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Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#111

Post by ramesh31 »

>People who work 8 hours a day, mostly for a paycheck, how do you cope without wanting to off yourself?

By remembering that we are some of the luckiest people on earth. We get paid obscene amounts of money to sit around in our underwear at home tapping out letters on a keyboard. The sweat, toil, and hard work of an entire family in some third world country generates only a tiny fraction of my compensation as a fat, entitled first world bourgeois that was born into the lottery ticket of a first world life and education. Never forget that.

>Maybe I'm naive, but it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people, and absolutely nothing else, and it doesn't really make me want to work.

Companies exist to make profit. You can play the game and win the prize, or you can call foul, take your ball, and go home. The choice is yours.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#112

Post by codegeek »

It is a choice. Maybe you are naive and hear me out. Most jobs exist because it is for profit for an organization. That is the truth. Good companies of course try and create a better work environment so it hopefully is a win win.

You sound either too idealistic or you are a bird that needs to fly on their own (as in try your own thing). There is no point complaining about SWE jobs because frankly, it is a privilege to get paid anywhere from average 80K to 400K in SWE when tons of people struggle to make ends meet. Look outside of HN echo chamber and talk to people who are not SWEs and see what they say.

You are asking for advice from "people who have great jobs". Why would that matter because the definition of "great job" comes from YOU not us. So find that definition and you will have your answers.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#114

Post by vlovich123 »

Most entry level jobs suck. Assuming there’s something you like about software development, find opportunities where you’ll grow and learn new ways of doing things. Learn to figure out how to spot good software development ideas that make you more productive and which seem more fad-driven or driven by business needs unrelated to development. My initial experience was random fourth month internships through university. Once I found a rough environment where I thought I could fit in with lots of opportunities around if it fell through in any way (at the time that was SV). Even the worst job I found, I always ended up finding a way to do something that met requirements in a way that interested me (usually by taking initiative and proposing to work on something that had business value but hadn’t been tackled in any way yet by anyone).

Also be very clear. Every single job will have a component that feels like a slog. The question is ultimately if the trade off is worth what you are looking for/ what interests you.

Also, not to play armchair therapist, but I’d you’re seriously thinking about harming yourself because of whatever work environment you’re in, it may be worth talking to someone. Even when I had to work at places for a paycheck, the alternative wasn’t suicide. Find things elsewhere that fulfill you. Friends, family, and general human connection seem to be pretty standard for maintaining some level of happiness, but ultimately your life’s journey is your own.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#115

Post by smalltalks »

> it just seems that almost every job out there is about squeezing more profit out of people

Yes you are right 100%.

Few years ago I tried to raise cash for a devtools startup

I met with lots of VC. It was a fascinating yet horrible experience.

VC were not even interested in discussing about the product itself. They just wanted the growth numbers...

They couldn't care less about the problem I was trying to solve.

Software industry and Startups has evolved a lot from two decades ago.

20 years ago startups were built to be disruptive and bring innovation to the mass.

Today they just apply the YC model on repeat until the founders can make their exit and move to another startup...

Most Founders these days are just in for for the money and the fame , they want to appear on "Forbes" ,"Washington Post" and escape the boredom of Entreprise. In reality they don't care about actually solving problems , R&D nor software at all.

I'm not gonna blame them , why make something actually great when something mediocre will make you rich and famous ?

I was fortunate enough to find a job in banking with remote work , I only work 5-10 hours / week with a very high salary.

My team is full of incredible people super funny who don't commit their personal life on a shitty job to pay their bill , nor try to turn two founders from Berkley from multi-millionaires to billionaires.

I've worked in startups with 300M in the bank , SME , Enterprise , I've done them all ! No one cares about software, trust me after 10 years of experience I can tell you that no one cares about software !

All modern startups care bout is money !

I can only recommend you to find a boring job in a fortune 500 thats lets you have a fulfilling private life , I've done this choice and I'never been much happier in my entire life !

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#116

Post by netizen-936824 »

In my (biased) opinion, there is good software work in academia. Getting to work alongside researchers and writing code that will truly make a difference. Solving problems that help people in making the world a better place and expanding knowledge is something I find highly fulfilling.

Try looking at job postings by universities, you may be able to find software jobs working with a lab, teams of labs, or some department. There may also be opportunity in the private sector as well for similar work.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#117

Post by zepto »

guerrilla wrote: post #47
kolinko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lived through communism - this kind of phrasing is really dangerous. What people complain about on /r/antiwork is problems that people from my country would kill to have. Capitalism has it's faults, but just complaining, without a constructive alternative can lead to way worse outcomes.

Worker ownership of the means of production ( i.e. democracy at work) is an alternative and that's most certainly not what you lived through, nor did you live through a stateless, classless and moneyless society. What you lived through was fascism with red flags. If you check the sidebar of that subreddit you'll find anarchism and mutualism as the solutions to the problems it identifies.

*Solutions that nobody anywhere has ever implemented successfully.

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#118

Post by [deleted] »

siva7 wrote: post #54
elephanlemon wrote: post #36

Don’t agree with most of these comments. Not wanting to work at a company that makes some uninteresting business product just a little more profitable does not mean that you are depressed. Working at a place like that can certainly make you depressed though! To the OP, I think you have a few options. On one hand you can keep taking short jobs / consulting or try to build some sort of simple SaaS business that you can…

Basing your happiness from your work life is a recipe for unhappiness. You will always find something to nitpick about

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is it just me or do 99% of SWE jobs offers seem completely pointless?

#119

Post by chipotle_coyote »

I saw a comment here a bit farther down about how drawing your happiness from your work life was a recipe for unhappiness. While that's true (barring the exceptional job that one genuinely loves in all respects), there's a valuable distinction between drawing your happiness from your work life and letting your work life consistently make you unhappy.

It's also valuable to be open to "boring" jobs -- that is, jobs that don't sound on paper like they'd be exciting -- as they might turn out to actually be jobs that do make you happy for reasons beyond the specifics of the position: a good "work culture" counts for a lot of happiness, even if what you're doing isn't something that's going to wow people at parties. My favorite jobs have ended up being at companies that probably don't sound particularly exciting -- a database company, a group making an underrated virtual assistant. Conversely, some jobs that I've had at ostensibly more exciting places, like an early virtual world company and an aerospace company, were kind of train wrecks. (The latter was at least as much my fault, as I was sufficiently enamored with the idea of working for them that I didn't admit I was absolutely not right for the job even though I picked up on it early.)

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