I recently went through a backup CD of old documents and ran into a piece called "the beta geek". It was something I had written years ago, when I was working at small to medium sized IT companies. I was at an early stage in my career: enough experience under my belt to climb the career letter a few steps, but not enough to deal with all the frustrations that such a progression brought with it. My companies were too small to have a healthplan that paid for a really good shrink, so I did the next best thing to therapy: I wrote all my issues down to vent.
As I reread the venom filled pages, the ghosts of jobs past revisited me. How angry I had been. How unfair life sometimes seemed to me. Now that I am a little older, and wiser, I realize that what happened to me was in no way different from the many other young software engineers who happened to not get swept up by some dreamy Silicon Valley software giant. Thus, if I wasn't special in any way, then neither were the mistakes I made or witnessed early-on. Maybe talking about them could help somebody else to not loose as much sleep at night.
I picked the most generally applicable pieces of my work and ordered them according to the seven cardinal sins: Pride, Greed, Envy, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth. While noy each story will apply to every single reader , I hope you will find the material interesting and useful.
Language
English
Format
Kindle Edition
The seven deadly sins of beginning Software Engineers
I recently went through a backup CD of old documents and ran into a piece called "the beta geek". It was something I had written years ago, when I was working at small to medium sized IT companies. I was at an early stage in my career: enough experience under my belt to climb the career letter a few steps, but not enough to deal with all the frustrations that such a progression brought with it. My companies were too small to have a healthplan that paid for a really good shrink, so I did the next best thing to therapy: I wrote all my issues down to vent.
As I reread the venom filled pages, the ghosts of jobs past revisited me. How angry I had been. How unfair life sometimes seemed to me. Now that I am a little older, and wiser, I realize that what happened to me was in no way different from the many other young software engineers who happened to not get swept up by some dreamy Silicon Valley software giant. Thus, if I wasn't special in any way, then neither were the mistakes I made or witnessed early-on. Maybe talking about them could help somebody else to not loose as much sleep at night.
I picked the most generally applicable pieces of my work and ordered them according to the seven cardinal sins: Pride, Greed, Envy, Anger, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth. While noy each story will apply to every single reader , I hope you will find the material interesting and useful.