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I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

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Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#101
I hated working in the "software" industry until I quit doing typical enterprise website development and started doing web apps and games which is 99% Javascript.

Working with CMS' was especially awful. Complete lack of creativity and felt like it was mostly just hooking up inputs to outputs without anything in the middle. Even when there was some custom functionality required it was mostly copy paste jobs.

If I ever have to make another Wordpress theme I'll slit my fucking wrists

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#102
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The churn rate is also high on most software teams. In some cases, successful companies struggle to find candidates because all the good people have worked there before and ran away. One of the brightest developers I've worked with quit after 3 weeks at my company because they were underpaying her and wouldn't give her a raise. This same company complained regularly of not being able to find good talent. Employers th…

>quit after 3 weeks at my company because they were underpaying her and wouldn't give her a raise. Why would she have accepted an offer she felt was too low?

Why wouldn't she? Maybe she wanted to get her foot in the door.

The point I'm trying to make is that the company needed her more than she needed them.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#103
> Passion is prized in this industry and people who come into code out of love are considered special. It is also considered the reason why certain groups of people are less represented in tech, because not as many of them are building Linux machines in their basements for fun.

I apologize in advance for being time deaf / lack of empathy. But why is this surprising? The best musicians I know were obsessed with their guitar when they were 11 —- like I was with QBasic. Most professional musicians don’t start playing at 18 when they enter conservatory. I can’t even fathom a conservatory admitting a student who wasn’t already obsessed to some level. Is this a valid complaint of the music industry as well?

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they compete for unicorns. Normal developers who were privileged enough to be born in silicon valley and go to mit/Stanford/Caltech and aren't willing to work 16 out 24 hours of the day might as well not apply because you just get told to fuck off in every application

For the past decade I made it very clear during interviews that I value work-life balance and that in fact it increases my overall productivity. I was never told to fuck-off (And I'm in SV). In fact any company that "requires" (explicitely or implicitely) employees to work more than 8-9 hours a day should be seen as a huge red flag IMO.

This supposes you can afford to get a job elsewhere. Most people need a job now.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#105
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until basic income comes along I think we have to just get over it. Most jobs aren't going to provide you with fun for 8 hours a day. I feel like the older I get the more I understand that a job is a way for me to trade time for money, I don't have to (or should expect to) like it. This is something I think is a fault of my generation (née 1985), when we started to create this fairytail narrative of participation t…

There's still a huge divide in terms of talent, the vast majority of programming jobs outside silicon valley seem to be working on legacy code that is terribly architected (think Java apps written in a procedural style, etc) whereas top companies are making full use of more modern approaches and tools. It will be a very long time things even out and programming jobs are similar across the board.

Generally I don't necessarily think top companies are the ones using the newer stacks, with the exclusion of a few technology companies, but it's more so the newer companies that are.

Once a company builds a system, they don't want to spend to build it again. They'll bandaid the hell out of it. As long as it's doing what it's supposed to do. They're like farmers with these old beat to hell tractors. They're ugly and bitchy but they work, why spend $100K on a new one?

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#106
post #21

I read the article; I'm not sure this is so much a criticism of the industry as it is an examination of this developer's personal anecdotal experience. As developers, we lead a very charmed life that others sometimes aren't even born with the chance to intellectually compete for; the author neglects to address how lucky we are to be able to do this at all, let alone to then find employment in it. If it's not an indus…

It's not too much to ask for equitable pay or a non-hazardous environment. Gratitude for something doesn't necessitate being blind to ways that thing could be improved.

However we do live in a world where we have to prioritize because we each have finite time. The social issues of tech work will never be as dire as issues of poverty, child welfare or health care. Our privilege blinds us to this.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He didn't directly, but if you believe his main point that differences in gender balance of developers is due to preference and natural aptitude, then it's an unavoidable conclusion that a company trying to both hire the best developers in the world and have a 50-50 gender split has to lower the bar. He didn't say it because he didn't have to, it's an unavoidable conclusion.

That is absolutely incorrect. First off he never said anything about natural aptitude. That is patently false. You didn’t read the article or you read it poorly. He said change the nature of programming jobs. Make it more social, more collaborative (ie pair programming), better work life balance, etc. Having people sitting in a chair for 8-10 hours a day 7 days a week with high stress and terrible work life balance i…

This is a pretty aggressive tone, and it's kind of unwarranted. I did read it, and well.

Saying that women have higher innate neuroticism is saying that they have less natural aptitude for stressful jobs.

Saying that men have a wider bell curve in abilities is saying that you'll find less women at the extreme end of the aptitude curve necessary to work at Google (and be as good as the mean).

There will never be a time that working at Google or whatever the Google equivalent is isn't stressful and doesn't require off the end of the bell curve ability (which he's saying will be much rarer in females).

He also explicitly refers to a risk of lowering the bar.

Here: https://firedfortruth.com/

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#108
> That savings was originally for a downpayment for a house, but now gives me a landing pad where I can take some time to really do what I love.

Saving up and taking two years to do my own thing made me appreciate the old saying "time is money" like nothing else ever has, I literally bought time to do what I want with that money. It ran out before I figured out how to turn it into a sustainable business, but I still had the best two years of my professional life so far.

Re: I don’t want to be a software developer anymore

#110

> I just found out some guy who does the same work as me is getting paid 20% more. Yeah and there's probably some guy getting paid 20% less than you for the same job and some woman getting paid 100% for an easier job. Maybe it's best to quit software if you don't even understand basic statistics. This is a great profession which pays very well and has very flexible hours. Go shovel shit if you want. The author just d…

It's all about getting the most out of the employer when you are negotiating coming on. The raises after that first salary are typically negligible, especially at large companies.

Always ask for more when you first come onto a company, that's your baseline for the rest of the time you are there.

I was on the left side of that bell curve until I learned that.

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