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Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

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Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

#1

Post by winuser »

I noticed over the years that many posts and comments here (especially on topics such as working at startups, jobs, careers, etc.), people are always focused on making a lot of money and retiring early.

I feel this is very demoralizing. I can see this be the case at blue collar types of jobs. But across many professions (medical doctors, researchers, professors, ...), people are actually interested in their work! Why does it not come across that way from software engineers.

It seems, from many posts and comments here, software engineers are just wary of being used and abused by their employers, and looking to make a lot of money early and retire young.

Is anyone here actually excited about writing code, building software systems, and doing this until old age?

Re: Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

#2

Post by jansan »

I am in my mid-fourties and I can tell you one thing: When you get older, your brain gets slower. And that it not helpful for writing code. There are very bright yong people, and they want a pice of the cake, too. Therefore, it is getting harder, and often frustrating, to keep up with all the changes, and if you do not keep up, your knowledge may be obsolete soon.

Therefore I STRONGLY recommend to focus on high salary and early retirement. This has nothing to do about not being excited about writing code and stuff until your old age. It's just that making money is not getting easier if you are an ageing programmer.

Re: Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

#3

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

I love my work and want to continue writing code and managing software projects. I would simply like enough money to always be able to work on whatever project I want without worrying about money.

I think for many that is the origin of the obsession with money in the tech community.

I know plenty of rich people and none of them are "retired" in the traditional sense. They instead have more freedom to pursue projects and more resources to change the world.

So I think many of us simply want to escape the rat race.

I think another cause is that the length of the career of a software engineer is shorter than any other engineer. The reason being that a civil engineer from the 70s can still do the same job today. Software and the tech used in it changes so profoundly over a short period that the amount of continuing learning required is immense. To reduce that stress, it would be great to have a large financial nestegg.

Finally, because we work in an industry based on exponential change and disruption, there is more ability to actually get rich. It would be delusional/useless to focus on getting rich as a public high school teacher, but actually feasible for a software engineer.

Re: Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

#5

Post by angersock »

Writing code and building systems has nothing to do with how long we work and how much we get paid.

In fact, it's precisely because of our enjoyment of those activities that there is a desire to leave a career path where we'll be doomed to build hurriedly systems that are not what we want to make money for people who aren't us using technologies from a treadmill people keep spinning. Fuck that.

Re: Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

#6

Post by airbreather »

jansan wrote: post #2

I am in my mid-fourties and I can tell you one thing: When you get older, your brain gets slower. And that it not helpful for writing code. There are very bright yong people, and they want a pice of the cake, too. Therefore, it is getting harder, and often frustrating, to keep up with all the changes, and if you do not keep up, your knowledge may be obsolete soon. Therefore I STRONGLY recommend to focus on high salar…

Speak for yourself, I am older and find applying lessons learned creates better architecture and better overall outcomes - when I was younger furiously coding was everything, now I arrange things better and the code is only one component of the outcome of the overall system.

Re: Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

#7

Post by jppope »

I love writing code, and more specifically building things!

Being concerned about financials is rational, you don't have to stop doing anything when you have financial freedom... but you have the option to. Additional, work is more meaningful when you don't have to do it.

Re: Ask HN: Why do software engineers always focus on salary and early retirement?

#9

Post by towaway1138 »

I was, and in many ways still am. And to the degree that I focused on being able to retire early, it was so that I could work on software projects of my choice.

In my case, various forms of adversity struck, and early retirement is no longer possible. And even if it were, my desire to blast away on open source projects has waned considerably.

Plan ahead for the possibility that your preferences might be rather different in twenty years.

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