<story><title>Kalzumeus Software Year in Review 2016</title><url>http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/12/30/kalzumeus-software-year-in-review-2016/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sanderjd</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve taken this lesson too, and I&amp;#x27;m curious about what set of values for $SOMETHING is. In theory it is &amp;quot;everything&amp;quot;, but in practice the two common values I see are &amp;quot;marketer&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;scientist&amp;quot;. I really can&amp;#x27;t get excited about marketing, and it&amp;#x27;s difficult to justify going for a PhD. What are some values for $SOMETHING that others here have seen success with?</text></item><item><author>dsacco</author><text>I owe a great deal of my own personal success to Patrick McKenzie and Thomas Ptacek, both of whom have been steadfast, consistent and generous advisors (both in public comments and in &amp;quot;hey can I bounce this off of you&amp;quot; emails).&lt;p&gt;After following Patrick&amp;#x27;s writings and stories for a number of years now, I can confidently say that his relentless transparency has been one of the greatest gifts I received in the industry. His advice may not strictly work for everyone in the literal sense, but I believe that diligently attempting to use his suggestions as a template is, itself, a highly productive exercise in programming and business.&lt;p&gt;There is one particular note I want to make about patio11&amp;#x27;s success: Patrick is a phenomenal marketer with remarkable business savvy who &lt;i&gt;happens to be a programmer.&lt;/i&gt; He is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; primarily a programmer, which is evidenced by his recent work at Stripe and the work he is best known for on HN (essentially, writing about shipping software, not the software itself).&lt;p&gt;This is not to say he is not a good programmer - I simply can&amp;#x27;t comment on that, though I have reason to believe he is after seeing Starfighter&amp;#x27;s game. Rather, he leverages that skill set as a means to an end, not an end in itself.&lt;p&gt;I think this is a really important point to make because I see many people who try to pursue significant career success by e.g. ranking up on TopCoder, or open sourcing impressive software. While those things can lead to success, there is a vast, long tail of people who are very capable programmers with no recognition doing those things. Healthy self-promotion and &lt;i&gt;efficient&lt;/i&gt; improvement&amp;#x2F;maintenance of one&amp;#x27;s technical skills has a much higher probability of success than attempting to become Fabrice Bellard.&lt;p&gt;This is demonstrative - in my opinion, the sum of all of patio11&amp;#x27;s advice can be summarized as follows: &lt;i&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t be a programmer, be a $SOMETHING who happens to program, and program well.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>uberstuber</author><text>Not exactly what you were asking for, but along those same lines. There are a set of skills which improve basically any career path--I&amp;#x27;ve seen them called meta-skills, or super skills.&lt;p&gt;Off the top of my head: 
Leadership, Public Speaking, Persuasion, Writing, Storytelling, Design, Mental models, Systems thinking, Mental focus, Nutrition&amp;#x2F;Exercise, etc.&lt;p&gt;Getting decently good at one (or more) of these won&amp;#x27;t take too long and will have immediate benefits to your current work and even your personal life.&lt;p&gt;Maybe try to find some aspect of marketing that you are interested in; it&amp;#x27;s a large field full of topics I&amp;#x27;d imagine programmers would find interesting.</text></comment>
<story><title>Kalzumeus Software Year in Review 2016</title><url>http://www.kalzumeus.com/2016/12/30/kalzumeus-software-year-in-review-2016/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>sanderjd</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve taken this lesson too, and I&amp;#x27;m curious about what set of values for $SOMETHING is. In theory it is &amp;quot;everything&amp;quot;, but in practice the two common values I see are &amp;quot;marketer&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;scientist&amp;quot;. I really can&amp;#x27;t get excited about marketing, and it&amp;#x27;s difficult to justify going for a PhD. What are some values for $SOMETHING that others here have seen success with?</text></item><item><author>dsacco</author><text>I owe a great deal of my own personal success to Patrick McKenzie and Thomas Ptacek, both of whom have been steadfast, consistent and generous advisors (both in public comments and in &amp;quot;hey can I bounce this off of you&amp;quot; emails).&lt;p&gt;After following Patrick&amp;#x27;s writings and stories for a number of years now, I can confidently say that his relentless transparency has been one of the greatest gifts I received in the industry. His advice may not strictly work for everyone in the literal sense, but I believe that diligently attempting to use his suggestions as a template is, itself, a highly productive exercise in programming and business.&lt;p&gt;There is one particular note I want to make about patio11&amp;#x27;s success: Patrick is a phenomenal marketer with remarkable business savvy who &lt;i&gt;happens to be a programmer.&lt;/i&gt; He is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; primarily a programmer, which is evidenced by his recent work at Stripe and the work he is best known for on HN (essentially, writing about shipping software, not the software itself).&lt;p&gt;This is not to say he is not a good programmer - I simply can&amp;#x27;t comment on that, though I have reason to believe he is after seeing Starfighter&amp;#x27;s game. Rather, he leverages that skill set as a means to an end, not an end in itself.&lt;p&gt;I think this is a really important point to make because I see many people who try to pursue significant career success by e.g. ranking up on TopCoder, or open sourcing impressive software. While those things can lead to success, there is a vast, long tail of people who are very capable programmers with no recognition doing those things. Healthy self-promotion and &lt;i&gt;efficient&lt;/i&gt; improvement&amp;#x2F;maintenance of one&amp;#x27;s technical skills has a much higher probability of success than attempting to become Fabrice Bellard.&lt;p&gt;This is demonstrative - in my opinion, the sum of all of patio11&amp;#x27;s advice can be summarized as follows: &lt;i&gt;Don&amp;#x27;t be a programmer, be a $SOMETHING who happens to program, and program well.&lt;/i&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SatvikBeri</author><text>Cases I&amp;#x27;ve seen done successfully:&lt;p&gt;–Accounting&lt;p&gt;–Risk analysis in banks or fintech companies&lt;p&gt;–Statistics (&amp;quot;Data Science&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;–Lots and lots of other jobs that have &amp;quot;analyst&amp;quot; in the title, e.g. marketing analyst</text></comment>