<story><title>Show HN: Coding Career Handbook</title><url>https://www.learninpublic.org/?from=Hacker%20News</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>quicklime</author><text>&amp;gt; The Coding will always be the easiest part of a Coding Career&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a little triggered by this headline. I understand what it means, and I agree there&amp;#x27;s some truth to it. It can be good advice when given to developers who haven&amp;#x27;t yet figured out that their job is not exclusively to write code.&lt;p&gt;But in my company (which is a big non-tech corporate) I&amp;#x27;ve noticed that a similar phrase often gets used by non-technical people to belittle the work that software developers do. The exact wording varies, but the sentiment is basically that technical problems are easy, and can safely be outsourced to the lowest bidder, as long as there&amp;#x27;s a good Project Manager who can enforce the right methodology and processes. It&amp;#x27;s the problems that require &amp;quot;soft&amp;quot; skills that are &lt;i&gt;difficult&lt;/i&gt; - these are the kind that Thought Leaders and Influencers work on - and we need to pay a premium for people who can solve these problems.&lt;p&gt;In reality, technical and non-technical problems are both difficult in their own ways, and both occupy a space that ranges from trivial to impossible.&lt;p&gt;In terms of career advice, I&amp;#x27;d really suggest not perpetuating this myth. One of the tactics that the book lists is &amp;quot;marketing yourself&amp;quot;, and repeating the idea that coding is easy (especially to non-technical people) undermines your career and that of your technical colleagues.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kubanczyk</author><text>&amp;gt; The Coding will always be the easiest part of a Coding Career&lt;p&gt;The Coding will sometimes be the hardest part of a Coding Career.&lt;p&gt;Since people are throwing around authoritatively-sounding  statements here, anyone interested is cordially invited to use mine.</text></comment>
<story><title>Show HN: Coding Career Handbook</title><url>https://www.learninpublic.org/?from=Hacker%20News</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>quicklime</author><text>&amp;gt; The Coding will always be the easiest part of a Coding Career&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m a little triggered by this headline. I understand what it means, and I agree there&amp;#x27;s some truth to it. It can be good advice when given to developers who haven&amp;#x27;t yet figured out that their job is not exclusively to write code.&lt;p&gt;But in my company (which is a big non-tech corporate) I&amp;#x27;ve noticed that a similar phrase often gets used by non-technical people to belittle the work that software developers do. The exact wording varies, but the sentiment is basically that technical problems are easy, and can safely be outsourced to the lowest bidder, as long as there&amp;#x27;s a good Project Manager who can enforce the right methodology and processes. It&amp;#x27;s the problems that require &amp;quot;soft&amp;quot; skills that are &lt;i&gt;difficult&lt;/i&gt; - these are the kind that Thought Leaders and Influencers work on - and we need to pay a premium for people who can solve these problems.&lt;p&gt;In reality, technical and non-technical problems are both difficult in their own ways, and both occupy a space that ranges from trivial to impossible.&lt;p&gt;In terms of career advice, I&amp;#x27;d really suggest not perpetuating this myth. One of the tactics that the book lists is &amp;quot;marketing yourself&amp;quot;, and repeating the idea that coding is easy (especially to non-technical people) undermines your career and that of your technical colleagues.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bluntfang</author><text>Coding isn&amp;#x27;t the hard part of your job, it&amp;#x27;s convincing people that outsourcing isn&amp;#x27;t going to result in good outcomes. The reason why they won&amp;#x27;t result in good outcomes:&lt;p&gt;* maintenance is hard&lt;p&gt;* writing quality code is hard&lt;p&gt;* CI&amp;#x2F;CD is hard&lt;p&gt;* requirements gathering is hard&lt;p&gt;etc.</text></comment>