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Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

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Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#221

Post by imtringued »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #112
geofft wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an MIT degree with coursework in operating systems and a lot of ring 0 experience and my well-paying job has me writing Python and JavaScript. As far as I can tell I'd be taking a significant pay cut if I went into embedded dev. Supply is higher for "basic coders" but demand is also much higher. There are a whole lot of images that need to be slid across web pages; there aren't that many CPU architectures that…

This is correct. At a hedge fund (ostensibly one like HRT given the pedigree you mentioned) geofft makes on the order of $500-700k or more, unlike mere mortals like me that went to a state school that make just $200k. Of course, I didn’t take any embedded classes and got an A- in my C class so perhaps I deserve nothing to begin with.

Speaking of hedgefunds. Those are unlikely to hire embedded software developers but they may need a lot of "basic coders" and they can afford to pay them a lot even if the job is simple.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#222

Post by me_me_me »

vagrantJin wrote: post #215
raducu wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really sorry for the relationship you have with your father. I've had similar experiences, but not as drastic as yours -- my father didn't allow me to use my bike for YEARS as a punishment for smashing my bike as a 10 year old (faulty chain, impulsive child). I guess this I would call the real toxic masculinity. Unfortunately there's nothing much you can do, except build your life around it, keep your boundaries…

> I guess this I would call the real toxic masculinity. HN is the last place I would have expected to see these words. Which is slightly interesting take on a parent - I presume they housed you, fed you, got you educated and relatively safe...I cant possibly imagine you are writing this from a rehab facility or jail. And yet, for denying you a bicycle deems that man "toxic"? And what does a parent taking away a privi…

>> my father didn't allow me to use my bike for YEARS as a punishment for smashing my bike as a 10 year old

Seriously, being so strict to punish a 10yrs old kid for years is not a sign of a toxic personality? Parents suppose to build theirs kids character and not stomp on it to make them 'tough'.

toxic masculinity is not being manly man man. Its being insecure and lashing out at anyone who disagrees with you or is not 'with you'. Any father that thinks their kid misbehaving is somehow a personal attack.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#223

Post by Fnoord »

raducu wrote: post #172
momento wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was very strongly against my decision to get into web development (2012) and he echoed this sentiment heavily. I distinctly remember him yelling at me as a teenager; "you'll be living under a bridge in 5 years if you do this! India has this market!". He eventually kicked me out for not listening, forcing me to to borrow money from a friend to pay tuition in my final semester. Needless to say he was complete…

I'm really sorry for the relationship you have with your father. I've had similar experiences, but not as drastic as yours -- my father didn't allow me to use my bike for YEARS as a punishment for smashing my bike as a 10 year old (faulty chain, impulsive child). I guess this I would call the real toxic masculinity. Unfortunately there's nothing much you can do, except build your life around it, keep your boundaries…

That's a harsh punishment. What kind of effect did it have on you? I remember I biked to school at that age (~10-15 min). If I damaged one of my tools, such as my bike or my shoes, it'd look damaged, and I disliked that. But I had to cope with that. That was a punishment by itself.

I wasn't able to get a job as system administrator (even though I believe I'd liked it) because I can't program. I tried it various times, and the reason I always quit is because I get frustrated and get migraine symptoms. I tried C, Lua, Python (multiple times), and all I ended up being able to is some Unix kung-fu and shell scripting. Which seemed to be not good enough for system administration. It kind of feels like my failure in life, to be frank. Tho I'm happy I ended up with something else, IT security related.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#224

Post by quicklime »

lelanthran wrote: post #91
quicklime wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is being "closer to business problems" really the sole reason? Or even a big reason? From the numbers I've seen, DevOps people are the best paid of all types of developers, but they aren't closer to business problems than React/Rails devs. I think it has more to do with the fact that most embedded developers are working on niche platforms and niche problem domains, so they don't enjoy the same level of job mobility a…

> Is being "closer to business problems" really the sole reason? Or even a big reason? It's got to do with visibility. Those people more visible to the holders of the purse strings get paid more than those who aren't. The closer you are to the business side of things, the more visible you are to the profit line. Compensation is very closely tied to how visible the role is to the company profits and/or leaders. A high…

I get what you’re trying to say, but then how come frontend developers tend to get paid less than backend devs, who in turn get paid less than devops engineers?

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#225

Post by [deleted] »

imtringued wrote: post #221
rejectedandsad wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. At a hedge fund (ostensibly one like HRT given the pedigree you mentioned) geofft makes on the order of $500-700k or more, unlike mere mortals like me that went to a state school that make just $200k. Of course, I didn’t take any embedded classes and got an A- in my C class so perhaps I deserve nothing to begin with.

Speaking of hedgefunds. Those are unlikely to hire embedded software developers but they may need a lot of "basic coders" and they can afford to pay them a lot even if the job is simple.

[deleted]

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#226

Post by raxxorrax »

hughrr wrote: post #149
momento wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father was very strongly against my decision to get into web development (2012) and he echoed this sentiment heavily. I distinctly remember him yelling at me as a teenager; "you'll be living under a bridge in 5 years if you do this! India has this market!". He eventually kicked me out for not listening, forcing me to to borrow money from a friend to pay tuition in my final semester. Needless to say he was complete…

If there’s anything I’ve learned it is that you should always make your own mistakes. Your parent’s mistakes don’t even make sense any more 30-40 years down the line. My father pushed me into EE. I burned 5 years in industry being paid crap and then discovered it was actually a fairly low paying profession in the UK. Ended up supporting a bunch of Sun machines for other EEs which was more fun. So i learned Perl one w…

Considering how hard it can be, EE is seriously underpaid compared to software.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#227

Post by arp242 »

donatj wrote: post #49

I don’t hear much about it these days, but circa 2004 when I was going into computer science I had multiple teachers and a guidance counselor warn me that all the jobs would be going to India and tell me I should pursue something else. This seemed to be very much the prevailing wisdom of the time. I pursued it anyway as it was my passion. I was one of five students in my program that had been a huge multi-campus prog…

Actually, I was trying to find out the number of programmers world-wide the other day, and many US-based analysis were saying the same thing: "programmer jobs in the US will drop in the next 10 years as jobs move abroad".

For example [1], but many more with the same gist.

https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/computer-programmer/j...

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#228

Post by me_me_me »

sersi wrote: post #140
hellbannedguy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ageism. Sorry for being so blunt, but I know to many people who were just uninteresting to human resourses after hitting 45-50. I know more than a few homeless people in my life, and over half were once Programmers. It makes me sick. I do know this, if you are in tech, save up that money. (I have never understood this industry's way of hiring. Long drawn out interviews, and candidates whom are just average that…

As someone who's been in charge of recruitment, I've made an effort in hiring people who are less likely to get a chance at other places (minorities, older candidates) One thing that stood out to me though is that a lot of the older candidates I interviewed that had been struggling had deep knowledge of a technology that's no longer used and had had very little interest during their career in learning new things outs…

And thats the reason I would stop my yonger-self from doing software.

When compared to other careers after, say, 15 years of experience you are not well established high paying position as a lawyer or an engineer (the actual kind :) )

After 15 years you are out-of-date dev that didn't find a time to do their job, manage family and friend and have a side projects to keep up to date with technology.

This is a bit overdramatic but sw devs are expected to ride the wave all the way through their careers when other career paths offer stability and protectionism of well established fields.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#229

Post by janmo »

Well it depends. There is and there will always be demand for "talented developers". But I remember at University there were students who after years of studying were not able to write a simple program or app. Later they became managers or technicians. But it looks like all of them found some kind of job.

Re: Students flee field as computer 'fad fades' (1987)

#230

Post by matwood »

sersi wrote: post #140
hellbannedguy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ageism. Sorry for being so blunt, but I know to many people who were just uninteresting to human resourses after hitting 45-50. I know more than a few homeless people in my life, and over half were once Programmers. It makes me sick. I do know this, if you are in tech, save up that money. (I have never understood this industry's way of hiring. Long drawn out interviews, and candidates whom are just average that…

As someone who's been in charge of recruitment, I've made an effort in hiring people who are less likely to get a chance at other places (minorities, older candidates) One thing that stood out to me though is that a lot of the older candidates I interviewed that had been struggling had deep knowledge of a technology that's no longer used and had had very little interest during their career in learning new things outs…

> you need to keep up to date

This is true for anyone. I've interviewed young people with 5 years experience only to find out they had 5 years experience doing the same thing over and over that they learned in the first 3-6 months on the job.

While the pace of change has slowed down in some software areas in my last 20+ years of working, I never saw it as a field where a person could learn something in school and simply apply it for an entire career. For better or worse, it requires learning outside ones job, or at the very least, constantly moving jobs to keep skillset building.

For me, this has been fine because I've always loved tinkering on the computer. Learning new tech is something I've always done as a hobby as far back as I can remember.

Those going in only thinking programming is an easy way to make money, may struggle later in their career. Though, this is less of the case now as there is so much more older code out there to be maintained.

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