Thanks to low interest rate and phenomenal paradigm changes in the last 15 or 20 years, the tech sector has grown so much that engineers with three years of experience can become "tech leads" or "staff engineers" who spend most of their time drawing boxes or "aligning" whatever in meetings. Day in and day out, the most valued engineers are either in meetings or on their way to meetings. To this point, these engineers are ally TPMs and PMs with engineering background. For some reason, companies value such positions more, probably because managers are not into hard technical or product decisions and therefore relied on smooth communicators to feed them digested information, or worse, opinion.<p>Now that the golden 10 years is in the rear view, maybe programmers will once again be valued more, as only the companies can really build fast and well will stand out.
I found the "On job hopping, backstabbing, and the lack thereof" section a bit odd. The argument seems to be that your co-workers aren't your friends (in general, of course there will be exceptions), and you'll move on in a few years, so it doesn't matter. And the counterargument is that the reason they're not your friends is because you're going to move on in a few years, so you don't bother to form stronger relationships, and that if you stay at a company for much longer (say, 10 years or so), then your co-workers will be your friends.<p>I just don't think whether or not your co-workers are or will be friends has anything to do with any of that. I stayed at my last company for 10 years, and ended up with quite a few real, non-work friends from that job. And those friends are mix of people: some were only with the company another year or two after I joined, whereas others had longer tenures.<p>If you are going to make sustainable friendships with your co-workers, you need to know them in more context than seeing them at the office or on video calls. If you do things with them outside the office, and actually develop real friendships with them, then you are likely to remain friends after one or both of you leaves the company. And so the length of time you spend at a company is pretty much irrelevant.
I read this in 2013 and remember enjoying the back-and-forth. Some reflections, a decade of life experience and a tech cycle later:<p>1. I'm with McKenzie on the coworkers aspect of the dialog. More separation from coworkers is better. In the Good Times (2013-2019,2021) it seems "right" to trade some comp for familiarity and good work vibes, and almost... inhuman... not to. But in the Bad Times you're reminded that an Excel formula could cost you not just your job but also a big chunk of your personal social network. Diversification is good.<p>2. I now realize what both sides of this are getting at is basically: "how to progress from Junior/Mid Engineer to something after that". There are many paths. The conclusion of the article is good, in that respect. Also: you can just stay a Mid/Senior Engineer. That's okay.<p>3. Call yourself whatever you want/need to stay employable. Be a good colleague/person. Work is work.
Related:<p><i>Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice (2013)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23675363">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23675363</a> - June 2020 (74 comments)<p><i>Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice (2013)</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015370">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9015370</a> - Feb 2015 (76 comments)<p><i>Do call yourself a programmer, and other career advice</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033135">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6033135</a> - July 2013 (112 comments)
There should remain some cachet when it comes to actually working directly with code that directly impacts software functionality. I love it. Coder, programmer, electron magician, logic monkey, or perhaps my favorite, Techpriest, call it whatever you want... at the end of the day this is the only job where you get paid to build completely nonphysical machines. I press keys that go clack clack, logic gates go flip flop, the electrons go zoom zoom, and my bank account goes ding ding.<p><i>From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine.<p>Your kind cling to your flesh, as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass that you call a temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal…<p>...even in death I serve the Omnissiah.</i>