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Dark side of a Valley software engineer
81–89 of 89 posts
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#82my name is JENNY, i am from {TEXAS, USA) i want to use this possible means to appreciate one man i hold in sincere gratitude and high esteem for his help and his kindness he has rendered to me.this is the reason why i have taken it upon myself to thank this great spell caster called Dr.MEGA because through his help my life became more filled with love and i am happy to say that my ex lover who has been separated from me for the past weeks came back to me pleading for acceptance from me, this was a shocking event because before i contacted Dr.Mega i was the one begging my ex lover to come back to me but through the assistance of Dr.Mega i now have my relationship restored. you can also have a better relationship only if you contact:drmegaspelltemple@hotmail.com or drmegaspelltemple@gmail.com and i’ll always be grateful to Dr.Mega email him for any kind of help and he is capable and reliable for help.... you can also call him on +2348117381549 or his website http://drmegaspelltemple.wix.com/drmega
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Similar experience as an ex Chef. 60+ hour weeks, 5 days a week spread over various split shifts (so rarely 2 whole days off, and half days never really feel like a break). Working for what comes out as less than minimum wage as salaried. In part because of this, I find it really difficult to deal with people I work with complaining about pay/bonuses/hours etc, because imo what I do now is way easier and probably les…
As someone who's been on both sides of the fence, any theories on how they manage to find people to work in cooking, sometimes with really high skill levels, for such long hours for relatively horrible pay?
I mean some I know are very intelligent people, and extremely good at what they do, but make like $50k working 60+ hours per week. It's insane.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Similar experience as an ex Chef. 60+ hour weeks, 5 days a week spread over various split shifts (so rarely 2 whole days off, and half days never really feel like a break). Working for what comes out as less than minimum wage as salaried. In part because of this, I find it really difficult to deal with people I work with complaining about pay/bonuses/hours etc, because imo what I do now is way easier and probably les…
As someone who's been on both sides of the fence, any theories on how they manage to find people to work in cooking, sometimes with really high skill levels, for such long hours for relatively horrible pay? I mean some I know are very intelligent people, and extremely good at what they do, but make like $50k working 60+ hours per week. It's insane.
Some people truly love it, it's an actual passion. I did work experience at a 2 Michelin Star place, and honestly I've never seen anything like it. I had thought my hours were long - but this was insane. Despite how hard the work was, everyone there was enthusiastic as hell. They saw that one day they'd be able to create the exquisite food, plate it up and send it. That was all they wanted to do.
For those guys (and it was almost all guys) - it was just the only thing they wanted to do in life. This was also kinda the moment I realised it wasn't for me!
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
I started out full-time, but quickly switched to part-time to do a CS bachelor in parallel (I had a master in physics when I pivoted into IT). Right now, I only have the part-time experience outside of lecture seasons, but I like it very much. I don't have family, so I mainly use the extra time on personal projects or time with friends.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
To clarify this post (which I agree with): Imagine you're making $100 per month right now and spending $95 of it. So you're saving $5 per month. You move to the US and start making $400 per month, but your expenses skyrocket to $380 per month. But you're now saving $20 per month -- four times as much as you were before. Now imagine those savings numbers were $1k and $4k, and the difference becomes a pretty big deal.
Personally - right now I know that no matter what happens, my employer has to give me at least 3 months notice to fire me - at will employment is something that sounds almost like a bad joke around here. There does not exist any medical emergency, illness or accident, that would put me in any sort of financial difficulty. Even if 20 helicopters were engaged in transporting me to the hospital or if I had to be put on…
I didn't mean to suggest you should actually move to the US. Life in the US definitely feels pretty backwards compared to some European countries these days, and your examples show that pretty convincingly. I only meant that, despite just being basic arithmetic, it's somewhat paradoxical that savings rates can go up in extremely high cost-of-living areas. It "feels" like you've gained nothing if your income increases by 4x but your cost of living does as well, but in reality you might actually save considerably more money.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#87Then: 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.…
I really pity American office workers. As I understand it, you get measly holiday - like 2 weeks or whatever?
You also frequently work unpaid overtime and it is the norm - is that right?
There also seems to be much less of a work/life balance.
Or maybe my view is skewed by HN and Reddit where there are more software engineer employees.
For the record, I'm in the UK, I'm a software engineer. I work about 38hrs a week and get 29 days holiday a year. I'm in the office 0930 and leave 1800. My commute is ~30mins. I've worked for a start-up before but always hated working past 6pm. I just switch-off and start to resent the work. If I'm ever working overtime (very rare) or in the office past 6pm I just think I could be home with my family, playing videogames, cycling, playing with my cat etc.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#88While 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.
I'm in the UK too and also a software engineer. Early in ym career I worked in London and sometimes worked over-time to meet some client deadline. I always made sure I got time off in lieu though.
Nowadays I resist anything like that, there is 7.5 hours in the day and thats what my employers contract me to. There will ALWAYS be work to do. It never stops. It can wait till tomorrow.
Re: Dark side of a Valley software engineer
#89It'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…
I'm in the UK and curious what you do. Sounds good.