DEV Community

Discussion on: Principle Of Compounding Interest In Your Career

Collapse
 
jamesmh profile image
James Hickey

I never said this was a "good" or "bad" thing. It's just the way it is.

I also never said you have to do these things to be "successful", which is a very subjective term.

Some people are ambitious with their career, some aren't. That's fine.

Let's reverse your question: is it fair that those who bust their butts to learn new skills, improve the ones they have, build a reputation and gain a diverse range of experience ought to move ahead in their careers relatively quicker than those who don't?

Would a company rather hire someone who's aquired those extra valuable skills and experience or not?

So again, I've never made any ethical arguments. It's the just the way the world works. Companies need to hire people who can produce certain results. If you can't prove yourself, then how do you expect companies to hire you?

Wouldn't you rather hire a well-known construction company who has a great track record and can show you many examples of sucessful houses they've built, rather than a company that no one has ever heard of and can't show you any previous results?

For a company, hiring a software engineer can be more costly than building a house (relatively speaking)! So then, they better be careful who they hire...

Or, if you owned large a company that needed to drastically change the way it does marketing, would you rather hire Seth Godin or someone who's been working for a relatively unknown market firm for the last 10 years?

These examples also lead me to disagree that it's only applicable in our industry.

I would say that the effects of doing the extra work is more impactful in our industry, especially given the saturation of developers in the market, but it's a matter of degree vs. having an effect at all/not.

I felt the same as you - I have 8 young children dude! You have no idea how busy I am... If anyone should be upset about this, it's me!

But instead of getting upset over what other people are doing/not doing, what my limitations are, and thinking about why I am not progressing like others, I'm taking action in ways that I am able - it's all I can do, right?

No one should be upset if I plant my own garden, as it were, and am able to harvest my own crops?

If you don't want to learn on the side, that's fine. There's no obligation.

But don't get upset if you see other developers putting the work in and landing better jobs and building their careers. For those who would rather not, that's fine.

Again, it's not about "successful" vs "not successful", it's about "if you value progression in your career beyond where you are, then here are some ways to go about doing it."

Thanks for the comment! I suspect many feel the same way, so it's great feedback 👌