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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?

#201
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're rich to start with then you'll still end up making either your investors or your landlord rich. Do it right and you get rich too. But then you're often still perpetuating the system by then employing people who work making you rich. Start a cooperative, forget about being rich and seek the fulfillment of all its members.

You know this cooperative(aka socialism :) sounds good on paper but it does not work most of the time in real life. If someone takes a risk to build something valuable, he/she deserves to get rich.

The problem is that risk has become an absurdly exponential factor of increasing wealth where hard work is at best only additive. Risk should not take the value that you provide and raise it to the power of 10 just because you might have failed.

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

#202
post #24

I enjoy it, but only if I'm treated with respect, not micro-managed, and trusted to do my job. Ironically when managers set deadlines and add process, it demotivates me and the code ends up shipping later. The silver lining, however, is that I learn what not to do if I decide to start my own company (I have a note on my PC called, "Mistakes from previous companies that you shouldn’t make"). So in general, even if I'm…

Would you be willing to share your list of mistakes with the group?

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

#203
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I am saying is that founder who took the risk Please describe what "risks" the average high-flying tech startup CEO has taken.

I am not sure what you mean by the high flying CEO, I am talking more from the founder's side who puts his money and time on the line. Take Musk as an example, he invested most of his money in Tesla and Space X and both the companies came close to bankruptcy. Those companies and many others will not work as a cooperative.

Why not?

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

#204
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Why not make a much less depressing comparison and compare developer wages to manual labourers or retail staff? Compare a typical developer to a typical retail worker and we get way more money for way less stress. We're not at the top end of the scale, but we…

its not a good comparison since retail takes absolutely sero education or brains.

Meaningless class based prattle

Hardest management job I ever had - working night shift manager at a food store while going to college during the day. Like surviving a hurricane while running a marathon while the building's on fire, every single night. I lived roughly a decade of "real" management in my senior year.

Cashiering required a surprising amount of memorization of obscure procedures and policies and item codes, not to mention carefully tracked flawless arithmetic skills when giving change.

The general manager was an artist of endcap design. At non-megacorp retail you're on your own when designing displays. Its truly an art. At the megacorps you have teams of CAD drafters, graphics artists, and sales consultants designing displays, at a non-megacorp story you have yourself, and the boss expects you to do as good of a job as the team. Teams are usually much less productive than individuals, so its not as hard as it sounds.

Stock clerk at higher levels was insane. Its really a two level job and the new hire teen kids merely threw product on marked shelves, but if you were there more than a year and were not an idiot you watched the more experienced guys and took over for them, after which you spent all your time on rotations and resets and price changes and sales stickering and being a reception clerk for the 50 or so direct store delivery trucks we had. I don't care if you have 20 pounds of soup cans for a 10 pound shelf, make all of them fit somehow and you need to accept deliveries from dairy and bread and beer and you have two hours until break time to get this all done plus or minus helping out everyone else.

I've noticed over many decades that despite enormous quantities of (self serving) propaganda, the hourly pay rate people get generally has little relationship with how difficult or important the job is, on a large enough scale.

Another interesting observation is the dumb people didn't survive on the job nearly as long as the smart people, and the dumb people absolutely suffered horribly compared to the smart people.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working with your brain takes just as much effort as working with your muscles. Think back to taking a multiple hour exam in school, and how knackered you'd feel at the end of it. Now imagine doing that for 8+ hours every day, trying to solve problems that you don't even know have a solution. Yes, your body may still be ready to go, but there's nothing left upstairs to make it happen.

> Working with your brain takes just as much effort as working with your muscles. Does working with your brain leave you susceptible to long-term injury or disability?

Obesity and diabetes, sure.

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

#207
post #143
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhh... I have to ask: what, exactly, were you expecting? Exhilarating highs and a path to millions? It's a job. Most people don't have jobs that'll make them "rich". Be glad you aren't living paycheck to paycheck, or worse, are unemployed because the job you had was optimized away with computers. To be blunt, there's a sense of entitlement evident, here, that I have trouble grokking. You get to spend all day in a com…

This is a horrible comment. There is 100x more to a career than living a comfortable existence. Personally, I want to feel purposeful at work and that I am contributing to a better world. I also absolutely require regular challenges or I end up severely depressed. Also, I have undertaken extensive education partially as a way of raising my standard of living and having a more enjoyable life outside of work. THERE ARE…

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE! And you're allowed to demand a hell of a lot out of your career as long as you are willing to create it.

No one will ever just give you an interesting career tailor-made for you. Find out what is interesting, fulfilling, and challenging, and make that your career over time. You start in your company doing menial crap but then move to interesting crap over time, by being intentional about what the company needs, what you need, and how you can leverage one to get the other.

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

#208
Very! But being a programmer does not necessarily make you happy though. In a similar way that having lots of money doesn't necessary make you happy. If you invest some time in looking for a good team, at a company that encourages learning - you're getting closer. Work on something you're interested in. If you're missing one of those things, change it... Keep changing it until you find something that works for your lifestyle. You'll either find it or figure out programming isn't for you.

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

#209
Being forced to work for a living is absolutely the worst thing that could ever happen to a human being. As far as that goes, I would do almost anything to break free of this yoke and enjoy my life.

Alas, reality is only what it is. I suppose writing code in an office beats manual labor or a life of crime.

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

#210

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 ev…

>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.

Software engineers in Finance can make a pretty good living though. Definitely not as high as specialized MD or M&A specialists, but rivaling some successful lawyers for sure. Then again even for people with top business degrees M&A is a top tier which takes quite a bit of luck to get into. My 2c.

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