Revisiting Career path

Career Path

6 years ago, I blogged about Career Path. Today I would like to revisit the same. What prompted this? There was this interesting discussion on hacker news – What happens to Older Developers?. It is a very interesting read.

Who is a older developer?

People in the thread seem to agree 30+. Going by Peter Norvig’s classic Teach yourself programming in 10 years, the magic number seems to be 10 years / 10, 000 hours. Assuming you started your career after college (around 21), Around 31 you should have mastered the art of programming (assuming you wanted to master it).

What next? Revisiting Career Path

I would like to revisit career path in some new light. This are the options that I currently think are valid.

Yes, I have added the Independent option now.

It is not an either, or between the dependent and independent, you can be on the dependent side to bootstrap your independent venture initially. But have a clear choice in mind. I will quote again the same anecdote from my older post.

A disciple asked a Master about what books he should read.
The Master asked him ‘What do you want to become?’
Disciple said ‘I don’t know’.
Master replied back "Then it doesn’t matter which books you read"
If you do not have a personal vision you cannot lead others effectively.