Ask HN: How did you know what you wanted in IT?

11 points by ry9uy 2 years ago | 15 comments

I'm a 23yr old computer nerd working in software support, a foot in the door. I've been trying my hardest to find my niche in IT. Learning all that I can and where I want my career to point towards, but I'm finding it very difficult.

Furthermore, I think I'm blinded by the fear of AI replacing/assisting a large majority of the industry by the time I'm an experienced professional, and that my years of study in the wrong direction could be somewhat redundant. I'm certain there's no wrong answer as long as you're passionate, but I can't figure out what I'm passionate for.

I know this feels like a newbie question, and I don't want you to tell me that security or cloud is the way to go. I just want to know a bit about why you thought your specialisation was the best choice out of thousands. Folks in my position that love tech and business, what clicked?

GianFabien 2 years ago |

Skate to where the puck will be (Wayne Gretzky). AI is backward looking (where the puck was) technology. It is trained on what is already widely known. In experiments it handles bar exam type questions well. But not systems engineering questions that require understanding the problem domain.

Of course, you could develop foundational IT knowledge: at least one programming language, an OS, a framework or two. But the key to long term success is becoming wickedly knowledgeable about some problem domain, e.g. biotech, some niche in finance, supply chain, medical analysis automation, etc.

Once you establish core competence in the domain of your choice, your future IT learning will be directed by the needs of the problems you are solving.

subtra3t 2 years ago | |

> Of course, you could develop foundational IT knowledge: at least one programming language, an OS, a framework or two. But the key to long term success is becoming wickedly knowledgeable about some problem domain, e.g. biotech, some niche in finance, supply chain, medical analysis automation, etc.

What do you think is the best way to do this? Or do you think that the best most "efficient" way differs for each domain?

GianFabien 2 years ago | | |

Perhaps you are too focused on the ideal of "efficiency". Seems like another form of procrastination.

Just get started. The Richard Feynman technique is very productive. Ask a question, and then research until you answer it. Along the way you will ask many other questions. Once you answer the first question, pick the most interesting new question and repeat. Before you know it, you will be more knowledgeable in that area than the average.

AI can be a great assistant. It will do the legwork for you. But you need to verify to ensure that you are not fed hallucinations or erroneous information. With increasing knowledge and critical thinking you will get better at panning for knowledge gold.

muzani 2 years ago | |

Straight example: I use Android with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose. Both are amazing tech, cuts down LOC by a third, reduces complexity for large codebases massively.

ChatGPT is familiar with all of these techs. It has read the fucking manuals and oh god most people don't read them because they're not written for humans. This is the perfect environment for AI to thrive.

But it'll write code based on similar code around 2019 or so. A lot of code out there is terrible. Much of it was written by contractors who don't want to get the work done. These guys are happy to see complexity go up exponentially. Many people work as contractors and in agencies, quit, do their own thing, adopt shitty architectures that were worse than no architecture.

So we see applicants submitting this crappy code that they do understand, but we ask them why they picked this over the fancy new stuff. Most of the time they didn't pick anything. They told AI to do it, and AI went to where the puck was.

I mean I train AI to write the fancy new code. But you have to know what it should look like.

HenryBemis 2 years ago |

To quote the great song: The most interesting people I know, didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't.

So, I started out as IT Helpdesk. Then life took me to systems administration. Then I got 'promoted' to 'site administration' (everything tech related in a food factory - even the machine that made the food - a train-wagon-sized machine that run German Win95 (that was back in the early 00's), networking, telephony, the whole thing.

Later I switched to Internal (IT) Audit (that is a good paying job)(including SOX). Then that took me to IT Security and (IT) Project Management. Then got an IT GRC gig that required IT, IT Audit, SOX, and Proj.Mgmg. There was always a Privacy thing in whatever I was doing so I later gave Data Protection a try, and it worked/is working out well.

So.. I like what the CEO of Spotify said on the DOAC podcast about "T-shaped" skills. You are TOOOOO YOUNG to get married to a specific job.

Keep an open mind, let it take you where it takes you. Sometimes a smarter/wiser/older person may see something in you that you haven't realized, and that will make you jump 'diagonally upwards' (not vertically in the hierarchy ladder and not horizontally in the same grade but in a similar role).

If you would have asked me at 23 "do you imagine having worked in 'these' companies, traveled in 'those' countries, and make 'that' money by your 30/40/50 I would have said that you're crazy. But life is crazy so embrace it, keep an open mind, keep an open eye, and be kind to others.

rawgabbit 2 years ago |

Here is some well meaning advice. Advice I tell my own children. Passion doesn’t pay the bills. You should be passionate about taking care of yourself and your family.

Why did I pick my specialty? Because people repeatedly told me I was good at it. And the experts said it was in demand.

I knew it was in demand by following the money. I simply looked at the revenues of the software companies in that specialty. Most of them were not sexy but people were literally screaming take my money.

aristofun 2 years ago | |

I'm happy I'm not you child

Openai2 2 years ago | |

What's your specialty?

Greamy 2 years ago |

My mom used to tell me when I was young to never run after money and choose a career in which I could do something that made me happy. As working on something you enjoy means you'll do it with passion, that will be seen by others in the quality of your output, so money (or fame, or whatever you're after) will come naturally. I was around 5, and video games was what made me happy. XD

As I grew up and learned more about the field, I figured it's not necessarily video games that I want to make, but definitely software science.

I ended up in electronic engineering because I was curious about how computers work at a low level. After that I ended up in ML/DL/data science because it looked cool and wasn't that hard to understand for me as I had all the math prerequisites from the EE degree.

In conclusion, I would say that, for me at least, the path came quite naturally, and every step I took in my career made sense at the time. I never tried to really force a long-term plan on my career, so whenever a move or a change felt natural for what I wanted, I made it. I would say I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing now, so at least it worked for me.

bruce511 2 years ago | |

There are two schools of thought. 1. Follow the money. 2. Follow your passion.

It's hard to know which is right (and I suspect both are), because my passion and the money are in the same place (tech).

Which means folk in tech (myself included) can successfully anecdote either branch.

Personally I probably land on the passion side, but I you're passionate about archaeology, well, good luck to you.

To the original question I say - be curious about everything. Try and learn from those around you. Try and add value outside of just support. Expand your support skills outside your specific job. Learn about the OS, or SQL, or coding.

You don't need to map out your niche just yet. Take some time to be a generalist with a wide experience. From there you'll likely find yourself gravitating to a field.

aristofun 2 years ago |

There is no other reliable way than to go where your intuition and excitement leads you to.

Choose whatever you like doing the most (the process itself), or at least hate doing the least.

Trying to guess the most profitable or less "ai-scary" niche is a 100% road to eventual frustration.

Don't listen to those toxic people scaring you with "paying the bills", while you're wihin the IT realm (and not playing ukulele for living) — you will not end up on the street as long as you're really good at something (anything).

And the only way to become good - is to enjoy it, because it takes time, willpower alone is a very limited resource.

schwartzworld 2 years ago |

My friend was a web developer. He pushed me to learn, and while I originally started with backend, I found a lot of joy in frontend work. I found that a lot of full stack devs I worked with sucked at frontend and didn't want to do it, so I embraced the opportunity to level up my skills and knowledge in that area.

KaiKimera 2 years ago |

When I was a child, my parents gave me a PC. I immediately enjoyed learning it. That’s how I started working in IT.

meiraleal 2 years ago |

> How did you know what you wanted in IT?

By making money - but I'm not a capitalist. When I was 12 years old I made a website about Dragon Ball Z and it became a hit and checks started to come to my house (ads but it was before google ads be a thing). I got passionate about coding after creating something out of nothing but nights of work and turn that into a revenue stream.