ShakyJake
<Donor>
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IT/Software career thread: Invert binary trees for dollars.
- Thread starter Traak
- Start date
Vinen
God is dead
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As part of my career I approach continued education and learning by targeting certifications. The more expensive ones will be coming up on Black Friday sales. I aim to do this one next.
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) | Linux Foundation Education
Training in skills, knowledge, and competency to perform the responsibilities of Kubernetes administrators and become a CKA.training.linuxfoundation.org
I know many avoid this as they are not necessary and they certainly haven't netted me a job directly. But they have vastly expanded and honed my abilities in understanding exactly how to do stuff and what the limitations truly are. This makes it much easier to speak when most other engineers are just ignorant of things outside of their specific narrow scope. Which has benefitted me a lot over the years.
The most incompetent people I've seen in industry have had the most certifications.
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TJT
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Start by talking to your manager about applying for it first. I have encouraged that with my folks and actually helped them level up their careers that way, as I championed their application for elevated internal roles.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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Sheriff Cad
scientia potentia est
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I've seen that go both ways depending on the manager. I generally believe in doing things the right way and good things happen to you, so for an internal position I think talking to your manager is the right thing. I've had other managers try to sabotage those type of applications because they don't want other departments "stealing their people" or "poaching their high performers." Totally depends on how tribal and defensive your current manager is. Try to thread that needle when you talk to him/her.
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Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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ToeMissile
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Maybe test the waters with a “thinking about the next phase of my career” chat. Frame it as asking for advice.
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Work harder, not smarter. I could use some advice, books, youtube videos, whatever. I feel like I've been compensating for a lack of....high level?...organizational skills by just working more and more. At least a couple days per week, I'm pretty much working all day outside of eating and spending a bit of time with the family.
I wrote up a checklist for a release activity. It was adapted from an existing checklist and reviewed by relevant developers, but I hadn't actually ran it yet because that's at least a day and I don't have that kind of time. Plus, I'm going to actually run it next week as part of the release. My boss insists on using AI to execute and review the checklist but I'm hesitant as while that might be useful in the long run, sounds like at least some hours to get up and running. As in, put it in my fucking iteration if you want it done, that's not a side quest. He calls me up later and we both spend 4 hours of our day using AI to review the checklist. I can't remember the last time I felt like I had 4 hours to spare.
I'm slowly ramping up test development on a server. Due to the way our tests run, we cannot simply run them serially as that will lead to serious underutilization. But we're also trying to cram lots of different tests onto this server, our only one for tests that are not feasible to do nightly. So, big things like analyzing AOSP. Dogfooding with continuously growing artifacts. Distributed analysis with a non-uniform slave pool. Seems like a nightmare to manage, so I put it off until I had too much running serially. When my boss found out I hadn't done it yet, I didn't deny it was a mistake, I just wanted agreement that it was feature-level work(i.e. put it in my fucking iteration). Instead, he calls me up immediately and we spend the next 2 hours making a crude spreadsheet that I suspect will be inadequate in the long run.
I'm annoyed at myself because I often seem to approach tasks with this "uh, just start doing stuff" mentality. I'm annoyed at my boss because I'm sure he intends well, using AI to execute checklists was legitimately cool, there's gotta be a better way than verbal side quests and phone ambushes.
But mostly, I'm annoyed that I'm not really sure who to talk to about this within my company. My boss works more than me. I don't like having hours of my day spent on unplanned tasks, but he's often helping, so feels kinda tone deaf. We recently merged with another company and anyone above my boss is part of the other company, so going to them feels like giving them a reason.
I wrote up a checklist for a release activity. It was adapted from an existing checklist and reviewed by relevant developers, but I hadn't actually ran it yet because that's at least a day and I don't have that kind of time. Plus, I'm going to actually run it next week as part of the release. My boss insists on using AI to execute and review the checklist but I'm hesitant as while that might be useful in the long run, sounds like at least some hours to get up and running. As in, put it in my fucking iteration if you want it done, that's not a side quest. He calls me up later and we both spend 4 hours of our day using AI to review the checklist. I can't remember the last time I felt like I had 4 hours to spare.
I'm slowly ramping up test development on a server. Due to the way our tests run, we cannot simply run them serially as that will lead to serious underutilization. But we're also trying to cram lots of different tests onto this server, our only one for tests that are not feasible to do nightly. So, big things like analyzing AOSP. Dogfooding with continuously growing artifacts. Distributed analysis with a non-uniform slave pool. Seems like a nightmare to manage, so I put it off until I had too much running serially. When my boss found out I hadn't done it yet, I didn't deny it was a mistake, I just wanted agreement that it was feature-level work(i.e. put it in my fucking iteration). Instead, he calls me up immediately and we spend the next 2 hours making a crude spreadsheet that I suspect will be inadequate in the long run.
I'm annoyed at myself because I often seem to approach tasks with this "uh, just start doing stuff" mentality. I'm annoyed at my boss because I'm sure he intends well, using AI to execute checklists was legitimately cool, there's gotta be a better way than verbal side quests and phone ambushes.
But mostly, I'm annoyed that I'm not really sure who to talk to about this within my company. My boss works more than me. I don't like having hours of my day spent on unplanned tasks, but he's often helping, so feels kinda tone deaf. We recently merged with another company and anyone above my boss is part of the other company, so going to them feels like giving them a reason.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
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Are you doing agile/scrum or anything with real planning? It's tough to visualize what the real problem here is - almost like there's no planning and you're just trying to do everything at once?
Lendarios
Trump's Staff
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My company pays for Claude enterprise, and my budget is around 1200 a month.
I am very effective with it, and it allows me to be very productive, 3 to 5 times. I have been a developer for 20 years and with the same company close to 11 years, so I know where all the pieces are, even if I did not made them myself.
it also helped me transition from c# to python, and now I manage two teams, one on each language.
Claude makes everything easier, makes my job overall much more enjoyable.
The other day a manager needed a report that required amazing 400 files to see if we contacting an api, or an html endpoint, and it was a 5 sentence prompt, boom done. Without I would have never gone through so many files.
I am very effective with it, and it allows me to be very productive, 3 to 5 times. I have been a developer for 20 years and with the same company close to 11 years, so I know where all the pieces are, even if I did not made them myself.
it also helped me transition from c# to python, and now I manage two teams, one on each language.
Claude makes everything easier, makes my job overall much more enjoyable.
The other day a manager needed a report that required amazing 400 files to see if we contacting an api, or an html endpoint, and it was a 5 sentence prompt, boom done. Without I would have never gone through so many files.
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ShakyJake
<Donor>
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I think you're being a little too hard on yourself. To me, this sounds more like a planning problem than an organization problem on your part. Your boss might mean well, but constantly throwing unplanned work at you without taking anything else off your plate just isn't sustainable. And you're right these aren't little side tasks. They're actual engineering work that takes time. I'd probably start pushing back a little with something like, "sure we can do that, but what are we pushing out of the iteration to make room for it?" There's only so much you can get done in a day, no matter how organized you are.
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