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Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

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Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#11

Post by gregthompsonjr »

sdrothrock wrote: post #7
gregthompsonjr wrote: post #5

Can't complain. Great company. Constantly wondering if I'm good enough to keep my job, though. I'm trying to prepare for that day I'm told, "Let's talk. We like you a lot, but we've decided to let you go. If you need referrals, let us know." I mean, everyone says I'm doing well. I just don't feel it, so I work a lot more than I probably should, and I'm always ridiculously paranoid. I'd say I'm happy but I'm worried.…

> Constantly wondering if I'm good enough to keep my job, though. I wonder this quite often too. It would be interesting to see a study involving programmers and their confidence in their skills compared to what other people think and also how much they read about programming online. My gut instinct is to say that because we want to read a lot of new/interesting stuff online, we're exposed to (seemingly) tons of peop…

I'm surrounded by the people we read material from, the guys who write it all. I try to learn everything I can from them. I'm just hoping I can express a level of competence that enables me to keep my position. The longer I can keep it, the more I'll learn, the better I'll be a year from now and after.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#12

Post by Kovah »

It depends on the project I'm working on. If I have to work on a Wordpress site and write plugins I really want to quit. But then there are interesting (hobby)projects where you can decide on how to build your app and how to solve problems which is rather fulfilling. Overall happiness at the moment: 60/100

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#14

Post by YuriNiyazov »

abalashov wrote: post #6

I'm not. I have been doing it since I was 9. I pulled most of the heavy-duty, hardcore all-nighters during my teenage years; I grew up writing C, and was hacking on socket code and compiling kernels when I was 12-16. So by the time I was 20, I was utterly burned out. Most of my peers discovered the crazy, hyper-caffinated, 24/7 techie life in university years, and still have a few years of this insanity left in them.…

My god, what is this amazing vertical?

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#15

Post by reustle »

I worked for a few years as a programmer but also exercised my people skills over time (being in NYC). I eventually realized I didn't want to write code for work anymore, only for fun. I eventually did a bit more management related stuff at one of my gigs, and now I run a small development shop which requires very little coding on my part. I'm really happy with how things have turned out.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#16

Post by abalashov »

YuriNiyazov wrote: post #14
abalashov wrote: post #6

I'm not. I have been doing it since I was 9. I pulled most of the heavy-duty, hardcore all-nighters during my teenage years; I grew up writing C, and was hacking on socket code and compiling kernels when I was 12-16. So by the time I was 20, I was utterly burned out. Most of my peers discovered the crazy, hyper-caffinated, 24/7 techie life in university years, and still have a few years of this insanity left in them.…

My god, what is this amazing vertical?

VoIP/telecom, SIP.

It is far from amazing, and I'm not saying it always fetches that kind of bill rate, just that it is specialised work and requires telephony domain knowledge.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#17

Post by manish_gill »

3 years since I graduated from my CS program. Enjoyed the internship and the first year as a python developer. Then I had the bad luck of landing a Node.js + MongoDB project. I've been hating on programming (particularly JS) ever since. Just like @abalshov, I procrastinate as much as I can. Side projects and Open Source contributions have dropped to practically zero. It's just...tiring. Assembling X library with Y framework and then spend 10 hours trying to figure out that one bug. This isn't what I got into CS for.

The pay isn't amazing either. Though I'm good at what I do (a lot better than some colleagues who are getting paid much better), I just can't get excited for yet another startup job (which is where I've been most of my career) which is working on a non-problem.

The work needs to be interesting for me to be motivated. So far, it's mundane. And given I'm not in the US or any western country, I haven't found many companies working on interesting stuff here. It's all ideas copied from the valley and hammered into the ecosystem here.

Perhaps I need some inspiration or some creative idea to put things into perspective. But yeah. Things could be a lot better. I've recently started getting into Statistics/ML and learning Clojure on the side as a distraction and that's been going well.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#18

Post by democracy »

I am doing contracts (enterprise java), it pays well so my wife doesn't have to work and takes care of 2 kids while paying mortgage. Happy? I believe it is about the people who surround you at work - where you spend most of the time - i like my team and many other people in my current company.

The work is boring in general but i am trying to make it more interesting in getting more involved in production investigations (can be exciting quite often) and helping other people at work find some crazy bug or better understand something...

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#19

Post by tway923jk »

Not particularly.

I have few friends or hobbies. Most of my coworkers can't even hold a conversation, much less go clubbing or play sports with me.

I've had chronic burning pain in both legs since age 14. The doctors say too much computer usage led to poor core strength which damaged my spine.

I think computer use damaged my body as well as my social skills.

Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?

#20

Post by laxatives »

6/10. I'm less than 3 years into my career, but I think I've worked for some of the best companies with great pay, benefits, environments, etc, including a tech giant and two startups. End of the day though, work is boring. Its always work. Your time and effort is going towards making someone else rich and their priorities are more important than your own.

The only things I really look forward to are vacations and events outside of work. Learning things is always exciting and sometimes its extremely rewarding getting a project (or even a feature) off the ground and seeing a company rise and beat projections. But then a few weeks later, its just back to work and nothings really different. Its a temporary victory at best, then expectations just get higher and more grind.

The best you can possibly hope for is enjoying the people you work with and getting a couple good exits. I'm never married to my work and I would be incredibly depressed if I allowed it to define me as a person. It pays the bills, and generally pretty well.

Even compensation wise, it peaks very early and probably won't get most rich without a ton of luck. Its depressing to make comparisons, but 99.9% of developers will never make half of what a specialized MD or successful lawyer or someone in finance might make. Granted, the barrier to entry is much lower in CS (sometimes nearly nonexistent depending on the line of work).

edit: Reading some of the other comments made me realize how dissatisfied I am with this line of work. On average, the people really are incredibly boring, especially at large companies. It is true that it is dominated by men and many are socially awkward. Its even worse that I think being on a computer for so many hours a day for years at a time makes everyone a little less socially adept, at least compared to the sales folks who spend most of their days on the phone. I'm literally spending my weekends looking for the most reckless and dangerous things I can do (lately its been surfing 2-3x head high waves, before it was motorcycling through snow/ice storms) to compensate and its completely unhealthy.

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