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

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

#171

Post by nvarsj »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #91
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 insane hazing ritual of the tech interview process That's it, exactly. I was a hiring manager for 25 years, and never gave a single coding test, during that time. I never made any technical errors. The only bad hires were folks that couldn't adapt to the work environment. Some of them were quite technically proficient. Some of my most gratifying hires, were ones that came in, with little tech proficiency or exp…

I did nope out of this process last time I was looking, when I moved out of the US and my kids were young - because I just didn't have the time for it. I took a huge pay cut, but I accepted family > career. Since then I managed to almost triple my income through accomplishments and networking, but I still make less than a FAANG senior engineer.

Then I had a close friend, who I encouraged to get into software, land an L5 role at a FAANG with barely 1 year of actual engineering experience. The guy is a complete slacker, and never accomplished much at all until I actively pushed him to try rebooting his career.

He's smart though, and single with no family, so he just grinded leetcode and system design and now he makes 350k/year.

Anyways, that spurred me back into the meat grinder, so here I am. Multiple, large accomplishments under my belt, significant engineering experience. But none of it matters. Not that I expect anyone to have sympathy for me - it's just the way our industry is.

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

#172

Post by psyc »

Yes I can absolutely relate, way too much. I've already written numerous comments about this and don't care to compose another, but yes. I love programming with a passion still after doing it for over 30 years. But doing it for a living started to kill me after about 5 years in the industry. Since then I've had good years and bad, but I'm mostly retired now and even though I'm continually tempted by offers I would have given anything for in the past, I just can't even. Reasons in descending order of awfulness: little agency, little respect, process, organization dysfunction, boring work, team dysfunction, people in general.

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

#173

Post by brodouevencode »

badpun wrote: post #2

I think most people here can. That's why, when people have enough money to retire, they DO retire, and not continue working. Work for most people is trading time and physical and mental health for money. In our profession, we got it better than most, but the underlying principle is still the same. Also, there are definitely better and worse companies. I'm currently in the best job of my life (well paying, fully remot…

Similar experience - I went through 12 years of horrible employers before I found a good one. I was there for 8 years before moving on to something bigger and better, which I love even more.

Part of what I realized in that 12 years was that I by the time I was ready to bail I was so frustrated and hated life so much that anything _but_ this current position looked good, which opened the door to taking something that was equally as horrible. I've long advocated in starting at the bottom and working your way up, but there is a limit as to how much abuse a person can take. If the climate goes south you have to bail. The long term consequences of not are higher than the immediate annoying ones (relocating, etc.).

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

#174

Post by BatteryMountain »

10 Years in, I'm depleted. I no longer trust either business people nor other developers. I no longer trust corporations and governments. I'm actually quite disgusted with what the internet has become, how people interact with it, how children interact with and so on. We need a clean slate and keep it clean - else we might soon become the most regulated industry, which is really something we want to avoid.

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

#175

Post by cehrlich »

maximus-decimus wrote: post #157
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The way I see it, it's just an IQ test in disguise, which do have empirical evidence they predict your future performance at intellectual work.

It's not though, it's a test of how hard you've studied for algo problems. Relevant for some programming jobs, but not for most.

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

#176

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

nvarsj wrote: post #171
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the insane hazing ritual of the tech interview process That's it, exactly. I was a hiring manager for 25 years, and never gave a single coding test, during that time. I never made any technical errors. The only bad hires were folks that couldn't adapt to the work environment. Some of them were quite technically proficient. Some of my most gratifying hires, were ones that came in, with little tech proficiency or exp…

I did nope out of this process last time I was looking, when I moved out of the US and my kids were young - because I just didn't have the time for it. I took a huge pay cut, but I accepted family > career. Since then I managed to almost triple my income through accomplishments and networking, but I still make less than a FAANG senior engineer. Then I had a close friend, who I encouraged to get into software, land an…

I have sympathy (for what that's worth).

I wish you well.

I am very grateful to have had the means to "nope out."

I used to say "My dream is to, one day, work for free."

I'm living the dream ... :/

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

#177

Post by gwbas1c »

> Yet I can't bare it. 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.

This is something I screen for very carefully when interviewing. It took me almost a year to find a job after I was laid off in February 2020; but it was worth it. I really love my current job.

That being said: All jobs have ups and downs; including the best ones.

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

#178

Post by the_only_law »

scrozart wrote: post #86

You can program outside of "the industry". I work at a science institution that sits between NASA and the .edu sphere of influence. While we also have our own frustrations, it's generally wonderful and I'm a cog in a machine that is enriching the human experience. Are we a little behind on all the spiffy trends? Yep, but we're also not under constant pressure to adopt/adapt to spiffy trends. Do we make a little less…

Every job I've seen like that wants a domain expert who can program, not a programmer who may know a bit about the domain.

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

#179

Post by oifjsidjf »

toddmorey wrote: post #126
oifjsidjf wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is what OP wants. He hates regular jobs. He wants to work on his inspiring projects, but doesn't know well how to monetize/market them.

Yes but if OP is building stuff on the side, this type of employment may give the time & headspace to do it, along with less stress.

I dissagree: he hates his job, that is what is producing the stress in the first place.

Otherwise he'd be happy keeping a job and having the weekends for his own projects.

But this is obviously not the case.

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

#180

Post by oifjsidjf »

DanUKs wrote: post #124
oifjsidjf wrote: post #3

I had(have) the same problem but I'm successfully resolving it. In the last 10 days I made more progress than 10 years combined before. Why? Because I realized that the problem is inside of my mind. What is causing me to not finish/doubt my own projects? There are many reasons, each unique to each persons's mind. One must brutaly focus in on the specific reasons and resolve them. The solution that is working for me:…

Great comment. Thank you. I'm currently reading "Manifest. 7 steps to living your best life". It's pretty much exactly what you've described. It sounds like you're going through an amazing transformation. Embrace it and change your life. They don't come round often. Give that book a read when you get the chance :)

Will do, thank you.

It took me many years to finaly come to the deep realization that sitting down by yourself and brutaly examining my own problems that the mind generates is the only way forward.

The amount of resistance I felt to this was enourmous.

I escaped by trying to browse internet, read books etc... for way too many years.

Listening to 20hours+ of Krishnamurti's talk was what finally made me realize that there really is no other way that to examine what is inside of yourself.

And you will not find solutions to your "mind problems" on the internet or in books, only in your own mind, which is done by sitting alone, quitly and observing the mind precisely.

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