Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Programming Is a Dead End Job

thecodist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 186 posts

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#81

Post by atmosx »

What about consulting? Inventing a new framework (e.g. Rails), what about writing books on languages, design and the rest?

If you are really good in programming these days you can achieve more than ever before. But if you really like programming that much, then making money isn't your highest priority.

The fact that are way better payed jobs, it's a reality (lawyers, investment bankers). If you are in it for the money then you might want to consider another career (e.g. investment banking).

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#82

Post by quanticle »

eternalban wrote: post #40
ChuckMcM wrote: post #7

I respond really negatively to the notion of 'dead end.' Programming isn't a dead end job any more than welding is a dead end job or painting. But it is a trade . What is more, managing is a different job than programming. Not a lot of programmers really internalize that until they try out being a manager. Architecture, and technical leadership in general, is still another job. It takes the ability to internalize mas…

You are right. Programming is a blue collar trade.

By the article's definition, neurosurgery is a blue collar trade as well.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#83

Post by twistedpair »

Seems more like a realization of the human life cycle. Personally I was so happy to get a programming job out of college and a good pay. After a number of years of good performance and promotions I'm eventually a senior engineer about to jump to principal engineer.

But that's when it hits you. You're still in your 20's... is that all you're ever going to be? Hey, the six figs is great, and you're on track to retire earlier than most, but was that it? Is that why you kicked butt in school for ~20 years, to write [insert field] code to make someone else rich?

It's a tough realization to make, but for most anyone, in most any industry, they'll get to the same place. Then you get to decide if you want to (1) make achieving as high a level as success as possible you're life's mission or (2) live a good life and let work simply be the source of your sustainable from M-F. In the end, we're all going to be worm food, so do something that matters to you in the time you've got left.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#84

Post by enjoy-your-stay »

Programming itself may be a bit of a dead end, where you can quickly hit the glass ceiling; but if you get involved in other important parts of software production like design, specification, requirements gathering, support, sales and marketing then then the domain knowledge that you can gain can lead you onto many other things.

Technologists who also have a lot of domain knowledge are gold dust to many companies because they can straddle the world of business and IT and help bring the two sides together to develop better solutions. Much of the business of computing still baffles a lot of very intelligent people, so if you can act as the translator between these to sides then you can definitely broaden your horizons.

The thing is as well, that you may not have to give up programming entirely. I've managed to lead IT projects, and then once they were delivered go back to working on programming again.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#85

Post by nikhizzle »

This is plain wrong.

Facebook, Microsoft, and Google have parallel tracks for programmers and managers. You can progress all the way up to Senior VP equivalent as an engineer with no management duties. These roles include compensation equivalent to traditional CEO level roles.

Eg. http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2014/02/28/meet-jeff-rot...

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#86

Post by dworin »

mturmon wrote: post #26
declan wrote: post #9

It's a well-written essay (I say this as someone who has been a journalist/editor/manager and is now doing quite a bit of programming again for Recent.io). But really you could say the same thing about many other jobs: * Do you love to report the news? In most jobs as long as you continue to be a reporter you will likely have a limited set of promotions you can get... * Do you love woodworking? In most jobs as long a…

A cynical take on your observations sometimes occurs to me, and seems pertinent. The managers set the wages. Therefore, they will be well-paid, and their contributions will readily recognized. This is simplistic and does not explain everything, but I think it is a major ingredient.

A less cynical explanation for the same data: a great manager helps many people to be more productive. A great manager of managers help many more people to be more productive. Management scales much more than individual contribution.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#87

Post by nostrademons »

nawitus wrote: post #50
untog wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. It might be an unpopular opinion (and I'm a programmer myself) but 80% of programmers are relatively easily replaceable, particularly in large organisations. There are indispensable unique unicorns out there, but they tend to be well compensated. When a project is managed by one manager and coded by five developers, you could easily lose replace two of those developers with little impact. If you lost the…

>If you lost the manager (who is calculating deadlines, coordinating with other departments, pitching for funding, as well as managing the individual developers) the project could run into problems quickly. Really? In my experience managers can be replaced rather easily, or at least more easily than it is to a replace a single engineer. It always takes some time for the new software engineer to learn the specifics of…

If you're a manager your biggest asset is relationships with developers and with peers across the organization. Those assets can't be replaced at all - it takes time to build trust, and trust is completely non-fungible between people. I've seen departments just decimated (worse, actually...decimate means "to kill 10%", and in this case over 50% of leads & senior engineers left) because a well-respected manager left.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#88

Post by kumbasha »

untog wrote: post #29
kumbasha wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, without all of the actual programmers you would have no product and no profits at all. Neither group can function without the other, and pay should reflect that rather than the ridiculously unequal spread we just automatically accept as normal.

Yes and no. It might be an unpopular opinion (and I'm a programmer myself) but 80% of programmers are relatively easily replaceable, particularly in large organisations. There are indispensable unique unicorns out there, but they tend to be well compensated. When a project is managed by one manager and coded by five developers, you could easily lose replace two of those developers with little impact. If you lost the…

Not useless, just not deserving of more pay than the engineers. Same goes for the executives.

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#89

Post by asdfologist »

rschmitty wrote: post #70
eternalban wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right. Programming is a blue collar trade.

That is a bit of a reach to call it blue collar. I have blue collar friends from high school who envy what programmers do and make and I do what I can to try and persuade/teach them to learn to code and make a better life for themselves.

whoosh

Edit: I thought the original "blue collar" remark was sarcastic. Am I wrong?

Re: Programming Is a Dead End Job

#90

Post by netcan »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #80
netcan wrote: post #46

This is silly. First, very few people become millionaire CEOs. If thats your standard for success, then every path likely leads to failure because no path reliably leads to that kind of success. Some paths are more likely than others, but none are very likely for the average person. Part of the reason for flat-ish career trajectory is that programmers earn more at the start than most. Some professions have more of a…

You can become a millionaire CEO if you are intelligent with at least a 10-20% success rate. Get 5 years work experience, ace the GMAT, go to a top 5 MBA, do consulting at 250-500k/year for 10 years for a company like Bain or McKinsey, then get hired as CFO of one of the companies you work for, 5 years later get promoted to CEO. Even if you don't make CEO, you can get to several multiples of an engineer's salary with…

This is a pretty distant perspective. It's like saying 'you can become a millionaire startup founder if you are intelligent. Go to MIT, Get a job at a young tech company. Get Funded by YC. Sell the company to your former employer.'

Obviously, it's not impossible to become a millionaire CEO. People do it. There The requisite work, skill, risk, talent and luck just isn't comparable to 'become a programmer.'

Becoming a programmer requires one to learn to program, at university or some other way and get a job programming which isn't to hard if you can program. At neither step are you competing to get through gatekeepers and bottlenecks in a most-will-fail situation.

You easy steps to becoming a CEO require you to go through several of these competitive bottlenecks. In any case my point was just to point out how silly it is to say 'most programmers don't become millionaire CEOs, it's a dead end job.'

Post reply on HN