This is true.

Look, the moment you know you need a new job, you’re done at the current shop. So get looking.

I see that in the bad spots, though – people are looking but not landing a new post, so they cope by doing the minimums, peacing out on the dot and getting their sleep. They no longer care about the success of the company, and while that’s admirable, it’s a social issue to abandon the tribe and it can eat on people.

I’m so happy when they land a new post, happier still if I do before I just … stop going. And that’s what I do: I lose interest in going if I can’t find a new post within the year I usually allow (I’m picky).

This last move I told my boss he had a year. It was like 13 months.

I had a miserably toxic job, and, yeah, I know that pit of despair and what it does to our decisions. I opened the search to the world, but came up with a domestic job about 3000mi away.

I grabbed the go-bag and all but bugged the fuck out, quitting on a Thursday, boarding a plane on a Friday and starting my new job on the Monday. She sold the house, got the movers (fuck moving) and shepherded all our worldlies to the new place. She’s not military but she faked it really well.

This is why I have two jobs. The second one fills with work until every 5 years it seems I abandon the day job and bulk up on the second job to make ends meet and burn its queue down.

It’s not intentional but it works out that way.

No. I haven’t doubled my salary, but I’m on the wrong side of 40 where I’m happy to be employed in this toxically ageist field.

My wife has done super well and sometimes beats my day job pay cheque, so we finally have that buffer too. And she doesn’t quit her jobs as she’s a super team player and instead gets promoted to fix problems. (Kinda got a crush on her for being so awesome)

Take heart: had you done comp sci just for the money, you’d be where you are now. Comp sci isn’t for people in for the money but for people who find it exciting and have no idea their career is timesheets. :-p

No, really: I saw a LOT of people flame out of the programme, and most of them admitted they were in it for the payday.

Downvotes because I’ve seen someone gifted?

I kinda wonder where he’s going now that VMware is being squeezed dry. He’ll pop out and get snapped up by someone else, but there aren’t many doing actual kernel dev for money anymore.

Unbelievable geniuses don’t exist

“I haven’t seen one so it must not exist” ?

I’ve met one. He’s unbelievable. He’s a great guy, but sometimes a little hard to follow if you’re only taking part in one conversation at a time when he’s talking in two and listening to a third because he expects you to be on the ball in your own discussion when he jumps in to drop a tidbit or ask a question like a chess master playing 4 games in the park at once – in heated discussions about topics as diverse as economy, politics, technology, and the history of Coffee. He’s so nice and so unfathomably intelligent that when he’s working you just naturally want to see if he needs anything on the way back to his desk and otherwise leave him alone to craft miracles in the environment of his choosing.

Like, I’ve sat down and taken those tests from back in the day when measuring IQ was a thing. I did well. I’m proud of how well I did. This guy cannot be measured by any yardstick built by mortals.