
How did you get where you are? - Tmp1234
I’d like to get a collection of the following things from the programmers who come on here:<p>Your subjective experience coding and your story- How long have you been coding? How difficult has it been? Are you noticeably quicker&#x2F;slower or less&#x2F;more skilled than your peers? How hard did you have to work and study to get where you’ve gotten? What were the roadblocks? Do you have any lessons and advice for people considering becoming a programmer or struggling? Are you happy with where your at? Would you do it again?<p>Occupational and educational outcome- Which company do you work for? What position do you have? How complex and challenging is the work? How much do you make? If you’re not working or just starting - What school do you go to? What’s your GPA? What projects have you done? Which internships? How has the technical interview process been for you? Finally, if you were on either of those paths and then changed direction, why?<p>IQ – If you’ve taken a real IQ test under the supervision of a psychologist only. Please, don’t post if you’ve never taken a real IQ test, are not willing to share your score or want to debate the value of IQ.<p>The IQ data point is why I feel the need to make this thread rather than just googling and reading the plethora of blogs or threads which already share the first two points. I’ve almost never seen or heard someone mention alongside their story and achievements any objective information about their natural abilities. The objective part is key as you can still have struggled and discredit the role of your natural abilities despite being a genuine genius. I believe this information is critical to being able to interpret any story of this sort correctly.
======
hluska
You're collecting one hell of a lot of personal information here and frankly,
I'm not comfortable sharing that level of information without some idea of
what you're doing with all of it.

Finally, with the way you admonish people in the IQ section and the brand new,
anon account, I'm inclined towards not trusting you.

~~~
Tmp1234
If you don't want to share, that's fine. I'm just trying to get some data to
help me make a choice in my own life about my career.

My experience has been bringing up intelligence or IQ automatically people
always bring up a set of counterarguments on why it doesn't matter or
shouldn't be focused on and because people sometimes say things like "I took
an IQ test on X.com and got 234" cause those are not accurate. I'm trying to
prevent those responses.

~~~
hluska
You might like StackOverflow's surveys as they go into all of this, though in
a highly generalized way. Many people are more comfortable sharing deeply
personal, highly structured information like this when they know the results
will be anonymized.

Can I also give you some unsolicited career advice?

First, a great deal of this industry happens over writing. In this case, you
have made a very significant, highly structured and deeply personal ask. Yet,
you have done so in language that genuinely makes me distrust you. If I were
you, I would learn to soften my approach, particularly when I'm asking for
help. If you would like some specific examples, feel free to ask here or via
email (it's on my profile). I would be glad to help you, but I don't want to
batter you for no reason.

Second, if having a discussion about IQ's value in software development is
that annoying to you, I worry that this field would make you profoundly
unhappy.

~~~
Tmp1234
I never knew about those surveys. Thanks for pointing them out. They don't
seem to get at what I'm seeking though. There are no connections drawn between
innate ability, self described difficulty in the field and thresholds of
prestige and compensation reached given the first two which is what I'm
interested in. Maybe, I'm not looking at the data in the right way though.

I'm open to whatever advice you have to offer even if it comes along with
"battering." I would posit though, and correct me if I'm wrong, that what
maybe you don't like what I've said rather than you not trusting me? I can see
how the sort of bluntness I used can be off putting to some and how the nature
of the questions are inherently personal and thus uncomfortable, but I
struggle to see how anything I wrote makes me seem malicious or untrustworthy.
I know people tend to distrust what they dislike and trust what they like
which is a huge fallacy, but a heuristic many people feel comfortable acting
on or, perhaps, don't even notice they act on. If that's not the case here
though, I'm very interested in why you feel distrust.

I don't see any correlation between enjoyment of the discussion about the role
of IQ in software development and satisfaction as a software engineer. Can you
explain what you mean?

~~~
hluska
I understand more about what you're looking for. I still won't answer your
questions, but I understand you now. Unfortunately, I don't know of any
resources, but this seems like something that someone would have written about
in some business school. Have you tried Google Scholar? You might even find
some good case material about hiring software engineers.

Alternately, maybe you could learn more from Triplebyte's blog? I've read a
couple of really amazing articles about selecting successful engineers on
their site and I bet that I've missed many other high quality articles.

As far as your wording goes, jolmg gave you some excellent advice,
particularly along the 'please don't post' line. Personally, I can assure you
that it isn't a matter of disliking you. Honestly, if I didn't like you, I
wouldn't have posted here at all. I like you and want to help you, just not
under the terms that you outlined.

As for the part about the correlation between the role of IQ and satisfaction
as a software engineer, I might be hearing you wrong. I think that you're
saying that repetitively debating the same subject annoys you. Am I right, or
are you saying that you find the particular topic of IQ annoying?

~~~
Tmp1234
I'll look at Triplebyte's blog. Another resource I didn't know about you've
pointed me to.

>>Personally, I can assure you that it isn't a matter of disliking you.
Honestly, if I didn't like you, I wouldn't have posted here at all. I like you
and want to help you, just not under the terms that you outlined.

Well, my problem is not being able to determine if I should quit trying to
become a programmer specifically because of lack of ability. If you can help
me make that decision I welcome it. Probably would make more sense if we PMed
about this though.

>>As for the part about the correlation between the role of IQ and
satisfaction as a software engineer, I might be hearing you wrong. I think
that you're saying that repetitively debating the same subject annoys you. Am
I right, or are you saying that you find the particular topic of IQ annoying?

Both are true. I don't like repeat debates that go no where nor do I like the
primarily ideologically based stances people have on IQ and natural ability in
general.

What I was asking was in relation to you saying- "if having a discussion about
IQ's value in software development is that annoying to you, I worry that this
field would make you profoundly unhappy." So I don't know why I would be
unhappy as a developer because I wouldn't want to argue with people about IQ.
It almost seems like you're saying arguing about IQ is a necessary part of the
job and one that must be enjoyable in order to find satisfaction as a
programmer.

~~~
hluska
Okay, first off, if you'd like to email me, my email is in my profile.

Second, I understand how it feels to struggle. I'm far from an elite 20x
developer, but I've worked with many less experienced developers. I'd be glad
to work on something with you and hopefully give you some pointers.

Third, I'm going to ask you a pointed question. You don't have to answer it
here, but I'd like you to think about it. Do you feel like you're too dumb to
program?

If yes, seriously my friend, that attitude is a fucking cancer that will ruin
your life. I need to repeat that. Telling yourself that you're too dumb to do
something is a cancer that will ruin your fucking life.

I can tell you beyond any doubt that you are 100% capable of programming.

I believe that because of the tenacity you've shown in this thread. You got
some harsh responses, but kept pushing and pushing. And, I'd argue that you
got shit done here because I'll answer most of those questions via email. If I
had the means, I would hire you right now because you're a tenacious person
who gets shit done.

Personally, I would rather work with one tenacious developer who gets shit
done than five incredibly intelligent developers who never ship. And, I would
bet you a pint that I'm not the only person reading this who agrees.

Also, remember that there are different career paths within programming. There
is a little bit of room for geniuses to keep pushing the art forward. And
there is a lot of room for bulldogs to stand on the shoulders of those giants
and build shit that works.

Maybe at the top end, extreme intelligence is highly valued. But for the
masses, it's more important to be able to communicate well in writing, ask for
help, learn from others and learn to understand how others solve problems.

Finally, I'm glad that both conditions are true. Don't worry about IQ in
particular. It might be a good measure for certain kinds of developers, but
it's likely not applicable to the industry as a whole. Or maybe it is and I'm
not smart enough to realize that?

But, I would worry if repetitive debates that go nowhere bother you. A big
part of the socio-political part of the job is learning how to debate with
people with strong personalities. I just about guarantee that after you have
ten years under your belt, you will look back and realize that you've had the
exact same debate (down to the word) hundreds of times in your career.

It can start to feel like you're on Reddit, but if you go into these
conversations with a sense of openness and wonder, you might find that you
either learn or teach something every debate. It strikes me (and I have
nothing to back this up) that debate is how our culture transmits knowledge
and war stories to the next generation.

Point being, in the industry, debates happen and some get very repetitive.
Hell, I've been on otherwise amazing teams where we have debated the same
issue for months...

The other point is that I'm sorry you're struggling. Email me if you feel
comfortable - I'd be glad to work on a project with you, or try to get you
past any blocks. But bud, trust me, the tenacity you showed here more than
qualifies you to be a developer. You can do this.

