The biggest regret of the old programmer who wrote the code for 35 years

About less than 20 years ago, I was at the crossroads of life. My second company had spent 5 years building professional charting software for the publishing industry, but when the internet was about to get hot, publishers were moving to the Internet, and our business was running dry. At that time I was a 13 years of programming experience, but also has 9 years of experience in the company's comprehensive talent.

I don't want to be at the same time doing technology and doing management. The main business of my first company (1985-1987) was to create a spreadsheet program with features that were automatically released. I was the one who dominated the business of the whole company, I was dealing with the media, I met the investors, I was dealing with daily business chores, I was one of the 3 programmers in the company and I was also a UI designer. 1987, when our company's products successfully released, I also finally overwork into the hospital. It makes me understand that it is not a normal person to be a software company manager and a programmer again.

So in 1994, when I once again faced the choice of "manager or programmer", I chose the programmer. Because I think the programmer's work is relatively simple. Now, 20 years later, although I have been involved in developing a lot of good projects during this period, I finally realized how wrong my choice was. Although in the year, the "cto/cio/Vice President-level engineer" such a technical management line is still a very new concept, but in today's view, this road is the right choice.

In 1995, I worked in the Bay Area for about a year. I worked for Apple in the second half of the year (Bole Online added: That will be Steve Jobs NeXT). Apple looked like it was going to last, so I left the Apple and went back to Texas. Because I don't want to see my work company collapse. It's a huge mistake to think about it now.

Later, Steve Jobs returned, Apple back on track, not only that. The COM era is also a mighty stack. As an experienced, well-trained technology leader, my understanding of product requirements is unparalleled (we released 9 major products that were directed against the main disk and did not need to be hotpatching, which was hard to do at the time), and I can only say that I could imagine how hot I was in that time. Once someone has such a quality, climbing on the career path is not a problem at all.

My sister was a programmer 30 years ago, but she quickly jumped to management within a year and became vice president of a large company about 15 years later. There is also a parent company of a travel company that I have worked for a few years, and their CEO has worked as a programmer about 15 years ago. Of course, the work of these management is not easy and enjoyable, but the remuneration for their work (more than the programmer) is much better. My sister's salary is about 10 times times that of mine.

Over the years, I have realized the limitations of being a programmer in ability. No matter how good they are at the professional side, there is limited capacity for innovation to change, or to make bad things better. I was unaware of the limitations of being a programmer (and even the architect); At the programmer level, you have no right to change what you have, because you are just a performer. Similarly, you will not be involved in finance, IPO activities, and other important matters, as a programmer, you are happy to build cool things.

For about 5 years, I worked as an employee or consultant for some companies, which was the worst stage of my career, and all I had to do was refer to some bad, stupid, totally idiotic technical management instructions. In this article there is simply no way to enumerate through these foolish things.

For example, as a vice president of the technical Department of a bank, he could not know the technology at all, but still qualified to make technical decisions. The same CIO in the bank would rather believe that the supplier would not trust his staff. Of course, we know that CIOs get rebates from suppliers, so we have to buy those useless things, and then he keeps writing articles to prove how good those useless things are to us. Even though we don't use them at all. Once I left the company and the CIO was fired, he left the company and immediately found a similar position in another company.

The worst job I've ever done, actually I was very optimistic at first. A post-startup company has a great opportunity in its area. The company and its main rivals (but not the point of opportunity) want to expand the market, and the market is indeed growing prosperous. I joined the company as a second programmer. The programmers and managers that preceded me were tasked with creating a new online store system because the old system was too slow and too inflexible to meet the larger market demands. The company did not have a technology leader at the time, and the CEO and two other founders did not have any technical experience or knowledge. Another programmer kept saying how good the backend code was, and then the manager trusted him. I built a front-end module, made several demos, and updated it every day to the code base. Just when I felt that the front-end code I wrote was ready to be integrated with the backend code, I suddenly found out that another programmer's code base had not had a check in--once in 10 months. I told the manager about it, but the manager said: "He (another programmer) will check in code only after everything is perfect." "And nobody else, except me, thought it was stupid. After that, I spent two months trying to mobilize the founders of the company to recruit people who could really do things (I still know a few of them), but they were afraid to make changes despite admitting that they had made mistakes in hiring. Finally I gave up and left the company.

More than a year later, the original two people (another programmer and manager) did nothing and were both dismissed. Then the founders of the company got some people from the consulting firm, but they didn't do anything. At this time, all the business opportunities have been delayed. What about the competitor? They have become a big 1 billion-dollar company, and I often see the name of the company on television commercials. Every time I see these ads, I want to hit the TV with my shoes. We're actually in the middle of an online store and a real technology leader. If I was not a programmer at the time, but a technical person, then now rounds is probably us. I'm sorry I'm just a programmer.

I can always cite a similar example, but the key question is: If you want to have a voice in the work of a technician, you have to have the ability, the right, and the opportunity. Once you have done this and you have found a reasonable growth pattern, only the sky is your limit.

In 1987, when I was promoting our product trapeze in the TV show "Computer Chronicles", another fellow on the show called Mike Slade, a product manager for Excel. It was naïve, I think, but this guy just doesn't know where to run a small market role (naïve people are really stupid). Later, the guy created a series of companies, including ESPN, who took on Apple's leadership role, was a good friend of Steve Jobs, and set up his own VC company.

Today, I'm still a programmer. So who's the little part now? I wonder if I can retire with a naïve. Fortunately, I'm better at being a programmer (my job is to give it to a former manager, he has a need and know I can do it), but so far, all I can do is be a programmer.

I've been a programmer for about 35 years, but it's fun to get the job done, and I've done a lot of good things for years. But I also feel that I have regretted the challenge of not being a manager. In a way, programmers are really a simple choice. Given that I have been through the Internet (Dotcom) era and have experienced Steve Jobs's return to Apple, if I have the experience of becoming a technology leader, I can do almost anything.

So, yes, I regretted that I had not grasped the opportunity (to become a manager) and who knew what it would be like if I had grasped it. But there was a loss, and I was able to enjoy writing code and having fun trying to solve the problem.

Once upon a moment, I stood in the intersection of life, and then chose the simple path. Maybe now, I understand why I made that choice.

The biggest regret of the old programmer who wrote the code for 35 years