Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 350 posts

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#111

Post by BlargMcLarg »

nvarsj wrote: post #43

For me it’s the insane hazing ritual of the tech interview process that makes me want to leave the industry. I’m going through it again now, and honestly am pretty miserable. It has a large negative impact on the rest of my life and my mental health. When I was younger it was manageable, but the fact you have to do this even mid or late career every few years is insane to me. Wish I had gone into literally any other…

The fact the interview process is largely unsupported by any empirical evidence speaks volumes really, and this has been known since the 1970s or so. Instead of listening, hiring, HR, recruiters generally clamped down, and newcomers believe this is in fact the best solution because "rationally, it makes sense!". The few who come to their senses struggle to change the common narrative.

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#112

Post by intelijstupide »

ornornor wrote: post #50

I feel exactly the same. Programming professionally for a decade sucked all the joy out of it. My personal hypothesis is that we’re increasingly being treated like assembly line workers. We’re not paid to think but to implement the poorly thought out hare brained schemes from the higher ups who have no clue about programming. This externalizes all the cost of poor quality software onto the developers (unmaintainable…

Switch into ecommerce or marketing. Product companies suck.

Product companies: selling your software as a product means you're always going to feel like you're on an assembly line. Except you're not the assembly line worker, you're the assembly line.

Ecommerce and marketing companies: you build software that enables the company to sell some product. You're not the assembly line, you're not even working on the assembly line. You're designing the assembly line and building the machines. You're the engineer.

Whatever you do, always avoid companies that treat engineering like an IT cost center. The work culture is always dogshit and you're the first to go in a downturn. Look for somewhere that is "engineering first" or "developer driven" (e.g. somewhere a dev is high up on the org chart.)

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#113

Post by jorgeleo »

"can't bare the devs that go out of their way to work weekends without being asked"

But that is a problem for those devs, not you. As long as you are producing high quality results on time, shame on them. Why "you" can't bare it?

"I can't bare the endless meetings"

The meeting might feels endless because it is not where you want to be. That sounds more like you expected that the life of professional development should be only what you like to do, I assume coding, and it didn't turn out that way. Maybe you should adjust your expectations to reality and get the most out of those meetings?

"constant micromanagement"

I have deal with this in the past: a) Over report. Micromanaging is consequence (in very general terms) of insecurities in managers. Over report, be constantly in their faces telling every detail of what you are doing, until they are tired of you and they know you can take care of things b) Find another company... there is a shortage of developers anyway Bottom line: You cannot change them, but you can change how you approach them.

"bringing the stress home to my family"

Your family is not at fault of what is going on at work. My experience is that there has to be some level of compartmentalization. You need to learn to flush out your frustrations before arriving home.

I understand that you don't like the industry, but the question is what are you going to do about it? How are you going to process your feelings? How can you take advantage of where you are? In other words, can you develop your soft-skills?

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#116

Post by DanUKs »

mightybyte wrote: post #54

One thing about what you wrote jumped out at me. You say "I love building and working - always have, always will." and "I'm forever building my own side projects as I love it." But then later you say "I can't bare the devs that go out of their way to work weekends without being asked." When I work weekends without being asked it's usually because I WANT to. It's because I'm having fun. So that strikes me as an odd th…

The outcome of working weekends on my own project is the chance that I may actually build something that can feed my children, give them a good life, give us freedom etc.

The outcome of me working weekends for a company I work for is potentially having a pat on the back from my project manager and to have my name on a powerpoint at the end of the a sprint if I'm lucky.

The CEO doesn't even know your name. Know-your-worth.

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#117

Post by [deleted] »

UncleMeat wrote: post #76
anonymoushn wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the meetings are useful, that's fine, but I have a hard time taking pride in a long series of meetings to decide the contents of a 15-page document describing the design for feature that could be like 200LOC but now must be 2000LOC and involve integration between multiple teams' services because the promo criteria says "collaboration."

Then tell people . Make it better. You can improve process in the same way that you can identify broken components of a codebase, take ownership of them, and improve them in measurable ways.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#118

Post by dolmen »

belval wrote: post #52

> I can't bare the devs that go out of their way to work weekends without being asked, I can't bare the endless meetings, constant micromanagement, bringing the stress home to my family. Have you considered just changing jobs? Not all places work weekend/have tons of meetings/micromanage. Maybe take time to assess what you like and dislike about your job and try to find a less stressful environment that fits your exp…

> As my girlfriend puts it "at the end of the day it's just a bunch of computers, no-one is dying".

+1

Re: Ask HN: I love programming but hate the industry. Can anyone relate?

#120

Post by JKCalhoun »

ornornor wrote: post #50

I feel exactly the same. Programming professionally for a decade sucked all the joy out of it. My personal hypothesis is that we’re increasingly being treated like assembly line workers. We’re not paid to think but to implement the poorly thought out hare brained schemes from the higher ups who have no clue about programming. This externalizes all the cost of poor quality software onto the developers (unmaintainable…

Yes, this was however not the case when I started in the mid-90's — the inmates ran the asylum and we liked it that way.

Throughout my career, as tech became big(ger) business, I watched as management, marketing, and design, took away our keys. Scrum, as an example, and all that followed seemed to be a way for upper management to rein in engineering, give management "numbers" that they could show their bosses, etc.

Post reply on HN