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The Burnout Machine

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Re: The Burnout Machine

#271

Post by rockemsockem »

whoisthemachine wrote: post #244
rockemsockem wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a group that captures credentialing in the industry and then winds up using it to push their own flawed ideology on the entire industry. Because who else would actually be interested in being part of such a board. No thank you.

Civil, mechanical, electrical, and most other engineering disciplines have an accreditation board. I don't think they are pushing a "flawed" ideology in those disciplines. At least I don't see civil engineers constantly questioning why they would do load modeling for a bridge, like SWE's constantly question the value of unit testing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABET

Yeah and what are the numbers on how many employed engineers hold that accreditation? Just because it exists doesn't mean it's used.

I know for a fact that aerospace, electrical, and mechanical engineers working on designing rockets, nuclear reactors, space capsules, and electric charging infrastructure do not need this credential. And so most of them do not have it.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#272

Post by rockemsockem »

Apocryphon wrote: post #248
rockemsockem wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a group that captures credentialing in the industry and then winds up using it to push their own flawed ideology on the entire industry. Because who else would actually be interested in being part of such a board. No thank you.

It could be as simple as you only need to take the Leetcode exam once every ten years instead of every time you switch jobs.

I don't trust a credentialing board to vet my coworkers for me.

EDIT: i.e. I'm still going to want to interview them and have them prove to me that they can write code.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#273

Post by an0malous »

legitster wrote: post #34

This write up sounds like it describes a very particular subset of companies. If you only want to work at the flashy unicorns in downtown San Francisco, you are signing yourself up for exploitation. Like any career, if you get off the beaten path there are plenty of pretty okay jobs out there. Especially if you have a marketable skill. This is software, if you have a brain and functional hands - you already own the m…

[dead]

Re: The Burnout Machine

#274

Post by kulahan »

4ndrewl wrote: post #249
echelon wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working nights and weekends got me a close to ten figure exit at a now publicly traded fintech. So yeah, I don't mind. Rather than retiring on that money, I'm back at it again, and I'm working even harder. I know what mediocrity and complacency is. I've worked surrounded by it, and I'll do anything to avoid it. I don't want that bullshit where coworkers strive to do the minimum and everybody plays hot potato to see w…

Cross-posted to LinkedIn?

This is funny, but not the type of comment we really want here. Comments should get more substantive the deeper down a tree you go.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#276

Post by pdntspa »

echelon wrote: post #236
4ndrewl wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to remove all of the benefits unions have given you?

Working nights and weekends got me a close to ten figure exit at a now publicly traded fintech. So yeah, I don't mind. Rather than retiring on that money, I'm back at it again, and I'm working even harder. I know what mediocrity and complacency is. I've worked surrounded by it, and I'll do anything to avoid it. I don't want that bullshit where coworkers strive to do the minimum and everybody plays hot potato to see w…

Great!

But don't enforce that on your underlings. I have such a boss and let me tell you, it sucks!

Your underlings have lives and passions that have nothing to do with you or your work, and more importantly they don't have that founders' equity and opportunity for a 10-figure exit.

If you want that kind of excellence, be prepared to pay for it dearly. Market-rate TCO is not nearly enough.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#277

Post by paulcole »

ActorNightly wrote: post #166
legitster wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels it lacks perspective with virtually any other occupations. On one hand, misery and happiness are relative. On the other hand, try telling a construction worker how hard our lives are sitting in chairs clicking buttons. My dad used to have to do things like hot tar roofing to pay the bills. So I still consider it a blessing to get to work in software. I thi…

>I think one thing that needs to be understood better is the concept of "burnout". I can explain it pretty well. You can classify pretty much all jobs into 2 categories - map lookups and reasoning. A map lookup job is something where you learn to associate a specific problem with a solution. Most jobs are like this. You go work in construction, its pretty much map lookup - supervisor tells you to go prep the concrete…

> I can explain it pretty well.

You don’t need to.

The WHO has already done so:

https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupat...

The problem is that everybody just makes up their own definition.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#278

Post by ethanwillis »

echelon wrote: post #228
snozolli wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineers do basically no physical labor I developed debilitating tendinitis in both wrists right about the time I graduated college. A decade later, I developed a bulged disc in my neck that ended my career. There are very real risks to your body from sitting at a computer, deep in thought all day. There's a whole other swath of health issues, too, beside injury risks.

How does a union help you with your wrists? Why do you need help? I type every single day and I don't want your health problem placing limits on my job flexibility and career advancement. If our industry fills with unions, suddenly I won't be able to job hop to positions that look interesting to me. I'll have to consider things like seniority and tenure and a bunch of artificial rules. It'll be like going back to hig…

> I type every single day and I don't want your health problem placing limits on my job flexibility and career advancement.

You live in a society. All I'm hearing is I need to vote to raise taxes to bring you back down to reality.

So it will be.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#279

Post by roncesvalles »

stared wrote: post #100

Software engineering is one of the ways of playing life in "easy mode" (I moved from academia over a decade ago, and I know the difference). This blog post tries to paint it differently - and it feels like it lacks perspective compared to virtually any other occupation. > We’re living in a world where billion dollar tech companies expect us to live and breathe code, demanding 80 hour weeks under the guise of "passion…

In my experience as a software engineer rounding out 6 years now, what I have observed in myself and others is that the work pressure that leads to burnout in SWEs is largely self-imposed.

I have some conjectures as to why that may be:

1. High variability of pay, not only between companies but within companies. As a SWE your total compensation can be expected to double every two promotions, and promotions can be pretty fast. Promotions are also not purely a function of tenure like other professions with steep comp growth such as pilots.

2. "This is too good to be true" syndrome. You show up at your comfy 250k job with catered lunch, dinner, and maxed out benefits. After the first month, your workload is about 3-4 hours a day. Everything is flexible - the time you show up, the time you leave, the days you choose to come in to the office, what you wear. Everyone is smart and nice. Free snacks. Imposter syndrome and paranoia set in. Am I doing enough? Should I look at this P2 prod bug on a Satuday? I guess I only worked 20 hours last week so it's fair to work a couple of hours on the weekend. Everything I do needs to be perfect or they could've just hired someone in India for 1/10th my pay, right? etc. Then it snowballs. (I'm probably just describing imposter syndrome.)

In reality nothing really happens if you slow down and do things at a comfortable pace. Most managers want to cultivate reliable people who take long-term deep ownership, not productivity machines that just bang out features. If they needed more output, they'd just hire one more person.

Re: The Burnout Machine

#280

Post by paulcole »

thom__ wrote: post #28

Awesome to see something like this on HN. As we keep working for less pay, more hours, the constant threat of layoffs, and business leaders frothing at the mouth to replace us all with AI, it's important to remember that we aren't powerless as workers. It's also important to remember that your relationship to the higher-ups is adversarial. They want to get as much productivity out of you for as little pay as possible…

> They want to get as much productivity out of you for as little pay as possible

It’s only adversarial because you want to get as much pay as possible out of them for as little productivity as possible.

> I somewhat agreed and got caught up in that culture until I got picked up in the fourth round of layoffs at a time when I felt I was doing my best work.

Did everyone feel that way?

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