One of the quotes in this article was written by me on Quora. At the time of typing my response was intentended to be more of a semi serious rant. Just thought this would be worth mentioning.
Which one?
Dark side of a Valley software engineer
31–40 of 89 posts
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#32It's tough, but at some level these people are choosing this lifestyle. There's no shortage of engineering roles in the world that don't require you to work in high pressured environments and that don't require you to work out of hours.
I work 4 days per week rather than the typical 5 and refuse to do out of hours jobs, using the additional day to have fun with open source, exercise and just generally keep on top of life. I make well over double the annual average household income for the UK at 30 hours a week. I'd take that over ladder climbing as aggressively as possible any day. We really do have it pretty good.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The important bit from that page is: "I am on-call about 10 days per quarter, usually 3 shifts of 3-4 days each. I am paid extra for my on-call (after-hours) work, but not at my full hourly salary because I only work when there are problems after hours (e.g. on weekends or late at night.)". Note that depending on the exact team, Software Engineers at Google may also be part of an on-call rotation.
Yes, indeed, turns out BI just cherry-picked the worst part.
Ten days per quarter, or forty days per year, in few-day shots at a time. That amounts to a monthly shift, and is just frequent/heavy enough to have a real impact on your personal life. No doubt the "extra" pay (let's be real, you'll never be in the inner circle if you forgo the duty) is barely enough to be noticeable.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed. Your salary is relative. If you're earning 3-4x more but have to pay 3-4x more on all your expenses, are you really richer? Factor in long hours in general, unpaid overtime, crunch times, a poor work/life ratio in general, etc. It seems like the scales are balanced all wrong. That's my perception as another tech worker living in the UK. I'd love to hear an argument as to why that isn't the case.
That's also the reason why I love being on part-time. I only get 70% salary, but I get 12 hours more time each week for my own projects, or just for hanging out in the city before sundown.
Have you aways worked part time as a developer? I didn't think it was a common thing but sounds lovely. Can you talk about it some more?
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#35Then: Get up at 6am, go to work at grocery store. Get paid $7 an hour. Get out at 1pm, go to school. Go back to grocery store at 7 work till 12. Wake up do it again. Weekends nope. Holidays nope. Now: Wake up at 8 get to work at like 8:45 work till 6 or 7. Sit in air conditioning all day at a computer. Free lunch. Go home, don't worry about anything. No tests to study for, no worrying about paying rent. Holidays off.…
As someone who until Oct last year worked weekends and weekdays getting up at 2:30 am to bust my ass in a bakery for dismal pay and virtually no social life due to the hours - I work part time as a junior developer now and looking back at my old life I don't know how the hell I did it. It motivates me to do the best I can each day so I don't end up back there.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#36One of the quotes in this article was written by me on Quora. At the time of typing my response was intentended to be more of a semi serious rant. Just thought this would be worth mentioning.
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Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#37While a lot of the stories are pretty much "this insane thing is considered normal around here", there's some that I feel are due to management and should be changed - long hours or not. > harsh deadlines, huge backlog of tasks, fear to fail This happens everywhere. Deadlines exist because customers exist. All backlogs grow until they're silly. Companies may have a fear to fail. But if you have multiple engineers and…
Could it be it's just how it works in USA? I'm a software engineer in London and in the last 2 years I haven't done a single minute of overtime.
It depends entirely on your domain. I've been in the software industry for 15 years or so in the U.S., and aside from a couple of stints at start-ups during the first internet bubble/boom, I've rarely worked much overtime. I've worked for the same employer for eight years now, and management's perspective is this: "Sometimes work will require a bit more than 40 hours a week of your time. Sometimes your life will require more. We're okay with that, and understand that there's no magic balancing act. Let's figure that out together."
My sense, too, is that the industry tends to attract workaholics.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#38The slide about watching other people getting $1-$20 million payouts while you get nothing because you joined a few months later is the worst part.
This also happens outside of Silicon Valley but perhaps not to such an extreme extent.
The current system is far from a meritocracy because a lot of unlucky people fall through the cracks.
Given how hard I've worked, I've probably fallen through a lot of small cracks (but thankfully no major horror stories as described above).
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think generalizing in either direction is a waste of time. Surely where you live won't have that much effect on whether you've decided to work overtime or not. Though I suppose it's more popular to start a business in some locations than in others.
In some countries there are many more rules about working time. For example, in the EU it's not permitted to work more than 48 hours per week on average. As far as I know, that includes "on call" time. http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=706&langId=en&intP...
What does that have to do with anything? Are you implying there is nobody within the EU that works more than 48 hours, or that somehow magically people who call it a day after 40 hours have the same career perspective as those who don't?
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#40One of the quotes in this article was written by me on Quora. At the time of typing my response was intentended to be more of a semi serious rant. Just thought this would be worth mentioning.
Which one?
The quote between the "thinking beanie guy" and cars stuck in traffic.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-normal-working-day-for-a-sof...