Ask HN: Am I expecting too much?

How would one find such a place?

I know some will say that the logistics of life--paying for stuff and the like--can dictate whether you compromise on your work environment. But, for me, I now wish I'd taken the approach of life being too short to waste it in a job that makes you unhappy. And the particulars of your situation really don't matter. If you're unhappy, you're unhappy and it's as simple as that. It feels like you're asking for permission to be unhappy based on the external circumstances. But whether your unhappiness is a natural consequence of your situation or not isn't going to make you happier.

So my advice would be to find something that makes you happy. This doesn't have to be a blind search...there's plenty of research on what makes a work environment fulfilling. The classic is the intrinsic motivators (autonomy, mastery, purpose) rather than the extrinsic motivators (money, fame and such). It sounds like your current environment doesn't have much going for it in the way of intrinsic motivation, so start by thinking about what a rewarding work experience looks like for you and then try to find it.

And if money is your thing (it does enable lots of things that can make your overall life happier), the lesson I've learned 20+ years into my career as a developer (and now management) is that worrying about money early in your career is a premature optimization. Worry about honing your craft and the money will take care of itself up to a certain point. When you progress beyond Senior into team leadership is when you should start thinking about getting paid, and you'll get there a lot sooner if you spend the beginning of your career learning as much as possible and ensuring that you don't stagnate. It doesn't take long to become very senior, but it's not just a matter of putting in the time. I've interviewed people with 20 years in the industry who basically had the same 2 years experience over and over. And I've interviewed people with just 5 years experience who were completely ready to take on technical leadership positions. Be the latter and you'll end up getting paid more over the course of your career.

You are at a company where people are not interested nor invested in the work they are doing: they are there for the paycheck, they resigned themselves to the situation, you are likely viewed as "green and fresh out of college, you'll learn yet", and the situation is hopeless.

I worked at a place like that. And it was a software company. And it was my second time working there. After I realized that the company deteriorated far more than I had anticipated in my absence (and I did anticipate it), I quit the place the first chance I got, and never regretted it.

Generally if you love working with computers, you have to give up working with them professionally, because today's computer work is nothing like the work of old: too much politics and management meddling, too few people who actually care about doing things correctly, or about working with computers at all, for that matter.

For most people working with computers today (and I even experienced this first hand working in Silicon Valley), working in this type of a job is just means to get above average pay, or decent pay, just like for most people an automobile is something that gets one from point a to point b, instead of this incredible machine which can put together economy, performance, and design all in one.

Get out of there.

Bad idea IMO, he's still very inexperienced and thus likely to not be taken seriously even if he's right.