> This post feels especially jaded and anti-intellectual. Writing simple code isn’t stupid, why be so harsh on yourself?
The reason I think self-critique takes a rather extreme turn is because of anxiety. If we analyse the root cause, there may be more than _just_ anxiety at play but I do feel it plays a significant role(IANAD though; just an observer).
Every programmer first and foremost are humans. And as humans, we are bounded by the highs and lows of the software we develop. Some of the low self-esteem can come because _life_; some might be because they hold their bar too high to achieve dramatically; some because, they might think of engineering software as an easy-peasy task but find that it can _sometime_ come with unseen/unheard baggages; all or partial part of the aforementioned causes could lead further to be in said state of mind.
To some extent, we(as in software people) need to be brave, hold our self beliefs/values, try to elevate our self-esteem and recommend our friends/family/colleagues to do the same. It's this collective esteem that will carry us together in this journey. It's not easy to overcome fear, anxiety, depression or any other state of mind(IANAD though; just an observer). I am cognisant of the fact that it is definitely easier said than done but do note that humans are capable of achieving marvelous things both intellectually and viscerally.
Perhaps, try to be social, go out and about, have hobbies, meditation, hiking, exercise - just to name a few that helped others I have met.
Last but not the least, I cannot let myself buy the argument that someone thinks of themselves as dumb.
It's extremely more likely that one has not had the opportunity to have the __foundational__ understanding and the shift required to think laterally in those terms. To acquire those, perhaps try to read more books and experiment more. These are more valuable use of time IMHO than to be harsh on oneself. But, to re-iterate, we are all humans at the end of the day.
There are barely any Rust jobs outside of crypto stuff at the moment. Not sure if this is good advice.
While I agree that getting the basics of machines learning under your belt is a good idea, the "AI" field is pretty hype driven so one should also have plans for another Ai Winter and not solely rely on it. I don't think hype chasing is is good career advice.
- Embedded Systems <- C/C++/ASM's bread and butter traditionally.
- Rust ecosystem is maturing faster than anything I have seen in the past (ok, maybe Go's ecosystem was fast as well).
Regarding AI and ML stuffs: While I do agree that chasing such hype may be intangible in the very short to short time frame. No doubt, the AI winter may follow a typical curve and follow up with a AI "summer". _Every_ major technology in the past 20-30 years has followed a V curve. AI/ML probably won't be an exception.
I understand that the OP may have hobbies outside of "learning" but making a dedicated time outside of it will yield by leaps and bounds. Always be learning (make time for it) - that's the gist in short without going into the nitty gritties.
If you want go deep, you will need to refresh/learn few key mathematical foundations that form the basis of QC. They are definitely not hard IMHO. If so, then read Michael Nielsen and Isaac Chuang excellent book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Computation_and_Quantu...
> But because they, especially QA & ops, tend to be viewed as lower on the hierarchy they often have lesser talent filling the ranks.
Geez ever wondered why? It is partly due to the "monkey" work that's required. I feel the "ops" world needs a heavy reset (may sound like broken record again: eliminate toil, eliminate side-effects, chicken/egg problems, test? what test? etc..). Geez and I wonder why positions at "FANG" like places require software engineers to fill in the ops work - the engineers, the thinkers and the leaders at these companies understood pretty early on the importance of "engineering" applied to these "ops" and "qa" disciplines.
That's kind of my point when I brought up the good ones being worth their weight in gold. It doesn't need to be all toil. But companies often view these roles as toil and thus they don't want to spend much money on it. Which means they get the bad ones. Which means it's all toil. And the cycle perpetuates.
In contrast, the high end people I've come across in QA, Ops, Infosec, etc. They were not only *expert* in their domain but better devs than most of the devs. In other words, the dynamic was the opposite from what I first described. And of course those people are really freaking expensive. Again, the cycle perpetuates.
