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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?

#251

Post by reedjosh »

digitalsushi wrote: post #56
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can almost guarantee that you’re just at the wrong company. Even if this is true (which it most likely is), there's no guarantee the company you move to (in your quest of finding "the right company") won't either a) also be the wrong company again right off the bat or b) become the wrong company again. I've kind of just given up. I've accepted I'm basically a "technical plumber". Take data from this system/vendor…

Three years ago I was stuck at a huge fortune 100 with all the ceremonies, business language, and paycheck collectors. I started to shop around. I found an amazing place, a company that was a software company not not a company that happened to write some software. The interviews went amazing, everything was Star Trek utopian future amazing, it was like the fantasy I had about where I wanted to work had manifested. I…

I'm sorry you've been burned and it's not easier for you to take these risks.

I average about 2 years, and each company has been progressively better than the last.

Don't let a bad job hop stop you. To me it's the only way to really progress your career.

I've done a huge variety of projects, experienced a ton of different management styles, and of course also never stagnated compensation wise.

Leetcode kind of sucks, but it's possible to build up enough confidence to ace it.

Particularly start by focusing on one area until you see all the basic patterns. For me, I was rather weak with trees.

Job hoping seems to be the only reliable way to increase your comp. I was promoted at Intel and got 11% as a raise. Then I bounced and gained another 40%.

From there I doubled entirely. Please do consider your value, plus selfishly you'll help keep the software engineering market competitive if you do.

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

#252

Post by at_compile_time »

411111111111111 wrote: post #121
Trasmatta wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

They're referring to the mythical animal, using a metaphor to express that such a company is mythical or non-existent. Coincidentally, this is same metaphor that the person who coined the term "unicorn company" was using.

Given that private companies with over $1B in revenue actually exist while examples of "[companies] that values programming and real productivity" are yet to be forthcoming, the parent post is using the metaphor correctly and the finance world is not.

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

#254

Post by wpietri »

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…

> agile has killed the happiness of our industry

I don't think you're wrong, but I should point out that Agile started out as a rebellion against "meetings, rituals, and meta-work and not actual productivity". As somebody who got involved in one of the Agile tributaries before the term "Agile" was coined, I'd say the actual problem is older and deeper.

I look forward to another rebellion, but would-be revolutionaries should make sure they don't fall into the same trap, or you too will see your new terms and bold ideas corrupted to the point of meaninglessness.

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

#255

Post by conductr »

massinstall wrote: post #58
kraig911 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 lot of things like this that I blame mostly on the growth of what we’re doing here. We’re communicating in a low fidelity text only fashion and doing it without any knowledge of who each other are and how our word choices will be received. We definitely don’t know who is lurking or reading or may take offense once I hit the reply button on this form.

Had that been said in person, even with someone we only recently met, we’d have “known” what it was meant to mean and that it was just a figure of speech to support their main point. Online, people will read every word selected and choose to vilify you for using a pronoun or some other random extreme literal take on your word choices without really considering what your intent or meaning or that you is (often there’s not much, it just happens to be the choice of words they made while typing on a tiny device and trying to be concise). It’s also not considered that online we’re intermixing generationally, culturally, economically, and so many ways. When a 50 year old person says something like the word “retarded” it may feel normal and they are ignorant of the fact that anyone under ~30 knows not to even say that word, it’s the “r” word. Then you have the other “n” word that everyone knows is unspoken except it’s found and heard everywhere because some people can and do say it steadily.

As an example, I frequent a local subreddit for my city. Something that regularly comes up is crime and homeless and such. If you have anything to post there. Someone else will invariably reply with yes but redlining, Jim Crowe, disenfranchised citizens, etc. Those are all base general knowledge and historical facts for sure. I think everyone is well aware of them. But, it’s difficult to have any discourse when the audience expects a full historical account of why the situation exists before solutions can be discussed. It’s pretty tiring and I’ve basically stopped chiming in on those kinds of things.

TLDR: communication is hard and text only is really hard.

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

#256

Post by thwawawa1234 »

mpweiher wrote: post #150
kraig911 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> agile has killed the happiness...meetings...rituals...meta-work...not actual productivity. All of that isn't actual agile. It's Fauxgile and has nothing to do with what agile is about, which is about removing impediments to productivity, removing meetings (why were there standups? Because they shouldn't exist in the first place, and if you absolutely positively can't avoid them then at least make them as short as p…

Agile is made up. The vast majority of places “do it wrong”. Coaches come in and make things even worse, with even less understanding. Saying “they are doing it wrong” and having nothing change isn’t doing anything, and it’s not really a great point. (Not specifically calling you out I just hear this all the time)

“Fauxagile” *is* agile, because thats what the majority of places in reality do.

“Agile” needs a complete rebrand.

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

#257

Post by electrondood »

itake wrote: post #248
davidw wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the real "unicorns" are * Small/medium size companies where you recognize most everyone even if you don't work with them. There are enough people so you don't have to do things you're not qualified for like in the very early days of a startup. * Steady growth, but not crazy, venture fueled moonshots. * Selling something that earns enough money to grow the business in a fairly organic way. I worked in a place…

I’ve worked at 3-4 small companies (less than 30 employees) and I’ve never been happy. There is always 1 person that makes my life miserable (constantly rejecting my ideas, ego is larger than their experience level, etc). I’ve worked at a 100, and two 1,000 engineer count companies and I never met any “coding princesses” in those roles. I think part of the problem that triggers this is in small companies, one enginee…

200-400 is the sweet spot, I've found.

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

#258

Post by wpietri »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #239
daveguy wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being a dipshit is not the same thing as "bending to people's demands."

I wish I had the confidence in life to genuinely think anyone who thought or spoke differently to me was just a dipshit.

That's not what he said, and I doubt it's what he meant. Many people who disagree with me are not dipshits, but the ones who are seem to take positive joy in being disagreeable.

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

#259

Post by icedchai »

xiphias2 wrote: post #219
icedchai wrote: post #26

Things were better before agile / scrum / annoying processes took over. Not all companies were waterfall, they kind of just "did things" without any well defined process. This was how things were until roughly the early 2010's. I remember working for weeks, after a couple of whiteboard sessions. You'd meet about what you were going to do, work on it, and come back a week or two later. Occasionally there would be info…

I read this all the time and see that software engineers don't even read the agile manifesto: ,,Individuals and interactions over processes and tools'' What you are describing is the opposite of agile

The truth is that the manifesto may as well be fiction. I'm talking about reality... what the industry actually practices as "Agile." That's why you read it all the time: because it's true.

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

#260

Post by wpietri »

ok_dad wrote: post #245
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…

I am here to say that both "too much" and "too little" process are shitty. I have been at companies with too much process (medical devices) and companies with WAY to little process, and both places are an absolute nightmare. What you want is a process that ensures features are spec'ed out properly, testing is performed, deployment is smooth, and etc., with a lot less or zero of the "put your hours into the Jira ticke…

Tastes differ, as do circumstances, but the last place I want to work is one where things are spec'd out "properly". For me one of the great sources of joy in making software is jointly discovering needs by exploring the problem space. I've done whole companies with nothing more than index cards, napkin-quality sketches, and very close team relationships. I love it.
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