On Mon, 16 May 2011, Chuck Cole wrote: > Something sounds off-base about your ideas of "hacker-centric" cultures. Doesn't sound like something to aspire to at any stage of > your career. Yeah, why would anyone want to have Google on their resume. I'm pretty sure that's the kind of "hacker-centric" environment the OP meant. Sure, it's no longer the 90s, and there aren't THAT many places that have pool tables and on-site laundry anymore, and where you're encouraged ot take one day a week just to work on your own projects. Heck, I'm not even saying you should really pin your hopes on a place like that, and that if you DO really want something like that you should either A) Invent a time machine, or B) Move to California. But places liek that /do/ still exist, and you can /still/ luck out and get in on the ground floor of the next Google/Facebook/Twitter/Whatever it might be. It's not super likely, and again, original poster, I would NOT count on it, but there IS a middle-ground here. There are plenty of places you can work where your ability to improvise a solution RIGHT THE HECK NOW for a problem nobody ever anticipated would be valued. Even high-visibility fotune-500 companies might be OK with you hacking together an automated solution for something that previously took 500 man-hours, so long as you take the time to document it. Now if you're going to go work at an ISO9001-Compliant place, yeah, that kind of stuff won't fly. I think one important thing to remember is, and I hate to say this... the chances of you finding a PERFECT job where you can just do whatever it is you absolutely love and no other boring/mind-numbing/repetitious crap attached to it are very, very low. Be prepared to compromise on your professional life, at least at first. But do NOT give up on hacking as a hobby! -Yaron --