- The best way I've advanced my career is by changing companies.
- Technology stacks don't really matter because there are like 15 basic patters of software engineering in my field that apply. I work in data so it's not going to be the same as webdev or embedded. But all fields have about 10-20 core principles and the tech stack is just strying to make those things easier, so don't fret over it.
- There's a reason why people recommend job hunting. If I'm unsatisfied at a job, it's probably time to move on.
- I've made some good, lifelong friends at companies I've worked with. I don't need to make that a requirement of every place I work. I've been perfectly happy working at places where I didn't from friendships with my coworkers and I've been unhappy at places where I made some great friends.
- I've leared to be honest with my manager. Not too host, but honest enough where I can be authentic at work. What's the worse that can happen? He fire me? I'll just pick up a new job in 2 weeks.
- If I'm awaken at 2am for being on-call for more than once per quarter, than something is seriously wrong and I will either fix it or quit.
- Qualities of a good manager shares a lot of qualities of a good engineer
- When I first started, I was enamoured with technology and programming and computer science. I'm over it
- Good code is code that can be understood by a junior engineer. Great code can be understood by first year CS student. The best code is no code at all.
- The most underrated skill to learn as an engineer is how to document. Fuck, someone please teach me how to write good documentation. Seriously, if there's any recommendations, I'd seriously pay for a course. (like probably a lot of money, maybe 1k for a course if it guaranteed that I could write good docs.)
- Related to above, writing good proposals for changes is a great skill.
- Almost every holy war out there (vim vs emacs, mac vs linux, whatever) doesn't matter... except one. See below.
- The older I get, the more I appreciate dynamic languages. FUck, I said it. Fight me.
- If I ever find myself thinking I'm the smartest person in the room, it's time to leave.
- I don't know why full stack webdevs are paid so poorly. No really, they should be paid like half a mil a year just base salary. Fuck they have to understand both front end AND back end AND how different browsers work AND networking AND databases AND caching AND differences between web and mobile AND omg what the fuck there's another framework out there that companies want to use? Seriously, why are webdevs paid so little.
- We should hire more interns, they're awsome. Those energetic little fucks with their ideas. Even better when they can question or criticize something. I love interns.
- Don't meet your heroes. I paid 5k to take a course by one of my heroes. He's brilliant man, but at the end of it I realized that he's making it up as he goes along like the rest of us.
- Tech stack matters. OK I just said tech stack doesn't matter, but hear me out. If you hear Python dev vs C++ dev, you think of very different things, right? That's because certain tools are reall good at certain jobs. If you're not sure what you want to do, just do Java. It's a shitty programming language that's good at almost everything.
- The greatest programming language ever is lisp. I should learn lisp.
- For beginners, the most lucrative programming language to learn is SQL. Fuck all other languages. If you know SQL and nothing else, you can make bank. Payroll specialist? Maybe 50k. Payroll specialist who knows SQL? 90k. Avarage joe with organizational skills at a big corp? $40k. Average joe with organization skills and sql? Call yourself a PM and earn $150k