[flagged]
Nothing sexist in that quote, maybe have a break
Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
21–30 of 187 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#22I was at Amazon warehouse for a year, I was getting contract offers for 6 months I was like f that wanting security. Eventually I took one and I'm at it now, six fig job. It was crazy though like impossible to get hired unless you went through a recruiter. I don't have a degree but have years of work exp.
Edit: I did see some news thing about trying to undo/keep 174.
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#23Pretty done. Employers: Making it an obligation that I act like we have in house tools that were meant to exist 3 years ago, doing everything manually. Customers: So beholden to their technical debt that they would rather pay ten times the opex than the capex to remove the debt. Shits me to tears.
Oh that's an entirely different flaming dumpster, but I feel that too.
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#24If you're willing to leave Silicon Valley, there are a lot of small companies out there that need one or two or a handful of decent software developers to do useful but non-cutting-edge work. They can't pay Silicon Valley money, obviously, but you get to be a lot closer to other kinds of work, which you might find satisfying in its own way.
I work at exactly one of these companies. It's been thoroughly refreshing, picking my tools and language, being able to defend my choices and help make new ones, have ownership of my part of the product, and see that all bear fruit going from a product that was on fire and mired in tech debt when I got there, to a smoothly running machine with my code at its heart now.
They definitely can't pay inflated Silicon Valley salaries, but I'm also at much less risk of getting that pink slip when some far-off executive decides I'm extraneous. I'm two hops from the company CEO, and even though I haven't met him, he's quite aware of my contribution and has requested projects for my skillset. I have direct lines to most of the executive engineers. That's gratifying.
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#25you should never have allowed yourself to get sucked into corporate work. its the most common mistake that people make
Curse my foolish desire for food and shelter!
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#26Sure, but just keep in mind a couple things: One it’s a down market, the worst since the dotcom bubble. Companies are going to be needlessly selective to keep the hiring people busy, and also to get people who are the most desperate and motivated as they’ll probably get them cheaper. Being self taught may not matter practically speaking, but it's not doing you any favors right now unfortunately. The other thing the b…
I sometimes get feelings or down and up markets (namely my checking account) but do you have any good reliable sources on market trends for tech employment?
FRED has some data
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#27Now Hiring: Not You (2017): https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/now-hiring-not-...
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#28used to see 80-100 lines of good code per programmer. seeing up to 2400 lines a day in 4 hours of deep work. LLMs will greatly reduce the amount of people required, mainly seniors. erode the path for junior training and put further pressure in an industry continually contracting since 2021. the amortization of software developing as R&D expense among many years implemented by the IRS didn't help either
I think the amortization is the primary issue, TBH.
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#29I assume by industry you mean software development. And I’m not tired of that. Where else can you be integrally involved in different businesses? Communications, medical, education, e-commerce for anything/everything. We get to play in a lot of different playgrounds and potentially have a huge impact. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.
I am tired of the interview process. Here’s a take home assignment that you’ll code in isolation without feedback or interaction from us. Completely opposite of how you’d do the job. You’ll have to justify any assumptions you make. And if we don’t like your justification, pass.
Took 2 days on the assignment - this is kind of simplistic, not what we’d expect from a senior dev. Pass.
Take 4 days on the assignment - what took so long? We’d expect a senior dev to knock this out in 2 or 3 days. Pass.
Maybe we’ll tell you’re out. Or we’ll just ghost you. Depends on how our recruiting team is feeling that day.
Behavioral is generally where I “blow” it. I won’t lie and answer the “so tell me a time about xyz”. Sometimes xyz was terrible, and I didn’t handle it well. I know how I’d handle it now and can articulate that. Sorry. We’re looking for someone that handled this exactly right already.
Personally I screwed myself over the years by not chasing titles. I’ve done Staff and Principal level stuff. For years. But I didn’t fight for the title. So I generally get screened out of those pretty quickly because past titles don’t match what recruiting team has been told to look for.
But this is the price that must be paid. So I can work/play in a lot of different playgrounds. Keep applying. Keep trying. Eventually I’ll find something.
Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else just done with the industry?
#30Anyone who can engineer software systems is likely able to engineer some kind of company. Not the path for everyone, but it is one way of moving forward without staying linked to the industry.
The idea has been very high up on my list. But I need to pay the bills until I can put something together. I'm not interested in the current trend of "building" a company that burns VC money to prop up a garbage product just long enough to be sold and enshittified.