How did you get where you are? | Hacker News Reader

How did you get where you are?

3 pointsTmp123411 comments

I’d like to get a collection of the following things from the programmers who come on here:

Your subjective experience coding and your story- How long have you been coding? How difficult has it been? Are you noticeably quicker/slower or less/more skilled than your peers? How hard did you have to work and study to get where you’ve gotten? What were the roadblocks? Do you have any lessons and advice for people considering becoming a programmer or struggling? Are you happy with where your at? Would you do it again?

Occupational and educational outcome- Which company do you work for? What position do you have? How complex and challenging is the work? How much do you make? If you’re not working or just starting - What school do you go to? What’s your GPA? What projects have you done? Which internships? How has the technical interview process been for you? Finally, if you were on either of those paths and then changed direction, why?

IQ – If you’ve taken a real IQ test under the supervision of a psychologist only. Please, don’t post if you’ve never taken a real IQ test, are not willing to share your score or want to debate the value of IQ.

The IQ data point is why I feel the need to make this thread rather than just googling and reading the plethora of blogs or threads which already share the first two points. I’ve almost never seen or heard someone mention alongside their story and achievements any objective information about their natural abilities. The objective part is key as you can still have struggled and discredit the role of your natural abilities despite being a genuine genius. I believe this information is critical to being able to interpret any story of this sort correctly.

You're collecting one hell of a lot of personal information here and frankly, I'm not comfortable sharing that level of information without some idea of what you're doing with all of it.

Finally, with the way you admonish people in the IQ section and the brand new, anon account, I'm inclined towards not trusting you.

If you don't want to share, that's fine. I'm just trying to get some data to help me make a choice in my own life about my career.

My experience has been bringing up intelligence or IQ automatically people always bring up a set of counterarguments on why it doesn't matter or shouldn't be focused on and because people sometimes say things like "I took an IQ test on X.com and got 234" cause those are not accurate. I'm trying to prevent those responses.

You might like StackOverflow's surveys as they go into all of this, though in a highly generalized way. Many people are more comfortable sharing deeply personal, highly structured information like this when they know the results will be anonymized.

Can I also give you some unsolicited career advice?

First, a great deal of this industry happens over writing. In this case, you have made a very significant, highly structured and deeply personal ask. Yet, you have done so in language that genuinely makes me distrust you. If I were you, I would learn to soften my approach, particularly when I'm asking for help. If you would like some specific examples, feel free to ask here or via email (it's on my profile). I would be glad to help you, but I don't want to batter you for no reason.

Second, if having a discussion about IQ's value in software development is that annoying to you, I worry that this field would make you profoundly unhappy.

I never knew about those surveys. Thanks for pointing them out. They don't seem to get at what I'm seeking though. There are no connections drawn between innate ability, self described difficulty in the field and thresholds of prestige and compensation reached given the first two which is what I'm interested in. Maybe, I'm not looking at the data in the right way though.

I'm open to whatever advice you have to offer even if it comes along with "battering." I would posit though, and correct me if I'm wrong, that what maybe you don't like what I've said rather than you not trusting me? I can see how the sort of bluntness I used can be off putting to some and how the nature of the questions are inherently personal and thus uncomfortable, but I struggle to see how anything I wrote makes me seem malicious or untrustworthy. I know people tend to distrust what they dislike and trust what they like which is a huge fallacy, but a heuristic many people feel comfortable acting on or, perhaps, don't even notice they act on. If that's not the case here though, I'm very interested in why you feel distrust.

I don't see any correlation between enjoyment of the discussion about the role of IQ in software development and satisfaction as a software engineer. Can you explain what you mean?

When I came into this thread I was expecting nothing more than the title question, and anecdotes as responses.

However, the question body is a deep survey over various details of our lives, and you're not even putting internet reputation at stake. It seems inappropriate to ask so many questions. The language as it changes towards the end also invokes distrust. For example,

> Please, don’t post if ...

You ask so much of us and still you put conditions over who you want to listen to? Really? It doesn't sound like a favour, anymore.

I don't understand your point about putting internet reputation at stake. If someone well known and respected asked this question here and people responded earnestly and completely the information is still public and could be accessed by me or anyone else. Thus, the risks are the same regardless of asks the question, aren't they?

As for the length and quantity of the questions, I was just trying to help people think through their responses and specify what I'm interested in learning. The "please don't post if..." part is because whenever I've mentioned IQ in this context there's a huge backlash and every rushes to talk about how it's not important. I wanted to avoid that, but I can see how it rubs people the wrong way.

In the end, this seems a lot more like evoking dislike rather than distrust. The two don't correlate in my brain. I've met many charming people who were not trustworthy and plenty of off putting people who are highly moral. Maybe, I'm really not getting something though.

Well, if it's lack of charm, it can only be the wording. I can't see or hear you. Like hluska said, it's a matter of softening your approach.

About your question on what invokes distrust, you ask too many personal questions. Where we work, our position, how much we make, where we went to school. By the volume of questions, I interpret that you want to know as much as possible about us. That leads me to believe that you also want the questions answered as precisely as possible, like being able to get the addresses of the schools and work buildings. And all this to be published publicly and left for eternity on the internet.

Let me put it another way. If a random stranger in the street or a restaurant or something started talking to you, basically asking question after question like those you put here. Would you not be suspicious of him? Why would you answer him?

About reputation, it's not about being well known, it's about having a stable identity. Using a throwaway account makes it seem like you don't want to associate yourself with this post. That's a minor point, though.

Anyways, sorry about my own wording if it's harsh. I might be a bit cranky, right now.

Nothing about what you wrote is harsh imo.

The questions are just to cast the largest net. Anything someone doesn't want to answer they won't just as no one has responded to the question. I assumed anyone who posted on my thread would share the minimal information. It's not like I have a gun to anyone's head.

I'd view the random stranger thing differently because there's no way anonymous. Here, there is. Plus, a person in your face tends to make people react with more of a sense of obligation than text.

I understand more about what you're looking for. I still won't answer your questions, but I understand you now. Unfortunately, I don't know of any resources, but this seems like something that someone would have written about in some business school. Have you tried Google Scholar? You might even find some good case material about hiring software engineers.

Alternately, maybe you could learn more from Triplebyte's blog? I've read a couple of really amazing articles about selecting successful engineers on their site and I bet that I've missed many other high quality articles.

As far as your wording goes, jolmg gave you some excellent advice, particularly along the 'please don't post' line. Personally, I can assure you that it isn't a matter of disliking you. Honestly, if I didn't like you, I wouldn't have posted here at all. I like you and want to help you, just not under the terms that you outlined.

As for the part about the correlation between the role of IQ and satisfaction as a software engineer, I might be hearing you wrong. I think that you're saying that repetitively debating the same subject annoys you. Am I right, or are you saying that you find the particular topic of IQ annoying?

I'll look at Triplebyte's blog. Another resource I didn't know about you've pointed me to.

>>Personally, I can assure you that it isn't a matter of disliking you. Honestly, if I didn't like you, I wouldn't have posted here at all. I like you and want to help you, just not under the terms that you outlined.

Well, my problem is not being able to determine if I should quit trying to become a programmer specifically because of lack of ability. If you can help me make that decision I welcome it. Probably would make more sense if we PMed about this though.

>>As for the part about the correlation between the role of IQ and satisfaction as a software engineer, I might be hearing you wrong. I think that you're saying that repetitively debating the same subject annoys you. Am I right, or are you saying that you find the particular topic of IQ annoying?

Both are true. I don't like repeat debates that go no where nor do I like the primarily ideologically based stances people have on IQ and natural ability in general.

What I was asking was in relation to you saying- "if having a discussion about IQ's value in software development is that annoying to you, I worry that this field would make you profoundly unhappy." So I don't know why I would be unhappy as a developer because I wouldn't want to argue with people about IQ. It almost seems like you're saying arguing about IQ is a necessary part of the job and one that must be enjoyable in order to find satisfaction as a programmer.

Okay, first off, if you'd like to email me, my email is in my profile.

Second, I understand how it feels to struggle. I'm far from an elite 20x developer, but I've worked with many less experienced developers. I'd be glad to work on something with you and hopefully give you some pointers.

Third, I'm going to ask you a pointed question. You don't have to answer it here, but I'd like you to think about it. Do you feel like you're too dumb to program?

If yes, seriously my friend, that attitude is a fucking cancer that will ruin your life. I need to repeat that. Telling yourself that you're too dumb to do something is a cancer that will ruin your fucking life.

I can tell you beyond any doubt that you are 100% capable of programming.

I believe that because of the tenacity you've shown in this thread. You got some harsh responses, but kept pushing and pushing. And, I'd argue that you got shit done here because I'll answer most of those questions via email. If I had the means, I would hire you right now because you're a tenacious person who gets shit done.

Personally, I would rather work with one tenacious developer who gets shit done than five incredibly intelligent developers who never ship. And, I would bet you a pint that I'm not the only person reading this who agrees.

Also, remember that there are different career paths within programming. There is a little bit of room for geniuses to keep pushing the art forward. And there is a lot of room for bulldogs to stand on the shoulders of those giants and build shit that works.

Maybe at the top end, extreme intelligence is highly valued. But for the masses, it's more important to be able to communicate well in writing, ask for help, learn from others and learn to understand how others solve problems.

Finally, I'm glad that both conditions are true. Don't worry about IQ in particular. It might be a good measure for certain kinds of developers, but it's likely not applicable to the industry as a whole. Or maybe it is and I'm not smart enough to realize that?

But, I would worry if repetitive debates that go nowhere bother you. A big part of the socio-political part of the job is learning how to debate with people with strong personalities. I just about guarantee that after you have ten years under your belt, you will look back and realize that you've had the exact same debate (down to the word) hundreds of times in your career.

It can start to feel like you're on Reddit, but if you go into these conversations with a sense of openness and wonder, you might find that you either learn or teach something every debate. It strikes me (and I have nothing to back this up) that debate is how our culture transmits knowledge and war stories to the next generation.

Point being, in the industry, debates happen and some get very repetitive. Hell, I've been on otherwise amazing teams where we have debated the same issue for months...

The other point is that I'm sorry you're struggling. Email me if you feel comfortable - I'd be glad to work on a project with you, or try to get you past any blocks. But bud, trust me, the tenacity you showed here more than qualifies you to be a developer. You can do this.

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