Why geeks change careers
posted by pete on July 27th, 2009
I recently exchanged a few good emails with Joshua Fruhlinger, a journalist. He was working on an article for IT World about the reasons people might stop working on Microsoft tools in favour of open source solutions like Rails, WordPress or Drupal. The article came out today and I’m happy with it. My contributions are on page 3.
Thanks Josh!
I am hearing more and more geeks changing jobs, regardless of the current economic “situation”. I’m really happy that Josh focused on the role of fear in starting Unspace. Fear is a natural motivator, and on a base level it’s fear that keeps us growing.
Any readers recently switch jobs? Are you glad?
July 27th, 2009 at 03:39 PM
Interesting article and great contribution, Pete.
About 3 years ago I finally recognize my dissatisfaction with the corporate IT world. Once I understood the source of my career disappointment, 6-9 months passed and I decide I just had to quit my job. I had no work, or even leads, when I quit. Oh, and when I left my job I also had 1 child and a pregnant wife.
Even though I’m many times happier with my new career, I don’t really recommend this path. :)
Anyway, I’ve written extensively on the various mental blocks I had to clear to get where I am today. So I’m going to be an asshole and link to that series of blog posts.
http://bjhess.com/blog/2008/09/10/leaving-the-corporate-nest/
July 27th, 2009 at 03:54 PM
David Allen (of GTD fame) claims that a third of people change jobs because of their bosses. Our industry is still being negatively affected by the engineering analogy that believes programmers need more management and hand-holding than they do. The best hackers are the ones that revolt most strongly against this.
The real kicker? Ruby and Rails is only just the beginning of a better future. Someday soon there’ll be more and more smart people telling others why both of those tools are constraining compared to something even newer and more powerful. Of course Smalltalk is the canonical example of an awesome tool, in this case a language/platform, that didn’t keep the managers happy and didn’t become popular in the mainstream. That’ll probably happen again too.
Nice piece Pete.
Take care, all.
August 7th, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Ah Fear. One of the talks I was most excited about at FutureRuby was Nathaniel Talbott’s due to his talk on Fear of Programming at RubyConf. I’m still in the process of coming to grips with the various elements of Fear that affect me. I actually just posted an entry which touches on Nathaniel’s talk and how it helped me discover my Fear of Time.
As part of my efforts to conquer my Fear I too I’m trying to make a career change. I’ve been an independent all of my life, and for the first time I am actually trying to find a full time gig. For me it has always been easier to set off at my own, being part of a team is what I was afraid of. Now I’m ready to embrace that, but finding the right team is still quite tricky!
Whatever your Fear might be I think it’s worth tackling, you almost always come out better for it.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:18 AM
great ,help a lot,wish all the best