There was a moment were I wanted to quit. Then like most things, I accepted it for what it was and moved on. My current focus is saving enough money to go back to school and get a Ph.D in Mathmatics. I need another 300k saved before I can do it with my family.
Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
111–120 of 549 posts
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#112There was a moment were I wanted to quite. Then like most things, I accepted it for what it was and moved on. My current focus is saving enough money to go back to school and get a Ph.D in Mathmatics. I need another 300k saved before I can do it with my family.
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#113Depends on the role. I change roles a couple of times a year. The good ones give me freedom to come up with novel solutions and have major design input, growing my skills and giving me a good sense of ownership and respect. I look forward to work each day on these contracts.
The bad ones just want a grunt who asks no questions and turns out code without contradicting the project leads or architects, even when they're talking shit. No fun at all.
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious; what do you consider of something working with your hands? I came from the opposite background (former chemist, process engineer, chemical engineering) and opposed the minimal work that hardly anyone cared for. With programming, moving electrons makes it a much bigger impact with much ease.
I can sympathize with anexprogrammer and I think by working with your hands he might mean something like woodworking, metalworking, generally working "in the shop" making stuff. I'm not unhappy being a programmer, but from time to time I immensely enjoy fixing things at home myself - I see result of my work here and now. Being a programmer I may not see finished result of my work for a long time. I think it is quite…
I'm now in conservation and restoration, so a bit of all of those.
I considered restoring old vehicles, but didn't want to end up "just" a mechanic. It was working on cars that was my trigger to get out - I felt so much more satisfaction from restoring a car than I ever did from meeting a ship date. I think because it has a tangible sense of progress and completion, and there's something to point at that's more "real"
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#115Happy. Broke, but happy. :) (I earn around $100/hr, but my life organisation skills are so miserable that I can't yet make the ends meet. And I have to travel around 50 times per year). Scala/Java.
$100 an hour? If u work 5h per day for 22 days it's like 11k per month. Unless you got some serious addiction/debt problems I don't see how can u be broke :P
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#116Happiness at work is not a figure, it's a curve over time. Programming has high highs and rather low lows :)
When everything goes well, when I am working on code bases I like, on interesting features or on Open Source software, I am pretty happy.
When I am tracking an obscure bug that annoys my users for days, in an obscure proprietary code base and with a tight deadline approaching, I am somewhat less happy.
Sometimes, it is a stressful job, especially when you are close to production systems. But the rest of the time, it is so rewarding I would not for a second consider doing something else.
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#117Some years ago i was not so happy to be a programmer for life thinking about what i wanted to be 10-15 years down the road, after getting older i started to realize how good it is to have this skillset and that its worth my time venutring into new fields of informatics.
Programming always brings oppertunities from small stuff like side projects up to your own company. And we are in this one profession which has a bright future ahead in a society that is owned by programms. Right now we have the freedome of choice if you dont like your current job you can easily find a new one with the same or better pay.
We are the Artist, Stonemasons and Architects in conjunction.
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#118[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#119Can'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.…
Quite the same problem here, I also think I'm under-performing. Doesn't help that I'm on HN instead of working
Re: Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer?
#120I like programming. I like architecting. I like ops. I like putting things together and seeing them working. All the things that make me good at me job, the technical side, I like this. It's the projects I don't enjoy, where I have to take a technical implementation and make it ready for the user. It's the maintenance of projects. Adding in features that were never supposed to exist. Butchering code because of deadlines. Working with other developers who really don't care, and don't read documentation, and don't try to understand things. It's explaining why we shouldn't do something a certain way, or why we should, to someone who doesn't care or doesn't understand.
The thing I don't like is everything that got added on when I turned my hobby into my profession. But it's all that stuff which is the reason why my family live the way we do.
I'd be happy doing something I truly believed in, but at least I'm not working in a mechanics garage in mid winter for national minimum wage.