Ask HN: How happy are you working as a programmer? • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by JBReefer » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 2:58 PM UTC

verbify wrote: post #101

dagw wrote: post #89

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. What percentage of people with law or finance degrees to you think actually make what you seem to think people with law or finance degrees make?

Not to mention that by being a developer, I started earning money in my early 20's, without hefty university debt. Less risk (plenty people study for the bar and fail) and upfront costs. There's also less chance of getting a casual 9-5 environment in finance.

I'm having a tough time finding it, but there was a really good article that analyzed median performance of law school grads and found that, if law school was a security, it would be below a junk rated bond.

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

#242

Post by majewsky » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 2:59 PM UTC

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #239

I started learning how to code at 14 when my parents bought me a Sharp MZ-700 instead of a C64 like I asked (I guess the salesperson had a better commission on that!) and since there were basically no games I had to write my own, that was about 30 years ago and I've been programming ever since I still love coding, getting in the zone, learning something new, in general the feeling of being able to make the computer d…

> I would honestly take a 50% pay cut if I was able to just deal with the code working at home, I am a fairly frugal person and wish there was something like basic income so I could just spend my days programming on projects that interest me.

You're not the only one. :)

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

#243

Post by ac166 » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:00 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #89

laxatives wrote: post #20

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…

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. What percentage of people with law or finance degrees to you think actually make what you seem to think people with law or finance degrees make?

In fairness, I work in the U.K. and most of my friends that I went to uni with, now in Law or Finance (including PAs) make more than I do.

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

#244

Post by pknerd » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:01 PM UTC

juandazapata wrote: post #225

I love it. I've been programming since I was 12 (I'm 32 now). For me, the key to avoid burning out, is to constantly keep learning new things. I currently work remotely for a NYC dev agency, and we have a massively good team. I have a couple of side projects, and one of them is generating an income of $500/week. Just keep building stuff during the weekends. Try to learn marketing, UX, UI, etc. Apply those new skills…

Is there anyway to contact you?

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

#245

Post by mohsinr » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:02 PM UTC

Working as a freelance programmer for last 10 years. I am happy working as a programmer from home.

However being lazy on exercise, and social life makes me hate it for few hours in any given day of the week. Then I bounce back, get out ... get stuck in traffic.. and then working from home seems great again :)

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

#246

Post by bsenftner » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:02 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #73

anexprogrammer wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar background here, and complete agreement with you! Started out seriously with the Amiga and it was a delight - the OS was beautifully designed, and there were so many ideas that should have caught on. I'll name just one - datatypes. Work started out with C and Unix, and so long as you had K&R and W Richard Stephens you were good to go. Loved the design of this too until I got to the GUI - X was not fun. Messin…

I remember being 16 and forging teacher's noted to get out of study hall to go to the library. Why? Because they had a REAL computer there! A Commodore PET! With 4K of RAM and BASIC! I came in, sat down, and thought "what do I want this machine to do that would be cool?" And so I wrote a game. Other kids loved the game enough to fight over who could play it. That was pretty cool. But I look at programming now? Damn,…

I've been thinking a lot about those days, and how magazines like Creative Computing and the Commodore computer manuals provided all the necessary foundation to make engrossing 1-2 day projects. It is totally possible today, but one needs to realize those magazine articles and project tutorials need to be created that guide new developers. That is us, we're the people that need to create the engaging, he's how its done in a day tutorials that do not depend upon new fangled shiny frameworks, but rather implement the new shiny idea in the minimal form that is its essence. With WebGL, creating jaw dropping tutorials is simply a matter of time and creative effort. Many new developers are fascinated with graphics and 3D - and the browser supports it much better than BASIC was supported back in the Apple II, Commodore era. Minor plug here: I've been pursuing this idea of a browser based return to the magical creativity of those early days with my www.3d-avatar-store.com - a web app and API that creates lip syncing 3D versions of real people. The combination of technologies that enable me to make this site is a gold mine of creative technology. My major issue is finding the time to create the tutorials, now that I have most of the hard stuff done.

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

#247

Post by hacknat » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:03 PM UTC

I worked as a programmer, briefly, after college, it sucked, expectations were ridiculous, pay was crap. I would never work as a programmer again.

I really enjoy my career as a Software Engineer though. It's been, mostly, fun, and as I've learned and grown I've got the chance to work on more and more interesting things.

Currently I'm helping to build a cloud provider for a specialized sector of the economy that has eschewed the cloud (until now).

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

#248

Post by alawrence » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:05 PM UTC

andy9775 wrote: post #229

49531 wrote: post #199

I worked in landscaping and then as a custodian making $7/hr before I started learning to code. Working as a programmer has transformed my life. I've got a lot of autonomy in my days, I enjoy solving technical problems, I get to work from home and see my 2yr old grow up. Yeah it sucks when your manager puts heavy deadlines on your team, or having to do things you don't necessarily agree with, or navigating corporate…

I have a side question, did you end up pursing a CS/Engineering degree? I'm trying to get a dev role and have a business background and looking for some advice on getting in.

I have a similar background in that I was primarily self-taught before finding a paid apprenticeship that lasted almost a year and then being employed as a consultant by the company.

If you can afford it, I'd recommend pursuing a formal route. It exposes you to a lot of ideas and ways of thinking that are hard to get in practice. After having programmed for around 4 years now, I often wish I'd studied CS.

In lieu of that, I think Udacity's nanodegrees programs are probably a good way to end up in a paid position relatively soon.

(I'm assuming you're looking to break into web programming. I can't speak for other areas.)

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

#249

Post by AndrewUnmuted » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:06 PM UTC

Though I've been writing software for 15 years, and have worked in the technology industry exclusively throughout my life, I have spent only one year of my professional career as a developer. My job was always a managerial/project management kind of situation - I have equal competency in technology and media/content, so I could always carve out a niche. Then, one day, I decided to abandon my cushy job at Amazon to become a developer for startups that I was interested in working for.

I spent all of 2015 pursuing this goal - it was a mistake. I loved the work, but really, really disliked the work environment with which I had to put up. Startup environments are noisy, and I could never really hear myself think. Despite all the flashy tools like Slack, Trello, and Google Docs, my teams never got quite as much done as the enterprise environments running Office 2010 that I was growing sick and tired of the previous year. Other team members would routinely stay home, not coming in to join the team during the work day. Scrum was held remotely every single day. Frankly, it was a mess.

I am now back in a cushy, boring office job. Didn't have the stomach for this insane brogrammer NYC startup culture. 5/10.

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

#250

Post by vinceguidry » Mon, Feb 01, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #124

onion2k wrote: 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…

> compare developer wages to manual labourers or retail staff apples to oranges. we're highly specialized knowledge workers. well most of us are, so it is more fair to compare with bankers, lawyers, medics, architects, politician and middle managers which can count on a year to year income growth instead of having to playing idea lottery.

I wouldn't exactly call developers highly specialized. Specialized developers work in a tiny niche and make lots of money by being one of the very few in that niche. Any of us could potentially become specialized, but very few of us actually are.

Hell, most of us could jump fields without losing steam. Systems administration, security, database administration, all of these can be done by a decent developer.