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When Is the Perfect Time to Move on as a Developer?

Alex Fedorov on February 11, 2020

If you want to have a simple, easy, comfy, safe and secure job, then stop reading this post right this moment! Still here? Good. Let’s do this th...
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Bret Williams

I found myself pushed into management by my company and slowly over 10 years my technical skills rusted and I became slow and sloppy coding. Recently, let's say 2 years ago, I picked up a Swift book and taught myself how to make iOS apps and games and it was incredibly inspiring and fun.

I'm curious what advice developers have for managers who manage development teams so that they can stay technical. I study on my own time on the weekends and tinker with Swift but I feel like when I leave this job I'll have to go to a bootcamp to get up to speed again. I've looked at job postings for managers and surprisingly most of them require you to be a super star coder as well as a fabulous project manager and people person.

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Alex Fedorov

Hey, Bret!

You are not alone! Most of the engineering managers who I know (and who are good people managers) miss coding.

A simple solution would be some retreat once in a while, where you get together with other developers (or engineering managers with the same problem), and code away, or hack something up. This could be a hackathon or coding-dojo/coderetreat format—these are extremely fun!

You can organize such events internally in your company, join/hold community ones, and even probably go to conferences where there are such full-day activities.

I have even more thoughts and ideas about this and how this can be done. If you are interested in chatting about it (in person or video call), drop me a line via alex [at] foundsiders [dot] com!

Best,
Alex

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Sujay Kundu • Edited

That's a great article ! Thank you ! The entire article was very relating, and I believe this is the dilemma that is faced by most of the developers

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Alex Fedorov

Thank you! Do you have a particular example from your experience?

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Rene Padillo 🇵🇭 • Edited

great article, I can somehow relate a bit with 1 year repeated 20 times, however on my end it's more like 1~2 years every company. The problem I have before is not that I am not learning anymore but the financial problem side where I was like more underpaid and somehow it's not worth it that I am having a lot of responsibilities for a small pay.

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Alex Fedorov

Maybe there is a skill you could have developed to fix the underpay problem? ;)

(spoiler: it’s not a software development skill).

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Rene Padillo 🇵🇭

no, actually it's how the company was earning money.
imagine being paid once a month + 1~2 weeks delay.

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Alex Fedorov

That doesn’t sound too good. Likely, the business model wasn’t very sustainable, and they have made it possible by underpaying. Was the company, at least, a place where a beginner can rapidly learn? or not?

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Rene Padillo 🇵🇭

well, atleast during that time it was a place for beginner to rapidly learn, most of it were self-learning since no one at my company was doing front-end web development. A year in working in the company did help me a lot with boosting my experience, but yeah the pay was so terrible that I need to find a stable salary.

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Alex Fedorov

Okay. At least you got something out of the engagement—that’s great!

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Andrew Brown 🇨🇦

I am 3 months x at 15 years = ~45.

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Alex Fedorov

I am a little bit confused… Is it 3 months repeated for 15 years? Or something else? Could you write a more detailed comment? Thank you in advance!

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Andrew Brown 🇨🇦

I've created 40+ production application in that time frame generally on 3 month time lines.

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Alex Fedorov

Is there also some drawback of staying only for three months with a single application, and then moving on? What do you think?

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Andrew Brown 🇨🇦

I would say heavy production for 3 months, but many were maintained long-term, just not needing active development some as long as 10 years and still going.

When you are focused on putting that many apps into production you learn to go vanilla, find more reusability, carefully choose projects where you can stack effort.

At that speed, you can't stagnate since you need to keep pace.

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Alex Fedorov

Got it. Makes sense! I’m curious, have you been doing this alone, or was it a team effort?

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Andrew Brown 🇨🇦

I started alone and became a 10 person team (my company), but I was out churning apps and felt my existence was to supply paychecks for people who wanted cushy jobs and building passive income apps that never worked because the clients were just in it for the money.

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Alex Fedorov

I’d like to understand you better:

What do you mean by “the clients were just in it for the money?”

Were you building passive income apps as a company for your clients? Or were your employees building passive income apps on the side, while having a good paycheck at your company?

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Mitesh Kamat

Great article !!!
My takeaway ===> practice, deliver, fail, get feedback, improve, and repeat.

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Alex Fedorov

Yes. That is the main point. But also, a reflection upon your environment is essential as well. Whether it’s the right environment, and what learning opportunities are there, and whether it’s a good idea to create different ones (do no harm principle).

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Mitesh Kamat

Agreed !!

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Iru.

Good article! I wonder if you have any resources about how to be mentored. Not everybody has contacts that can help, and it's quite a personal thing ...

How u ppl deal with this?

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Alex Fedorov

I go to as many events as I can (limited to my energy levels and mood swings), and network with people. Because networking is hard for me, I use this cheatsheet to hack it a little bit (written by my co-founder).

When I find somebody interesting (who I can learn from, or who can learn from me, or both), I schedule a coffee chat with them. And that’s how I start these types of mentoring relationships (potentially bi-directional).

Also, once you know someone, and they are aware of your current and future challenges/problems, you can ask them, “who do you think I should also talk to?” And then ask them to make an introduction.

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Max Ong Zong Bao

This is a awesome article :)

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Alex Fedorov

Thank you!