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  Why programmers are not paid in proportion to their productivity

The most productive programmers are orders of magnitude more productive than average programmers. But salaries usually fall within a fairly small range in any company. Even across the entire profession, salaries don’t vary that much. If some programmers are 10x more productive than others, why aren’t they paid 10x as much?Joel Spolsky gave a couple answers to this question in his most recent podcast. First, programmer productivity varies tremendously across the profession, but it may not vary so much within a given company. Someone who is 10x more productive than his colleag...

2,180 0       PROGRAMMER SALARY EFFICIENCY PRODUCTIVITY NOT MATCH


  How to Think Creatively

I grew up hungry to do something creative, to set myself apart. I also believed creativity was magical and genetically encoded. As early as the age of 8, I began sampling the arts, one after another, to see if I'd inherited some gift.Eventually, I became a journalist. For many years, I told other people's stories. I was successful, but I rarely felt truly creative.The first hint I might have sold myself short came in the mid-1990s. In the course of writing a book called What Really Matters, Searching for Wisdom in America, I took a five-day seminar on how to draw, led by Betty Edwards, author ...

1,871 0       VERIFICATION CREATIVE THINKING SATURATION INCUBATION ILLUMINATION


  Why do so many technical recruiters suck?

It’s Tuesday, I get a call from an unknown number.  There is a little hesitation, but I finally pick it up.  My number is listed on my business card and I feel like I should get these calls unless I am in a meeting.- Hi, is this Mike?- Yes, speaking….- Hi Mike!  How are you today?- Fine…- I am calling from XYZ Co, and we deal with recruiting and staff augmentation.  I was wondering if you are looking for software developers.We are in San Francisco and it’s late 2011.  Every tech company is looking for developers.  If they were not looking...

2,230 0       RECRUITMENT HR SUCKS TECH RECRUITER


  Google engineer: What I learned in the war

Veteran's Day is an ideal time to hear from one of those rare folks who combine corporate and military careers. Dan Cross, a software engineer at Google (GOOG) and a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps, took a leave to serve active duty in Afghanistan, came home a year ago, and brought back lessons that he couldn't have learned in business. While he had never seen himself as the military type until a personal tragedy made him reroute his career, he's a better man for it. Cross, 34, is now an active member of the Google Veterans Network (VetNet), a community of some 400 veterans and other G...

2,490 0       GOOGLE ENGINEER MILITARY MARINE LESSONS TEAMWORK


  If You’re Busy, You’re Doing Something Wrong: The Surprisingly Relaxed Lives of Elite Achievers

The Berlin StudyIn the early 1990s, a trio of psychologists descended on the Universität der Künste, a historic arts academy in the heart of West Berlin. They came to study the violinists.As described in their subsequent publication in Psychological Review, the researchers asked the academy’s music professors to help them identify a set of stand out violin players — the students who the professors believed would go onto careers as professional performers.We’ll call this group the elite players.For a point of comparison, they also selected a group ...

1,913 0       RELAX ELITE ACHIEVEMENT WORK LIFE BALANCE


  What I learned from a month of blogging and 250k visits

Roughly a month ago, I decided to give blogging another try, in earnest. I put out an article most days and up to 3 per day when I was experimenting with new channels.It has been fascinating.That being said, this is not a post about blogging tactics. It’s about what the experience has taught me about startups.Find the customers first, then build for themIt took me a long time to understand YC’s motto that you should:Make something people want.The first time I heard that, I thought it was the single dumbest piece of advice I’d ever received from such a credible so...

1,470 0       WEBSITE ADVICE TRAFFIC SEO PROMOTE


  Programming Achievements: How to Level Up as a Developer

How does a good developer become a great developer?Forget greatness for a moment: How does a decent developer become a good developer?There is no definitive path from Step 1 to Step n. Heck, it's not even clear what Step n is. And as logically-minded developer types, the lack of a well-defined route can make for a daunting journey from novice to master.I've spent a fair bit of time over the last few years bumping up against this conundrum. What's next? How do I go from being a good developer to a being really good developer?What Does Success Look Like?I do my best work...

2,154 0       COMPARISON SKILL GREAT DEVELOPER KNOWLEDGE PLATFORM GOOD DEVELOPER


  My life as a freelancer

In the summer of 2006 a work buddy, George, has told me that I could make some extra money programming on a site named Rent A Coder. I’ve signed up the same day. After losing some time on a project that never started I lost my interest in “coding for money”. I almost forgot about RAC.Fast-forward two years, I was a PhD student at a small North American University with a student visa and … nothing else in my pockets. For a few months I was able to make a living from a scholarship until they forgot to pay me for about two months. Oh, the delights of eating only rice...

2,047 0       C LIFE FREELANCER RENT A CODER RAC