Re:Job Posting for Amazon.com Before it Launched
by aleyan on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @10:36AM
(#4843007)
I am curious, how did you assign yourself such a precise percentile (96-97th)?
Re:Job Posting for Amazon.com Before it Launched
by michaelochurch on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @10:46AM
(#4843066)
The model is here: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/programmer-au... . I don't claim that it's perfect, but it's the best simple model of devonomics I can come up with.
These percentiles are a bit shady, I'll admit, because "programmers" isn't a well-defined group. I have a pretty strong sense that I'm 1.7-1.8 on the software engineer scale but a weak sense of how to define the population. Whether I'm 96th percentile vs. 99th depends more on how tightly or loosely we define "programmer". I tend to think of myself as about 94th because I define it tightly, but I would usually say that I'm 96-97th in congruence with the looser definition that a lot of people use.
Re:Job Posting for Amazon.com Before it Launched
by diminoten on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @01:41PM
(#4843983)
How is 96-97th percentile mediocre?
Re:Job Posting for Amazon.com Before it Launched
by michaelochurch on Wednesday November 28, 2012 @03:51PM
(#4844659)
Compared to the average programmer, that's about 5-6x. I'd imagine the Google Fellows are 40x or higher. I'm not down on myself at all, but I recognize that I have a long way to go.
Yah, they select against self-awareness. I think the dirty truth is that thinking you're the best in the world is more important to these companies than actually being good. If you have an outsized self-perception, you'll put up with unreasonable deadlines and terrible conditions on account of pride. That's attractive to someone who's in the business of exploiting naivete.
I'm a mediocre (96-97th percentile) software engineer whose expertise pertains more to the software ecosystem and economy. Knowing it (and myself) as well as I do, I know I'm not the best in the world. I even have that rare trait of knowing what I'm missing, and there's quite a lot in that category. But I'm more than good enough for 99.8% of the tasks that people need done, given reasonable learning time.