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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?

#41

Post by LoSboccacc »

Joeri wrote: post #22

I have been programming for 22 years. There have been times where i hated it and wanted to get rid of my computers. However, presently I'm really happy working as a programmer. The key for me is curiosity. How do things work? How should i solve this problem? If I'm not curious then I'm not having fun, and if I'm not having fun I'm not happy. My job at present doesn't feel like a job because I'm learning all about Had…

How's the job market 20 years down the line? I'm ten years in the field and trying to switch into management, becase growth prospects and scarcity of senior opportunities scares the hell out of me.

Basically I live in constant fear of the day I'll hear 'overqualified' at a interview

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

#42

Post by meekins »

While doing custom enterprise apps in Java isn't the sexiest or the best paying job in IT I enjoy it quite a lot. Working on a standard and stable stack with well-established conventions minimizes the hassle of jumping through the technical hoops and allows me to concentrate on the actual business problems.

A couple of years ago I moved into an architect postition and while the high level of abstraction, customer interface and leading and instructing the development team is enjoyable I feel my personal development has slowed down significantly because I have very little time to contribute to the actual code. On my spare time I'd rather concentrate on my other hobbies and when I do programming it's mostly dabbling in Ruby, Clojure and other stuff I'd hardly be using at work. Currently I'm looking for a new gig that would be a lot more hands-on.

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

#43

Post by abalashov »

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…

On average, the people really are incredibly boring, especially at large companies.

I wrote a post recently that is tangentially related to this. Don't want to shamelessly plug myself, but I think you might enjoy it:

http://likewise.am/2016/01/22/more-lessons-from-my-twenties-...

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

#44

Post by nibnib »

revanx_ wrote: post #28

I'm happy if I follow this golden rule : "Premature optimization is the root of all evil -- DonaldKnuth" I so often spiral into an endless loop of "this could be done better, rewrite from scratch, must have more decoupling!!".

Perfect is the enemy of done!

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

#45

Post by lolptdr »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #29

I quit. I had a nearly 20 year career in software, excellent references and well paid. I became completely burned out and hyper-cynical at the pointlessness and shallowness of it all. I can't get excited or even much beyond passing interest in an industry that is almost completely devoted to making the problem of too much stuff far worse. So instead of getting excited at another pointless startup or tech that's "goin…

I'm curious; what do you consider of something working with your hands? I came from the opposite background (former chemist, process engineer, chemical engineering) and opposed the minimal work that hardly anyone cared for. With programming, moving electrons makes it a much bigger impact with much ease.

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

#46

Post by onion2k »

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.

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 are nowhere near the bottom either.

We get to sit in comfortable offices, working on interesting projects (mostly), building things that make a difference to people, without getting dirty or abused by the public, and we're pretty well paid for it on the whole. And there's always the possibility that we might hit on an idea that returns literally billions of dollars. Or work for someone else who had that idea and walk away with literally hundreds of millions of dollars. Most people don't have that sort of opportunity.

I've been a professional developer for over 20 years, and I've enjoyed most of it. It afforded me the opportunity to do my own startup for a while, and when that failed it was easy to get back in to work with a job that pays quite well. I certainly wouldn't want to do anything else.

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

#47

Post by farrelle25 »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #29

I quit. I had a nearly 20 year career in software, excellent references and well paid. I became completely burned out and hyper-cynical at the pointlessness and shallowness of it all. I can't get excited or even much beyond passing interest in an industry that is almost completely devoted to making the problem of too much stuff far worse. So instead of getting excited at another pointless startup or tech that's "goin…

"I gave it all up to work with my hands doing something."

Yes I did this as well. Worked for 15 years as a programmer in financial services. Really found it depressing.

Retrained as a care assistant to work in a nursing home. Find the physical work suits me better and enjoy spending time with the residents. Also did a Physics BSc part-time.

But mainly my headspace is free now when I come home from work. Still do some side programming though - starting Scheme and SICM at the moment...

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

#48

Post by peterhartree »

9/10

I'd say that's roughly half because I enjoy the work and half because over the years I've got better at looking after myself, being self-aware and cultivating positive habits.

For me, the big wins have been:

(1) Regular exercise (daily cardio, weight training 3x a week)

(2) Daily mindfulness meditation.

(3) Flexible hours, remote working.

In some circumstances, (3) can be hard to negotiate. But (1) and (2) are up to you.

See also this excellent survey of positive psychology: https://www.coursera.org/learn/happiness/

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

#49

Post by ry_ry »

abalashov wrote: post #10
cgag wrote: post #9

I just want to note that there's strong social pressure to not to claim that you don't love working as a programmer on this site. The odds a future boss or coworker is an HN regular is extremely high, and "passion" is high valued. Weigh the responses accordingly.

Well, as you can see from my comment, I, at least, am quite immune to this pressure. :-) It's funny to feel like an old-timer at 30, but I've been doing it for 21 years. Everything old really is new to me again. There's nothing less exciting to me than the latest 100-line .js dependency to include or yet another API reference to glaze over.

You have been a professional developer since you were 9?

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

#50

Post by abalashov »

ry_ry wrote: post #49
abalashov wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as you can see from my comment, I, at least, am quite immune to this pressure. :-) It's funny to feel like an old-timer at 30, but I've been doing it for 21 years. Everything old really is new to me again. There's nothing less exciting to me than the latest 100-line .js dependency to include or yet another API reference to glaze over.

You have been a professional developer since you were 9?

Not a professional one, of course. :-) However, I think it's fair to say I've been programming since that age because of the sheer amount of it that I did before I was 18, as it relates to the theme of burnout. I wrote fairly complex systems all throughout middle and high school. As I recall, I wrote my first multiuser server when I was 10 or 11.
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