This point is the most important IMO. It's so common for people to do things without asking themselves why they're doing it. Every line of code should fulfill a clear purpose. You want to avoid writing code which is difficult to explain to a non-technical person.
>> People don’t really want innovation... If you believe in what you’re doing, and know it will really improve things, then brace yourself for a long battle.
This sounds ridiculous at a glance, but it 100% matches my own experience in pretty much every company and project I've ever worked on.
It applies to everything; jobs, getting funding. Nobody wants to see real innovation and nobody wants to see real talent. If you're too good as a developer and innovate too much, developers who work for big companies will get jealous and they will reject you. If you're very good, you need to pretend to be mediocre and above all; compliant.
Mmm, in my experience, it’s more that people don’t believe that something truly valuable to them comes packaged in your arrogance, brilliance, or effortlessness.
They’re so accustomed to those things being signs of assholes, or reasons to feel inadequate, that they resist looking at what’s being delivered.
The OP’s point about bracing for a long battle means that truly persuading others is not just about making the amazing thing. It’s about having the humility to weather their resistance and care harder than they do about the merits of the way. And patiently, tenaciously demonstrating the value instead of doing anything that seems like boasting about it. Then they’ll stop ignoring you, and you’ll both win.
I'm not at all arrogant in real life.
My last boss even told me that I don't stand up for myself enough. Besides, I didn't even say it was about me and merely brought it up to make a point.
Imagine constantly improving yourself for 15 years, then after 15 years, everyone you work with only gives you positive feedback and everyone wants to be on your team. You even launch open source projects which get thousands of stars on GitHub... You know you're good because there is no other explanation and nobody helped you and you have 0 meaningful industry connections and come from a modest background... but somehow you struggle to even land a first technical interview at a big tech corporation in spite of having the required university degree. That's my situation, so forgive me if I sound like an asshole on this anonymous website where I can finally vent my frustration.
One person tells me my problem is that I might be an asshole and you tell me my problem might be that I'm too nice... Why is it so far fetched to suggest that maybe the problem is not me? What if the problem is that most people in power have impostor syndrome and they feel jealous and/or guilty when they see a competent person who didn't achieve as much as they did. It makes them doubt their own success narrative. People don't want to be reminded how lucky they are; as an employee, I would be a walking reminder of that. That's the best explanation I can come up with to explain my experience in recent years why I struggle to find opportunities. I had many more opportunities 5 years ago back when I was far less skilled.
CTO types wants to be mentors to starry-eyed juniors, they don't want to improve themselves anymore, they think they're already as good as they can be, they don't want to be schooled by some low rank person.
> One person tells me my problem is that I might be an asshole and you tell me my problem might be that I'm too nice...
No, what the GP actually said was
>> I wonder if you suffer from Nice Guy Syndrome.
That's not the same thing. Because sufferers from Nice Guy Syndrome only actually think they're being "nice", but they're being so in ways or from motives that actually make them, in practice, assholes. (Sorry if that's a distortion or oversimplification of the book GP suggested; I recently skimmed through it, but didn't actually get to read the whole thing.)
> Why is it so far fetched to suggest that maybe the problem is not me?
Because usually, when one person has trouble with everyone else, and goes "What's wrong with all of them?!?", Ockham's Razor suggests the simpler hypothesis, "Maybe there's something wrong with you?", lies nearer to hand.
All in all, I'd suggest you try to get that book and read it more thoroughly than I did. (And so should I.)
> developers who work for big companies will get jealous and they will reject you. If you're very good, you need to pretend to be mediocre and above all; compliant.
To add to what another poster said, it's not jealousy.
Big companies move slow because generally, to get big, they had to be successful (to some extent) and changing too much all at once is a risk that the bureaucracy isn't always comfortable with.
One of my old managers (I work in "enterprise") used to say things like "the efficiencies that this solution will bring the company..." which was just a euphemism for more folks getting laid-off (happened all the time, and glassdoor was full of warnings about this) or more jobs being shipped to our offshore units or even down-sizing in our offshore units.
I think it's reasonable, at least in the US, where healthcare & retirement & welfare is so tightly coupled with employment, for folks in big companies to be wary of innovation. They might want their job to be easier, sure, but too easy and they could be out of a job (for example, if the workload that previously took 5 people can now be managed by 2 or 3).
Maybe. It could be a fear of anybody who is talented enough and ambitious enough to potentially disrupt the pecking order within the company. Unfortunately, it feels like almost all the big companies are like this.
I think "jealous" is not a useful lens here. People reject innovation because genuinely changing the way the way they have to do things is painful even if the attempt fails, and will probably lead to some people losing their jobs if it succeeds.
>> Nobody asks “why” enough
This point is the most important IMO. It's so common for people to do things without asking themselves why they're doing it. Every line of code should fulfill a clear purpose. You want to avoid writing code which is difficult to explain to a non-technical person.
>> People don’t really want innovation... If you believe in what you’re doing, and know it will really improve things, then brace yourself for a long battle.
This sounds ridiculous at a glance, but it 100% matches my own experience in pretty much every company and project I've ever worked on.
It applies to everything; jobs, getting funding. Nobody wants to see real innovation and nobody wants to see real talent. If you're too good as a developer and innovate too much, developers who work for big companies will get jealous and they will reject you. If you're very good, you need to pretend to be mediocre and above all; compliant.