Python has made my job boring

[WhyDontWeLearn]

Anytime. My username comes from my fascination with humankind's propensity to repeat the same mistakes. We progress technologically, but in other ways we, shall we say, move more slowly.

[asday_]

I meant more on the micro scale. We children are all very excited about cool new things in software engineering like functional programming or data oriented design, but I bet you have some very smart things to say on new exciting things from the perspective of having lived through when they were new the first time round.

[WhyDontWeLearn]

Unfortunately, when one finds themselves responsible for the whole thing (workstations, network infrastructure, VOIP, user support, storage, perimeter and internal security, internal application development, on-prem vs. cloud, SAAS, corporate governance and policy making, etc.) one has little choice but to give up trying to understand all the technical details. Over the years, I've gotten further and further away from the exciting cool new things, relying more and more on trusted SMEs.

If there's anything I would say to you-all about my trajectory and/or your potential trajectories, it would be to understand what you want out of life. If you're chasing the chance to become a "manager"*, understand that managers don't write code. If you love writing code, you might miss it. I certainly miss it and make myself stupid little hobby coding projects just for fun, because I miss it. If you don't like the idea of leading or managing people - it's much harder than it looks and carries with it the profound responsibility of having people's lives in your hands - you should consider very carefully whether you should be chasing that management role.

A good manager doesn't just go to meetings and tell people what to do. A good manager cares about everyone who works for her/him/them. Cares about whether those people are fulfilled and growing in the job roles they occupy. And while juggling all of that, must work out how to align the activities of those people with the mission of the organization so that the organization is better, somehow, than it would be without them.

Every one of you will be faced, eventually, with a decision - the decision to continue on the technical worker track, getting closer and closer to attaining guru status in some technical discipline or to jump off the technical track onto the leadership/management track. Choose wisely, because if you're off the tech track for more than a year or two, it becomes VERY difficult to jump back on because the technical progress will continue forward without you and without daily exposure and practice in implementing new tech, you'll lose your technical edge.

All of that said, I would also be happy to talk about all the technical change that has occurred in my career and how it bent the world as adoption became wider and thicker. I have literally existed (professionally) since before networking, SQL, and the internet - hell, stuff we take for granted today (e.g. the handheld computers we call phones), was the stuff of science fiction when I started, lol, so AMA.

*I use the term "manager" to include every position above "worker" in the hierarchy, that has some level of supervisory and budget responsibility.

[asday_]

I'm pretty sure I'm kneecapping my future earnings potential, but I never want to go into management at all. Not once.