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Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#121

Post by 411111111111111 »

Trasmatta wrote: post #111
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> I have come to a realization that I don't really enjoy Software Engineering(& the processes that it comes with) but I do love programming & solving problems. I can almost guarantee that you’re just at the wrong company. Some software companies can turn even the simplest tasks into a grueling series of processes, endless meetings, and joint work across a big number of “stakeholders”. These companies will take the jo…

What are these unicorn companies? I've worked at 7 companies (and interviewed at many more) and never seen anything close to this mythical "company that values programming and real productivity". I feel like they must be exceptionally rare.

The term unicorn in this context makes it hard to understand what you're asking, as unicorn companies are usually defined to be corporations with i believe a billion in revenue. This often comes with the usual downsides.

Smallish companies often leave a lot more freedom for their developers, but you'll most likely also be missing a lot of things you've gotten used to (highly automated CI/CD, teams "responsible" for each part of the system etc)

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#122

Post by JohnBooty »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #35

I hate IT. I hate dealing with many developers in a professional setting. They're too busy trying to look good and move up a ladder. A lot also don't even really want to do actual work. If there are two solutions and one is clearly superior but a bit harder to do most people want to wimp out and do the easy solution and deal with a bunch of pain for 6 months that could have been avoided if they spent an extra 2 weeks…

    I hate dealing with many developers in a professional 
    setting. They're too busy trying to look good and move 
    up a ladder.
Sometimes too true, in my experience.

    A lot also don't even really want to do actual work. 
    If there are two solutions and one is clearly superior 
    but a bit harder to do most people want to wimp out 
    and do the easy solution and deal with a bunch of pain 
    for 6 months that could have been avoided if they spent 
    an extra 2 weeks doing the original development work.
This was surprising to read. Generally I feel like engineers want to do the right thing, but are pressured into short term kludges by management.

(I don't necessarily think this means management is bad. Software engineering is always a balance between "do the right thing even if it takes much longer initially" and "actually ship code in a reasonable timeframe so we don't go out of business." You need advocates for both approaches and hopefully the culture is healthy enough for a happy medium to be found)

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#124

Post by zabzonk »

osigurdson wrote: post #9
rr888 wrote: post #4

Sounds like most of us you like developing but dont like working in other people's code and design. Corporate work has a bad reputation but lots of upsides. I work in a small team of 5 people on a system that has about 40 users. Its amazingly better when you can talk to everyone, know what all the users want, dont have to worry about constant uptime or scalability. Flexibility and budget to pay for good platforms. Ju…

>> 5 people on a system that has about 40 users Gosh, that is expensive software!

not so much. at the last investment bank i worked at we had about 10 developers writing code to support about 10 traders, perhaps a few more. i don't think this is unusual. this is complex stuff that is changing all the time due to regulatory and business issues.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#126

Post by ss108 »

Trasmatta wrote: post #111
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> I have come to a realization that I don't really enjoy Software Engineering(& the processes that it comes with) but I do love programming & solving problems. I can almost guarantee that you’re just at the wrong company. Some software companies can turn even the simplest tasks into a grueling series of processes, endless meetings, and joint work across a big number of “stakeholders”. These companies will take the jo…

What are these unicorn companies? I've worked at 7 companies (and interviewed at many more) and never seen anything close to this mythical "company that values programming and real productivity". I feel like they must be exceptionally rare.

How diverse have the companies you've worked at been in terms of size, etc?

As a perhaps incomplete or shoddy heuristic, smaller startups tend to focus on productivity and moving fast.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#127

Post by wackycat »

Honestly, I might recommend looking for an entry level job in an industry outside of software that has somewhat struggled to keep up with the changing times. Find a company where people are manually transferring data from one spreadsheet to another, or where there is a huge backlog of data in need of processing with some manual step that can be automated. Write one-off scripts that will seem like magic.

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#128

Post by xwdv »

schrodinger wrote: post #78
massinstall wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this saying misogynistic? Because it’s a statement about men or because of the implied possibility they could be unhappy in their marriage? Also, why is it horrible? It appears this world has become manically trigger-happy to label something as -ist or -istic, when it contains even only a hint of something someone could possibly understand the wrong way. It would be curious to examine in a psychological study…

There's a slight implication because it only covers men that women are the source of unhappiness (e.g. the nagging wife trope), but I agree it's trivial and likely unintentional. Agree with sibling, just as applicable as "happy married people are happy partners, unhappily married people are great philosophers".

[flagged]

Re: Ask HN: Do you hate software engineering but love programming?

#130

Post by awill88 »

kraig911 wrote: post #19
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #6

> I have come to a realization that I don't really enjoy Software Engineering(& the processes that it comes with) but I do love programming & solving problems. I can almost guarantee that you’re just at the wrong company. Some software companies can turn even the simplest tasks into a grueling series of processes, endless meetings, and joint work across a big number of “stakeholders”. These companies will take the jo…

1000x times this. It's a weird thing our profession. There's a horrible but apt (misogynistic even) saying. Happily married men are happy husbands - Unhappily married men are great philosophers. I really feel agile has killed the happiness of our industry because it's met with a lot of back and forth, meetings, rituals, and meta-work and not actual productivity (If agile is done well though it can be amazing but that…

Feel like I would’ve said something like this at the beginning of my career.. you’re gonna go thru it, you’ll see. None of what you’re saying makes a lick of sense.
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