321–330 of 350 posts
Startup/hustle culture ruined the programming industry. I think it doesn't even need elaboration. Everything that made programming fun and magical is gone and personal side projects are the only way you can experience that again.
If you want creative freedom and fulfillment from some work, don't link it to a "salary".
> Yet I can't bare it. I can't bare the devs that go out of their way to work weekends without being asked Wait... You love programming but you can't stand those that code during the week-ends?
Coding is far from the only field I've seen this. Some guys figure they'll go above and beyond to impress the boss, or just because they want to make more money.
A good boss will obviously let their employees know what is expected - but some bosses will start to ask other "Hey, John goes the extra mile all the time. Why can't you too?"
And it sort of becomes a race to the bottom.
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…
That might be the counter-anecdote that proves the rule. In my own humble anecdotal experience, the less focused a company is on tech, the worse. Beyond that, if management is not from a software (or engineering) background, they will likely have no clue what to expect from programmers (because such hard things are simple and such simple things are hard) and the treatment will be . . . strange.
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…
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?
I don't feel qualified giving advice but personally I think I would look beyond what is commonly considered "tech". As another poster mentioned, everyone uses tech. When a company's work is sufficiently complex or special, chances are they may not rely on external vendors 100%.
Really out of my depth here but maybe some types of firms where I think there could be some interesting stuff internally:
- engineering - analytics - games - graphics/animations
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
170+ IQs are extremely rare. That's 4.67 standard deviations above the mean. That should be about 0.0002% of people, or 14,000 people in the entire world, and that has to be shared with every other occupation that exists.
The reason I am asking this is because it is not at all my experience - if anything, higher IQ correlates strongly with dysfunction.
if you have to work 12 hours to eat then your work is damn meaningful.
if you sit in front of a computer for 6 hours in a comfy job doing asinine tasks and dealing with asinine bs, it has no meaning.
since your basic needs are met, yet the income you get is not enough to do something, like have kids or buy a home or pursue your own ideas.
at least not without feeling constant anxiety and stress as a rentier debtor.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah.. first shocking thing in my transnational company was that they only have 10 days of vacation vs our usual 30... and they envy us always for our 3week long vacations, while their is usually used up already with Christmas? Then those sentences here in multiple posts about it being normal to put in extra weekend days, wtf? Add to this they even completely had to return to office 5days a week.. ..and this is for h…
I do think you might have gotten a rather skewed view of the situation in the US. In the ten years I've been working professionally I've never had to work weekends, for example, and I currently have 30 days of vacation (plus another eight or so sick days). I realize the amount of vacation I get is unusually high, but I think three or four weeks is normal. That said, while I am reasonably well compensated I don't make…
Even though on paper the average tech worker might have 20+ days off, if the culture is not there, peer pressure will kind of force you to compromise in other ways.