Joe Ganley: On not knowing

I just ran across an Eric Sink article that I've somehow previously missed called The Hazards of Hiring. There are many good points in this article; in particular, he does a good job on one of my favorite points: in his words, The "very best" people never stop learning. ... They know their own weaknesses, and they're not insecure in talking about them. Many people seem afraid to say "I don't know." I love to say that, because it means we've just identified a gap in my knowledge, and almost always, it means that we're just about to fill that gap. That is the single most fulfilling thing in life, work-wise anyway.

Another interesting point in that article is his skepticism toward people with advanced degrees. I see this a lot, and in fact I spend a lot of my time in interviews trying to convince people that despite my having a Ph.D., I am not some sort of ivory-tower computer science researcher. First and foremost, my love is for writing software. Sure, I love to sink my teeth into a really hard CS problem from time to time, but there is also fun to be found in all of the other facets of the software development process, even those that many consider mundane. I really enjoy positions that offer a lot of variety, from hard algorithmic problems to user interface design to library architecture to low-level infrastructure.

Labels: software_development

Joe Ganley	I make software and sometimes other things.

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On not knowing
I just ran across an Eric Sink article that I've somehow previously missed called The Hazards of Hiring. There are many good points in this article; in particular, he does a good job on one of my favorite points: in his words, The "very best" people never stop learning. ... They know their own weaknesses, and they're not insecure in talking about them. Many people seem afraid to say "I don't know." I love to say that, because it means we've just identified a gap in my knowledge, and almost always, it means that we're just about to fill that gap. That is the single most fulfilling thing in life, work-wise anyway. Another interesting point in that article is his skepticism toward people with advanced degrees. I see this a lot, and in fact I spend a lot of my time in interviews trying to convince people that despite my having a Ph.D., I am not some sort of ivory-tower computer science researcher. First and foremost, my love is for writing software. Sure, I love to sink my teeth into a really hard CS problem from time to time, but there is also fun to be found in all of the other facets of the software development process, even those that many consider mundane. I really enjoy positions that offer a lot of variety, from hard algorithmic problems to user interface design to library architecture to low-level infrastructure. Labels: software_development 0 Comments: Post a Comment << Home