Career 2.0 for Software developers

A Talk by Jared Richardson entitled career 2.0 was given as the Keynote for No Fluff Just Stuff(NFJS) Conference in Chicago this weekend. On the surface the speech reminded me of a Tony Robbins speech or ‘How to become rich selling real estate’ except it was ‘How to get on the Tech Lecture circuit’. However, once you look past his style there were good takeaways. Here are two of them:

Drive your own career/Continually learn

Don’t just depend on your job to drive the technologies that you learn. Avoid the Victim mentality. Learn an open source technology and get involved.

My Take

Remember early in our life we were told ‘Do what you enjoy’. Unfortunately, in technology circles the focus often becomes ‘Learn the hot technology’. However, that ignores one of the keys to a happy and fulfilling life ‘Find and live your passion’. Some will say ‘Ok, where do I start’,and other will say ‘Hold on I don’t know about this’. To the former group of people I say stop reading right now and begin exploring. To the later I say you can make your life better. Most of us have a family to support and bills to pay. The thought about finding your passion may raise many conflicting feelings:


Fear: no one will pay be to do that, I am not smart enough.
Uncertainty: will I have the time, money.
Doubt: there is so much to learn and the field is filled by 20 something’s.
Excitement: that would be wonderful, I can do that !

All of these are valid feelings and I am not saying quit your job. Decide just for today to concentrate on the positive aspects, making your life just a little better richer. Each day decide to recommit just that day to learning something new. Soon, it will begin positively impacting how you see yourself, your job, your family and your life.

I am assuming you can find something your passionate about in technology, I could be wrong. You may be overwhelmed at all the Open Source Projects that are out there when you first look, I was and still am. Give yourself permission to look around. Revisit a childhood or college interest, or discover a new technology. It’s more important to enjoy the process as you are learning the technology, especially for the first few months. This builds success and this success will allow you delve deeper into a subject when it becomes more complex. You may find yourself hopping from technology to technology that’s ok and even healthy. Or, you may find something that interests you immediately.


Some of you will disagree and say you have to always be thinking of a way to make money. For some yes, that is certainly the way that Jeff Bezos of Amazon fame did it. However, few of us are as driven as Bezos. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, that is the road to frustration.

Sailing into a new place

When I first learned to windsurf I became aware of the wind. I was constantly feeling and balancing the pressure of the wind with my entire body working as a unit. When I tried to sail directly into the wind I would either fall over or get blown backward. The easiest and scariest thing to do is go with the wind, it can be a real rush riding at full speed. However, it only goes one way. To get where I wanted to go I had to tack back and forth across the wind. And so it is with our career. If where you want to go seems over whelming or if the pressures of your commitments,job, family life are demanding take a smaller bite out of it(learning), and maintain speed (enjoyment). If demands of the job or family are lighter take a bigger bite out the wind(learning), and maintain speed (enjoyment).




WHERE TO START ?

Fine you say but where do I find new interesting technology A place to start might Apache, Codehaus, Sourceforge, or Google Code. The sites are listed from the safest to least safest to download and install software. The fact that you have the source code makes it less likely that you will download malware which you might get from download.com or other sites. Apache represents in my mind the absolute safest place to start. They tightly control who is a committer and what code is contributed. They are very stringent on incubating a new project. Because of this corporations are more likely to use and depend on these products though there are fewer projects and smaller diversity than at some other sites. At the other end of the spectrum there is Sourceforge and , Google Code, both have a very diverse echo system. The more active a project is the easier it is to verify its authenticity by viewing user comments, bug reports, and release history. Sourceforge has been around much longer and the projects may have a longer history which again gives a better chance to verify the authenticity of the project. While safety always comes first, the main criteria initially should be that the project interest you personally.


Jarred: Be Visible

Jarred suggests learning a technology first by reading and asking questions. Write Documentation. Then contribute bug fixes. Eventually, the core committers may ask you to join them. Then before you know it you be lecturing and touring the country just like him. Eventually, you won’t have to create a resume because your reputation wills proceed you.


My Take

Not every one wants to be a speaker but again there is allot of good advice in what he said.

In early 2001 I was elected to be an Apache Struts committer, which was quite a surprise! I mainly helped in cleaning up the Struts 1.1 codebase for sub modules, and started the long slow march towards using Maven. Being a committer takes allot of effort and time, and I was active for 2 years. Some committers have lasted for years ‘Don Brown’ comes to mind and still others only last for a few months. I once bemoaned the high committer turnover. I thought it was better to pace yourself as a committer so that you could last for many years. My thinking on the matter has changed some and is more forgiving. Committers drop out for many reasons: new job, divorce, burnout and we can’t always control it. I view not over committing as still important[No pun intended :)]. Become involved to the point that you enjoy the work, or take satisfaction in job well done after a hard push. If you are feeling resentful or overworked then it’s time to take a step back. Maybe that involves taking a break, doing things differently, or stepping down. Most importantly let the other committers know what is going on This is where I could have done a much better job. Most people will understand, and support you.

Final Thoughts ?

Commit to continually learn and invest in yourself your'e worth it !