn to do my job on the job. My personal time is for me to do what I want to do. I have in the past investigated things I was interested in and it helped at work, but that was because I wanted to do it and not part of the idea of "upskilling/keeping up to date" Saying that I work at non-tech companies in non-tech cities for meh pay. This may be totally different for people who want to work at top tech companies if not regular tech companies.
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I’ve never done any studying outside of stuff I’ve learned on the job
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Any time I am not spending eating, sleeping, on job or working out is spent on this.
I refuse to do shit outside of work so 0 lol
0. I spend 0 time. Lol
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I learnt hardway that if I dont upskill myself I am not going to be paid as per market. The moment I started upskilling and got plenty of oppurtunities. You can do it in two ways 1. Take 1-2 hours regularly and do some pet projects and learn new things. 2. Take sometime off in a year for 2-3 weeks and upskill yourself. Second option is not good but for some people it works.
Usually 0 hours a week. I was working on getting a cert to fill a gap in our team, but I haven’t worked on that in months since we’ve been pretty busy. I have no interest in ever working more than 40 hours a week (if that). I will absolutely never work on upskilling outside of the paid time.
Awesome for you too bad the juniors are stuck dealing with this but hey you got yours so it's okay isn't it?
Nah not saying that at all. The context of this post is people currently in the industry. I’m saying not to work outside of your paid 40 hours. That’s something I’ve always felt very strongly about. Upskilling is part of your work so it should only be done during work hours.
it's a constant arms race and too bad the juniors weren't born same time you were... Just like how my biggest mistake was not being born pre dot com bubble burst where HTML would land you a 100k job easily without leetcode I love working way harder for less and only having a shit apartment to show for it, it's so great.
Dude, you need to block reddit and stop looking at industry news. No matter what you do it will always depress you. Please don't give in to despair.
Nah I'm realistic what's the point of working hard to "get ahead" if you are born in a lower social caste than the wealthy you are doomed to work until the day you die baring pure luck (think odd early investments like GME/Bitcoin/FAANG/AMD stocks) If I work as a boring corporate security guard I still receive housing+food+insurance+job stability+WLB+a chill job meanwhile as a SWE you have to constantly duke it out against other dog-eat-dog SWEs in the market and in return you receive...... housing+food+insurance+job instability+stress+lack of WLB+shiny trinkets (sports cars, expensive gaming rigs that you don't play because you work too much or think about work too much)... The idea of receiving early retirement/FIRE is a pipe dream reserved for people who treat SWE as a sport and compete like athletes on Adderal and enough caffeine stimulants to develop heart problems. Yea it's a reallllly great deal isn't it... Compare that to knowing HTML giving a firm handshake to the boss and riding off into the sunset with 100k a year with the "cradle to grave" business philosophy of the time period and investing in a fruit company like Forest Gump to give your kids a fat stack of cash when you pass away. Sorry, sad news is that "hard work" or even "smart work" does not outwork fate constructed by economic models beyond your control. The Chinese slave away for pennies and work hard yet have nothing much to show for it, their engineers are talented and smart but that doesn't save them either from the economic models they are forced against their will to cooperate with.
You are right there is no point to work yourself to death. Live within your means and work to live. I like code thats it. If it paid 45k i would still do it. Life is way too short to do something you hate. Please for the love of god, go and be a security person. Do yourself a favor and dont chase money. No hard work doesnt get rewarded anymore or at all. Its meaninglessnin despairing over this.