[SeanDav]

I believe he was being a being slightly tongue in cheek. In reply to your question though - never follow the money, follow the path where your interests lie and where your strengths lie. Biggest career mistake I ever made was to move from a job I really enjoyed to another because they offered to more than double my salary.

[GFischer]

My slightly different take on this:

At the beginning of your career, I think the most important thing is to learn. Any company where you're learning a lot is a good place to be.

But I think you need to be able to learn to like what you're doing, even if it doesn't sound like your cup of tea. Get out of your confort zone. Go into a company that does something that's not just IT (that is, not a company that sells stuff for programmers). Human Resources, healthcare, geology, law, finance, advertising, any other domain other than IT. If I were re-doing my career, I'd try to get into any good situation with not only interesting tech, but interesting non-tech problems to solve.

Getting domain expertise outside of tech + strong tech fundamentals is huge, and a great way to build a really good company later on if that's your cup of tea, or be a great consultant or team member.

That way, you get both an interesting job, and very likely, very good financial rewards if you're good at what you're doing.

The worst mistake I've made was getting sucked into a dead-end path and staying because of the money. If I had gotten out early, I would have taken a financial hit early on, but would have continued an upward trajectory instead of plateauing (and working on stuff with non-marketable skills).

[arebop]

As somebody who started in software at a non-tech company, my first reaction to this was horror. On second thought, it seems like fine advice as long as your first job at the advertising firm is as a brand manager, or at a manufacturing firm you're in logistics, etc. I.e., if you are primarily an entrepreneur who might someday want to start a tech company, then by all means get some first-hand practical experience with fundamental problems of interest to your someday-customers.

My advice is to make sure wherever you are, you're working on the thing that senior management care most about. That's where you'll have the opportunity to work towards ambitious goals with the best mentors and exposure to real-world consequences.

[GFischer]

That's good advice :) .

Your point of working on what senior management cares most about is also good (but easier said than done !!!).

Workers in secondary/support activities (as IT is in most non-tech companies) don't get that many opportunities.

[speeder]

But you still get to eat right? I followed my interests, and now can't afford food, literally. I should have went for a job a hate but that paid well.

[ryanmarsh]

This. I hate my job but tell me some other way I can make $300k (I'm basically doing management consulting). I'm 38 with 3 kids and my wife doesn't earn an income (she homeschools the kids). I suck it up so they're well provided for.

[evmar]

300k is nearly 6 times the median US income, and even the median US income is double that of high-quality-of-life places like Germany. Literally most of the planet has happy families with significantly less money than that.

It's facile of me to diagnose your life over the internet but I often think of the deathbed quote:

"I wish I had earned more money and spent less time with my family" -- no one ever

[geodel]

I think that deathbed quote is more about people who had reasonably successful life and had family. I doubt that 100s of millions in 3rd world dying in penury with no family to talk of would make similar statements. Perhaps their statements would be so pedestrian as not to be noted down.

[ryanmarsh]

I dated a Columbian girl (an illegal actually) before I met my wife. I remember one day she slapped me across the face and with tears of anger made it clear how stupid I was. My mistake? Uttering the bullshit platitude: "better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable". She said, "you don't know what poor is, we couldn't even afford a toothbrush. We weren't happy we were miserable. How dare you."

[ryanmarsh]

That's just evidence that wages are low. Seriously. If I make 6 times the median, we have a problem in this country. I don't know how you buy groceries for a family and pay for healthcare on 50k / yr.

[evmar]

You say "a problem in this country", but my point is that even the <=50k that literally half the US households make is itself a lot of money compared to the 25k earned in a "rich" country like Germany, and other countries are even poorer.

Universal healthcare in Germany likely helps offset the cost to some extent, but in the US those who even have healthcare usually get it through their employer. Really, it's more just a different expectation about what a reasonable life is.

I always think of how complex a television is, with thousands of little tiny components that had to be mined from the earth and forged and assembled and soldered (likely involving some child labor that we'd all prefer not to think about) and how many hundreds of people were involved. And then how it's just assumed in the US that it's reasonable to be able afford one of these in exchange for doing something simple like working a cash register at a bank for a few weeks, or how your quality of life somehow requires having multiple televisions etc.

[jjnoakes]

You literally can't afford food and you are on hacker news? You can afford a computer, your own web site, ... I mean I suppose if you value technology above eating then I suppose technically you can't afford food after you spend your money elsewhere, but the full picture doesn't seem quite as bad as you originally painted it.

[speeder]

I used to type that post a 2013 MacMini, sort of smuggled in the country, that belongs to my startup (not me personally).

The startup ran out of money, and I took the MacMini with me, so I could continue working.

The MacMini is also currently using a damaged HDD, that S.M.A.R.T. keeps telling me should be replaced and is already critical, because I can't afford actually replacing the HDD.

I was kicked out of the apartment I was living, and now I live with my parents, my parents own a store, and by law, all sales must have a tax form filled online, thus internet is a hard requeriment to have a store, I am using that internet connection.

The maintenance of my websites, cost for me in total, about half a month of food.

Currently my source of food is mostly debt (ie: me, my parents, and other extended family members are taking loans to pay basic stuff).

It is not like getting rid of my computer, would help me, my choosen profession, the unprofitable one, is to be a programmer, so I need it to work anyway.

So, it is not a question of valuing technology above eating, it is that I already have technology because of my work, and getting rid of it won't make food sprout on my plate.

Even if I managed to sell all my belongings, I would still be unable to buy food anyway (my net worth is negative, even if I sold every single object I own, somehow for their "new" non-depreciated value, even my glasses, I would still not pay all my debts).

[jjnoakes]

Sorry, I don't buy any of this.

[speeder]

The startup that own the MacMini: http://www.kidoteca.com

Screenshot of my desktop, with MacMini about screen, and smartctl -a /dev/disk0/

http://imgur.com/a/61brQ

You want my bank account screenshot too? I can tell you how much it has (positive 37.71 BRL, overdraft is disabled)

I honestly doesn't understand why people think I am coming up with lies, I didn't asked for anything, I just shared an anecdote, I am not begging, not trying to guilt-trip people, I was only sharing personal information, the fact that I made a mistake when I decided to follow my passion (programming), when people advised me to instead take a safer profession (construction worker for example) instead.

[centizen]

You don't have to justify yourself to him, he's not going to listen anyways.

[SeanDav]

It is a guideline, and like every guideline, there are exceptions. If your interests and strengths are comic reading, you are not likely to get a job making money in that direction. However if you really enjoy teaching but think accountants would make more money - rather do teaching. You will earn less money, but you will be way happier and more fulfilled.

[andyidsinga]

checked out your site - nice. pinging you on linked in. interesting, I was just chatting with a coworker today about lua and corona sdk ..serendipity?

[andyidsinga]

That sounds like it could be an interesting story...