Good question, I’m curious as well. I love the self-host as a plan approach. And it make sence its a lifetime thing.. well maybe, is it a lifetime price for all future versions and features? Then maybe 800 makes some sense, but still, as you also say, a pretty hefty stack to drop as a private person. Also curious why not a lower price, eg 100 or whatever, but then only for minor updates (not major versions). I would think it would make more digestable private persons.
I normally work with a 40", I'm using a a hammerspoon to divide the screen, but normally I end using one main window, with some smaller window at the side and cmd-tabbing between info. How do you manage the distraction of so many information at the same time? Do you switch between apps? use the mouse? don't you loose track of where the focused window is?
Generally, nope. IANAL but fundamentally there are personal rights you just cannot sign away. E.g. even if you sign an employment contract saying explicitly that you have zero vacation (just an example), it just won’t be valid. Another big difference in general is that you cannot just be suing people for whatever reason like in the states.
A more relevant example for this is GDPR: nothing written in an eula can “release” the company from basic GDPR rights and principles.
Its disgusting that every thing always have to be exploited for profit. And then companies use part of that money to lobby (ie effectively pay off) politicians to let them do it. And it’s even legal. Simply discussing.
This. Even though you/we are [mostly] focusing on the tech aspect of the world, make no mistake; the “business side” (or the political) can kill your migration project more suddenly and decidedly than you can spell ‘strangler pattern’.
So, to add to the comment above:
- does your migration affect the clients and the way clients work in any way? No matter how small, if the answer is “yes” then you need to ensure full buy-in from the clients. Even if your migration went flawlessly from a technical perspective, if a large enough client didn’t realise that V2 comes with some change that he doesn’t like, and when the change hits him after the migration, he raises this as a problem and escalates the problem high enough up the food chain with the message “this is not working for us” then you are going to be rolling back, regardless of the technical stuff. So, realise that the clients are big stakeholders and they need to be managed from the beginning of the project until some time after your V2 go live. In my experience the best results come from bringing them close to the project early and get some buy in by having them e.g. do some end-to-end testing if V2 and get them to accept the V2 before the go live. Preferably in an email for if things get ugly at some point (it happens, is sucks).
- also as the comment above says, don’t ignore the political. You should know what every important stakeholder gets out of this? Don’t forget personal ambition, ego, promotions etc as possible motivators for stakeholders. Who of the stakeholders are supporting your project now, and who is not? And just as important, what may change for a stakeholder to “switch camp” from supporter to not. Maybe the stakeholder is a mid-level manager who is measured on some
KPI and V2 will make his KPI look better. So he’s a supporter. But then his company gets a new ceo and the KPIs change. Now he is no longer a supporter because V2 doesn’t give him anything he wants. And he’s actually now against your project because he has to commit some resources to it, but doesn’t get anything, so actually if your project is killed he frees up resources and doesn’t loose anything.
From one developer to another; The tech part is the easier part I’m sorry to say.
I guess I need to clarify what I mean by the psychological component.
Technical and political components are external. Career aspirations and mitigating boredom/stagnation by pursuing complicated work create motivations to invent interesting projects.
And there’s the ability to claim integration from v1 to v2 as progress. Rather than only change.
To put it another way there is always some degree of change for the sake of change motivating our desires for change. Particularly when a big chunk of our time must be accounted for. Typically, playing video games, sleeping, and walking a dog through the woods instead are not viable alternatives in contexts where data migrations are being considered.
If migration was something the OP didn’t want to do, the question would be about finding a new job.
Think of the best memories you have in the last 1-2 years.
Think of the best memories you had between 5-10 years ago.
I’m willing to bet that the “core” of all the memories/episodes you thought of was people and experiences. Family and great friends. Travel, parties, hobbies, whatever is your thing.
You did not think of money or things you bought. You did not think of a nice pay check.
Now, I’m not going full hippie here. Money is important, but only up to a point. If you have just enough money to do the things you like with friends and family, that’s all you need.
The job you really liked vs the high paying one is fun experiences vs pay checks/things. Pick the good experience b/c in 1 year, 2 years, 5 years you won’t remember the money.
Caveats: If you are very young 20-something and no kids or serious relationship, you should consider gunning hard for the money for a few years to build some investments that will help you, enable you, to take the pay cut when you get older and esp. when you have kids. If it turns out that you like the little suckers, future you may be eternally greatful to now you for laying down the foundation for future you to not worry that much about money and instead focus on kids, family, experiences.
For travel there are probably many destinations in your own country, that people actually visit your country to see. Those a typically cheaper to do. Then there is asia - I’ve traveled tree months in asia for the same budget as 10 days visiting the States. Also in general very much depends on how/where you say. Hotel in Auckland vs pet sitting gig for a week 15 mins outside of the city (housing for free).
Same for hobbies. Depends so much on what you pick for a hobby.
Oh yes. I have two. What I dont get is how having 2 more persons somehow makes everything travel related at least 4x more expensive?! Anyway, there is no “roughing it through asia” with two little ones. Thats why I wrote the caveat with grinding cash while early 20s, to build a little extra to draw on when the this happens
Yeah, it's some about cost, but it's also about logistics, education, wanting kids to have stability, relationships with extended family, special needs, physical safety, etc, etc. In my case also add custody to the mix, which makes extended travel a non-starter.
Wow, so many comments just do not get the point of your question, even when you asked to be concrete. “Start your side gig”, “know how to work well across teams”, “specialise in a domain”.. amazing.
Anyway. My current contracts are set to end dec 2024, so to start warming up I had a talk with a recruiter just yesterday, and basically asked the same as you “what is in high demand currently? Are there some specific skills that everybody is asking for?”
She said:
- Always a need for architects, esp with integrations focus. Public sector clients ask for TOGAF sigh
- Data infrastructure people is apparently in high demand. Not my thing so didn’t probe further into that
- Infosec and cybersec, clients take all they can find. For infosec she mentioned ISO27001 and NIS2 is highly requested. For cybersec “practical experience” was primarily requested, but I know the respected certs like OSCP sells.
I’m in EU which is probably some of the reason for the demand for *sec people atm. Infosec due to new regulations like NIS2 etc, and cybersec due to Ukraine war and elevated threat level from Russia (but also generally elevated activity).
What she said fits pretty well into what I hear from other contacts as well. She also confirmed what you are saying that many clients are reluctant to hire at the moment, and when they do it’s specialists not generalists.
So for 5-10 years I’d say architecture (more to the technical side, not the EA side). And security. I don’t think security is going away any time soon. Edit: to be more specific on security - it’s a very big field and my understanding is that most subfields are in high demand and will continue to be. This site [1] has a very good overview and shows what’s in the different subfields. Too much to write about here but it should enable you to find more specifics.
How do you handle conflicting feature requests from two different paying customers? Like customer A wants buttons in the right, customer B wants them on the left.
I make the choice. I don't really listen to specifics like that from customers. I'm a SaaS, not a consultancy. Instead, I try to fully understand the customer's problem and then provide a solution to it a way that will work for everybody. If it doesn't work for everybody, or is a niche feature, then I probably won't introduce the feature unless I can come up with a way to make it valuable to other customers. Often, the customer doesn't understand the best way to implement something to make it valuable/usable to other customers, or the costs involved i.r.t. to maintenance, but I do.
With an API product, you also have to be picky about new features because once something is introduced, it can't be taken back (assuming you want to maintain backwards compatibility).
“For employers” as a perk is also a great idea!
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