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fantastic in plastic posted:I don't like playing therapist for an internet comedy forum stranger, but you sound extremely unhappy and like you're in an organization which makes you miserable. You'll save thousands on therapy bills later and possibly on months/years of income lost or diminished due to burnout by finding a new job. Oh man, you have no idea. People here are starting to talk. Recent firings have gotten people antsy, and the organization in general is not doing well. Inter-team sniping is at an all time high, people outright can't trust others to get poo poo done, org direction is all over the place, entire teams are working on things nobody needs or even asked for, regular meetings and demos often have people go "uhhh we didn't get anything done because we're waiting on X/don't know what's going on", all that fun poo poo. Since the main corp heads fired the org leaders sympathetic to developer needs, the org's MO has been full speed on all features consequences be damned, and everyone's questioning their future here out loud in the break rooms. Hell, my coworker who's worked for the company for over a decade is hoping to get laid off so she can collect severance and find a different job local to her. poo poo is going down and nobody is happy. rt4 posted:If 40 hours of decent work isn't good enough, gently caress em. Something something exempt employee something something professional expectations. They can't expect me to stay past 6~7 and then complain when I come in at 930, gently caress that.
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Feb 22, 2017 20:03
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:What would they get out of a formal diagnosis, exactly, if their condition doesn't require medical intervention? But in the context of talking about my industry, I don't bring it up, I don't try to count myself in statistics, because I'm not a medical professional and that's not my determination to make. I don't try to label other people with the same disorder in an attempt to push a narrative, the way that Peter Thiel pushes his "all great founders have Asperger's" theory.
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Feb 22, 2017 20:04
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Che Delilas posted:You can decide for yourself what your work ethic is. If you want work no more than 40 hours per week because you've decided this is a job and you'd rather live as much of your own life as possible, that's fine. But you have to realize that this may alienate the people on your team that put in more time, as well as many management types who just expect you to break your own back for the company because this is 'Murrica dammit. This is good advice, but Polly you sound like you're generally miserable (I can relate) and should find something else. Working extra usually isn't that big a deal assuming that: a) it isn't the company's MO b) there's an understanding like the one mentioned above. It's when you already despise being there for the required 40 that working a single minute over feels so painful.
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Feb 22, 2017 20:20
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I wouldn't be personally rattled (just ready to check out, instead) if there was an agreement of sorts. I don't believe it exists outside of "you, do more overtime". How does exempt/non-exempt work? As developers, are we generally one or the other?
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Feb 22, 2017 20:58
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Salaried devs are exempt in the states for the most part.
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Feb 22, 2017 21:08
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There's never a written agreement on that kind of thing. It's just the two way street that good positions operate within. Salaried / exempt don't get paid overtime. As W2, you're almost guaranteed to be exempt. Don't use this in any kind of argument though, it isn't a very defensible position for what Che was talking about.
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Feb 22, 2017 21:09
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Pollyanna posted:I wouldn't be personally rattled (just ready to check out, instead) if there was an agreement of sorts. I don't believe it exists outside of "you, do more overtime". It's a legal distinction. Computer professionals are among the types of employees who aren't entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
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Feb 22, 2017 21:12
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Pollyanna posted:I wouldn't be personally rattled (just ready to check out, instead) if there was an agreement of sorts. I don't believe it exists outside of "you, do more overtime". You're always expected to work overtime during crunch. I think what separates good companies from bad is that crunch time is limited and comes to an end, and then you are allowed time to slack and recover.
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Feb 22, 2017 21:34
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Fair enough. But doing overtime comes with some caveats, and I don't know if those are fulfilled right now. Either way, I don't feel happy or secure at this company, so I'm making moves to get out no matter what.
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Feb 22, 2017 21:40
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Why should crunch time exist? Sometimes projects miss the deadline. Too bad.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:09
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rt4 posted:Why should crunch time exist? Sometimes projects miss the deadline. Too bad. Late November: hey happy holidays and all but we got a bunch of design specialists in NYC to give us wireframes of our new site. We're breaking you all into separate but overlapping teams to get each individual part of an over engineered glorified brochure done. Also implement a bunch of tightly coupled systems for auth and user data but you can't make any assumptions about it ever!!! Code freeze is at the end of March. Have fun.  Not a surprise it crashed and burned.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:15
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It exists because developers tolerate it. If companies started losing their dev staff every time a project manager said "crunch time," the practice would quickly end.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:18
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rt4 posted:Why should crunch time exist? Sometimes projects miss the deadline. Too bad. It makes sense sometimes -- there are deadlines outside the company's control, like wanting to be able to launch by Christmas, and if you miss the deadline you give up a substantial chunk of your revenue. Probably a more common situation than Christmas crunch is when the company signs a contract agreeing to deliver by some date, only to find the development process to be harder than anticipated. Letting the date slip could invoke penalties agreed to in the contract. Another common one is wanting a demo-able product for a trade show. You can't change when the show happens, and again, missing it could mean forfeiting a lot of revenue from people who would have bought your product if it had been ready to demo.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:24
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fantastic in plastic posted:It exists because developers tolerate it. If companies started losing their dev staff every time a project manager said "crunch time," the practice would quickly end. On the other side are times when you can naturally relax, like the week between Christmas and NYE, and often a couple weeks in August when executives like to all go on vacation. There's always cycles to work, no matter what the work.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:28
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Anyone have advice on working with (non-internal) recruiters? I'm in the DC area and it seems like the fraction of recruiters, internal and otherwise, contacting me who actually read my Linkedin profile is... low. If "Linkedin is a blasted hellscape, not worth your time" is already your opinion, I'm listening for that, too.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:29
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prisoner of waffles posted:Anyone have advice on working with (non-internal) recruiters? I'm in the DC area and it seems like the fraction of recruiters, internal and otherwise, contacting me who actually read my Linkedin profile is... low. The vast majority of all external recruiters are completely useless.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:It makes sense sometimes -- there are deadlines outside the company's control, like wanting to be able to launch by Christmas, and if you miss the deadline you give up a substantial chunk of your revenue. Probably a more common situation than Christmas crunch is when the company signs a contract agreeing to deliver by some date, only to find the development process to be harder than anticipated. Letting the date slip could invoke penalties agreed to in the contract. This most definitely isn't the case when the rationale is just "we want it done by X date no questions asked". I'm not aware of any holidays in April. Edit: the answer to "how I get job" is in the vast majority of cases to network. Or StackOverflow. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Feb 22, 2017 |
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Feb 22, 2017 22:31
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lifg posted:On the other side are times when you can naturally relax, like the week between Christmas and NYE, and often a couple weeks in August when executives like to all go on vacation. Oh, sure, there's always reasons why it might be tolerable. I think that your comparison is only apples-to-apples if the company policy is that you don't have to report to work on those days, though.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:34
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Pollyanna posted:This most definitely isn't the case when the rationale is just "we want it done by X date no questions asked". I'm not aware of any holidays in April. You said it was a glorified brochure, so I'm wondering if there's a new product launching or a rebranding happening. Different arms of the corp have to move in unison on things, too.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:37
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Pollyanna posted:This most definitely isn't the case when the rationale is just "we want it done by X date no questions asked". I'm not aware of any holidays in April. Sure, I wasn't trying to say that all crunch times are legitimate, far from it. Just that some are. Of course some managers are going to look at crunch time as a way to compensate for their lovely planning or just to put the squeeze on those "lazy" developers.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:38
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Munkeymon posted:You said it was a glorified brochure, so I'm wondering if there's a new product launching or a rebranding happening. Different arms of the corp have to move in unison on things, too. Possibly, yeah. Damned if I know what, though. TooMuchAbstraction posted:Sure, I wasn't trying to say that all crunch times are legitimate, far from it. Just that some are. Of course some managers are going to look at crunch time as a way to compensate for their lovely planning or just to put the squeeze on those "lazy" developers. Exactly. This behavior seems to be a pattern for the company, too.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:40
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Sure, I wasn't trying to say that all crunch times are legitimate, far from it. Just that some are. Of course some managers are going to look at crunch time as a way to compensate for their lovely planning or just to put the squeeze on those "lazy" developers.
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Feb 22, 2017 22:56
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I liked at my last job when we had a major crunch that involved twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, for a month, all to get a big redesign of the site out by an arbitrary date somebody in management chose and foolishly told the public about, followed by several days of twenty-four-hour coverage to put out all the bug fires the release caused. This was all despite clear indications that quality of work was plummeting and everybody had switched to a "Whatever. Just get it out." attitude. Then I liked it again when it happened the second time, despite everybody saying what a disaster it was the first time. During the first time, I told my boss I was burning out and he told me to take a day off. When I said I couldn't leave the rest of the team in the lurch like that and he should stop pushing everybody so hard, he told me I had a martyr complex. Good times!
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Feb 22, 2017 22:56
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Word on the street is that there's no longer-term plans for after the relaunch and we're considered a cost center now, so everyone suspects there's layoffs coming soon.
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Feb 22, 2017 23:08
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Pollyanna posted:The biggest thing that worries me is that this (and the stuff about being proactive) is feedback I've received before, and that this appears to be a pattern with me. That's really bad. That's the kinda thing that tanks confidence in me and I need to avoid it. I get that not everyone wants, or can, do over 40 hours during crunch time. However if it's crunch time for everyone else you can bet that you should be visibly busting rear end for the 40 hours you do work, which means training and side-projects take a back seat until the crunch is over.
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Feb 22, 2017 23:17
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prisoner of waffles posted:Anyone have advice on working with (non-internal) recruiters? I'm in the DC area and it seems like the fraction of recruiters, internal and otherwise, contacting me who actually read my Linkedin profile is... low. Anecdotes: Out of college I got a job one of the big defense contractors from an external recruiter who found me on Monster or one of those other resume spamming sites. The initial contact was kinda spammy looking but I was desperate and it turned out to be legit. Also, I'm about to start at Google because of a recruiter finding me on LinkedIn, and I got an offer from LinkedIn after one of their recruiters contacted me as well, but both of those were internal recruiters. None of the recruiters ever seemed like they actually looked too closely at my resume/LinkedIn. If the recruiter is asking you if you are interested in a job with a specific company that you are interested in then it certainly doesn't hurt to at least hear them out, it's potentially a short cut into the interview process and at worst it is a waste of time. I personally never waste my time with the ones who can't tell me the company/position immediately though. Most recruiters are bad but that doesn't mean you can't get jobs from them
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Feb 22, 2017 23:28
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fantastic in plastic posted:Oh, sure, there's always reasons why it might be tolerable. I think that your comparison is only apples-to-apples if the company policy is that you don't have to report to work on those days, though. Maybe we just have different expectations for work. I've just always considered occasional crunch to be the cost of working at this comfy level, for this comfy salary. Maybe I'm just justifying my sub-par jobs.
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Feb 23, 2017 00:49
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Roadie posted:The vast majority of all external recruiters are completely useless. I worked with one that was actually pretty good last time but I was referred by a friend. So I guess it's all the connections game in the end.
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Feb 23, 2017 00:49
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Pollyanna posted:Oh man, you have no idea. People here are starting to talk. Recent firings have gotten people antsy, and the organization in general is not doing well. Inter-team sniping is at an all time high, people outright can't trust others to get poo poo done, org direction is all over the place, entire teams are working on things nobody needs or even asked for, regular meetings and demos often have people go "uhhh we didn't get anything done because we're waiting on X/don't know what's going on", all that fun poo poo. Since the main corp heads fired the org leaders sympathetic to developer needs, the org's MO has been full speed on all features consequences be damned, and everyone's questioning their future here out loud in the break rooms. Hell, my coworker who's worked for the company for over a decade is hoping to get laid off so she can collect severance and find a different job local to her. Maybe you should take your parents advice on the career change.
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Feb 23, 2017 00:56
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fantastic in plastic posted:It exists because developers tolerate it. If companies started losing their dev staff every time a project manager said "crunch time," the practice would quickly end. This is the culture that exists among all the developers I know professionally. We don't tolerate it, and project managers have learned to cut scope rather than demand overtime. Any company which doesn't gets a reputation for being a lovely place to work, and with the market the way it is that means they have huge problems hiring. Pollyanna posted:It's not something that comes naturally to me, but I can tell it should be addressed ASAP. This might not be specific to software development, but how have people tried to become a more proactive person? The most useful approach I've found is to consider starting a new ticket the absolute last resort. Code is worthless to the business until it's live, so part of a proactive developer's job is to push on all of your team's tickets every day until they're in the hands of the users. This means chasing blocked tickets every day, it means reviewing other people's code, it means doing (or asking someone to help you do) deploys, it means asking if anyone needs your help on their tickets. Only after all of these things are done or come up empty do you pick up another ticket. There may be organisational blockers which prevent movement on these things but they will emphatically not be your fault and you will appear proactive because you'll be proactive, and visibly so. Actually writing code is a relatively small fraction of a good developer's job. prisoner of waffles posted:Anyone have advice on working with (non-internal) recruiters? I'm in the DC area and it seems like the fraction of recruiters, internal and otherwise, contacting me who actually read my Linkedin profile is... low. Go-between recruiters are so spammy I consider them a conduit for getting in touch with a company that has a job and no more than that.
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Feb 23, 2017 02:20
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lifg posted:Maybe we just have different expectations for work. I've just always considered occasional crunch to be the cost of working at this comfy level, for this comfy salary. Crunch is a thing that happens but one of the things to consider in a work place is their attitude toward it. If the management is constantly enacting crunch out of necessity then the workers are overburdened. If so much needs done that everybody is always working a ton of hours then there needs to be more people or less work. That or prioritization and fewer meetings. In any event "everybody must work an average of 50 hours a week" is probably a sign that something is wrong. The other very telling sign is a place that will expect you to stay over but treats leaving early/coming in late or just working fewer than 40 hours some weeks as utterly unacceptable. That or places that have insane attitudes toward being on call. Like we get it; sometimes poo poo burns down at 2 a.m. and people need to come in and fix it. That's fine but don't expect everybody in at 8 a.m. the next morning. A place that won't let you sleep a bit late after that kind of thing and expects you to perform perfectly normally the next day has unreasonable expectations. If I have to work the occasional 60 hour week that's fine but I'd like either good time off benefits or the occasional 30 hour week when I don't have a ton to do. Either that or a big, fat paycheck to work on something I'm interested in anyway. I will work all of the hours in that situation. If it's just occasional crunch or bizarre hours it just comes with the job and like you said is just part of the deal. It's when poo poo gets excessive or your boss expects you to dedicate your entire life to your job is when there's a problem. That or those places that start crunch time and just never, ever seem to end it. Hughlander posted:Maybe you should take your parents advice on the career change.  Obviously we can't control what you do but like the entire thread is telling you to leave. It really is time to find a new job. You're miserable. You're a programmer. It won't be hard. If you can't afford to leave yet then keep your head down, save some cash, and look in your spare time. When you have a few months of expenses saved up then bolt. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Feb 23, 2017 |
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Feb 23, 2017 02:25
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Vulture Culture posted:I used to actually do a thing in my in-person interviews where I'd give a person a code sample to read and explain. I wouldn't pay any mind whatsoever to their thought process or how well they understood the code. I would watch them instead. If they looked pissed about having to do it, it was a yellow flag.
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Feb 23, 2017 04:13
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It's a comfortable enough position so there's been a lot of inertia on my part, but I agree, it's way past time to start looking elsewhere. I've never been the best at networking and finding new jobs, but I've been through this before. I'm safe enough to start looking, though I was always under the impression that you should always have a job before you accept a new job - supposedly, not being currently employed is less attractive to employers than apparently taking an employee from another company. Is that still commonly accepted wisdom? Hughlander posted:Maybe you should take your parents advice on the career change. I've always been told to either specialize in something or get really deeply embedded into a particular company/organization, such that I have something to offer that few to no other people can offer. What kind of specialization options does a software developer have? There's architecture, then getting really deep into a particular technology, then becoming a PM or product owner of some sort. What's the typical career progression?
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Feb 23, 2017 04:23
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There's a lot of cultural attitudes at play when it comes to the perception of crunch. Some view it as an indication of bad planning / management and/or incompetence because the work wasn't done in the time estimated. Some view it as the nature of transactional work where you're semi-idle and everything hits you all at once (think tax preparation). All I know is that when people start blaming each other instead of trying to figure out how to contribute to each other's successes, it doesn't matter how good technically teams are because antagonism ruins otherwise great teams regardless of culture. Sounds like you need to personally talk to developers and get involved in some community of developers beyond posting in a career advice thread on SA.
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Feb 23, 2017 06:03
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Pollyanna posted:I've always been told to either specialize in something or get really deeply embedded into a particular company/organization, such that I have something to offer that few to no other people can offer. What kind of specialization options does a software developer have? There's architecture, then getting really deep into a particular technology, then becoming a PM or product owner of some sort. What's the typical career progression? You're way overthinking 'specialization.' Get a job that challenges you, and you will rise to that challenge. Now you're good at solving that problem. Repeat. "Architecture" is not a specialization, it is the result of building software and learning from it. One can't be a junior dev that specializes in architecture. You don't generally pick a specialization within a sector and go for it like it was a college major. You become a competent developer, and the organizations where you've developed will have presented you with particular problems that you have become adept at solving. Those problem spaces are your specializations. If you are working at a place where there are no interesting problems to solve, you are not getting n years of experience by working there - you're getting one year of experience n times. A lot of times you can spot this when someone says they specialize in "Rails." Ok, great, you use a framework, but what problems do you solve by using that framework? Carpenters don't specialize in "hammer," they specialize in cabinets or houses. Web developers don't specialize in a language or framework, they specialize in assuring thread safety, application security, scalability, telling their ORM to gently caress right off and writing good database queries, etc. The same can be said for non-web devs, but of course "builds high-uptime devices with 32k of RAM" generally implies "knows C really well," whereas "builds horizontally-scalable thread-safe web applications" doesn't really imply "is good at Rails" or "is good at Django" (though of course there is some language that that person must be good at). In the web space, companies will generally hire you for the specialization on the assumption that you can pick up the best practices of another stack once you're out of the junior (and maybe mid-level) stage. This is where banging out a toy app in your spare time can be beneficial, because you should not be selling yourself as a Rails dev, but rather as a web developer that happens to use Rails (and so it's nice to have proof-of-competence in other languages). Other types of 'specializations' exist - game dev, embedded, and systems programming come to mind. You get those 'specializations' by doing them. You'll have to know the relevant language, and then you get an entry-level position doing that and carry on as above. Honestly, though, those aren't specializations but rather problem domains just like 'web dev', and each have their own more granular specializations. What do you specialize in? Think of the thing you're most proud of at work (or at home if you have rad side projects, but most folks don't) - what did you contribute to it? The conceptual model? Performant DB queries? You found security vulnerabilities in code review? Your animations were beautiful? Being a PM is not part of the career progression of developers. It is a new career. Some PMs make great devs, and some devs make great PMs, but it is neither a promotion nor a demotion to go from one to the other - it's a wholesale career change. For engineering career progression, this is kind of silly, but I think it's correct-ish.
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Feb 23, 2017 06:44
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So I am a bit over a year at my current company and I am wondering whether or not I want to stay long term. Part of me is thinking I am being too negative, too critical, or have unrealistic expectations. The other part of me remembers that I waited way too long to leave a bad work situation before. This is some  but I am in a rambling mood.Bad I was hired to do software development, but we really don't do the kind of development I expected. Most projects I've seen are just configuration and customization of pre-built software the company bought. Usually these customizations are making systems do things they are not meant to do or reinventing features that already exist. I know some people make whole careers out of this kind of work, but it's not really what I want to do nor does it really match my skill set. I've carved out a niche working with a few components where I get to write actual code consistently, but I still find the work boring and find my skills under utilized. I think I might just want to work somewhere that builds full applications. A promised bonus was very underpaid. It wasn't in writing, it's not like I am suing to get paid, and I knew this could happen, but it's just the principal of the thing to me. I was not alone and a large number of people were put in this situation. Related to the last one, there is definitely isn't any kind of annual raise process I know of. I have yet to ask for one. I plan to ask for a least a minor inflation bump soon, but am dreading doing it as I've been told by people that you don't get them without another offer for more. I don't know this firsthand though, so I am hoping it's wrong. The overall culture seems to have been going downhill. The overall feel when I started was that it was a fun, energetic place to work. More recently, things have been increasingly negative. I can't put a finger on what really causes it. Maybe it's just me losing the rosy, new-job glasses. This is loosely supported by looking at the company's glassdoor profile and seeing a pretty significant decline in average rating and general increase in negative reviews. Nothing is standardized. Everyone seems to be on their own processes for meetings, tasks, project management, hours, communication etc. Even where there are processes established, they seem to get blown up frequently. Good I really like the people on my team and my manager. I get along with everyone I work with. While the culture has been going downhill, it's still nicer than some jobs I've worked or stories I've heard. Salary and benefits are okay, could be better, but not at the point where I'd leave over that alone. I really never have to work especially long hours. Occasionally, maybe monthly, I work a few extra hours to meet a deadline or have to put in some off-hours work to handle a release, but generally I am working 8 hour days. Am I being unreasonable about feeling unhappy with work lately? Am I just complaining about normal problems everyone tends to deal with in development?
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Feb 23, 2017 07:00
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Pollyanna posted:I've always been told to either specialize in something or get really deeply embedded into a particular company/organization, such that I have something to offer that few to no other people can offer. Getting deeply embedded into a particular company is generally a bad idea if those skills and accomplishments are not tranferable to other companies. Like becoming really awesome at the company's own bespoke framework or knowing all the acronyms in a particular niche domain are worthless on the open market.
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Feb 23, 2017 09:26
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wilderthanmild posted:
Sounds like you're bored but comfortable. That's a sticky tar trap combination because comfortable means easy, but easy means you're not learning. Which would you prefer, easy OK money for a few years until the ship sinks, or jump ship now for more challenging climes but more risk?
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Feb 23, 2017 10:18
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necrobobsledder posted:There's a lot of cultural attitudes at play when it comes to the perception of crunch. Some view it as an indication of bad planning / management and/or incompetence because the work wasn't done in the time estimated. Some view it as the nature of transactional work where you're semi-idle and everything hits you all at once (think tax preparation). All I know is that when people start blaming each other instead of trying to figure out how to contribute to each other's successes, it doesn't matter how good technically teams are because antagonism ruins otherwise great teams regardless of culture. I've seen a lot of factional sniping and flaring tempers as a result of this crunch time and push to deployment. It's killed what used to be a happier, more friendly atmosphere. The core group of friends I've made are still together and we're still professional to each other, but outside of a couple individual devs (one of which is gone now) the blaming happens on a team level. "Auth team doesn't know what they're doing", "platform team isn't doing anything useful", "API team is bad at APIs", etc. I myself have started to withdraw, I don't talk to other people as much, I mostly eat at my desk now, and I've grown more distant from the co-workers I was close to on my previous team (being split up was the major factor for that though). My enthusiasm and drive has tanked, and it really sucks. I'll admit, I've never gotten into the larger community of professional developers past SA. Part of it is not knowing where to start. How good are weekly meetups and working groups for this kind of thing (networking, career advice, etc.)? If I join a Ruby, Clojure, or Elixir meetup, will that work, or should I look forward something more general? What do people do to bolster their careers? Achmed Jones posted:You're way overthinking 'specialization.' Get a job that challenges you, and you will rise to that challenge. Now you're good at solving that problem. Repeat. I fear I may be too selfish. I need to be challenged and trusted with solving interesting problems in order to stay engaged, but I don't like the challenge that comes with poor management, a poorly maintained codebase, a new and confusing tech stack that's used in a wildly different manner from what I've learned of it elsewhere, and the difficulty and burden of pulling overtime for a product I have no faith in. Where is the line drawn on this? What challenges should I relish, and what challenges are more like frustrating obstacles that I should simply avoid? quote:"Architecture" is not a specialization, it is the result of building software and learning from it. One can't be a junior dev that specializes in architecture. The bolded section is the trap that I'm most afraid of falling into. I definitely feel like I've been doing 1 year or less of some particular problem or focus several times over, and I really do not want to end up an "expert beginner". I know I'm still really early in my career, but I feel like I'm shuffled around too much to have any of it stick. What do I do to combat that? I can go for jobs and companies that are tackling interesting problems, but that doesn't help me get out of a trap I've already gotten stuck in. quote:In the web space, companies will generally hire you for the specialization on the assumption that you can pick up the best practices of another stack once you're out of the junior (and maybe mid-level) stage. This is where banging out a toy app in your spare time can be beneficial, because you should not be selling yourself as a Rails dev, but rather as a web developer that happens to use Rails (and so it's nice to have proof-of-competence in other languages). Web development is convenient because it revolves around (for now) a commonly agreed-upon convention that everyone sticks to, and the core of it is the same there. You can say you specialize in web development if you understand the fundamentals of HTTP, the request/response cycle, statelessness, etc. - and have worked with tools and frameworks that implement ways to deal with that. I'd say I've started to specialize in that realm. quote:What do you specialize in? Think of the thing you're most proud of at work (or at home if you have rad side projects, but most folks don't) - what did you contribute to it? The conceptual model? Performant DB queries? You found security vulnerabilities in code review? Your animations were beautiful? Outside of the above, though....I don't really specialize in anything. I do prefer back-end web work and am particularly interested in APIs, and sensible data models. Front-end can be okay if it's done well, e.g. properly implemented React-Redux. But that's still just web dev itself. It's not specialization per se, but I also believe in code being as clear and legible as possible, not just doing what it's supposed to. I believe that a system or program can and should be written in a way that most clearly communicates a developer's intentions, accurately reflects the business requirements and specifications, and causes the least amount of unpredictable results as possible. These are all issues I've run into as a developer working on existing codebases and that I've seen other developers get tripped up on over and over again. I want projects I work on to be exemplary in these regards. So, I might not specialize in good development practices, but I certainly care about them and want to implement them. I also have a fondness for functional programming and smart design/architecture. Can't say I'm a pro at it, though. quote:Being a PM is not part of the career progression of developers. It is a new career. Some PMs make great devs, and some devs make great PMs, but it is neither a promotion nor a demotion to go from one to the other - it's a wholesale career change. I bring up project management cause it's a pain point that I see often and as a junior developer, I deal with the brunt of it directly. So, I understand how executing it well is paramount and have a whole host of opinions on how it should be done. It's mostly a "wtf guys this is how you do it" thing for me, I've thought of doing PM before to try and make PM easier for devs but I have a feeling I'd be awful at it  I kinda like that spreadsheet, actually. I'll also admit, I've been pulling some less-than-40 hour days recently. Often by 4, I'm totally brain drained and I often call it a day there cause I'm just not productive at that point. It feels like burnout, but I was under the impression that burnout was due to being overworked, and the situation here is more environmental in nature. Can burnout happen because of a bad environment?
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Feb 23, 2017 16:20
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Pollyanna posted:I'll also admit, I've been pulling some less-than-40 hour days recently. Often by 4, I'm totally brain drained and I often call it a day there cause I'm just not productive at that point. It feels like burnout, but I was under the impression that burnout was due to being overworked, and the situation here is more environmental in nature. Can burnout happen because of a bad environment? Yes. I'm going through that myself, due to two reorgs on a row and a missing boss. The good news is you know when you're *not* productive. Save the mindless tasks for that time.
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Feb 23, 2017 16:27
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