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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?

#231

Post by pc86 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #215
CornCobs wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter-anecdote: I'm working at a non-tech company (we build the in-house technical software that everyone else in the company uses) and the experience has been great. We deliver real and immediate value, our clients are our colleagues and there's a great emphasis on UX, user testing and what not as a result. Yes, there are loads of other problems, especially on the technical side, because tech isn't the company's s…

I would love to get a job building internal tools that my company needs and uses but I haven't had any luck actually finding those kinds of jobs, so I always wind up building products. Any advice on how to find those kinds of positions?

Connect with a recruiter (or five) and tell them that's what you want. They exist to act as a filter, and if you work with several from multiple companies/geographies in addition to doing your own searching, you'll eventually find what you're looking for.

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

#232

Post by pc86 »

jinto36 wrote: post #185
The_Colonel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get a job at smaller to medium sized non-tech company. Every company, in any industry, has computers. They need you. I personally had the worst experience at such jobs. Small/medium sized non-tech companies don't value technology and don't understand its importance. If it works, you're invisible and just a cost center, if it doesn't you're to blame. For work/life balance I've found big tech corps the best (not FAAN…

Also, if they have an existing solution that they're looking for someone to maintain/port/update- it's more likely to be some cobbled together spaghetti monster without any documentation.

Whether it's a mess or not depends entirely upon the skill of the people that built it and the constraints they were under while building.

There is no shortage of anecdata on HN and elsewhere of people being shocked at the poor quality of the code base at FAANG and other high level prestigious companies.

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

#233

Post by Clubber »

jamisteven wrote: post #206

There is no "programming industry". Industry would be, automotive, finance, agriculture.. etc. Its likely the industry you work in, not programming.

Well sort of. For some reason, many dev departments do things the same way. Usually learned via some scrum consultant.

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

#234

Post by krageon »

The primary thing to start doing is separate your private and work life. You should not be bringing anything home from work, least of all stress. The rest is all a matter of attitude: You will find all of the things you've listed in every industry, but in this one at least some of the work is fun :)

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

#235

Post by mmmm2 »

This is why I switched to DevOps / Internal tooling. Yes, it has its own headaches, but usually you aren't on the critical path for the company and can get away with working normal hours (most of the time). The scope of the work tends to be smaller too, so projects feel more like side projects.

Downsides are: - More manual/operations tasks (though this is a chance for automation). - It can be a dumping ground for random jobs other teams don't want. - Your customers know exactly how to get in touch with you. - You probably won't be working at "web scale" or with the latest machine learning tech.

When I started down this path I thought it might be hard to find jobs, but that hasn't been my experience... yet.

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

#236

Post by pmarreck »

Apreche wrote: post #68

I highly recommend doing what I have done most of my career. Get a job at smaller to medium sized non-tech company. Every company, in any industry, has computers. They need you. You don't have to work with a bunch of tech or finance people. You can get a job working with chill people in some other industry with a better culture. When it comes time to negotiate, negotiate HARD. And not just for money, but especially t…

Second this. I currently do some work for real-estate agents, who are a more interesting lot than I would have expected going in.

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

#237

Post by krageon »

xnorswap wrote: post #122
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I have a counterpoint to one of your comments wrt attitude concerning meetings: if I sit in a Teams call with 50 other people, mic muted, camera off, listening to some person I haven't seen before talk about some business development I haven't heard of before, it's not going to matter what attitude I have. No-one will notice "what energy I bring" into that meeting. None of it matters. It's just one more day of b…

I hear you, company wide status meetings can seem pointless. I've worked at places where there were large "company update meetings" for the whole company. They were only once a month but still frustrating to lose an afternoon to listen to every detail about who the sales team pitched to this month. Seemingly we had to have every detail of their job explained but the entire software development team had 5 minutes at m…

> company wide status meetings can seem pointless.

Not just seem, they are. But if you can turn off your mic and video, you can play videogames or bake a cake in the background. Everyone wins: Some feckless manager feels important and you do something you actually enjoy.

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

#238

Post by samat »

Apreche wrote: post #68

I highly recommend doing what I have done most of my career. Get a job at smaller to medium sized non-tech company. Every company, in any industry, has computers. They need you. You don't have to work with a bunch of tech or finance people. You can get a job working with chill people in some other industry with a better culture. When it comes time to negotiate, negotiate HARD. And not just for money, but especially t…

I run a small boutique outsource software development company, 11 developers, 2 managers. We have a 4-day work week, async communications, etc., etc. Pay is not great, but we compensate with sanity a lot.

It is possible, just keep looking! :)

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

#239

Post by nickd2001 »

DanUKs wrote: post #149
dolmen wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to work on weekends to meet deadlines, have you considered that the problem is not about yourself but about the deadline?

It's not necessarily "working weekends" that's the issue. You can have a job that requires you to work 2 hours per day and still work 6-7 days a week. It's more the constant backlog of stuff that needed to be done yesterday, more than a deadline for a specific feature(s). I have zero control over that, which inevitably leads to the stress of work spilling into my personal life, weekends etc. I'll feel the need to do…

"I'll feel the need to do some work at 10pm on a Sunday night every other week, just to keep things afloat." sounds like a workplace from hell. GTFO ! I've never, in over 25 yrs now as a software developer, had to do that. BTW, public sector may be the way to go. Interesting work, less performance management / competitive cr*p, easier to make real friends at work, mission can be more valuable than some rich person trying to get even richer..etc. Public sector tends to pay less headline salary, right now, but can give career longevity due to less stress and more time to learn stuff properly.

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

#240

Post by krageon »

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.

There is empirical evidence for that? Where? Where are the 170+ IQ employees churning out magnificent solution after magnificent solution, rather than being stuck in the same rut as everyone else?
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