Career advice for young system programmers
The author likes to point out how developer career online advice, blogs, rants etc. aren't applicable to low level programming roles, with a patronising tone but they're right nonetheless. Although embedded people will say the same about system guys, TCS researchers about all types of SWEs and so on.However they seem to be falling into the same pitfalls with the frontend rockstar programmer-influencers; omitting and even undermining the importance of formal computer science education.Especially if we're talking about getting into non-web development/IT roles, it's quite a lofty goal to expect mastery in programming complex software without some structured curriculum that will help you obtain the fundamentals to do so. And no, Coursera unfortunately won't make the cut most of the time.Get a degree in Comp. Sci/Comp. Eng or at least some STEM degree and then a Masters. I understand the US-centric view of tertiary education being a risk due to large capital investment but in the rest of the world where it's affordable/free, most would hesitate to hire self-taught developers, even in web development positions.The degree may not be enough for systems programming  competency and this is where advice in the article about open source contribution comes to play, but I'd say it's kind of necessary unless you're some bunniefoo type of brain or idk.