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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

#191

Post by Frondo »

jameskegel wrote: post #20
jaymzcampbell wrote: post #4

I feel like we as an industry can sometimes forget just how good we have it. Many of my friends do not work in tech, they are low paid, they have stressful jobs with little autonomy, they are not challenged at all and they feel little personal accomplishment in their day today. I appreciate the author alludes to this but having seen friends recently job hunting (outside of tech) I am reminded that even on the worst d…

> 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…

One nitpick: we never asked for participation trophies. It was the last generation that invented that and foisted it on it.

Neither I nor any one of my peers ever liked "everyone's a winner" day, but when you're kids in school you kinda go along with what the adults say.

The rest, I agree with you. I just think it's important to make it clear that, especially when you're young and inexperienced, you're much more susceptible to other people telling you your job is your life.

Not that it's impossible to get past that, other people feeding us that garbage, but most of us aren't that clued into the world at a young age.

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

#192

Post by donquichotte »

samirillian wrote: post #186
jameskegel wrote: post #11

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…

This is a perfect example of the tone that people (men) effect when they want to mask their own emotional reaction to feeling attacked with a veneer of logicism or scientificity. Simply state that her claims are anecdotal, and without even addressing the core of the argument you've managed to make them sound _unreasonable_. At least to those amenable to that kind of passive aggressive ad hominem.

I did't read that comment as passive aggressive or sexist. Maybe my SJW-meter is miscalibrated.

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

#193

Post by hackermailman »

jib wrote: post #40
jameskegel wrote: post #11

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…

Shittier jobs I've had than a desk job: 5-6 hours a day biking in -15C snow with wet feet (Mailman). 8 hours a day moving chips one by one in and out of an EPROM writer because it was cheaper to have me do that than pay the extra 2c to have them preprogrammed. The chips were 25c without programming and 27c with. (Ericson subcontractor). And I am privileged as hell, coming from Sweden with a good education and a famil…

I'm a developer and still a mailman in Canada in the freezing rain and snow because that indexed pension is just too good to give up, plus they let you do awesome things like bank all your overtime so you can take more days off. I had one month off paid this year in addition to my regular 5 weeks off. Before my shift these days I program for a university medical research lab, which isn't highly paid but it's satisfying work where you are always learning something, and they keep writing me letters of recommendation so I keep picking up new research contracts when one ends. Very casual environment, coworker post-doc's are helpful to bleed for information, no performance bonus paperwork to fill out or bosses harassing me with nonsense the lead researchers thankfully take care of that.

Before I was working remotely for various companies and hated it as the unpaid hours kept growing with ridiculous meetings and paperwork. Their management kept sending me these surveys to fill out and very long emails and slack distractions that always required immediate attention so the job became more trouble than it was worth and I quit. My criteria for work these days is "Will they lay me off in X years?" and "How much mandatory overtime is there?" nothing else really matters including the pay being below average.

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

#194

Post by parvenu74 »

jib wrote: post #40
jameskegel wrote: post #11

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…

Shittier jobs I've had than a desk job: 5-6 hours a day biking in -15C snow with wet feet (Mailman). 8 hours a day moving chips one by one in and out of an EPROM writer because it was cheaper to have me do that than pay the extra 2c to have them preprogrammed. The chips were 25c without programming and 27c with. (Ericson subcontractor). And I am privileged as hell, coming from Sweden with a good education and a famil…

"It is not fun to work long hours of anything, and it is even less fun when something you used to do for entertainment turns into a chore."

This is exactly why I quit photography: it was a passion in which I indulged in my own time that became a job when I didn't say no to friends (and then their friends, acquaintances, and sometimes strangers) who wanted me to photograph their wedding or similar "on your feet 12 hours" types of events. Fortunately I have this programming thing on which to fall back. :-)

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

#195

Post by starik36 »

dahart wrote: post #119

> As a developer I’ve often had trouble figuring out if a job would be Snow Crashy or not, and been seduced by promises of engaging work only to find myself ferreting out bugs on some enterprise CMS. Some jobs are more engaging and some are less. In my experience, all dev jobs involve some time spent doing things that I don't consider fun, but the company needs done. Employers do usually sell the work as interesting…

> ferreting out bugs on some enterprise CMS.

Yikes, that hits close to home. The job was sold to me as helping improve performance of a website with 1 million + daily visitors. Which I took care of in the first month.

Now I ferret out bugs on an enterprise CMS.

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

#196

Post by sp4rki »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #26

> 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…

To make matters worse a lot of the times those situations are direct results of cultural and biological differences between the sexes.

Every single woman I've ever heard negotiate a salary has done the research and tried for the market median. Most men ask for a bit above the median, but are willing to accept numbers under that. Men with stronger egos will, in general, start from the very top of the salary range and walk away if their ideas of self value are not entertained.

I recently coached a fellow female coworker for a salary review. The main idea was that if she wanted the big raise, she needs a big ego. No one will give you a bunch of money if it doesn't look like you actually believe you're up there with the top performers. She actually got a couple of thousands more than the top number she had in mind. Now she eclipses all her male equivalents.

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

#197

Post by rsynnott »

fpisfun wrote: post #61
jameskegel wrote: post #20

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.

> legacy code that is terribly architected (think Java apps written in a procedural style, etc)

If anything, the hallmark of legacy Java is excessive object orientation for the sake of it. FactoryFactoryFactories. By comparison, in these more enlightened times, a class method to construct an instance may occasionally be countenanced without the programmer being burnt at the stake.

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

#199

Post by mk89 »

Good luck to the author. And kudos to her that, despite all issues endured in the software industry, had a relatively good career.

Our industry is not easy, and I don't feel like saying that it's the worst. This is what bad management does, unfortunately.

If companies want to win they have to train management to be better and educate them regularly, implement a feedback system and act on it (no, collecting is not enough).

We have lost a resource, a person who got trained for years not only at school but also on the job. Why? Because we got her frustrated and demotivated. I blame it all on bad management.

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

#200

Post by justboxing »

hackermailman wrote: post #193
jib wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shittier jobs I've had than a desk job: 5-6 hours a day biking in -15C snow with wet feet (Mailman). 8 hours a day moving chips one by one in and out of an EPROM writer because it was cheaper to have me do that than pay the extra 2c to have them preprogrammed. The chips were 25c without programming and 27c with. (Ericson subcontractor). And I am privileged as hell, coming from Sweden with a good education and a famil…

I'm a developer and still a mailman in Canada in the freezing rain and snow because that indexed pension is just too good to give up, plus they let you do awesome things like bank all your overtime so you can take more days off. I had one month off paid this year in addition to my regular 5 weeks off. Before my shift these days I program for a university medical research lab, which isn't highly paid but it's satisfyi…

> I'm a developer and still a mailman in Canada.... Before my shift these days I program for a university medical research lab.

So your mailman job is a full-time job and the programming job is part-time? Or is it the other way around? Or are both part-time?

Asking because part-time jobs in software engineering are quite hard to come by, atleast in the US.

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