Ask HN: After Engineering – What's Next?

3 points by svckr 6 years ago | 2 comments

Or: Seeking job advice as a mid-career software engineer

Hi HN,

I'm in my early/mid thirties now and I have been programming since I was a kid.

And I still love it! And I'm still good at it! I've become a little bit jaded though.

In the last few years I learned that, of all the things that make a company succeed, "technology" is pretty far down the list. "Process", I believe, is down there too, but you can do a lot more damage when screwing that up.

Not to beat on technology or process, but I see so many people around me getting hung up on it (and rewarded accordingly) while at the same time we're failing to address bigger issues (communication, culture, hiring, direction, etc.) It's like we're getting tangled up in technicalities, while product development is grinding to a halt amidst our own ambition to reach some kind of technological nirvana.

I switched teams recently, moving from a software engineering position to a technical consulting position, which improved things somewhat.

But even in my current position I feel powerless to address bigger issues. I talked with my boss about this, and they see the same issues, but there's only so much they can do on a company level scale.

These issues are certainly very pronounced at my current company. If your experience differs, good for you! However, I think our industry overestimates the importance of technology.

I don't claim to have all the answers or understand all the problems, but I'd rather spend my time working on a solution.

So that's why I'm asking for help: I want to nudge my career in a direction that will someday enable me to work on making engineering more – for lack of a better word – humane? But I don't really know what I'm looking for. I guess I'm just asking for some new perspective. Maybe you have changed directions in a similar way and point me to the route you took?

Sorry for this being so open ended. I just don't know enough to know what I want to know :)

codingdave 6 years ago |

> ...but there's only so much they can do on a company level scale.

Focus on your own area of influence. If you can fix it there, and call out to the teams around you what you did, they can do the same. Once a few teams find better ways to work, their performance will improve, and then the company will start to notice and act.

Especially when not in a formal leadership role, learning how to influence and invoke change from the bottom is one of the most impactful skills one can learn.

acjohnson55 6 years ago |

Have you considered switching to a different company that better matches your values? I know what you're talking about and have experienced it myself, and I greatly enjoy being at a company where cultural, strategic, and organizational impact is in play, and there's relatively little talk of tech for its own sake.