Tech has traditionally been one of the more unorthodox career paths for the better part of the past half century. Few other careers have had the raw flexibility or unbridled chaos of the tech industry. The tech industry has ridden out the dot-com boom and bust, the growth of Silicon Valley as a cultural element, and the corporatization of IT. Things have changed for better and worse, but the majority of IT has slowly evolved into a blue-collar office job.

在过去的半个世纪中的大部分时间里，传统上，技术一直是较为非传统的职业道路之一。 很少有其他职业具有技术行业的原始灵活性或不受限制的混乱状况。 科技行业摆脱了网络泡沫的兴衰，硅谷作为文化元素的增长以及IT的公司化。 事情的好坏都在变化，但是大多数IT部门已经慢慢演变为蓝领办公室工作。

Tech was once the Wild West where anyone who could code, build, or even just fix a computer could find unbeaten paths forward. The first professional programmers made magic from scratch, but their efforts pale in comparison to what we’ve built on the shoulders of giants. The unordered wildness of the industry bursting into existence and riding the chaos has eroded down into a calmer, more boring sea. Accessibility is at an all time high, but is it really what most people who got into tech still want?

科技曾经是狂野的西部，在那里任何人都可以编码，建造甚至只是修理计算机，都能找到前进的不二之选。 第一批专业程序员从头开始创造了魔力，但是与我们在巨人的肩膀上建立的相比，他们的努力显得苍白。 该行业无序的荒野突然存在，并陷入混乱之中，逐渐侵蚀成平静，更无聊的海洋。 可访问性一直都很高，但是真的是大多数进入技术领域的人仍然想要的吗？

Call centers are ruled by metrics and data analytics on their every action. Every millisecond away from the phone is profit ticking away. The scope of what can be supported gets more and more narrow as the requirements get higher and higher. It feels choking to anyone looking to actually get better. Companies shy from risk which has led to a gradual death of the tech dream as a neutral meritocratic system (whether true or not). Where you landed at a new company was once seen as a function of intellect and mastery, now it’s a paper pushing Game of Drones.

呼叫中心在其每个操作上均受度量标准和数据分析的支配。 每隔一毫秒，电话利润就会减少。 随着需求的增长，可以支持的范围也越来越狭窄。 想要真正变得更好的任何人都会感到窒息。 公司回避风险，导致科技梦想作为中立的精英制体系(无论是否成立)逐渐消失。 您进入新公司的地点曾经被视为具有智力和掌控权的功能，现在它已成为推动《无人机游戏》的报纸。

My first summer job wasn’t selling lemonade; I fixed computers. I had to learn how to fix the family computer since I was the one who always broke it and my dad got sick of having to reload the OS. Once I learned how to do the basics, I used those skills to make some money in the neighborhood. “Standardized” computer shops killed that dream, but many other ideas have come forth from tech’s continuous churning.

我夏天的第一份工作是不卖柠檬水。 我固定电脑。 因为我一直是家庭计算机的老手，所以我不得不学习如何修复家庭计算机，而我父亲已经厌倦了重新加载操作系统的烦恼。 一旦学会了基础知识，我便利用这些技能在附近赚了钱。 “标准化”的计算机商店扼杀了这个梦想，但是由于技术的不断革新，出现了许多其他想法。

责任与风险规避 (Liability and Risk Aversion)

I grew up when computers were still mysterious, but saw them also become something even the local big box store would work on. Experience meant nothing compared to a company willing to replace it if (or more often “when”) their minimum wage employee running a repair CD broke it. Why risk expensive hours on an experienced tech when you can use a CD which repairs 90% of common problems and reload the OS for the rest? As the internet got faster and remote control utilities got practical, there was a rise in call center IT. Computers were getting cheaper, and so were people’s attitudes towards how much they were willing to spend on fixing it.

我在计算机还很神秘的时候长大，但是看到它们也变成了某种东西，甚至当地的大型商店都可以使用。 与愿意更换它的公司相比，如果他们(或通常是“何时”)使用维修CD的最低工资雇员破坏了它，经验就没有任何意义。 当您可以使用可修复90％常见问题并重新加载操作系统的CD时，为什么还要冒险花大量时间在有经验的技术上？ 随着互联网的发展和远程控制实用工具的普及，呼叫中心的IT也在增加。 电脑越来越便宜了，人们对他们愿意花多少钱来修理它的态度也越来越便宜。

It got to make sense to have a scope of support which could be codified as to what is supported and what isn’t. A tech company didn’t necessarily have to be local or have a relationship with the end users to support them. While not every IT company does this or did this, enough did which shaped the greater industry. Clients shifted from viewing you as their technical wizards who helped them as much as possible to a service position with a fixed duty. The loopholes on both sides led to a mutual contraction of responsibilities.

拥有一定的支持范围是有意义的，可以对支持的内容和不支持的内容进行整理。 科技公司不一定非要本地化，也不必与最终用户建立关系以支持他们。 尽管不是每个IT公司都做到这一点或做到这一点，但足以成就整个更大行业的事情。 客户从将您视为他们的技术向导，他们尽可能地帮助了他们，转而担任固定职责的服务职位。 双方的漏洞导致责任的相互收缩。

降低风险和责任 (Reduction of Risk and Liability)

The traditional technical relationship was reduced to a service exchange. Larger companies began to say “no” more and more to special requests. You don’t do “favors” anymore or you run the risk of being fired by setting a precedent which has to be upheld. If it can’t be quantified or fit in the scope, it’s a liability. Some hold out longer than others, but it becomes a factor in growth rather than a cultural decision at some point.

传统的技术关系被简化为服务交换。 较大的公司开始对特殊要求说“不”。 您不再做“帮忙”，否则就冒着被开创必须维持的先例的危险。 如果无法量化或不属于范围，则属于责任。 有些人比其他人坚持的时间更长，但是在某些时候，它成为增长的因素，而不是文化决定。

To complicate everything, tech skills are not easy to measure. Some skills are domain relevant, and others are universal. Others can be transferred with the right training or knowledge. Everything depends on the intellect, skill, knowledge, experience, and personality of a tech. How exactly do you measure all of that in a way that makes comparisons more than apples and oranges? All of the ingredients are important, but all are also essential. How do you numerically rate the rest when there’s a deficit of one, but several substitutes on hand?

使一切变得复杂的是，技术技能不容易衡量。 一些技能与领域相关，而另一些则具有普遍性。 其他人可以通过正确的培训或知识来转移。 一切都取决于技术的才智，技能，知识，经验和个性。 您如何准确地衡量所有这些结果，从而使比较比苹果和桔子更多？ 所有成分都很重要，但也很重要。 当亏空一个，但手头有几个替代品时，您如何对其余的数字进行评分？

More and more of the IT industry has gotten to be risk averse. The irony is that tech is viewed as taking bigger and bigger gambles while it gets more and more conservative as a whole. The fringe is intense, but the bulk is boring.

越来越多的IT行业已经规避风险。 具有讽刺意味的是，人们普遍认为科技在赌博中越来越大，而整体却越来越保守。 边缘很强烈，但大部分都很无聊。

证书和知识 (Certificates and Knowledge)

If you look at any job website, you’ll find something akin to asking for 10 years experience in a framework which is 5 years old. You’ll also find countless requests for full-stack developers, fluent in 8 languages, have worked intimately with AWS and Azure, have experience kernel level debugging with Linux, Windows, and MacOS, can write an OS for an embedded system, and are willing to work for the department’s budget of $40,000 USD. There’s a specific set of requirements that they want to avoid having to train the individual, and a lack of understanding of what goes into it.

如果您浏览任何求职网站，都会发现类似于在5年的框架中要求10年经验的事情。 您还会发现无数对全栈开发人员的要求，他们精通8种语言，与AWS和Azure紧密合作，具有在Linux，Windows和MacOS上进行内核级调试的经验，可以为嵌入式系统编写OS，并且愿意为该部门的40,000美元预算工作。 他们有一组特定的要求，他们希望避免对个人进行培训，并且对其中的内容缺乏了解。

While this happens at almost every job anymore, it’s especially bad in tech. The people screening the resumes may not (and tend not to) have any technical knowledge, even at tech companies. They get a list of ideas about what is desired and a budget, and they cram in keywords they’ve heard because they have no way to make sense of it all. The trend towards risk aversion has made more and more employers conservative about hiring on “potential”, especially when they can’t weigh experience they don’t understand. A person who has done kernel debugging on embedded Linux systems has less potential as a Windows tech to most companies than someone with an A+ certificate.

尽管这几乎发生在每一项工作上，但在技术上尤其糟糕。 筛选简历的人即使在高科技公司也可能没有(也往往没有)任何技术知识。 他们获得了有关期望和预算的想法列表，并且塞满了所听到的关键字，因为它们无法完全理解所有内容。 风险规避的趋势已使越来越多的雇主对“潜在”的聘用持保守态度，尤其是当他们无法权衡自己不了解的经验时。 对于大多数公司而言，在嵌入式Linux系统上进行内核调试的人作为Windows技术的潜力要小于获得A +证书的人。

You can see this mindset creep in with coding when they demand a certain number of lines of code. Tech tends to be a mix of art and technique, and it gets dangerous when reduced to just technique. What happens when you hit a real problem or something outside the box? You need someone who truly understands the system in a way which is near impossible to quantify to solve it. How can you put a metric on creativity for a solution that breaks the current process but saves it too?

当他们需要一定数量的代码行时，您会看到这种思维方式随编码而蔓延。 技术往往是艺术和技术的结合，当沦为纯技术时，它会变得很危险。 当您遇到真正的问题或超出常规范围的东西时会发生什么？ 您需要以真正无法量化的方式真正理解系统的人来解决它。 您如何才能对创造力进行度量，以找到一种解决方案，既可以打破当前流程，又可以节省成本？

可量化的心态 (A Quantifiable Mindset)

Certificates have taken over at many companies as a metric of knowledge and skill in tech. While they may show a proof of some type of knowledge, how applicable or useful that knowledge is depends on the quality of the testing. Some certificates are useful, others are completely useless, but they all provide some measurable baseline. Companies rely on this promise to hire or promote. It hasn’t quite crept into coding, but I’m sure it will seeing as coding boot camps are seen as proof of knowledge to some groups.

证书已被许多公司取代，成为衡量技术知识和技能的标准。 尽管他们可能显示某种知识的证明，但知识的适用性或实用性取决于测试的质量。 一些证书很有用，其他证书则完全没有用，但是它们都提供了一些可测量的基准。 公司依靠这一承诺来雇用或晋升。 它还没有完全涉足编码领域，但是我相信它将被编码新手训练营视为某些群体知识的证明。

Not all certificates are created equally. A+ was at one point a complete joke and a red flag on a resume, but now it’s considered essential for newer techs. The certificate got better, and has a great reputation now, but what about people coasting on their old credentials? The certificate might expire, but do people outside of tech know that? How long does someone hang onto knowledge before it fades away? Without understanding the certificate or an easy way to measure familiarity, there isn’t a way to see if the cert is a piece of paper or proof of knowledge.

并非所有证书都是平等创建的。 A +在某种程度上是一个完整的笑话和简历上的一个危险信号，但现在对于新技术而言，它被认为是必不可少的。 证书变得更好，并且现在享有很高的声誉，但是凭旧证书的人又如何呢？ 该证书可能会过期，但是技术界以外的人知道吗？ 有人会在知识消失之前停留多长时间？ 如果不了解证书或衡量熟悉程度的简便方法，就无法查看证书是纸面的还是知识的证明。

The danger of a mindset of quantifying everything is that not everything quantifiable matters or helps. Certain metrics can be blurred by multiple factors. One factor may look the same on paper, but is completely different in practice. Knowing intimately how a switch functions helps with debugging, but having done it helps too. The skills aren’t equivalent, but they can look the same on paper in certain situations.

量化所有事物的心态的危险在于，并非所有可量化的事物都重要或无济于事。 某些指标可能会受到多种因素的影响。 一个因素在纸面上看起来可能相同，但实际上却完全不同。 熟悉开关的功能有助于调试，但也可以帮助调试。 这些技能并不相同，但是在某些情况下，它们在纸上看起来可以相同。

创造力消亡的地方 (Where Creativity Goes to Die)

Call center IT is the worst sort there is. Every operation is reduced to a ticket which is typically worked in a way which has a one-dimensional analytic. This constant vigilance to reduce a ticket to a singular metric incentivizes technicians to play games to affect that dimension. It also serves to make the metric a reflection of the shortcuts a company will take. SLA means you get a generic response or phone tag at 4:59 PM on a Friday. Time to close means people playing ticket dodgeball and ticket padding. These trends are slowly creeping out to other parts of tech though.

呼叫中心IT是最糟糕的一种。 每个操作都简化为票证，通常以具有一维分析的方式进行操作。 不断降低警戒性以减少单一度量标准，这激励了技术人员玩游戏以影响该维度。 它还可以使该指标反映公司将采取的捷径。 SLA表示您在星期五下午4:59收到通用回复或电话标签。 时间到了意味着人们在玩躲避球和罚球。 但是，这些趋势正在慢慢蔓延到技术的其他部分。

IT has become a position in many companies where creativity goes to die. Your worth becomes a factor of a metric, certificates, and how few issues you cause rather than your actual success. Clients can love you, but you’re worth the same on paper as someone who can play games and take tests in many positions. A mistake in the team means an avenue for learning is cut off for all too. You have to know how to get out of this situation to avoid falling prey to the reductionism.

在已经失去创造力的许多公司中，IT已经成为一个职位。 您的价值成为衡量指标，证书以及导致多少问题而不是实际成功的因素。 客户可以爱你，但在纸面上，你可以和可以玩游戏，可以在许多职位上参加考试的人一样，物有所值。 团队中的错误意味着学习的途径也被切断了。 您必须知道如何摆脱这种情况，以免沦为还原主义的牺牲品。

Not every job is like this, but it feels like we’re in the historical change from artisan crafting to factory production. Artisans and guilds survived alongside factories for a long time, but prospects for growth were limited by wealth and lifespans. Making something for a factory means getting faster at a single step, but an error margin is built in because it usually isn’t “better”. This move reduces a task from something potentially creative with variables which can shape the process into a set of basic rules and percentages. As the task can be measured more “objectively”, the subjective qualities matter less and less, whether “objective” is objective or not.

并非每个工作都是这样，但感觉就像我们正处于从手Craft.io到工厂生产的历史性转变中。 工匠和行会在工厂旁边存活了很长时间，但是增长的前景却受到财富和寿命的限制。 为工厂制造零件意味着一步就可以提高速度，但由于通常不会“更好”，因此内置了错误余量。 此举将任务从可能具有创造力的变量中减少了，这些变量可以将过程定型为一组基本规则和百分比。 由于可以更“客观地”衡量任务，因此无论“客观”是否客观，主观品质的重要性越来越小。

梦之死 (The Death of a Dream)

We all knew the most basic parts of the tech industry would be consumed by the singularity, but all of us thought we’d be immune to the changes along the way. The continued codification of IT has become the creeping nightmare eating away at this illusion. The technology our industry previously enabled is coming back to haunt us in the name of the bottom line. The Wild West of Technology is long gone, all we have left is the chance to run to higher ground.

我们都知道，技术行业的最基本组成部分将被奇异性所消耗，但我们所有人都认为，我们将不受此过程中的变化的影响。 IT的持续编纂已成为在这种幻想中逐渐消逝的噩梦。 我们行业先前启用的技术以底线的名义再次困扰我们。 狂野的西部技术早已一去不复返了，我们所剩下的就是机会，冲上更高的台阶。

The trick to staying ahead of all of this is to learn more and find a niche or location which can’t be easily reduced. Automation will eventually catch us all, but if your job is harder to measure, it’s also harder to dehumanize. If you long for the dream afforded by the tech industry, you need to look to higher ground.

领先于所有这些的窍门是了解更多信息并找到一个不容易减少的利基或位置。 自动化最终将抓住我们所有人，但是如果您的工作更难以衡量，那么就更难实现非人性化。 如果您渴望科技行业带来的梦想，则需要着眼于更高的目标。

You can’t just learn the basics of coding anymore, you need to know the basics, what they imply, and how to interface with others. The hard skills blur into soft skills. The more your job sees a gray area and fuzz, the longer it will defy quantification and quantization. The dream is going up in flames on one floor, but that doesn’t mean you can’t outrun it.

您不仅可以再学习编码的基础知识 ，还需要了解这些基础知识，它们的含义以及如何与他人进行交互。 硬技能变成软技能。 您的工作越能看到灰色区域和绒毛，它将越久而无法进行量化和量化。 梦想在一层楼的火焰中升起，但这并不意味着你不能超越它。

Every technical position I take continues to allow growth into something more; I wouldn’t take it otherwise. I always look to take what I know and use it to advance my role. Automation is useless without the ability to troubleshoot, which is useless without an understanding of the ramifications of each action. Each role requires a minimum understanding of multiple levels of technical knowledge. There isn’t a sane way to reduce the understanding of each level and the interactions of each level to a single question or even series of questions.

我担任的每个技术职位都将继续发展更多； 否则我不会。 我一直希望利用我所知道的知识并利用它来提升自己的角色。 如果没有故障排除的能力，那么自动化是没有用的；如果不了解每个操作的后果，那么自动化是没有用的。 每个角色都需要对多种技术知识有最低限度的理解。 没有一种明智的方法可以将对每个级别的理解以及每个级别的交互减少为单个问题甚至一系列问题。

职业生涯 (Riding the Fringe as a Career)

You evade the singularity for now. While more traditional tech jobs are going to exist for ages to come, the difference will come in how they’re measured, quantified, and maintained. A tier one could easily get the knowledge to grow into a tier two and higher at most corporate places a decade or so ago, but now they have to do all of that on their own time now. A junior coder needs to push themselves out of boiler plate territory into applicable practice to really advance. The big difference is now you won’t be forced to, unless your on the fringe already.

您现在回避了奇点。 尽管随着年龄的增长，将会出现更多的传统技术工作，但是在如何衡量，量化和维护它们方面却会有所不同。 大约十年前，在大多数公司场所中，一级人员可以轻松地将其知识发展为二级或更高级别，但是现在，他们现在必须自己做所有这些事情。 初级编码员需要将自己从样板领域中挤出出来，以应用到真正的进步中。 最大的不同是，除非您已经处于边缘，否则您将不会被迫。

The job becomes repetitive and scoped. Your move to the next level gets harder and harder without foresight. If you wait too long, the technology to learn enough to be relevant gets to be a continued cost. You have to make employers take a leap of faith rather than making an investment. The burden of proof moves from them to you.

这项工作变得重复且范围有限。 没有远见卓识，您的下一个台阶将越来越难。 如果等待时间太长，那么需要学习足够相关的技术将成为持续的成本。 您必须使雇主有信心飞跃，而不是进行投资。 举证责任从他们转移到了您。

I’ve stayed relevant by jumping to the “next big thing” whenever it comes up. Before plain tech dried up, I had already jumped to automation. When automation dried up, I was in development. I didn’t jump to the cutting edge, I jumped to the frontier.

每当出现“下一件大事”时，我都保持了相关性。 在普通技术枯竭之前，我已经跳入了自动化领域。 当自动化枯竭时，我正在开发中。 我没有跳到最前沿，而是跳到了前沿。

How do you push your job into the next unknown? How do you ride the trends without having to be the guinea pig (unless you want to)? You have to create a pathway that solidifies the developments of tech without trailblazing solo (unless you’re gunning for it). It’s one thing to hit the wild prepared and hitting it without the slightest preparation.

您如何将工作推向下一个未知世界？ 无需成为豚鼠，您如何驾驭潮流(除非您愿意)？ 您必须创建一条巩固技术发展的途径，而又不能独自开拓(除非您为此而奋斗)。 打野准备并没有丝毫准备就打是一回事。

When an aspect is quantifiable or is believed to be quantifiable, it usually means it will be quantified for a job. How do you get somewhere less quantifiable to keep the creativity and fun alive? Modern tech is a blue tech job unless you can get to the next level. Where do you see tech going and how do you get ahead of it?

当一个方面是可量化的或被认为是可量化的时，通常意味着它将被量化用于一项工作。 您如何获得难以量化的东西来保持创造力和乐趣？ 除非您能进入更高的水平，否则现代技术是一项蓝色技术工作。 您如何看待技术发展以及如何领先技术？

Originally published at https://somedudesays.com on September 7, 2020.

最初于 2020年9月7日 在 https://somedudesays.com 上 发布 。