(10+ years of experience here) I will be starting training for commercial pilot license next year. The pay is much less than one of a software engineer but I think this job is already done for most of us, only the top 5% will survive. I don’t think I’m part of that top and don’t want to go to management or PO roles so I am done with tech
Big commercial airplanes basically already fly themselves. But people feel safer with pilots on board just in case, I don’t think that’s going to change.
This forum leans backend heavy and there's definitely a bias against using javascript on the backend. But many top websites use it for their infrastructure. It's not all hype driven development.
You are right, except on the part about tweaking the prompt to get your desired code styling.
The easier way to integrate into an existing code base is just to refactor the code yourself. AI gives a working version, you refactor and move on. For me this has been a huge productivity boost from writing everything from scratch
Not sure why you are getting downvoted - this is literally what two of the people I know do. They actually make more than what I make at a FAANG. The real kicker? One of their jobs is a contractual position and so they opened up a business for it and hiring family members as employees to save on taxes. So the take home pay is actually higher than me.
Doing so however carries a lot of risk and one needs to have a certain mentality to be able to actually do it (I certainly don't have that).
Does anyone know a similar article for the opposite case? Technical guy looking for a salesperson co-founder.
I think many of the points of the article still apply, especially regarding opportunity cost. A great salesman can make way, way more than a great engineer, so why would he want to join me?
And let's say I want to hire my first salesperson. How do I know who is good and who is not? For me as an engineer, everyone looks like a good salesman, because everyone is better than me (I suck at sales)
If you don’t know the criteria for a good salesperson for your product you don’t know enough about the problem you’re solving and shouldn’t hire anyone, yet.
Similarly, if you don’t know exactly what to build to solve a problem (= you haven’t already validated it with low tech tools) you shouldn’t hire an engineer to build anything.
True. I remember I used this back in the day when I was a pro online poker player. I would like to try again in Software, maybe to kickstart an indie project ... food for thought.
How often do you use it and have you found any side effects? (or long term effects for that matter)
I use about 100mg (average amount) 2-4 days a week for the last 1.5 years, going through a very challenging project. I had a small stretch of time when my skin started drying up on the forehead and was peeling off in minor quantities, so i took a break for a month and it fixed it.
Some of the days I may not take it and not notice it, there's definitely no cravings. But during a break I felt slightly hazy when getting off it. I do notice an increase in typical stimulator tell-tale symptoms (like some jaw clenching), but i do have that from coffee as well (which i drink too). There can be days when i'm too wired up to fall asleep fast, so i may drop a 5-htp pill.
The upside is that there's a lot of times when I manage to really concentrate on some activities. Doing 8 hours shifts is trivial. People note that I am pretty responsive at the end of the working days. Quite often I manage to do some personal hobby work after a full working day too.
Modafinil doesn't have the ecstatic effects of Adderall and its friends, so working a lot can make me feel overly emotionally invested into some things that are not important in a grand picture. The stress can add up if not managed well. So I do not recommend working a lot for working's sake, there has to be a cause to pull heroic stunts like this. My excuse is to save up the money to enable myself to do other activites not related to programming later.
How's your sleep and emotional state when using it like this? With an elimination half-life of 15h, 2-4 days a week it won't leave your body.
I personally hated it for this reason - poor sleep, tossing and turning even with a sleep aid -> feeling emotionally unstable and even less productive the following day. Plus unable to recover from any moderate sports activity.
