Ask Slashdot: Advancing a Programming Career?

AuMatar writes "I've been a professional programmer for 10 years. The startup I work for was recently bought, and while I was offered a full-time job, I opted to accept only a six-month contract. At my most recent job, I was lead developer for a platform that shipped tens of millions of units, leading a team that spanned up to three geographical areas I've done everything from maintenance to brand new apps. About the only thing I haven't done is been lead architect on a large system. What else is there to look for in the next job so it won't just feel like the same challenges all over again? I'm not interested in starting my own company, so I'm looking for suggestions assuming I'll be working for someone else."

Comments

How do you feel about Lumberjacks?

[RingDev]

Every developer hits that point eventually. And your choices aren't necesarily limited. Assuming you're ok with a pay cut.

There are plenty of opportunities to move in the direction or Project/IT management. That's the direction I've gone. 15 years of seeing poorly run projects and trying to get them back on track has left me pretty well practiced for taking the reigns.

Switching over to the networking side of the house isn't a bad option either. There's some learning involved, and you're not going to start out as a senior architect, but you can get work with the ancilary skills you've developed.

All industries can benefit from exceptionally bright solution developers. Look into 6-Sigma training and advance your career into process improvement.

And if all else fails, get out of the office. Find yourself a lumbar jack gig, maybe come camp counciling in the summer, park maintenance in the Everglades, etc....

-Rick

Re:How do you feel about Lumberjacks?

[rubycodez]

Dear Sir,

I wish to complain on the strongest possible terms about the previous entry in this webpage about the lumberjack who wears womens' clothes. Some of my best friends are lumberjacks, and only a few of them are transvestites.

Yours faithfully,


Brigadier Sir Charles Arthur Strong (Mrs.)

Re:Own Company or Game Designing

[Anonymous Coward]

I would really suggest you look into game designing and not programming. The latter is crunch work that can be done by almost anyone and in the long run extremely annoying. Designing is fun.

I did games for 17 years and I disagree with that statement.
There are parts of game development that can be done by almost anyone, and those parts suck. Things like shitty game AI and front ends. Things that don;t take any insight, just hours of monkey work.
Then there are the parts that separate out the chaff, the low level optimization and driver stuff. I did the latter for almost all of my career and it was a blast. Every five years or so a new generation of hardware comes down the pipe and you get to wrap your head around a whole new set of problems building on the knowledge and experiences of before. Going form the old 8 bit stuff all the way to current consoles has been a hell of a ride.
As for game designers, I've only worked with a couple that weren't idiots. The biggest problem I had with them is their inability to think about their decisions ahead of time and require the devs to actually build the bad ideas before understanding how awful their decisions actually were. The good designers were a blessing to work with. They had a clear vision and an understanding on how to get there. The projects with good designers you build once. The projects with poor designers get built two or three times on the way to final and are usually poorer for the effort.

If you think you could be a good game designer then GO FOR IT! The industry needs you.

Re:Similar Situation

[wmelnick]

Here is the problem you are about to face... Next time you work under someone, you are going to second-guess everything they do. What you need to do it to ask your company to send you for management training, my guess is that based on how you phrased things you have never had any. After that you need to take the time to figure out how to explain to your subordinates how you want something done and let them do it. You may think you are the best person to do something, but if you can teach 5 or 10 (or more) people to do it the same way, that makes you far more valuable to the company and will get a you a larger paycheck as well. You just need to figure out how to do it all in a way that does not stress you to the point of snapping and eventually it will become easy and natural. All that being said there is nothing to stop you from trying to teach the occasional night class at a local college.