Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Some cynical lessons from 15 years in:

1. Politics is everything - how you are perceived is politics, whether you get assigned the projects you want is politics, career progression whether technical or managerial is entirely politics. You will be told various nonsenses about 'flat structures' and 'meritocracy' throughout your career but it's bollocks. Play the game badly and the flat structure is your career.

2. Most programmers don't care - as much as you might care about software engineering principles or even minimal levels of quality in your work, you will be shocked at the degree to which most of your colleagues do not. They might give lip service to it but when it comes to it most justify doing a crappy job by hand waving about being practical. If you talk even mildly about code quality expect to have it patronisingly explained to you 100 times over that you are a perfectionist and customers don't care and etc. Etc. (Of course these arguments are easily rebutted straw men but good luck getting that across).

3. Raising what's right usually hurts you - people do not like to hear uncomfortable or irritating truths. See point 1. Pointing out that something is a risk or severely broken is more likely to get you hassle and lower people's view of you and God help you if you are proven right - there is never a 'oh you were right!'. Nobody likes to be made to look bad. Again see 1.

4. Never underestimate how shit the code is in your next job - the interview very rarely gives you the slightest insight into the quality of a new employer's codebase and never be surprised at just how terrible it can be.

5. We'll fix it later means we will never fix it - technical debt is a lot like national debt - ever growing and rarely paid down. If you are fobbed off with a 'we will refactor that later' comment take that to mean 'this is shit and I am fine with that'.

6. Sideways shifts reset your career to zero - there is no such thing as treating development experience as fungable. You are only as good as your years in this particular slice of the industry and more often than not you are only as good as your years in this particular company.

7. Fuck you pay me - at any time if you are told by an employer that you are part of a family or that your pay rise couldn't happen because you are already paid highly for your title or other such nonsense, start looking for another job, you are being used.



> 6. Sideways shifts reset your career to zero - there is no such thing as treating development experience as fungable. You are only as good as your years in this particular slice of the industry and more often than not you are only as good as your years in this particular company.

This one has burned me a bunch of times in my career already and I'm not quite a decade in. I really want to find a corner of the industry I can focus on and gain momentum in my career but it's been challenging to do that.




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2026 batch! Applications are open till Nov 10

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: