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Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

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Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#161

Post by anothermouse »

I don't know why so many people are saying that it needs to be made clear that this is in China, and that it doesn't apply elsewhere.

I'm a programmer in Finance in London, and a good day rate for a Senior contractor is 600GBP/day. I have a good friend who started out doing "grilled chorizo in a ciabatta bun" at a London market, and easily made 1000GBP his first day. Now he uses employees to man that stall, and has moved on to the next idea, at a different locations doing something different to allow him to do something that appeals during different seasons. By now I imagine he is easily making double what I do.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#162

Post by tocomment »

silencio wrote: post #149
Maven911 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that 40k a month per restaurant ? What makes your restaurant so succesful, isn't that industry plagued with 80% shutdown wiyhin 5 years?

> Is that 40k a month per restaurant ? Yes. While I haven't actually looked at financial statements for those businesses since they were way out of my budget, I'd get the occasional listing with numbers like that. Businesses like http://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/Sushi-Restaur... - nearly $700k in earnings in one year is not bad at all. It's up for debate how much the owner actually makes and how much of…

That's amazing. Do you have any tips for buying a business? Maybe some books to recommend?

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#163

Post by aaimnr »

sliverstorm wrote: post #130
parfe wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfun fact, the person who invented tetraethyl lead gasoline additive also invented chlorofluorocarbons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr .

Why is it unfun? Is he evil for inventing things that later turned out to be harmful?

Apparently he indeed was evil: "On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL. In this demonstration, he poured TEL over his hands, then placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever. Midgley himself was careful to avoid mentioning to the press that he required nearly a year to recover from the lead poisoning brought on by his demonstration at the press conference."

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#164

Post by scotty79 »

pyre wrote: post #83
Mikeb85 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously if an investor was that bad, they shouldn't be an investor. Running a diesel engine off waste oil is a great idea, more people should be doing it. And no, food businesses don't scale well, but that's ok, because if you're efficient, and your food is good, you can make a decent living for your whole life.

> Running a diesel engine off waste oil is > a great idea Once enough people are doing it, it will be classified as a fuel and politicians will be tripping over themselves to regulate and tax it. Also, at some point there won't be enough waste grease to fuel the market, and the prices of unused vegetable oil will go up possibly limiting its use for food.

In Poland it's already taxed. If you burn oil in your engine that was not intended for that purpose (and not taxed for that purpose) you should go to your tax office and pay the missing tax. Of course this is met with silent "piss off" from all the people who are doing it.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#165

Post by scotty79 »

marme wrote: post #146
bearwithclaws wrote: post #110

A nitpick about its translation of "Ma Nong" (码农): it doesn't mean "Number Cruncher". Although the "Ma" is the same character with "Hao Ma" (number), in describing the profession of programmer, it means "Code". "Nong" means farmer ("Nong Fu"). It implies laborious work. The closest translation to it should be "Code Farmer".

also nong(农) is the character for migrant worker(农民) which are look down upon in china as poor peasants who come to big city looking for work in manual labor jobs. So it is like calling them a code peasant or something like that. It is really meant as a self depreciating kind of insult. The character nong(农) is always used to describe someone who does menial jobs like manual labor or farming

So it seems like it's Chinese equivalent of code monkey.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#166

Post by alex_c »

justinhj wrote: post #132
alex_c wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have numbers to back this up, but I strongly suspect your average hotdog cart sells more hotdogs per day than your average indie or solo game developer sells iPhone games per day. A new street food vendor only competes with other food vendors in the area. A new game developer competes globally, against both established studios and hobbyists happy to work for free because it's fun. You have people who want to…

Inherent reason to me would be that the skills of food vendors are more common and easily acquired than those of game developers. I have a BSc in CS and over 10 years experience. This guy learned to make bread from his girlfriend and opened a stand shortly after. You're probably unfamiliar with the game industry beyond popular articles and headlines, but I can assure you tha demand for qualified engineers is very hig…

I guess we're talking about different things - you're talking about the high end positions, I'm talking about the average case. To get my analogies even further muddled up, you're talking about musicians signed with a major label, I'm talking about all musicians, from rockstars to people busking in subway stations. The expected value is going to be very different if you're only taking the top N percentile.

(not particularly relevant, but I have friends with similar qualifications and experience as you who work / worked in the industry at... shall we say more mediocre studios. I suspect their perspective on this topic is somewhat different from yours.)

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#167

Post by jdmichal »

justinhj wrote: post #134
jdmichal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you implying that cooking is not a creative and technically skilled employ? Because I'm sure there are several people that would be glad to argue that point with you. I mean, sure, a line cook or something? Maybe not. But someone running their own food stand, responsible for everything from the menu to presentation?

There are skills involved, and I wouldn't say they were lesser than those needed for programming. But in the same vein, I'd say spending a few days learning to make bread to sell in a cart does not compare to the years it takes to become a competent programmer.

I would say that speaks more to the formalization of baking than anything else. Software engineering is so far interesting in the sense that it doesn't have a kind of "technical" employee. That is, there is a huge difference between someone who can bake bread from a recipe, and someone who can create that recipe to start with. The former is just being able to follow directions; the latter involves a lot of in-depth knowledge and experience about, for lack of a better term, baking chemistry. In the same line, a lot of traditional (physical) engineering professions can utilize drafters.

I guess the equivalent in software engineering would be someone who can only implement designs and algorithms from other people, and any ambiguities or questions about the design would result in them stopping work until a clarification is received from the "engineer".

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#168

Post by Maven911 »

silencio wrote: post #149
Maven911 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that 40k a month per restaurant ? What makes your restaurant so succesful, isn't that industry plagued with 80% shutdown wiyhin 5 years?

> Is that 40k a month per restaurant ? Yes. While I haven't actually looked at financial statements for those businesses since they were way out of my budget, I'd get the occasional listing with numbers like that. Businesses like http://www.bizbuysell.com/Business-Opportunity/Sushi-Restaur... - nearly $700k in earnings in one year is not bad at all. It's up for debate how much the owner actually makes and how much of…

That's some good points, and I never thought of it in terms of restaurants that have been there longer may not be part of that statistic.

Some caveats though: -Even large billion dollar corporations that have been in business go bankrupt -My perspective has always been that if a profitable restaurant is selling, its because it really isn't that profitable. The usual reasons given for the sale are can't spend the hours or health, but the reality is that if a restaurant is profitable, they could just hire a manager for 40-60k who could manage all aspects of the business, while the owners collect their checks every month. My feeling on why that doesn't happen is because the business isn't doing as well as reported.

Re: Game Programmer Quits Job To Sell Street Food, Doubles Salary

#169

Post by Ygg2 »

alex_c wrote: post #24
Ygg2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that even with all that they are better than a game programmer is really sad. Game programmers are the equivalent of children workers in a sweatshop.

Why is that really sad? More people need food than games. More people want to make games than sell street food. The food business is brutally hard work, and I have a lot of respect for anyone doing it (well). There's no a priori reason why game programmers should be rewarded more than street food vendors.

Sorry for late reply.

More people need sex than food, yet we pursue it with greater fervor than food.

More people don't need social networks, yet HN is filled to the brim with new social network or social site.

You got a point about it being a more desirable/glamourous job than selling food.

My point was that people get away with that kind of abuse of employees (and yes I'm aware its due to supply/demand).

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