New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Do you plan work goals, etc. that take 1 yrs to bear fruit? Why/why not?
Ask HN: Do you plan work goals, etc. that take 1 yrs to bear fruit? Why/why not?
2 by auslegung | 1 comments on Hacker News.
(Anyone can answer of course, but I'm primarily interested in fellow software engineers' answer.) In my former career I was a manager of a program whose goal it was to "safely reduce the number of children in foster care from X to Y by 20zz". While there, it felt natural and easy for me to create programs and plans that would take years to come to fruition. Today it occurred to me that since switching careers to software, I don't think I've ever thought about anything further in the future than "finishing the current epic" (which usually takes weeks or months, definitely not years). I think this is for two reasons 1) I've mostly been a junior and mid-level IC where my focus was on what was in front of me (and arguably I wasn't a top-notch software engineer, but that's another discussion) 2) I don't think I care about any company's goals, initiatives, whatever nearly as much as I cared about "safely reducing the number of children in foster care". That actually meant something. But "making more money for CURRENT_COMPANY by MAKING_THEIR_WIDGET_BETTER"... I just don't care other than the fact that "CURRENT_COMPANY does well" translates to me not having to find another job. So I'm curious. Do you plan work goals, initiatives, etc that take 1+ years to come to fruition? Why or why not?
2 by auslegung | 1 comments on Hacker News.
(Anyone can answer of course, but I'm primarily interested in fellow software engineers' answer.) In my former career I was a manager of a program whose goal it was to "safely reduce the number of children in foster care from X to Y by 20zz". While there, it felt natural and easy for me to create programs and plans that would take years to come to fruition. Today it occurred to me that since switching careers to software, I don't think I've ever thought about anything further in the future than "finishing the current epic" (which usually takes weeks or months, definitely not years). I think this is for two reasons 1) I've mostly been a junior and mid-level IC where my focus was on what was in front of me (and arguably I wasn't a top-notch software engineer, but that's another discussion) 2) I don't think I care about any company's goals, initiatives, whatever nearly as much as I cared about "safely reducing the number of children in foster care". That actually meant something. But "making more money for CURRENT_COMPANY by MAKING_THEIR_WIDGET_BETTER"... I just don't care other than the fact that "CURRENT_COMPANY does well" translates to me not having to find another job. So I'm curious. Do you plan work goals, initiatives, etc that take 1+ years to come to fruition? Why or why not?
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